Did Netanyahu just ask Trump for another war — and get it?
By Trita Parsi – Responsible Statecraft – December 30, 2025
During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said that he will allow Israel to attack Iran once again to strike its ballistic missiles.
But what exactly does that mean? Will the U.S. be involved in the actual strikes? Will it “limit” its involvement to shooting down Iran’s retaliatory missiles?
If the former, Trump is not just “allowing” Israel to strike; the U.S. will actually be at war with Iran. This would be a betrayal of his promise to his base to keep America out of wars (he has, of course, violated that already).
Moreover, unlike the nuclear program, which incorporates a small number of known facilities, the missile program is spread throughout the country in a large number of hidden facilities, many of them probably unknown to the U.S./Israel.
Thus, Trump will likely not be able to frame this as mere “military action” rather than war. Nor will he likely be able to negotiate with Tehran a limited Iranian response since the missiles are Iran’s last line of defense — the last leg of its deterrence.
Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with Washington, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford to do so in this scenario. Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at U.S. targets.
Even if Trump opts to “only” support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war — which is the position Biden took — it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the U.S. is lessening the cost for Israel to do so.
The cost to the United States is great even in this scenario. Washington depleted 25% of its THAAD interceptors in the course of 12 days this past summer — for Israel’s war of choice, in a region four American Presidents have declared no longer is vital to U.S. national security.
As I wrote last week, every time Trump caves to Netanyahu and agrees to another war, it only prompts Israel to come back to Trump after a few months with another war plan for Americans to give their blood and tax dollars to.
This will go on endlessly until Trump decides to end it.
Trita Parsi is an Iranian-born Swedish writer and activist, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and founder and former president of the National Iranian American Council
As Israel bans aid orgs in Gaza, notorious mercenary firm seeks “Targeter”
Are Israel and US planning to revive the dystopian GHF scheme that spawned famine and death under cover of humanitarian aid?
By Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone | December 31, 2025
In its bid to continue the genocide in Gaza, Israel has banned 37 international aid organizations from entering the decimated, militarily occupied coastal enclave. This leaves only five humanitarian groups still able to operate inside Gaza.
At the same time, one of the US mercenary firms responsible for securing the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites which were present during the worst periods of famine in Gaza, when at least 3000 Palestinian civilians were gunned down while seeking aid, has posted an ad soliciting former special forces soldiers for offensive operations.
UG Solutions, the scandal-stained private mercenary firm, announced this December that it was hiring an “experienced Targeter to support intelligence-driven operations through the identification, development, validation, and maintenance of operational targets.” The targeter will be expected to “Develop, validate, and maintain operational target packages in accordance with approved targeting processes.”
Anthony Aguilar, the retired United States Army Lt. Col and former Green Beret who blew the whistle on UG Solutions’ human rights abuses in Gaza, told me he believes that Israel’s ban on the 37 international aid organizations signals the return of UG Solutions as part of a restructured version of the Israeli-controlled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation scheme.
While it’s unclear where the UG Solutions targeter position will be deployed, if they are being hired for upcoming operations in Gaza, Aguilar says “this shows that the US, through paramilitary contractors, is now going to either directly target, or feed target data to the IDF.”
To set the stage for its blanket ban on international aid organizations, Israel’s intel-tied Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has demanded that all staffers of aid NGOs prove they do not support calls to boycott Israel, that they do not support armed struggle or oppose Israel’s existence as an exclusivist Jewish state, and that they do not “actively advance delegitimization activities against the State of Israel.”
Aid staffers must also demonstrate that they have never questioned the established history of the Holocaust or challenged official Israeli narratives about October 7 – including, presumably, that Palestinians committed “mass rape” or beheaded babies.
Israel has also demanded that Doctors Without Borders provide COGAT occupation administrators with the personal data of its staff and donors, an unprecedented move by a belligerent in a conflict which few, if any, aid groups could ever honor.
It seems obvious that the Israeli government is using the absurdly onerous new registration standards as cover to ban virtually every credible international aid organization from entering Gaza. In doing so, the apartheid entity seemingly seeks to deprive Palestinians living inside the yellow occupation line of sustenance, forcing them to leave Gaza, or to move into one of the high-tech, concentration camp-like “smart cities” mapped out in the dystopian new “Project Sunrise” proposal marketed by Trump cronies Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
And it is there that they would be “secured” by a mercenary outfit like UG Solutions – and targeted if they dared to resist.
Below is a list of all the aid orgs banned by Israel from operating in Gaza:
1. Accion contra el Hambre – Action Against Hunger
2. Action Aid
3. Alianza por la Solidaridad
4. Artsen zonder Grenzen (Medecins Sans Frontieres Nederland)
5. Campaign for the Children of Palestine (CCP Japan)
6. CARE
7. DanChurchAid
8. Danish Refugee Council
9. Handicap International – Humanity and Inclusion
10. Japan International Volunteer center
11. Medecins Du Monde (FRANCE)
12. Medecins du Monde Switzerland
13. Medecins Sans Frontières Belgium
14. Medecins Sans Frontieres France
15. Medicos del Mundo (Spain)
16. Mercy Corps
17. MSF Spain – Doctors Without Borders Spain
18. NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL
19. Oxfam Novib
20. Premiere Urgence Internationale
21. Terre des hommes Lausanne
22. The International Rescue Committee (IRC)
23. WeWorld-GVC
24. World Vision International
25. Relief International
26. Fondazione AVSI
27. Movement for Peace – MPDL
28. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
29. Medico International
30. PSAS – The Palestine Solidarity Association in Sweden
31. Defense for Children International
32. Medical Aid for Palestinians – UK
33. Caritas Internationalis
34. Caritas Jerusalem
35. Near East council churches
36. OXFAM Quebec
37. War Child holland
The Bari Weiss Playbook: How a Zionist Operative Conquered American Media
By Jose Alberto Nino | The Occidental Observer | December 31, 2025
Long before she ran a newsroom, Bari Weiss was already running a campaign. The target was anyone she perceived as a threat to Israel. In the mid-2000s, at Columbia University, she helped found a student effort that marketed itself as a defense of Jewish students and Zionist speech in an environment she portrayed as hostile.
