How many countries has Israel attacked in 2025?

Hanna Duggal | Al-Jazeera

Israel has attacked more countries than any other country this year.

In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries, including Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen.

It also carried out strikes in Tunisian, Maltese and Greek territorial waters on aid flotillas heading for Gaza.

According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, from January 1 to December 5, Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks, marking one of the broadest geographic military offensives in a single year. [...]

According to ACLED, in 2025, up to December 5, 2025, Israel attacked:

• Gaza and the occupied West Bank 8,332 times
• Lebanon 1,653 times
• Iran 379 times
• Syria 207 times
• Yemen 48 times
• Qatar once
• Tunisian waters twice, Maltese and Greek waters once each

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Ex-Mossad Head: We've 'Boobytrapped And Manipulated' Equipment in 'All Countries You Can Imagine'

Chris Menahan | InformationLiberation

Ex-Mossad head Yossi Cohen boasted during a recent podcast that Israel has "boobytrapped" and "manipulated" equipment like that used in their pager attack in Lebanon in "all countries that you can imagine."

He said he "invented" the "manipulated equipment method" in 2002 to 2004 and had already used it in the "Second Lebanon War" back in 2006.

WATCH

Cohen's comments were made on the Oct 16 episode of the Zionist propaganda podcast The Brink.

I said after the pager and walkie talkie attacks on Lebanon that "any goods connected to Israel must now be assumed to be rigged with explosives until proven otherwise."

For a country that's so obsessed with getting laws passed in America and throughout the West to ban engaging with BDS, the decision to rig consumer goods with explosives and then boast about having boobytrapped and manipulated equipment throughout the world is truly remarkable.

This clearly represents a global security threat. 

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How Israel is laying the groundwork for ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon

Hicham Safieddine | Middle East Eye

Domestic haggling over the disarmament of Hezbollah is overshadowing the long-term and regional dimensions of Israel's war.

Last autumn, Israel launched a brutal and bloody war on Lebanon, with devastating consequences. After fighting broke out on 8 October 2023, and up until a cessation-of-hostilities agreement was signed on 27 November 2024, Israeli attacks killed more than 4,000 people, including more than 300 children, and injured nearly 17,000.

Following Israel's full-scale escalation in September 2024, more than one million people were displaced. Israel's terror tactics ranged from the indiscriminate detonation of hand-held pagers in public spaces, to aerial carpet bombing of residential neighbourhoods, to wholesale assassinations of Hezbollah's top political and military brass, to a ground invasion that left a trail of death and destruction.

Since the ceasefire agreement, Israel's war has continued by other means. Despite Hezbollah's cessation of all military operations, Israeli drone surveillance and attacks, as well as occasional artillery shelling and air raids, are a near-daily occurrence.

Israeli forces still occupy several hilltops inside Lebanese territory that straddle the entire width of the border. Expansion and fortification of these bases are underway.

Media coverage and political analysis of the postwar period have largely centered on one of Israel's declared goals: the disarming of Hezbollah. In Lebanon, political forces allied with the US and Gulf states within Washington's orbit have turned this demand into their do-or-die mandate.

Championed by the vociferous Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and a more calculating President Joseph Aoun, the disarming of Hezbollah is framed as an indispensable step to restore Lebanese sovereignty - and a prerequisite for any economic recovery, including much-needed postwar reconstruction.

Domestic haggling over the fate of Hezbollah's arms in relation to state sovereignty overshadows the long-term and regional dimensions of Israel's war on Lebanon in a post-7-October reality. Israel's pursuit of unchecked regional military supremacy - and its corollary, the establishment of Greater Israel - has meant a new reality in southern Lebanon which, if unchecked, may amount to ethnic cleansing.

Current facts on the ground point in that direction, and are in line with longstanding Zionist colonial ambitions and policies dating back more than a century. 

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Israel has attacked six countries in the past 72 hours

Al Jazeera | Marium Ali and Alia Chughtai

In just three days, Israel has carried out strikes in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen.

 

On Tuesday, Israel launched a targeted air strike on a Hamas leadership compound in Qatar's capital, Doha, during a meeting to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire for Gaza.

The strike killed six people, including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, the director of al-Hayya's office, three bodyguards and a Qatari security officer. However, its top leaders are reported to have survived the attack.

