Attendents listen to speech during the central event commemorating the the second annveersary of the martyre of Isslam and humanty, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Sanaa, Yemen, Septemper 27, 2026 (AP Masira TV)
Speaking at the central event for the second anniversary of Sayyed Nasrallah’s martyrdom in Sanaa, religious scholar Fouad Naji, a member of the Yemen Scholars Association, said ٍSayyed Nasrallah was “the first to change the equation and registered a victory over Israel.”
He added that the Hezbollah leader “was the heart of the axis and the safety valve of the region when he stood before the crime of the century and was and still is a nightmare in the throat of the Zionists.”
Sayyed Nasrallah: Islamic symbol not framed by geography
The cleric said the greatest description of the late Sayyed was the one given by Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi, who called him the “Martyr of Islam and humanity,” asserting it as “worthy of his stature.” He also said the late Hezbollah leader is “an Islamic symbol not confined by geography” and “provided the living proof that religion can lead life.”
Sayyed Nasrallah “was the man of the stage by standing in the face of the New Middle East project,” Naji said, emphasizing that the Yemeni people “will not forget his stance with us when he stood with us while everyone else abandoned us.”
“Our generations will not forget him.”
Naji further stated that “the blood of the martyr Nasrallah and his companion Sayyed Safieddine is a sweeping flood that will change the face of the world and overturn the balances in favor of the believers.”
Sayyed Nasrallah devoted his life to resisting hegemony, colonialism
The acting prime minister of Yemen, cleric Mohammed Muftah said, “We commemorate the martyrdom of Sayyed Nasrallah, one of the most important leaders and great figures of humanity.” He stated that Sayyed Nasrallah “devoted his life to the Palestinian cause and to the option of resistance in the face of occupation and projects of hegemony and colonialism.”
“The assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is not considered a victory for the enemy after 40 years of planning, surveillance, and attempts,” Muftah noted, asserting that “the enemies thought that by assassinating Sayyed Nasrallah they would assassinate his project, but they failed.”
Sayyed Nasrallah “created a fixed equation when he did and said, ‘We never lose; when we win, we achieve victory, and when we are martyred, we achieve victory.'” He described Sayyed Nasrallah’s school as “legendary and exceptional” and said it “will extend to broad generations.”
Muftah pledged to the late leader, saying, “We remain faithful to the covenant, and we will proceed on the path and approach until the liberation of Al-Aqsa and we pray in it.”
Two years after the assassination of Lebanese Resistance leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, commemorations were held across Lebanon and the wider region, with supporters gathering around his shrine in Beirut’s Southern Suburb from the early morning hours under the slogan “We remain true to our pledge.”
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent in Beirut reported that preparations around the shrine were completed as citizens began arriving from the early morning, with large attendance expected amid continuing Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon.
In southern Lebanon, the town of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr hosted large crowds for a central ceremony commemorating the martyrdom of Sayyed Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, who was assassinated after him, with photographs of both lining the streets.
In Tehran, the second anniversary is being marked with another public ceremony.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported that the event is being held at the municipal building, where Hezbollah’s flag and banner have been raised, alongside flags, banners and slogans associated with the Resistance.
Meanwhile, Al Mayadeen‘s bureau chief in Baghdad said Sayyed Nasrallah’s image is present in the Iraqi consciousness, with supporters viewing him as a regional leader who confronted “Israel” and helped shape a regional political path built around resistance.
A ceremony was held at the municipal building in Tehran, Iran, where Hezbollah’s flag and banner were raised alongside flags and slogans associated with the Resistance, conveying a message of continued Iranian commitment to supporting Hezbollah in confronting the Israeli occupation and defending sovereignty, according to Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent.
In Sanaa, Yemen, a central ceremony is underway to commemorate the second anniversary of the martyrdom of the “Martyr of Islam and Humanity,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, with participants recalling his steadfast support for Yemen and his solidarity with its people throughout years of Saudi-led aggression.
On November 3, 2023, as Palestinian children were being pulled from beneath the ruins of Gaza, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke not only about war, strategy, or Resistance.
He spoke about them.
He invoked the women and children emerging from beneath the rubble. He argued that the images coming out of Gaza had exposed the contradiction between Western proclamations of human rights and Western support for the Israeli assault.
His argument was ultimately about something larger than geopolitics.
What did witnessing such suffering demand of a human being?
The martyred leader did not see Gaza as a cause to be supported from afar. To him, defending its people was a duty born of humanity itself, and remaining silent in the face of their suffering meant confronting uncomfortable questions about one’s humanity, faith, and honor.
That conviction had been articulated more than a decade earlier.
During the Israeli assault on Gaza in November 2012, he declared that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah would not abandon Gaza and its Resistance, describing standing with its people as a “religious and moral and humanitarian obligation.”
“How can we accept peace and security while the Palestinians have no peace and no security?”
This was Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: a man who could not rest while Gaza bled, who rejected safety while Palestinian children lived beneath bombs, and who carried Palestine not as a… pic.twitter.com/XSOweSqf0x
Eleven years later, as Gaza endured devastation on an unprecedented scale, those words took on a darker weight: humanitarian obligation was no longer something merely spoken, but something paid for in sacrifice.
The children who exposed the horror
The November 3 speech offers perhaps the clearest insight into the humanitarian dimension of Sayyed Nasrallah’s position on Gaza.
⚡️⭕️ The goals set by the Lebanese support front on November 3rd 2023, in the first speech of Martyr Sayed Hassan Nasrallah after October 7th 2023.
Today the war on Gaza stopped, with Hamas specifically victorious and still on the ground after the pre-planned war of annihilation… pic.twitter.com/wkpEaGv6zD
By then, thousands of Palestinians had been killed. Children appeared daily in footage from bombed homes and overwhelmed hospitals. Families dug relatives from collapsed buildings as access to water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel deteriorated.
Children, in particular, repeatedly appeared in his moral argument.
For Sayyed Nasrallah, their suffering stripped away the comfortable language through which wars are often discussed.
The child beneath the rubble was not somebody else’s child. The mother searching hospitals was not somebody else’s mother. The father carrying his child did not become morally distant simply because he lived beyond Lebanon’s border.
International institutions would later document the severity of what Gaza’s civilian population had endured.
The human cost behind the war
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Security Minister Yoav Gallant, finding reasonable grounds to believe they bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity including murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. The chamber also cited reasonable grounds concerning intentionally directing attacks against Gaza’s civilian population.
The ICC said Gaza’s civilians had been deprived of objects indispensable to survival, including food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity. It also said shortages of anesthetics had forced doctors to conduct procedures, including amputations on children, without adequate anesthesia.
This was the reality behind the political vocabulary.
“Collateral damage” could mean a child losing a limb.
“Evacuation” could mean a family carrying what remained of its life from one unsafe place to another.
Destroyed infrastructure meant hunger, thirst, disease, and hospitals unable to adequately treat the wounded.
It was this human reality that Sayyed Nasrallah insisted could not be reduced to a distant tragedy.
🚨 Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah:
"Israel" It defies the will of the world, the international community, and the International Court of Justice, which ordered an end to the attack on Rafah." pic.twitter.com/MQqrER2gRI
Over the following months, that connection remained central to Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches.
The position carried an increasingly high cost for Lebanon. Southern villages were repeatedly struck, civilians were killed, homes and agricultural land were damaged or destroyed, and tens of thousands were displaced as Israeli attacks escalated.
Yet Sayyed Nasrallah did not publicly sever the Lebanese front from Gaza.
By June, as Israeli threats of a wider war against Lebanon intensified, Sayyed Nasrallah warned that if such a war were imposed, “the Resistance will fight without restraints, without rules and without limits.”
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah underlined in a televised speech the substantial role played by the Lebanese support front in the war on #Gaza in the face of the Israeli occupation. pic.twitter.com/0VgvmHJ5NS
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) June 19, 2024
A month later, amid ceasefire negotiations, he reiterated that Hezbollah’s operations remained tied to Gaza, saying the Resistance would halt them if a ceasefire were reached there without requiring a separate Lebanese agreement.
“What Hamas accepts, we all accept,” he said.
For supporters of the Resistance, this is where his position acquired its deepest moral significance.
It was easy to stand with Gaza when solidarity cost nothing.
The real test came when that solidarity demanded sacrifice.
A fatherly conception of responsibility
That distinction also gives meaning to the paternal image through which many supporters remember Sayyed Nasrallah.
For them, he represented more than the secretary-general of Hezbollah. He was associated with protection, guidance and reassurance among communities shaped by occupation, invasion and repeated war.
Two years after his martyrdom, Al Mayadeen revisits the life, political vision, and enduring impact of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
From building a cohesive organization that weathered the region's hardest trials to defining a doctrine of resistance amidst immense human and economic… pic.twitter.com/yqBKPrTtD6
Placed beside Gaza, that image acquires another dimension.
To speak symbolically of Sayyed Nasrallah as a father to Gaza’s children is not to suggest that he could shelter every child from an Israeli bomb or replace every parent they lost.
It describes instead the moral instinct reflected in the position he repeatedly articulated.
A father does not ask whether a suffering child is politically convenient before recognizing pain. He does not examine nationality before recognizing fear. He does not see hunger and decide that geography has absolved him of concern.
This is why Gaza’s children were central to his humanitarian language. They were not statistics or military terminology, but children whose suffering, in his view, demanded a human response.
“No matter what the sacrifices are”
By September 2024, that principle had become intensely personal.
On September 17 and 18, communication devices exploded across Lebanon, killing dozens and injuring thousands. Explosions occurred in homes, markets, and other civilian spaces, and children were among the casualties.
In his September 19 speech, Sayyed Nasrallah described the attacks as an unprecedented security and humanitarian blow, but rejected the possibility that they would force Hezbollah to abandon its support for Gaza.
The Resistance, he said, would continue supporting Palestinians “no matter what the consequences are, what the sacrifices are, what scenarios will unfold.”
On September 19, 2024, Martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reaffirmed the Resistance’s support for the Palestinian people, vowing amid the ongoing Israeli genocide to never stop supporting Gaza no matter what.
Eight days later, on September 27, 2024, he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Those words carry a different weight two years later.
He spoke of consequences after the consequences had already reached Lebanon. He spoke of sacrifice while the country was bleeding. He maintained the connection with Gaza when the danger was no longer theoretical.
Then the sacrifice included him.
"When we are also partners in martyrdom, together we will achieve the inevitable and forthcoming victory, God willing."
During his eulogy for martyred leader Fouad Shokor last month, #Hezbollah's martyred Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reassured Resistance supporters… pic.twitter.com/kNZBdEyh5y
The words he had once offered to console the Resistance after the martyrdom of its commanders would soon acquire a painful new meaning after his own.
Whatever disputes remain over Hezbollah’s strategy, the continuity in Sayyed Nasrallah’s publicly stated position is clear: he did not abandon Gaza when maintaining that position became costly.
Two years later, Gaza’s children remain
Perhaps the most painful part of remembering those speeches today is that the children at their center continue to suffer.
In August 2026, UNICEF reported that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed in Gaza during the 300 days following the October 2025 ceasefire announcement — an average of one child every day. Hundreds more were injured, while malnutrition, disease, unsafe water and damaged sanitation systems continued to shape children’s lives.
"A ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children," – @UNICEFmena Regional Director Edouard Beigbeder. "With hundreds more children injured, many severely, children in Gaza are still waiting for the end to the violence they were… pic.twitter.com/pkm34Mqj16
By September, OCHA reported that Israeli airstrikes and other attacks continued to affect populated areas, while 91% of assessed households faced moderate-to-high water insecurity.
The ruins themselves have become part of childhood.
A damaged home can become a grave. A destroyed water network can threaten life without another bomb falling. A crippled hospital can turn a survivable wound into a death sentence.
Gaza’s children, the measure of solidarity
Fourteen years have passed since Sayyed Nasrallah described standing with Gaza as a “religious and moral and humanitarian obligation.” Nearly three years have passed since he invoked Gaza’s children beneath the rubble. Two years have passed since his own death. Yet the question running through those speeches remains: What does solidarity mean if it disappears the moment it demands sacrifice?
For Sayyed Nasrallah, Gaza’s suffering could not be made distant by borders or political calculations. Its children mattered because they were children.
Perhaps that is why the paternal image associated with him resonates so deeply among those who mourn him.
Fatherhood, at its most elemental, means refusing indifference to a child’s pain — to protect where one can, to remain when leaving would be easier, and to say: your suffering concerns me.
Two years after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s death, Gaza’s children remain the most painful measure of that principle. And the question he posed through his speeches remains before a world that saw their suffering unfold: What does silence mean when the children beneath the rubble can be seen by everyone?
Member of the Loyalty to the Resistance Block, MP Hasan Fadlallah, emphasized that the main battle today is liberating the land, protecting the people, returning to the southern villages and towns, and rebuilding them. He stressed that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement have not closed the doors to a political solution, but they reject submission and surrender.
Speaking during a memorial ceremony held in Beirut’s Dahieh, Fadlallah stated that the resistance supports diplomacy based on rights and indirect negotiations if it leads to the liberation of the South, the withdrawal of the occupation, and the return of the residents. He considered that any agreement linking the Israeli withdrawal to the disarmament of the resistance perpetuates the continuation of the occupation.
He pointed out that the resistance arose as a result of the occupation, affirming that it remains in a defensive position, and that steadfastness, resistance, and local and regional dynamics are what will lead to the liberation of the South.
Fadlallah also criticized the government’s performance, stating that the continued presence of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement within it is tied to “national and political necessities” rather than an endorsement of its policies. He called for an end to what he described as incitement against the resistance and its community, urging a move away from disinformation and division, while confirming that its resistance is “as firmly rooted as our existence in our country.”
Special Coverage | Sana’a threatens a sweeping response targeting Saudi bases and strategic interests should the blockade continue… تغطية خاصة | صنعاء تتوعد برد واسع يستهدف القواعد والمصالح الاستراتيجية السعودية إذا استمر الحصار …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e16M9El_68M
Long before Yemen emerged as a regional force, Sayyed Nasrallah recognized the strength of a people who would refuse to bow, endure the war, and reshape the balance of West Asia.
The world saw bombs falling on Yemen. Martyred Lebanese Resistance leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah saw what lay behind them.
When a US-backed, Saudi-led coalition launched aggression against Yemen in March 2015, it was presented under the guise of an “effort to restore a political order in Sanaa.” But Sayyed Nasrallah rejected that claim from the outset.
Beneath the language of “restoring legitimacy and security,” he saw an attempt to impose a political outcome on an entire people through overwhelming military force, to break Yemen’s will, restore outside influence, and compel its people to surrender their sovereignty.
Sayyed Nasrallah’s assessment was not confined to a single speech.
Beyond the aggression
Across years of Saudi aggression, the former secretary general of Hezbollah returned to the same themes: Yemen’s resistance, its sovereignty, the limits of military coercion, and the ability of the Yemeni people to withstand pressure that had been expected to produce political submission.
More than a decade later, Yemen occupies a markedly different place in the regional landscape.
The Saudi-led aggression that began with an attempt to reshape Yemen’s political balance became a prolonged war. The Yemeni resistance survived years of military pressure and locally developed increasingly sophisticated military capabilities. The war eventually became intertwined with wider regional calculations involving Saudi Arabia, the United States, “Israel”, and the Red Sea.
After October 2023, Yemen’s role expanded again. Sanaa’s Yemeni Armed Forces began launching operations in solidarity with Gaza amid the Israeli genocide, drawing the country directly into the regional struggle for Palestine.
The question, looking back, is not whether Sayyed Nasrallah foresaw every development that followed.
It is more precise, and historically more useful, to ask what he actually identified about Yemen at different moments, what happened afterward, and why prominent Yemenis today believe his reading of their country was significant.
The first days
Sayyed Nasrallah’s first major solidarity came as the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen was still in its opening hours.
On March 27, 2015, two days after the launch of the aggression, he challenged the argument that developments in Yemen constituted an “existential security threat to Saudi Arabia.”
He asked why Saudi Arabia viewed Yemen as a threat while “Israel”, with one of the region’s most powerful militaries, remained a far more obvious strategic challenge.
The question reflected one of the foundations of his interpretation of the war: that Yemen was being viewed through the interests of outside powers rather than through the political aspirations of the Yemenis themselves.
Sayyed Nasrallah also challenged claims that Yemen’s emerging political order was simply an Iranian project, asking where the Iranian armies and military bases in Yemen were.
His argument was that the war could not be understood simply as an extension of Iranian-Saudi tension at the time.
He went further, arguing that Saudi Arabia had lost the degree of influence it had previously exercised over Yemen and that the war was intended to restore that influence.
‘A balm for Yemenis’ wound’
For Yemenis experiencing the first hours of the war, the significance of Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches was immediate.
Dr. Ahmed Ahmed Saleh al-Arami, professor of modern history, president of Al-Bayda University, and deputy chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the International Palestine Conference, remembers the atmosphere vividly.
“That speech was like a balm in the early hours of the coalition aggression against Yemen,” al-Arami said. “At the time, we were following the media, regimes, and statements, all of which were mobilizing against the Yemeni people. The only position that came forward with such strength was that of the late Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.”
Al-Arami said Sayyed Nasrallah did not merely condemn the aggression. He explained its underlying objectives and challenged the assumption that military superiority would translate into political victory.
He recalled Sayyed Nasrallah concluding the speech with a declaration of confidence in Yemen’s ability to withstand the aggression.
“The Yemeni people will rub the noses of the Saud family in the soil of Yemen,” al-Arami recalled him saying during his speech at a crowded ceremony to mark the Tenth of Muharram in Beirut’s Southern Suburb (Dahieh) in October 2016.
“The Saudi war on the Yemeni people does not seem to be fought on the basis of achieving political goals, but reflects the level of grudge and revenge. This form of crime, which grinds humans, stone, children, and adults, and targets everything in Yemen, is Saudi Arabia’s hatred war of a Wahhabi taste,” Sayyed Nasrallah added at the time.
Inevitability of Yemen’s victory
Dr. Khaled Yahya al-Emad, a member of the Yemeni Shura Council, similarly places Sayyed Nasrallah’s position at the very beginning of the war.
“When we remember or speak of the late resistance leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, he was someone who saw with the light of God,” al-Emad stressed. “From the very first day of the aggression by the Saud family against Yemen, he said that victory would be on Yemen’s side.”
For al-Emad, Sayyed Nasrallah’s assessment remained consistent throughout the war.
“He consistently spoke about the Yemenis, Yemen, and their suffering at the hands of the Saud family, as well as the inevitability of their victory,” he stressed.
“And that is what happened. The Yemenis emerged victorious, and today they are rubbing the noses of the Saud family in the mud,” he affirmed.
The language was emphatic, but it reflected a broader assessment that Yemen’s resistance possessed the determination to withstand an aggression built on military superiority.
That understanding would inform Sayyed Nasrallah’s subsequent speeches as the war entered a prolonged phase.
The limits of force
As the war continued, Sayyed Nasrallah’s analysis increasingly focused on the widening gap between military power and political outcomes.
In a 2016 Al Mayadeen interview, he described the war on Yemen as unjust. He questioned the logic of continuing an aggression that had already failed to produce the political submission its backers sought.
“Their scheme in Yemen has failed,” he emphasized.
He also challenged the assumption that Saudi Arabia could ultimately use its financial resources to reconstruct Yemen and translate that reconstruction into political control.
The point was central to his broader understanding of resistance: destruction could be inflicted from the outside, but political submission could not simply be purchased or imposed.
By then, the war was already demonstrating its durability.
Sayyed Nasrallah described the Yemeni people as having endured an extraordinary period of fighting and emphasized the role of their determination and military capabilities in preventing their defeat.
‘The unjust war’
Years later, in December 2020, he returned to the same argument.
“The Yemeni people have fought for more than 2100 days,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, pointing to the Yemeni people’s determination and access to weapons as fundamental sources of their ability to continue fighting.
“Look, my understanding is that Saudi Arabia—particularly in recent years—does not act rationally. Rather, it acts out of spite and hostility. This war on Yemen—tell me, what is the reason for it? What logic? What basis? What law? What interests? What principle? What is the rationale behind this unjust war?” he said at the time.
The significance of the statement lies partly in its timing.
By late 2020, the war had lasted for more than five years. Whatever expectations had accompanied the opening of the Saudi-led aggression, the war had not produced a quick political settlement.
For Sayyed Nasrallah, the persistence of the war highlighted the distance between the scale of military force deployed against Yemen and the political objectives it was supposed to achieve.
When the battlefield became regional
The war’s trajectory increasingly complicated the idea that the war could be contained within Yemen.
In 2019, Yemeni Armed Forces operations against Saudi oil facilities demonstrated the ability of the aggression on Yemen to spill over to critical infrastructure beyond Yemen’s borders.
They showed the extent of deterrence Sanaa managed to establish.
For Sayyed Nasrallah, the war on Yemen was never entirely separate from the wider balance of power in West Asia.
He said in a televised speech on September 20, 2019, “The thing that will protect the installations and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia is halting the war against the Yemeni people.”
Noting that the YAF’s operation had initially halved Saudi oil output, he added, “Your house is made of glass, and your economy is made of glass….”
After all, Yemen’s own leadership had made decisions, developed military capabilities, and increasingly affected the strategic significance of its geographic position.
For the top Yemeni figures interviewed by Al Mayadeen English for this article, Sayyed Nasrallah’s significance cannot be explained entirely through military or geopolitical analysis.
Abdul Rahman Alahnomi, chairman of the General Corporation for Radio and Television, described Sayyed Nasrallah as a prominent voice defending the injustice inflicted upon the Yemenis.
“The late Resistance leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was a beacon of defense against the injustice suffered by the Yemeni people,” Alahnomi said. “His positions of solidarity with Yemen in confronting the Saudi-American aggression were like a balm for our wounds, while also serving as a source of inspiration for other free people around the world and encouraging them to adopt similar positions toward what was happening in Yemen.”
For the Ambassador in the Ministry of Interior in Sanaa, Abdullah Ali Sabri, Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches became something Yemenis actively awaited.
Sabri heartfully recalled Sayyed Nasrallah, describing his speech on the second day of the aggression as the greatest position he had taken in his life.
He also remembered Sayyed Nasrallah asking, “If the Yemenis are not Arabs, then who are the [true] Arabs?”
In a similar vein, Abu Aqil Abdullah Alnimi, a member of the Political Bureau of Ansar Allah, stressed that “Sayyed Nasrallah was the icon of his time and the leader of his era; his speeches were a balm and a source of healing.”
Profound loss
The significance of Sayyed Nasrallah’s words came from their perceived sincerity.
Yemenis believed that Sayyed Nasrallah was not speaking about their suffering as an abstract geopolitical issue.
“He spoke to Yemenis with emotion, loved Yemen deeply, and made that clear through his words and speeches,” Alnimi said.
That emotional connection became particularly important during an aggression in which Yemenis often felt isolated internationally.
“There was no one in the world who would wipe away our tears or tend to our wounds except the late Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” Alnimi emphasized.
A relationship beyond political solidarity
Alnimi recalled a relationship that, in the perception of many Yemenis, went beyond political solidarity.
“We considered him as though he were among us, as though he were the leader who taught us, advised us, guided us, and raised our morale,” Alnimi said.
“Sayyed Nasrallah’s absence was, for us, a great wound that will never heal and can never heal,” Alnimi stressed. “He left behind a great and profound void that no one else can fill.”
Orphaned Yemen
Alnimi described Yemen during the war as an isolated country.
“Yemen was an orphan. It had no one to support it, no one to stand by its side, and no one to wipe away its tears or tend to its wounds except the martyr, the martyr of humanity, and the martyr of all Muslims, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” Alnimi said.
On his part, Sabri likewise described Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches as a key source of confidence and morale during the confrontation.
Their recollections reveal why Sayyed Nasrallah’s Yemen speeches acquired a significance that cannot be reduced to their geopolitical content.
For these Yemeni figures, he was not merely an outside political leader commenting on a foreign war. He was someone who repeatedly acknowledged Yemen’s suffering, defended its right to resist, and treated its people as actors who should be able to determine their own future.
2017: ‘I wish I were a fighter in your ranks’
Meanwhile, Al-Arami remembers another moment that, in his view, demonstrated the depth of Sayyed Nasrallah’s identification with the Yemeni resistance.
During the escalation of the Battle of the Western Coast in 2017, al-Arami recalled Sayyed Nasrallah saying on June 30, 2018, “I wish I were a fighter in your ranks, under the banner of your dear and courageous leader, Sayyed Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi.”
The statement came at a time when fighting was intensifying along Yemen’s western coastline.
Al-Arami said the words resonated with fighters and strengthened their morale.
The episode is significant not because one speech can be shown to have determined the course of a battle, but because it demonstrates how Sayyed Nasrallah’s public language about Yemen had evolved.
He was no longer merely explaining the struggle to an external audience.
He was addressing the Yemeni resistance itself.
Bread under siege
Another recollection from al-Arami reveals a different side of Sayyed Nasrallah’s relationship with Yemen.
After Sayyed Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi said on May 23, 2021, that Yemenis were prepared to share their daily bread with Palestinians, Sayyed Nasrallah reportedly responded on May 25, 2021, by asking whether Yemenis themselves had enough food under the Saudi blockade.
“Sayyed, you yourselves are under siege. Do you even have bread to spare to share with the Palestinian people?” Sayyed Nasrallah asked at the time, reflecting the depth of the Yemenis’ altruism.
The exchange captured a defining thread running through Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches on Yemen: the connection between resistance, human dignity, and the suffering of peoples under siege.
Yemen’s support for Palestine was not occurring in conditions of prosperity or security. It was being articulated by a society enduring war and deprivation itself.
Historical moment
For al-Arami, Sayyed Nasrallah understood the significance of that gesture and responded to it emotionally.
The moment also foreshadowed a development that would become increasingly important years later: Yemen’s identification of its own struggle with the Palestinian cause.
From war on Yemen to the Red Sea
The next transformation in Yemen’s role occurred after the Saudi-led aggression had already reshaped the country’s military and political landscape.
The emergence of increasingly capable Yemeni missiles and drones altered the strategic equation with Saudi Arabia and later created a wider regional dimension to the struggle.
Then came October 2023.
As “Israel” launched its genocide in Gaza, the Yemeni Armed Forces declared on October 19, 2023, that their military operations would target Israeli-linked interests and shipping in support of the Palestinian cause.
The Red Sea consequently became one of the most important theatres in the broader regional confrontation.
What had begun in 2015 as a Saudi-led aggression centered on Yemen’s political order had acquired consequences for international maritime traffic, regional security, and US occupation forces’ deployments in West Asia.
This marked a profound change in Yemen’s position.
A country long neglected, exploited, and subjected to devastating aggression had emerged as a force capable of shaping strategic calculations far beyond the Arabian Peninsula.
Reshaping the regional balance
For years, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah insisted that Yemen should never be viewed as politically passive or strategically marginal.
Yemeni leaders made their own decisions. Their actions reflected their own political calculations, their interpretation of the Palestinian cause, and their assessment of Yemen’s interests.
Sayyed Nasrallah told Al Mayadeen‘s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Ghassan Ben Jeddou, that “in the war on Yemen, Hezbollah is not qualified to play the role of mediation, because we are a party that sides with Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the Yemeni people, and Ansar Allah movement.”
Sayyed Nasrallah delivered these remarks during the “Dialogue of the 40th Anniversary” on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Hezbollah’s founding on July 25, 2022, adding that “the mediator usually requests concessions from the two parties, but what concessions can be requested from Ansar Allah?”
He stressed that “the Iranians gave a clear answer regarding mediation in the Yemeni war, which means that the Yemenis won’t, in any circumstances, waive their rights.”
Yemen and Palestine
The connection to Palestine was not an afterthought in Sayyed Nasrallah’s understanding of Yemen.
From his earliest speeches, he repeatedly challenged Arab governments over their focus on Yemen while “Israel” remained at the center of the region’s strategic landscape.
“If the aim of the war on Yemen is to save the Yemeni people, then why did Saudi Arabia abandon the Palestinian people for long decades?” the martyred leader said in a speech aired on Al Manar TV in March 2018.
Over time, he increasingly described the different resistance fronts as interconnected.
That framework became particularly relevant after October 2023.
Yemen’s military operations in support of Gaza transformed the country’s regional role and placed it directly within a confrontation involving “Israel”, the United States, and other Western imperialist powers.
An explicit connection
For Yemeni figures such as Alahnomi, the connection was explicit.
He linked the Yemeni confrontation with the broader struggle for Palestine and viewed Yemen’s later military posture as part of its commitment to the Palestinian cause.
The significance of this development extends beyond the language of regional alliances.
It demonstrated how Yemen’s geographic position on the Red Sea and near Bab al-Mandeb could give a relatively isolated country considerable strategic leverage.
That was a dimension of Yemen’s importance that became increasingly difficult to ignore.
Looking back
What, then, can be said with confidence about Sayyed Nasrallah’s reading of Yemen?
The record establishes that he envisioned every subsequent event.
He questioned whether military aggression could produce political submission. He treated Yemen as a political actor rather than merely a theatre for a wider regional confrontation. He emphasized the capacity of its people to endure pressure and repeatedly warned that the consequences of the war could extend beyond Yemen’s borders.
The subsequent course of the war gave those arguments a historical record against which they could be assessed.
The Yemeni resistance survived the aggression and developed significant military capabilities. The war affected Saudi territory and later international maritime routes in the Red Sea. Yemen emerged as an actor capable of shaping regional calculations, while its resistance became increasingly connected to the Palestinian cause.
These developments help explain why top Yemeni figures continue to return to Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches.
Yemen’s suffering matters in its own right
Alnimi embraced them for championing Yemen with a depth of feeling that was unmistakable.
Al-Emad sees in them an early confidence in Yemen’s ability to endure.
Al-Arami remembers them as moments that provided reassurance when Yemen appeared isolated.
Alahnomi recalls them as a form of solidarity that transcended conventional political statements.
Sabri remembers them as words that made Yemenis feel that someone beyond their borders was listening.
Their testimony also reveals something that a purely strategic reading of Sayyed Nasrallah’s speeches would miss.
His importance to many Yemenis was not only that he assessed the war differently from Saudi Arabia or Western imperialist governments.
It was that he spoke about Yemen as its suffering mattered in its own right.
A window into Sayyed Nasrallah’s wider vision
The Yemen story ultimately points beyond Yemen.
Sayyed Nasrallah’s understanding of the region was built around a recurring set of ideas: resistance, sovereignty, deterrence, Palestinian centrality, and the limits of external power.
Those ideas appeared in his discussions of Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and Palestine as well.
Lebanon was viewed through the question of resistance to Israeli aggression.
Syria was understood within a wider struggle involving the state, armed groups, and foreign meddling.
Palestine remained, in his speeches, the central cause around which much of the region’s political struggle continued to revolve.
Yemen became another expression of that broader worldview.
An emerging power in West Asia
Yemen’s trajectory was particularly significant because the country underwent, within a decade, a dramatic transformation in its regional position.
The record shows a regional leader who consistently argued that Yemen’s political agency and capacity for resistance were being underestimated.
The years that followed provided substantial evidence against which that argument could be assessed.
Perhaps that is the most enduring significance of Sayyed Nasrallah’s Yemen speeches.
They were not simply predictions about how a particular war would end.
They were part of a broader argument about power in West Asia: that military superiority does not automatically translate into political control; that local actors cannot always be reduced to proxies of larger powers; and that societies subjected to external pressure can, under certain conditions, transform resistance into strategic influence.
What happens when a country refuses to surrender simply because a more powerful coalition demanded so?
For Yemen, the answer unfolded over more than a decade of war.
For Sayyed Nasrallah, it was a conviction he articulated from the very first days.
For the wider region, Yemen stands as a powerful testament to how an aggression launched to subjugate a nation can instead transform the strategic map of West Asia. What began as an attempt to break Yemen’s political will could not extinguish its resistance or silence its voice.
And through those years, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s unwavering belief in Yemen became part of the country’s own story, a legacy carried in the memory of its people and preserved among those who continue to see Resistance as a force capable of defying domination.
His words endure not simply as memories of a revolutionary leader, but as part of Yemen’s history and the wider history of resistance.
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Ahmad Vahidi lauded Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s address to the UN General Assembly, saying his declaration that Iran is not afraid of war echoed the “loud and steadfast voice” of the Iranian nation.
In a message issued following the president’s speech at the UNGA, Major General Vahidi said, “’We are not afraid of war’ is the loud and steadfast voice of the Iranian nation.”
He noted that this message was conveyed from the podium of the United Nations by the Iranian president and “resounded in the ears of the world.”
Pezeshkian, addressing the UN General Assembly on Wednesday night, said the Iranian people have experienced firsthand the consequences of military power and the destructive decisions of those who used it, adding that Iran’s resilience has been tested and that the enemies now know well that Iran cannot be forced to surrender through war.
Pezeshkian: “Iran will not seek anyone’s permission to defend itself”
▪️ Iran will not accept being deprived of peaceful nuclear knowledge.
The Iranian president stressed that Iran has never initiated a war and has consistently demonstrated its commitment to the negotiating table. “They imposed war on us, but we proved that we are not afraid of war when it comes to defending ourselves, and we do not shy away from negotiations for the sake of peace,” Pezeshkian said, adding, “We will stand to the last breath to defend our beloved Iran.”
President @drpezeshkian in an interview with Fox News: “If they want to continue the war, we will respond decisively.”
🔻 “We have never been the ones to start a war, but if they want to continue fighting us, we will respond decisively.
In July 2021, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah revealed a significant battle unlike any the Resistance had faced, stating that “[the media battle] is a fundamental part of the grand battle and full confrontation.” He went on to repeat this in an August 2021 speech during Ashura and in October 2023 in his speech commemorating Prophet Muhammad’s birth anniversary.