The controversy reached its zenith with the release of Columbia Unbecoming, a documentary created in collaboration with The David Project, which leveled accusations against Middle East Studies faculty for their alleged intimidation of students who expressed pro-Israel views. The film circulated online as video testimony that Jewish students were allegedly under threat on campus.
The counterattack naturally came quickly. Civil liberties advocates warned that encouraging students to monitor faculty for ideological infractions would chill speech and collapse academic freedom into factional policing. An online critique from the Columbia ecosystem framed the campaign as overreach and a template for future pressure tactics. Such concerns proved to be prescient, as Jewish students would keep tabs on Columbia professors and report them for anti-Zionist and antisemitic conduct after October 7, 2023.
That early fight showcased Weiss’s primordial instinct to go to the mat for her tribe. This did not come out of the blue. Weiss grew up in a politically engaged Jewish household in Pittsburgh, where her father Lou Weiss served on the National Council for AIPAC and frequently organized missions to Israel, profoundly shaping her early Zionist identity.
With unwavering devotion to Zionist principles, Weiss navigated the political landscape with a singular focus, her commitment to advancing Jewish interests remaining unshaken by the petty squabbles and transient allegiances of partisan politics. By the time she rose inside legacy media, she carried a worldview that opportunistically fused free speech rhetoric with strong stances on Israel and antisemitism.
Weiss’s ascent mirrored the classic trajectory of the modern mandarin class, ascending the rungs of the opinion-making apparatus that manufactures public consent. Her journey began in the trenches of reporting, leading to an editorial position at The Wall Street Journal. In that capacity, she gained the skills of gatekeeping and narrative framing, which she would continue to employ as she climbed up the media ladder.
In 2017, she landed at the New York Times opinion section after she believed that the WSJ took too hard of a pro-Trump stance. She described herself “as center left on most issues”, but the issue of Israel was non-negotiable for her, when push came to shove. Ultimately, her position at the Times did not hold. In July 2020, she announced her exit with a resignation letter that accused the institution of enforcing ideological conformity, tolerating internal bullying, and letting social media pressure shape editorial decisions.
While the letter publicly signaled her break with legacy liberalism, it was fundamentally an act of strategic repositioning. A deeper, more calculating motive propelled this departure: the dawning realization that the very media establishments she inhabited were losing their effectiveness as guardians of Jewish interests. Her subsequent career trajectory into new media ventures confirms this was not an ideological conversion, but a pragmatic pivot to more reliable channels of influence.
In 2021 she took matters into her own hands by launching a Substack newsletter called Common Sense, then rebranded it into The Free Press, positioning it as a supposed bastion for free speech. The Free Press outwardly curated a portfolio of anti-woke commentary on issues like gender ideology and campus radicalism. However, these topics served as a popular façade for the publication’s central, animating purpose: the advancement of Zionism. Weiss meticulously assembled a stable of contributors—including prominent voices like Douglas Murray, Niall Ferguson, Konstantin Kisin, and Eli Lake—whose primary alignment was a staunch defense of Israeli policy, making the outlet’s broader ideological commitment unmistakable.
Israel was the unwavering constant, serving not as a footnote but as the central organizing principle of her moral worldview. She treated anti-Zionism as a mask for antisemitism and made that position central to her public identity, a framework reflected in discussion around her book and its reception. Her 2019 book How to Fight Anti Semitism became the manifesto version of the same argument.
The 2018 mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, in which Robert Bowers murdered eleven Jewish congregants, threw Weiss’s propensity for targeting the hard Right into stark relief. The atrocity held profound personal significance for her, as the synagogue was the site of her Bat Mitzvah ceremony. Weiss pinpointed Bowers’ motive: his belief in organized Jewry’s outsized promotion of mass migration. She conceded this factual premise during an NPR interview, highlighting HIAS’s active role in facilitating refugee settlement, although it was much more than just HIAS—the entire organized Jewish community.
Weiss offered a trenchant analysis of the anti-Zionist left, warning that the climate of intolerance fostered by cancel culture posed a clear and present danger to American Jews—a concern that crystallized for her following the violence in Pittsburgh. She developed this argument while headlining a virtual event on June 6th dedicated to exploring the phenomenon of cancel culture through a specifically Jewish framework.
“I have felt more of a sense of alarm over the past few weeks now than I did in the aftermath of the attack on my synagogue,” said Weiss, referring to the 2021 Israel-Palestine confrontation. “Anti-Semitism,” she said, “has moved from the lunatic fringe firmly into the mainstream of American cultural life and into the halls of Congress.”
Weiss went mask off In October 2023, during the Israel-Hamas war, when her ethno-religious activism was on full display. Refaat Alareer, a professor and poet from Gaza, provoked outrage with a since-deleted tweet in which he jested about unverified claims that Hamas fighters had incinerated a Jewish baby in an oven, sarcastically asking, “with or without baking powder.” Weiss immediately pounced and quote-tweeted this post, highlighting it as an example of moral depravity. Alareer reported receiving death threats following Weiss’s post to her large following. He posted, “If I get killed by Israeli bombs or my family is harmed, I blame Bari Weiss and her likes,” arguing that her platforming of his tweet marked him as a target. The Israeli military would then kill Alareer, along with multiple members of his family, in a single, targeted airstrike on December 6. 2023.
The allegation from Alareer’s supporters was unequivocal: Weiss had committed stochastic terrorism. They argued she deliberately employed her massive reach to channel hostility and, by inevitable extension, the attention of military and intelligence agencies toward Alareer, a process that ended with his assassination.
Weiss’ fanatic commitment to her tribe was recognized by the likes of David Ellison—CEO of Skydance Media and the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The younger Ellison had been considering how to revitalize CBS News even before the Paramount acquisition closed. Both David and Larry Ellison are described as “extremely fervent supporters of Israel,” with Larry being a “known Trump supporter” and David “at least suspected to be” pro-Trump as well.
Throughout summer 2025, as Skydance awaited regulatory approval for the Paramount merger, Ellison held discussions with Weiss about integrating The Free Press‘s editorial vision into CBS News. Democracy Now! reported that “Ellison has gotten very close with Bari Weiss”. CNN added that Ellison was “interested in infusing Weiss’s editorial perspective into CBS News.” The deal was eventually finalized in early October, Paramount officially announced the acquisition of The Free Press in a deal valued at approximately $150 million in cash and Paramount shares, to be disbursed gradually and potentially varying based on Paramount’s stock performance. Further, Weiss was appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News—a newly created position.