The attack was part of a wider wave of Israeli strikes extending beyond its immediate borders, and marked the sixth country attacked in just 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year. 

Israel continues to bombard Gaza

Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 150 people and injured more than 540 others since Monday.

On Monday, 67 people were killed and hospitals received 320 wounded, including 14 people killed while seeking aid, while six people - among them two children - died from famine-related causes. On Tuesday, another 83 people were killed and 223 were injured.

Israel is continuing its assault on Gaza City, targeting high-rise buildings, destroying infrastructure, and forcing residents from their homes, leaving many with nowhere safe to seek shelter.

Since its onset in October 2023, Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 64,656 people, [a far more probable figure is at least half a million] including at least 404 who have died of starvation. Thousands more have been lost under the rubble and are believed to be dead. 

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New Snowden Leaked Memos Show NSA Aided Israel's "Targeted Assassinations"

Zero Hedge

A couple of new bombshell leaked NSA documents from the Snowden archive published days ago by The Intercept confirms the extremely close level of cooperation between American and Israeli intelligence services, especially as part of the so-called "global war on terror" since 9/11. The documents reveal the NSA even assisted in an aggressive targeted assassination campaign waged by Israel inside Lebanon, especially during the 2006 Lebanon War. 

According to The Intercept's report — aptly titled "Israel Hated American Ban on Sharing Intel for Assassinations, so US Made New Rules" —the newly unearthed NSA memos reveal attempts to find a legal loophole of sorts on the part of the US intelligence officials which would allow unprecedented information sharing related to a deeply controversial targeted assassination campaign by Israel.

The Intercept report states:

As Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah exchanged blows during their short-lived but devastating 2006 war, Israeli military officials used private channels to pressure their American counterparts in the National Security Agency for intelligence to help assassinate Hezbollah operatives, according to a pair of top-secret NSA documents. The NSA was legally restricted from providing such information but, after Israeli officials asked for an exemption, U.S. intelligence officials decided on a new framework for information-sharing.

Essentially the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU), considered "Israel's NSA", convinced their US intelligence counterparts to circumvent US laws and procedures regarding intel sharing with with allied nations. 

"To ISNU, this prohibition [on sharing data for targeted killings] was contrary not only to supporting Israel in its fight against Hizballah but overall, to support the US Global War on Terrorism," the NSA memo stated. 

“ISNU’s reliance on NSA was equally demanding and centered on requests for time sensitive tasking, threat warning, including tactical ELINT” — electronic intelligence — “and receipt of geolocational information on Hizballah elements,” the NSA official wrote. “The latter request was particularly problematic and I had several late-night, sometimes tense, discussions with ISNU detailing NSA’s legal prohibition on providing information that could be used in targeted killings.”

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It Started in Daraa on March 17, 2011: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind the 2011 “Protest Movement”?

Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research

Author’s note

The war on Syria started eight years ago in Daraa  on the 17th of March 2011.
The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.

It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan. 
Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington. This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads? 

From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August14, 2011): 

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011) 

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war: 

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS. 

The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).
In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad. 

In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators. 

Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:

“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)

The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.

[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”

The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)

These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
 
Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.

This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.

What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson.

The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protest

The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda affiliated insurgency integrated by death squads and professional snipers. President Bashar al Assad is then to be blamed for killing his own people. 

Does it Sound familiar? 

The same “false flag” strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine Maidan protest movement.  On February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both demonstrators and policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor Yanukovych of “mass murder.”

It was subsequently revealed that these snipers were controlled by the opponents of president Yanukovych, who are now part of the coalition government.  

The “humanitarian mandate” of the US and its allies is sustained by diabolical “false flag” attacks which consist in killing civilians with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments which refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.

Michel Chossudovsky, March 17, 2019

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Leaked Secret Cable Confirms Israel Conspiring with Saudi Arabia to Provoke War

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project

In what can be referred to as a smoking gun, on Tuesday, Israeli News Channel 10 published a leaked diplomatic cable confirming a long-running ‘conspiracy theory’ of Israeli-Saudi coordination to provoke war.

As ZH reports, the cable was sent to all Israeli ambassadors throughout the world concerning the chaotic events that unfolded over the weekend in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which began with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s unexpected resignation after he was summoned to Riyadh by his Saudi-backers, and led to the Saudis announcing that Lebanon had “declared war” against the kingdom.

