The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
The program of Syrian Druze working in the Golan Heights will start on March 16.
The IDF's presence on the Syrian Mount Hermon
and in the buffer zone in general protect Israel from a range of
Syrian, Hamas, and Iranian threats, Defense Minister Israel Katz told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday while standing next to a Syrian outpost which the IDF took over in December following the fall of the Assad regime.
"There are a series of threats. This regime is a jihadist regime.
It put on a mask, but then it removed its mask. It tries to get a
following," globally to reduce economic sanctions and become reaccepted
into the Western-fold of nations, Katz told the Post.
The
defense minister said, "We knew about this in advance, and we got
ready," in justifying the IDF's presence in Syria, though Jerusalem has
said it has no territorial claims to the country.
On December 7-8, the regime of Ahmed al-Sharaa
toppled the Assad regime, and since then, it has actively promoted
itself as a more tolerant, moderate, and Western-looking Syria that
respects Syrian minorities and would never threaten Israel.
However,
Israel quickly seized a buffer zone in southern Syria as al-Sharaa was
taking power out of concern that he (his background is as a former
member of al-Qaeda) and some of his jihadist allies might talk sweetly
to the West for the moment, but then attack Israel in the future once it
would let its guard down.
Yonah Jeremy Bob embeds with IDF on Syrian side of Golan Heights, March 11, 2025. (credit: YONAH JEREMY BOB)
Next,
Katz stated, "And also there are attempts by Iran and Hezbollah to
smuggle weapons," to reconstitute the Lebanese terror group's arsenal to
return its ability to attack and threaten Israel.
These two threats are widely known.
Palestinians within Syria
But Katz noted for the Post
another much lesser known threat, "and there is also a Palestinian
threat...they have lots of refugee camps which are" being used to
conceal attempts to formulate attacks on Israel.
In
fact, though rarely discussed in the media, there are hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians in Syria. While many of them have no
particular interest in Israel, Hamas and other terror groups have
cleverly tapped into the poverty and hopelessness that many Palestinians
in Syria have suffered during their many decades in that country to
draw new recruits to carry out terror attacks against the Jewish state.
"We
are here, and the IDF is here" as long as needed to prevent any of
these groups from threatening Israel from Syrian territory, Katz told
the Post.
Katz and IDF officials have given indications that the IDF could be
in Syria for years, with a withdrawal date from the buffer zone
depending on threat conditions on the ground and not having a set
timetable.
Returning
to al-Sharaa, who is also known as Julani, Katz told a group of Israeli
media on the Syrian Hermon with him, including the Post, “every morning
that Julani opens his eyes in the presidential palace in Damascus, he
will see the IDF observing him from the heights of the [Syrian] Hermon
and will remember that we are here and in the entire southern Syria
area.”
He
added that, “we will strengthen the connection between the local
[Syrian] residents and soon, on the 16th of this month, we will start
[the program] of [Syrian] Druze working in the Golan Heights” within
Israel.
Israeli
defense sources estimate that there are around 500,000-600,000 Syrian
Druze in the area of the Druze and Hermon mountains.
Further,
the defense minister added that overnight, between Monday and Tuesday,
the air force attacked more than 40 targets in southern Syria in order
to follow through on Israel’s statements that it will remove potential
threats from southern Syria.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF had revealed that the thrust of the targets in question were Syrian radar systems.
The two groups that Israel sought to support in Syria, Kurds and Druze, are now moving closer to integration with the new government in Damascus.
ISRAEL HAS the world’s third-largest Druze population,
after Syria and Lebanon. Here, Druze gather to contact their relatives
on the Syrian side of the border from the Israeli Golan Heights. (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)
Damascus is on a roll. It has signed a deal with the Kurdish-led,
US-backed group Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria, and it may
now have worked out an agreement with the Druze in Sweida in the country’s south.
Unlike
the SDF, the Druze in Sweida do not have a strong military
organization. During the Assad era and the Syrian civil war, they were
able to run some of their own affairs locally and had their own armed
militia, but they were always vulnerable. For instance, an ISIS attack on Sweida in 2018 killed approximately 200 people.
The
Druze thus relied on Damascus for protection, and many served in the
security forces. After the toppling of the Assad regime, the Druze were
concerned the new leadership might persecute them since Syrian
extremists had targeted them in the past. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the group that took control in December 2024, did not have a great track record regarding minorities in Syria.
However,
over the last four months, many things have changed. The Druze have
tried to navigate the new situation, and their leaders have met with
Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Druze from villages in northern Israel seen in Majdal Shams, Golan
Heights, near the border with Syria, April 17, 2023 (credit: AYAL
MARGOLIN/FLASH90)
Israeli officials have also
said they will protect the Druze. Several incidents in Sweida showed
Israeli flags being raised in the city and quickly taken down.
Meanwhile, Israel has carried out airstrikes and raids in southern Syria
and demanded the area be demilitarized.
Druze integration
According
to Al Jazeera, on Tuesday, the Syrian government reached an agreement
with the Druze leadership to integrate their area into the Syrian state
institutions. Levant 24 reported, “The agreement stipulates that
security agencies in Sweida will be incorporated into the Syrian
Interior Ministry.
“The
agreement states that local police officers must be from the people of
Sweida. The agreement allows the Syrian government to appoint a governor
and a police chief without requiring them to be from Sweida.”
According
to a separate report, also in Qatari media, the agreement will include
the deployment of 300 security forces in the area. These are apparently
forces from Damascus, not the existing Druze forces. Hundreds of locals
will also become part of a new police force, and a new police commander
has already been chosen, with his deputy coming from the locals.
Syrian
state media SANA said, “President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Mr.
Ahmad al-Sharaa, has recently received [the] governor of Sweida, Mustafa
Al-Bakour, and a number of activists of Sweida at the People’s Palace
in Damascus.”
The
report noted that “the Sweida Governorate posted on its Telegram
channel that talks during the meeting dealt with important national and
local issues.”
It continued, “The meeting also stressed the importance of this
decisive stage in Syria’s history, during which free Syrians aspire for a
homeland where justice, law, and fair representation of all spectrum of
the Syrian people prevail despite the difficult regional and
international circumstances and the plots being hatched against the
unity of Syria, its land, and people.”
