Monday, December 29, 2025
type here...
Home Blog Page 851

Israel approves plans for military operation in Lebanon

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Israeli Army

A military statement said the head of Israel’s Northern Command Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin and chief of its Operations Directorate Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk approved plans for the attack in a development that comes after months of cross-border attacks between the two sides.

According to the statement, the two generals assessed and approved the “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon”.

They also made decisions on “accelerating the readiness of the forces on the ground,” it added.

This comes hours after Hezbollah published a video of what it said was footage gathered by one of its reconnaissance drones of military locations in Haifa.

The nine-minute video showed several locations of military contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, air defense sites, Iron Dome batteries and David’s Sling military systems.

It also listed the docks and airports of the city of Haifa, along with a naval base, submarine pier and the Israeli Sa’ar 4.5 and 5-class missile boats.

Tensions have risen along Lebanon’s border with Israel amid cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israeli forces as Tel Aviv pressed ahead with its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 37,300 people since last October following an attack by Palestinian group Hamas.

Biden admin. cancels meeting with Israel officials over Iran

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Biden Netanyahu

President Joe Biden’s top advisers were enraged by the video — a message US envoy Amos Hochstein delivered personally to Netanyahu in a meeting hours after it was published, two US and Israeli sources say.

Then the White House decided to go a step farther by canceling Thursday’s meeting.

“This decision makes it clear that there are consequences for pulling such stunts,” a US official said.

“The Americans are fuming. Bibi’s video made a lot of damage,” a senior Israeli official stated, using a nickname for Netanyahu.

Some Israeli officials were already en route to Washington when the meeting was cancelled.

Two US officials told Axios the meeting was canceled to send a message about the video. A third claimed the meeting was postponed rather than canceled, due to a scheduling issue.

Speaking in English, Netanyahu declared in the video that it was “inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel”.

In public, the White House expressed bafflement. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that only one weapons shipment had been paused since the war began, while billions of dollars of weapons had flowed unimpeded.

“We genuinely do not know what he is talking about,” she added.

In private, Biden’s team was angry and shocked by Netanyahu’s ingratitude, according to one US official.

Hochstein was already scheduled to meet with Netanyahu on Tuesday during a stop in Israel on the way back from Beirut, where he was trying to de-escalate the situation on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Once in the room, he told Netanyahu the accusations in the video were both inaccurate and out of line, two Israeli officials briefed on the meeting tell Axios.

In addition, Biden’s top advisers decided to cancel the strategic dialogue on Iran, which was to include hours of meetings involving officials from the State Department, Pentagon and US intelligence agencies, along with their Israeli counterparts.

An Israel official confirmed the White House notified Israel of the decision.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan will still meet his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi, who had already departed for the US, per the Israeli official. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is also still scheduled to visit early next week, Israeli officials say.

Relations between Biden and Netanyahu’s teams are more strained now than at any point in the eight months since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7.

This is the second time a meeting of the Iran strategic dialogue was canceled at the last minute.

In March it was Netanyahu who pulled the plug, after the US declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution that included a reference to a ceasefire in the besieged strip.

UN warns situation in West Bank ‘dramatically deteriorating’

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Israeli Forces in West Bank

“The situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is dramatically deteriorating,” Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.

He said 528 Palestinians, 133 of them children, were killed by Israeli military forces or settlers from the start of the current war on Gaza in October to June 15, “in many cases raising serious concerns of unlawful killings”.

In the same period, 23 Israelis were killed in clashes with Palestinians in the West Bank, including eight members of security forces, according to the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.

Two weeks ago, Turk stated people in the West Bank were being “subjected to day after day of unprecedented bloodshed”.

Israeli soldiers have been rounding up an average of 35 Palestinians a day since the war started, with 9,112 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails as of June 1, nearly double the number of Palestinians jailed on October 1, according to tallies by Palestinian prisoners groups.

Turk also told the 47-member council that he was “appalled” by the disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in Gaza, where “there has been unconscionable death and suffering”.

“More than 120,000 people in Gaza, overwhelmingly women and children, have been killed or injured since October 7 as a result of the intensive Israeli offensives,” the official added.

“Since Israel escalated its operations into Rafah in early May, almost one million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced yet again while aid delivery and humanitarian access deteriorated further.”

More than 37,000 people have been killed and more than 85,400 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, the Ministry of Health in the Palestinian enclave said on Tuesday. The revised death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel stands at 1,139 with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.