The classified embassy cable, written in Hebrew, constitutes the first formal evidence proving that the Saudis and Israelis are deliberately coordinating to escalate the situation in the Middle East.

As ZH notes, the explosive classified Israeli cable reveals the following:

• On Sunday, just after Lebanese PM Hariri’s shocking resignation, Israel sent a cable to all of its embassies with the request that its diplomats do everything possible to ramp up diplomatic pressure against Hezbollah and Iran.
• The cable urged support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
• The cable stressed that Iran was engaged in “regional subversion”. 
• Israeli diplomats were urged to appeal to the “highest officials” within their host countries to attempt to expel Hezbollah from Lebanese government and politics.

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See also: How British Zionism created both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel

Color Revolution In Lebanon Designed To Weaken Hezbollah, Syria, Iran

Brandon Turbeville

During the past week, demonstrations in Lebanon over uncollected garbage have descended into violent clashes between protesters and police. Masses of demonstrators have swelled in the streets of Beirut in a movement now being deemed the “You Stink!” movement.
With these developments suddenly taking place in Lebanon and, with taking the Syrian crisis into context and the Iranian nuclear deal in the background, it is reasonable to question whether or not these protests are a legitimate expression of discontent with an inefficient government or whether it is the product of a Western-backed color revolution aimed at destabilizing Lebanon – particularly Hezbollah – and further weakening the “Shiite Arch of Influence.”

When attempting to analyze events in Lebanon, like much of the Middle East, very little could be considered simple. Lebanon has been racked with economic depression, cultural tensions, color revolutions, civil war and civil war brinkmanship, and terrorism for decades. It has also been the target of outside forces for many years.

The Background

The issue of trash pickup – the issue around which the protests began – was entirely a legitimate issue. Squabbling within the Lebanese government has resulted in gridlock on issues such as the disposal of garbage and the economic crisis has brought funding of garbage disposal into question. Likewise, when the government brought up the idea of the privatization of trash disposal services, Lebanese erupted in anger understanding that privatization would mean higher prices, poorer service, and even less accountability. 

Already suffering from the effects of the world economic depression, Lebanon’s main source of national income – tourism and banking – have seen drastic reductions due to the crisis in Syria and the spillover of fighting across the border. An increase of Syrian refugees alongside Palestinian refugees already inside the country’s borders have also taxed the social fabric and the social safety net system in Lebanon. As Andrew Korybko points out in his article “Lebanon’s Future Is On The Line, And It Directly Affects Syria,” Lebanon’s high debt-to-GDP ratio is one of the world’s highest standing at 143% and the unemployment rate among young people in Lebanon stands officially at 34%.

The economic crisis has become so strained that Prime Minister Tammam Salam recently announced that the government might not be able to pay salaries to workers as early as next month.

Lebanon is also in the middle of an acute political crisis, having been without a President since May 2014, after the previous Presidential term ended. In addition, Prime Minister Salam has hinted that he will resign if political gridlock continues. This resignation would only add to the tensions in Lebanon since the Prime Minister appoints the President. Salam’s resignation would throw Lebanon into a Constitutional crisis on top of the protests, terrorism, and economic hardship.

As Korybko writes, the political situation as it currently stands in Lebanon suggests that one of two men – Michael Aoun and Samir Geagea – have the potential to be president. Both men seem to represent the main “trans-religious political coalitions.”

Aoun is allied with Hezbollah while Geagea is tied to a former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Lebanese-Saudi billionaire. Wikileaks cables released coming from the Saudi Foreign Ministry suggests that Hariri still maintains connections and contacts with Saudi intelligence and the Saudi royal family. The connections are deep enough that Hariri once thought it a reasonable proposition to ask the Saudis to fund his political party. 

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Pentagon War Plans in 2001: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, & Iran

Comment: Just in case we forget the reasons for the current chaos...

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Police State USA

U.S. General Wesley Clark (ret.) revealed that he was informed, in the days following 9/11/2001, that the Department of Defense was planning wars with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,  Iran.

Clark was regarded as an esteemed commander during his service from 1966 to 2000, and obtained the rank of 4-star general. He discussed the matter in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on March 2, 2007.

Here is the transcript of Gen. Clark’s account:

CLARK: About 10 days after 9/11, I went to the Pentagon, and I saw [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary [Paul] Wolfowitz. I went downstairs to say hello to some of the people on the joint staff that used to work for me.

