The Israel Defense Force’s move last week into the southern Gaza city of Rafah has exploded in Egypt like a 2,000-pound bomb. Cairo has long been playing a double game, holding Hamas terrorists near while simultaneously trying to appear helpful to the United States and Israel.
Hamas said it had “no ties to any acts targeting Jordan” and that it only sought to target Israel
Amman said Wednesday that it foiled a weapons smuggling attempt by a militia supported by an unnamed country in late March. An official Jordanian source added that there had been several attempts to smuggle weapons into Jordan recently including Kalshnikovs and 107mm Katyusha rockets, the Jordanian News Agency reported.
Latest Developments
Israel conducted a precise strike on a Hamas war room and weapons depot hidden inside of a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school located in Nuseirat in Gaza, Jerusalem announced on May 14. Israeli intelligence believes that Hamas recently used the war room to organize attacks against Israeli troops operating in central Gaza. Ten of the 15 terrorists eliminated in the strike were members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force who likely participated in Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
This past week Hezbollah claimed responsibility for 46 attacks on military and civilian targets in northern Israel. In two of the attacks, three IDF soldiers were killed. Following the beginning of the IDF operation in Rafah, Hezbollah escalated its attacks, including the use of heavy Burkan rockets (whose warheads weigh up to 500 kgs, or 1,100 pounds), and the first use of a suicide attack drone was detected. In response, Israeli Air Force aircraft attacked the organization’s military infrastructure in south Lebanon and Hezbollah field commanders were eliminated in targeted attacks.
Means of return: “Our weapons are the means of our return/And (they are) our constant companions until the liberation of Palestine”, Arab Liberation Front (circa 1975). Artist: Hassib al-Jassem
Israel has reached its zenith and is slowly sinking under the weight of its hubris and vicious greed and that of its enabler, the United States. We are recognizing now how vulnerable Israel is and how responsible we all are for challenging it.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s initial issuance of a fatwa against nuclear weapons coincided with damning revelations in 2002: Iran was exposed clandestinely engaging in nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment, at covert facilities in Natanz and Arak.
Turkish forces have killed 17 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) across various regions of northern Iraq and northern Syria, the defence ministry said on Friday.
In a post on social media platform X, the ministry said its forces had “neutralised” 10 PKK insurgents found in the Gara and Hakurk regions of northern Iraq, and in an area where the Turkish military frequently mounts cross-border raids under its “Claw-Lock Operation”.
The recent outbreak of open conflict between Iran and Israel has upended the notional strategic stability of the ‘shadow war’ between the two, and it is possible that a return to the status quo will be harder to achieve than expected.
“The idea struck me to introduce the concept of a fatwa [during the 2004 nuclear] negotiations. There was no coordination [in advance],” Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator at the time recounted eight years after the incident. This was nothing short of a stroke of genius in shaping a false narrative about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, which was delivered by a cleric who eventually rose in the ranks and became a two-term president (2013–2021): Hassan Rouhani.
Amid escalating regional tensions since October 7 last year and reports of American contemplations of troop withdrawal from Syria, the US administration should reassess its Syria policy, and consider a long-term, minimalist presence coupled with robust political and diplomatic efforts in the interest of regional security and peace.