Israel
has vowed over the past months to protect the Druze. It would appear
that if this agreement moves forward, they may not need protection. That
would mean that two groups that Israel sought to support in Syria, the
Kurds and Druze, are now moving closer to integration with the new
government in Damascus.
Former House speaker tells 'Hannity' the left is resorting to 'bizarre' tactics and offering no solutions
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on
"Hannity" that Democrats are in a rage and offering "no solutions,"
dismissing a claim by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.,
that Republicans are "on the run." Gingrich said the left is resorting
to extreme tactics in an effort to resist President Donald Trump and oppose Elon Musk's efforts to cut government spending.
NEWT GINGRICH: Well,
I think that everything you showed earlier reflects what Lincoln said
at Gettysburg when he said, this is a test of whether this system or any
system so conceived in liberty can survive. You have a hard-line group
who believe that they have the right to be violent,
that they have the right to deny the American people the choice of
their leadership, that they have the right to break the law. The answer
to all of that is, frankly, you have to lock them up. You have to
enforce the law. Period. And at some point, people begin to realize that
you can't wage war against the entire American people. And in that
sense, I would argue that Elon Musk is simply one of the people serving
the American people. He's a senior advisor to the president of the
United States. And I think that, in that sense, all of this is totally
unacceptable, as is harassing a Supreme Court justice or harassing the vice president and his three-year-old.
People
stand with other demonstrators during a protest of Elon Musk near a
Tesla vehicle dealership, Saturday, March 8, 2025, in Decatur, Georgia.(AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
What
I saw the other night … the House Democrats were sort of zombie
Democrats. They couldn't applaud anything. They couldn't applaud the
president. They couldn't applaud a 13-year-old cancer survivor.
They couldn't applaud a young man who wanted to go to West Point. They
couldn't applaud people who were there who had lost loved ones. It was
pretty bizarre. And I think that, you know, Hakeem Jeffries may think he
has to say these things. He's their leader. What's he going to say? But
the fact is, the Democrats currently have no solutions. They are so
enraged that Trump is actually changing what, overwhelmingly, Americans
believe is a corrupt system. I'll just give you one piece of data. Our
America's New Majority project just had a poll come out yesterday. 82%
of the American people believe the system is corrupt. Now that's
dangerous. Both for the survival of freedom. But also it tells you the
fact that the Democrats, who want to defend the bureaucracy and the
corruption and the waste, they're going to have a big mountain to climb
come 2026.
Democrats protest with signs as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress in the Capitol on March 4, 2025.(Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Gingrich
went on to recall that when he was House speaker in 1996, he and other
Republicans applauded then-President Bill Clinton.
GINGRICH: Look,
I had the opposite experience. I was the speaker of the House, sitting
behind Bill Clinton when he got up in '96 and said, the era of big
government is over. Now, I had to stand up and applaud. I mean, how can
you not applaud that if you're conservative? You're right. And so, all
that and all the years I went – whether it was Reagan, Carter, George
H.W., Clinton – and all the time I went, I don't remember Republicans
ever failing to stand for the president because we're standing for the
office. We're not standing for the individual. We're standing for the
elected official of the American people. And I think to not do that,
begins to show an alienation that's very dangerous.
CNN
senior political analyst Ron Brownstein said Monday that the Democratic
Party was in its weakest position since the 1980s as the party
continues to determine its best way forward.
"If you talk to
Democrats, you know, they recognize they are in a hole. I mean, the
image of the party is probably in a weaker position than at any point
since I think the 1980s, the Reagan and George H.W. Bush era,"
Brownstein told CNN's Audie Cornish.
President
Donald Trump reacts after addressing a joint session of Congress at the
U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
"But
if you ask Democrats how they think they are going to come back, there
is a debate about, you know, within the party, do you fight on every
front or do you focus on the economic issues? And I think most Democrats
believe their best chance of kind of getting a second look from the
public in 2025 is this debate over the budget," Brownstein argued.
Cornish
and Brownstein discussed the Friday federal government funding
deadline, as Cornish said GOP lawmakers were hoping to offset tax cuts
in the federal budget and that the "likely target could be Medicaid."
Democratic lawmakers have maintained that the GOP proposed bill included
cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
Brownstein
argued that the Democratic Party could link the argument that the GOP
will be cutting Medicaid to fund tax cuts for the wealthy to the budget,
and that it might be their best strategy in 2025.
Trump’s overtures to Moscow were met by increasing attacks in Ukraine, leading to sanctions threats from the president.
As President Donald Trump seeks to
split Russia from China in a gamble of realpolitik, Moscow shows little
signs of responding to Washington’s overtures—ramping up attacks on
Ukraine and publicly displaying a show of unity with its partners China
and Iran.
Russian, Chinese and Iranian warships launched an annual joint exercise
in the Gulf of Oman on Monday, projecting public unity in a triangular
axis that is increasingly aligning, in economic and military
cooperation, against the United States in key regions across the globe
even as the Trump administration tries to entice Moscow. "The “Security
Belt-2025” drills, taking place near the Iranian port of Chabahar, is
the fifth joint naval exercise Iran, China and Russia have held since
2019, according to Chinese state media," CNN reported.
In an October 2024 pre-election interview, then-candidate Trump
called for a shift in U.S. policy toward the two countries, blaming past
administrations for pushing Russia and China together, a situation
which he described as a “dangerous thing.”
“We united them, because of the oil. We united them. Biden united
them. It’s a shame, the stupidity of what they have done,” Trump told
former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at a campaign stop in Arizona last year. “I’m going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that, too. I have to un-unite them.”
Much of the Trump administration’s early foreign policy moves can be
explained by the president’s perception of this relationship, which has
grown stronger in recent years. Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine and
woo Russia into a ceasefire — and eventually peace — in the
Russia-Ukraine war is part of this gamble. Principally, the
administration is concerned with isolating China from its allies because
it poses the most formidable military and economic threat to the United
States.
Putin pounds Ukraine while Trump entices
However, there is little evidence that the American overtures
floating economic benefits for Russia have been received favorably by
Moscow. After the first meeting between Russian and U.S. officials since
the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
“incredible opportunity” exists for the United States and Russia to
cooperate if the war ends.