For Sayyed Nasrallah, resistance requires a holistic approach. The military aspect is just one facet of an all-encompassing battle that extends into many other areas, and one of the main elements in this battle is the media, around which he built a philosophy based on truthfulness and credibility, ethical conduct, and development.
It is from this philosophy that he derived the most important weapon in this battle: credibility, arguing that for the Resistance, its strength does not lie in piles of cash or fancy equipment, but in its honesty and truthfulness.
Credibility as a weapon
In his July 2021 speech, the Resistance’s leader emphasized that “the enemy [Israel] and settlers believe the Resistance’s media more than their own leaders and outlets,” attributing this to the honesty of the Resistance since its founding.
According to Sayyed Nasrallah, this trust is an admission that credibility, once earned, becomes a significant force that enemies cannot easily counter.
This credibility does not come from a vacuum, but from a track record of promises kept and rhetoric grounded in reality, building a philosophy of a Resistance that says what it does, and does what it says.
Perhaps the strongest manifestation of this philosophy is the Israeli withdrawal in 2000. In his May 26, 2000 speech in Bint Jbeil, Sayyed Nasrallah vowed to return all detainees in Israeli captivity, asserting, “Sheikh Abdul Kareem Obeid, Abu Ali ad-Dirani, Samir al-Kintar, and every captive in the Israeli prisons shall soon return to you, God willing.”
This was not merely a celebratory announcement stemming from the triumph over the Israeli occupation, but a clear declaration of the Resistance’s objectives and the road map it is working toward. Years later, Hezbollah fulfilled this promise and secured the release of its captives through two exchanges in 2004 and 2008.
Sayyed Nasrallah’s guiding principles in media
The media is not a communications concern separate from the battle, but an operational strategy. The same logic that governs military confrontation was applied to the battle over perception.
Sayyed Nasrallah’s strategic thinking can be organized around three pillars: media as a direct command responsibility, a tool of psychological warfare, and a frontline that must be defended.
One of the most revealing aspects of Sayyed Nasrallah’s media philosophy is that he did not delegate it to a team, instead assuming a direct role and hands-on involvement in this battle. During the 2006 war, the leader of Hezbollah was in direct contact with Al Manar TV through an internal telephone line, according to the news outlet’s then-director Abdallah Qassir.
According to Qassir, Sayyed Nasrallah “would follow even some details being reported on Al Manar, give instructions, and was keen that Al Manar sustain its coverage.” In Sayyed Nasrallah’s view, the channel’s staying on air was itself a victory for the Resistance, proving the importance of this battlefield for him.
Defense of the media frontline
On the defensive front, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah laid out a set of principles in his 2021 Ashura speech that read like a manual on how to fight this battle, grounded in reality, truthfulness, ethical guidance, and collective responsibility.
For Sayyed Nasrallah, immunity is the first defensive line: according to him, the media war waged by enemies “must not affect us. This war must not shake us. This war must not make us doubt, hesitate, get lost, despair, or wander off.” He emphasized that “you must not take every piece of news that comes to you, build on it, distribute it, and adopt it because this means destruction and the end.”
The second principle is truth and honesty in transmission, with the leader of the Resistance emphasizing reliance on the truth and being careful that “our position is right, and what we have to say is true”. He also called for honesty in conveying facts, asserting, “We must not falsify, distort, or invent facts.”
The third principle Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized was an ethical one: discipline in language. He called for no insults, no baseless accusations, no personal attacks, because these actions erode the credibility that made the Resistance’s media effective.
The fourth principle Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah outlined is collective responsibility. “This media battle today is the responsibility of everyone. All men and women, young and old, must participate in it, regardless of their specialization. The most important and most dangerous thing during this time is social networking. This allows everyone to be part of the media campaign, whether attacking or defending friends and enemies,” he affirmed.
The psychological front
Credibility and defensive lines shine when they are deployed for the purpose of psychological warfare. In a December 2009 speech, Sayyed Nasrallah explained that the primary goal of the psychological war is to “create fear, terror, and panic on the other front,” immediately inverting this framework and applying it to the Resistance’s media.
Just as the enemy uses the media to wage psychological warfare and break the Resistance’s will, the Resistance can use it to break the enemy’s confidence.
In the same speech, he identified specific methods the enemy uses: exaggerating capabilities, threatening destruction, and broadcasting military exercises. He argued that the Resistance must understand these methods to counter them and, where possible, deploy them in return.
One aspect of this offensive is using credible threats as a weapon. Ron Schleifer, head of the Center for National Security and Media Studies at Ariel University and a researcher specializing in information warfare, told the Israeli outlet Walla in 2016 that Israelis had learned the importance of psychological warfare from the positions, statements, and conduct of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, realizing that wars are not decided solely through bombing and shelling.
“A fundamental principle in psychological warfare is that if you cannot confront the enemy’s weapons, you influence the fingers that pull the trigger,” Schleifer noted, emphasizing that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was “100% successful” in this domain, since the Resistance’s threats to strike Haifa or the Saar Warship crystallized into real events that became ingrained in Israeli collective memory.
This builds upon the points the leader made regarding truthfulness and honesty, since a threat that the enemy simply does not believe has no use in the psychological battle.
Without media, victories are nil
Part of this psychological war that the media wages is the transmission of victories and achievements, a role that goes beyond reporting on victory and becomes a crucial part that leads to these accomplishments.
In his July 2021 speech, Sayyed Nasrallah stated that “if it were not for the Resistance media, the victories and achievements of the Axis of Resistance would not have been transmitted to the public, and all these victories would have been lost.”
Here, media is not simply a tool to transmit the victories; the media becomes an inseparable part of these victories, and without it, these victories would simply be wasted. Resistance media contributed to “making the victory” by relying on facts, data, and research rather than mere rhetoric.
Why does this matter for psychological warfare? Because a victory that is seen becomes a psychological fact on the enemy’s side as well. When Hezbollah’s achievements are transmitted credibly, they don’t just reassure the Resistance’s own base; they demonstrate to the enemy that the Resistance is capable of delivering on its threats.
The integrated deterrence equation
The success of this psychological war plays into an integral element of resistance: deterrence. While military capabilities fight the physical battle, the mental battle is fought through the media, a weapon as important as missiles and drones.
In his July 2021 speech, Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized the development of the media as a parallel path to developing military capabilities, saying, “Media confrontation must develop just as military confrontation develops, because it is an authentic part of the battle.”
Media supports military power not from the sidelines; it must be developed in the same way as military confrontation, using the same logic and the same seriousness, because it is part of the same battle, not a separate activity. The tools of military, security, political, and media confrontation are listed together as one integrated arsenal.
In his October 2023 speech commemorating the Prophet’s birth, he goes as far as putting the media war above the military one in terms of danger and destructiveness, calling it “a war more dangerous and more destructive than military war.”
This equation of media with military power is not abstract. Sayyed Nasrallah directly links the media to the construction of what he calls a “new deterrence equation.” In the same July 2021 speech, he stated that the Resistance must “formulate and consolidate the discourse and strategy of the new deterrence equation: al-Quds against the entire region.”
This strategic doctrine holds that the use of the media to create reverse psychological warfare is one of the central pillars of his asymmetric deterrence model, alongside missile capabilities and the strategy of targeting the enemy’s social vulnerabilities.
Spider web speech
This is best displayed in his 2000 Spider Web speech: his deterrence model does not rest on matching Israeli military capabilities; it rests on targeting the vulnerability he identified there, Israeli society’s unwillingness to endure sustained casualties and pressure.
A threat that is not believed does not deter. A victory that is not transmitted is a victory lost. And a media that is not trusted cannot transmit anything at all.
For deterrence to function, that vulnerability must be communicated, and the media is the mechanism to achieve that. It transmits the threat, projects the image of a Resistance that will not break, and turns psychological pressure into a permanent condition rather than a passing tactic.
Deterrence is not an abstraction here; it is the mechanism that prevents war, protects Lebanon, and preserves the Resistance’s ability to function. The media battle is fought so that deterrence functions, so that the enemy believes the threat is real, so that the Spider Web thesis is internalized on the Israeli side, and so that what the Resistance has built is protected.
The media isn’t merely about reporting and describing what is happening; it becomes how the Resistance fights its battles, and Sayyed Nasrallah’s framework is how the media turns from a resistance tool into resistance itself.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian holds an imageof martyred Iranian Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026 (AP)
Iran’s president tells the UNGA that Iran will not surrender, defends its nuclear rights, and calls for diplomacy and justice for Palestine.
Iran will not bow to US pressure, and Tehran remains committed to diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.
Pezeshkian’s address came a day after US President Donald Trump used his UNGA speech to issue a warning to Iran and call for its economic isolation, threatening to “annihilate the Islamic Republic.” Reuters reported that Pezeshkian’s speech reaffirmed Tehran’s position that it would not surrender while keeping open the possibility of diplomacy.
The Iranian president focused much of his address on the US war on Iran, the Israeli occupation’s actions against Gaza, Iran’s nuclear program, regional security, and double standards in the international system.
He rejected accusations that Iran is a source of regional instability, arguing that Tehran has acted in self-defense and does not seek military power for aggression or hegemony.
‘We have only defended ourselves’
Pezeshkian opened his address by rejecting the characterization of Iran as “terrorist”, saying that Iranians have themselves been victims of US and Israeli terrorism and aggression.
He carried pictures showing students from Minab and Lamerd who were killed by US-Israeli airstrikes on the Islamic Republic, commemorating them in his speech alongside martyred Iranian Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, whose picture he also held.
He referred to attacks on Iranian cities and facilities, including a strike on a school in Minab and a sports hall in Lamerd where children were present. He said Iranian scientists, civilians, and children had been killed in attacks carried out with US and Israeli weapons.
“Those who are terrorists and train and protect terrorists describe us as such. We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,” Pezeshkian said.
He accused the United States and the Israeli occupation of targeting Iranian universities, healthcare centers, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, describing such attacks as violations of international law.
Pezeshkian also recalled the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on the day of his presidential inauguration, saying the incident demonstrated the threats facing Iran.
Turning to Gaza, he said more than 80,000 civilians had been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, accusing the Israeli occupation of committing genocide while those who resist it are labeled “terrorists”.
Iran defends its right to peaceful nuclear technology
A central part of Pezeshkian’s address focused on Iran’s nuclear program.
He said Tehran seeks nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including medicine, agriculture, industry, and electricity generation, rejecting restrictions that would prevent Iran from developing such capabilities.
“Iran does not accept for nuclear technology to be at the exclusive disposal of some, of a handful,” he said. “We will not, we will not bow our head and give up the right that is inherently ours. We say it clearly, no nuclear weapons and no limitations to peaceful nuclear technology.”
Pezeshkian maintained that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons while insisting that its right to peaceful nuclear technology should not be restricted.
He also framed Iran’s military capabilities as defensive, arguing that Tehran needs sufficient strength to deter attacks against its territory.
“Iran must be powerful so as to avoid being threatened, to avoid its future being threatened,” he said, adding that Tehran does not seek hegemony or security at the expense of other countries.
Justice for Palestine key to Lasting peace in West Asia
The Iranian president devoted a significant portion of his speech to Palestine, describing Gaza as evidence of the failure of international mechanisms to prevent civilian suffering.
“Palestine remains an open wound on the conscience of the international community and Gaza remains a symbol of the failure of international mechanisms to prevent civilian suffering,” Pezeshkian said.
He argued that lasting peace in West Asia cannot be achieved without justice for Palestinians, linking the continuation of resistance to the persistence of occupation, aggression, and displacement.
“Lasting peace in West Asia is impossible without justice for Palestine,” he said. “As long as occupation, aggression and injustice persist in the world, resistance will continue.”
Pezeshkian also rejected the notion that resistance could be eliminated through military force, arguing that Palestinians would continue resisting attempts to remove them from their land.
He called for regional issues to be addressed by countries in the region rather than through the intervention of outside powers.
Iran calls for regional security, diplomacy
Addressing regional relations, the Iranian president said Iran does not regard neighboring countries as security rivals and instead wants strong neighbors and regional cooperation.
On the Strait of Hormuz, he said Iran could not accept a situation in which outside powers benefited from the waterway while using it to impose military pressure and insecurity on Iran.
“We will not succumb to that. The expansion of warfare will not result in security,” he said.
His remarks came amid heightened tensions surrounding the strategic waterway and the wider US war on Iran. Iran has previously signaled that the Strait of Hormuz could form part of discussions over de-escalation if US military and economic pressure is reduced and the blockade is lifted.
Pezeshkian said regional security cannot be achieved by one country alone, arguing that neighboring states must cooperate to establish a broader security framework.
Iran remains open to negotiations
The Iranian president also directly addressed those responsible for aggression against Iran, saying Tehran had demonstrated that it could not be forced into surrender.
“Iran has never, ever been an aggressor, has never started a war, and has always shown her commitment to the negotiating table,” Pezeshkian said.
He stressed that Iran would continue defending itself while maintaining its readiness for diplomacy.
Addressing Trump directly, Pezeshkian said Iran was prepared to engage in dialogue and negotiations but would not accept negotiations conducted under military pressure.
“Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force,” he said.
The speech came as Iranian and US officials were communicating indirectly through mediators on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Reuters reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicated through mediators on Wednesday, marking the first such contacts in months.
Pezeshkian concluded by calling for an international order based on equal rights, justice, human dignity, and the rejection of double standards.
“A peace that does not encompass all is no peace and fairness and justice that does not embrace all is not worthy of being called justice and fairness,” he said.
Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad during an interview with AL-Manar (August 2025).
Head of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad said a national consensus on a comprehensive security and defense strategy requires a sovereign authority, stressing that the resistance group’s red lines remain unchanged.
In an interview with Al-Modon, published on Wednesday, MP Raad linked any discussion of the state’s monopoly on weapons to Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, an end to Isrseli attacks, and the deployment of the Lebanese Army south of the Litani River, describing these steps as a prelude to reaching agreement on a comprehensive national defense strategy.
On negotiations, MP Raad voiced Hezbollah’s readiness to engage positively with any agreement that guarantees an Israeli withdrawal and a cessation of hostilities, provided it is reached through indirect negotiations and entails no concessions to the Israeli enemy.
The senior Hezbollah lawmaker called on President Joseph Aoun to uphold the Constitution and the National Accord Document while safeguarding national unity.
MP Raad reaffirmed the strength of Hezbollah’s ties with Iran, stressing the Israeli Republic’s keenness to keep Lebanon as the first item on the agenda for implementation under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
The Hezbollah MP, meanwhile, referred to strong relation with Amal Movement, saying they “remain in a strong position,” while declining to comment on the possibility of direct US dialogue with Hezbollah.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei warned regional countries against joining a US plan to restrict Iranian aviation, saying any attempt to prevent Iranian aircraft from using regional airports could affect flights from those countries as well.
Speaking to Iranian state television on Wednesday, Rezaei said Iran would respond to US President Donald Trump’s remarks about the war against Iran, describing Trump’s UN General Assembly speech as the address of “a defeated criminal” seeking to defend himself.
Rezaei said Iran has not attacked other countries since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and has only defended itself. He hit back at the US and the Israeli regime for waging aggression and said Iran has emerged from the war with greater power.
Rezaei also stated that Iran has inflicted serious damage on US military assets during the conflict, including striking advanced US aircraft and targeting the USS George Washington. He further noted that Iran has seized a US submarine and is conducting reverse engineering on it.
On diplomacy, Rezaei said there has been no change in Iran’s position and that Tehran is pursuing a new diplomatic approach.
“We are not returning to the past,” he said, stressing that the US must take concrete steps to regain the trust of the Iranian people.
“If America does not first fulfill our conditions, neither will the Strait of Hormuz open nor will we negotiate,” Rezaei said.
He said Iran has seven conditions, which have been put in writing and conveyed through Pakistan and Qatar. He added that Tehran’s conditions must be fulfilled before the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.
Rezaei said Iran is seeking guarantees as part of its new diplomacy, stressing that the Strait of Hormuz remains an instrument for securing Iran’s rights.
He also rejected accusations that Iran seeks war, saying Yemenis are independent and that Tehran does not want a conflict between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Reacting to the US plan to sanction Iranian aircraft, Rezaei urged regional states not to cooperate with Washington in restricting Iran’s aviation sector.
“We ask all the countries of the region not to join America’s adventure,” he said.
“If they do not allow Iranian aircraft to travel, their own airports will not be able to have flights either,” Rezaei warned.
“You are our friends, but you should not join America’s ranks. You should prevent the war from spreading,” he told the regional and neighboring states.
Four decades after the massacre, activists from Italy, Argentina and international solidarity movements gathered at the Sabra and Shatila cemetery, linking the memory of those killed to the harrowing genocide still unfolding across Palestine, Lebanon and the wider region.
Rain fell over the entrance of the Sabra and Shatila cemetery as mourners and activists made their way toward the graves, some weeping beneath the gray sky. The passage into the cemetery carried the weight of 44 years of memory, as if the people massacred here had never truly left the place.
Their names, their killings, and the grief of their families remain embedded in the site, where international activists joined Palestinians and Lebanese to mark the 44th anniversary of the massacre.
A memory inseparable from the present
But for those who traveled from abroad, the commemoration was not simply an act of looking back.
It was a declaration that memory remains inseparable from the present.
For Italian activist Caterina Mari, the responsibility to remember Sabra and Shatila has been passed from one generation to the next. She recalled Italian journalist Stefano Chiarini, who repeatedly visited Lebanon and helped bring attention to the cemetery and its victims.
“Now in Italy we take the testimony,” Mari told Al Mayadeen English. “As young people we have the obligation to do that.”
She said that obligation is also connected to the complicity of Western governments in supporting “Israel”.
Same bloodied hands
Mari argued that international activists gathering at Sabra and Shatila are not there to dictate how Palestinians should live, but to stand alongside those resisting oppression.
“The Palestinians and all the oppressed people in the world, they must choose by themselves,” she told Al Mayadeen English. “We are not the people that come here and say how to live.”
For Mari, the connection between Sabra and Shatila and the Israeli aggression across West Asia today is direct.
“The perpetrators are always the same,” she said, pointing to Western governments that support “Israel”.
“And the massacre here is the same massacre that happened today. Because it’s the same hands.”
She added that activists must go beyond commemorating the victims.
“We, as a testimony, have to stop all of this,” Mari said. “Not only to march, but to stop all of this.”
‘More important than ever’
Eulalia Millaret, an Italian activist with the organization Don’t Forget Sabra and Shatila, said the passage of time has made remembrance more urgent rather than less relevant.
“It’s more important than ever right now,” she stressed.
For Millaret, remembering Sabra and Shatila also means remembering the victims of subsequent massacres.
“We will never forget, not only Sabra and Shatila, but all the massacres that have been going on during all these years,” she told Al Mayadeen English, referring to the Israeli genocide in Gaza as well as Israeli aggression in Lebanon, most notably in south Lebanon, Beirut and the capital’s Southern Suburb.
“And we will never forget any of these massacres and any of the people that have lost their lives, any of the martyrs,” she added.
Millaret said international activists are also working in their own countries to pressure governments to sever relations with “Israel”.
“We try to fight always with the same message, to pressure our governments to stop any kind of relationship with the genocidal state of Israel,” she said.
She linked the continuation of aggression to the persistence of Israeli occupation.
“Because Israel still exists. That’s the main problem. The occupation is still ongoing,” Millaret emphasized.
In Millaret’s view, activists would continue supporting resistance in both Palestine and Lebanon.
From Gaza to Sabra and Shatila
For Vincenzo Fullone, an Italian activist with the Freedom Flotilla, arriving at Sabra and Shatila was part of a wider effort to stand with Palestinians.
Fullone told Al Mayadeen English that he had participated in the latest Freedom Flotilla mission toward Gaza aboard the Conscience and was abducted by “Israel” for five days at Ketziot.
He recalled demanding the release of Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya and urged people not to forget Palestinian medical workers.
“Please, don’t forget Hussam. Don’t forget the doctors of the children,” he pleaded.
Fullone added that when activists are prevented from reaching Gaza, their solidarity does not stop.
“We are in Lebanon today because if they block us toward Gaza, we arrive in Sabra Shatila because the Palestinian is here too,” he said.
For him, the Palestinian presence in Lebanon is itself part of the story of forcible displacement and continuing occupation.
“The Palestinian is in a refugee camp,” he said. “The Palestinian is under genocide in Lebanon.”
“Free Palestine”
Asked what message international activists were sending by gathering at the cemetery, Fullone responded simply, “Free Palestine!”
He said activists should learn from Palestinian resistance rather than speak on behalf of Palestinians.
“We learn the resistance from Palestinian people,” he said. “To learn the resistance because the West forgets the resistance.”
Fullone also drew a direct line between the massacre commemorated at the cemetery and the current regional Israeli aggression unfolding today across West Asia.
“It’s the same mind. The same terrorists,” he stressed.
He pointed to the continued Israeli occupation and incursions in Palestinian cities and territories, as well as Lebanon, saying, “They occupy Palestine in Ramallah. They occupy Palestine in Jenin. They occupy Palestine in Gaza. They occupy Palestine in Lebanon.”
Memory as an act of resistance
For Argentine activist Lissandro Brusco, the gathering was rooted in the idea that people retain the memory of massacres and transform that memory into political action.
“Because the people have memory, because the people choose to resist,” Brusco told Al Mayadeen English when asked why activists continue to gather at Sabra and Shatila 44 years later.
He described the gathering of Palestinians, Lebanese and international activists in Beirut as a refusal to forget the massacre or reconcile with those he holds responsible.
“We do not forget, we do not forgive, we do not reconcile,” Brusco said.
His message extended beyond commemoration.
“The message for all of us is not to resign, to follow the path of the struggle,” he said, pointing to Palestinians as well as people in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.
A struggle extending beyond Palestine
Brusco framed the present struggle as extending beyond Palestine, describing it as a confrontation involving North American imperialism and the Israeli colonial entity.
“Today is the message precisely of not forgetting to continue the struggle,” he affirmed.
For him, the significance of the anniversary therefore lies not only in remembering those massacred in 1982, but in carrying their memory into the present.
“Not only to vindicate and make a commemorative act, but to continue this struggle,” Brusco said.
Forty-four years later
As the rain continued around the cemetery, the anniversary brought together people whose lives and backgrounds stretch far beyond Beirut, activists from Italy, Argentina and international solidarity movements standing alongside Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Iraqis and Yemenis.
Their political positions differ in language and emphasis, but their interviews converge on one point: Sabra and Shatila remains, for them, a living memory rather than a closed chapter.
The cemetery has become a place where remembrance meets activism, where the victims of 1982 are remembered alongside those killed in subsequent genocides.
Forty-four years on, Sabra and Shatila remains more than a memory for those who return each year. The voices of survivors, the memory of those killed, and the testimony of activists keep the massacre in the public record, drawing a line between a tragedy remembered and genocides still being documented today. For those gathered at the cemetery, remembrance is not an endpoint; it is a demand that the victims not be forgotten and that history not be allowed to repeat itself.
Supporters of Yemeni Ansar Allah march with a poster showing Seyyed Abdul Malik Badreddine Al-Houthi during a rally to markthe 12-years anvirsary of September 21 Revolution, Yemen, Sunday, Sept. 20,2026 (AP)
Ansar Allah marks the September 21 Revolution, highlighting Yemen’s regional role, sovereignty efforts, and continued opposition to the Saudi-led blockade.
The September Revolution enabled Yemen to play the role of a regional actor, noting that the Yemeni people continue to fight for independence and the lifting of the Saudi-led blockade, the Ansar Allah movement said on Monday.
In a statement marking the September 21 Revolution, the movement’s Political Bureau said, “The steadfastness and resilience of our people in the face of the aggression represented the hallmark of their blessed revolution, which united societal efforts.”
The Political Bureau affirmed that “the youthful revolution and the principles on which it was founded moved Yemen to the position of a regional actor,” noting that “the army of the September 21 revolution carried out its humanitarian and moral role in supporting Gaza and confronting the war of extermination.”
It also stressed that the Yemeni people “continue to wage the battle for sovereignty and independence until the aggression is halted, the blockade is lifted, and their legitimate goals are achieved.”
The September 21 Revolution refers to September 21, 2014, when the Ansar Allah movement took control of political decision-making headquarters in the capital, Sanaa, following armed clashes in response to large popular protests in the capital that rejected the previous government’s decisions to lift subsidies on petroleum derivatives.
Security apparatuses on full alert to foil enemy schemes: Interior Ministry
Elsewhere, the Interior Minister of Sanaa, Major General Abdul Karim al-Houthi, affirmed that security agencies are fully ready and prepared to thwart all plans of the enemy and its tools and to respond to security challenges.
The minister explained that security agencies have already begun providing all security and administrative services to the residents of the liberated districts in the western coast region.
This comes as the head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, affirmed on Sunday that what the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out in some coastal areas was “a national operation to impose sovereignty and expel Saudi mobilizations.”
He also stressed that “the options will escalate and take more painful forms,” adding, “We will not retreat from our rights even if we offer our lives as the price for that.”
This comes as the Yemeni Armed Forces confront Saudi-backed forces in several governorates, after launching preemptive strikes against their field mobilizations, in parallel with Yemeni forces targeting vital facilities in Saudi territory in response to its aggression and blockade of the country.
The Major Confrontation – Latest Edition | The New York Times: Saudi Arabia’s request for military support puts Trump in a bind | …المواجهة الكبرى – آخر طبعة | “نيويورك تايمز”: طلب السعودية دعماً عسكرياً يضع ترامب في مأزق | …
The “Fedayeen for Iran” drills began in Tehran on Friday morning, with 313,000 Iranians taking part, according to the Mehr News Agency. The gathering marks Sacred Defense Week and the 200th night of the Iranian people’s steadfastness in the face of US-Israeli aggression.
The drill began at 8:00 am, with participants from across Iran marching from Imam Hussein Square and the nearby highway intersection toward Enqelab Square.
The drill is organized under the “My Life as a Sacrifice” initiative, run by the IRGC’s Mohammad Rasoul Allah Corps. Brigadier General Hassan Hassanzadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ Mohammad Rasoul Allah Corps in Tehran, told Al Mayadeen that roughly 33 million Iranians have registered to join the initiative nationwide, with registrations in Tehran alone surpassing 400,000 ahead of Friday’s event.
On Friday morning, Iranians took to the streets to participate in the Fedayeen of Iran military and popular maneuver.
Hassanzadeh said that Friday’s event was one of the largest drills and organized popular gatherings in the country’s history, adding that “friends and enemies alike” would witness it.
Iranian officials have repeatedly affirmed that the Iranian people stand fully prepared to mobilize and make sacrifices in defense of their land, country, and national achievements.
Iran more prepared than before the 12-Day War
Speaking to Al Mayadeen ahead of the drill, Hassanzadeh said Iran is now more prepared than it was before the 12-Day War and the Ramadan War, noting that Tehran operates within a defensive strategy to protect itself, its country, its values, and its people.
He stressed that the US and “Israel” failed to defeat or destabilize Iran, and that the hostilities against the country instead strengthened national cohesion.
“Throughout history, the Iranian people have proven that whenever they face aggression, they become more united,” Hassanzadeh said.
Continued missile production
Hassanzadeh said the IRGC holds extensive military capabilities and equipment that have not yet been disclosed, adding that Iran used only a portion of its capabilities in prior confrontations. He warned that Iran’s adversaries would “experience these capabilities” if necessary.
He added that Iran’s missile and drone production and development continue at full pace without interruption, and that Iranian forces have reached a higher level of readiness to respond to any aggression targeting the country.
Riyadh Shelled, Shock in Tel Aviv… Yemen Is Being Slaughtered with Cotton Wool, Yet Saudi Arabia Is Surrendering! The F-35 Has Fallen for Good – Najah Mohammed Ali قصف الرياض وصدمة في تل أبيب.. اليمن يذبح بالقطنة والسعودية تستلم! ال f35 سقطت للأبد نجاح محمد علي
A battalion of volunteer forces parades in Tehran during the Janfada drill on September 18, 2026, as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other officials attend the event (Photo by ISNA).
The massive “Janfada-ye Iran / Sacrifice for Iran” rally began in Tehran on Friday, bringing together hundreds of thousands of people, including women, youth and other segments of the Iranian public, with simultaneous gatherings held across the country.
In Tehran, the main rally features a 313,000-strong parade stretching from Imam Hussein Square to Enghelab Square, highlighting the broad public participation in the Janfada-ye Iran campaign.
The figure 313 carries particular significance in Islamic tradition. It is associated with the Battle of Badr in 624 CE, the first major battle of the early Muslim community, whose victory became an important symbol of faith and steadfastness in Islamic history.
The rally also features a display of Iranian drones, showcasing part of the country’s indigenous unmanned aerial capabilities.
Thousands of people took part in the “Sacrifice for Iran” campaign in Tehran, staging a march from Imam Hossein Square to Enghelab Square to demonstrate national unity.
Thousands of people took part in the “Sacrifice for Iran” campaign in Tehran, staging a march from Imam Hossein Square to Enghelab Square to demonstrate national unity.
Veterans of the Sacred Defense wars have also joined the gathering, while women and Iranian youth are taking part in separate sections of the parade, according to Tasnim news agency.
Participants wearing burial shrouds have also joined the rally, symbolizing their readiness to sacrifice themselves in defense of Iran.
⚡️BREAKING: Mobilization has Begun in Tehran with the aim of Forming 1,000 Battalions and will now be Expanded to the Entire Country pic.twitter.com/p2hI6HizRH
According to General Hassan-Zadeh, commander of the Greater Tehran Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, about 500,000 people had registered in Tehran to participate in the event.
The “Janfada-ye Iran” campaign began on March 29 following the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, and has since grown into a nationwide mobilization with more than 32 million participants, as a symbol of faith, steadfastness and readiness for sacrifice in defense of the country.
On the Second Anniversary of the Israeli Pager Massacre, the Wounded sent a message to affirm steadfastness and allegiance to the Resistance path, command and community.
What follows is the full text of the message:
On the second anniversary of the epic of patience and blood, when betrayal wore the cloak of technology, a light shines from the darkness of wounds that does not fade. Two years since the “pager” massacre; the enemy thought through its betrayal that it would break the will of the resistance and paralyze its community, only to be astonished when those wounds turned into a bridge of certainty, and the loss of sight became a insight illuminating the path to victory.
We stand before a story crafted by blood and limbs—a story of men who defied the impossible and wrote a new chapter of pride and dignity through their pain.
Before that fateful day, the lives of these noble men were full of vitality and vigor, flowing with tireless jihad across various fields. In their community, they were a beneficial rain, racing day and night so that no price was too high for the dignity of this proud environment. They served people with love and humility, defending their families and villages with all their strength and might. They were stern against enemies, merciful among themselves. In their homes, they were tranquility and joy—affectionate fathers, dutiful sons, and supportive husbands who filled every corner with laughter and hope. They watched their children grow day by day, caring for their comfort, sharing the smallest and largest details of life, instilling values of pride, surrounding them with overflowing affection, and leading social life with unflagging energy.
Then came that moment—the moment of betrayal that the enemy intended to be the end, but God made a passage toward a higher glory. Explosions echoed, shrapnel flew, and blood mixed with the soil. The features of the body changed, but the identity remained untouched.
Limbs that used to greet the dawn were lost, eyes that guarded the borders were extinguished, and fresh bodies were transformed into records telling stories of steadfastness. From the womb of those pains, and after a long and arduous treatment journey, these heroes did not bow to the storm, nor did they surrender to the wounds that marked their bodies as badges of honor.
The wounded of the resistance have never surrendered, and never will.
The proof lies in what we witnessed in previous stages of conflict and during the battle of “Al-Asf Al-Ma’kul” (The Eaten Chaff). Heroic fighters were injured by pagers and lost an eye, yet they unhesitatingly continued the path of jihad with their remaining eye, inspired by the resolve of Hussein. Some had a limb amputated, yet carried their weapon with the other hand, armed with the might of Abbas. Among these free men were those who continued the path until later earning the honor of martyrdom, while others suffered new injuries resulting in paralysis—yet their spirit remained vibrant and their determination was never paralyzed.
Today, these proud men pass their days not on the margins of life, but once again in the very heart of the battle. The loss of sight or limbs did not prevent them from continuing the path; they awoke to announce a new jihadi beginning. In their lexicon, jihad is not limited to carrying weapons on the frontlines; it is a vast and expansive field. They transformed into knights in the “Jihad of Clarification,” carrying the free word, pursuing knowledge, and memorizing the Holy Quran, dedicating whatever health remains to raising a resistant generation that does not break. It is the spirit that merges human emotion and deep pain with firm resolve and unrelenting Husseini might.
Our Message to Our Honorable Resistance Community: “Our Insight Is the Secret of Our Steadfastness”
O people of patience and loyalty, O environment of pride that embraced our blood and wounds: we are from you, and through you we continue. Our pledge to you is that these wounds will remain a beacon illuminating the path of honor, and that we will be nothing less than an impregnable shield for you. Your sacrifices with us and your pride in our wounds are the fuel that enables us to overcome every pain, building together an invincible resistance community.
“O our loyal people, the enemy intended through its deceit and treacherous crime to sear our consciousness, weaken our resolves, and rob us of the will to fight in order to cast despair and frustration into your hearts. But today, through our blood and wounds, we convey to you a message of pride and lofty dignity: Do not worry about us, and do not look at us with pity or defeat, for we are still in the heart of the battle. All this devotion we have offered, and all the sacrifices you have made in homes, wealth, and beautiful patience, will not be in vain, but will inevitably be crowned with a near victory, and God does not break His promise. We will break the enemy’s malicious plans, and as long as our insight pulses and our patience grows stronger, we see on the horizon nothing but the tidings of victory and a clear conquest.”