One of the generals called me in and said, “Sir, you gotta come in and talk to me.” I said, “Sir, you’re too busy.” And he said, “No, no! We’ve made the decision — we’re going to war with Iraq!” This is on or about the 28th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why!?” He said, “I don’t know!” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Did they find some information connecting Saddam to al Qaeda?” He said, “No, no, there’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess its like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time, we were bombing in Afghanistan. And I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, its worse than that.” He said– he reached over on his desk and he picked up a piece of paper, and he said, “I just got this from upstairs,” meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office. And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years. Starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.”

What can be made of this?

One explanation, as some suggest, is that it is not unexpected for the Pentagon to maintain ongoing contingency plans; keeping ready to pursue various far-fetched wars at all times. But even if that much is true, why would this seven-country invasion plan be put into official memos in the weeks following the 9/11/2001 attack? Those countries had nothing to do with the hijackings — yet American generals were being briefed about serious plans to attack. Why?

The proposed plan obviously did not pan out exactly as written, but it may have very well given us a look at the agenda of some very bloodthirsty policy-makers, as they tried to exploit the anguish felt following the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Disturbingly, we cannot even be sure that “the plan” is not still being pursued. The Pentagon has maintained a steady course of aggressive foreign interventionism throughout both the Bush and Obama administrations. As we have witnessed, much of what General Clark revealed has ultimately moved forward, albeit with a modified timeline.

Iraq’s government was toppled by the U.S. during the bloody full-scale invasion in 2003. U.S. commandos have been operating clandestinely in Sudan since at least 2005. The U.S. has been operating Somalia since 2007, clandestinely and through missile strikes. Libya’s government was toppled with the help of U.S. missile support in 2009. The U.S. began its bombing campaign in Syria in 2014. Iran’s fate remains yet to be determined, but was a frequent target of pro-war rhetoric in the ’12 election cycle.

If one subscribes to the idea that it is the U.S. military’s proper role (and the U.S. taxpayers’ economic burden) to clean up every undemocratic cesspool on the planet, then this brand of foreign policy might make sense or seem appealing. But even if that much is accepted, one must acknowledge that the leaders and policymakers clamoring for war are the same folks who gave us the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the ACA, the TSA, mass domestic spying, giant bailouts, exponential debt growth, and so many other harmful policies.

Americans’ patriotism and support of democracy have long been exploited by leaders with a far less altruistic foreign policy agenda. The country is not being kept in a state of perpetual conflict because it is good for the USA, good for the world, or destined to promote freedom.

Could it be that the purpose of pursuing war is to be at war? War is the perfect tool to centralize and expand government, degrade civilian liberties, suppress dissenting voices, maintain high levels of state secrecy, unaccountably disperse large sums of taxpayer money, militarize law enforcement, spy on the people, among other things. As Randolph Bourne famously wrote, “War is the health of the state.”

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Washington’s Diabolical Agenda in Iraq: US Pledges “Humanitarian Airstrikes” against US Sponsored IS Terrorists

Tony Cartalucci
Landdestroyer.blogspot.com

Implausible Deniability - West's ISIS Terror Hordes in Iraq

The US has pledged assistance for victims of and even possible “airstrikes” against terrorists who have surrounded and threaten to eradicate thousands of religious minorities in Iraq. However, the terrorists themselves are a product of US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, and instrumental in achieving Western objectives across the region. Punitive strikes and aid to the victims of what is essentially a Western mercenary army is part of maintaining plausible deniability. 

The terror hordes originated from NATO territory and have inundated Syria, Iraq, and now Lebanon. The goal of this well funded, heavily armed, professionally organized mercenary force is clearly to supplant pro-Iranian political and military fronts across Tehran’s arc of influence – from Baghdad to Damascus, to Lebanon and Hezbollah along the Mediterranean. In the process, the heavily indoctrinated rank and file have committed horrific atrocities ranging from rape and torture to mass executions and sectarian genocide. While such war crimes have been taking place in Syria since 2011, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up similar crimes beyond Syria’s borders under narratives of “civil war” linked to the so-called “Arab Spring.”