“Should this conflict come to an acceptable end, the incredible
opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians, geopolitically on
issues of common interest, and frankly economically on issues that
hopefully will be good for the world and will also improve our relations
in the long term between these two important countries,” Rubio told reporters in Saudi Arabia last month.
This proposition has been echoed by other administration officials as
Trump ratchets up pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart to express
willingness to compromise in negotiations with Russian President
Vladimir Putin to end the war. The Trump administration pulled all military aid and reportedly cut off intelligence sharing
to Ukraine after President Zelensky left Washington without signing a
minerals deal favored by President Trump as a first step in the peace
process.
Following that public falling-out earlier this month, the Russian military ramped up its war machine,
steadily advancing on the eastern front and increasing its missile and
drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and military targets alike, leaving
civilian casualties in its wake, reportedly angering Trump.
“Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on
the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking
Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and
FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED. To Russia and Ukraine,
get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social last Friday.
But, it appears Moscow brushed off the threats. Following the
message, Russian forces continued to fire missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing 21 people and injuring nearly 100 others—the deadliest day for civilians this year in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have signaled unwillingness to
compromise to achieve a peace deal in Ukraine. For example, after French
and British leaders discussed a European peacekeeping force with President Trump, the Russians flatly ruled out the possibility. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would not “consider any options” with European peacekeeping forces, claiming it would only further fuel conflict.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it even more directly, that the
presence of European peacekeepers would inevitably lead to conflict:
“[It’s] not going to be about probability, but inevitability,” Peskov said, according to Russian state media.
Experts say that Russia and China are unlikely to split, as both
powers maintain strong interests in challenging the U.S.-led global
system established after World War II. Additionally, Moscow and Beijing
have grown closer economically and militarily as their leaders have
established a personal rapport.
China’s share of Russia's foreign trading increased from 18% to 33% from 2021 to 2023 as the war has dragged on. Russia’s exports of crude oil to China also increased to record highs in 2023, Reuters said. Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed a “no limits” partnership
in a phone call with his counterpart President Putin, the same phrase
used by the leaders on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022.
It could backfire by heightening US/EU polarization
It “is the reverse of the ‘reverse Nixon,’” Evan Feigenbaum, a former
State Department official and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, told the Wall Street Journal.
He said the president is “attempting to split an entente between two
powers that have ideological affinity and shared strategic interests.”
He also warned that these efforts could end up backfiring, by
splitting up the Western alliance. “And what it has done instead is to
split the West, while Russia aligns with the U.S. and with China
simultaneously,” he concluded.
Rebecca Grant, national security analyst and Vice President of the Lexington Institute, told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show
earlier this month that the United States should be wary of China
attempting to foment a split between the U.S. and Europe while it
attempts to peel Russia away. She said the spat between Trump and
Zelensky over the proposed mineral deal may provide an opening for China
to assert itself, to the United States’ detriment.
“[K]eeping China away from Europe is a huge priority, and that was
part of the essence of the minerals deal,” Grant said. “Putin wouldn't
be in Ukraine without China's full backing. China would love to see NATO
and the West and the US all fall apart and start infighting that would
really go to their plan, and they'd like to go in and pick off more NATO
members with economic development projects and Huawei network gear. We
cannot let that happen.”
“And," Grant added, "NATO has been very good about owning up to the
China threat. And so we can't let this blow-up by Zelensky getting us to
a point where China is able to step in and be clever and take
advantage."
He said the tariffs will go into effect Wednesday morning.
President Donald Trump announced
Tuesday that he would add additional tariffs on Canada, amid recently
imposed trade tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico that resulted Monday
in the U.S. stock market having its worst day this year.
Trump said that the tariffs would be on all steel and aluminum coming into the U.S. from Canada.
"Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on “Electricity”
coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of
Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and
ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST
TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD," he wrote in a lengthy TRUTH Social post.
He said the tariffs will go into effect Wednesday morning.
Dismantling Capitalism, Transferring Wealth, Dismantling the West
Perhaps the climate hoax is actually not about saving the environment? What is it, then?
Some environmental problems of pollution are clearly caused by
man; the effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), as in certain hairsprays
for instance, on the ozone layer over the Antarctica. CFCs thin, or make
a "hole," in the planet's ozone layer that protects the people from
harmful ultraviolet rays. There is also the very real man-made problem
of insoluble trash in the oceans. Generally, however, the problems of
pollution are separate from those of climate change. Whatever can
reasonably be done to curb man-made pollution should, of course, be
advanced, but sometimes climate change and pollution overlap – seen by
many, apparently, as an invitation to muddle and conflate them.
Climate change is largely caused by solar flares. So far, at
least, there is not a blessed thing anyone can do about them. Many
industries offer grants for papers that support the efficacy of their
products that relate to climate change. Solar flares, regrettably, do
not offer grants.
[Former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate] Kerry and his
family flew on 48 trips and emitted more than 300 metric tons of carbon
dioxide in just the 18 months between January 2021 and July 2022.
Private jets "are 10 times more carbon intensive than airliners on
average, and 50 times more polluting than trains," according to a 2021
report. Kerry justified his polluting by declaring, unfortunately
without a trace of irony, that private jets were the "only choice for
somebody like me."
The answer was supplied as early as 2015 by Christiana Figueres,
executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change:
"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting
ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to
change the economic development model that has been reigning for at
least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."
That would mean the destruction of capitalism and the world economy, however long that takes.
When the global elites arrived in Davos, Switzerland, in 2023 to
discuss the urgent need to declare climate emergencies, they did so
using more than 150 private jets.
Any journalists or commentators who dare to question or oppose
the climate change orthodoxy are immediately shunned as "climate
deniers" and met in the legacy media with an instant end to their
careers.
"What is, in my view, even more dangerous, is the
quasi-scientific form that their many times refuted forecasts have taken
upon themselves." — Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus, The New American, December 22, 2009.
Klaus stressed that environmentalism disguises itself as science.
Under this disguise, it attempts to force its precepts on humanity.