A Message to the Enemy: The Wounds Are Our Weapon
“To this brutal enemy who is ignorant of the nature of our men: You thought that by cutting hands and taking eyes you would extinguish God’s light in our hearts or deter us from the choice of resistance. Know that you are delusional; every wound in our bodies has become a mouth speaking the truth, every amputated palm has turned into a raised flag, and every lost eye has become an insight illuminating the path of the mujahideen toward Jerusalem. We say to you with the might of Abbas and the insight of Hussein: You will never be able to erase our mark, and every wound in us is a promise of your destruction. We do not die; we extend, and our wounds today are our strongest weapon with which we will disturb your sleep, and tomorrow is near for those who await it.”
A Message to the Leader of the Resistance: Remaining Faithful to the Covenant
“To his eminence, our inspiring leader and dear secretary of our resistance: O Sheikh Qassem, our wounds are our renewed oath of allegiance to you every day. A pledge to you from our hearts—which have never beat and will never beat except with loyalty—and from our bodies that take pride in what they bore in the cause of God: We are at your command, and what our bodies failed to do, our spirits and determinations will carry out. Take from our blood and wounds until you are satisfied, and know that you lead men who, even if blood flowed from their veins as rivers, would never leave the arena, nor abandon the path. We are with you, and through you we will cross to the great prayer of victory.”
To the Remnant of God on His Earth, the Master of the Era and Refuge of Hearts (may our souls be sacrificed for the dirt beneath his feet):
Peace be upon you, my master, in our trial and our patience. Peace be upon you the day you were born and the day you are raised alive to wipe over hearts that have bled with longing and wounds.
My master, O Master of the Affair… Here we stand today on the second anniversary of our wounds, carrying to you scars that we count on our bodies as badges of dignity. Yesterday we were in a position of silent giving, moving in the fields of daily jihad—planting resistance in the land and guarding the borders with eyes fixed on victory. Suddenly, on that memorable day, a door of a great test opened before us, and we transitioned from the stage of obscure field work to the threshold of bleeding wounds; a threshold where limbs and eyes were taken from us, but which granted us an unextinguishing insight and an unyielding resolve. The conditions of our bodies changed, but our hearts remained on the same covenant, moving today in a state of strategic patience, dressing the wound and continuing the journey—neither disability has sidelined us, nor has pain turned us away from supporting your religion.
My master, these wounds of ours are but a ray from the eternal Husseini revolution. We learned in the school of Karbala that the body perishes while the creed remains. Even if we have lost eyes or limbs, today we embody the might of Abbas (peace be upon him)—that might which knows no defeat. If hands are severed from us, our spirits will remain defending the tents of resistance, and if eyes are injured, we see the splendor of your coming victory with even greater clarity.
They threw us into the well of darkness, as Joseph was thrown into the depths of the pit, thinking that absence swallows the story, unaware that God was with him, and that the shirt emerging from the heart of trial was good news that loss may conceal within it the secret of reunion.
In the depth of the wound, we learned to shake the trunk of light; we do what we can, then leave it to the Unseen to drop upon us the fresh dates of His mercy. Joseph emerged from the pit as a noble ruler, Moses emerged from the river to fulfill his message, and Mary stood beneath the palm trunk carrying a secret greater than her capacity to speak. Thus, God does not ask the wounded person to be a stone that feels no pain; He only asks them to be a soul that knows how to turn its pain into a path toward Him.
O Master of the Era… Our wounds complain to you of the length of absence, and beseech God by the blood of the oppressed to hasten your honorable relief, so that we may be in your ranks as soldiers, the wounded, and martyrs.
Palestinians carry the body of Nael Abo Obeida commander of Qussan Brigades in Rafah during funeral after he was killed in an Israel attack in Khan Younis, Wednday, Sept, 16, 2026. (AP Photto/Yousef Al Zanoun)
Anonymous IOF sources claim the assassinations dealt a severe blow to the Resistance’s command, and that Hamas sees them as crossing red lines.
The Israeli occupation forces’ Southern Command is preparing for a possible response by the Palestinian Resistance after assassinating a string of senior Hamas commanders in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, according to sources cited by “Israel’s” i24NEWS.
The report, published Wednesday by i24News’ military affairs analyst Yossi Yehoshua, says that the IOF has killed two brigade commanders, a battalion commander, and a number of company commanders in an assassination campaign in Gaza.
The anonymous sources within the Southern Command claimed the killings were a severe blow to the Resistance’s command structure and said Hamas views the assassinations as a crossing of red lines.
The IOF has therefore stepped up security measures alongside its ongoing aggression in Gaza, the sources said, running a “parallel defensive effort” to thwart any Hamas attempt to carry out an attack.
Commanders martyred in the campaign
Among those martyred were Rafah Brigade commander Nael Atiya Mohammad Abu Obeid, known as “Abu Atiya,” killed in an Israeli assassination operation on Tuesday, and Khan Younis Brigade commander Mohammed al-Yazouri, martyred in an assassination operation carried out by enemy aircraft on September 11.
Both were members of al-Qassam Brigades’ General Military Council, and both were mourned by the group in statements vowing to continue their path.
The count, published September 14, includes 1,787 live-fire attacks, 1,967 airstrikes and shelling incidents, 184 military incursions, 453 home demolitions, and 90 detention operations, amounting to roughly 14 violations a day since the ceasefire began.
The violations have killed 1,381 Palestinians, including at least 278 children, and wounded 4,757 others, with 186 Palestinians detained.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have released footage showing the downing of the Saudi F-15 fighter jet and its wreckage in Marib, while announcing another operation targeting a Wing Loong II drone.
The Yemeni Military Media released footage of the downing of a Saudi F-15 fighter jet over Marib Governorate, as the Saudi aggression against Yemen continues while the Yemeni Armed Forces respond with top-tier operations targeting hostile aircraft and enemy ground forces.
The aircraft downed by the Yemeni Armed Forces, tail number 5529, was Saudi Arabia’s most advanced F-15 variant, surpassing the older F-15C/D in radar, ground-attack capability, flight controls, countermeasures, and several other systems, and costing up to $110 million or more.
Only Qatar’s F-15QA and the newer F-15EX, which has yet to enter service in significant numbers, are more modern.
Earlier today, spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the aircraft was targeted and brought down using a homegrown surface-to-air missile, marking a successful operation against Saudi aerial aggression.
Saree said the operation comes in response to Saudi aerial aggression after Saudi warplanes carried out more than 450 airstrikes during the past week using F-15 and Typhoon aircraft launched from the Khamis Mushait and Taif air bases.
YAF down Wing Loong II over Marib
In another operation, spokesperson Yahya Saree announced that the armed forces had intercepted and successfully shot down a Saudi-operated Wing Loong II drone over Marib.
According to Saree, the aircraft was downed while carrying hostile missions over the governorate using the appropriate weapons.
The first operation targeted Saudi Aramco facilities in Yanbu with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones, according to the statement. Saree said the strikes directly hit their targets, causing major fires and extensive damage.
The second operation targeted the Khamis Mushait airbase with several ballistic missiles. The statement said the attack also achieved a direct hit.
Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree in an image from archive.
Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced in a statement two qualitative military operations against Saudi targets in response to the Saudi aggression and ongoing siege.
What follows is the full text of the statement:
The criminal Saudi enemy continues its unjust aggression and oppressive siege against our country and our people for twelve years, and has escalated its aggression this week by launching more than 450 airstrikes targeting most Yemeni governorates.
In response to this brutal aggression against our country and people, the Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah’s help, carried out two qualitative military operations:
The first targeted the Aramco facility in Yanbu with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones, the strikes were precise and direct, thanks be to Allah, causing large fires and widespread destruction.
The second targeted the Khamis Mushait Air Base with a number of ballistic missiles, and the strikes were also precise, thanks be to Allah. The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to defend our country and our people, and will teach the criminal Saudi enemy lessons they will never forget, relying on Allah Almighty and placing their trust in Him, the best of protectors and the best of helpers.
We will continue our military operations deep inside Saudi territory, targeting Saudi troop buildups, and maintaining the equation of “a siege for a siege” and “an escalation for an escalation” until the aggression ceases and the blockade on our beloved country is lifted.
The Yemeni Armed Forces on Wednesday declared a new operation in which they shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet over Marib Governorate while it was conducting hostile mission.
The aircraft was downed by a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile, Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said while reading a statement.
He said Saudi warplanes had carried out more than 450 airstrikes across seven Yemeni governorates this week, using F-15 and Typhoon aircraft launched from Khamis Mushait and Taif airbases, causing Yemeni civilian casualties.
“In the face of this brutal aggression against our country and people, the Yemeni Armed Forces, with God’s help and grace, were able to shoot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet,” Brig. Gen. Saree said.
In a related operation, Yemeni forces engaged two Saudi F-15 and Typhoon fighter formations over Marib with locally manufactured missiles, forcing them to retreat while searching for the wreckage of the downed aircraft, according to the Yemeni military spokesman.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to protect our country’s airspace and sovereignty from any aggression or violation by all available means,” he said, adding that Yemen’s airspace “will not be violated.”
In a related operation, Yemeni forces engaged two Saudi F-15 and Typhoon fighter formations over Marib with locally manufactured missiles, forcing them to retreat while searching for the wreckage of the downed aircraft, according to the Yemeni military spokesman.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to protect our country’s airspace and sovereignty from any aggression or violation by all available means,” he said, adding that Yemen’s airspace “will not be violated.”
Claims on Targeting Mecca
Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Saree firmly rejected Saudi claims that Yemeni operations had targeted the holy sites, saying Yemen’s attacks are directed at Saudi oil facilities and military bases and “are far removed from the holy sites.”
Earlier, the Saudi-led Coalition claimed that Saudi air defenses intercepted and destroyed a Yemeni drone before it entered the restricted airspace over the holy city of Mecca.
For his part, Member of Yemen’s Ansarullah politburo Hizam Al-Assad dismissed Saudi claims as a “tired, worn-out lie.”
“No one believes anymore, O’ Jeffrey Epstein’s widows,” he said on his X account, adding an insulting reference to the Arab allies of the US.
مزاعم استهداف مكة المكرمة كذبةٌ ممجوجة استُهلكت سابقًا، ولم تعد تنطلي على أحد، يا أرامل جيفري إبستين!
A new Pentagon Inspector General Report revealed that Operation Epic Fury cost an estimated $33.4 billion between February 28 and June 30, 2026, leading to critical munitions shortages.
“Operation Epic Fury (OEF) was launched by U.S. forces on February 28, 2026, as a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran. The operation was carried out through coordinated air, land, sea, cyber, and space capabilities,” the report maintained.
“Before the operation began, the United States had already strengthened its military presence and regional partnerships. Thousands of service members, fighter aircraft, refueling tankers, aircraft carriers, supplies, and intelligence assets were moved into the region. During the major combat phase from February 28 to April 7, U.S. forces reportedly struck about 13,500 targets and conducted approximately 36,000 combat sorties and more than 1,800 fire missions. Targets included missile bases, air defenses, command centers, naval facilities, weapons-storage sites, and parts of Iran’s defense industry.”
The Strait of Hormuz became a major focus of the operation because of its importance to international shipping and energy supplies, the Pentagon report added.
“A ceasefire with Iran was announced on April 7 in order to create an opportunity for negotiations, although U.S. forces remained prepared to resume combat. Diplomatic efforts continued with the involvement of Pakistan and other regional actors. On June 17, the United States and Iran signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, with Pakistan acting as mediator. The agreement included arrangements for safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and proposed an initial 60-day period for negotiations on a final agreement.”
“The operation required a very large U.S. military deployment. More than 50,000 U.S. service members were deployed throughout the U.S. Central Command area. At the height of the conflict, the force included numerous fighter squadrons, destroyers, air-defense batteries, THAAD missile-defense systems, HIMARS, and part of the 82nd Airborne Division. Two carrier strike groups and two Marine Expeditionary Units also supported the operation,” the report added.
The Pentagon report indicated, “The United States also worked closely with ‘Israel’ and other regional partners. American Patriot and THAAD systems operated alongside Israeli Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome systems. Gulf countries strengthened their own air defenses with U.S. military sales, training, and information-sharing.”
“The conflict caused significant damage to U.S. military facilities and equipment. Iranian attacks damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in several Middle Eastern countries. Dozens of U.S. aircraft were also damaged or destroyed, including fighter aircraft, refueling aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned systems. These losses increased the financial and logistical burden of sustaining the operation and replacing damaged equipment.”
“The estimated cost of Operation Epic Fury reached $33.4 billion as of June 29. This figure included $7.4 billion in additional operational obligations, $22.3 billion for expended munitions, and $3.7 billion for equipment losses. However, the estimate did not include infrastructure-repair costs or some broader economic effects. The difficulty of calculating the full cost was partly due to the fact that Congress had not provided a specific FY2026 appropriation for OEF.”
“The conflict also affected U.S. diplomatic operations throughout the region. Iranian strikes damaged U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with estimated damage of about $184 million. Approximately 3,500 diplomatic personnel were at some point on authorized or ordered departure or outside their posts. Several facilities, including U.S. diplomatic missions in Baghdad and Beirut, temporarily closed or suspended operations.”
“Protecting and evacuating American citizens became another major U.S. government responsibility,” the Pentagon report noted.
Mohsen Rezaei Appointed Sayyed Khamenei’s Representative, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary (August) 9, 2026)
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Major General Mohsen Rezaei said Iran will not enter negotiations with the United States until Tehran’s conditions are met, dismissing mixed signals from US President Donald Trump.
“Don’t get distracted by the U.S. president’s mixed signals—from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we’re ready to talk,’” Rezaei said in a post on X in English language.
Don’t get distracted by the U.S. president’s mixed signals—from “no negotiations” to “we’re ready to talk.” The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming. No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!
He added that “the stakes around oil and the straits have changed,” warning that “damage control won’t stop what’s coming.”
“No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!” Rezaei stressed.
Trump’s Shifted Rhetoric
The warning by the top Iranian security official came hours after US President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social that “Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly,” while saying he would decide “whether or not the USA will choose to engage” and acknowledging that Washington was open to the idea.
The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage – The concept of which we are open to. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) September 14, 2026
Trump’s latest remarks contrasted with his earlier statements. In August, he claimed that “there are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” while insisting that the naval blockade remained in place and falsely stating that the Strait of Hormuz was “open and operating.”
On the same day, however, his son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner said discussions with Iran were “probably more robust than it’s maybe ever been.”
Trump has repeatedly shifted his rhetoric, at times threatening to “keep the oil like Venezuela,” claiming Iran was “calling constantly” to negotiate, and suggesting that the war would end only after the US midterm elections.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A rapid advance by Yemen’s Ansarullah toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait has opened another strategic challenge for US President Donald Trump as the war on Iran enters its seventh month, adding pressure on Washington amid growing disruption to regional energy and shipping routes.
Ansarullah forces have advanced south along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, seizing the strategic port city of Mocha and moving toward positions around the Bab el-Mandeb, including Perim Island in the middle of the strait.
The development comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains heavily disrupted, leaving Washington facing the prospect of simultaneous pressure on two of the Middle East’s most important maritime corridors.
The widening crisis has further complicated Trump’s efforts to contain the consequences of a war that has already placed pressure on US energy prices, military resources and domestic politics.
Separately, the advance has increased pressure on Saudi Arabia, which has relied more heavily on Red Sea ports to move oil while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely constrained.
Reuters reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Trump on Thursday and sought US military assistance against Ansarullah, but Washington has so far declined to intervene directly and has instead offered intelligence support.
Trump confirmed the conversation on Saturday and said Ansarullah had also contacted his administration and asked Washington not to become directly involved.
A senior Trump administration official said the United States remains focused on national security interests, including freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, while seeking to have regional partners take the lead in addressing regional security challenges.
The situation leaves the United States facing a difficult strategic choice.
Direct military intervention against Ansarullah would open another front for US forces already engaged in the conflict with Iran, while declining to intervene could leave Saudi Arabia and its regional partners to confront the advance themselves.
Analysts and former US officials have warned that a renewed American military campaign in Yemen could require significant naval, air and intelligence resources and further strain US stocks of munitions and air-defense interceptors.
The prospect also threatens to unravel an agreement reached last year under which the United States halted bombing Ansarullah in exchange for a halt to attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Any renewed US strikes could expose American forces to missile attacks from Yemen and expand the geographic scope of the conflict.
“This was always the worst-case scenario, that the Iranians exert control not only of Strait of Hormuz but Bab el-Mandeb, two of the leading energy choke points in the world,” said David Schenker, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during Trump’s first term and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.
“It’s an enormous amount of leverage that they have in hand.”
Meanwhile, the growing pressure on Washington comes as the economic consequences of the war on Iran intensify.
The International Energy Agency said global oil supply in 2026 is expected to decline by 5.7 million barrels per day because of continuing Middle East conflict and disruptions to Persian Gulf energy routes, while Saudi oil production has fallen sharply.
Reuters has also reported that crude prices have risen above $100 a barrel amid the continuing disruption, while US fuel prices have added to domestic political pressure on the Trump administration.
The military consequences are also becoming more difficult for Washington to contain.
The advance by Ansarullah now adds another layer to that conflict, potentially forcing Washington to choose between expanding its military involvement and accepting greater pressure on regional shipping and energy routes.
“Just weeks ago, Trump adopted a strategy of squeezing Iran’s economy while keeping military conflict at levels too low to squeeze the American economy,” said Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, Rear Admiral Brigadier General Ali Azmaei, indicated that the supertanker “Al Gaya” (IMO number 9325336), which intended to pass through the prohibited area in the southern Strait of Hormuz, exploded after striking naval mines.
Attempts to control the fire were to no avail, and the entire tanker was engulfed in flames. A warning regarding the danger of this illegal passage had been issued earlier, he added.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy firmly declares that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and remains under our smart control.”
Tunisian wave national flags to show support for their government in front of the prim minster’s office in Tunis, Friday, May 26, 2017. (APPhoto/Riadh Diradi)
Tunisian activists rallied in central Tunis in support of Sanaa on Sunday, expressing solidarity with Yemen amid the ongoing Saudi military campaign and blockade.
The demonstration was organized by the Tunisian Network Against Normalization, with participants saying Yemen had achieved what they described as an exceptional strategic victory in confronting the Saudi-led aggression.
“The world is witnessing these days an exceptional strategic victory achieved by the Yemeni people in confronting the aggression and blockade,” demonstrators said.
Participants raised the flags of Yemen, Iran, Palestine and Hezbollah, alongside slogans expressing support for the various fronts of the Resistance.
تونس: الناشطون المتظاهرون في العاصمة يرفعون رايات اليمن وإيران وفلسطين والحزب وشعارات داعمة لكل جبهات المـقاومـة#الميادينpic.twitter.com/BtqQVqe0H2
The demonstration comes amid renewed escalation between Sanaa and Saudi Arabia, with Yemeni officials continuing to frame their military operations as a response to the ongoing aggression and blockade.
The protesters expressed support for the Yemeni people and praised their continued retaliation against Saudi military pressure, portraying Yemen’s actions as part of a broader regional struggle against aggression.
The rally also reflected the Tunisian network’s opposition to normalization and its support for Palestinian and regional Resistance movements.
Demonstrators back Yemen’s confrontation with Saudi Arabia
The protest followed a series of developments announced by the Yemeni Armed Forces.
On Friday, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced that they had completed their control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait and Mayyun Island and reached the Dhubab district, amid the ongoing escalation with Saudi Arabia.
The developments came after the Yemeni Armed Forces announced a large-scale military operation on September 3 targeting what they described as Saudi military concentrations.
Sana’a said the operation was conducted in response to the continuing aggression and blockade against Yemen, as well as escalating attacks against residents and villages along the western coast.
The Yemeni military has repeatedly said it will maintain pressure on Saudi Arabia in response to attacks against Yemen.
Yemeni forces escalate operations against Saudi targets
Earlier on Sunday, Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced a military operation targeting weapons depots and command-and-control rooms at a Saudi military base in the Sharurah area.
Saree warned that Saudi Arabia would face “more severe and larger” operations if the aggression against Yemen continued.
He also warned that continued attacks would carry “grave consequences,” reiterating Sana’a’s position that escalation would be met with further escalation.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have stated that this policy rests on maintaining an equation of “blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation” until the aggression ends and the blockade on Yemen is lifted.
The Israeli enemy continued on Sunday its attacks on the various towns and areas in South Lebanon.
In this regard, Al-Manar reporter indicated that Israeli warplanes raided Ali Al-Taher area as well as the two towns of Kfartebnit and Nabatiyeh Al-Fawqa.
The Zionist artillery also targeted Kfar Roumman town. Moreover, the Israeli enemy carried out a bombing in Al-Qantara town.
Israeli occupation forces start fires among the houses of the civilians in Beit Yahoun, South Lebanon pic.twitter.com/juXUFEh2O0
Yemen’s Military Media released footage from a wide-scale military operation, showing the recapture of positions and an ambush on 10 military vehicles.
Yemen’s Military Media on Saturday released footage from the large-scale military operation “Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” showing Yemeni Armed Forces advancing along multiple fronts simultaneously.
Yemeni soldiers shown on the footage shared by the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
The footage showed Yemeni forces regaining control of several areas, while one fighter said the forces were “now driving the enemy out of its positions” and preparing to liberate the remaining areas.
#WATCH | Footage published by Yemeni Military Media from the large-scale, multi-pronged military operation "And Allah God, Mightier in Power and More Severe in Punishment". pic.twitter.com/BBo75V1oOU
The operation, according to the footage, involved coordinated movements across several axes.
Yemeni forces ambush military convoy
The Yemeni Military Media‘s footage also showed a carefully planned ambush targeting a force consisting of 10 military vehicles as they attempted to flee.
Yemeni soldiers shown on the footage shared by the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
During the ambush, one fighter was heard saying, “Behold the enemy armored vehicles burning.”
The footage also showed the downing of a drone belonging to the Saudi regime during the operation.
A Saudi UAV flying in Yememi’s airspace in the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
Other scenes showed Yemeni fighters saying that the enemy had used a school as a military barracks.
A Yemeni soldiers is shown on the footage shared by the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
The Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Friday that the operation, “Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” was launched on September 3.
Footage shows Yemeni advances, operations
Among the feats shown in the footage are the following:
Fighters advance through the mountainous Jebel Habashi area and deploy heavy weapons and drones.
Yemeni Armed Forces ambush retreating Saudi-led coalition-aligned forces, destroying several vehicles and capturing personnel.
Fighters storm and clear fortified positions inside Khalid bin Walid School, seizing weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, and other military gear.
Destroyed and burned military vehicles following several ambushes on fleeing forces.
Fighters inspect captured personnel and equipment and secure the surrounding wreckage.
The capture of Jebel Tariq military camp, including armored vehicles, radar systems, and other military hardware left behind.
Fighters clear remaining positions and uncover ammunition caches, barracks, and intelligence material.
The operation concludes with fighters and commanders celebrating the complete capture and clearance of the area.
Al Mayadeen dissects Yemeni military operation
Al Mayadeen’s bureau chief in Yemen said the footage released from the operation was preliminary, with further footage still in the possession of the Yemeni Armed Forces.
He said the Yemeni military had been preparing for the battle for an extended period and had extensive knowledge of the region’s terrain.
The correspondent described the reported liberation of 5,400 square kilometers within a week as a remarkable development, saying the Yemeni Armed Forces had employed a direct military tactic despite the potential losses involved.
He also said the Yemeni military leadership had issued binding instructions to treat prisoners and residents of recaptured villages humanely and ethically.
5,400 km² retrieved: YAF detail western coast gains
Yesterday, the Yemeni Armed Forces said a large-scale operation launched on September 3 along Yemen’s western coast expelled Saudi-backed forces from six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, covering 5,400 square kilometers.
The operation, carried out with support from local tribes, resulted in hundreds of Saudi-backed personnel being killed, wounded, or captured, while several Yemeni detainees held for years were also freed.
YAF spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the operation followed years of attacks on local communities and was aimed at driving out Saudi-backed forces and preventing attempts to impose Saudi control over Yemeni territory. He said Yemeni forces struck seven military divisions comprising 38 brigades and secured the retaken areas.
The YAF said their ground operations continued despite intensive Saudi air support, while their air defenses carried out 32 operations and reportedly downed nine aircraft.
They also reaffirmed that maritime navigation remains safe for all vessels except Saudi ships covered by its announced ban, pledging to maintain its “blockade for blockade” policy and respond to escalation with escalation until the aggression and blockade on Yemen end.
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Special Coverage | Sana’a confirms the continuation of its military operations and heavy losses among forces allied with Saudi Arabia. تغطية خاصة | صنعاء تؤكد مواصلة عملياتها العسكرية وخسائر فادحة في صفوف القوى المتحالفة مع السعودية
Iran launches newly acquired precision missiles towards US warships in the Persian Gulf as the Trump administration’s ‘Economic D-Day’ backfires tremendously. In this Monday’s episode of The Target Stream Mint Press News’ Robert Inlakesh takes a look at the latest developments reshaping the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic.
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The Israeli army recently claimed that it had secured full “operational control” over the strategically important Ali Al-Taher Hills area in southern Lebanon, without providing any proof that such control has in fact been established. Seemingly contradicting their claims, they have continued to launch hundreds of strikes against the Ali Al-Taher hills and its surrounding area, which is of military value due to its position overlooking southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate. An advance of this magnitude, which includes an attempt to dismantle a known missile base there, constitutes yet another flagrant violation of the shaky Lebanon ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has occasionally launched drone operations against Israeli soldiers and military vehicles, while holding itself back from reviving its daily operations against the occupying army.
On this edition of the stream we also look at the decision taken by the Ansarallah-led Yemeni government to launch new offensive actions to capture strategic locations towards the south of the country. The offensive led to major breakthroughs, including the encircling of the city of Taiz. In reaction, Saudi-proxy forces unsuccessfully launched their own counter-offensives in a bid to capture new territory in the province of al-Jawf and towards the city of Bayda.
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Another issue addressed at length in the newest edition of The Target is the viral debate ongoing with Streamer Sneako, on whose show a number of guests have argued that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for more civilian deaths than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We look at what the figures actually show and why so many people are engaged in spreading disinformation that works to undermine the Gaza genocide.
As Riyadh fights 9/11 families in US courts, buried intelligence testimony points beyond the kingdom to a far more protected hand.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg Kit Klarenberg is a British investigative journalist whose work explores the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
On the eve of 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported that a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Yet evidence alleging that Saudi intelligence managed two future hijackers as potential assets and did so through a “liaison relationship” with the CIA has lain largely unexamined in plain sight. As scrutiny of Riyadh grows, the agency’s shadow remains almost entirely outside the frame.
Bayoumi has long been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival in the US in January 2000.
A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, concluded there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi (and the House of Saud by extension) had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.
Far less attention followed a year later, when a bombshell filing lodged in the Office of Military Commissions – the military court system overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – surfaced publicly.
The document summarizes classified government discovery disclosures and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents set out confidential-source allegations that the CIA sought to recruit at least Hazmi and Mihdhar, if not others who later participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate.
The declaration also alleges that the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavored “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington, D.C., embassy. According to the filing’s sources, probing those connections risked exposing the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID) as a CIA “cutout” in its clandestine dealings with the future hijackers.
High-ranking FBI officials quoted in the filing discuss how the GID was a longstanding CIA “proxy,” exploited by the agency whenever it was “unwise or not practical … to undertake an operation directly.”
This need was particularly pronounced in the context of cloak-and-dagger CIA connivances conducted “on US soil.” After 25 years, it appears Riyadh could finally take the fall for a dastardly CIA operation that one way or another resulted in 9/11. As planned, there is little chance of the agency itself landing in the dock.
‘CIA team’
Among the court filing’smost dynamite excerpts is the insider testimony of an FBI special agent, who was posted to Alec Station – the CIA’s Al-Qaeda tracking unit, ultimately responsible for recruiting Hazmi and Mihdhar as assets.
When, in January 2000, the special agent learned the pair – known Al-Qaeda operatives under intensive CIA and NSA surveillance – had multi-entry visas to the US, they produced a report warning Bureau headquarters. Its dispatch was blocked by an unnamed CIA analyst.
According to the agent’s account, the same analyst directed the GID to make contact with Hazmi and Mihdhar upon their arrival, then falsely told subsequent US government inquiries that the FBI had been informed of the pair’s presence in the US.
The agent also alleged having witnessed CIA director George Tenet and operations director James Pavitt boast about how they “conspired to obstruct the 9/11 Commission” by concealing the analyst’s activities and identity from investigators.
In the process, an extraordinary, hitherto unreported component of Riyadh’s relationship with the hijackers remained determinedly unexplored. The FBI special agent alleged Hazmi and Mihdhar were explicitly provided US visas by the American consulate in Jeddah, “to facilitate the operation run by the Saudis’ GID and the CIA team.”
This disclosure is all the more tantalizing given that 15 of the 19 hijackers obtained a total of 18 visas in Saudi Arabia. Fourteen were issued at the US consulate in Jeddah, 11 of them by a single consular officer, Shayna Steinger. Many of the applications were incomplete or contained details that should have invited far greater scrutiny.
Steinger arrived at the Jeddah consulate in July 2000, fresh out of Columbia University, and went on to approve visa applications for 11 future hijackers. At the time, consular officers in Jeddah were divided over how rigorously Saudi applicants should be screened. Some argued that young Saudi men should be interviewed and required to demonstrate a clear purpose for travel, but the consulate generally followed a more permissive approach.
However, Steinger personally took it upon herself to reverse this policy. Moreover, she issued visas to future 9/11 hijackers despite their applications frequently being incomplete or error-strewn, based on forged documents, and their contents giving ample grounds for suspicion.
Steinger nonetheless interviewed Hani Hanjour, who purportedly piloted Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon. Afterward, she rejected his application for a three-year US visa, due to apparent doubts over his stated purposes in the country. Nonetheless, Steinger approved Hanjour’s renewed application two weeks later.
In ensuing official investigations, she offered wildly contradictory accounts of why the hijackers’ visas were granted. In Hanjour’s case, Steinger initially claimed he provided requested supporting documentation.
She subsequently admitted he actually hadn’t, but Hanjour’s “middle-class” background purportedly led her to conclude he was trustworthy.
If the court filing’s account is accurate, future 9/11 hijackers were granted entry to the US so the CIA could recruit them upon arrival, raising the troubling possibility that Steinger was acting on Agency instructions.
A network hidden in plain sight
Once Hazmi and Mihdhar touched down in Los Angeles in January 2000, almost immediately they crossed paths with Omar Bayoumi at an airport restaurant. FBI reports cited in the court filing indicate a witness who observed their meeting saw Bayoumi “dropping a piece of paper” near the pair’s table, “then striking up a conversation with them” in a manner that appeared “unnatural.” The witness relayed this account to the Bureau in 2002, but it was never publicized.
In interviews with Operation Encore investigators years later, Bayoumi maintained that his meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar was pure happenstance. The extraordinary assistance he gave them immediately thereafter – including finding them an apartment, co-signing their lease, setting up bank accounts for them, and gifting them substantial sums toward their rent – was simply charity for fellow Muslims who could barely speak English and were unfamiliar with western culture, Bayoumi asserted. But the filing offers numerous striking insights into the dark reality of his contact with the future hijackers.
For example, it appears Bayoumi was secretly instructed to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles by extremist cleric and Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs official Fahad Thumairy.
The filing cites evidence indicating Bayoumi was himself in California “to spy on local dissidents” of Saudi extraction. He was seen with the two 9/11 hijackers “on numerous occasions,” going to the extent of organizing “a social gathering for the hijackers.” We can only guess who may also have been in attendance.
Another stunning exposure in the filing concerns Hazmi and Mihdhar lodging with long-time FBI informant and asset Abdussattar Shaikh from September 2000 onwards. Shaikh failing to provide their surnames to his handler despite being asked has been known for many years.
The joint congressional and Senate intelligence committee probe into 9/11 ruled the pair’s stay with Shaikh was “the [US] intelligence community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.” Insulating Hazmi and Midhar from Bureau scrutiny may have been his explicit objective.
The filing indicates he himself “was receiving funds” from Riyadh, while simultaneously serving as an FBI informant. “Prominent” Saudis “would stay at Shaikh’s boarding house while visiting California,” it states.
His mission was “to monitor the activities of [Saudi] citizens while they were abroad.” Hani Hanjour also stayed with Shaikh alongside Hazmi, after Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia in late 2000. It appears that at every stage Stateside, the hijackers were in intimate proximity with figures connected to Saudi intelligence.
If the filing’s account that the GID was acting on the CIA’s behalf is accurate, this contact raises the obvious prospect that the agency – via its Riyadh “proxy” – was directly monitoring the movements of Hazmi, Mihdhar, and Hanjour – if not other Saudi-born hijackers – from the moment they entered the US at the agency’s direction, until 9/11 itself.
How far the CIA could have tracked or influenced their actions and movements remains unknown. The proximity described in the filing nevertheless demands an explanation.
The files Langley kept from the FBI
The established record shows that Alec Station repeatedly withheld the presence of Hazmi and Mihdhar in the US from the FBI until it was too late. The filing records how in June 2001 Station representatives showed senior Bureau officials photographs of three Al-Qaeda operatives, including Hazmi and Mihdhar.
However, the CIA refused to answer questions about the individuals in the photos, or provide identifying information. Had it done so, the FBI could have readily found Hazmi and Mihdhar’s names and addresses listed in San Diego’s local phone directory.
This was a flagrant dangle, obviously intended to gauge the Bureau’s knowledge of the identities of the individuals pictured, and their presence in the US. The filing also indicates the FBI conducted a dedicated counterintelligence investigation into Bayoumi prior to 9/11, due to suspicions that “he was operating as an intelligence officer.” Yet, when the Bureau contacted the CIA for information on Bayoumi, they were told the agency “held no files” on him at all – a “falsehood.”
In reality, the CIA maintained plentiful “operational” records on Bayoumi, which were “never passed to the FBI.” Such brazen stonewalling persisted long after 9/11. Upon learning tens of thousands of dollars had been sent from Haifa bin Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan, to Bayoumi’s wife, the Bureau attempted to subpoena their financial records from Washington, D.C.’s Riggs Bank. Per the filing, “officials at Riggs thwarted the FBI’s efforts to obtain the records for a year.”