Turk said he was “extremely worried about the escalating situation” between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah as at least 401 people in Lebanon have been reportedly killed in the fighting, including paramedics and journalists.

More than 90,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon, and more than 60,000 have been displaced in Israel with 25 Israeli fatalities, he added.

Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva accused Turk of “completely omitting the cruelty and barbarity of terrorism” in his address to the council.

Turk additionally stated global conflicts killed three times as many children and twice as many women in 2023 than in the previous year as the total number of civilian deaths rose by 72 percent.

Warring parties were increasingly “pushing beyond boundaries of what is acceptable – and legal”, he told the council.

“Killings and injuries of civilians have become a daily occurrence. … Children shot at. Hospitals bombed. Heavy artillery launched on entire communities. All along with hateful, divisive and dehumanising rhetoric.”

As he pointed to other conflicts – including in Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Syria – he noted that funding to help the growing numbers of people in need was dwindling.

“As of the end of May 2024, the gap between humanitarian funding requirements and available resources stands at $40.8bn,” Turk said, in contrast with “almost $2.5 trillion in global military expenditure in 2023”.

Iran approves plan to establish AI organization

By
Golrokh Askarieh
-
AI

In a meeting chaired by interim President Mohammad Mokhber on Tuesday, members of the council ratified plans set to place Iran among top ten pioneering countries in AI technologies within ten years.

According to the document, a strategic council consisting of ministers and heads of relevant institutions and individuals, will be formed to implement, coordinate and monitor the National Artificial Intelligence Document.

The National Organization of Artificial Intelligence, under the supervision of the president, is expected to take giant step in line with modern Islamic civilization to improve the quality of governance and strengthen scientific and research foundations in the country.

Like the rest of the world, it is expected to serve as a basis for great changes and transformations in the country.

Top commander: Advanced drones to join Iran’s Army soon

By
IFP Editorial Staff
-
Iran Drone

The Iranian Army’s Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, in a visit to a military base in the southern Iranian city of Sirjan on Wednesday, said the state-of-the-art technologies will improve the naval forces’ combat and operational capabilities.

Rear Admiral Irani said, “We have made good progress in the operational areas in the Navy, and have accessions in those areas  in the future that will continue to keep us at the point of might and progress.”

The top commander said the achievements are significant as “the Navy is the showcase of the country on the international stage.”

Hezbollah broadcasts drone footage of Israeli military sites in Haifa

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Hezbollah

The nine-minute video, published by the Hezbollah-linked Al Mayadeen TV and Al Manar, pinpointed several locations, including military sites and civilian infrastructure, as tensions simmer between the group and Israel.

Al Mayadeen described the video as an “exceptional recording and precise survey” of Israeli targets.

The footage showed maximum-security Israeli locations such as military bases, weapons depots, missiles, maritime ports, and airports in the city of Haifa, located 27km from the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah has yet to issue any official statements on the footage, but Al Manar described the locations as “a bank of targets in northern Israel”.

A report by the channel added the reconnaissance drone “surveyed the north and returned to prove the incapacity of Israeli radars”.

Al Manar cited Hezbollah as saying it has “a very large target bank in case of war outbreak” and claiming more than half a million Israelis would have no protection during a drone attack.

“Half of the Israeli economy is within range of fire,” it noted.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border hostilities since Israel’s war on Gaza in October, with Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killing over 450 people, including at least 80 civilians, and Lebanese attacks killing 15 Israeli soldiers and 10 settlers.

Hezbollah’s drone and missile attacks have led to fires in northern Israel in recent weeks, and Israeli attacks have set large swathes of land in southern Lebanon ablaze and killed senior military commanders.

Risk of hunger threatens lives of thousands of children in Gaza

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Gaza War

In a statement on Tuesday, the Gaza-based Government Media Office said Gaza is “rapidly” heading towards famine amid an “Israeli and US conspiracy to prevent” humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

“3,500 children are threatened by death due to malnutrition and lack of nutritional supplements and vaccines which became part of the prohibited items to enter Gaza,” the statement noted, referring to Israeli restrictions.

