Author: Steven Sahiounie

Daniel Hagari says Israel’s ground invasion and aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip will not stop unless the Israeli government calls for an end to the military offensive. “We will continue our strikes on Rafah to target Hamas leaders,” the Israeli army spokesperson said. “Our goal is to dismantle Hamas and to have no military body threaten us.” The army will also keep targeting Hezbollah positions and fighters, he added. “Returning the kidnapped people is one of the goals of the war, and we will make every effort to return them,” Hagari said. Source: alJazeera

The French president Macron made the comment during a wide-ranging interview with the France 5 broadcaster. “We cannot let the idea take root that an efficient fight against terrorism implies to flatten Gaza or attack civilian populations indiscriminately,” he said. He called on Israel “to stop this response because it is not appropriate, because all lives are worth the same and we defend them”. While acknowledging “Israel’s right to defend itself and fight terror”, Macron said France called for the protection of civilians and “a truce leading to a humanitarian ceasefire”. Macron was one of the first Western leaders to…

Israel’s military has said its warplanes have struck another Hezbollah position in southern Lebanon. That came after Hezbollah today said it had targeted Israeli positions near Beit Hillel and Shtula. Israel’s military also said it fired at fighters near a perimeter fence in the area of Metula. In another incident, Israel said it returned fire after four launches from Syria were detected in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights area. Source: ALJazeera

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that justice will prevail both in the Ukrainian conflict and in the Middle East. “We have talked about the fact that both in the case of Ukraine and in the Middle East there is a tendency when the US considers itself entitled to usurp, monopolize any foreign policy processes, as a result of which it brings devastation, undermines statehood, as it happened with the same Libya, causing hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, decline in the socio-economic sphere and huge flows of refugees to this or that region. <…> In this sense, the nature…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out the prospect of any ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which has been the subject of a genocidal war by the occupying regime for the past 75 days. The regime began the war on October 7 following an operation staged by Gaza’s resistance movements, during which hundreds were taken captive. More than 20,000 people, most of them women and children, have been killed since the onset of the Israeli military campaign. In a statement on Wednesday, Netanyahu said the regime “won’t stop fighting until we’ve achieved all the objectives we’ve set ourselves.” He…

discuss a potential new Gaza truce

The leader of the Yemeni Ansarullah resistance movement says the country’s armed forces will not hesitate to target US military warships in the Red Sea if Washington and its allies carry out military strikes against Yemen. Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi made the remarks in a televised speech broadcast live from the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on Wednesday evening. He underscored that Yemeni forces will start firing cruise missiles at US military vessels should the newly formed maritime task force in the Red Sea take a hostile action or strike Yemen. The Ansarullah chief also advised member countries of the coalition not to sacrifice their own security…

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says diplomatic efforts have intensified in the Western Asia region for a renewed ceasefire in Gaza where the Israeli regime has been pounding the Palestinians for 75 days. “The diplomatic negotiations show that the region is gradually moving toward a ceasefire,” Amir-Abdollahian told reporters during a Wednesday trip to Qatar, where he held talks with Qatari authorities and Palestinian resistance officials. The minister said the aim of regional efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza is to put an end to the “catastrophic situation” in the territory or at least to reduce “the grievances of…

Syria’s permanent representative to the Arab League, Ambassador Hussam al-Din Ala, stressed the necessity of enhancing joint Arab solidarity and cooperation to confront the challenges of wars and crises and dealing with them in a coordinated manner, referring to Syria’s efforts in dealing with repercussions of the hostile war against it despite the difficult economic conditions and unilateral measures imposed on the country. The Ambassador, in a statement delivered at the forty-third session of the Council of Arab Social Affairs Ministers, said Syria calls for an immediate cessation of the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip and address its dangerous repercussions…

Türkiye’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yildiz will visit Iran for political consultations, according to Turkish diplomatic sources on Wednesday. Yildiz and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani will lead the consultations in the Iranian capital Tehran on Dec. 20-21, the sources added. The talks are expected to focus on bilateral relations, and regional and international developments, particularly the situation in Gaza, where Israeli air and ground attacks have killed more than 19,000 people, displaced more than 90% of the population and destroyed over 60% of infrastructure. Source: Anadolu agency