Riggs Bank, which counted US presidents and CIA-installed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as clients, collapsed amid major money laundering scandals in 2005. Post-9/11 investigations identified financial improprieties in accounts held by several wealthy Saudis – including a lack of required background checks and consistent failure to alert regulators over large transactions violating federal banking laws.
Riggs’s downfall precisely mirrors the unceremonious end of many confirmed CIA front banks past, such as Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which assisted criminal cloak-and-dagger connivances including Iran/Contra.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the filing records how “diplomatic pressure” was exerted on the FBI not to investigate Riyad’s myriad connections to 9/11. Bureau agents testifying to the joint inquiry into the attacks were moreover “instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Qaeda.”
Senior officials at FBI headquarters knew “of both Bayoumi’s affiliation with Saudi intelligence and … the existence of the CIA’s operation to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar,” but “suppressed investigations” into these burning matters.
The filing concludes by noting Bayoumi was subsequently arrested in Britain on immigration charges immediately after 9/11, with authorities finding “extremist literature in his apartment.” The significance of this disclosure has gone entirely unnoticed since 2022.
Only now, as a result of the New York court case, has the media acknowledged how, within days of the attacks, “game-changing” evidence directly implicating Bayoumi in 9/11 was seized from his British home by counterterror police, then shared with the FBI, which British investigators say failed to provide crucial information in return.
The evidence Britain could not pursue
The seized material reportedly included a phonebook listing over two dozen Saudi government officials in the US and Saudi Arabia; flight simulator software; tickets and travel documents; and a notepad featuring a sketch of an aircraft.
An accompanying note from a British counterterrorism officer stated of the latter: “contains handwritten notes mathematical calculations re height of planes.” A member of the 9/11 families’ legal team behind the court action told BBC, “it’s the mathematical calculation of the [Pentagon] crash.”
By 22 September 2001, this seemingly incontrovertible windfall was in the Bureau’s possession. So too were highly illuminating home video tapes of Bayoumi roaming around Washington, D.C. in 1999, highlighting security measures in place at the Capitol building, openly discussing nearby Reagan National Airport, and referencing an unspecified “plan” on camera. Other tapes feature Bayoumi in close quarters with senior Al-Qaeda figures such as US-born cleric Anwar Awlaki, assassinated in a September 2011 US drone strike in Yemen.
While British detectives apparently believed the evidence could support an extradition request, the FBI did not supply the material needed to sustain one. Bayoumi was released after seven days without charge and later returned to Saudi Arabia.
The US response takes on darker significance alongside allegations that the CIA used its Saudi liaison to approach Hazmi and Mihdhar while withholding their presence from the FBI.
It does, however, strengthen the case for investigating whether an aborted recruitment operation was concealed after ending in catastrophe. Media reluctance to examine the filing’s “proxy” allegations ensures that question remains safely outside the courtroom.
We must ask ourselves whether the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which permitted the families of 9/11 victims to sue Riyadh in US courts, was purposefully passed to keep the House of Saud in line.
Successive Saudi governments have fought tooth and nail to overturn the legislation, while released correspondence indicates that Saudi representatives sought help from convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to lobby for its repeal behind closed doors.
JASTA proved controversial in some quarters, with some critics warning it could trigger reciprocal legislation in foreign countries, given criminal US activities abroad. Legal experts argued it undercut the principle of sovereign immunity.
The plaintiffs’ evidence may yet establish that Saudi officials provided material support to the hijackers. The military filing raises a separate and more dangerous question: whether some of those officials were acting as a CIA cutout in their dealings with future 9/11 hijackers.
But the CIA is not a defendant in the civil action, and Bayoumi is not personally on trial. The state-secrets privilege has repeatedly shielded the agency’s clandestine operations from meaningful judicial scrutiny.
Unless the alleged liaison channel is examined, the Saudi case may expose one layer of the 9/11 support network while leaving the most protected layer untouched.
Arab states have spent billions on US weapons, only to discover that the decisive layer of military power was never included in the sale.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Kamran Yeganegi @DYeganegi Dr. Kamran Yeganegi is an Iranian academic and researcher specializing in energy diplomacy, geopolitics, AI governance, and public policy. He is an assistant professor, university adviser, board member of the Iranian Industrial Engineering Association, and contributor to MEM and IRNA.
Arab governments may hold legal title to some of the world’s most advanced weapons, yet ownership does not confer operational sovereignty. A fighter aircraft without approved munitions, spare parts, software updates, mission data, or specialist maintenance is an expensive object on a runway.
Washington does not need a secret button to switch off an ally’s arsenal. Control over the system surrounding the weapon can produce the same result gradually, selectively, and under the cover of contracts, export rules, and routine technical support.
The arsenal behind the umbrella
According to SIPRI’s 2021–25 data, the US supplied 54 percent of all major arms imported by states in the “Middle East.” Saudi Arabia alone accounted for 6.8 percent of global arms imports, while Qatar took 6.4 percent and Kuwait 2.8 percent.
These purchases include combat aircraft, air and missile defenses, precision weapons, sensors, and command systems. Each platform also binds the buyer to the supplier’s technical ecosystem for years to come.
These systems are designed to function together through radar coverage, secure communications, identification systems, training, and US-compatible doctrine. Dependence therefore extends beyond individual weapons. Disrupting one support layer can reduce the effectiveness of several connected capabilities.
The dependency is visible in Washington’s own rules. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency calls major Foreign Military Sales a “Total Package Approach,” covering not only the platform but training, technical assistance, software, ammunition, follow-on support, and intelligence mission data.
Each element is also a potential point of control. A buyer can own the airframe while relying on the US for the data that defines threats, the software that integrates sensors, the missiles that arm it, and the expertise that returns it to service. This is the institutional foundation beneath the so-called American protection umbrella.
No magic button required
Public debate often reduces this relationship to a literal remote “kill switch.” The Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office denied in 2025 that such a switch exists, and that there is no verified public evidence that Washington can transmit a command that instantly grounds every exported US aircraft or disables every missile.
That denial addresses the narrowest version of the claim. It does not remove the deeper dependency. Modern weapons are sustained by software releases, cryptographic material, threat libraries, proprietary test equipment, source-controlled components, and supply chains that remain beyond the buyer’s sovereign control.
The F-35 makes this structure unusually visible. Its Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is being replaced by the Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN. The program office describes ALIS as the system that turns aircraft maintenance data into decisions that keep jets flying, while the US Government Accountability Office has documented the difficulties surrounding its replacement.
Foreign operators do not receive unrestricted control over the aircraft’s core software. The US decided to withhold the F-35 source code even from partner countries. That does not mean a jet requires Washington’s permission before every takeoff, but it places long-term modernization, fault diagnosis, mission-data support, and much of the sustainment chain inside a US-led system.
The limits of GPS control
The same distinction applies to satellite-guided weapons. JDAM kits, Excalibur artillery rounds, and other precision munitions use GPS alongside inertial navigation. Their reliance on a US-operated constellation creates an obvious strategic vulnerability, particularly where access to encrypted military signals, updates, or compatible mission-planning equipment is restricted.
But the claim that Washington can revive “Selective Availability” to degrade civilian or export GPS over one chosen country is inaccurate. The US government ended Selective Availability in May 2000 and later removed the feature from new GPS satellites. The old mechanism also affected the constellation globally rather than creating a neat, country-sized exclusion zone.
The loss or denial of GPS would not necessarily turn every guided weapon into an unguided one. Systems combining satellite and inertial navigation can retain some capability, usually with degraded accuracy. Nor is there credible public evidence that Excalibur rounds or modern anti-tank missiles contain a remotely activated US software lock that makes a launcher reject them as “unverified.”
Washington’s real leverage lies elsewhere. It controls which munitions are exported, in what quantities, which upgrades and encryption standards are released, and whether depleted stocks are replenished during wartime. An arsenal can be neutralized without an invisible signal ever crossing the sky.
Saudi Arabia: The aircraft stays, the mission changes
Saudi Arabia’s F-15 fleet illustrates the distinction between possessing a platform and controlling its full combat potential. In February 2026, the US approved a possible $3-billion F-15 sustainment package covering spare and repair parts, classified and unclassified software, technical documentation, training, and US government and contractor support.
The package contains no new fighter fleet. Its value lies in keeping the existing one operational, exposing how a combat aircraft remains tied to decisions made long after the original sale.
This dependence became political leverage during the Yemen war. In February 2021, former US president Joe Biden declared: “We are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”
The White House statement simultaneously promised continued support for Saudi territorial defense. Riyadh retained its aircraft and air defense systems, but Washington drew a line between the missions it would continue to enable and those it would restrict.
Iraq purchased 36 F-16s from the US, but the fleet’s readiness remained heavily dependent on American technical personnel. In May 2021, Lockheed Martin withdrew its maintenance team from Balad Air Base after repeated attacks by resistance factions.
The decision was taken for security reasons, not as punishment by Washington. Its military effect was nevertheless revealing. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that the withdrawal was likely to limit fleet operations.
The episode exposed the extent of Iraq’s dependence. If the departure of contractors could restrict fleet operations, Washington could exert similar pressure by suspending export licenses, contracts, or technical support. Iraq owned the jets but not the full chain needed to keep them flying.
The UAE negotiates the limits of sovereignty
The Emirati case shows that leverage can be exercised before a platform arrives. A proposed $23 billion package included 50 F-35 fighters, up to 18 MQ-9 armed drones, and advanced munitions. Negotiations stalled amid US concerns about China’s technological presence in the UAE and the conditions attached to operating the aircraft. Explaining Abu Dhabi’s suspension of the talks in 2021, an Emirati official cited “technical requirements, sovereign operational restrictions, and cost/benefit analysis.”
Those “sovereign operational restrictions” exposed the limits of the deal. Washington had no Emirati aircraft to disable; it used its grip over the technology to dictate the terms of access before a single jet was delivered. The kill switch came with the sale itself.
Washington pulls the plug on Turkiye
Turkiye provides the clearest regional case. It was not merely an F-35 customer but a NATO ally and manufacturing partner producing hundreds of components. Turkish firms had invested in the program, Ankara had paid roughly $1.4 billion, and Turkish pilots had already begun training in the US.
After Ankara accepted Russia’s S-400 air defense system, the Pentagon removed it from the F-35 program. A senior US defense official stated: “Turkey can choose to acquire the S-400 or the F-35. It cannot have both.” The Pentagon then began unwinding Turkiye’s participation, despite Ankara’s investment, industrial role, and alliance status.
The episode is more concrete than claims that US software would stop a Turkish F-35 from targeting Greek forces. No credible public evidence shows that NATO identification-friend-or-foe coding automatically prevents weapons from locking onto allied aircraft and ships, or that Washington can remotely freeze a Turkish mission computer once a target is selected.
Washington’s power was exercised long before the aircraft could take flight. It blocked delivery, expelled Turkish firms from the production chain, ended pilot training, and withheld access to software and maintenance. The aircraft did not have to be remotely grounded because the US ensured that Turkiye never received it.
Ankara’s response has been to place greater weight on the domestically developed KAAN fighter and to seek alternative procurement routes. Yet Turkiye has also continued to pursue a return to the F-35 program, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying in 2025 that technical-level talks had resumed.
An architecture of permission
None of these cases proves that Washington possesses a hidden code capable of remotely disabling every exported weapon. Nor does it need one. The real kill switch runs through ammunition approvals, spare parts, software, technical data, contractors, training, mission files, and upgrades.
Each pressure point can be presented as an ordinary administrative, legal, or contractual decision. Together, they define the boundaries of military autonomy and allow Washington to impose costs selectively without announcing that an ally’s arsenal has been switched off.
Washington’s leverage has limits. Arab states can turn to European or Chinese suppliers or develop weapons at home, while US pressure does not always force a change in policy. But replacing an established military system takes years, and combat readiness cannot wait.
Arab states own the hardware, while Washington retains considerable influence over the readiness of those weapons, the missions they can sustain, and the strategic choices they can support.
Israeli massive bombing operation of Ali Al-Taher in southern Lebanon (Thursday, September 11, 2026).
The Israeli army withdrew its forces from Ali Al-Taher Heights in southern Lebanon following a massive bombing operation, positioning occupation troops in rear lines in the Shaqif area, Israeli army radio reported on Friday.
The broadcaster said Israeli forces would seek to exercise fire control over the strategic heights and confront any attempt by Hezbollah to return to the area.
According to Israeli army radio, the operation to seize Ali Al-Taher Hill lasted three months and involved fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters. It claimed Israeli forces offered the fighters the option of surrendering and raising a white flag, but they refused and continued fighting.
The Hebrew newspaper Maariv similarly reported that Israeli forces gave Hezbollah fighters on the hill a choice between surrender and death.
“Israeli army gave Hezbollah fighters stationed in Ali Al-Taher the choice between surrender and death. The fighters refused to surrender and engaged Israeli forces in clashes, some at point-blank range,” the Israeli daily’s Avi Ashkenazi wrote.
He likened Hezbollah fighters’ battle in Ali Al-Taher to the Battle of Karbala.
Channel 12 cited estimations within the Israeli army that Hezbollah fighters could have withdrawn and surrendered but chose to remain. It added that the occupation army said Hezbollah repeatedly sought to reinforce the entrenched fighters, evacuate the wounded and deliver supplies throughout the operation.
The massive Israeli bombardment of the Ali Al-Taher Heights on Thursday also triggered a 4.1-magnitude earthquake detected in southern Lebanon, according to the US Geological Survey. Lebanese reports said the strikes involved more than 1,000 tons of explosives.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the explosions completely blocked the Al-Khardali road after falling rocks and debris made the route impassable. The road had already been restricted to military traffic, with army buses using it to travel toward Marjayoun and Hasbaya. The army was forced to use the Bekaa road as an alternative route after the latest debris blocked the passage.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon continued at dawn, with Israeli forces detonating explosives on a hill in Baraashit and shelling Wadi Al-Hujayr. Israeli aircraft also raided Al-Mansouri amid a heavy demolition campaign, while the National News Agency reported that Israeli forces destroyed most of the town’s public school, leaving only a small section standing.
Sanaa now holds a command position on the Yemeni side of Bab al-Mandab, a corridor carrying global trade, energy supplies and some of the world’s most important subsea cables (Illustrated by Batoul Chamas for Al- Mayadeen English)
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced Friday that a large-scale operation launched earlier this month had expelled Saudi-backed formations from six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, culminating in the capture of the historic Red Sea port of al-Mokha and the advance to Dhubab and Mayyun Island, which sits at the narrowest point of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
In a statement issued Thursday, YAF spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the operation, codenamed “And Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” was launched September 3 and covered 5,400 square kilometers, striking seven military divisions comprising 38 brigades and downing nine Saudi aircraft.
The Saudi-backed government confirmed to AFP that the YAF had completed its takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area and Mayyun Island, while officials told Reuters that their own forces had withdrawn from the island.
The YAF released a statement on Friday detailing the operation they carried out on September 9 along Yemen's western coast, saying it was conducted along several fronts with the participation and support of the Yemeni people and their tribes.
What changed hands this week was a stretch of coastline that sits astride one of the world’s most important maritime choke points, a position that took a Saudi-Emirati coalition close to three years to build the first time around and that Sanaa has now retaken in a matter of days.
Why Bab al-Mandab, al-Mokha matter
Bab al-Mandab, Arabic for the Gate of Tears, connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, making it one of the world’s most critical maritime choke points. Roughly 10 to 15 percent of global maritime trade and millions of barrels of crude oil and fuel daily transit through this narrow channel toward the Suez Canal. Whoever commands the coastlines of Bab al-Mandab holds decisive leverage over the trade routes linking Asia, the Arab world, and Europe.
In the past few days, headlines were flooded with reports about the Yemeni city of al-Mokha as Sanaa reclaimed it from Saudi-backed forces.
The coastal city overlooks the significant Bab al-Mandab Strait, positioning yet another maritime chokehold as a major piece in the grand… pic.twitter.com/0kXBk7dpgH
Commanding those coastlines starts with commanding the port that sits closest to them. That is what makes al-Mokha, rather than any other point on Yemen’s western coast, the city worth fighting over.
Long before it was a military prize, al-Mokha was the reason the word “mocha” exists at all. From the 16th to the early 18th century, the port was the dominant hub of the world’s coffee trade, exporting beans grown in Yemen’s cooler highlands and carried down to the coast by caravan.
Located on Yemen’s southwestern coast, the city and port of al-Mokha sit roughly 75 kilometers north of the narrowest passage of Bab al-Mandab. Consolidating control over al-Mokha and the surrounding coastal districts gives Sanaa solid territorial depth along the western coast, extending its reach south from Hodeidah and removing what had been the principal base of forces aligned with the Saudi-backed government.
Territorial depth is only the first layer of what changed on September 10. The second is what that depth actually gives the YAF control of.
What control of al-Mokha means
Control of al-Mokha and the coastal districts around it grants the YAF immediate coastal radar oversight, launch positions, and monitoring vantage points over the shipping lanes running through Bab al-Mandab.
It strengthens the YAF’s ability to enforce its declared restrictions on Israeli-linked shipping and hostile vessels, and it tightens the pressure on the occupied port of Eilat by further constraining its already crippled southern maritime access.
What the YAF took control of on the ground was not empty coastline. Al-Mokha’s port was rehabilitated by the UAE, and its airport runway, along with military camps including Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, the command headquarters for forces on the western coast, had served for years as the operational backbone of a Saudi-Emirati-backed military presence.
Beyond the obvious: What else transits Bab al-Mandab
Oil tankers are the most visible traffic through Bab al-Mandab, but they are far from the only cargo that makes the strait matter. Beneath the surface, roughly 15 to 17 subsea fiber-optic cable systems carry a substantial share of the data traffic connecting Europe, East Africa, West Asia, and South Asia, making the strait a crucial node for global digital communications as much as for shipping.
Wheat, rice, sugar, and fertilizer move through this corridor alongside crude and LNG, a category of food security and agricultural trade that US officials have repeatedly flagged when assessing the risks of a Bab al-Mandab disruption.
As news broke of the YAF’s control over the coast overlooking Bab al-Mandab, the US national average diesel price crossed $6 a gallon for the first time in history, reaching roughly $6.06 on September 11. The rise came as markets absorbed a widening set of pressures, from the US war on Iran and the subsequent disruption of Gulf energy flows to tight inventories and refinery constraints, with Yemen’s advance compounding the sense that Washington now faces mounting risk at two chokepoints instead of one.
Bab al-Mandab, Hormuz together
With Bab al-Mandab now in the hands of Sanaa and the Strait of Hormuz under Tehran’s control, the Axis of Resistance gains more leverage in facing Western imperialist agendas in the region.
The two chokepoints do not hand Iran and Yemen a single, unified command over the flow of West Asian energy, but they give aligned forces complementary pressure points on both maritime gateways serving the Arabian Peninsula, at a moment when Saudi Arabia has increasingly rerouted its own crude exports through the Red Sea to avoid the risks at Hormuz.
Years to build, days to lose
The coastline Sanaa now holds took the Saudi-UAE coalition nearly three years to secure the first time, and it never captured the whole of it. Coalition-backed forces took Bab al-Mandab and Mayyun Island in October 2015, seven months after the Saudi-led aggression began.
Al-Mokha did not fall until January 2017, some 22 months later, in an operation known as “Golden Spear”, while coalition forces did not reach the outskirts of Hodeidah until June 2018, more than three years into the war, and the push stalled there after the Stockholm Agreement froze the front in December 2018. Sanaa retained Hodeidah and the northern Red Sea coast throughout.
The UAE turned al-Mokha into the principal base of Tareq Saleh’s “National Resistance Forces,” growing the force from an initial nucleus of roughly 3,000 fighters to about 20,000, while stationing its own officers there, paying salaries, supplying weapons and vehicles, and rehabilitating the port itself.
On Mayyun Island, construction on a military runway began in late 2016, was abandoned, then resumed years later. By 2021, satellite imagery showed a completed 1.85-kilometer runway with three hangars, and the UAE sought a 20-year lease over the island.
Saudi Arabia picked up much of the financing after the UAE’s drawdown, continuing to pay the “National Resistance Forces” and fund reconstruction projects in the area.
Why the collapse happened so fast
Until shortly before al-Mokha fell, reports from the western coast had pointed to government advances, not retreat, after a week of fighting that saw Saudi-backed forces briefly recapture some of the ground they had lost. Their lines then collapsed within hours on September 10.
Ansar Allah’s explanation for that collapse centers on command structure. Political Bureau member Hizam al-Assad told Al Mayadeen the entry of the YAF into the western coastal areas was widely welcomed by local residents and that the operation was an internal one aimed at restoring Yemeni sovereignty over Yemeni territory.
Retired Brigadier General Ali Abi Raad, a strategic military expert, told Al Mayadeen the coalition’s defeat was the product of a fundamentally divided force, describing the roughly 30,000 fighters aligned with Tareq Saleh, a member of the Saudi-backed presidential council, and the “Giants Brigades” as a patchwork of Salafist, jihadist, and mercenary elements with Arab and Western nationalities among them, and no single unified command.
The YAF, by contrast, is described as having built its campaign under one command structure over two full years since the start of its operations in solidarity with Gaza, developing domestically manufactured missiles and drones that gave it a decisive edge.
The “National Resistance Forces” and the “Giants Brigades” had been marketed for years as an elite, specially trained counterweight to the Yemeni Armed Forces, equipped and funded by Saudi Arabia. Whatever the precise mix of factors behind their sudden withdrawal, the result was a collapse that undid in days what had taken the coalition the better part of three years to build the first time around.
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced major military gains against Saudi-backed forces along Yemen’s western coast, revealing that a large-scale operation launched earlier this month resulted in the expulsion of Saudi-backed formations from six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates and the capture, killing, and wounding of hundreds of their personnel.
In a statement issued on September 11, the YAF spokesperson, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said the operation, launched on September 3 and codenamed “And Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” was carried out across multiple axes with extensive participation from Yemeni forces and local tribes.
The operation was launched following years of escalating attacks by Saudi-backed formations against residents, villages, and local communities along the western coast. Residents of the affected areas had repeatedly appealed to the Yemeni Armed Forces to intervene, prompting the military operation aimed at driving out enemy forces and preventing attempts to impose Saudi control over Yemeni territory, the Saree said in the statement.
#WATCH | Videos circulating on social media showed YAF driving down the tarmac of al-Mokha airport following the liberation of the coastal city.
The western Yemeni city, overlooking Bab al-Mandab, was captured by Yemeni forces on Thursday after Saudi-backed forces fled the city.… pic.twitter.com/Md9yXrcNGZ
The forces said the areas had subsequently become “secure and stable,” marking a significant territorial gain along Yemen’s western coast.
The statement also said Yemeni forces struck seven military divisions belonging to the Saudi-backed formations, which together comprised 38 military brigades.
Hundreds of personnel from those formations were killed, captured, or wounded during the operation, the Yemeni Armed Forces revealed.
The military also announced the liberation of several Yemeni detainees who had been held for years by Saudi-backed forces along the western coast, hailing their liberation as another major outcome of the offensive.
#WATCH | Footage circulating on social media captures the joy of Yemeni prisoners held by forces backed by the Saudi enemy along the country's West Coast, following the liberation of these areas by the Yemeni Armed Forces.#Yemen#SaudiArabia#AlMayadeenpic.twitter.com/6QeFeDKx2B
Saree said the YAF ground operation continued despite intensive Saudi air support provided to the formations targeted by the operation. “Despite the heavy air cover from the Saudi enemy in support of its forces, the enemy failed, by God’s grace, to influence the operation,” the statement said.
The Yemeni forces further reported that its air defenses carried out 32 operations to repel Saudi warplanes, resulting in the downing of nine aircraft.
The statement saluted Yemeni fighters and the people and tribes for their role in the operation, commending the “high level of awareness” demonstrated by the Yemeni public in confronting Saudi-backed media campaigns, enemy propaganda, and disinformation.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that maritime navigation is safe for all companies except Saudi vessels that were previously subject to the announced ban,” the statement said.
The forces vowed to continue enforcing its broader deterrence policy, declaring that it would maintain the “blockade for blockade” equation, strike Saudi-backed military formations, and respond to escalation with escalation.
Concluding the statement, Saree reaffirmed the YAF’s commitment to the struggle for liberation, independence, and the restoration of national sovereignty, while praising the Yemeni people and tribes for their continued support.
“Long live Yemen, free, dignified, and independent,” he said, concluding with a declaration of victory for Yemen and “all the free people of the nation.”
Strategic Bab al-Mandab secured as Yemen emerges in triumph
Earlier today, the Yemeni Armed Forces advanced along Yemen’s western coast, reaching Dhubab and the area overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait after taking control of al-Mokha and other key Red Sea positions.
In the past few days, headlines were flooded with reports about the Yemeni city of al-Mokha as Sanaa reclaimed it from Saudi-backed forces.
The coastal city overlooks the significant Bab al-Mandab Strait, positioning yet another maritime chokehold as a major piece in the grand… pic.twitter.com/0kXBk7dpgH
The Saudi-backed government confirmed the YAF had taken control of Bab al-Mandab and strategic Mayyun Island, while Saudi-backed officials told Reuters that their forces had withdrawn from Perim Island.
The advance has also placed Saudi-backed forces on the Greater and Lesser Hanish Islands under siege, with sources saying more than 2,000 personnel were trapped there and appealing for food, water, rescue, and air support.
The YAF have additionally taken al-Khokha, Hays, and al-Wazi’iyah, while seizing key military positions around al-Mokha, including Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, the command headquarters for forces deployed along the western coast.
The rapid gains have been described by The Guardian as a “strategic disaster” for Washington and Riyadh, while Israeli Channel 14 called the capture of al-Mokha a strategic development with potentially far-reaching repercussions.
Yemenis hold posters of martyr leader Ali Khanenei next to giant Iranian flag asthey protest the US aggresion against Iran in Sanaa, March 6, 2026 (AP)
Iran has called for the immediate resumption of dialogue over Yemen, saying the country’s issues cannot be resolved through a continued blockade or military confrontation.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Tehran’s position that Yemen’s independence, national sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected and that the “illegal and inhumane blockade” imposed on the country must end.
The ministry said security and stability in West Asia and the Red Sea region could not be achieved without respecting the legitimate rights and dignity of the Yemeni people.
The statement added that the current developments in Yemen must be understood in the context of events unfolding over more than a decade.
Iran urges dialogue as West Asia faces escalating aggression
It stressed that the Yemeni people, as heirs to a “brilliant civilization and history,” have the right to live in dignity, free from pressure, intimidation and an unjust blockade, with their national sovereignty and territorial integrity fully respected.
Iran also emphasized the need to consider the interests of the Islamic Ummah, particularly as West Asia faces “unprecedented aggression, oppression, and expansionism” by the Zionist entity, with the complicity of the United States.
Furthermore, the statement called for the immediate resumption of dialogue under the agreed-upon roadmap and urged the implementation of its provisions, adding that Tehran was prepared to offer “any good offices” to help advance the process.
US seeks Red Sea control while outsourcing regional security role
In a related development, a senior US official, speaking to Al Mayadeen, said Washington was focused on protecting its core national security interests, including freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, while enabling regional partners to take the lead in addressing regional security challenges.
“The United States is focused on protecting our core national security interests — such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea — while empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges. We are in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Yemen Government regarding regional stability,” the senior US official said in remarks to Al Mayadeen.
YAF take control of key areas, military sites in Mokha, west of Taiz
The Yemeni forces have taken control of key areas and military positions in the coastal district of al-Mokha, west of Taiz Governorate, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported on Thursday.
In detail, our correspondent revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, which serves as the command headquarters for military forces on the western coast.
This development comes as the YAF made advances in several areas, taking control of al-Wazi’iyah, al-Khokha, and Hays, before reaching the outskirts of the city of al-Mokha.
It is worth noting that the area of the districts of Hays and al-Khokha to the south of the coastal Hodeidah governorate on the Red Sea exceeds 1,050 square kilometers, local sources told Al Mayadeen.
The YAF advances come as the Saudi aggression across Yemen continues, with the aim of supporting and reinforcing Saudi military mobilizations on the ground.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported on Thursday that Saudi aircraft had carried out around 40 airstrikes over the previous several hours in the governorates of Taiz, Hodeidah, al-Jawf, and Marib.
Continued Saudi aggression warrants a response until it stops: Sanaa
The Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sanaa said on Thursday that continued Saudi aggression and violations of Yemen’s sovereignty warrant a response until the attacks stop.
In a statement, the Ministry said the Saudi regime’s continued airstrikes targeting Yemeni provinces and its violations of Yemen’s sovereignty necessitate a response until the aggression ends.
It asserted that the Yemeni Armed Forces are responsible for defending the country’s sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and responding to the sources of fire, adding that such actions are carried out in a manner that does not conflict with international law.
Saudi military build-up necessitated YAF response
The Ministry also said Saido Arabia’s recent military build-up on Yemeni territory has necessitated a Yemeni Armed Forces’ response.
It further accused Riyadh of using continued “wailing and outcry” to cover up ongoing crimes against the Yemeni people. It said the latest aggression included hundreds of airstrikes on several Yemeni provinces.
The Ministry also said Yemen “has not and will not pose a threat,” arguing that the country seeks to build relations based on mutual respect. It noted that Yemen was prepared to participate in a regional security system, particularly in protecting navigation, in partnership with coastal states.
The Ministry called on the international community to assess the course of events objectively and compel Saudi Arabia to stop targeting Yemen, violating its sovereignty, and tampering with its resources.
What you need to know
The accelerating developments follow the Yemeni Armed Forces’ announcement in July that the 2022 truce with Saudi Arabia had collapsed following Saudi Arabia’s aggression on Sanaa International Airport.
In response, the Yemeni forces targeted several Saudi economic facilities, including oil refineries operated by Aramco and Abha Airport.
They also imposed a maritime ban on vessels arriving in or departing from Saudi Arabia, as part of the “airport for airport and siege for siege” equation.
Recently, the Yemeni Armed Forces have been engaging in confrontations with Saudi-backed forces across several provinces, after launching preemptive strikes against their military mobilizations.
Ansar Allah fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in Gaza Strip and against the US aggresionon Yemen outside Snaa January 22, 2044 (AP)
Sanaa’s Foreign Ministry says Yemen’s Armed Forces are tasked with defending national sovereignty and protecting citizens as Saudi aggression continues across several provinces.
The Yemeni forces have taken control of key areas and military positions in the coastal district of al-Mokha, west of Taiz Governorate, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported.
In detail, our correspondent revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, which serves as the command headquarters for military forces on the western coast
This development comes as the YAF made advances in several areas, capturing al-Wazi’iyah, al-Khokha, and Hays, before reaching the outskirts of the city of al-Mokha.
It is worth noting that the area of the districts of Hays and al-Khokha to the south of the coastal Hodeidah governorate on the Red Sea exceeds 1,050 square kilometers, local sources told Al Mayadeen.
The YAF advances come as the Saudi aggression across Yemen continues, with the aim of supporting and reinforcing Saudi military mobilizations on the ground.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported that Saudi aircraft had carried out around 40 airstrikes over the previous several hours in the governorates of Taiz, Hodeidah, al-Jawf, and Marib.
Continued Saudi aggression warrants a response until it stops: Sanaa
The Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sanaa said continued Saudi aggression and violations of Yemen’s sovereignty warrant a response until the attacks stop.
In a statement, the Ministry said the Saudi regime’s continued airstrikes targeting Yemeni provinces and its violations of Yemen’s sovereignty necessitate a response until the aggression ends.
It asserted that the Yemeni Armed Forces are responsible for defending the country’s sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and responding to the sources of fire, adding that such actions are carried out in a manner that does not conflict with international law.
Saudi military build-up necessitated YAF response
The Ministry also said the Saudi regime’s recent military build-up on Yemeni territory has necessitated a Yemeni Armed Forces’ response.
It further accused the Saudi regime of using continued “wailing and outcry” to cover up ongoing crimes against the Yemeni people. It said the latest aggression included hundreds of airstrikes on several Yemeni provinces.
The Ministry also said Yemen “has not and will not pose a threat,” arguing that the country seeks to build relations based on mutual respect. It noted that Yemen was prepared to participate in a regional security system, particularly in protecting navigation, in partnership with coastal states.
The Ministry called on the international community to assess the course of events objectively and compel the Saudi regime, as it put it, to stop targeting Yemen, violating its sovereignty, and tampering with its resources.
Saleh orders establishment of an alternative command center
Vice Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council Lieutenant General Tariq Saleh, meanwhile, instructed the Saudi-backed forces on the western coast to reorganize their ranks.
“We ordered the establishment of an alternative command center in a safe location to regroup the forces in consultation with the leadership of the Arab coalition and the Presidential Leadership Council,” he said.
What you need to know
The accelerating developments follow the Yemeni Armed Forces’ announcement in July that the 2022 truce with Saudi Arabia had collapsed following Saudi Arabia’s aggression on Sanaa International Airport.
In response, the Yemeni forces targeted several Saudi economic facilities, including oil refineries operated by Aramco and Abha Airport.
They also imposed a maritime ban on vessels arriving in or departing from Saudi Arabia, as part of the “airport for airport and siege for siege” equation.
Recently, the Yemeni Armed Forces have been engaging in confrontations with Saudi-backed forces across several provinces, after launching preemptive strikes against their military mobilizations.
Professor Mohammad Marandi n Al Mayadeen’sthe Grand Standoff: Iran and the World, September 8, 2026 (Screen)
Iran’s reported capture of a US unmanned underwater vessel in the Strait of Hormuz demonstrates the country’s growing electronic warfare capabilities and could mark a new and more intense phase of the war, Iranian academic and political analyst Dr. Mohammad Marandi revealed.