In her position, Weiss reports directly to David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, not through the normal CBS News chain of command. The Free Press maintains independent operations as a separate brand within Paramount. Weiss will collaborate with Tom Cibrowski, president of CBS News, though they occupy parallel rather than hierarchical positions.
A lifetime of dedicated advocacy for Zionist causes has yielded its intended dividends for Bari Weiss. Her trajectory demonstrates a remarkable consistency, guided unerringly by the twin lodestars of perceived Jewish safety and the legitimization of the Zionist endeavor. In the end, Bari Weiss’s career trajectory reveals a fundamental truth: she is not a journalist in any meaningful sense, but a zealous agent for Jewish tribal power, making her a conscious and effective enemy of the gentile civilization whose institutions she has so skillfully subverted.
Gaza races to preserve what remains of its 5,000-year-old archaeological legacy
Under constant Israeli bombardment, Palestinians dig through rubble to prevent the erasure of a history thousands of years in the making.
Volunteers carry an antique pillar from the ruins of the Guerrara Museum after it was damaged in Israeli bombing [TRT World] / TRT World
By Doaa Shaheen | TRT World | December 29, 2025
For more than five millennia, Gaza has stood at the crossroads of civilisations, an ancient port on the Mediterranean linking Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia.
Long before it became synonymous with siege and war, the narrow coastal strip was a passageway for empires, armies, pilgrims, and traders, each leaving traces still buried beneath its soil.
Today, as Gaza’s cities are reduced to rubble from Israel’s brutal assault, another, quieter destruction is unfolding: the systematic loss of cultural memory embedded in museums, artefacts, textiles, and archives that document thousands of years of human history.
Across the devastated enclave, historians, volunteers, and museum founders are risking their lives to rescue what remains, often with bare hands and improvised tools, believing that preserving heritage is inseparable from preserving identity.
Amid the rubble of bombardment and beneath the ominous hum of drones in the so-called Zero Line area east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Mohammed Abu Lahia and his companions risk their lives.
Their mission is to rescue archaeological and heritage artefacts from the ruins of the Al-Qarara Cultural Heritage Museum, in a desperate attempt to prevent the erasure of Palestinian cultural memory after Israeli forces destroyed the museum during the war.
![Historical artefacts displayed at a Gaza museum before Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/7a5d28d8c8a428a2c55e5e7b306ce95fd39c83a17770c17f4280cfc7150d3ff0.webp)
Historical artefacts displayed at a Gaza museum before Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 [TRT World]
The urgency reflects Gaza’s extraordinary historical density. Over centuries, Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Mamluks, and Ottomans all ruled or passed through the territory.
Legendary figures such as Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte once stood on its soil. Each era left behind material traces – pottery, mosaics, inscriptions, textiles – many of which ended up in local museums like Al-Qarara.
“The Al-Qarara Cultural Heritage Museum was founded in 2016 in response to the community’s need for a cultural institution to preserve Palestinian heritage from being lost,” says Abu Lahia, the 30-year-old founder.
From its inception, the museum relied on donations from local families who entrusted it with heirlooms and antiquities meant to testify to Palestine’s long history and everyday life across generations.
Before its destruction, “the museum housed about 3,500 pieces narrating 5,000 years of Palestinian history, from Roman, Byzantine, and Mamluk eras to traditional jewellery,” Abu Lahia adds.
“Only about 1,000 pieces have been saved from the destruction through arduous manual search, due to the lack of specialised excavation machinery.”
Gaza’s antiquities are dispersed across public institutions and private museums established by enthusiasts driven by a desire to protect what they see as shared inheritance.
The Israeli war machine has impacted all museums, causing varying degrees of damage and the loss or theft of parts of their collections.
UNESCO has verified damage to at least 110 sites of cultural, historical, and religious significance across Gaza since the war began, including mosques, churches, archaeological sites, museums, and historic buildings, figures that continue to rise as access remains limited.
Abu Lahia explains the rudimentary salvage operation: “We are racing against time to pull out archaeological pieces. Every passing moment is from the lifespan of Palestinian history and these antiquities. We don’t want to lose what remains.”
With no access to modern tools, the team wraps artefacts in cloth and blankets, pads them with plastic and sponge, and stores them in vegetable crates, fruit boxes, or discarded humanitarian aid cartons. Heavy stone columns are dragged out using strong ropes and moved to safer locations.
Twenty-five volunteers, young men and women trained in history, archaeology, architecture, and fine arts, are participating in the effort. They view their work not as cultural preservation alone, but as resistance to erasure.
Alongside physical rescue efforts, the team is building a digital archive, recognising that memory must survive even when objects cannot.
Using a makeshift mobile studio, salvaged items are photographed, catalogued, assigned serial numbers, and uploaded under the museum’s name, ensuring that even if the artefacts are lost, their documentation endures.
![Mohammed Abu Lahia sorting artefacts after they were retrieved from under the rubble of Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/09d39a5f38a4bb205b72586e60c012ee03e9e3259922a7283c4d3f1189d39fe4.webp)
Mohammed Abu Lahia sorting artefacts after they were retrieved from under the rubble of Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]
Abu Lahia emphasises, “The museum has not ended despite the destruction. What survived under the rubble and what was documented digitally confirms that Palestinian memory is still alive.”
Saving the Palestinian Thobe
In another corner of Gaza, Suhaila Shaheen is fighting a parallel battle to preserve a different form of heritage: embroidered Palestinian dress.
The Palestinian thobe, known for its colourful stitches, encodes geography, social history, and identity—distinguishing villages, cities, and even family lineages.
For many Palestinians, it functions as a textile archive passed from one generation to the next.
Founded in December 2022, the Palestinian Thobe Museum in Rafah was both a personal dream and a cultural statement for Dr Shaheen. The university professor specialising in art and technology views safeguarding embroidered dress as preserving stories often excluded from official archives.
The museum, funded entirely by Shaheen and her fundraising efforts, became the first Palestinian museum dedicated to embroidered thobes founded by a woman.