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Wiping Out the Christians of Syria and Iraq to Remap the Mid-East: Prerequisite to a Clash of Civilizations? (I)

Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA

Strategic Culture

Historically, the Levant is the birthplace of Christianity and the oldest Christian communities have lived in it and the entire Fertile Crescent since the start of Christian history. Early Christian called themselves followers or people of «the Way» before they adopted the term Christian; in Arabic their antiquated name would be «Ahl Al-Deen». [1] Traces of this original name are also available in the New Testament of the Bible and can be read in John 14:5-7, Acts 9:1-2, Acts 24:4 and 14. From the Fertile Crescent these Christian communities spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since that time the ancient communities of Christians, many of which still use the Syriac dialects of Aramaic in their churches, have been an integral and important part of the social fabrics of the pluralistic societies of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Nevertheless, the Christians of the Levant and Iraq are now in the cross-hairs.

Deceit and mischief has been at play. It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum, which was supposed to signal a split between the Muslims in Khartoum and the Christians and animists in Juba. Nor is it an accident that Iraq’s Christian, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, began to face a modern exodus, leaving their homes and ancestral homeland in Iraq in 2003. Mysterious groups targeted both them and Palestinian refugees… Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of US and British military forces, the neighborhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to US and Israeli project of redrawing the map.

The Christian communities of the Levant and Iraq have long distrusted the US government for its support of Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and fanatical militants with anti-Christian leanings. Lebanon’s Christians have also been weary of US support for Israeli expansion and ideas about resettling Palestinians into Lebanon. There is also a widely held belief that the US and Israel have been involved in a policy to remove or «purge» the Christians from Iraq and the Levant in some type of Zionist-linked resettlement plan. Since the US-supported anti-government fighters started targeting Christian Syrians, there has been renewed talk about a Christian exodus in the Middle East centering on Washington’s war on Syria.

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G4S hires pro-Israel professor to whitewash war crimes

Electronic Intifada

In an attempt to justify its work servicing Israeli prisons and checkpoints, G4S has released what it calls an “independent review,” absolving the company of complicity in war crimes committed by Israel.

G4S’s desperation to shore up its failing reputation in the wake of boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS) successes against the company across Europe, South Africa and the US is evident, not just from the content of the report, but also in the choice of authors.

The report, “Human Rights Review of G4S Israel: Human Rights Report and Legal Opinion,” is co-authored by two academics who both have a strong and visible pro-Israel stance.

Guglielmo Verdirame, who wrote the legal section of the report, is professor of international law at King’s College, London.

In November 2012, as Israel was coming to the end of its eight day assault on Gaza, Verdirame wrote an article for BBC Online in which he defends Israel’s vicious, sustained attack on a refugee population in legal terms.

Three weeks earlier, he had presented the same arguments, justifying Israel’s right to “self-defense” against the stateless Palestinians, to a Zionist Federation event titled “Knowledge Seminar for Israel Advocates,” which took place in London.

The seminar was publicized as being “aimed at grass-roots activists … to help fill in any gaps about core knowledge surrounding Israel, in order to help them to be able to advocate for Israel more effectively.”

The core knowledge being provided by Verdirame to pro-Israel activists was on the subject of “the use of force by Israel under international law.” His talk attempted to give legal sanction to Israel’s attacks, not just on Gaza, but against Lebanon, Syria and in the Sinai.

Verdirame was no doubt invited to speak by the Zionist Federation because of his impeccable pro-Israel credentials. In September 2011, he had chaired a UK Lawyers for Israel roundtable discussion on the implications of the Palestinian bid for recognition as a state. On its website, UK Lawyers for Israel states that its aim is to “invoke laws and regulations to support Israel and oppose its enemies.”

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No rest for the wicked – When Israel bled Qana, story of a genocide

 

US Independent 
Catherine Shakdan 

On April 18, 1996, Israel committed the unthinkable – Oblivious to international laws and human decency it deliberately targeted a United Nations compound in which over 800 refugees of war, all Lebanese nationals, sought refuge, as to strike fear at the heart of Lebanon and most specifically the Hezbollah.

Left bruised and humiliated by the Hezbollah advances and military superiority, Israel’s military commanders resorted to the most abject of all tactics to regain their footing – the targeting of a civilian population, hoping that by spilling enough innocent blood the people of Lebanon would recoil in horror and fright, unable to risk anymore of their children.