Speaking on Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff: Iran and the World, Marandi described the seizure of the vessel as a “major achievement”, arguing that its capture intact showed Iran’s ability to penetrate highly advanced US technology and could use the equipment to further develop its own capabilities.
The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy announced on Tuesday that its forces captured a US unmanned underwater vehicle at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, in a “complex intelligence and military effort” carried out at dawn.
“The very fact that the Iranians were able to capture it intact shows that US technology is not as good as it is presented to us as being,” Marandi stressed.
“The Americans obviously were trying to better understand what was going on underneath the surface of the waters in the Strait of Hormuz. And the Iranians effectively discovered that and not only prevented it from happening, but they took the underground vessel and the underwater vessel.”
The importance of this, according to Marandi, “is not only that this will be able to help the Iranians develop their own technology further, but Iran can also share this with countries like China and Russia, who have very friendly relations with Iran.”
He further noted that the technology could also prove valuable to Iran’s partners, particularly China and Russia, by providing them with greater insight into US military systems.
Iran moving toward new phase of war
The Iranian academic said the capture was particularly significant because, in his assessment, Iran had used electronic warfare to take control of the unmanned underwater vessel.
He compared the development with Iran’s ability to capture US drones during the US occupation of Afghanistan, saying those operations had helped Tehran advance its drone program.
“One of the reasons why, or one element that helped Iran develop its drone program was its ability to safely and effectively hijack US drones that flew from Afghanistan to Iran during the US occupation in Afghanistan,” he said.
Marandi argued that the latest incident could similarly accelerate Iran’s underwater and electronic-warfare capabilities.
“This attempt to downplay the importance of what Iran has done is going to have no effect. And the United States’ escalation against Iran is also going to lead to very, very severe punishment on behalf of Iran. But this escalation is obviously linked to the fact that Iran has scored this huge achievement by capturing this underwater vehicle,” he stated.
Marandi also linked the reported capture to an increasingly dangerous escalation in the war.
“I think we are moving towards a major escalation and we are moving into a new phase of the war and possibly the final phase,” he emphasized, noting that it could be a very long one.
Iran’s capabilities remain partly unknown
According to Marandi, any further US escalation against Iran would trigger a forceful Iranian response. He said Tehran would become “relentless and unforgiving on the battlefield” if Washington continued its pressure.
Marandi maintained that Iran still had military capabilities that had not yet been publicly demonstrated.
“Obviously a lot of Iran’s capabilities will remain unknown until we find out when they’ve been deployed and when they’ve been used to the detriment of Iran’s enemies,” he said.
He pointed to previous Iranian missile attacks that had forced US naval vessels to move further away, arguing that Tehran had deliberately avoided sinking the ships at that stage.
‘Iran will sink US ships’
Marandi said Iran had instead sought to deter US forces by demonstrating that they were vulnerable.
“The Iranians first wanted to put fear into their hearts to make them back off,” he said, adding that if the conflict escalated further, “Iran will sink those ships.”
He argued that the reported underwater-vessel seizure reinforced his broader assessment that Iran had advanced capabilities across multiple areas of warfare.
“If the United States had an understanding of Iran’s missile capabilities that could sink naval ships, they would have been much more careful,” Marandi stressed. “And if they had any idea that Iran through electronic warfare could take their most advanced underground underwater unmanned submarine, they would have not used it in the first place.”
US has underestimated Iran
In Marandi’s view, Washington had repeatedly underestimated Iran’s military capacity throughout the war.
He recalled early US assessments that Iran would quickly exhaust its supply of missiles and drones, saying those assessments demonstrated a lack of understanding of Tehran’s capabilities.
“It clearly shows that they had no understanding of Iran’s capabilities and no real intelligence about the enormous capabilities that Iran had,” the Iranian professor stressed.
‘US will ultimately lose the war ‘
Marandi predicted that further surprises could emerge in the coming weeks and argued that the United States would ultimately lose the war.
“Ultimately this is a war that the United States is going to lose,” he said.
The top Iranian professor compared the US position to someone caught in quicksand, arguing that continued military pressure would deepen Washington’s difficulties rather than resolve them.
“Every day that the United States continues this war, it is like a person who’s fallen into quicksand: the more the Trump regime struggles, the more it sinks, and the more it sinks, the more desperate it becomes, and the process continues,” he said.
US regional presence faces challenge
Marandi told Al Mayadeen that Iran’s long-standing objective of ending the US military presence in West Asia was now becoming more achievable.
“The United States is going to lose its foothold in West Asia, and that is irreversible,” he said.
He argued that Tehran would no longer accept a US military presence in the region that could threaten Iran, adding that the conflict was not over.
‘This war is not over’
The top Iranian figure further stressed that Iran intended to impose such a high cost on the United States that future US presidents would be deterred from launching military action against Tehran.
“Iran is not finished with the United States. This war is not over, and therefore the devastation that Iran will be imposing on the United States and its proxies … have no doubt its proxies are facilitating this war and its proxies will pay a very, very heavy price, and if this continues for long, their proxies will pay the ultimate price, but in any case, Iran is determined to make sure that the United States is no longer a threat to Iran. It will destroy all their bases,” he stressed.
“It will impose a cost on the United States that is so heavy that no American president again will even think about aggression against Iran. Iran is determined to bring the threat from the United States to bring it to an end, to a permanent end, and that is something that will benefit everyone in the region. It will benefit Lebanon,” Marandi added.
Marandi also argued that such a shift would weaken “Israel”, which relies on US military power in the region, stressing that it will also “benefit Yemen. It will benefit Iraq. It will benefit everyone, and it will weaken the Israeli regime.”
Gulf states could face growing pressure
Marandi warned that continued escalation could have severe consequences for US-aligned governments in the Gulf, naming Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain.
He argued that these governments were particularly vulnerable because of their economic dependence on oil and gas and their close ties with Washington.
“These regimes are terribly vulnerable. They have nothing but oil and gas. They have huge deficits now, and businesses have left, and I think that the way things stand now, the pain is just beginning,” the top Iranian figure went on to say.
US influence in region weakening
Marandi argued that the United States is rapidly losing influence in West Asia, making it increasingly difficult for governments aligned with Washington to contain domestic discontent.
“The United States is rapidly declining in power, and its ability to maintain its hold over the region is declining,” he said, arguing that governments dependent on Washington would face growing pressure from populations angered by their governments’ cooperation with “Israel” and the United States.
He pointed to the ongoing destruction in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the policies of these governments were increasingly at odds with public sentiment across the region.
US understanding of the region shaped by ‘Israel’
Marandi also accused Washington of misreading regional developments, arguing that its understanding of West Asia is heavily shaped by “Israel and unpopular governments.”
“Its grasp of the region, its understanding of the region is also deeply problematic because its understanding of the region is largely influenced by the Israeli regime and unpopular regimes,” he said.
He argued that this disconnect was already producing consequences for US policy.
Iran rejects compromise
Marandi said Iran was unwilling to compromise over the implementation of the MOU, which he said must be fully honored.
“The MOU must be fully implemented,” he said, adding that Article 1 includes provisions concerning Lebanon and Gaza. He described an end to Israeli “death and destruction” in Gaza as among Iran’s preconditions.
Marandi argued that US pressure on Iran would not force Tehran to change course but would instead deepen the economic and political consequences of the war.
He warned that continued escalation could further destabilize governments allied with Washington, potentially creating repercussions well beyond the region.
“If these regimes become unstable, which I think is going to happen if this process continues, then I think that will be disastrous for the global economy,” he said.
“And then we are going to see a crash, an economic crash, which is global.”
Marandi warns of consequences for Netanyahu
Marandi also suggested that political considerations could be influencing the US approach to Iran, saying an assault on Tehran would carry a hefty political price.
He concluded with a warning directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing remarks by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chairman.
“The chair of the Supreme National Security Council has said, sooner or later, Iran will send Netanyahu to hell,” Marandi said.
He then argued that Netanyahu should be more concerned about his own future, saying he faces possible imprisonment and warning that he could potentially lose his life sooner than expected.
Member of Hezbollah politburo, Hajj Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, commented on the insolent remarks of the US ambassador to Lebanon, stressing that they are aimed at justifying the Israeli crimes against the innocent civilians in South Lebanon.
What follows is the full text of the statement of Abu Zeinab:
The US Ambassador to Lebanon made brazen statements today, speaking with a Zionist voice and attempting to justify the brutal, systematic killing committed by the Israeli enemy against peaceful Lebanese men, women, and children in their homes across southern villages and towns. With total insolence, he deliberately blames the victim for the crimes committed by the executioner.
It is ironic that this ambassador speaks of the interests of the people of the South, trying to sell them illusions of concern for their well-being and their return to their villages, towns, and livelihoods. In reality, the administration he represents covers up the systematic destruction of infrastructure taking place in the South, justifies the crimes of murder and occupation, and supplies the Israeli enemy with weapons and political support. It is a full partner, giving the green light to carry out aggression and terror in Lebanon and the region. Therefore, his statements represent nothing short of a detachment from reality and a hideous attempt to whitewash the aggression and cover it up with flimsy pretexts.
These statements expose once again the true nature of anti-humanitarian US conduct in Lebanon and across our Arab and Islamic nations. They lay bare its bloody arrogance and complete alignment with the butcher Netanyahu, making both two sides of the same coin and joint partners responsible for the blood of our people and children.
We are confident that our people fully understand who stands by them and who conspires against them. They are well aware that someone whose hands and face are stained with the blood of innocents—and who remains a full partner in the crimes and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy against Lebanon—can never be expected to bring any good.ource: Al-Manar English Website
Damage at US’ Ali Al-Salem air base after Iranian retaliatory strike (September 2026).
The US military and intelligence community are quietly considering a smaller US footprint in the Middle East after months of Iranian attacks exposed vulnerabilities at American bases and killed 18 US service members, the CNN reported on Tuesday.
The discussions include reducing troops and facilities across the region and potentially declining to rebuild some bases and assets severely damaged or destroyed by Iranian strikes, the CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen reported, citing six sources.
Officials are also examining whether sensitive military and intelligence missions can be conducted without permanent US basing.
“But the recent fighting with Iran has laid bare deep vulnerabilities in the American infrastructure in the Middle East as many of those sites have become targets of repeated Iranian attacks in an unpopular war that has killed 18 American service members,” the report read.
In offices across the military and in the intelligence community, there have been recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people and facilities typically stationed in the Middle East if the Trump administration succeeds in ending the Iran conflict, six sources say.… pic.twitter.com/646YGZZIEi
The scale of the damage has raised fresh concerns about the viability of Washington’s post-9/11 military infrastructure.
US installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been repeatedly targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, with US officials acknowledging significant damage.
“The damage has been substantial, US officials say: The CIA’s outpost in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for example, was effectively destroyed by an Iranian attack, according to one US official and a former intelligence officer. Although Pentagon officials have sought to downplay the impact, American military installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have all been struck by Iranian drones and missiles, and sources say the damage has been significant,” according to the CNN.
Damage recorded at US base in Kuwait. Satellite imagery shows “destruction of two housing accommodations” at Ali Al Salem. https://t.co/zXe9QWOvAu
An Iranian strike reportedly effectively destroyed the CIA’s outpost in Riyadh, according to a US official and a former intelligence officer cited by CNN.
The military is also considering moving some installations underground to protect remaining forces from missile and drone attacks. “The vulnerabilities were always known, but the US never acted on it with urgency,” one US official told CNN.
The discussions come as roughly 50,000 US troops and major military assets, including two aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers, remain deployed across the Middle East.
Senior Pentagon officials are privately considering reducing the US military presence in several Gulf states and shifting more of the security burden onto regional partners, according to three sources cited by CNN.
Some officials are also weighing a model in which personnel and equipment remain in the US and are deployed to the region only for specific missions.
The possibility of a broader pullback has gained urgency as the Pentagon faces the cost of repairing heavily damaged installations.
At the same time, US forces remain exposed to further Iranian attacks, with Iran continuing to target American military positions in the region. The US Navy’s top admiral said last week that American personnel would not return to Bahrain, home of the 5th Fleet, “anytime soon.”
“We’re not getting back in there anytime soon,” Adm. Daryl Caudle said. “I just want to be completely honest with that.”
Car bursts into flame after an Israeli drone hit it in Kfar Rumman in southern Lebanon (September 6, 2026).
‘Israel’ launched a renewed wave of wide-scale airstrikes across southern Lebanon early Monday, hitting residential areas and towns across the Nabatieh region and commiting a massacre in the village of Kfar Rumman.
Israeli warplanes, carried out a series of airstrikes on Kfar Rumman, Arab Salim and Nabatieh Al-Fawqa, while an Israeli drone targeted an ambulance belonging to the Al-Risala Association, according to Al-Manar correspondent.
Lebanese Health Ministry said nine people were martyred and thirteen others were injured in the Israeli strike on Kfar Rumman, including paramedics, women and children.
The aerial attacks were accompanied by heavy Israeli artillery shelling targeting the outskirts of Nabatieh, Kfar Rumman, Jabal Al-Rafie and Al-Dabsha height, our correspondent reported.
The renewed assault follows a series of Israeli attacks on the Nabatieh region, including an airstrike on the city on Sunday evening that left Al-Manar TV reporter Ali Shbeib with minor injuries.
مشاهد من الاع.تداء الأخير على مدينة النبطية _ شارع محمود فقيه _ داخل موقف فخر الدين .. pic.twitter.com/EUGgL7EF3w
The latest attacks come amid a broader intensification of Israeli military aggression across southern Lebanon, especially in Nabatieh region, with residential areas and civilian infrastructure repeatedly coming under fire.
The Yemeni Armed Forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation, a senior Yemeni military source stated, warning that Sanaa maintains multiple strategic options should Saudi Arabia choose to enter an all-out war.
Speaking to Al Mayadeen, the source said the Yemeni Armed Forces possess an integrated and highly efficient weapons system capable of dealing with different forms of warfare and military engagements.
The senior military source stressed that the Yemeni Armed Forces would confront any escalation with a proportional escalation, adding that their options remain open and varied should Saudi Arabia decide to engage in a comprehensive war.
Reiterating that all Saudi-affiliated mobilizations are considered legitimate military targets, the source said recent Yemeni strikes have focused on the leadership of these forces.
The targets, the source said, are selected according to precise intelligence and carefully assessed operational information and data.
According to the source, the Yemeni strikes against Saudi-affiliated commanders have succeeded in thwarting a major portion of their preparations for a ground battle.
Additionally, Sanaa renewed its call to those who have allied with external forces against their own people to abandon their positions and return to the fold of their homeland.
The source particularly addressed those who had “mortgaged their lives,” betrayed their country, and stood against their people.
YAF strike Saudi military chiefs
The Yemeni Military Media released footage on Sunday of a major operation targeting a meeting of several Saudi military leaders with a ballistic missile.
The Yemeni Armed Forces also announced the downing of a Saudi Wing Loong II armed reconnaissance drone while it was carrying out hostile missions on Sunday morning.
According to spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the drone was shot down northwest of Maqbanah district in the Taiz governorate using an appropriate weapon without specifying it.
The Yemeni Armed Forces had previously carried out several military operations as part of their decision to ban maritime navigation to Saudi Arabia and establish the “blockade for blockade” equation, which was adopted following broad popular support expressed during mass Friday demonstrations in Sanaa and several other provinces.
Battle no longer defensive, shifted to preemptive action: Yemen
Earlier on August 26, Sanaa government Defense Minister Major General Mohammed al-Atifi and Chief of the General Staff Major General Youssef al-Madani announced that Yemen’s military operations have moved beyond defensive measures and entered a phase of preemptive offensives.
The two officials said the tighter the noose Yemen’s enemies attempt to place around the country, the broader its military options grow and the faster it develops advanced capabilities.
On August 24, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced that they struck the Saudi oil tanker Amzan in the northern Red Sea off Yanbu with a ballistic missile, sparking a fire on the vessel and prompting other ships in the area to flee. Spokesperson Yahya Saree said the strike is part of enforcing Sanaa’s maritime ban and blockade against Saudi Arabia.
Saree revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces also struck a Saudi military convoy in al-Ubra and al-Wadi’a, destroying over ten trucks loaded with weapons, and hit Saudi forces in al-Kanais, killing and injuring dozens, including officers and commanders, and destroying several weapons depots.
Lebanese MP Ali Ammar, Member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc, in a local ceremony in Beirut’s Dahiyeh (September 6, 2026),
Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar said the language of resistance remains the only effective means of confronting the Israeli enemy, stressing that the group remains committed to its path despite mounting political, regional and international pressures.
“The language of resistance is the only language that is effective against the Israeli enemy amid major transformations in the region and the world that continue to affect Lebanon,” MP Ammar said, during a memorial ceremony for martyr Jaafar Mohammad Diab Al-Harakeh in Beirut’s southern suburb (Dahiyeh).
At least four people were martyred and twenty others were injured as Israeli warplanes unleashed widespread assault across Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.
The strikes hit Nabatieh Al-Fawqa and Nabatieh Al-Tahta, as well as Arab Salim and Kfar Rumman.
The member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc, meanwhile, warned that Lebanon is facing a “complex and multifaceted crisis encompassing political, economic, social and existential challenges.”
MP Ammar also criticized Lebanese powers that oppose the resistance while placing their hopes in the United States, arguing that past experience had demonstrated the failure of such a strategy.
He called for greater solidarity and national unity in confronting the challenges facing Lebanon.
“We need to recognize the gravity of the current situation and the challenges confronting us,” Ammar said, stressing the need for unity rather than reliance on external powers.
Exploiting academic institutions as a cover, between 2017 – 2021 the German government surreptitiously funnelled millions into a highly discriminatory project facilitating expansion of Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank. Under its auspices, public money and knowledge production were committed to an inherently unlawful, immoral enterprise in flagrant breach of Berlin’s international legal obligations, and domestic restrictions on academic research efforts. The unknown scandal is just one component of how, in plain sight, Germany covertly assists Zionist settlement expansion and Palestine’s total erasure.
These are the shocking findings of a collaborative investigationby a triumvirate of German student Palestine solidarity organisations, including Not In Our Name, Academic Opposition, and Academic Boycott Campaign Germany. Their report is a groundbreaking effort, critically examining German state-sponsored water research in conjunction with Zionist entity academic institutions. It’s a silent conspiracy vast in scope, involving multiple state and quasi-state entities in Berlin and Tel Aviv financing academic research in seemingly innocuous fields, which directly abets Zionist ethnic cleansing and land seizure throughout Palestine.
The investigation focuses on a single project to emerge from the dark alliance between German and Israeli academia, known as MedWater. For four years, Berlin funded a consortium coordinated by the Technical University of Berlin, alongside Göttingen and Würzburg universities, to the tune of €1,818,348. Their successfully fulfilled objective was to develop a tool modelling the impact of adding or removing water wells. That feature was defined in direct conjunction with Israel’s water authorities, the tool transferred to Tel Aviv’s national water company.
Zionists eye an ancient water reservoir in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley
Specifically, the tool identifies ideal areas for construction of new wells, in a territory where Palestinian water sources are systematically demolished, and Palestinians are refused permits to drill new ones. Known as the Western Mountain Aquifer, it’s the largest and most productive groundwater body shared between Israel and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians were completely absent from working sessions convened in Jerusalem related to MedWater, and there is no apparent way in which Palestinians will, or even can, benefit from the effort in any way.
This is despite the consortium openly stating in submissions to German state ministries their tool sought to advance the UN’s sixth Sustainable Development Goal: “By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.” The completed MedWater system was unveiled in October 2020, at a Berlin conference. Its public demonstration included calculating the impact of adding four new wells to the West Bank’s Hebron Governorate. Only Zionist settlers could realise that vision on-the-ground, of which the consortium was well-aware.
Even more damningly, at the project’s end the tool was contracted to Israel’s national water company Mekorot, which manages wells in Zionist settlements throughout the West Bank. By contrast, the Palestinian Water Authority, initially named as a MedWater partner, was not provided a subcontract and is not publicly listed among its beneficiaries today. Unreported at the time, and tacitly concealed from view ever since, it’s just one way Germany has been unaccountably supporting a genocidal Zionist enterprise begun back in 1967.
‘Near Impossible’
In its July 2024 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled unambiguously all states are obliged “to distinguish, in their dealings with Israel, between Israeli territory and the territory occupied since 1967, and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation.” A decade earlier, Berlin seemingly enshrined a codified commitment to this principle in its dealings with Zionist entity academic institutions. Under the Territorial Clause, Germany won’t fund, and Tel Aviv won’t solicit, research projects outside the entity’s pre-1967 borders – theoretically.
However, when asked how Mekorot’s MedWater contract was remotely compatible with the Clause, Berlin’s ministry of research argued its terms merely limit where research partners may be headquartered. As Mekorot is based in Tel Aviv, there was in fact no legal, regulatory or apparent ethical impediment to the project’s German government funding, despite the company’s well-documented criminal conduct in the West Bank since 1982. Then, Zionist Occupation Forces handed management of all local water infrastructure it controlled in the territory to Mekorot.
The Territorial Clause is evidently replete with gaping loopholes, which have been shamelessly exploited to provide arm’s length German state sponsorship to completely illegal Zionist settlement expansion all along. Strikingly, this ambiguity is in itself in contravention of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. The Court specifically honed in on the Zionist entity’s life-threatening restriction of Palestinian water access within the Occupied Territories, as inconsistent with Tel Aviv’s obligations under international law. This may explain why MedWater, while formally undisguised, remained effectively secret for so long.
To get to the bottom of the project, investigators drew on a diverse corpus of information. This included MedWater reports filed with Germany’s research ministry – some not intended for public view, and released in redacted form – presentation materials from numerous project conferences throughout its development, since-memoryholed websites, and peer-reviewed publications by German and Israeli participants. No mainstream outlet has hitherto reported not merely on MedWater, but any illegal German state investment in academic research projects expediting Zionist settlement expansion.
An initiative to better manage water resources may seem benign, anywhere in the world. But MedWater was born in a context of methodical, longstanding Zionist denial of Palestinian access to water, and a segregationist legal apparatus directly assisting Jewish settlement, particularly in regard to vital natural resources. In August 1967, two months after the West Bank’s occupation began, Zionist Occupation Forces issued Military Order 92, seizing total control of water resources in territory they illegally controlled.
Three months later, Military Order 158 further prohibited Palestinians throughout the West Bank from constructing new water installations and/or associated infrastructure, without first securing a permit from the ZOF. Amnesty Internationaljudges suchpermissions “near impossible to obtain.” Deliberately intended to deprive Palestinians of water, Zionists are of course not subject to equivalent constraints. Meanwhile, Mekorot has over the past four-and-a-half decades deliberately sabotaged Palestinian wells while tapping occupied West Bank springs to supply the entity, and illegal settlers, with water.
This in itself produces an apartheid in daily water consumption. Zionists, including settlers, use an average of 247 litres of water a day per person – three times that of Palestinians in the West Bank, at 82.4 litres. Palestinian water consumption collapses to just 26 litres per capita on average daily, in communities unconnected to the territory’s water grid. Such consumption is comparable to active disaster zones. Mekorot also routinely shuts off supply to Palestinian communities when reserves run low, such as during summer.
‘European DNA’
The Zionist strategy is gruesomely simple – neutralise Palestinian control over the West Bank’s water resources and progressively diminish their access, creating an environment in which the territory is literally uninhabitable and they’re forced to leave. Research jointly published by the UN and Germany’s federal institute for geosciences and natural resources indicates 212 million cubic metres of water flows from the West Bank to Israel annually. The report also records how since 1967, Palestinians “have not been authorised to drill a single well” locally.
All along, discriminatory laws and ratcheting settler land grabs have increasingly deprived Palestinians of access to other basic fundamentals of existence too. An ever-expanding network of ZOF checkpoints and roadblocks, combined with prejudicial, arbitrary restrictions on movement, vandalism and demolition of farming machinery, greenhouses, and roads, and savage Occupation Force and settler violence makes it progressively dangerous if not impossible for farmers to tend crops or rear livestock. Palestine’s agricultural industry is all but decimated, with Zionistsliterally harvesting the pestilential spoils.
ZOF soldiers lurk behind a Jewish settler hurling stones at Palestinians gathering for olive harvest season, West Bank, October 2025
That these genocidal machinations have persisted untrammelled over decades is a testament to the total impunity with which Israel is permitted to act by its international proxy sponsors – Germany being a particularly perverse example. Proudly, it is the only country to make public remembrance of its criminal past the cornerstone of its collective national identity. But Berlin’s much-vaunted “memory culture” invariably entails atoning for historic sins by encouraging and undergirding comparable contemporary crimes, as long as they’re committed by the Zionist entity.
WaterMed is a minor fragment within a much wider, unspoken framework of German state-supported repression and erasure of Palestinians, sustained via little-known partnerships and joint research efforts with Zionist entity-based universities and institutions. A new initiative, Academic Complicity, exposes how dozens of German higher education facilities have over many years conducted deeply dubious projects large and small one way or another justifying and aiding neverending settlement expansion. One might hope this would trigger accountability and consequences for Berlin, given her unambiguous domestic and international legal obligations.
However, the bonds between Germany and the Zionist entity are so deep and cohering, they transcend trivial considerations of law, or ethicality. In October 2025, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo made a number of highly revealing disclosures on how his personal and professional experience has convinced him “Germans are committed to Israel.” After all, “our DNA is much closer to the European DNA than the American one,” as “most of the Jews who settled in Israel came from Europe…not North America”:
“European history is part of our identity in terms of family connections, culture, even politics. Europe’s borders resulting from wars were constantly shifting and Europeans wandered throughout the continent, settling in one place before moving on to the next. In that sense, and in terms of depth, discourse, and history, this is all very familiar to us, and is something that manifests itself in every interaction I have with German partners.”
Washington’s allies built their prosperity around the promise of US protection. The cost of that promise is becoming harder to bear.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Suleyman Karan After graduating from Galatasaray High School, he completed his higher education at Istanbul University, Faculty of Political Sciences. He worked as the Editor-in-Chief of Pazar Postası and Posta Daily. He worked as the Editor-in-Chief of Hürriyet BusinessWeek and Platin magazines, and also as the Editorial Coordinator of Yurt Daily. He is an economics writer at Gazeteduvar.
The Israeli-US war against the Islamic Republic of Iran is developing into a conflict in which the aggressors’ calculations have failed, and Washington’s allies are suffering serious economic losses. The failure of a “superpower” to secure victory over a regional power suggests that the global balance cannot simply return to what it was before the war.
Another implication is that the rules of the global economy, trade, and finance cannot be dictated by western powers alone. The Strait of Hormuz crisis offers a stark illustration of how hegemony can become trapped in a narrow passage.
Across Europe and Asia, Washington’s allies are confronting crises for which they were poorly prepared, particularly in energy supplies. The damage also extends to countries outside the US alliance system, whose factories, farms, and households depend on the same trade routes.
Europe pays another war bill
The crisis and blockade in the Strait of Hormuz have driven up energy costs, forcing the EU to lower its economic growth forecasts for 2026 and creating intense cost pressures across the continent. This new burden follows the energy disruption and public spending commitments associated with the Ukraine war.
The sudden surge in energy costs has raised expenses across industrial production and transportation. The interruption of traffic through the strait has exposed Europe to a serious risk of jet fuel and other refined fuel shortages. Higher energy bills and increased business expenses are squeezing household purchasing power and damaging consumer confidence.
European governments have introduced tax cuts and direct support packages, although their responses differ. The blockade has created a shared energy and supply chain shock, but its effects depend on each country’s industrial structure, import dependence, and capacity to absorb higher costs.
The European Commission’s May forecast lowered projected EU growth to 1.1 percent and eurozone growth to 0.9 percent. The World Bank’s June assessment likewise cut the global growth outlook, while the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) July update raised its forecast for global inflation.
The figures come from different institutions and forecast rounds, but point to the same pressure: more expensive energy is weakening growth and complicating efforts to bring inflation down.
Growth weakens as energy costs rise
Region / indicator
Previous forecast or comparison
2026 forecast
Basis and date
EU growth
1.4%
1.1%
European Commission, May; energy shock weakens activity
Eurozone growth
1.2%
0.9%
European Commission, May; revised down from its autumn forecast
Brent crude, annual average
2025 annual average
$94 per barrel
World Bank, June; 36% above 2025, assuming the worst disruption eased in July
Global headline inflation
4.1% in 2025
4.7%
IMF, July; forecast annual rate, not a current monthly reading
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, faces renewed pressure on manufacturing. The chemical, automotive, and heavy industrial sectors are vulnerable to high energy costs. More expensive crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) feed into production costs, while disruption to Gulf supplies threatens the delivery of petrochemical feedstocks, packaging materials, and other industrial inputs.
France obtains about 70 percent of its electricity from 57 operable nuclear reactors, providing some protection against the shock. Its transportation sector and household spending remain exposed, however. Most cars, commercial vehicles, and ships still rely on petroleum fuels, and higher freight costs feed into the prices of finished goods, from food to furniture.
The threat of a jet fuel shortage is among aviation’s most serious concerns. Airlines have faced higher costs and flight reductions, even where physical fuel supplies have remained available. In May, the EU energy commissioner warned of longer-term supply risks, while saying there was no immediate shortage.
Paris has faced pressure to shield consumers, but fiscal constraints have limited its response. The French finance minister argued against broad tax reductions and favored temporary, targeted assistance. Yet the political problem remains as households expect protection while the government is trying to contain its deficit.
Italy, already burdened by high public debt, faces a similar dilemma. Supporting households and businesses costs money at a time when borrowing is becoming more expensive. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pressed for greater flexibility in EU fiscal rules, bringing the clash between energy relief and budget discipline into the open.
Britain’s island exposure
The blockade and the Iran war have delivered a twin shock to the UK economy through energy and trade. Although the UK obtains substantial oil and gas supplies domestically and from Norway, its costs remain tied to international markets. Buying from a different producer does not insulate a country from a global price increase.
London’s concern is the risk of renewed inflation alongside weak growth. The latest available ONS figures put annual consumer price inflation at 2.9 percent in July, up from 2.6 percent in June. Food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation stood at 1.3 percent. The increase in headline inflation adds to pressure on households already facing high living costs.
The Bank of England’s July policy statement warned that inflation was expected to rise “as the effects of higher energy prices continue to pass through.” Bringing it under control risks putting further pressure on an already weak economy.
Higher oil prices have also increased the pressure on aviation. Major hubs such as Heathrow and Gatwick depend on reliable fuel supplies, leaving them exposed to prolonged disruption in the Gulf. The UK government’s published guidance said airlines were not experiencing a jet fuel shortage when it issued its assessment, while contingency measures sought to reduce the risk of last-minute cancellations.
As an island country, Britain is heavily dependent on maritime transportation for consumer goods and industrial inputs. Where Asia–Europe services avoid the Red Sea and sail around the Cape of Good Hope, longer journeys add freight costs and delay deliveries. These diversions compound the Hormuz shock, although they concern a separate passage and do not provide an escape route for vessels trapped inside the Persian Gulf.
Britain’s military commitments create additional demands. London and Paris have led multinational planning for a mission to protect navigation through Hormuz once conditions permit. Protecting trade routes requires ships, personnel, and sustained funding, adding to the obligations of a state already trying to reconcile defense spending with pressure on public services.
Asia bears the supply shock
That is the situation in the west. In the east, the dependence on Gulf energy is even more direct. East and South Asia are among the regions most exposed to the crisis, and hopes that diplomacy would quickly restore normal traffic have repeatedly run ahead of events.
The effective closure of the strait has struck at a supply route serving the industrial centers of Asia. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that 84 percent of the crude oil and condensate, and 83 percent of the LNG, passing through Hormuz in 2024 went to Asian markets.
China, India, Japan, and South Korea are major buyers, although they enter the crisis with different reserves, domestic energy resources, and options for replacing interrupted supplies. Their exposure cannot be measured by import volumes alone. The ability to pay for alternatives and move them to consumers also matters.
Indian farmers face a mounting bill
India imports about 60 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) needs, with Gulf cargoes central to that supply. The disruption has created price pressure from cooking gas cylinders to industrial fuel. According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), India’s LPG import bill for March–August was approximately $4.7 billion, including an estimated $1.1 billion in additional crisis-related costs.
Total LPG imports fell 49 percent in March compared with the average of the corresponding month in the previous two years. The US share of imports rose to 32 percent in April, replacing part of the lost Gulf supply. The six-month cost estimate combines reported trade data with estimates for later months.
New Delhi also turned back toward Russian oil as Gulf supplies became less reliable. Energy security has forced India to weigh western pressure against the immediate needs of its refineries, businesses, and households.
Fertilizer has delivered another blow. The World Bank’s April commodity forecast projected a 60 percent rise in urea prices for 2026. In a country where agriculture supports a large share of the population, costlier fertilizer and disrupted feedstock supplies increase pressure before the planting season and raise the cost of shielding farmers.
Agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fishing grew by 3.6 percent in April–June 2026, down from 4.4 percent a year earlier.
While rainfall, harvest conditions, and domestic demand also shape agricultural growth, disrupted supplies and higher fertilizer costs add to farmers’ difficulties. Shielding them from those costs through subsidies puts further strain on the government’s budget.
CREA estimates India’s net additional fossil fuel cost at $14.4 billion, equivalent to 0.38 percent of GDP. An additional bill of that size draws resources away from other spending, even before the wider costs of interrupted production are counted.
In April, the Reserve Bank of India expected growth of 6.9 percent in 2026–27, against an estimated 7.6 percent in the preceding financial year. The projected slowdown leaves New Delhi facing weaker momentum while it tries to contain the cost of supporting consumers and producers.
Dependence carries a freight premium
High dependence on Gulf oil has made insurance another source of pressure. Early in the conflict, reported war-risk premiums rose from about 0.25 percent of a vessel’s value to 1–1.5 percent, a four- to sixfold increase. Rates have fluctuated with the fighting and ceasefires rather than remaining at one fixed crisis level.
