Author: Steven Sahiounie

Yemen’s Houthis rebels show no signs of ending their “reckless” attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the top commander of US naval forces in the Middle East says. Since Operation Prosperity Guardian was announced 10 days ago, 1,200 merchant ships have travelled through the Red Sea region, and none has been hit by drone or missile strikes, Vice-Admiral Brad Cooper said in an Associated Press interview. He said additional countries are expected to sign on. Cooper says the coalition is in direct communication with commercial ships to provide guidance on “manoeuvring and the best practices to avoid being…

The UK ’s ambassador to the United Nations has warned that “many more” people will die in Gaza from violence, disease and famine without action to stop the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza on Friday, Barbara Woodward recounted a conversation with Save the Children’s director for the occupied Palestinian territory in which she was told that four in 10 of those killed in Gaza were children. “That is close to 8,500 children dead,” Woodward said. “For those injured and surviving, nearly two-thirds of homes and schools are damaged or destroyed. Many…

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Israel assassinated a senior military advisor of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps ( IRGC ) in Syria due to its defeat in a host of political, military and security fronts. Amir-Abdollahian said assassinating Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi, who was serving as a military advisor in Syria, was out of the regime’s anger and desperation with its own defeats. Mousavi was martyred in a terrorist Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood on December 27. He was a comrade of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was also assassinated in a US drone strike in Iraq…

Israeli warplanes targeted sites in the northeastern Syrian city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian defence ministry. “Israel carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting a number of points south of the city of Aleppo,” a statement said. The Israeli military did not immediately confirm the attack. Last week, an Israeli air raid outside the Syrian capital Damascus killed a senior adviser in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The attacks come amid fears Israel’s war on Gaza could expand into a wider regional conflict, pulling in Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Source: AlJazeera

Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator a former vice presidential candidate, condemned the Biden administration’s “emergency” approval of a potential weapons sale to Israel. The move allows the Biden administration to bypass Congressional approval on the potential $147m sale of M107 155mm projectiles and related equipment. It comes after the administration used a similar manoeuvre to bypass congressional approval for a separate weapons sale earlier in the month. “Why should the Admin bypass Congress on arms sales to any nation?” Kaine wrote. “Bypassing Congress = keeping the American public in the dark.” Support for Israel remains widespread within the US legislature,…

Palestinian resistance forces held a rally in the West Bank’s Balata refugee camp on Friday to pay tribute to Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces in the occupied territory.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has for a second time in less than a month bypassed Congress in order to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel despite growing international outrage over Washington’s support for the Tel Aviv regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has lauded South Africa for filing a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over crimes of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after nearly three months of relentless air and ground strikes.

At least 100 Palestinians have been killed and 158 others wounded in Israeli strikes in the central part of the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, as the occupying regime intensifies its ground offensive in the besieged territory.

At least five people have been killed and several others killed after a site in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr near the Iraqi border, where resistance fighters are based, came under a strike by US military aircraft.