It added that “the crime of banning entry of food and medicine” exacerbated the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The media office urged urgent and immediate international intervention to stop Israel’s policy of starvation in Gaza, and to open the crossings with Gaza to allow the flow of humanitarian aid into war-battered Gaza.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

More than 37,350 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 85,400 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

Netanyahu claims Blinken made secret arms promise to Israel

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Gaza War

The US paused delivery of weapons to Israel in early May amid calls for it to scale back its assault on the densely-populated city of Rafah in southern Gaza. The shipment reportedly included 3,500 bombs for fighter jets. Israel’s offensive on Rafah has left thousands of Palestinians dead and injured, according to the local Hamas-run authorities.

In a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, Netanyahu said in English that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has assured him the White House “is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks”, referring to arms supplies.

The statement confirms the latest media reports that during a meeting with Blinken last week in Jerusalem, Netanyahu had demanded the removal of barriers to the flow of munitions.

“When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciated the support the US has given Israel from the beginning of the war,” Netanyahu stated.

“But I also said something else, I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.”

The Israeli leader stressed that an increased flow of US weapons would help bring the end to the struggle with Hamas.

“During World War II, [Winston] Churchill told the United States, ‘Give us the tools, we’ll do the job.’ And I say, give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

Netanyahu has reportedly told Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other high-ranking officials to make sure that arms transfers are fully resumed during upcoming meetings with American counterparts in Washington this week.

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned Israel he would halt arms shipments over the situation in Rafah, but despite those warnings his administration had reportedly kept weapons and ammunition flowing. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the US proceeded with a transfer of $1 billion worth of ammunition and vehicles for Israel in May, the same month it stopped the delivery of bombs.

On Monday, the Washington Post reported that the White House had successfully pressured Democrats in Congress to support a major arms sale to Israel that includes 50 F-15 fighter jets worth more than $18 billion.

Israel declared war on Hamas after fighters killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage in a surprise attack on October 7. More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the months of fighting that have followed, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s health ministry.

The White House has rejected the Israeli premier’s remarks about the US withholding weapons from Israel, except 2,000-pound bombs.

“We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

“There was one particular shipment of munitions that was paused, and you’ve heard us talk about that many times. We continue to have these constructive conversations with Israelis for the release of that particular shipment that I just mentioned. And don’t have any updates on that. There are no other pauses. None. No other pauses or holds in place,” added Jean-Pierre.

Iran minister says oil production surged by 1.4mn barrels in current administration

By
IFP Editorial Staff
-
Iran Oil

Javad Owji made the remarks on Wednesday in an open session of the parliament, where he attended to brief the lawmakers on the latest status of gasoline and diesel production as well as oil exports in the country.

Owji said the former administration passed the baton in August 2021 while crude production was at the lowest level of 2.1 million barrels per day and exports had hit rock bottom.

Signing major investment agreements with domestic contractors worth 23 billion dollars and facilitating due payments were also among the measures the outgoing administration took to return the country’s oil industry to pre-sanctions conditions, the minister said.

He said, “During the past three years, more than 50 million cubic meters have been added to the country’s gas production.”

The minister also highlighted the achievements of his ministry during the past three years as “a 10-fold increase in reducing flare gases, an increase of 27,000 barrels in the capacity of refineries, 40-percent increase in natural gas storage, two-fold increase in LPG gas exports and gas supply to 50 cities, 6,700 villages, 210,000 industrial units, and 20 power plants.”

Russia’s Putin arrives in North Korea, and Kim welcomes him

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Putin Kim

The Russian president arrived in the country on Tuesday evening, with most of the talks and events scheduled for the next day.

He was greeted at the airport by a delegation of North Korean officials, as well as plaques praising the friendship between the two nations, while the road leading from the airport was lined with Russian flags and portraits of Putin.

The Russian delegation includes numerous top officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, and Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt, as well as Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov, and the head of Russian Railways Oleg Belozyorov.

Putin and Kim are expected to sign a number of bilateral documents, with the Russian leader having earlier authorized the signing of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement with North Korea, which outlines “the prospects for further cooperation” between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Putin’s last visit to North Korea was in 2000, when he met with Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader. Kim traveled to Russia’s Far East last September, with the visit focusing on military and economic cooperation.

In the run-up to his visit, Putin stated Russia had consistently supported North Korea in its long “struggle against the treacherous, dangerous and aggressive enemy”, referring to the Western states. The Kremlin has also praised North Korea’s vocal support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict, noting that Pyongyang “understands the true reasons and the essence” of the crisis.

1...850851852...5,130Page 851 of 5,130

© All Content by IFP News ( Iran Front Page ) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

About Us

Popular Articles

Editor Picks