Replacing Gulf cargoes with supplies from more distant producers increases shipping distances, fuel consumption, and demand for tankers. Rerouting around Africa can avoid the Red Sea, but neither the Cape nor Suez bypasses Hormuz for cargo still inside the Persian Gulf. Export pipelines leading to terminals outside the strait offer a limited alternative.
Uneven exposure across East Asia
Country
Oil exposure before the disruption
Main economic pressure
Available cushion or response
Japan
About 93% of crude imports passed through Hormuz in 2025
Higher import costs and pressure on household purchasing power
Oil reserves, supplier diversification, and investment in alternative routes
South Korea
About 70% of crude imports pass through Hormuz
Petrochemical feedstock shortages and industrial cost increases
Alternative cargoes, public support, and greater use of other power sources
China
IEA estimated Hormuz-linked crude supplies at more than 5.2 million barrels a day in 2025
Costlier imports and disruption to refinery supplies
Large inventories, domestic energy production, and access to alternative suppliers
Japan entered the crisis with an aging population, labor shortages, a very large public debt burden, and the legacy of decades of weak demand and deflation. The Hormuz shock has added an external, supply-side increase in costs at a time when inflation has already replaced deflation as an immediate policy concern.
For a country obtaining more than 90 percent of its crude imports through this route before the war, the disruption directly raises the cost of key production inputs and threatens purchasing power. A weak yen compounds the problem as importers must find more yen to pay bills denominated in dollars, even before any increase in the dollar price of oil.
To address inflationary pressures, the Bank of Japan raised its policy rate by 25 basis points in June, bringing it to one percent. The increase extended its tightening cycle, raising borrowing costs as households and businesses were also confronting more expensive imports.
Japan and the US subsequently launched a rare joint currency intervention to prop up the yen, but the relief was short-lived. The currency resumed its slide as higher US interest rates continued to favor the dollar.
Alarm bells continue to ring across the Japanese economy. A further rate increase was under discussion ahead of the September meeting, while Tokyo has sought to diversify oil supplies and support routes that bypass Hormuz. The need for alternatives has become more urgent, even though building them will take time.
South Korean industry cuts back
South Korea obtains about 70 percent of its oil and 20 percent of its LNG from West Asia. The crisis has therefore struck directly at manufacturing and chemicals, where energy and petroleum-derived feedstocks are essential to production.
Petrochemicals, plastics, and other energy-intensive industries face higher costs and pressure to reduce capacity. Naphtha shortages are especially serious because the material is used to make products that feed into automotive manufacturing, electronics, packaging, and construction. A shortage at this stage can spread through industries far removed from oil extraction.
The government has sought to cushion the shock through public support and measures to secure supplies. In late March, it proposed a 26.2 trillion won supplementary budget to assist households and businesses. Such intervention shifts part of the immediate burden to the public finances, even when it prevents larger losses elsewhere.
Southeast Asia’s energy paradox
Southeast Asian industry also depends on Gulf crude oil, LNG, and petrochemical inputs. Higher energy costs and interrupted supplies place factories and employment at risk across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), although the severity varies substantially between countries and industries.
The Philippines faces an additional exposure through approximately 2.4 million Filipinos working in West Asia. Their safety, employment, and ability to send money home are all vulnerable to a prolonged conflict.
Malaysia and Indonesia, two major Southeast Asian economies, face an energy paradox. Both produce oil and gas and can benefit from higher commodity prices, yet domestic production does not eliminate dependence on imported fuels, international prices, or costly consumer subsidies.
Both governments have maintained subsidized fuel prices while introducing purchase limits. Higher export earnings can provide a cushion, but the cost of protecting households rises too. The balance depends on the fuels each country produces, imports, and subsidizes. Gains for an exporter or a state energy company can coexist with growing pressure on the households and industries buying its fuel.
The Gulf’s protection bargain comes under fire
Then there is West Asia itself, where the war began. The US-Israeli assault on Iran in late February and the subsequent disruption of Hormuz have exposed Washington’s Gulf allies to crises on several fronts. Attacks on energy facilities and civilian infrastructure have brought the economic consequences of war directly into states that host US military forces.
Forecasts have deteriorated sharply, but the damage is uneven. The IMF’s April projections put Qatar’s contraction at 8.6 percent, Kuwait’s at 0.6 percent, and Bahrain’s at 0.5 percent. The disruption has continued well beyond those April forecasts.
Qatar faces particularly severe damage to its LNG-dependent economy. By late August, Oxford Economics was warning of a contraction approaching 30 percent, given damage at Ras Laffan. The deterioration since the spring outlook reflects the scale of the damage to facilities on which Qatar’s export earnings depend.
Kuwait’s lack of a maritime outlet outside Hormuz leaves its exports acutely exposed. Bahrain, already heavily indebted, faces additional financing pressure; its credit default swap prices had risen almost 40 percent by late August. The cost of insuring government debt offers another measure of the uncertainty now surrounding the region.
Riyadh cushions its losses, Dubai loses ground
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have more scope to soften the shock, although neither has escaped it. The IMF’s April forecast still projected 3.1 percent growth for each, despite cutting Saudi Arabia’s outlook by 1.4 percentage points and the UAE’s by 1.9 points. Their alternative export routes provide some protection, but leave much of the wider economy exposed.
Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline has allowed it to export some oil through the Red Sea, bypassing Hormuz. Higher oil prices have also partly offset lower volumes. The kingdom’s experience shows why damage to production and changes in revenue do not always move together.
Even so, the economic losses are substantial. Saudi oil activity fell 24.7 percent in the second quarter, while overall GDP contracted 4.8 percent year on year. Its budget deficit was approximately $9.1 billion, despite the benefit of higher petroleum revenues.
The UAE, particularly Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has suffered through its role as a global logistics, tourism, and financial center. According to JPMorgan estimates reported in late August, Dubai property sales had fallen 70–80 percent, while UAE stocks were down around 14 percent during the conflict.
Regional airspace closures initially forced major airlines to suspend or sharply reduce operations. Emirates reported restoring 96 percent of its global network by 4 May. Reopening routes nevertheless leaves airlines exposed to higher fuel costs and renewed security interruptions.
Abu Dhabi has also used the Habshan–Fujairah Pipeline to maintain some oil exports through the Gulf of Oman. Like the Saudi route, it provides a valuable outlet, but cannot replace every shipment or restore the confidence on which the wider economy depends.
The cost reaches the household
The crisis extends beyond oil revenues and financial markets into everyday life. The vulnerability of desalination plants is especially serious in states where drinking water depends overwhelmingly on energy-intensive coastal facilities. An attack on a plant, its power supply, or its distribution network threatens an essential service with few immediate substitutes.
Supply chain interruptions also raise the cost of importing food and other necessities. Even where government intervention or existing stocks prevent shortages, replacing cargoes and maintaining supplies carries an additional expense. Those costs must be absorbed by importers, households, or the state.
Repairing the damage across Iran and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf could cost $34–58 billion, according to Rystad Energy’s April assessment. Beyond oil and gas facilities, the bill extends to factories, power stations, and the desalination plants on which much of the region depends for drinking water.
Arms spending presses on development
The Hormuz blockade and damage to oil facilities, water systems, and civilian infrastructure are forcing Washington’s Gulf allies to reassess their security arrangements. Hosting US forces has not insulated them from the war’s economic consequences, while repairing essential infrastructure creates obligations that will outlast any ceasefire.
Defense spending now competes with reconstruction, public support, and long-term development. Infrastructure investment has not stopped: Gulf states are also accelerating plans for ports and pipelines that reduce dependence on Hormuz. But the need to finance alternative routes is itself part of the price of the war.
Billions that could improve public services and living standards risk being absorbed by arms purchases and the repair of what has been destroyed. The longer this continues, the more Washington’s allies will be required to spend simply to preserve the security and prosperity that their alliance was supposed to guarantee.
Israeli intelligence recruits through money, ideology, coercion, and years of calculated grooming – only to discard its agents once their usefulness expires.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Israel’s intelligence community is closely associated with advanced technology, secretive agencies, and the rivalries that intensified after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Behind this apparatus, however, agent recruitment remains a patient human enterprise, built on vulnerability, access, and dependence on an Israeli handler.
In its early years, Israeli intelligence relied heavily on Jewish operatives for both routine and sensitive missions. As its reach expanded into hostile environments, more collection work was entrusted to recruited agents inside Arab and Palestinian societies, while Jewish operatives continued to provide logistical and operational support abroad.
Technological expansion later shifted the balance, with Israel investing heavily in cyber capabilities, signals intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced surveillance.
Daniel Gold, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development and one of the architects of Iron Dome, embodies this technological turn. Yet the failures surrounding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood renewed scrutiny of Israel’s dependence on technology and the erosion of human intelligence inside Gaza.
Possessing a source, however, is only one part of intelligence work. Information must reach the right officials and be assessed outside the assumptions already shaping their judgment. In both 1973 and 2023, Israel had obtained warnings but failed to interpret or act on them in time.
Former Israeli national security advisor Yaakov Amidror makes the same point in his Hebrew-language book “Intelligence: Theory and Practice.” The difficulty of developing human collection capabilities, he writes, pushed services toward electronic and technological means, but they eventually recognized that modern systems could not compensate for the absence of human sources.
Amidror spent 36 years in the Israeli military, serving as head of the Research Department in Military Intelligence, intelligence chief of Northern Command, commander of the military colleges, and military secretary to the defense minister. He later chaired Israel’s National Security Council. His account divides agent recruitment into three broad methods:
1. Sending an operative from the home country
An operative dispatched from the home country can be trained and briefed before deployment. His loyalty is considered more dependable, and handlers can assess the information on his return without the same fear that he has inflated it for money or personal protection.
His weakness is precisely that he comes from outside. He must build a credible identity, avoid attracting attention, and keep enough distance from local society to protect his cover. Those restrictions often leave him reporting what he can see or hear rather than obtaining original documents, physical evidence, or access to the target’s inner circle.
2. Recruiting an agent inside the target country
A local recruit already belongs to the social environment being penetrated. If positioned in the armed forces, security services, government, business, or a resistance organization, he can enter sensitive spaces without appearing out of place. His handler can direct him toward particular offices, people, or facilities, allowing him to obtain maps, photographs, files, and other original material.
For the recruiting service, however, a local agent’s loyalty remains open to doubt. He may embellish reports to prove his worth or increase his payment. He cannot readily change his home, occupation, or daily routine at his handler’s request without drawing suspicion, leaving him useful but constrained.
Amidror regards ideological or religious conviction as the strongest basis for recruiting an agent inside the target country. Israeli literature celebrates Mossad’s record in Arab states and Shin Bet’s penetration of Palestinian organizations, but also concedes the labor involved. A handler must master the recruit’s language and culture, understand his pressures and ambitions, and invest the time needed to turn vulnerability into dependence.
3. Building a local identity for a trained operative
The third method sends a trained operative into the target country under a manufactured local identity. In theory, this combines the discipline of a home-country officer with the access of a native recruit. Israeli intelligence history treats such deep-cover operations as capable of producing exceptional results.
Exposure carries a heavier price. If extraction fails, the operative may be executed, held for an exchange, or denied even the return of his body. Israel’s most famous example is Eli Cohen, the Mossad operative who penetrated the Syrian political and military elite before his arrest and execution in Damascus in 1965.
Contact without fingerprints
Israeli doctrine also distinguishes among methods of contact. Some agents remain in place and transmit information through codes, concealed communications, postal channels, or periodic meetings with a handler inside the same country. Each contact is designed to appear ordinary, but repetition creates patterns that counterintelligence can detect.
High-value agents may be taken to Israel via several other countries to conceal their destination. Once there, they can face polygraph examinations, intensive debriefing, professional training, and further measures intended to deepen their involvement.
Emergency channels are kept for information that cannot wait. Many networks are nevertheless uncovered through weak communications, reused methods, duplicated contacts, logistical mistakes, or chance. The tradecraft may be patient, but it remains vulnerable to routine human error.
Frequency itself depends on the value and sensitivity of the source. A low-level agent may transmit limited observations through an indirect channel, while a source carrying urgent military information may be instructed to break routine and use an emergency line. Every exception protects the information at the cost of exposing another fragment of the network.
The hierarchy of betrayal
Israeli literature ranks agents by both access and function. A well-placed agent occupies a sensitive post and helps the recruiting service understand, disrupt, or pre-empt the adversary’s plans. A mobile agent lacks such access but can be moved or tasked to observe a recent development.
A “research agent” may pose as a merchant, traveler, or professional and collect military information, weapons movements, personnel deployments, or assessments of morale. Such work may fall short of strategic penetration, but it can be valuable in preparing an operation, mapping a network, or supporting a military campaign.
An “insider” draws on a broad web of relationships. He may never handle the most sensitive material himself, yet can reach people who do, collect documents indirectly, and shift into new fields when his handler’s priorities change. His value lies in the network around him as much as in his formal position.
These categories are neither fixed nor mutually exclusive. A trader who begins by observing movements can become an intermediary to a more valuable source; an employee with modest access can be encouraged to seek promotion or transfer. Recruitment therefore continues after the first agreement, with handlers repeatedly trying to reposition the agent closer to the information they want.
A decade spent cultivating cover
A Turkish counterintelligence operation announced in February 2026 revealed the years Israel can devote to cultivating an agent. Turkish authorities alleged that Mehmet Budak Derya and Veysel Kerimoglu supplied Mossad with information for more than a decade. Derya, a mining engineer who entered the marble trade, was said to have met Israeli handlers in several European countries under shifting code names.
According to Turkish reporting, the pair used commercial activity to build ties across the region, collect information on Palestinians critical of Israel, and enter the drone-component trade. A legitimate business can provide travel, money, contacts, and a pretext for approaching targets while concealing the intelligence operation behind it.
Commercial cover can also become a burden. The agent may appear prosperous while his business, travel, and capital remain tied to the service directing him. Years of cultivation can bring influence and access, but also bind the recruit to a life that may collapse once his handlers withdraw their protection.
A service may improve the recruit’s financial position, establish a credible business front, and wait for his social standing to grow. What appears to be ordinary professional advancement may therefore conceal an intelligence operation years in the making.
The occupation spends its assets
Israeli intelligence may invest considerable time and resources in an agent while he remains useful. This treatment rarely survives the loss of his access or operational value. To his handlers, the collaborator remains an expendable intelligence asset.
There have been exceptions. In Operation Diamond, Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa flew an MiG-21 to Israel on 16 August 1966 after Mossad arranged the extraction of members of his family. Israel obtained one of the Soviet Union’s most advanced aircraft, studied it, and later shared it with the US. The aircraft was subsequently numbered 007.
Such treatment generally follows the value or danger of the mission and may form part of the recruitment bargain itself. Better pay and protection can also be extended to agents who perform unusually important tasks or who convert to Judaism. The secrecy surrounding these cases makes any credible percentage impossible to establish.
Redfa received exceptional protection because Israel wanted the aircraft intact and needed his cooperation. Moving his family was part of the deal. Better treatment may also be extended to agents who undertake unusually important or dangerous missions, but few remain so valuable once their work is over.
The broader record is harsher. When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, its proxy South Lebanon Army (SLA) collapsed, and thousands of its members and relatives crossed the border amid scenes of panic.
Former commander Antoine Lahad later accused Israel of abandoning the force it had armed, financed, and trained. Their experience remains one of the clearest warnings to those who wager their fate on occupation promises.
Palestinian collaborators who fled to Israel have likewise faced displacement, isolation, and uncertain legal and economic lives. The same pattern now shadows Israel-backed armed groups in Gaza, whose utility depends on the occupation’s immediate military needs rather than any lasting obligation to the men it recruits.
An agent who tries to walk away may discover that retirement is not an option. His handler can threaten to expose him, demand further work, or press him to recruit a more valuable replacement. Every payment, meeting, and assignment becomes another means of control.
Despite Israel’s technological reach, its human intelligence operations still depend on patient recruitment, money, ideology, coercion, and personal vulnerability. Once an agent has exhausted his usefulness, the occupation has little incentive to protect him.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps announced that its Aerospace Force and Navy have carried out attacks on US warships and vessels in response to American attacks on Iranian oil tankers and a naval blockade of Iran.
The IRGC Aerospace Force said it targeted, with several ballistic missiles, a US aircraft carrier and a destroyer that had harassed Iranian ships and participated in the naval blockade.
“The two warships, after sustaining damage and fearing another attack, were forced to flee the area of engagement,” the force said.
It added that the enemy, which had for years “roamed the region with false pride and hollow claims,” is now forced to officially acknowledge that two US Navy warships had come under attack.
“CENTCOM’s acknowledgment confirming this operation is living evidence of the enemy’s strategic defeat and proof of the offensive power of the IRGC,” the statement said.
The IRGC Aerospace Force warned that if hostile and aggressive actions continue, “the US regime must expect devastating responses from the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Meanwhile, the IRGC Navy said in a statement on Saturday night that the US “terrorist and aggressor army”, in a brutal act carried out “out of desperation” over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, had attacked three oil tankers belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran earlier that morning, causing damage.
The IRGC Navy said its forces subsequently targeted three oil tankers traveling along an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz as well as three vessels affiliated with the US in other areas.
The IRGC Navy issued a “firm warning” to all vessels present in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz, urging them not to fall for deception by the US military and to avoid any suspicious movement aimed at passing through unauthorized waterways.
“Otherwise, you will be targeted,” the statement warned.
Also, the spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters of Iran warned the US military that if its acts of “mischief, insecurity and harassment of Iranian ships” and the naval blockade of Iran continue, the Iranian Armed Forces will deliver “more severe strikes than before” against US military vessels in the region.
An Iranian oil tanker came under a missile attack by US forces six nautical miles off Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf on Saturday morning.
Several explosions were heard from the direction of the Persian Gulf in the vicinity of Kharg Island hours ago.
According to a Tasnim correspondent on Kharg Island, a small Iranian oil tanker was targeted by a US military missile attack six nautical miles from the island on Saturday morning.
The tanker, which was in the anchorage area off Kharg Island, was hit by four projectiles fired by US forces.
Local sources said, fortunately, the incident caused no casualties and that the tanker’s crew members were in the process of evacuating the vessel.
Relevant authorities are investigating the extent of the damage and the precise circumstances surrounding the incident. Further details will be released later.
by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio – Gospa News founder and director
FIRST POSTED ON GOSPA NEWS AT 7,28 AM GMT + 2 (Italy) -UPDATED AT 9,42 PM GMT + 2
A US-made AGM-84H cruise missile among the wreckage after American strike on a wedding
A US-made AGM-84H SLAM-ER cruise missile has been identified among the wreckage following the American strike on a wedding ceremony in Sirik, southern Iran, late Tuesday, adding further evidence of the US military’s role in the attack that killed and wounded civilians.
Weapons analyst Trevor Ball identified the remnants as belonging to the SLAM-ER, a precision-guided, air-launched cruise missile manufactured by Boeing, according OsintWarfare which posted on X the first video of wreckage and was quoted by Al Mayaeedn English Lebanese TV.
Boeing describes the SLAM-ER as being the most accurate air-launched munition in the US Navy’s arsenal;
Enlargement of the piece of a U.S. AGM-84H SLAM-ER among the wreckage in the wedding massacre in Sirik posted on X by @OsintWarfare
Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician who now works as a weapons technical analyst for Armament Research Services, was among the experts asked by Reuters to examine the photographs and video.
“The damage seen appears to be from a munition which detonated on contact with the roof, or just above the roof,”he said, adding it was apparently a direct hit.
The strike in the small town of Kuhestak on Tuesday killed five people and injured at least 70 others.
The Exclusive Video of the Wreckage
VIDEO LEGEND:
1st footage – The US-made AGM-84H SLAM-ER cruise missile has among the wreckage following the American strike on the wedding cerimony
2nd footage – Children’s slippers lie scattered in the aftermath of the US aggression at a wedding in Sirik, where civilians, including children, were killed and dozens more were injured. Footage from the scene shows slippers belonging to women and children amid the destruction.
After this initial analysis, both Iranian and international sources tried to identify the weapon, with some ballistics experts even launching the bizarre hypothesis that it was a ricochet shot, a hypothesis considered unlikely by most, however.
Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal.
His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…
Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.
For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.
With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.
In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.
In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates
His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others
He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.
VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel
$280+ BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation 150B direct “aid” and $ 130B in “Offense” contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.
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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu talks to US President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on April 7, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Israeli analyst Ran Adelist said it was “interesting to see how the United States and the Israeli occupation entity, despite being tens of thousands of kilometers apart, are today undergoing similar processes in their internal conflicts,” with political and social disputes forming the backdrop and “just one step away” from escalating into violence.
In an article published in Maariv, Adelist added, “Relations between the United States and ‘Israel’ are intertwined across a variety of fields, to the point that, despite the difference in scale, it is unclear which side influences the other, even as both need to preserve their operational independence. In particular, it is unclear which of the two will prevail internally in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship.”
“On the surface, because of the quantitative disparity, no comparison can be made. But in reality, Israel is a miniature version of America, and Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu share a personal, national, and social agenda that is anything but democratic. The prevailing claim is that we are dealing with two democracies, one the largest in the world and the other the only one in the Middle East. That is not true. They are conditional democracies. The condition is that the deep messianic, sectarian, economic, and nationalist currents do not fall into the hands of dictatorial leaders and a mindless public that blindly follows them—and that is precisely what has happened to both,” the Zionist analyst continued.
Activists hold signs during a protest near the White House as U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 2026. (Photo by Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“In fact, the United States and Israel have never truly been democracies,” he wrote. “The United States acted after World War II as an emerging empire, while Israel, after the ‘War of Liberation,’ acted as a ‘state’ under siege, requiring the suppression of the hostile Arab sector. Thus, until Trump and Netanyahu came along and exposed the truth, we were dealing with a conditional democracy. What is ours is ours, and what is yours is ours as well. At the same time, in both countries, intractable identity problems came to the surface involving sectors that are not merely different but in conflict with one another, and both fell into constitutional crises with similar characteristics.”
Adelist drew a sharp contrast between Trump and Netanyahu while arguing that, despite their differences, both leaders share a highly personalized approach to power and political survival.
“There are no two people more different from each other than Trump and Bibi,” he wrote, describing Trump as a “childish megalomaniac” and “pathological narcissist” who clings to fragments of reality and frequently veers into embarrassing territory despite efforts by his aides to prepare him for public appearances.
Adelist portrayed Netanyahu as similarly focused above all on his political survival. He argued that, while Netanyahu remains “razor-sharp” when it comes to preserving his position, he treats everything else as secondary.
The analyst also pointed to what he described as a parallel media environment surrounding the two leaders. He cited the Israeli Channel 14 and Fox in the United States, accusing both outlets of promoting “wild conspiracy theories” and broadly defending their respective leaders.
According to Adelist, Trump and Netanyahu operate within political “bubbles” that filter out information that challenges their worldview. “When something bad happens,” he wrote, “it is, for both of them, collateral damage.”
Adelist argued that the concentration of political power around both leaders has also shaped their handling of foreign and security policy. In his view, when leaders exercise near-total control domestically, they are likely to approach international affairs with the same highly personalized style of decision-making.
He described this as “a surefire recipe for losing on every external front,” arguing that domestic political protection can allow leaders to absorb military and diplomatic setbacks without facing immediate political consequences.
The Zionist analyst cited what he characterized as the war in Iran under Trump and the conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as more recently Turkey, under Netanyahu. He argued that both leaders can continue pursuing policies that bring them closer to catastrophe because of the political protection they retain at home.
He concluded that the two so-called leaders’ eventual decline could follow a similarly short trajectory, describing the parallels between their political fortunes as “striking.”
Mouners carry a coffin duringa mass funeral for people killed when U.S missile struk a home wherea weddind was being heldin Kuhestak, Southern Iran, Tursday, Sept. 3, 2026 (Razief Poudat/SNA via AP)
A four-year-old child was among four people laid to rest in the southern Iranian city of Kuhestak on Thursday, as grieving families and residents gathered to bid farewell to loved ones killed in a US attack on the area.
The funeral ceremonies in Kuhestak, in Sirik County of Hormozgan Province, began at 4 pm from a street at the city’s entrance, with mourners walking together toward the city’s Martyrs’ Cemetery, where the victims were laid to rest.
Families mourn victims of US massacre
The authorities identified the four victims as four-year-old Amirali Karimi, 16-year-old Mohammad Mollahi, 43-year-old Kolthoum Mollahi Nezhadnia, and 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri.
According to the announced figures, the US aggression left 68 people injured, several of whom remain under medical treatment.
The funeral brought together the victims’ relatives, military and civilian officials, and large numbers of residents from across Hormozgan Province. The four victims were buried at the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Kuhestak.
Larijani condemns killing of women and children
Speaking about the attack, Head of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council Sheikh Amoli Larijani said, “The crime in Sirik and the killing of unarmed women and children embody the savage nature and deceptive self of the United States, and expose the falsehood and audacity of those who trade in human rights.”
Larijani added that “The war crime in Sirik proved that what they call civilization is nothing but savagery that has been embellished and beautified,” and said, “The shame of this massacre will forever weigh heavily on the shoulders of all those who committed and supported it.”
Iran reports mounting toll from attacks
Meanwhile, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour announced the latest figures for those killed and wounded in the recent attacks targeting Iran.
He said 61 of those injured were women and 44 were under the age of 18, while the list of those killed included two women and one child.
“Behind every number is a human being and a family,” Kermanpour said, a reminder that the casualty figures represent lives lost, families shattered, and communities left to mourn in the aftermath of the attacks.
A night meant to celebrate love turned into one of the darkest and most painful nights in Sirik when a US missile struck a wedding celebration, killing five people and injuring 63 others, including women and children.
MP Hasan Ezzeddine, Member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc (image from archive)
“Loyalty to Resistance” parliamentary bloc issued on Thursday a statement after its periodic meeting, stressing that the bets of the Lebanese authorities on making concessions in the context of the “Framework Agreement” have fallen.
What follows is the full text of the statement:
The Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc held its periodic meeting with all its members in attendance, and issued the following statement:
The United States continues to escalate its aggression against the region, especially against the Islamic Republic of Iran, through bombing and destruction. Meanwhile, the Zionist enemy continues to escalate its crimes against South Lebanon: bulldozing, demolition, uprooting trees, and stealing water — amid complete international silence, full American complicity, and official Lebanese neglect of even the minimum responsibility to defend the country and its people.
As for our people in Palestine, especially in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they are subjected to an organized and escalating savage aggression. The West Bank is now at the heart of an expanding settlement onslaught, while Al-Aqsa Mosque is not spared from the frenzied attacks by the enemy’s leaders.
Amid all of this, our people and the people of the Resistance, from Palestine to Lebanon, embody a model of steadfastness and patience. In their legendary march of resilience before the enemy, they rely on God, believe in their cause, and are determined to confront. They are fully confident that victory will ultimately be their ally.
None of these major and dangerous developments could ever obscure the 48th anniversary of the enforced disappearance of the Imam of the nation and the Resistance, His Eminence Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr and his two companions. Rather, it has made the memory burn brighter, because all of what is happening in terms of aggression and occupation is precisely what Imam al-Sadr warned against and called to resist.
At its periodic meeting, the Loyalty Bloc paused before this occasion and once again expressed its condemnation and denunciation of the injustice inflicted upon our people, our homeland, and our cause, when the tyrant Gaddafi and his criminal regime committed the crime of the enforced disappearance of Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr and his two brothers, Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine. It was never hidden from anyone that the goal of that crime was to silence the voice defending our human right to reject injustice, to resist the enemy, and to live in security, sovereignty, and dignity — in a sovereign, liberated, proud, and protected homeland, and in a region where the honorable stand with Palestine, its people, and its just and legitimate cause of liberation.
The Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc renews its pledge to Imam al-Sadr, who laid the foundations and pillars of the approach of resistance to the Zionist enemy: that his sons in Hezbollah and the Amal Movement remain steadfast in upholding the path of resistance to defend the homeland and its people and to liberate its land, and they will never hesitate to make sacrifices, no matter how great, for this cause.
In light of the developments, the Bloc recorded the following:
1- The bet of the Lebanese authority has failed and its illusions have vanished after the failure of its concessionary option in the shameful and ominous “framework agreement” — illegal and unconstitutional — with the enemy. It has become clear that the enemy is using it as cover to continue the crime of annihilation against everything related to life in the occupied areas, and to continue its attacks on the southern villages. This authority no longer has any pretext to continue down this destructive path for the state and the homeland, except to please the American administration. Its justificatory rhetoric has been worn out and convinces no one. Instead of persisting in stubbornness and denial of reality, it must abandon this approach that deepens the national crisis and entrenches the occupation and its criminal practices. 2- The Bloc affirms that the absence of the political authority from shouldering its national responsibilities in confronting the Zionist aggression against Lebanon and its consequences, and its “clinical death” toward its people on living issues — especially regarding the affairs of the displaced and the suffering of those affected, and its disavowal of its known obligations — has led to a worsening electricity crisis, the spread of corruption and favoritism in appointments, the absence of oversight over rising prices, and leaving the citizen in daily suffering with no one to hold accountable.
3- The Bloc affirms that hostility toward Israel is a charter-based stance enshrined in the Taif Agreement, and a body of legal texts that have accumulated since the establishment of the Zionist entity and its ongoing daily crimes against our people and its occupation of our land. The insistence of the President of the Republic on his repeated statement about seeking to end the state of hostility with Israel is a deliberate disregard of the Charter, the laws, and the pains of our people. Hostility toward Israel is a condition imposed by the enemy’s continued occupation of others’ lands by force, and by its inherent racist and exclusionary nature. No one, whatever their position, will be able to abolish it or strike it from the Charter, the law, and from the culture of the Lebanese and the authenticity of their national belonging.
4- The Bloc strongly condemns the renewed American aggression and economic siege on the Islamic Republic, and the targeting of civilians. It affirms Iran’s legitimate right to self-defense and to confront aggression by appropriate means, and it salutes the heroism of the Iranian Armed Forces and Iranian national solidarity in defeating the objectives of arrogance and hegemonic bullying.
Iran has been preparing for an extended and decisive phase of the war with the United States, Professor Mohammad Marandi said Tuesday, arguing that Tehran anticipated the escalation and has positioned its military and strategic capabilities accordingly.
Speaking to Al Mayadeen on The Great Standoff: Iran and the World, Marandi said Iran had undertaken extensive preparations in recent weeks, including preparations concerning the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Strait of Hormuz is extensively mined, and the United States cannot remove those or dismantle the mines”, Marandi said, adding that the mines had been prepared as part of Iran’s broader military posture.
“The mines in the Strait of Hormuz are very much prepared, and anyone who wants to try to see if they’re non-existent, they can do so and pay the price”, he said.
Marandi argued that Iran had been preparing for “an extensive war, a long war, and a decisive war”, while warning that countries in the region aligned with Washington could face serious consequences as the conflict develops.
US using regional airspace in attacks on Iran
According to Marandi, the United States is extensively using the airspace of regional countries to conduct operations against Iran, with Saudi airspace among those being used.
He also stated that a US strike had hit a wedding celebration in Sirik, saying further information was expected to emerge. Marandi later said that two Iranians had been confirmed martyred in the attack, assigning direct responsibility to both Washington and the regional governments supporting it.
The United States, he asserted, would be unable to eliminate Iran’s military capabilities, pointing to the country’s extensive underground military infrastructure and the dispersal of its assets.
“Iran’s military capabilities are underground”, he said. “They’re spread out. Iran has decoys, tens of thousands of decoys planted across the country”. Iran also moves its surface-based assets regularly, making it difficult for the United States to establish a precise picture of its military capabilities, he said.
Iran has ‘the advantage’, Marandi says
Marandi said the United States had “fallen into the Iranian trap” by entering into a direct military confrontation with Tehran, arguing that Iran holds several advantages at this stage of the war.
He pointed to the timing of the confrontation, including the approaching US midterm elections, as well as favorable conditions inside Iran. “The Americans have basically fallen into the Iranian trap because a military war now between Iran and the Trump regime. Iran has the advantage for a host of reasons,” he said.
Marandi also argued that Iran had spent the past six months moving decoys and military assets in an effort to complicate US targeting efforts. “Iran constantly moves around its decoys. It constantly moves around its own assets that are on the surface. It’s very confusing for the Americans”, he said.
He stated further that the United States was less capable militarily than it portrays itself to be, saying, “They are not nearly as capable as they present themselves to be in Hollywood movies”.
Depressing US air defense stocks
Regarding Washington’s military capabilities, Marandi said the United States and Jordan had expended a significant number of surface-to-air missiles during recent Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Jordan.
According to his assessment, approximately 100 surface-to-air missiles were used by the United States and Jordan during the strikes “the night before last”. He said Iran was using older missiles to encourage the expenditure of US air-defense interceptors while reserving more advanced missiles for attacks against selected targets.
“It is believed that within a short period of time, if this war is sustained, that the United States will effectively run out of missiles”, Marandi said.
He drew a parallel with Ukraine, arguing that US military stocks were already under pressure and that Washington was increasingly unable to provide Kiev with additional air-defense systems. “The shortages are real, and the shortages are growing as we speak,” he said.
Marandi predicted heavy fighting in the coming days, describing the current period as a potentially decisive phase in the confrontation between Iran and the United States.
Where did US' air defense shield go? Following emergency transfers to West Asia, US Patriot missile stockpiles in Europe have dropped past a critical threshold.
An AP report reveals that out of 2,330 available Patriot interceptors, around 1,500 were consumed in the war on Iran. pic.twitter.com/lZOL0XHoVo
He specifically named Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, accusing their governments of assisting the United States in its aggression against Iran.
“These regimes which, as we speak, are assisting the United States in carrying out airstrikes, they will be severely punished,” he said.