Its collection grew to more than 5,600 heritage items, including around 340 hand-embroidered Palestinian thobes representing villages of the Gaza district, alongside original historical documents, rare photographs, agricultural tools, and a Bedouin tent.
Israeli bombardment on October 10, 2023, erased the museum entirely.
From beneath the rubble, Shaheen was able to recover only 64 thobes, some intact, others torn or eroded by the bombing.
“These are what remain of the museum’s memory,” she says. “I carry them with me wherever I go.”
Unable to save most of the collection physically, Shaheen turned to digital preservation, compiling photographs and records taken by herself, journalists and visitors.
“I’m working on gathering everything available digitally, so the story isn’t completely lost,” she explains.
Looting Gaza’s antiquities
Gaza-based Palestinian heritage expert Hammoud Al-Dahdhar describes the current situation as catastrophic.
In Gaza City’s Old Quarter, the iconic Great Omari Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in the Strip, has been left partially destroyed, its distinctive minaret reduced to a broken stump.
Nearby, the 700-year-old Qasr al-Basha, once a Mamluk palace and later the National Museum, has been struck and bulldozed. Thousands of artefacts it housed are now missing or unaccounted for.
![A broken plaque is all that remains of the Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/f7395cc9d21597d1f1cbc9436ef97861991255a41a2a97f9eec0f63a3d7baf02.webp)
A broken plaque is all that remains of the Al-Qarara Museum [TRT World]
Al-Dahdhar points an accusatory finger at the Israeli occupation for looting thousands of archaeological pieces from Gaza’s historical sites, citing the disappearance of more than 17,000 artefacts from Qasr al-Basha alone.
Manual rescue efforts, he says, are carried out amid unexploded ordnance, shortages of equipment, and ongoing bombardment. Digital documentation faces its own risks, including cyberattacks aimed at erasing records.
“These are emergency first-aid operations. We document what is missing, what is looted, and what is destroyed, under impossible conditions,” Al-Dahdhar tells TRT World.
International institutions have also sounded the alarm.
During the war, the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem reported that tens of thousands of archaeological artefacts from Gaza, including material excavated from the UNESCO-listed Byzantine monastery of Saint Hilarion, had been stored in a facility in Gaza City for safekeeping.
The site was managed and secured by Premiere Urgence Internationale, a humanitarian organisation that has worked for years on the protection of Gaza’s historical heritage while providing vocational training and livelihoods for young Palestinians.
Despite the facility’s protected status under the UN’s deconfliction system, the Israeli military ordered its evacuation ahead of an air strike.
![A mannequin on display at the Palestinian Dress Museum before its destruction [TRT World]](https://d2udx5iz3h7s4h.cloudfront.net/2025/12/29/673300eacfcbfe8e438b6a7c/image/ae1e5b20d835c73edd4acb9aaed3aa1913cbfd4c24c1db9b8cfbd1b21812a978.webp)
A mannequin on display at the Palestinian Dress Museum before its destruction [TRT World]
Under sustained risk of bombardment and amid severe shortages of time and resources, 70 percent of the collection, representing more than 25 years of archaeological research, was moved before the Israeli attack. The rest, destroyed.
Scholars and heritage experts have warned that the destruction of such material constitutes an irreparable loss, not only to Palestinians but to global understanding of early Christian and ancient Middle Eastern history.
Al-Dahdhar stresses that the stakes extend beyond preservation for its own sake.
“This is about protecting collective memory. Without it, identity itself is endangered.”
UNRWA head slams ‘outrageous’ Israeli law to cut water, energy to agency’s facilities
Press TV – December 30, 2025
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has strongly slammed new Israeli legislation to cut water and energy to UNRWA facilities, calling it a violation of international law and a direct challenge to the United Nations system.
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said legislation passed by Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) to cut energy and communication lines of the agency undermines the agency’s mandate.
“Yesterday’s vote by the Israeli parliament passing new legislation against UNRWA is outrageous,” Lazzarini wrote Tuesday on X.
“It is a direct affront to the mandate granted to the Agency by the UN General Assembly and contrary to findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which oblige Israel to fulfil its responsibilities as a UN Member State to UNRWA and the broader UN system.”
According to Lazzarini, the law authorizes Israeli authorities to cut water, electricity, fuel and communications to UNRWA facilities and allows for the expropriation of UN property in occupied East al-Quds, including the agency’s headquarters and its main vocational training centre.
He added that the bill explicitly excludes UNRWA from Israeli legislation implementing Israel’s obligations under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, describing this as “a clear violation” of the Israeli regime’s obligations under international law.
Lazzarini said the move builds on laws passed last year and implemented since January 2025 that banned UNRWA’s operations in occupied East al-Quds and halted all contact between Israeli officials and the agency. He described the legislation as part of a sustained effort to weaken multilateral institutions.
“The new legislation is a further blow to the multilateral system,” he said, adding that it was part of “an ongoing, systematic campaign to discredit UNRWA and thereby obstruct the core role that the Agency plays in providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine Refugees.”
Those services, Lazzarini noted, have been deemed essential by the ICJ for upholding the UN’s commitment to Palestinian rights, including self-determination.
He recalled that in October the court reiterated Israel’s obligation under international law to facilitate, not hinder, UNRWA’s work, calling the new law “an unacceptable rejection of the ICJ’s findings.”
Lazzarini said disputes with UNRWA should be addressed through UN mechanisms, warning against unilateral actions. He pointed to recent incidents on the ground, including the storming of UNRWA’s compound in East al-Quds earlier this month, when Israeli officials tore down the UN flag and replaced it with an Israeli one. In May, he said, authorities forced the closure of UNRWA schools in the city, affecting hundreds of Palestinian refugee children.
“These legislative steps have been accompanied by unilateral actions on the ground that show a repeated disregard for international law,” he said.
Lazzarini warned that the measures are having a direct operational and legal impact on UNRWA’s work across the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza, where the agency is central to humanitarian operations.
He stressed that Palestinian refugee rights exist independently of UNRWA under international law and UN resolutions, including Resolution 194, and would endure even without the agency.
He added that the legislation sets a “grave precedent” by rejecting the UN’s independence and immunities, cautioning that failing to push back could undermine humanitarian and human rights work worldwide.
Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in the occupied territories after accusing some of its staff of being involved in the al-Aqsa storm operation in October 2023.