When it comes to global warming or climate change, that process is made
easier: the topic is scientifically complex, which makes it hard for
most people to refute the climate scammers.
"For the last 16 years, temperatures have been going down and the
carbon dioxide has been going up and the crops have got greener and
grow quicker. We've done plenty to smash up the planet, but there's been
no global warming caused by man.... I still say it's poppycock! If you
believe it, fine. But I don't and there's thousands like me." — David
Bellamy, English botanist and former BBC broadcaster, The Daily Mail, January 22, 2013.
It is no wonder that the climate change scam won the day. Few
people have been willing to risk their livelihoods to fight against the
manipulation.
Meanwhile, at the latest UN Climate Conference, COP29, which took
place in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024, the agenda to destroy the
world's economy and the West by forcing wealth redistribution made new
strides.... [Developing countries] apparently demanded $1.3 trillion
annually. In the words of energy expert Alex Epstein: "The basic idea
here is what they call 'climate reparations,' which is the idea that the
US and others have ruined the world with fossil fuels, and so we have
to pay a trillion dollars a year to make up for it, which, by the way,
if the US paid that, that's $7,700 per household per year."
Notably, China retained its status as a "developing country" at
the COP29, thereby exposing the enormous extent of the climate hoax.
According to the International Energy Agency, "China's total CO2
emissions exceeded those of the advanced economies combined in 2020,
and in 2023 were 15% higher." In addition, while China continues to
build more coal-fired power plants than the rest of the entire world
combined, the West continues on the path of deindustrialization in the
name of the climate.
Thankfully, President Donald Trump, once again, has withdrawn the
US from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. As the past has
shown, however, such a withdrawal holds no future guarantees. Trump also
withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement during his first term, but
President Joe Biden then brought the US back the first chance he got.
For this reason, it is crucial that the current US administration do all
it can to publish the truth about the climate scam and work towards
ending it across the board.
At the latest UN Climate Conference, COP29, in November
2024, developing countries apparently demanded payments of $1.3 trillion
annually from developed countries. Notably, China retained its status
as a "developing country" at the COP29, thereby exposing the enormous
extent of the climate hoax. According to the International Energy
Agency, "China's total CO2 emissions exceeded those of the
advanced economies combined in 2020, and in 2023 were 15% higher." In
addition, while China continues to build more coal-fired power plants
than the rest of the entire world combined, the West continues on the
path of deindustrialization in the name of the climate. Pictured: A
steel mill with a coal-fired generator in Hebei, China. (Photo by Kevin
Frayer/Getty Images)
At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this January, Klaus
Schwab's wife, Hilde Schwab, opened the annual meeting with the
assertion that Antarctica is melting.
"Antarctica, which holds 91% of the world's glaciers, faces catastrophic ice loss, contributing to rising sea levels," she claimed.
That statement is simply not true. According to a recent study, Antarctica gained 661 billion tons of ice during 2009-2019. "The Antarctic continent," in fact, "has not warmed in the last seven decades." A December 2024 study, in addition, concluded
that "iceberg calving, the detachment of ice blocks from ice sheets and
glaciers... a primary process in mass loss from ice shelf systems in
Antarctica and a major source of uncertainty in future projections of
sea level rise" is not necessarily a consequence of climate change, not
even when we're talking about "extreme calving events".
The study looked at 47 years of satellite data of Antarctica and
found it did not show any trend of increased calving. In plain English,
when icebergs break loose in Antarctica, even "extreme calving events
should not automatically be interpreted as a sign of ice shelf
instability, but are instead representative of the natural cycle of
calving front advance and retreat."
The history of the climate change hoax is littered with lies and
predictions that never came to pass. In 1989, for instance, climate
hoaxers hyperventilated
that, by the year 2000, the Maldives would sink due to rising sea
levels. Associated Press, quoting Noel Brown, director of the New York
office of the UN Environment Program, reported at the time:
"A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations
could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the
global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000....
[Brown] said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to
solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.
As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to
three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations,
Brown told The Associated Press...."
Not only are the Maldives still here, but Saudi Arabia, which itself pays lip service
to the climate scam, has been heavily investing in airports and other
infrastructure in the Maldives. No one invests in sinking islands.
Former US Vice President Al Gore, the High Priest of the climate
cult, has been announcing the end of the world for more than four
decades now, while becoming increasingly hysterical, culminating at the
WEF meeting in 2023 with an outburst in which he claimed,
"[Greenhouse gases are] now trapping as much extra heat as would be
released by 600,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every single
day."
Fortunately, the world does not appear to be burning up
Hiroshima-style, and the climate apocalypse is nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps the climate hoax is actually not about saving the environment?
What is it, then?
The answer was supplied as early as 2015 by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change:
"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we
are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined
period of time, to change the economic development model that has been
reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."
That would mean the destruction of capitalism and the world economy, however long that takes. Figueres continued:
"That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at
a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 – you
choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process,
because of the depth of the transformation."
When you consider that the purpose is to dismantle capitalism -- and
the West in the process -- the exorbitantly expensive goals of net-zero
make sense. The method, in the words of WEF founder and boss Klaus
Schwab, is to have "a great reset." In 2020, his WEF, unelected and
aggressive in shaping agendas as the partner of the UN, linked
every actual and potential crisis in the world to "climate action
failure." Failure to address climate change, according to the WEF, would
lead to food crises, weather crises and natural disasters, water
crises, global governance failure, unemployment and basically the end of
the world.
Some environmental problems of pollution are clearly caused by man;
the effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), as in certain hairsprays for
instance, on the ozone layer over the Antarctica. CFCs thin, or make a
"hole," in the planet's ozone layer that protects the people from
harmful ultraviolet rays. There is also the very real man-made problem
of insoluble trash in the oceans. Generally, however, the problems of
pollution are separate from those of climate change. Whatever can
reasonably be done to curb man-made pollution should, of course, be
advanced, but sometimes climate change and pollution overlap – seen by
many, apparently, as an invitation to muddle and conflate them.
Climate change is largely caused by solar flares.
So far, at least, there is not a blessed thing anyone can do about
them. Many industries offer grants for papers that support the efficacy
of their products that relate to climate change. Solar flares,
regrettably, do not offer grants.