Marandi added that Iran could target US assets in those countries and assets linked to the US economy if Washington escalates its campaign against Iran’s infrastructure or economy. “I think that, again, like I said months ago, the very existence of these regimes is now a question”, he said.
Threats from the Trump administration, he said, would not alter Iran’s position, saying the Iranian leadership and armed forces remained committed to continuing the fight. “The Iranians are not going to back down at all”, Marandi said.
Iran has upgraded military capabilities
Marandi also revealed that Iran’s armed forces have introduced new weapons systems that have yet to be publicly unveiled. “The Iranian armed forces, whether it’s the regular army or the revolutionary guards, they have new weapon systems that they have not unveiled yet”, he said.
According to Marandi, Iran has used the past six months of US attacks to identify weaknesses and improve its military capabilities, including its missile and drone systems.
“Iran has learned a lot from the assaults carried out by the United States on the country over the last six months,” he said. “And it is using that wealth of knowledge to upgrade its weapon systems and to be more capable in defending the country against US aggression.”
He said Iran’s military-industrial and research and development capabilities are largely located underground and suggested that Tehran is also drawing on the capabilities of friendly countries. Marandi pointed to the reported downing of a US drone as evidence that Iran’s military capabilities have improved.
“So this downing of a US drone is just an indication that while Iran has downed many drones in the past, but it is an indication that Iran’s enhanced capabilities are going to make things more difficult for the United States in the coming days and weeks”, he said.
Iran’s military posture has shifted to offensive
Marandi urged supporters of the resistance not to be concerned about the escalation, arguing that Iran has prepared militarily, psychologically and materially for the coming phase. “The Iranian armed forces have escalation dominance. They are very well entrenched”, he said, adding that Iranian soldiers have high morale and that the country is prepared for what he described as decisive days and weeks ahead.
He also said Iran was not intimidated by threats issued by US President Donald Trump, arguing that Tehran had already begun retaliatory operations despite warnings from Washington. “The Iranian retaliation will be heavy-handed. It is heavy-handed. It will be even more heavy-handed”, Marandi said, stressing that Iran’s military posture had shifted from defensive to offensive following the appointment of General Mohsen Rezaei as chair of the Supreme National Security Council.
“With the appointment of the new chair of the Supreme National Security Council, General Mohsen Rezaei, it is clear that a decision has been made at the highest level,” Marandi said.
He further attributed the strategic shift to a decision by Sayyed Ali Khamenei, saying Iran would remain on the offensive in the coming battle. “And so, just as we saw the night before last, the Iranians hit the United States very hard in response to its assault. Iran is going to hit even harder in the coming hours”, he said.
Concluding his statement, Professor Marandi warned that Iran was closely monitoring the actions of regional governments supporting the United States and argued that those governments could no longer claim neutrality. “None of these countries can pretend that they are neutral”, he said. “All of them have blood on their hands, the regimes, whether it’s Jordan or the regimes that neighbor Iran”.
Speaking on Monday’s episode of Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff: Iran and the World, Professor Mohammad Marandi said messages conveyed by the United States through Oman, Qatar, and Pakistan have failed to meet Iran’s expectations.
Missile strike by the Islamic Republic of Iran (image from archive).
Iran retaliated for the US aggression on its soil by targeting US bases across Kuwait, Bahrain and UAE in operations carried out on Wednesday by both the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
The (IRGC) said its forces have struck the command compound and living quarters of the US commander at Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem Air Base, setting fire to a drone hangar and deployment ramp and destroying a number of drones.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the IRGC’s Public Relations Department said the operation was carried out in response to a US attack on civilians in Iran.
The retaliation came after US forces turned a wedding in Sirik, southern Iran, into a mourning ceremony by bombing a residential house, it said.
Nearly 70 civilians were affected in the attack, with five people, including a child, martyred.
“In response to this crime, at dawn today, the brave fighters of the IRGC Ground Force, simultaneously with attacks on US bases in Jordan, Bahrain and Erbil, carried out a combined missile-and-drone strike on the command center and living quarters of the US commander at Ali Al-Salem base,” the statement said.
The IRGC added that the attack killed a number of US personnel and was followed by strikes on a drone hangar and the ramp used to deploy drones involved in attacks against Iran. It said several drones were destroyed and the hangar was set ablaze.
Iran’s IRGC says targeted 5 US bases across the region:
– Camp Titin & Prince Hassan Base (Jordan): ballistic attack. – Erbil Bases (Iraq): Combined missile/drone – Ali Al Salem (Kuwait): HQs & drone ramps hit. – US Naval Base (Bahrain): Casualties & destroyed aircraft reported. pic.twitter.com/HZlCFW6wJA
Addressing the Kuwaiti people, the IRGC said, “You know well about our affection and affinity with you. What pains and concerns us is the occupation of Islamic lands by the child-killing and terrorist US military.”
The statement added that the attacks were intended to help “cleanse the pure land and generous homeland of Kuwait from the presence of American infidels.”
The IRGC expressed hope for “the destruction of US domination and the Zionist regime and the freedom and independence of the noble people of Kuwait from the occupying aggressors.”
Iranian Army Retaliation
For its part, the Iranian Army announced a fresh wave of drone attacks against US military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, saying dozens of ‘Arash’ loitering munitions targeted radar systems and US troop positions in response to attacks on innocent Iranian civilians.
The Army said the attacks were carried out from the early hours of Wednesday as the 30th stage of Operation Thunderbolt.
“Dozens of the Army’s loitering munitions targeted radar systems and the locations of US forces at the Al Dhafra and Al Minhad bases in the UAE,” the Army said in a statement.
The Iranian Army says it has launched drone attacks on US bases in Bahrain and the UAE in response to the latest US aggression including its attack on a wedding in southern Iran.https://t.co/DBauABVfdhpic.twitter.com/aJ9TdjmIKV
It added that radar installations and gathering points of US forces at Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain were once again subjected to heavy attacks by Arash loitering munitions.
The Army described Al Dhafra as one of the “important operational centers” of the US in the region, saying the base is used for air operations, reconnaissance, surveillance and support missions.
The statement stressed that the Army’s response to US attacks on civilians would continue.
“The enemy’s attack on residential areas and its targeting of a wedding ceremony is a clear instance of a war crime and exposes the evil nature of ‘American human rights,’” the Army said.
The Iranian retaliation followed a fresh series of US acts of aggression, which hit the counties of Chabahar and Konarak in Sistan and Baluchestan, among other areas.
The terrorist US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed in a statement that it launched airstrikes in retaliation for what it termed attempts by Iran’s IRGC to deploy sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz and a missile barrage directed at a US military base in Jordan – a claim rejected by Iran’s military sources.
This latest flare-up comes just days after the US conducted strikes on the Iranian island of Larak in the Strait of Hormuz, which Washington claimed was aimed at preventing Tehran from planting mines.
In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks targeting US forces stationed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
Sheikh Naim Qassem at ceremony marking the second annul anniversary of the martyrdom of Hezbollah Secretary-Generals, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, September 27, 2026 (Screengrab)
Sheikh Naim Qassem reaffirms Hezbollah’s resistance path, honors Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, and vows to continue supporting Palestine.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem reaffirmed the movement’s commitment to its path of resistance, Palestine, and the liberation of occupied Lebanese territory, as he commemorated the second anniversary of the martyrdom of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the occasion, Sheikh Qassem described the anniversary as “blessed by the elevated status of the martyrs” and by the continuation of their path, saying it had given Hezbollah and its supporters “resilience and enabled us to endure and remain steadfast.”
Addressing Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Qassem recalled his former leader and companion on the path of Hezbollah and its resistance, saying he had “entered our hearts, filled our minds, and charted the course toward our cherished life.”
“You are the resistance, and the resistance is you,” Sheikh Qassem said, eulogizing Sayyed Nasrallah as a symbol of the resistance for “the free people of the world” and as a leader who had become an inspiration to others.
He said Sayyed Nasrallah had departed physically but left behind his teachings and “the light of your giving” that continues to provide the movement with resolve.
“We will continue along this Muhammadan-Alawi path, the path of Imam Khomeini, the path of Imam Khamenei, and the path of Imam Musa al-Sadr: the path of guardianship and jihad,” Sheikh Qassem said.
“Palestine will remain the compass,” he added, alongside the objective of liberating Lebanese land.
Sheikh Qassem honors Sayyed Safieddine and resistance commanders
Turning to Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, Sheikh Qassem said he had never rested or grown weary in serving Hezbollah’s path and had been “a pillar and an aide” to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Although Sayyed Safieddine’s departure came quickly, Sheikh Qassem said, “your steadfast steps will remain a landmark along the resistance’s path of jihad and the path of those who resist.”
He also paid tribute to commanders and figures who were martyred alongside the Ummah’s martyrs.
Sheikh Qassem recalled the four aides who were martyred during the Battle of the People of Might, highlighting Sayyed Fouad Shukr, whom he hailed as one of the founders of resistance within Hezbollah and a key figure in building its formations.
He also honored Haj Ibrahim Akil, saying he had devoted his life to Resistance activity following the Israeli invasion and played a central role in establishing the Radwan Force.
Haj Abed al-Munem Karaki, Sheikh Qassem said, spent more than four decades engaged in Islamic activity and establishing the resistance’s first cells, while also assuming responsibility for Sayyed Hassan’s headquarters during the campaign of solidarity launched after the Gaza war.
Sayyed Suhail Husseini, who assumed the chief-of-staff responsibility in 2008, developed the resistance’s formations and served as an educator and intellectual, Sheikh Qassem said.
He further honored martyr commander and mujahid Sheikh Nabil Qawouk, whom he described as a “true pillar” alongside Sayyed Nasrallah and said had held several responsibilities, most recently the security portfolio.
Sheikh Qassem also remembered martyr commander Abbas Nilforoushan, describing him as an aide, adviser, and commander who stood alongside the resistance.
He noted that Haj Mortada, Haj Adel Mohammad Bahsoun, and Haj Maher Shaheen were also martyred alongside Sayyed Safieddine.
A special tribute was extended to what Sheikh Qassem called the “living martyrs,” referring to those wounded in the pager attacks, whom he said had set an example, as well as to prisoners unjustly detained and to all those who stood by the martyrs and prisoners.
Sheikh Qassem said Hezbollah’s Shura Council had designated the period beginning with the People of Might Battle and continuing to the present as the “We are true to the Pledge” phase.
He explained that the designation reflected the movement’s intention to continue its path, with new leadership succeeding martyred leaders while remaining committed to their principles.
“‘We are true to the Pledge’ means remaining committed to our constants,” Sheikh Qassem said, identifying as the foremost constant “the courageous, dignified, divinely guided resistance in confronting aggression.”
He reaffirmed Hezbollah’s commitment to maintaining the resistance until the Israeli enemy withdraws from Lebanese territory and the occupied land is fully liberated.
The phrase also represented, he said, preserving the trust of the martyrs, foremost among them Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, supporting Palestine and its liberation, working toward the complete liberation of Lebanese territory, and learning from previous stages and their lessons.
Addressing those who question the resistance’s achievements, Sheikh Qassem asked: “What has the resistance accomplished?” He then contrasted that question with another: “What has the state accomplished?”
Resistance halted Israeli objectives
Sheikh Qassem said the resistance had prevented the Israeli aggression from achieving its objectives, arguing that the scale of the Israeli military deployment had failed to break the resistance.
He said the resistance had demonstrated that formations numbering as many as 90,000 Israeli soldiers and officers could not accomplish their objectives by defeating it.
According to Sheikh Qassem, the resistance also prevented the Israeli occupation from becoming entrenched and blocked the establishment of settlements in Lebanon.
“Given the immense sacrifices made thus far, we can only continue. We cannot be defeated, and we will continue. Far be it from us to accept humiliation,” Sheikh Qassem said.
He said resistance fighters had halted the advance of Israeli brigades and tens of thousands of troops despite extensive bombardment and destruction involving different types of weapons.
He said resistance fighters had halted the advance of Israeli brigades and tens of thousands of troops despite extensive bombardment and destruction involving different types of weapons.
Sheikh Qassem cited Bint Jbeil, Khiam, Aita al-Shaab, Naqoura, al-Bayyada, and Ali al-Taher among the locations where resistance fighters had held their positions, adding that resistance had been maintained across southern Lebanon.
At Ali al-Taher, he said, the steadfast defense lasted three months, while resistance at other locations continued for months.
He described the resistance’s battlefield approach as involving two elements: confronting the enemy at a given place and time to the extent possible, and preventing it from establishing a permanent foothold.
Sheikh Qassem said details concerning how the battle was managed could not be disclosed, noting that the preparations for the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood had surprised observers.
“This means that withholding certain details is connected to the way the battle is managed,” he said.
“The resistance emerged only because of aggression. Therefore, aggression is the cause, and aggression is the problem,” Sheikh Qassem said.
He warned that surrender to the Israeli enemy would mean the end of Lebanon and its model of coexistence in favor of Israeli settlements. “If some are willing to surrender, we are not,” he said, stressing that Lebanon belonged to all its people and that “not a single inch” of its 10,452 square kilometers should be relinquished.
“The foundation, pillar, and future of the country lie in southern Lebanon,” Sheikh Qassem said.
Sheikh Qassem challenges Lebanese authorities over resistance
Addressing the so-called “sovereigntists,” Sheikh Qassem rejected calls for the resistance to be blamed for Israeli aggression.
“Do not tell us to look at what the aggression has done because you are resisting it. Instead, ask yourselves: Why do you not resist it? Why do you make concessions?” he said.
He maintained that a memorandum of understanding had helped lower the level of escalation to the situation seen today.
Turning to efforts to secure exclusive state control over weapons, Sheikh Qassem questioned why Lebanese authorities were asking the Lebanese Army to disarm the resistance after spending two years attempting to do so themselves.
“The Lebanese Army is a national army, and the people of Lebanon resolve their affairs among themselves,” he said, rejecting efforts to make the army an instrument for implementing political demands.
He warned against any approach based on retaining part of Lebanon by surrendering another part of the country or its people.
“Whoever bets on retaining part of Lebanon in exchange for abandoning another part of the land or its people is deluding himself,” Sheikh Qassem said.
He also criticized the framework agreement, saying it had presented in a single session what Lebanon could discuss or offer in a manner serving the enemy’s interests.
Sheikh Qassem accused the authorities of relinquishing what he described as Lebanon’s sources of strength and accommodating the demands of the enemy, saying they were assisting an Israeli-American project rather than confronting it.
He also held the authorities responsible for the continuation of an unstable security situation resulting from attacks, saying they were placing their confidence in the United States and “Israel.”
Sttae must turn to indirect negotiations
Sheikh Qassem said the authorities had attempted direct negotiations in seven rounds but questioned their outcome, describing it as “below zero, not merely zero.”
He acknowledged that the President had the right to negotiate but said that right did not extend to violating the Constitution, the Taif Agreement, the presidential inaugural address, the ministerial statement, or Lebanon’s rights.
“Freeze direct negotiations, move to indirect negotiations, and raise your voice,” Sheikh Qassem said, adding that people would stand behind efforts to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty.
He said Hezbollah was prepared for dialogue but questioned how it could engage with those who had declared the resistance and its people to be outside the law.
“If ‘Israel’ were to withdraw from an area today or tomorrow, or announce a withdrawal plan, that would be the result of the resistance and the memorandum of understanding, not the result of negotiations,” he said.
Sheikh Qassem praised Hezbollah’s fighters, describing their performance as extraordinary and among “the most remarkable episodes of steadfastness and resistance” on the battlefield.
He said the Lebanese authorities had a responsibility to provide shelter and compensation and to undertake reconstruction and restoration following the destruction.
At the same time, Sheikh Qassem announced that Hezbollah would work to provide shelter, restoration, and reconstruction through its own capabilities and donations while urging the state to fulfill its responsibilities.
“I bring you good news: very soon, we will announce our contribution to a housing project and disclose the details related to it,” he said.
Economic crisis draws criticism
Sheikh Qassem also questioned the government’s role amid Lebanon’s deteriorating economic conditions, rising living costs, the weakening Lebanese currency, and what he described as a lack of improvement in public services.
“Where is the electricity? Where is the Foreign Ministry? Do we even have a foreign minister? And where are the depositors’ funds?” he asked.
On the issue of exclusive state control over weapons, Sheikh Qassem reiterated that Hezbollah was ready for dialogue and discussion but said the south must first be liberated and displaced residents allowed to return to their homes.
“Then we can reach an understanding among ourselves,” he said.
Turning to the international arena, Sheikh Qassem accused the United States of seeking to control the world and said there was no longer a functioning system of global justice or international law.
He pointed to the United Nations as evidence of what he described as the global rejection of “this enemy,” saying such developments would contribute to bringing it down.
Sheikh Qassem praises Iran, Yemen and Palestine
Sheikh Qassem praised Iran, hailing it as “heroic and martyred” and highlighting its sacrifices and its presentation of Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei.
Turning once again to Palestine, Sheikh Qassem hailed it as “the symbol and the face of the future,” praising its people as a great, sacrificing, and giving people and emphasizing their connection to the land.
Concluding his tribute to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Qassem repeated the words he had addressed to the former Hezbollah leader: “You are the resistance, and the resistance is you, and you have become its symbol for the free people of the world.”
Two years after the martyrdom of Sayyed Hassan, his legacy remains a subject of focus in “Israel.”
From his role as a central figure in three decades of confrontation to the equations he established, what remains of the Sayyed’s legacy, and how has the Resistance adapted in his… pic.twitter.com/A6bJcRj4cO
The kingdom’s oil lifelines are under fire just as its grandest projects meet the limits of the Saudi treasury.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) unveiled Vision 2030 on 25 April 2016, he promised to make Saudi Arabia less dependent on oil. The plan called for the private sector’s share of GDP to rise from 40 to 65 percent, non-oil revenue to climb from roughly 163 billion riyals to 1 trillion, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to grow from around 600 billion riyals to 7 trillion. Vast projects would carry the kingdom into a new economic era.
The announcement came a year after the Saudi-led war on Yemen began, with MbS serving as defense minister. A decade later, that war remains unresolved and the most ambitious targets of Vision 2030 remain out of reach.
His subsequent policy of easing regional crises, including rapprochement with Iran and talks over Yemen, has come under renewed strain since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February 2026. Saudi territory’s role in the US campaign, alongside the stalled Yemen road map and Riyadh’s continuing pressure on its southern neighbor, has brought the costs of confrontation back into focus. Riyadh had counted on quiet borders and open sea lanes to underwrite its vast building program. It now has neither assurance.
The megaprojects meet their limits
The strain on Vision 2030 predated the regional war. Rising construction and financing costs, uncertain returns, and foreign investment that has fallen short of expectations forced Riyadh to reconsider the pace and scale of its biggest projects.
Many were conceived on the assumption that state spending would draw in enough private capital to keep construction moving and eventually produce a return. That capital has proved harder to secure at the necessary scale.
Work on the Mukaab, the giant cube at the center of Riyadh’s New Murabba development, was halted for a reassessment of its financing and feasibility. NEOM has faced a wider review, including scaled-back plans for The Line and delays to other industrial and tourism projects.
Sindalah island closed shortly after its 2024 opening, with no clear reopening date. A planned $1.5 billion railway in Tabuk was canceled after substantial spending, prompting a compensation dispute. NEOM has reportedly put the cost of terminating contracts over 2026–2030 at about $16 billion as it realigns its spending.
War tightens the fiscal vise
The war then disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, raising shipping and insurance costs and complicating Saudi oil exports. In revised figures for the second quarter of 2026, the General Authority for Statistics reported that GDP contracted 4.7 percent year on year as oil activity fell 24.8 percent. Non-oil activity grew just 0.9 percent.
Public finances entered the second half with much less room than Riyadh had planned. The 2026 budget projected revenue of 1.147 trillion riyals against expenditure of 1.313 trillion, leaving an expected deficit of 165 billion riyals. The first-half deficit approached 160 billion riyals, nearly the full-year target.
Higher oil prices could not fully compensate for lower export volumes and the growing cost of getting crude to market. The kingdom’s financing needs rose sharply as it borrowed to cover the deficit and refinance maturing debt.
Those obligations cannot be deferred as easily as a construction timetable. Spending plans and payment schedules also came under pressure, making the question of which projects receive priority more urgent for a government still committed to its 2030 deadline.
The squeeze has reached businesses. During the first eight months of 2026, 489 Saudi companies reportedly entered bankruptcy or related proceedings, 70 of them in August. Plans to sell stakes in state-owned companies, an important source of funds for new investment, have faced a more difficult market.
The mounting bill for air defense
The war has imposed a further burden on the Saudi budget as Riyadh defends airspace, installations, and infrastructure, fires costly interceptors, and replenishes stockpiles. Those costs continue long after an incoming drone or missile has been destroyed.
Saudi figures cited in regional reporting counted 518 drones and 38 missiles intercepted between 28 February and 22 March. A rough calculation, assuming a Patriot interceptor for every drone and two for every ballistic missile, puts the defensive bill at about $2.2 billion against an estimated $72 million for the incoming weapons.
That calculation is not an audited Saudi expenditure and cannot establish which systems were actually fired. It does, however, indicate the cost imbalance facing a state heavily reliant on imported air defenses. Repairs, maintenance, and replacement missiles add to the expense.
Riyadh has sought new supplies, reportedly approaching Japan about Patriot missiles and asking South Korean manufacturers Hanwha and LIG Nex1 to accelerate air defense deliveries. Washington has approved a possible $1.96 billion sale including up to 10,000 APKWS guidance units. Saudi Arabia has also sought defensive support from France, Britain, Pakistan, and Egypt as pressure on its stocks has grown.
Saudi military expenditure reached $83.2 billion in 2025, making it the world’s eighth-largest spender, according to SIPRI. Finance Ministry figures put first-quarter 2026 military spending at around $17.2 billion, up 26 percent on the same period a year earlier.
Yemen returns to the Saudi oil equation
Pressure from Hormuz was already testing the kingdom’s export system when its confrontation with Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned armed forces (YAF) intensified. Riyadh now faces threats along the Red Sea route on which it had relied to bypass the bottleneck in the Gulf.
After Sanaa announced a blockade of Saudi-linked shipping in July, its forces advanced along Yemen’s western coast toward strategic positions near Bab al-Mandab. The number of vessels using the strait reportedly fell from around 50 a day before the blockade to about 32, further narrowing the route for Saudi crude.
Kpler data reportedly show Saudi crude passing through Bab al-Mandab at more than 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in early July, then dropping steeply from mid-month and approaching zero in August. Reported inventories rose from roughly 61 million to 75 million bpd, consistent with crude accumulating faster than available routes could carry it away.
Retaliatory attacks on oil infrastructure compounded the shipping squeeze. The Jazan Refinery and Saudi-linked tankers in the Red Sea came under threat, while the kingdom’s East–West Pipeline, the main route from its Eastern Province to the port of Yanbu, was struck by drones in September.
Saudi officials attributed the pipeline attack to a resistance faction in Iraq; other reporting has linked attacks on the route to Ansarallah. The disruption halted Yanbu loadings, and Aramco began restarting the line around 22 September after roughly 11 days of interruption.
The costly detour north
With the southern passage constrained, Riyadh also used a northern route through Egypt: crude could travel from Yanbu to Ain Sokhna, cross the SUMED Pipeline, and be loaded again at Sidi Kerir. That kept a path to European buyers open but required additional handling and capacity that the direct passage through Bab al-Mandab did not.
It offered little relief for cargoes bound for Asia, which faced the much longer voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. Each detour cut into the benefit of higher prices by raising the cost of delivery.
Saudi Arabia tried to limit the damage by redirecting crude toward Europe, adjusting official selling prices, and using ship-to-ship transfers off Sohar, Oman. None of these measures could fully replace the volumes moved along its established routes.
The disruption was visible in August oil flows. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated Saudi crude supply at roughly six million bpd, down 2.3 million from July, while other estimates put output closer to 6.2 million.
Crude exports fell to around 3.1–3.2 million bpd, their lowest level in more than a decade. These are estimates from different measures of production, supply, and loadings, rather than a single official series.
Higher freight and insurance costs have also weighed on the non-oil economy. In July, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected Saudi growth of 1.7 percent for 2026, down from 4.6 percent in 2025, warning that prolonged shipping disruption would further hurt trade and confidence.
The Yemen front has brought the war home to Saudi Arabia’s export corridors and public finances just as Vision 2030’s largest projects are being delayed or scaled back. Riyadh can borrow, reroute cargoes, and reorder its spending, but each measure carries a cost.
The longer the fighting lasts, the harder it becomes to fund the economic transformation MbS promised while defending the routes on which it still depends.
AMunich-based “anti-Semitism expert” organizing political action helping restrict pro-Palestine protests across Germany is a former Israeli spy, MintPress can reveal.
Since October 7, 2023, Guy Katz, professor of international management at Munich University of Applied Sciences, has become one of the leading figures in German politics on the subject of Israel and anti-Semitism. Katz has founded numerous organizations purporting to fight anti-Semitism, spoke in parliament, and worked with police to help them crack down on anti-Israel speech. He is, however, reportedly a former spy for Israeli intelligence outfit, the Mossad—something that is never disclosed in the widespread coverage and amplification he receives in German and international media.
Anti-Semitism Kaiser
Since October 2023, Guy Katz has emerged as one of the most influential political actors in Germany on the question of Israel/Palestine, founding numerous pressure groups and working with authorities to crush opposition to genocide, all under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.
Earlier this year, he founded “Anti-Semitism? Not in My Name!” – a cross-party organization aimed at stamping out Jewish hatred across Germany. Katz has managed to enlist every major party in the Bavarian State Parliament, with the exception of the fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Party, who were barred from joining. (This, despite the AfD’s strong support for Israel). The group aims to make philo-Semitism extremely visible and send a message to the whole country. “Many are against anti-Semitism, but too few make their stance visible. This campaign makes taking a stand part of everyday life,” Katz explained.
Anti-Semitism Without Me builds upon the work of Dach Gegen Hass (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland Against Hate), an alliance of over 200 organizations, and the Munich branch of Run For Their Lives, a group that organizes marches demanding the release of Israeli prisoners from Gaza, both of which Katz founded or co-founded.
On October 6, 2024, he also planned and led a large rally in solidarity with Israel in Munich, an action that brought 30,000 people together to denounce Hamas and anti-Semitic violence.
Katz’s activism has led to him being invited into the halls of German power. Last year, he addressed the Bavarian parliament, lecturing them on anti-Semitism and telling them explicitly, “Never again is now.” He now works with the police and with universities in Germany, developing training programs to instruct them on how to best eliminate what he identifies as Jew hatred.
In October 2025, he hosted an event in Munich commemorating the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks. There, he interviewed Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister who has strongly supported the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) actions in Gaza and has participated in numerous war crimes. Katz, however, declared himself “impressed” by the politician.
In short, it is difficult to overemphasize how influential he has been in the debate around Israel and the supposed explosion of anti-Semitism in Germany.
Throughout his tireless activism, his message is clear: the primary threat comes not from the fascist right (who, less than a century ago, carried out a genocidal extermination campaign against Jewish people across Europe), but from the left. “I believe that left-wing extremism and Islamist extremism are far more dangerous for us Jews,” he told local newspaper, Jüdische Allgemeine, claiming that the situation for German Jews today is “very similar” to the lead-up to World War Two, thanks to the threat the left poses.
He decried a German court’s ruling not to ban a pro-Palestine march at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, claiming that it was “blatantly anti-Semitic” because it “incites hatred towards Israel,” by engaging in “the original form of anti-Semitism”: alleging that Israel is killing Palestinian babies and stealing organs from their victims.
In this case, however, it is not a blood libel, but an established fact. Israel has a long and well-documented recent history of organ theft, and has killed more than 20,000 Palestinian children in the past three years, over 1,000 of whom were infants under the age of one.
One particular person of the left that Katz has singled out is Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who, in 2025, was abducted by Israeli special forces while trying to deliver lifesaving aid to Gaza.
Katz simultaneously rejects the categorization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide while asserting that Hamas has committed a genocide against Christians and intends to carry out another “until all Jews are annihilated.” In a public video, he insists that Israel’s attacks on schools and hospitals are justifiable because Hamas was hiding weapons there, and refers to the people of Gaza (including children) as “so-called innocents” and “so-called civilians.”
On the other hand, Katz has singled out President Donald Trump for unique praise, describing him as “the architect of peace” in the Middle East.
Spy Games
Guy Katz moved to Germany in 2004 and has built a successful career, now teaching conflict resolution, management, negotiation, and strategy at Munich University of Applied Sciences. What he does not adequately disclose in his political activism and his media interviews are the details of his pre-German past. That is because Guy Katz is a former Mossad spy.
In a lecture he gave at the University of Nairobi in 2023, before he became nationally known as one of the chief pro-Israel activists in Germany, he reportedly revealed that he is a former secret agent with the infamous spying agency.
During the lecture, he gave details about the adage that “former” spies never truly leave the business of espionage. Katz told those attending, the university wrote on its official website, that Mossad has “learned the art of releasing an agent.” “He stated that in the military and secret service, there is a department that caters for retired security officers,” an admission that raises the question of how much contact former Mossad operatives have with the organization.
This assertion appears to be corroborated by Katz’s profile on Expert Marketplace, a digital booking platform for public speakers. Katz notes that one of his lecture topics is called “Communicating Like a Mossad Agent”—a presentation that is “based on real stories and shows what managers can learn from them.”
In other profiles, he is listed as a former IDF intelligence officer, a designation that hints at his possible involvement with controversial group Unit 8200.
The reason this past is problematic is that these organizations have a long history of carrying out espionage, psychological operations, terror attacks, and targeted killings around the world, even in allied countries.
Mossad executed a series of assassinations of Iranian scientists involved in the country’s nuclear energy program, while both it and Unit 8200 have been identified as behind the 2024 Lebanese Pager Attack, an incident near-universally decried as an act of terror that injured thousands of civilians.
Unit 8200, meanwhile, is the centerpiece of Israel’s hi-tech surveillance and digital warfare operation. The elite group handles Israel’s cyberwarefare, hacking, and influence operations. Its “former” agents were, for example, behind the creation and distribution of the notorious Pegasus app. Pegasus is a piece of software that was used to hack into and spy on more than 50,000 prominent individuals worldwide, including journalists, human rights leaders, activists, and politicians (including European heads of state). Pegasus gave the Israeli intelligence services backdoors into the devices of all those affected, allowing them to spy on dozens of countries at once.
It is surely relevant that a member of this sort of organization is leading a pressure campaign aimed at prohibiting pro-Palestine speech in Germany.
Destroying Democracy to Defend a Genocide
The German establishment, including all major parties, has offered virtually unqualified endorsement for Israel and its actions in Gaza. This support has included signing a military collaboration and cooperation agreement, and the sale of nearly $1 billion in weapons in the first five months of 2026 alone. The most significant transaction was the delivery of a German-made Dolphin II-class attack submarine, delivered to Tel Aviv in July.
This elite wall-to-wall solidarity is in stark contrast to the general population. A 2025 YouGov survey found widespread revulsion with Israel, with eight times as many Germans holding highly negative views of the country as highly positive ones. In total, only 21% of the public see Israel in a positive light (including only 4% highly positive), with with 65% displaying open opposition (including 32% who strongly dislike it). Another recent poll found that 62% of all voters believe Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. When taking out those who said they did not know or did not answer, nearly four-in-five Germans responded that they considered Israel’s actions genocidal.
Germany has seen widespread pro-Palestine actions across the country, but they have been met with force from authorities. Thousands have been arrested, while images of masked riot police brutalizing non-violent protestors across the country regularly go viral.
The German state has moved to effectively criminalize pro-Palestine speech and protest, under the rubric of Staatsräson, or Reasons of State, a doctrine that claims that commitment to Israeli security is a non-negotiable and unquestionable pillar of the German state. In 2024, in response to the growing wave of unrest, the government passed a law requiring those applying for German citizenship to swear what amounts to a loyalty oath to Israel and Zionism, acknowledging the state’s “right to exist.”
More than 9,000 criminal charges were registered at pro-Palestine protests in Berlin alone in the first 18 months after the October 7 attacks. Numerous Palestinian or pro-Palestine groups have been outlawed, as have popular chants, such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
The reaction from authorities, arguably the toughest in Europe, has drawn bitter condemnation from the United Nations, and from groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, who have highlighted issues such as state-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims, and soft bans on symbols of resistance, such as keffiyehs.
Israel itself has identified Germany as a key battleground in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the country’s “eighth front”: the battle for Western public opinion. To that end, it has spent vast sums targeting the country with German-language messaging extolling Israel, and comparing Hamas to ISIS and other terrorist groups, a 2025 MintPress News investigation found.
Israel and the pro-Israel lobby are trying hard to conflate any opposition to its actions in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond as akin to terrorism and anti-Semitism. Katz and his campaign are a major part of this. But whether they will succeed in stemming the wave of pro-Palestine sympathy remains to be seen.
The most durable partitions need neither rulers nor treaties. In Lebanon, selective state-building and managed paralysis are beginning to perform the work of borders.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Lebanon is drifting toward a partition that no government will declare or map. It is taking shape through stalled diplomacy and reconstruction withheld from the south, while rival powers compete to define the state that remains.
On 17 September, military officers and officials gathered at Les Invalides in Paris to consider how the Lebanese state could take control of the south as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) winds down. Turkiye and Cyprus sat at the same table, alongside Saudi Arabia and the US.
Two days earlier, the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors had met at the US State Department after the next formal negotiating round was pushed to October. Four days later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam for closed-door talks in New York.
Together, the three meetings expose more than a contest for influence over an exhausted country. Ankara and Tel Aviv are pursuing two different strategic logics, each of which requires a different Lebanon.
One needs a sovereign state capable of signing agreements, licensing projects, and controlling territory. The other ties withdrawal to conditions that the same battered state cannot meet. What is at stake, then, is the structure of Lebanon itself.