Despite repeated requests from UNRWA for the Israeli regime to provide evidence supporting its allegations, the agency has received no response.
The UN agency has faced deepening financial turmoil since Israel launched a defamation campaign against it.
Trump Says Hamas Will Be Given a ‘Short Period of Time’ to Disarm
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 30, 2025
President Donald Trump said that Hamas will be given a short period of time to disarm, threatening to be “hell to pay” if the Palestinian group refuses.
During a Press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump was asked about demilitarizing Hamas. “They will be given a very short period of time to disarm. If they don’t disarm, as they agreed to do, there will be hell to pay,” he said. If Hamas does not disarm, “it will be horrible for them, horrible. It’s going to be really, really bad for them.”
Trump suggested that Hamas would be disarmed by Middle Eastern countries, rather than the US or Israel, which are willing to commit forces to demilitarize Gaza.
However, Hamas did not agree to disarm under the October agreement. At the time, a US official told Fox News that the Israel and Hamas ceasefire agreement was negotiated at “lightning speed” and did not address several key issues. Two outstanding questions are what group will secure Gaza and whether Hamas will disarm.
Hamas has maintained that it will only disarm if it is in the process of creating an independent Palestinian state.
Since the signing of the truce earlier this year, Tel Aviv has taken several steps to block the creation of a Palestinian state, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeated his long-standing position against the two-state solution.
Is Israel About to Return to Genocide? Three Scenarios for What Comes Next
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | December 30, 2025
With Tel Aviv openly rejecting withdrawal and insisting on disarmament, the “ceasefire” risks sliding into either renewed mass killing or a slow-motion attempt to impose control and displacement.
Debate rages on over what Phase Two of the Gaza Ceasefire will look like, as US President Donald Trump demands the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance. Meanwhile, Gaza refuses to hand over its weapons. Most analyses are, however, missing the mark when it comes to reading Tel Aviv’s calculations.
The so-called Gaza Ceasefire has proven itself to be little more than an extended pause in the mass slaughter of civilians. While it is still described as a ceasefire, there were three major changes to the predicament on the ground that took hold during “Phase One,” as the war continued to rage on.
The first major change, perhaps the most notable, was that the Israelis committed to no longer killing an average of around 100 civilians on a daily basis. The second was that more aid entered Gaza, although nowhere near the amount required or agreed to. The third was a mutual prisoner exchange.
Assessing the strength and direction of the ceasefire in its first phase is important to reading what the second phase may have in store, if it is even reached.
To the Israelis, the benefits of the partial implementation of Phase One were numerous. To begin with, the least consequential element, they relieved themselves of the burden of releasing their captives. This was important for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in that he managed to clear the topic of returning the captives, especially as he heads into a new election cycle.
Then we have the other benefits for the Israelis. Gaza exited the international headlines, as daily killings appeared too low to even register as a major issue in the biased Western press. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers were able to continue doing the exact same work inside Gaza that has constituted the majority of its military operations throughout the genocide: building demolition work.
These demolition missions, for which a privatized Israeli workforce has been employed to operate alongside the occupation army’s engineering units, have constituted the vast majority of the military’s efforts on the ground. Face-to-face combat on the ground has never been a notable feature of the Israeli genocide; they simply refused to actually fight the Palestinian resistance groups.
One thing that troubled the Israelis was that this demolition work, which sometimes included destroying entrances to tunnels, came with a high risk of running into armed ambushes. The Palestinian fighters would prepare traps and set up ambush operations for their forces, especially when Israel would invade or reinvade any new area they had not retained a permanent presence in.
Phase One of the Gaza Ceasefire agreement, therefore, guaranteed that soldiers were not going to be subjected to the same dangers as before, as the Palestinian resistance groups would halt all operations against the invading army.
It is important that this reality is established when analyzing Israel’s decision-making, because what is being done to Gaza is a genocide, not a conventional war. Israel’s intent is to wipe out Gaza, ensuring that it becomes totally uninhabitable, with the intention of mass expulsion in mind. This is also why they rarely targeted the armed wings of the Palestinian factions, focusing on maximum damage to the civilian population instead.
Any other way of framing this issue is misleading and whitewashes what the Israeli regime has committed since October 7, 2023. It also robs any analyst of his or her ability to assess Israel’s calculations critically.
With this in mind, consider that the Israelis have now had over two months where their armed forces have still been working, but have had a break from any fighting or the fear of being ambushed. Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other equipment were also being repaired, as the decision-makers in Tel Aviv and Washington designed new plans for their fronts against Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon.
They also needed fewer soldiers for security reasons, as a so-called Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) took over in monitoring the situation and helping shape the realities imposed on the ground. Every country involved in the CMCC was therefore made complicit in the genocide.
This phase came with the additional benefit for the Israelis that they now had the space to experiment with new approaches, conjure up more conspiracies, and seek to find a way to ensure the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip occurs. As Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has explicitly stated, his army has no intention of withdrawing from the besieged coastal territory.
Phase Two and What It Will Show Us
If we establish the fact that the Israelis are adamant on achieving ethnic cleansing, that their military operations have always sought to achieve this goal, and that they are continuing to conspire to achieve this, then we have arrived at the starting point from which to assess the implementation of a so-called Phase Two.
During the first phase, the groundwork was laid for a new set of conspiracies against the people of Gaza. The population was subjected to countless pressures, which the criminal CMCC oversaw, including the deprivation of sustainable living conditions, with only a handful of its nongovernmental organizations even raising issues about it.
Despite the best efforts of the Hamas-affiliated government security forces to restore order, they were dealing with an impossible situation. Over a million people live in tents that are unstable or susceptible to dire weather conditions, a lack of adequate medical supplies, sanitary supplies, and many food items are even restricted. Amid this, most people don’t have jobs, few have adequate salaries coming in, and even for those in a better economic standing, they remain traumatized and unable to return to their homes. Inevitably, this leads to social issues that no regular security force can fully repel.
Meanwhile, the Israelis expand the so-called Yellow Line, behind which they were supposed to remain, instead using this line to execute anyone who comes within a few hundred meters of it, thus deterring them from returning to their own homes or land, where they could possibly plant small crops. Behind this ever-expanding occupying line, the Israeli military and private contractors destroy more and more infrastructure. All of this is monitored by the US-Israeli-led CMCC.