Over the past several decades, despite the false predictions, climate
hysteria has continued to reach new and unprecedented peaks. In 2019,
US House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez postulated
that "the world will end in 12 years unless we address climate change."
In November 2024 former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John
Kerry said that a "climate emergency" had to be declared because the "climate crisis" was killing people.
"I think, personally, we're on the brink of needing to declare a climate emergency, which is what we really have," Kerry said.
"The climate crisis is killing people. It is knowingly...
allowing people to die and affecting them with disease... Every year,
millions of people around this planet are dying because fossil fuel and
methane emissions [caused] by the way we choose to fuel our vehicles,
heat our homes, light our factories."
Kerry was, by his own logic, willingly "killing" people with his
family's private jet -- until August 2022, when he sold it after facing
accusations of hypocrisy. Kerry and his family flew on 48 trips
and emitted more than 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide in just the 18
months between January 2021 and July 2022. Private jets "are 10 times
more carbon intensive than airliners on average, and 50 times more
polluting than trains," according to a 2021 report. Kerry justified his polluting by declaring, unfortunately without a trace of irony, that private jets were the "only choice for somebody like me."
Some of the world's foremost climate scam propagandists, in fact,
continue to prove with their actions that they actually do not believe
the climate hoax: Billionaires Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both fly
private jets and own multiple huge, energy-guzzling mansions. Zuckerberg
flying on his private jet was found to be emitting 70 tons of CO2
in just two days last November (equivalent to 15 years of driving for a
single car) when flying between his home in California and his new home
being constructed in Hawaii. When the global elites arrived in Davos,
Switzerland, in 2023 to discuss the urgent need to declare climate
emergencies, they did so using more than 150 private jets.
Despite the huge discrepancies between the words and actions of the
elites, the legacy media, for decades, has pushed the climate hoax.
Anyone who dares to disagree with it is shunned or risks losing their
job, including scientists who refuse to adhere to the new orthodoxy. Climate change has become a sort of mandatory cult or, in the words
of former Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "a new religion." As early as
2007, Klaus, who experienced life under communist rule and therefore
might have had a heightened sensitivity to attempts at suppressing
freedom, warned that not only the climate change cult, but environmentalism in general posed threats to freedom:
"Environmentalism only pretends to deal with
environmental protection. Behind their people- and nature-friendly
terminology, the adherents to this ideology make ambitious attempts to
radically reorganize and change the world, human society, all of us and
our behavior, as well as our values.
"There is no doubt that it is our duty to protect rationally the
nature for the future generations. The followers of the environmentalist
ideology, however, keep presenting to us various catastrophic scenarios
with the intention to persuade us to implement their ideas about us and
about the whole human society. This is not only unfair but extremely
dangerous. What is, in my view, even more dangerous, is the
quasi-scientific form that their many times refuted forecasts have taken
upon themselves."
Klaus stressed that environmentalism disguises itself as science.
Under this disguise, it attempts to force its precepts on humanity. When
it comes to global warming or climate change, that process is made
easier: the topic is scientifically complex, which makes it hard for
most people to refute the climate scammers:
"[E]nvironmentalism – unlike scientific ecology – does
not belong to the natural sciences but is to be classified as an
ideology. This fact is, however, not understood by the common people and
by numerous politicians.
"The hypothesis of global warming and the role of man in this process
is the last and till this day the most powerful embodiment of the
environmental ideology. It has brought along many important 'advantages'
for the environmentalists:
"- an empirical analysis of this phenomenon is very complicated due
to the complexity of global climate and the mix of various long-,
medium-, and short-term trends (and causes);
"- their argumentation is not based on simple empirical measurements
or laboratory experiments, but on sophisticated model experiments
working with a range of ill-founded assumptions that are usually hidden
and not sufficiently understood...
"What I find much more important is to protest against the efforts of
the environmentalists to manipulate people. Their recommendations would
take us back into the era of statism and restricted freedom."
Any journalists or commentators who dare to question or oppose the
climate change orthodoxy are immediately shunned as "climate deniers"
and met in the legacy media with an instant end to their careers.
In 2013, English botanist David Bellamy spoke out
about how he lost his job at the BBC after rejecting the man-made
climate change narrative as "poppycock" nearly two decades ago:
"'From that moment, I really wasn't welcome at the BBC.
They froze me out, because I don't believe in global warming. My career
dried up. I was thrown out of my own conservation groups and I got spat
at in London.... And it's just nonsense. For the last 16 years,
temperatures have been going down and the carbon dioxide has been going
up and the crops have got greener and grow quicker. We've done plenty to
smash up the planet, but there's been no global warming caused by
man.... I still say it's poppycock! If you believe it, fine. But I don't
and there's thousands like me."
It is no wonder that the climate change scam won the day. Few people
have been willing to risk their livelihoods to fight against the
manipulation. Back in 2013, it was still allowed at least to offer
facts. According to the Daily Telegraph,
the UK's national meteorological service that year "downgraded its
forecast for global warming to suggest that by 2017 temperatures will
have remained about the same for two decades."
Meanwhile, at the latest UN Climate Conference, COP29, which took
place in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024, the agenda to destroy the
world's economy and the West by forcing wealth redistribution made new
strides. Wealthier nations pledged
to transfer "at least" a record $300 billion every year to developing
countries in their "fight against climate change" by 2035.
That decision was met with derision by developing countries. They apparently demanded $1.3 trillion annually. In the words of energy expert Alex Epstein:
"The basic idea here is what they call 'climate
reparations,' which is the idea that the US and others have ruined the
world with fossil fuels, and so we have to pay a trillion dollars a year
to make up for it, which, by the way, if the US paid that, that's
$7,700 per household per year."
Notably, China retained its status as a "developing country" at the
COP29, thereby exposing the enormous extent of the climate hoax. According to the International Energy Agency, "China's total CO2
emissions exceeded those of the advanced economies combined in 2020,
and in 2023 were 15% higher." In addition, while China continues to
build more coal-fired power plants than the rest of the entire world
combined, the West continues on the path of deindustrialization in the
name of the climate.