For well over a decade Lebanon has mourned and remembered its martyrs, it has cried the lives of its children, the lives which murderous Israel reaped apart before they could blossom. But as the blood of Qana has sipped into the soil, forever embedded in Lebanon’s history, an entire nation still await vindication, for there are crimes which can never and should never be forgiven.

Qana massacre has since become a symbol of resistance, a reminder of Israel’s wickedness and inhumanity. An illegitimate power which foundations have been built on Palestine stolen lands Israel is no more than a usurper, an institutional abomination which should never have to come to be.  If ever anyone was in doubt of the treachery and sheer villainy and depravity of Israel and its Zionist leaders, Qana should stand a testimony.

April War

Following a three years truce -1993-1996 – Hezbollah resumed its shelling campaign against Israel in March 1996, keen to demonstrate its military capacity as to ward off the enemy and put an end to Israel’s reign of terror in southern Lebanon. It is important to note that if the international community has been keen to portray Hezbollah as the attacking force in 1996 April War, it is essentially to defend his people’s freedom and Lebanon territorial sovereignty that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – Secretary General of the Hezbollah – moved his men into position. It was more out of necessity and sense of duty than love for confrontation that the Hezbollah declared war on Israel.

Too often depicted as the innocent party by western powers, it is crucial to remember that it was in response to the unwarranted killing of two Lebanese nationals in Yater – Southern Lebanon – by an IDF missile that Hezbollah decided to retaliate against Zionists. If anything, Hezbollah uphold its duty toward Lebanon by opposing tyranny.

In the weeks which followed Hezbollah’ shelling of Israel, IDF Major-General Amiram Levine became only too aware of the giant his forces had awaken. For the first time in three years Israel felt inherently threatened in its positions in the Levant, faced with  an enemy much bigger and potent than it ever anticipated.

It is to crush such threat that Israel launched on April 11, 1996 its so-called Operation Grapes of Wrath, what Lebanon will come to know as April War.

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Lebanon’s Illegal Arms Dealers

"With Lebanon’s security situation worsening every day, business is booming for the country’s illegal arms dealers. With a porous border with Syria next door and vast stockpiles of weapons left over from the country’s civil war, anyone with enough cash can buy any weapon they want, no questions asked - so VICE News went window shopping to see what’s available."

Accusing Iran of 9/11 echoes Iraq scenario'

Are peoeple going to fall for it again, just like they did in Iraq?

______________

World War III: The Launching of a Preemptive Nuclear War against Iran

Global research

By Michel Chossudovsky

The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran has been on the active drawing board of the Pentagon since 2005.  

If such a war were to be launched, the entire Middle East Central Asia region would flare up.  Humanity would be precipitated into a World War III Scenario. 

World War III is not front-page news. The mainstream media has excluded in-depth analysis and debate on the implications of these war plans. 

The onslaught of World War III, were it to be carried out, would be casually described as a "no-fly zone", an operation under NATO's "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) with minimal "collateral damage" or a "limited" punitive bombing against specific military targets, all of which purport to support "Global Security" as well as "democracy" and human rights in the targeted country.  

Public opinion is largely unaware of the grave implications of these war plans, which contemplate the use of nuclear weapons, ironically in retaliation to Iran's nonexistent nuclear weapons program. 

Moreover, 21st Century military technology is at an advanced stage of development combining an array of sophisticated weapons systems.   

We are at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in World history. 

The future of humanity is at stake.  

The present situation is one of advanced war planning by a formidable military force using nuclear warheads.

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest.

The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the World simultaneously.

Militarization at the global level is instrumented through the US military's Unified Command structure: the entire planet is divided up into geographic Combatant Commands under the control of the Pentagon. According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consists of a sequence of war theaters: “[The] five-year campaign plan [includes]... a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.” 

Military action is waged in the name of the "Global War on Terrorism" and Global Security. It has a stated "humanitarian" "pro-democracy" mandate. 

It is predicated on the notion that the West's arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons are (in contrast to those [nonexistent] of the Islamic Republic), according to expert scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon, "harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground."

Irresponsible politicians are unaware of the implications of their actions. They believe their own war propaganda: nuclear weapons are heralded as an instrument of peace and democracy. 

War is heralded as a peace-keeping making operation carried out with the support of the "international community". 

The victims of war are described as the perpetrators. Iran and Syria constitute a threat to Global Security thereby justifying pre-emptive military action. 

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