The plan is rather overt in its goals, but still vague in its precise stages of implementation. Both US and Israeli officials have made it crystal clear that they seek reconstruction only inside the Israeli-controlled portion of the Gaza Strip, where five ISIS-linked death squads are being strengthened by Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The UN’s most shameful Resolution 2803, passed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in November, makes it apparent that the goal is to implement a “Board of Peace” (BoP) and International Stabilization Force (ISF). The BoP makes Donald Trump the de facto ruler of Gaza, and the ISF is set to be a multinational invasion force tasked with fighting the Palestinian resistance factions.
This Monday, the new spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades of Hamas, who has also taken on the alias Abu Obeida, announced a staunch opposition to disarmament, instead calling on the Israelis to disarm, as they are the ones responsible for committing a genocide. All the Palestinian factions, with the exception of the mainstream branch of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), are united on this issue.
The PA is in favor of Donald Trump’s plan for him to rule the Gaza Strip and disarm the resistance by force, but it is irrelevant in terms of representing Palestinians. This authority only continues to exist because it is propped up by the Israelis, Americans, Saudis, and Europeans, and its popularity, beyond its base of employees, is in the single digits among the Palestinian people. It does not even represent the sentiments of the majority of Fatah supporters anymore.
All of this is to say that if any Phase Two is going to be implemented, neither side is going to be in agreement about it. Netanyahu’s government demands disarmament, while the Palestinian factions demand Gaza’s self-governance and will only disarm by handing over their weapons to a newly established Palestinian state. Hamas is clear that it would allow a technocratic administration to take over Gaza and is not demanding that it remain as the government of Gaza.
Considering that neither side can agree upon the basis on which a Phase Two can begin, keeping in mind that Israel and the US are the sides with military dominance, there are three ways that this will unfold:
The US and Israel will proceed with aggressively implementing their plan, as laid out in the shameful UNSC Resolution 2803. They will begin deploying a regime change force and attempt to implement a number of schemes to start a slow ethnic cleansing of the territory amid this.
Israel will restart its full-scale genocide.
The shaky ceasefire will continue, but remain in limbo. This will mean periodic spats of violence, as the Israelis and the US attempt to slowly and partially implement the ISF-BoP agenda. This will be a process during which the people of Gaza will be subjected to more pressure, but not enough to collapse the agreement altogether.
An Aggressive Phase Two?
The first means of implementing the next phase of the Gaza Ceasefire initiative would likely buckle under the immense pressures destined to befall it. If we look at the ISF alone, it is a recipe for total disaster.
Forcing the “International Stabilization Force” aggressively on the people of Gaza means that it will start going after Palestinian resistance factions. Two major issues will immediately pop up. The resistance will certainly kill some of these foreign soldiers, who will return to their home nations in body bags and cause domestic chaos. A heavy-handed approach here would also likely result in civilians being killed, another major debacle in its own right.
The Israelis are adamant that Türkiye, Qatar, and other Muslim-majority nations they take issue with cannot deploy their armed forces in Gaza. Whether they get their way or not, consider that this armed force would mean gathering a few hundred soldiers from one country, a few thousand from another, and so on.
If this kind of ISF was sent into Gaza aggressively, considering that so far there has been no agreement concerning how to implement this invasion initiative or which countries will participate, it will be thrust into a complex urban warfare environment. They all speak different languages, work off different military doctrines, are ill-prepared, likely ill-equipped for their tasks, and, according to reports, will only number in the tens of thousands.
Donald Trump recently boasted that the nations which, he says, are participating in his so-called “peace plan” will work to destroy Hamas if it refuses to disarm, even bragging that Israel would not be required to act and that foreign invading forces would do all the work for them.
In order to conduct a regime change operation of this nature, the ISF would have to be at least 250,000 men strong. Bear in mind that mobilizing a multinational invasion force of this kind would take many months, an enormous amount of funding, and the key feature would be that it actually fights, unlike the Israeli army, which refused to go after the Palestinian resistance factions on the ground.
If an ISF that numbers only in the tens of thousands is going to try and defeat the Palestinian resistance, it will suffer heavier casualties than the Israeli military did. Any Arab or Muslim-majority nation deploying forces could experience mass protests or rebellions against their role in the genocide. Without going into the fine details, it makes no sense and if it is tried, it will quickly fail. Even the Egyptians, who along with Israel will be the guarantors of the strategy, have been advocating for a force equivalent to Lebanon’s UNIFIL to enter Gaza, which is not what UNSC Resolution 2803 approved.
Israel Collapses the Ceasefire
The next way this can go is that Benjamin Netanyahu decides to collapse the ceasefire altogether. Some argue this wouldn’t happen because the US is committed to its “peace plan.” This is not a serious argument. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he will go along with whatever the Israelis choose. He isn’t a strong leader on this question and clearly possesses a level of knowledge about the region that you would expect of a public high school student who took history and didn’t really bother to listen.
There are only two circumstances under which the Israelis will collapse the ceasefire in its entirety. They no longer believe that any of the schemes they sought to implement under the so-called ceasefire will work, and there is some kind of political benefit to returning to all-out combat. The second reason is that they are scared that the Palestinian resistance may launch some kind of offensive while the Israeli army is also battling Hezbollah and Iran.
Collapsing the ceasefire demonstrates that the Israelis are without any direction and lack a coherent plan to actually end the fighting on the Gaza front. It means that they are simply reverting to all-out genocide, with the hope that eventually an opportunity arises which will allow a mass ethnic cleansing event, or a slow process of ethnic cleansing as they exterminate tens of thousands more civilians.
Stuck Between Phase One and Phase Two
Another option is for the Israelis and Americans to stall the collapse of the ceasefire. It would mean placing the situation in limbo, not allowing its total collapse, but undergoing a process of trial and error, whereby it slowly attempts to force elements of “Phase Two” into reality.
This is a very likely outcome, designed to keep the Gaza front closed while focusing more on Iran, Lebanon, and perhaps even Yemen. We could therefore expect to see the ISF deployed in a less meaningful capacity than is currently envisaged in Washington, disastrous plots implemented involving private military contractors and aid distribution, and attempts to ethnically cleanse the population slowly here and there. All of these schemes will fall flat on their faces, but not without inflicting suffering on the civilian population of Gaza.