Thankfully, President Donald Trump, once again, has withdrawn the US
from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. As the past has shown,
however, such a withdrawal holds no future guarantees. Trump also
withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement during his first term, but
President Joe Biden then brought the US back the first chance he got.
For this reason, it is crucial that the current US administration do all
it can to publish the truth about the climate scam and work towards
ending it across the board.
A federal judge found there was "probable cause" to continue detaining the ISIS-K terrorist charged as a co-conspirator in the Abbey Gate attack. An FBI agent took the witness stand at the hearing where Pakistan's role drew scrutiny.
A federal judge ruled
Monday that there was “probable cause” to continue detaining Mohammad
Sharifullah, the confessed ISIS-K terrorist charged in the Abbey Gate
attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, with questions about Pakistan
front-and-center during the criminal hearing featuring FBI testimony.
Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick of the U.S. District Court for
Western Virginia, who is handling the early court proceedings against
Sharifullah, ruled that "I do find probable cause" to continue to hold
him for his alleged role as a co-conspirator in the suicide bombing
that killed 13 U.S. service members on August 26, 2021. The ruling was
in the form of a "minute order," meaning it does not go into any detail
of the facts alleged, but is simply a form that indicates that "probable
cause" was found.
The hearing included testimony from an FBI agent on the
witness stand and new details about the role played by Pakistan in
capturing and interrogating Sharifullah.
The bearded Sharifullah entered the courtroom Monday in a
green-gray jumpsuit and listened to the proceedings through a Dari
language interpreter. The Justice Department prosecutors were Michael
Ben'Ary, Ryan White, and Troy Edwards. Two federal public defenders,
Lauren Rosen and Geremy Kamen, represented the ISIS-K member.
Interviewed by FBI five times after arrest
Fitzpatrick ruled that Sharifullah should be kept behind
bars for now, but also allowed — over objections from the DOJ —
questions from the defense, which resulted in new information on
Sharifullah’s time in Pakistan before being sent to the United States.
Sharifullah's capture in a joint effort between Pakistani intelligence
and the Central Intelligence Agency was announced by President Donald
Trump at a joint session of Congress last week. Trump had thanked Pakistan for “helping arrest this monster.”
FBI special agent Seth Parker, who authored the affidavit
underpinning the criminal charges against Sharifullah, took the witness
stand on Monday. He said he had spent 12 years in the FBI, and that he
is assigned to the FBI Washington Field Office on a squad investigating
overseas terrorism. He said he has been working on the investigation
related to Abbey Gate “on and off since the attack.”
Parker said the FBI had conducted five interviews of
Sharifullah — two in Pakistan, two on the aircraft when Sharifullah was
transported to the U.S., and one in Virginia — and that while only the
first two interviews are reflected in the criminal affidavit he had
written, nothing substantially new emerged in the other interviews.
It was previously revealed that Sharifullah confessed to the FBI
that he played a key role in the infamous bombing of Abbey Gate, and
also claimed to have trained ISIS-K gunmen for a deadly attack on a
concert hall in Moscow in 2024 and had facilitated a bombing targeting
Canadian embassy security guards in Kabul in 2016.
The FBI agent was asked by the defense team if Sharifullah
had been interviewed by the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence
(Pakistan’s top intelligence agency), but the DOJ lawyers immediately
objected that the agent’s answer could interfere with “certain
relationships” with “foreign partners.” The defense lawyers said the
circumstances surrounding the terrorist’s capture and detention were
relevant, and the judge agreed because the answer would go to the
“reliableness” of Sharifullah’s admissions.
FBI agent: "No injuries reported to me"
Parker said Sharifullah was “in the custody of Pakistani
services” at a Pakistani airbase near Quetta, the capital city of the
Pakistani province of Balochistan, but said “I cannot attest to anything
that happened prior to him being interviewed by the FBI.” When asked,
Parker did not specifically confirm that it had been the Pakistani ISI.
The defense asked if the terrorist was tortured while in Pakistani
custody, and Parker said that he did not know if Sharifullah was
tortured or if the FBI was listening in on Pakistan’s interrogation of
Sharifullah.
During questioning by DOJ prosecutors, the FBI agent said
that a medical professional checked on Sharifullah during his flight to
the U.S. and that “no injuries were reported to me.” The FBI agent also
said Sharifullah had told investigators that he had been living in
Quetta with his wife and children for several years where he had been
selling livestock. The FBI agent also told the federal prosecutors that
Sharifullah said he was doing work on behalf of ISIS-K while in Quetta.
Parker said he didn’t recall whether Sharifullah said he
was threatened by Pakistani law enforcement, nor did he recall whether
Sharifullah allegedly said his wife and children were also arrested by
the Pakistanis. He did recall that Sharifullah had said his wife was
eight months pregnant.
Sharifullah starts talking
The FBI has said Sharifullah was read his "Miranda rights"
by the FBI and he proceeded to tell them he was recruited into ISIS-K
around 2016. The FBI said the terrorist was imprisoned in Afghanistan
from approximately 2019 until two weeks before the Kabul airport attack.
An ISIS-K suicide bomber named Abdul Rahman al-Logari — who had been
freed by the Taliban from a prison at Bagram Air Base in mid-August
2021, mere weeks after the U.S. abandoned the base — has been identified
as having carried out the suicide attack at Abbey Gate. The FBI said
Sharifullah recognized Logari as an ISIS-K operative he had known while
in prison.
Parker answered “yes” on Monday when asked by the defense
if the only evidence in the criminal affidavit linking Sharifullah to
the Abbey Gate attack were admissions that the terrorist made during the
FBI's interrogations. Sharifullah has been charged
with providing material support and resources to a designated foreign
terrorist organization resulting in death, and he faces a potential life
sentence.
The FBI has said Sharifullah was contacted by another
ISIS-K member upon being freed from prison in mid-August 2021 who linked
Sharifullah up with the ISIS-K plot to attack U.S. forces at Hamid
Karzai International Airport. The bureau said ISIS-K members provided Sharifullah
with a motorcycle, funds for a cell phone, and instructions on using
social media to communicate with them in the lead-up to the attack.