Ankara’s ‘Blue Homeland’ docks in Beirut
Turkiye’s “Blue Homeland” doctrine treats maritime space as a sovereign extension of the mainland, while Ankara’s rapid naval expansion gives that claim material weight. Any eastern Mediterranean settlement that excludes Turkiye is read as encirclement.
In June, Erdogan carried the same logic ashore when he declared that Turkiye’s security begins in “Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut,” rather than at Hatay. Beirut had been placed inside a Turkish security perimeter.
Yet Ankara’s instruments in Lebanon still pass through the state. Only a sovereign government can sign a maritime delimitation agreement. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency’s (TIKA) work at Tripoli Port depends on official consent, while military training rests on a 2010 framework agreement. The revived Qlayaat Airport, whose first planned routes include Istanbul and Mersin, is being developed and licensed by the Lebanese state.
When Erdogan hosted Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Ankara on 30 July, he said Turkiye wanted a place in “all initiatives” launched after UNIFIL’s withdrawal. Any such role would require Beirut’s invitation and some form of international cover. It would also face Israeli resistance, much as Ankara was shut out of the Gaza stabilization force.
The Turkish model departs sharply from the Iranian one. Tehran’s influence grew through the state’s vacancies. Ankara’s economic and diplomatic projects require functioning institutions because ports, airports, shipping routes, and maritime agreements cannot be secured through an unrecognized enclave.
The cadre waiting in the north
Below the state-to-state layer lies a social network built over years. Ankara has expedited Turkish citizenship for Lebanese of Turkish origin and members of the Turkmen communities of the north and Bekaa.
Semi-official figures cited by Carnegie put the number of citizenships granted by 2019 at more than 9,600, from nearly 18,000 applicants. Carnegie warned in late 2025 that this constituency could shape Sunni representation under Lebanon’s proportional electoral law.
It is reinforced by Ottoman restoration projects and the Mersin–Tripoli shipping route, which carries more than 100 truck drivers a week.
A second layer is harder to measure and should not be overstated. Religious currents with hardline roots have learned to advance through municipal politics, communal advocacy, and service provision. Around them sit civil associations trained in the language of governance and sustained by foreign funding.
Their coordination and ultimate sponsors remain unclear. Together, they form an ecosystem from which a governing cadre could emerge if Lebanon’s Sunni arena remains leaderless and the state continues to retreat.
The northwestern Syrian city of Idlib offers the nearest regional precedent. The so-called Syrian Salvation Government grew under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) through local administrations, courts, and service institutions, while affiliated bodies extended their reach across fuel, communications, and transport.
Its senior officials and bureaucrats later moved into Damascus after December 2024. Idlib became an administrative laboratory, and its personnel were scaled up to the state. Northern Lebanon is nowhere near that point, but the political logic bears watching. Influence becomes power when the body providing services also acquires the authority to decide who may operate.
The comparison has limits, of course. Tripoli and Akkar retain an army, security services, municipalities, and a Sunni arena contested by Dar al-Fatwa, traditional political families, Gulf patrons, and local actors. Their mixed Christian and Alawite geography also resists easy replication.
There is no demonstrated canton project in the north. The sharper question is whether a locally rooted network is being prepared to move through municipalities and parliament toward executive power in Beirut.
Washington’s machinery of paralysis
The US–Israel–Lebanon trilateral framework signed on 26 June moves in the opposite direction. Washington describes a phased process in which the Lebanese army restores “effective sovereign authority over all Lebanese territory” as Israel gradually withdraws. It serves a goal Beirut has formally adopted: placing all weapons under state control.
The sequence, however, makes withdrawal contingent on verified disarmament. The army cannot forcibly disarm Hezbollah without risking civil conflict, and it cannot establish a new security order while Israeli troops occupy Lebanese territory and continue operating along its edges. Each side can therefore cite the other’s noncompliance, while Lebanon’s weakness supplies an open-ended rationale for Israel to remain.
The first pilot zone in Zawtar al-Gharbiyah exposed the trap. The plan called for clearance, third-party verification, maintenance, and reconstruction, later extending to Srifa and Froun. Progress stalled after the Rome round of negotiations between Beirut, Tel Aviv, and Washington in early August, as Israel demanded verification in the first areas before any expansion.
On 14 September, the Israeli Channel 14 accused the army of coordinating with Hezbollah inside the zones and quoted a political source declaring the mechanism a failure.
Two days later, Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir linked Hezbollah’s removal from south of the Litani to a dramatic improvement in Lebanese army performance. Each time Beirut comes close to meeting the terms, Tel Aviv raises the threshold for withdrawal.
The diplomatic track has been kept in the same state of suspension. The next formal round in Rome was delayed until October, when Israel holds elections. The ambassadors’ 15 September meeting in Washington kept a channel open but produced no announced decision. The framework continues to function administratively while the political bargain remains frozen.
By keeping the state weak, this paralysis also limits Ankara’s prospects far beyond the south. Israel has no need to compete with Turkiye directly in Tripoli if Lebanon remains unable to absorb the networks and investments Ankara is cultivating.
The struggle is over whether the Lebanese state can function at all. The buffer-zone drive in southern Lebanon follows the spatial logic Netanyahu laid out on 29 March when he boasted of “three security zones deep in enemy territory” in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria.
Athens enters the anti-Turkish arc
On 22 February, Netanyahu outlined what he called “a complete system, something like a sextet of alliances” spanning West Asia. He placed India, Greece, Cyprus, unnamed Arab and African states, and other Asian partners inside it, setting them against the “Shia axis,” weakened by Israeli strikes, and an “emerging radical Sunni axis.”
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis received Aoun in Athens on 31 August and described a strong state as the condition for a strong Lebanon. That same day, Greece and Israel signed a €3 billion (around $3.4 billion) deal for the Achilles Shield air defense system.
Athens presents itself as a historic friend of Lebanon and the Arab world while deepening a strategic military partnership with Israel. It also plans to place an EU–Lebanon partnership on the agenda during its EU presidency in the second half of 2027, as UNIFIL’s drawdown reaches its final stage.
Europe’s route into Beirut is thus passing through a capital Netanyahu has placed inside his proposed counteraxis. Whatever Athens intends, the arrangement presses against Ankara’s eastern Mediterranean strategy because the Greek–Turkish confrontation already runs through Cyprus, maritime borders, and control of the sea.
A state required by everyone but Israel
The contradiction was built into the Paris meeting convened by France and Jordan through the Aqaba Process in preparation for an international conference supporting the Lebanese army and security forces.
Paris tied large-scale assistance to a credible deployment plan, while Lebanese commanders warned that the aid remained hostage to unresolved political conditions and that deployment could not be allowed to trigger an internal confrontation.
Riyadh has likewise dealt primarily with the state and its constitutional institutions since Aoun’s election, tying money to reform and the restriction of arms to state authority. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement joining Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Pakistan has also reduced the old Saudi–Turkish logic of rivalry in Lebanon’s Sunni arena.
In an interview with Al-Mashhad, self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (the former Al-Qaeda chief known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani) argued that Lebanon needed a “third option instead of dividing between civil war or war with Israel.”
Ankara, Athens, Riyadh, Paris, and Damascus all require a capable Lebanese state, even when they want it for opposing purposes. The one mechanism already operating on the ground is structured around Lebanon’s inability to become one.
Partition by timetable
No outside power currently has the means to seize and administer Lebanon. Fragmentation would also deny Ankara what it seeks at sea, since a northern enclave cannot sign an internationally recognized maritime agreement. Yet a de facto division is already emerging, with each part of the country moving to a different timetable.
Reconstruction in the south is postponed until disarmament is verified after a war that destroyed scores of villages and made displacement increasingly permanent. The north turns economically toward Turkiye through Tripoli Port, the Mersin shipping line, and Qlayaat’s planned routes.
Beirut waits for Gulf and European money conditioned on reform. As Salam told parliament on 15 September, “There can be no sustainable reconstruction without funding, no funding without trust, and no trust without a capable state.”
If the state remains immobilized and reconstruction is rationed by geography, Ankara’s northern incubator could harden into an alternative center of power. The cadres it hoped to propel toward Beirut may instead find themselves administering the north by default. Prolonged paralysis would then produce the partition Turkiye seeks to avoid, born from the erosion of the state on which its strategy depends.
Cyprus and the permanence of the temporary
Lebanon and Cyprus signed an exclusive economic zone agreement on 26 November 2025, prompting immediate rejection from Ankara and Northern Cyprus. The agreement treated the Republic of Cyprus as the island’s sole representative, while its Lebanese ratification remained politically contested.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in July that another 5+1 meeting required more preparation, and by late September no date had been set. Any future formula granting Turkish Cypriots an effective say over exclusive economic zone decisions could reopen the legal and political basis of the Lebanese deal. Beirut’s share of Mediterranean gas may ultimately be shaped in Nicosia’s buffer zone as much as in Baabda.
The deeper Cypriot lesson is temporal. More than half a century without a settlement turned a provisional order into a permanent system of guarantors and buffer zones. Lebanon now faces a similar danger. UNIFIL’s mandate expires on 31 December 2026, but its withdrawal is expected to continue through September 2027. Beirut and its partners are still debating what, if anything, follows it.
Aoun has called preventing a vacuum the priority and has said that any replacement force should last only until the army can deploy. Lebanese military officials reject a monitoring mission empowered to dictate army operations, while Israeli elections make Tel Aviv’s consent to a new international force unlikely in the near term. The UN force sent to Cyprus as a temporary measure in 1964 remains on the island, a warning Lebanon can ill afford to ignore.
The battle after UNIFIL
Sharaa’s “third option” exists in theory and depends on the capable Lebanese state most regional actors claim to want. Ankara needs a sovereign coast that can sign maritime agreements. Athens wants a barrier to Turkish expansion. Riyadh will finance institutions more readily than factions, while Damascus cannot afford a fragmented neighbor that reproduces its own crisis.
Five tests will show whether that state is emerging. They are the October talks in Rome, the money committed at the international conference for the army, the composition of any post-UNIFIL presence and Turkiye’s place within it, the geography of reconstruction funds, and the appearance of any local authority in the north able to decide who may work there.
Lebanon’s next partition may require neither a foreign-brokered settlement nor new lines on a map. It will emerge if today’s supposedly temporary arrangements are allowed to harden into a permanent order. The country is already being divided by time.
Israel has shown in the past eight decades that it will stop at nothing to achieve the full-spectrum domination it wants in West Asia.
Globally, Israel is advancing on so many fronts it is hard to know where to begin but perhaps Israel’s position as one of the most dangerous states in history is a starting point. It is brutal, inhumane, lives by no laws and standards but its own yet remains indulged by its ‘western’ sponsors whatever it does, the ‘whatever’ including genocide in Gaza and the fast developing genocide in the West Bank.
Israel’s crimes are aimed at women, children, journalists, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses, entire hospitals, libraries, schools, universities, suburban homes, cemeteries, farms, greenhouses and fishing boats.
The targets can be children shot after going outside to play or throw a stone at a tank and left to ‘bleed out’ where they lie. No ambulance is ever called. The soldiers stand around chatting while the boy or the wounded adult dies. If this happened once, it would be bad, but it is standard behavior by the occupying forces. The wounded are deliberately left to die, often for trivial offenses or no offense at all, because the regime wants them dead.
The targets include elderly women harassed and spat at in Hebron, villagers shot or beaten by heavily armed hoodlums, mosques and homes ruined in arson attacks, olive groves that are chopped down and flocks of sheep and goats that are stolen.
All of this happens because the regime wants it to happen. It is planned policy. The regime wants all Palestinians either dead or driven out of their land. The correspondence with the UN genocide convention of 1948 is word-for-word.
The convention lists the crimes as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group; the killing its members or causing serious bodily or mental harm to them; the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction; and measures taken and the intent to prevent childbirth.
All that is missing is what Israel has added, which is advertising the intent to commit genocide in advance.
The Israel military is a genocidal military. Every soldier is complicit, which is why the Australian government’s decision to allow up to 40 active or reserve Israeli soldiers into Australia to run the Sydney marathon is such an aggravated violation of the genocide convention and a deliberate provocation of Australia’s million Muslims, including many of Palestinian and Lebanese ethnic origin whose families have been murdered in Israeli attacks on their land and their villages. The Australian government apparently did not take their interests into account, but it might when election time comes.
On the occupied West Bank, settler psychopaths are armed by the state and funded by Zionist ‘charities’ in distant countries. They now wear the uniforms of the military themselves. They commit their crimes knowing that they have the full protection of the state and will not be prosecuted for whatever they do.
The young teenage ‘hilltop youth’ amongst them are full of the hate bred into them by their families, their education and their government’s racist policies. They curse, kick and spit in the face of Palestinian villagers, knowing they have the same immunity as their elders.
This is the Israeli ‘state’ in action, which is why it is only accurate to describe it as a gangster regime. The theft of land, the killing or beating of villagers, the arson and destruction of crops, the piping of settlement waste onto village land are all part of the historic drive to destroy Palestine and kill or drive out its people.
It is not just Palestine, of course. Anyone living on land the Zionist regime wants is destined to suffer the same fate as the Palestinians and – in increasing numbers – the Lebanese. Close to 1200 Lebanese civilians have been killed just since March 2026, including hundreds of healthcare workers and children.
The Zionist regime’s ‘defense minister,, ’ Israel Katz boasts that 24 villages in southern Lebanon have been “totally razed.” Independent surveys show that 18,000 buildings in 19 villages have been wholly destroyed or severely damaged. In ten villages, 80 percent of the buildings have been totally destroyed.
The regime has declared that all 14 percent of Lebanon south of the Zahrani River (north of the Litani) is a combat zone, and has ordered the population to ‘evacuate’, resulting in the depopulation of about one million people.
Consistent with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the intent in Gaza and Lebanon is overwhelming destruction planned in advance and carried out in detail so that there is nothing left to return to.
‘Ethnic cleansing’ is far too tame a phrase to describe what Israel is doing. Even genocide is not quite adequate. Israel does not want destruction ‘in whole or part.’ It wants destruction of Palestine not just in ‘whole’ but in such fine detail so that nothing will be left of it. In time, nothing will be left of memory either.
The fate of its people was announced in advance by Netanyahu in 2023 when he used Biblical code (Amalek) for the physical destruction of all of Gaza’s people through extermination or flight. The same aims for the West Bank and east Jerusalem are being pursued at a frenzied pace under the incitement of Itamar Ben Gvir.
There is nothing random about all of this. The plans were laid more than a century ago and are now being fulfilled with the consent of the same governments that set up Israel in Palestine in the first place.
At the same time, patience with Israel is finally running out even in the US. In the past seven decades, hundreds of billions of dollars in aid have enabled Israel’s wars, its expansion across all Palestine, its technological development, its economic growth, and the comfortable lifestyle of its Jewish citizens.
Americans are now finally waking to Israel’s true nature. Gaza has been a real eye-opener. Israel is no longer the innocent beleaguered state of the 1960s surrounded by vicious neighbors. It is the vicious neighbor itself.
The steadily developing end of the ‘special relationship’ between Israel takes the mind back to the collapse of British-Zionist relations in the 1940s.
After the British government’s ‘white paper’ in 1939 called for limits to Jewish settlement in Palestine, the Zionist leadership turned on Britain and launched a terror campaign against British soldiers and police in Palestine and high-profile figures outside it.
In November 1944, Lehi (Stern Gang) terrorists murdered the British ‘minister-resident’ for the Middle East, Lord Moyne (Walter Edward Guinness), in Cairo. Moyne was a close friend of Winston Churchill who in the 1920s had fully supported Zionist settlement in Palestine where, once they had the numbers, “they will naturally take over.”
In 1944, however, speaking in the House of Commons shortly after the assassination of Lord Moyne, Churchill remarked that “if our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labors for its future to produce only a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past.”
What would Churchill say now that “our labors” have ended not in the smoke of pistols but in mass murder by missile, drone and quadcopter attacks ordered by “a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany?”
Murdering British soldiers in Palestine, the Zionists turned to the US as their new benefactor. The American public fell for the Hollywoodization of Zionism through the propaganda of the playwright Ben Hecht and the racist novels of Leon Uris, especially ‘Exodus,’ which was scripted into a box-office hit film starring Paul Woodward as the Zionist pioneer landing in a Palestine awaiting redemption by the Zionists.
The ‘special relationship’ was special only in the way it was manipulated to deceive the American public and continue giving Israel whatever it wanted: loans, economic aid, and weaponry, irrespective of the crimes it committed, including the murder of American citizens in Palestine and on the high seas.
Yet, even as Israel crushed and massacred Palestinians and Lebanese and invaded their lands, US politicians talked of ‘shared values’ with the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ and ‘the most moral army in the world.’
Gaza has finally brought this tower of lies, deceit, and manipulation of the American public crashing down. Americans are now waking up to the fact that they have been bilked out of hundreds of billions of dollars over decades to support a genocidal settler regime implanted at the heart of the Middle East.
Young people in particular are not buying the lies any longer. Congress is already stirring. The unraveling of the ‘special relationship’ has begun and money is not going to fix it. Millions in electoral bribes could not prevent the election of Muslims speaking out forcefully on the question of Palestine. They are no longer speaking against public opinion but increasingly are speaking with it.
The US might even dump Israel before Israel is ready for being dumped. Israel knows the free ride is coming to an end but would like US aid to continue until it can stand on its own two feet. Then, like Britain before it, it will no longer need the US.
It does not want to share power with anyone, and that includes the US. It wants to be the power in West Asia and, towards this end, is developing military and economic self-sufficiency as fast as it can.
The suspension of the delivery of some weaponry by the US, the UK and Germany after the genocide began raised alarm and hastened the rush to full domestic arms production. While Israel already has a highly developed arms industry, it is heavily dependent on the US for fighter aircraft, helicopters and heavy munitions.
Intending to turn Israel into a “super Sparta”, Netanyahu in December 2025 pledged $108 billion for the further development of the domestic arms industry, beginning with the mass production of JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) GPS-guided 230 kg to 910kg bombs.
Oil and natural gas reserves in the occupier regime’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), extending hundreds of kilometers into the Mediterranean, augmented by gas exploration and fibre optic deals with Cyprus, Greece and Egypt, and planned pipeline deals with Saudi Arabia, are a central pillar in Israel’s economic development.
The world cannot afford outlaw states like Israel. This should have been learned in the 1930s but ‘human nature’ being what it is, it was only learned when it was too late. Those looking for similarities may see them in the way the establishment in Britain and its allies rather liked the fascists because they were rather like the fascists themselves. The ‘west’ rather liked Israel because it was a rampart of its interests in the Middle East.
Like the latex mask ripped off halfway through a horror movie, the world after Gaza is seeing Israel in its true colors. It is not just the gangsters in government but the people. Zionist indoctrination has bred hatred and contempt into every generation. It is reflected in social media mockery of Israel’s victims and the pleasure taken in their suffering and death.
This state of mind is a sickness that can only be cured by the rejection of Zionism and its proscription as a hate ideology wherever it takes root. It is as dangerous as the anti-semitism which it feeds and as poisonous as the brutal ravings of the Islamic state, no more truly Islamic than Zionism is truly Jewish.
Israel has shown in the past eight decades that it will stop at nothing to achieve the full-spectrum domination it wants in West Asia. It will lie, cheat, and steal even from its supposed allies. It will kill their citizens. It will assassinate and massacre, and now, for the past three years, it has turned its slow-burning genocide into an open, flagrant genocide.
There is virtually nothing more it could do to convince the world that it is a danger not just to the people it slaughters or drives from their own land but the entire structure of international order, as represented in its laws and institutions.
Yet even after three years of mass destruction and murder, no one seems prepared to intervene. South Africa did, only for individual members of the ICJ and the ICC to be bullied and subjected to sanctions by Israel’s genocide accomplices in Washington.
When a lawless state can get away with genocide, why should it stop now? Governments and politicians in Latin America, in the US, Canada, in the UK, European countries, and Australia are still eating out of its hand. They don’t even dare to name the genocide for what it is, lest they offend its perpetrators.
They don’t have the people behind them. In whose interests are they actually governing? This is the question to be asked by their voters.
– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press) and The Last Ottoman Wars. The Human Cost 1877-1923 (University of Utah Press, 2019). He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Zohran Mamdani, New York Mayor, in an interview with CNN (September 2026).5
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani further criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a war criminal who has to face accountability over the genocidal war on Gaza.
“When it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, I have described him as I believe him to be — a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people,” Mamdani told CNN in an interview, adding that the issue was discussed during the meeting with Trump at the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion.
The far-left mayor, who vowed for months to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York City, recently acknowledged he is powerless to prevent the visit, and added that he will not be attending planned protests against the Israeli premier’s presence.
🇺🇸🇮🇱 Mamdani on Netanyahu JUST IN | NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani:
“Netanyahu is a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people.” pic.twitter.com/8RY0Q2yFb8
Citing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu over war crimes during the war on Gaza, Mamdani said: “I do believe that that is something that should be honored, because what we want to see, and we’ve been talking about this today, is a faith in our politics, a faith in accountability.”
“If the International Criminal Court deems someone worthy of an arrest because of a violation of those laws, then who are we to say that anyone should be above that? And I think very clearly that everyone should be held accountable to it,” he added.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday.
Hezbollah Commemorative event in the city of Nabatieh on Sunday honoring those who were elevated to martyrdom during the ‘Al-Asf al-Ma’kul’ battle in recognition of their sacrifices and to perpetuate their memory. The event was attended by MP Ali Fayyad (member of the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc), Ali Da’oun (Hezbollah official for the Second Jabal Amel Region), Ali Kanso (representing MP Mohammad Raad), Abbas Fakhr El-Din (Mayor of Nabatieh), families of the martyrs, prominent figures, and a large crowd of local residents.
The ceremony began with a recitation of verses from the Holy Quran, followed by two anthems.
‘Nabatieh Stands with the Choice of Resistance’
MP Ali Fayyad then delivered a speech on behalf of Hezbollah, stating: “From Nabatieh—the historic and contemporary capital of Jabal Amel and the city of Imam Hussein (AS); the city that raised the slogan ‘Far be it from us to accept humiliation’ and offered up its finest sons; the city that reaffirms its loyalty to this blood shed in resistance and declares its choice to resist the enemy, liberate the land, and stand firm and steadfast in the face of that enemy, while rejecting all those who collude with it or place their bets on it.”
“This is a time for clear choices, free from ambiguity, confusion, or equivocation. We are in a phase where there is no alternative to steadfastness and the defense of our existence, our land, our homeland, our sovereignty, our freedom, and our state.”
“Nabatieh stands with the choice of resistance against the enemy and with a state that stands by its people—defending and protecting them, providing refuge and shelter for the displaced, and bringing reconstruction, development, and stability to destroyed villages. It is a state that makes liberation its supreme goal, without compromising sovereignty or rights.”
‘Their Legacy Is Inexhaustible’
“We honor the memory of our heroic martyrs—who departed in the course of martyrdom—cherishing each one of them for their heroism, contributions, and sacrifices,” Fayyad said.
“Their legacy is inexhaustible, mirroring this community’s capacity for steadfastness, its adherence to principles and convictions, and its defiance of hardships and dangers. Indeed, this resilience has astonished the world; for the very actions taken to alienate the people from the Resistance and turn them against it have only deepened their commitment and unity—despite the suffering, pain, and sacrifices.”
“We demonstrate our loyalty to our martyrs, their families, and our community—including the displaced and those whose homes were destroyed—through our unwavering resolve to liberate and safeguard our land. We are committed to sparing no effort to return them to their homes and livelihoods, to rebuild what was destroyed, and to provide full support for their shelter, home repairs, and basic needs.”
‘An All-Out War on Multiple Fronts’
Fayyad said this resolve comes “while confronting an all-out war and a campaign of destructive annihilation waged against us on multiple fronts by the Israeli enemy—an enemy that has occupied our land, destroyed our villages, and killed our people with American backing, regional cover, and internal collusion.”
“Given the enemy’s nature and composition, we expect nothing from it but criminality, killing, and expansionism; likewise, we expect nothing from the Americans but the provision of military support and political cover.”
Lebanese Authority’s Performance ‘Dangerous and Catastrophic’
However, the Hezbollah MP reserved his sharpest criticism for the Lebanese authority, whose performance—”both in negotiations and on the domestic front—has been dangerous and catastrophic.”
“It did not merely acquiesce to the consequences of the aggression, shy away from confronting it, or leave the Lebanese people exposed to slaughter and devastation; rather,
its policies and stances actively aligned with the aggression, seeking to translate its outcomes into the domestic arena and effectively acting as an extension of it,” he said.
“It treated the Resistance as an outlaw entity, aggressively escalated tensions with it and its support base, and set itself the goal of uprooting the Resistance, politically encircling it, and eliminating it as a political phenomenon within the Lebanese landscape.”
‘Absolute Subservience to the Americans’
“Delusionally believing itself to be in a position of dominance, the authority bases its policies and stances on absolute subservience to the Americans and appeasement of the Israelis,” Fayyad continued.
“Consequently, it did not stop at taking decisions against the Resistance; it went further, expelling the Iranian ambassador and halting Iranian flights. It is actively working to hem us in within state institutions, weaken us, and oust us from those very institutions.”
“Most dangerous of all in the authority’s stance is its reliance on the Israelis to complete the task of destroying the Resistance. It hopes this will ensure the success of its political agenda—altering the balance of power in Lebanon and realigning the country with alliances that run counter to its social fabric and the prerequisites for its stability.”
“Not content with all this, the authority has also begun to tamper with delicate internal balances and the relationships between the country’s various constituent groups. Given the actions of certain parties, the Taif Agreement faces a genuine threat, as there are those seeking to bypass or undermine it and tamper with the balances it established. Such behavior betrays a profound misjudgment and misunderstanding, reflecting ill-conceived and dangerous gambles.”
Amid all this, Fayyad said, the ruling authority has failed to grasp the most consequential factor—one capable of reshaping the entire balance of power in Lebanon and beyond: “the regional landscape and the power dynamics resulting from Iran’s steadfastness in the face of the US-Israeli war.”
“This resilience has brought the entire region to the threshold of a new era defined by three key features: American failure, Israeli impotence, and Iranian constancy.”
“We are witnessing a region in flux, poised for a new regional order where power dynamics are interconnected—spanning from the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait to southern Lebanon. Consequently, a broader perspective necessitates a different understanding of the trajectory of the Lebanese arena.”
‘Chance After Chance, Nothing but Failure’
“The Lebanese authority has been given chance after chance, yet the result has been nothing but an accumulation of failure and setbacks. Israeli encroachment knows no bounds; it disregards any policy of appeasement in its pursuit of expansionist ambitions. Yesterday’s Israeli targeting of the Lebanese Bab in Deir Mimas serves as clear proof that the concessions made by the authorities mean nothing to Israel; instead, they are met with further targeting and escalation.”
“The time has come for these authorities to abandon their misguided bets, stop waiting on Israeli elections, acknowledge the failure of their chosen path, and reconsider their policies. They must be transparent with the Lebanese people about the current state of affairs and restore the priority of internal Lebanese consensus in confronting the occupation and Israeli aggression.”
Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree in an image from archive.
The spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced, in a statement, two military operations targeting Riyadh and Aramco .
What follows is the full statement:
in response to the great slander accusing Yemen, the land of faith and wisdom, of targeting Mecca, and in defense of Mecca against the insults of the Korah of the age, the Najdi Saudi horn of Satan.
And in response to the continued aggression of the criminal Saudi enemy against our dear people with its F-15 and Typhoon warplanes, which take off from the Khamis Mushait and Taif bases, which have reached 732 airstrikes up to date, leaving martyrs and wounded among the civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
In response to the Saudi enemy’s criminal attempts to target the capital, Sana’a, using ISIS-style tactics, including indiscriminate bombings targeting civilians.
The Yemeni Armed Forces carried out two successful military operations using a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones.
The first targeted sensitive sites in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the second targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu.
Both operations were successful, by the grace of Allah, and resulted in massive fires at the targeted locations.
The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that the false propaganda disseminated by the Saudi enemy media, claiming that we are targeting civilians, is baseless., and any such claims are merely the result of failed interceptions by the Saudi enemy’s defenses systems.
The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to enforce the equation of “a siege fir a siege” and ” an escalation for an escalation”, and also targeting Saudi enemy troops snd buildups until the aggression ceases and the blockade on our beloved country is lifted.
Yemen will not bow… there is no turning back, and Saudi Arabia stands to lose everything! Hassan Moukalled reveals the inner workings of this phase and addresses the one who called him “the worthless son of a worthless man.” اليمن لا يركع…لا عودة للوراء والسعودية ستخسر كل شيء! حسن مقلد خفايا المرحلة ولمن قال تافه ابن تافه
Terrifying rules of engagement are now being imposed… How does Nasser Kandil interpret the situation?قواعد اشتباك مرعبة تُفرض الآن.. ماذا يقرأ ناصر قنديل؟
Trump’s plan, according to Washington insiders, is to go ahead with a massive bombing campaign of Iran immediately after the midterm elections.
Photo Credit: Strategic Culture Foundation
Trump has a plan – oh yes he does – for a new strike on Iran. That is, of course, if the Iranians don’t get wind of it and go ahead with theirs. Oops.
In recent days, a number of mainstream media outlets in the U.S. have revealed that Trump has signed off a massive arms deal with Israel, sparking fears that the U.S. president has lost all contact with reality as he prepares for a third round to the so-called Iran War.
According to a number of reports, the Trump administration is preparing to sell Israel a $2.8bn package of 907kg (2,000-pound) bombs, the largest single sale of the munition in recent years, according to reports by The Washington Post and other agencies.
The deal, considered to be a first of its kind ever, is funded through Foreign Military Financing – a mechanism in which Washington provides the money Israel then uses to buy U.S. weapons – and is believed to be 40,000 bombs: 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, a thermally coated variant of the MK-84 designed for safer naval storage, along with I-2000 Penetrator warheads built to strike hardened, underground structures.
The news has apparently alarmed a number of pundits who follow the Middle East and are sceptical about Trump rescuing himself from further humiliation as he heads towards the midterms with his own ratings at a record low.
“How big is this shipment?” Tucker Carlson wrote on X in a lengthy post. “It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel.”
Although not a military expert, Carlson said that these bombs would kill many innocent civilians.
“An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile,” Carlson said. “It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapour. The bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep. Until the war with Iran, the U.S. military generally avoided using the Mark 84 in urban areas. It kills too many civilians.”
Trump’s plan, according to Washington insiders, is to go ahead with a massive bombing campaign of Iran immediately after the midterm elections, where he is expected to at least lose one of the two parliamentary houses in the U.S. political system, weakening his ability to go ahead with mercurial foreign policy forays. His thinking is that such a huge amount of destruction will make a difference in what so far experts are calling the ‘Iran War’, which all agree he has spectacularly lost – with gasoline prices in most U.S. states now well over $4 USD and a domestic economy in the doldrums, all due to the U.S. attacks on February 28th spectacularly backfiring.
Yet there are at least two worrying issues about the plan. The first one is pretty obvious. The lack of surprise about the attack should, of course, be a major worry for military planners in the Pentagon, who are concerned that the ‘all or nothing’ last-resort tactic now that Trump is looking at – sending in ground forces at the same time as the big attack – is going to result in hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans dying, if such a plan goes ahead. If the secret is no longer a secret – and perhaps we should assume it was leaked, as too many Americans are worried about Trump’s sanity and don’t want to be part of his insane ideas about going to war with Iran – then Tehran must be planning not only to stop those missiles getting off the ground, but to do much, much more harm to U.S. forces and Israel before the midterms. There is a growing group of pundits in D.C. and in Beirut who believe that Iran is planning a major strike on Israel and U.S. forces just before the midterms kick off, having maximum impact on Trump at the polls. Tehran’s goal, they say, is that Trump loses both houses, which would mean an inevitable impeachment process having immediate effect.
The other issue which D.C. insiders are fretting over is the low number of interceptors which are in the region, and the response from those who support Trump. The response goes something along the lines of: “Well, sure we’re low on them, but we wouldn’t need them in the first place if we don’t go in hard and take out Iran’s ability to launch their own missiles in the first place.” And so the assumption is clear. In Trump’s latest hare-brained idea, he believes that these ‘super bombs’ that the U.S. have will strike so hard at Iran’s military infrastructure, but even its electricity grid, that it will neutralise its army and its strike capability.
There can only be one conclusion that can be drawn by this latest thinking, which is that Israel has struck again and hit the jackpot the second time around, and convinced Trump that this ‘massive attack’ strike is a winner. It is possible they have also convinced him that Iran is in the process of making a nuclear bomb – something that they can present with no evidence whatsoever, as the only single institution which could verify this, the IAEA, cannot of course enter Iran now. One has to wonder about the mindset of GCC countries’ elites, given that in recent days Trump refused to bomb the Houthis on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince’s pleas to his old friend, Donald. We are at the stage now that regional experts are speculating that such regional leaders are hoping for a massive U.S. defeat so the air can be cleared and a new regional world order can begin, while the Saudis rebuild their economy, which is in shatters and has reached a point of desperation where its leaders are looking at emergency IMF loans just to pay government salaries.
Saudi’s daily oil export via its own pipeline which crosses the peninsula from east to west pumped out 7 million barrels a day when operating, which represents 44 percent of the country’s GDP. With that gone, GCC leaders are realising that the future has to be without the U.S., which was always a massive liability and has cost them dearly. We underestimated the Houthis, yes. But we also underestimated how juvenile and immature Trump is, and how far he can go to nurture his own insecurities and foibles.
He has pushed the Iranians to their limits, and the rumours are that they see no point whatsoever wasting any time talking deals with someone so dishonest and duplicitous, and are considering one fatal blow. This could be Israel and its entire military infrastructure, or it could be a U.S. carrier. Such a move redefines the word ‘game changer’ and would certainly wake up the American people that Trump is destroying their empire at a speed no one thought possible. It will be their Suez moment.