In the meantime, the US-Israeli alliance will have Tehran in its sights. The thinking behind this would be to squeeze the civilian population of Gaza, while prioritizing Iran and Hezbollah as their major strategic threats.
Israel’s Failure Hedges against Iran and Hezbollah
The conspiracies of Washington and Tel Aviv against Gaza can be defeated, but this hinges upon Hezbollah and Iran for the most part. If Iran and Hezbollah manage to deal enormous blows to the Israelis, refusing to play their game of fighting short defensive conflicts, then Israel will be dragged into deep waters.
All that is required of Hezbollah and Iran is that they don’t stop firing, no matter the degree of carnage exacted against their people. If Hezbollah drags the Israeli military into Lebanese lands and refuses the calls for a ceasefire, instead forcing the Israelis into a war that it intends to fight for many months, and Iran does the same, the Israelis will be in a major crisis.
The details of such conflicts are a topic for different pieces and many outcomes could occur, yet it suffices to say that major moves from Lebanon and Iran could put the Israelis in a very weak position, one that even enables major action from Gaza also.
If Iran and Hezbollah are either defeated or taken out of the picture for an even longer period after agreeing to meaningless ceasefires, after short rounds of fighting, also suffering the assassinations of major figures, this is the most favorable outcome for Benjamin Netanyahu. Victories in these arenas will open the door to ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, even if slowly rather than in a stampede into the Sinai Peninsula. This is, of course, assuming there are no other major fronts which suddenly open to preoccupy them.
As things stand, the Israelis are in a very weak position, having failed to defeat any of their enemies. The only exception is the fall of the previous Syrian regime, which was not directly fighting Israel, but was a major land bridge for the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance. For now, Syria can be considered a victim of Israel, but poses no immediate threat.
Ultimately, Israel has fought for over two years and failed to defeat the Palestinian resistance, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Iran, or any of its other adversaries, even after dealing varying degrees of blows against each of them. Netanyahu’s long-sought-after “total victory” does not appear likely, yet he still continues to double down on attempting to achieve this goal. The primary reason for this is the refusal of the people of Gaza, and also Lebanon, to give up.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Netanyahu Aligned Think Tanker: Somaliland Offered To ‘Absorb’ One Million Palestinians
New Evidence That Israel’s Recognition Of Somaliland Was To Further Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza
The Dissident | December 29, 2025
On a December 28th twitter space called “Israel’s Historic Recognition of Somaliland”, Dan Diker, the president of the Benjamin Netanyahu aligned Israeli think tank, “Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs” gave further evidence that Israel’s recognition of “Somaliland”, a breakaway region of Somalia was done to use the region as a dumping ground for ethnically cleansed Palestinians in Gaza.
In the space, Diker was asked, “What did you think was the main reason for Israel to break with this usual line of the international community (and recognize Somaliland) and be the first to do so?”
In response, one of the reasons Diker gave was, “I do know that our friends in Somaliland made a very generous offer privately and in the last, I would say in the last months, it even reached the desk of the President of the United States, of their willingness to absorb or to create communities for hundreds of thousands even beyond a million up to a million and half Gazans”.
Dan Diker added, “Somaliland, in our understanding, is really the only country, now country, that stepped up to the plate to absorb Gazans… Somaliland’s offer can make a very important contribution to the stability of Gaza for those who choose to stay in Gaza and for those who choose to rebuild their lives in another country”.
Previously, the Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, reported that “Somaliland Foreign Minister, Abdirahman Dahir Adan, “does not rule out absorbing Gazan residents,” but said that, “the most important thing for us is to receive recognition”.
The Israeli newspaper Ynet also reported that, “The territory (Somaliland) has recently been mentioned as a possible destination for Gazans, with officials there saying they would be willing to absorb ‘one million Gazans,’ though no formal agreement has been announced.”
Now Dan Diker confirmed that Somaliland agreed to “absorb” up to “a million and a half Gazans” and was, “the only country, now country, that stepped up to the plate to absorb Gazans,” which was one of the main reasons Israel was the first UN member sate to recognize the breakaway region as a country.
After Israel announced its recognition of Somaliland, the Israeli journalist Amit Segal boasted that, “Somaliland was supposed to — and may still — absorb Gazans”.
Trump, at his latest press conference with Netanyahu claimed that if given the chance “half of Gaza would leave,” signalling support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing plan.
Israel has framed its ethnic cleansing plan in Gaza as “voluntary migration”, but as Gila Gamliel, Israel’s current Science and Technology Minister admitted, Israel’s actual goal is to “make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable until the population leaves”.
While Israel continues to make Gaza “uninhabitable until the population leaves”, their recognition of Somaliland appears to be the first move in creating a territory to send ethnically cleansed Palestinians from Gaza.
The Epstein Saga: Chapter 4, Good Old Robert
By Lorenzo Maria Pacini | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 30, 2025
Epstein’s connections with British and Israeli intelligence were facilitated by a key figure known as Robert Maxwell, father of Ghislaine, Jeffrey’s wife.
Robert Maxwell was one of the most controversial media moguls of the 20th century: a Holocaust survivor who enlisted in the British army, he became a publishing tycoon, a Labour MP, and a figure at the center of financial scandals and alleged links to various secret services, including MI6 and Mossad. His biography intertwines his very poor origins, his meteoric rise, his relationships with heads of state, and, after his death at sea in 1991, the discovery of enormous fraud involving his companies’ pension funds.
Born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch in 1923 in Slatinské Doly (now Solotvyno, Ukraine), then Czechoslovakia, into an Orthodox Yiddish-speaking Jewish family, he emigrated to Great Britain during World War II and fought in the British army.
After the war, he entered scientific publishing and founded Pergamon Press, transforming it into a major publisher of technical and academic texts, the basis of his future media empire.
By the 1980s, he controlled a vast empire: Maxwell Communication Corp, Pergamon, Macmillan, the Daily Mirror tabloid, and other publications in the UK and abroad, in direct competition with Rupert Murdoch.