Reconnaissance missions
The FBI agent confirmed Monday that Sharifullah was — as he confessed
— involved in “route reconnaissance” in the lead-up to the Abbey Gate
attack, and said that “according to him, no” Sharifullah was not
involved in actually planning the attack. Parker said that “according to
him [Sharifullah], he didn’t know the specificity of the target.” Trump
said last Tuesday that "we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”
Parker said his FBI colleagues had Sharifullah draw a map
of the reconnaissance mission he claimed to have carried out, and said
the mission that Sharifullah spoke of was near Kabul airport but only up
to a traffic circle near Abbey Gate. The FBI agent said that “I
couldn’t give an exact distance from the traffic circle to Abbey Gate.”
President Biden announced the unconditional withdrawal of
U.S. troops from Afghanistan in an April 2021 speech, setting the
withdrawal deadline for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist
attack. The Taliban were sparked into rapid military operations,
conducted a rapid takeover of the countryside in the ensuing months and
swept into the Afghan capital of Kabul on August 15, 2021. The chaotic and deadly
non-combatant evacuation operation by the U.S. was conducted while the
U.S. military relied upon a hostile Taliban to provide security outside
the airport.
Sharifullah had made his first court appearance
last week after he landed at Washington Dulles International Airport,
and he was ordered into federal custody, where he remains for the
foreseeable future. The Monday hearing was held in a decently crowded
courtroom — with prosecutors and agents, a trio of U.S. Marshals in
windbreakers, media and members of the public onlooking — in a federal
courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
After the hearing, Just the News
asked Sharifullah’s legal team outside the courtroom if they believed
their client was innocent or guilty of the crimes of which he is
accused. The response was: “no comment.”
The gag order came at the request of the Israel Police’s Unit of International Crime Investigations and will apply for 30 days, until April 10.
(L-R): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and aide Eli Feldstein(photo credit: Creisinger from Getty Images via Canva, SRAYA DIAMANT/FLASH90, Yair Sagi/POOL)
The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court issued a gag order on Tuesday on
all information regarding the ongoing investigation into ties between
employees of the Prime Minister’s Office and Qatar.
The gag order came at the request of the Israel Police’s
Unit of International Crime Investigations – a branch of the Lahav 433
National Crime Unit – and will apply for 30 days, until April 10.
The police said in response to a query by Haaretz that “leaks from the investigation could lead to its obstruction.”
The investigation, which was launched at the directive of Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara,
began after a series of media reports alleged commercial ties between
members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media team and Qatari
state actors.
In
February, Channel 12 reported that Eli Feldstein – a member of the
prime minister’s media team who is currently under house arrest for
leaking classified documents to the German newspaper Bild – had provided
public relations services to Qataris while working in the PMO.
Eliezer Feldstein, the central suspect in the PMO security leak affair. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT, Via Maariv)
According
to the report, Feldstein was hired by an international company funded
by Qatar to promote the country’s image in Israel based on its role in
hostage negotiations.
Haaretz
in late November reported that two other members of the media team,
Yonatan Urich and Srulik Einhorn, had provided public relations services
to Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
Both
Urich and Einhorn were also involved in the Bild case. Urich has been
interrogated by the police for his role in the leak, and Einhorn, who
currently lives in Europe, is wanted for interrogation.
In
a video statement on Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu called the
accusations a “fake scandal campaign.” The accusations “fill a balloon
with hot air, which empties out at the same speed,” he said. Netanyahu
announced that he sued former IDF chief of staff and defense minister
Moshe Ya’alon for allegedly accusing the prime minister of receiving
Qatari money himself.
Ya’alon
said in response, “I hear that the financier of Hamas intends to sue me
… perhaps this will be an opportunity to hear his explanation for the
suitcases of cash from Qatar to Hamas? Maybe it will be an opportunity
to hear his response to three of his close advisers receiving payment
from Qatar? Someone is under pressure from the Shin Bet investigation…
and the attempt to fire the Shin Bet head and the attorney general stem
from this pressure.”
Yair Golan responds to gag order
Democrats
chairman Yair Golan wrote on X/Twitter, “The concern of the Shin Bet and
the police that the Prime Minister’s Office will disrupt the
investigation of the Qatari connection with false and manipulative leaks
is not only justified but essential and urgent.”
Golan
added, “We all remember the false leak to ‘Bild’ and the calculated
attempt to sabotage the hostage deal. Now, with the serious and
worsening suspicion that foreign interests have infiltrated
decision-making forums in the midst of a war, there is no room for
naivety. It must be assumed that the Prime Minister’s Office is
dangerous to the investigation of the truth.”
Golan
called for an investigation of Netanyahu himself, saying that if the
prime minister himself received money from the Qataris, it was a
“security offense that cannot be forgiven.”
One more Jewish voice said Khalil should not be deported: Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York.
udge Jesse Furman, pictured in 2018.(photo credit: screenshot)
The case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian protester arrested by ICE officers at Columbia University
over the weekend, has divided Jewish groups: Right-wing pro-Israel
voices are praising the arrest as a blow to a terrorist sympathizer,
while a range of liberal and progressive Jewish groups are slamming it
as authoritarian and unconstitutional.
On Monday, one more Jewish voice said Khalil should not be deported, at least for the time being: Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York.
Furman, on the bench at a federal district court in Manhattan, issued an order Monday blocking Khalil’s deportation.
According to Politico, which posted a copy of Furman’s order online,
Furman issued the order so that he will retain jurisdiction over the
case. The text reads, “To preserve the Court’s jurisdiction pending a
ruling on the petition, Petitioner [Khalil] shall not be removed from
the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise.”
Trump
administration officials have contended that Khalil, who holds a green
card, can be deported because his protest activity constitutes support
for terrorism. Khalil’s lawyers submitted a writ of habeas corpus
challenging the arrest. The parties to the case will meet on Wednesday.
White House shares a photo of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate
student who was arrested over involvement with protests. (credit:
SCREENSHOT/X, WHITE HOUSE)
Who is Furman?
Furman,
who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012, is an observant
Jew. According to a Forward article from 2022, he adjourned court at 4
p.m. on Fridays during the winter fraud trial of lawyer Michael Avenatti
because he doesn’t work on Shabbat, which begins at sundown. At another
point, he kept the court closed for Rosh Hashanah. (Both cases related
to Trump.)
