Author: Steven Sahiounie

A senior member of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement says the country’s armed forces will expand the scope of their military operations to target installations deep inside the Israel-occupied territories if the regime forges ahead with its genocidal war on Gaza. Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah’s political bureau made the remarks late on Saturday, stressing that the Zionist regime is trying its hardest to obscure the extent of damage caused as a result of Yemeni offensives. “We managed to completely suspend the shipping route to Israel through the Red Sea,” Bukhaiti noted. His comments came only a few hours after the Yemeni…

Hamas says it has informed all sides mediating talks between the Palestinian resistance group and Israel that it will engage in no discussions on a prisoner-for-abductee swap unless the occupying regime completely ends its onslaught on the Gaza Strip. “Hamas reaffirms its stance not to conduct any negotiations to exchange prisoners unless the Zionist aggression against our people stops once and for all,” the movement said in a statement on Sunday, adding that it had “conveyed this position to all mediators.” Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the…

Fighters from the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement have continued their strikes on Israeli military position close to the border between Lebanon and the occupied territories, in response to the Tel Aviv regime’s war on Gaza. Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news channel, citing a Hezbollah statement released on Sunday, reported that the group had targeted Israeli forces at Birkat Risha outpost in the north of occupied Palestinian lands, causing casualties among the troops. Several Israeli troopers were also injured, when additional strikes hit the vicinity of Hanita military facility, situated approximately 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) northeast of Nahariya. Hezbollah said on Saturday that it mounted…

Three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces on Friday did everything in their power to demonstrate that they posed no threat, including holding a white flag, the chief of the general staff of the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) has said. In a video statement on Saturday, Herzi Halevi, who is leading Israel’s war in Gaza, said the IOF bears full responsibility for the “painful event” and pledged to “do everything to prevent the recurrence of such cases in the continuation of the fighting.” “The three hostages who survived seventy hellish days, moved towards the IOF soldiers, and were killed by…

The battle for Gaza adds yet another page to Israel’s long list of military operations in Arab nations and enclaves. We are shocked by the brutal fighting going on today, but history has seen many similar military operations where it was impossible to draw the line between war and terrorism. The 1982 Lebanon War is one such example. Israel may have won that war, but as a result it only acquired a fiercer enemy. Setup for slaughter By the mid-1970s, Israel had defeated the regular armies of several opposing Arab nations. However, the Jewish state still had an irreconcilable enemy:…

By: Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator This Christmas, the rooms of all the hotels in Bethlehem are empty, and local businesses are suffering because no Christian pilgrims wanted to travel to what is increasingly looking like a war-zone. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, has cancelled Christmas this year. For the first time since modern celebrations began, the birthplace of Jesus will not decorate the Manger Square tree. In the original first Christmas story, Joseph and Mary were turned away from the inns, as all the rooms were full. This Christmas, the rooms of all the hotels in Bethlehem are empty, and…

A French lawmaker has denounced as “unacceptable” the participation of French nationals in Israel’s war on Gaza, stressing that they should be held accountable if they are found to have been involved in war crimes in the besieged territory. Thomas Portes, a member of the left-wing La France Insoumise party, made the remarks in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday, referring to a report by radio network Europe 1 that more than 4,000 French nationals are engaged with the Israeli military in Gaza. “While the UN, through several of its special rapporteurs, warns of genocidal risks……

Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network, citing local sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that an explosive-laden drone targeted the US-run military facility in al-Malikiyah town of Hasakah province on Saturday afternoon. There were no immediate reports about the extent of damage at the military facility, and possible casualties. This came shortly before a combat drone struck the base which houses US troops at Conoco gas field in Dayr al-Zawr province. Another explosion ripped through the al-Omar oil field in the same Syrian province shortly afterwards, as an unmanned aerial vehicle hit the vicinity of the US base set up in the energy-rich…

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called on the international community to hold Israel responsible for war crimes it has committed against journalists and medics in the besieged Gaza Strip. Hamas issued a statement on Friday saying that the Israeli regime has killed members of groups that are protected by law in war time, including journalists and medical and humanitarian personnel, during its ongoing aggression. “(Israel’s) neo-Nazi leaders should be held accountable for committing heinous war crimes against the Palestinian people,” said the statement. It came after Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel said one of its cameramen had been killed…

“We had big dreams but the only dream left now is when we die, let our bodies remain intact and recognizable and not be reduced to dismembered corpses in a bag,” were the final words of Palestinian journalist Ayat Khadoura. “When we die, we dream of having a shroud to cover us and our bodies laid to rest in a grave.” Khadoura, a freelance broadcast journalist based in the Gaza Strip, never knew she would become the news herself. In what turned out to be her last message, the Gaza-based journalist expressed legitimate fears that every young Palestinian has amid…