“He
is not the first judge on this court by any means to have serious
involvement in the Jewish community,” Senior U.S. District Judge Jed
Rakoff told the Forward at the time, “but those of us who are Jewish are
very admiring of his involvement in that regard.”
Furman
is married to Ariela Dubler, the head of school at the Abraham Joshua
Heschel School, a Jewish day school in Manhattan. The couple has been
involved in Ansche Chesed, a Conservative congregation on the Upper West
Side. They have also donated to Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, a
Conservative Jewish sleepaway camp.
Furman’s
father Jay was a prominent real estate developer who died in 2015. His
mother Gail, who died in 2019, was a psychologist and philanthropist who
donated to Democratic causes and headed the Furman Foundation, which
gave to progressive groups including the Tides Foundation, a
contemporary target of right-wing pro-Israel advocates because of its
support for pro-Palestinian groups.
Furman’s
brother, Jason, is a Harvard University economist who has had his own
encounter with the current campus climate. His wife Eve Gerber
apologized after being filmed telling a Harvard student wearing a
keffiyeh, the scarf that symbolizes Palestinian solidarity, that he was
wearing a “terrorist scarf.”
Before
becoming a judge, Jesse Furman was an attorney in the Southern District
of New York, a high-profile posting where he prosecuted a number of
prominent suspects, including employees of Bernie Madoff, who defrauded a
long line of Jewish investors and institutions, and Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, the architect of the September 11 attacks.
The district’s hierarchy was in the news recently when Danielle
Sassoon, a Jewish day school graduate and the acting U.S. attorney
there, resigned rather than dropping corruption charges against Mayor
Eric Adams. Adams, whose cooperation with the Trump administration on
immigration enforcement was a goal of the administration’s bid to end
the corruption case against him, declined to comment on Khalil’s arrest.
Furman’s
confirmation as a federal judge followed a 65-34 vote in the Senate,
where some Republicans objected to his work as an attorney decades
earlier on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League, the historic Jewish
civil rights group that at the time was supporting a public school’s
right to bar a Christian student club. This week, the ADL applauded
Khalil’s arrest, provided, it said in its statement, that immigration
law would be followed appropriately.
"In coordination with the U.S. and as a gesture to the new president of Lebanon, Israel has agreed to release five Lebanese detainees," the PMO said.
Israeli troops in Southern Lebanon, Dec. 27, 2024. Credit: IDF.
Israel has agreed to release five Lebanese
detained during operations against Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists
in Southern Lebanon, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem confirmed
on Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier on Tuesday, “IDF representatives,
and representatives from the U.S., France and Lebanon, met in Naqoura,
Lebanon,” the PMO said.
They agreed to “form three joint working
groups, the objective of which is to stabilize the area and focus on the
following issues: The five points under IDF control in Southern
Lebanon, discussions on the Blue Line [de facto border] and points still
in dispute, and the issue of Lebanese detainees being held by Israel,”
per the statement from Jerusalem.
“In coordination with the U.S. and as a
gesture to the new president of Lebanon, Israel has agreed to release
five Lebanese detainees,” it added.
The statement did not name the individuals
set for release and whether or not they were members of the Hezbollah
terror group. According to Al-Jazeera, a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross was on its way to transfer the prisoners to Lebanon.
In an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed
television channel shortly before the PMO issued its statement, Morgan
Ortagus, U.S. deputy special envoy to the Mideast, confirmed that a
“civilian working group” was launched to address diplomatic issues
between Israel and Lebanon.
Ortagus said the United States was working
on making the Lebanese Armed Forces the sole authority in
Hezbollah-dominated Southern Lebanon.
Earlier on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Hezbollah-linked Al Akhbar
newspaper reported that Jerusalem was set to return to Lebanon five
individuals arrested by the Israel Defense Forces, as well as a Lebanese
soldier.
The IDF confirmed on Tuesday that a Lebanese individual, shot by Israeli soldiers after approaching the border on Monday, had been evacuated for treatment in a hospital inside the Jewish state.
According to the Lebanese Armed Forces, the wounded individual in question was an LAF soldier wearing civilian clothes.
The Israeli military did not confirm that
the individual was a member of the LAF or where the incident occurred,
saying only that its soldiers had acted according to “standard operating
procedures” during the incident.
The situation in Lebanon remains volatile
following the end of the truce with Beirut on Feb. 18. The ceasefire,
which went into effect on Nov. 27, ended more than a year of war after
Hezbollah began launching attacks on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after the
Hmas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The IDF confirmed last month that its forces would remain in five outposts in Southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline. The decision was made in conjunction with the U.S. administration.
Also on Tuesday, an Israeli drone strike
killed Hezbollah’s Hassan Abbas Izzedine, a senior commander in its
aerial-defense unit, the IDF stated.
Izzedine “served as a central knowledge
hub in Hezbollah’s air-defense system and led efforts to rehabilitate
the system after it was significantly damaged during combat from IDF
attacks,” according to the military.
In recent months, the terrorist “continued
to advance the system’s efforts to acquire new weaponry,” the IDF
stated, calling Izzedine’s efforts a “direct threat to Israeli aircraft”
over Southern Lebanon.
In another strike, an Israeli Air Force
craft attacked “a number of terrorists who were identified at a site
used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the Froun region of
Southern Lebanon,” the IDF said.
‘We will protect our northern border’
Ariel Kallner, a Knesset lawmaker for
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, told JNS
on Tuesday that Jerusalem intends for the ceasefire agreement with
Lebanon “to be fulfilled.
“We will not be tolerating any violation
of this agreement, and we will not accept Hezbollah next to our northern
border,” vowed the MK.
“There is no deadline, but if the
agreement is not fulfilled, we will force them to do it,” he said,
referring to Lebanon. “We will protect our northern border.”
Kallner stressed in no uncertain terms
that “it is our commitment to defend ourselves,” he said, and to ensure
that the situation that existed before the war started by Hezbollah just
one day after the Hamas infiltration into Israel’s south “will never
repeat itself again.”