He died on November 5, 1991, after falling from his yacht Lady Ghislaine off the coast of the Canary Islands. After his death, it emerged that he had diverted hundreds of millions of pounds from the Mirror Group’s pension funds to cover financial shortfalls.
So… He sold textbooks to American schools. He rubbed shoulders with kings, queens, presidents, and popes. And, away from the spotlight, he may have contributed to the activities of one of the world’s most secretive intelligence agencies, engaged in surveilling half the planet. To some, he was a brilliant innovator; to others, an unscrupulous impostor.
For his daughter Ghislaine—whose later life would become intertwined with that of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—he was the man who opened the doors to high society and perhaps, unwittingly, to future ruin. Maxwell rose to the top to become a powerful media entrepreneur in the UK, building an empire comparable to that of Rupert Murdoch.
When he founded Pergamon Press, an academic publishing house specializing in history and science textbooks distributed in US schools, often criticized for a pro-Israel stance consistent with Maxwell’s strong Zionism, his competitors would not have expected such success.
In 1984, he bought the Daily Mirror, transforming it into a giant of popular journalism. At the height of his expansion, he controlled Maxwell Communication Corporation, Macmillan, Pergamon, and numerous international newspapers. Ghislaine, his favorite daughter, was educated at Oxford, prepared for the salons of the elite, and often at his side at social events in London and New York. Maxwell was photographed in the company of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher, and even Mother Teresa. Other images show him alongside US Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Several sources indicate that the British Foreign Office suspected Maxwell of being a double or triple agent, with links to MI6, the Soviet KGB, and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad… My source, whom I consulted while writing this text, confirms his membership in the British services, with a key role in relations with companies and other agencies, particularly with regard to activities involving politicians (American but not only).
Maxwell moved with ease between the White House, the Kremlin, Downing Street, and the political leaders of France, Germany, and Israel, something that is not at all easy, nor “comfortable” to maintain.
In the 1960s, he served two terms as a Labour MP for Buckingham, while leading an extremely luxurious lifestyle. At his residence in Headington Hill, near Oxford, he organized lavish parties which, according to persistent rumors, were used as seductive traps to gather compromising information on influential figures.
The most serious allegations link him to the PROMIS software scandal, which we discussed in Chapter 3 of our Saga.
Originally a program of the U.S. Department of Justice, PROMIS was allegedly stolen, modified with an Israeli “back door,” and then distributed to numerous intelligence agencies, armed forces, and companies around the world, allowing Israel to monitor virtually every country that used it. According to various whistleblowers, including former Israeli agent Ari Ben-Menashe, Robert Maxwell allegedly served as the main global promoter of this digital Trojan horse. These allegations are partly corroborated by circumstantial evidence: strong support for Israel, business in sensitive sectors, close ties to Israeli leadership, and a state funeral in Israel in 1991, attended by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, President Chaim Herzog, and senior intelligence officials, with public praise that Maxwell “did more for Israel than can be said.”
The last years of his life were marked by financial collapse. After his death, investigators discovered a £460 million hole in the Mirror Group’s pension fund. Maxwell had stolen his own employees’ pension savings to support an empire now submerged in debt. His sons Ian and Kevin Maxwell were arrested and charged with fraud (and later acquitted), while the British public exploded with anger at the betrayal of thousands of pensioners.
Overnight, Maxwell went from being a respected tycoon to a hated figure. Protesters renamed him “Robber Bob.”
On November 5, 1991, he disappeared from his 180-foot yacht off the Canary Islands. He was found dead a few hours later, face up in the ocean. The official version spoke of a heart attack followed by accidental drowning. His daughter, however, believed he had been murdered.
The autopsy revealed that Maxwell already suffered from serious heart and lung conditions.
He was given a state funeral in Israel, attended by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and numerous intelligence officials.
Epstein met Ghislaine Maxwell in the 1990s, and their relationship began as a brief romantic affair before turning into a very intense professional and personal alliance. Ghislaine became Epstein’s chief assistant, managing his properties, organizing his staff, and playing a central role in recruiting victims for sexual abuse.
The ties with his father, Robert, were important from the outset, although perhaps even more so after his death: Epstein was introduced to Mr. Maxwell’s circle thanks to the family’s contacts and networks. A reconstruction reported by the Telegraph in 2022 claims that Epstein may have helped Robert Maxwell hide some of the money stolen from the Mirror Group’s pension funds using offshore channels.
Robert was instrumental in introducing Epstein to the world of Israeli intelligence, where he was also able to make his own way.
The source consulted, who comes from the world of intelligence, revealed to me that Ghislaine is also central to this story: following in her father’s footsteps, she made her way into British and Israeli intelligence, weaving relationships, cover stories, and favors for her beloved Jeffrey.
After all, what could be better than marrying the daughter of a “spy” with the guarantee of inheriting his “legacy”? Without Ghislaine, Epstein would not have had access to many of the VIPs with whom he established regular relationships, and above all, he would not have had the cover necessary to operate undisturbed for many years.
Hamas says disarmament linked to Palestinian State, end of occupation
Al Mayadeen | December 29, 2025
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, says any discussion over the future of its weapons is inseparable from the broader Palestinian national struggle, rejecting attempts to frame disarmament as a standalone security demand detached from occupation and statehood.
Speaking to Russia’s RIA Novosti on Monday, Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said the issue of arms is being addressed as part of a wider Palestinian political dialogue.
“This is part of the national issues we are discussing,” al-Nunu said, stressing that the movement’s weapons are not an end in themselves but are directly tied to “Israel’s” ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory.
Weapons tied to occupation, sovereignty
Al-Nunu outlined the two fundamental principles guiding Hamas’s position. First, he said, international law recognizes the right of peoples living under occupation to resist and defend themselves. Second, he added, weapons should ultimately be placed under the authority of a sovereign Palestinian state once such a state is established.
“Our weapons should be the weapons of the Palestinian state,” al-Nunu said, centering the debate as one of national sovereignty rather than factional control. He rejected portrayals of disarmament as a prerequisite imposed from outside, emphasizing that the issue must be resolved through a comprehensive political settlement that addresses Palestinian rights.
Disarmament at the center of post-war Gaza talks
“Israel,” alongside several Western governments, has repeatedly demanded the complete disarmament of Palestinian resistance factions, particularly Hamas, as a condition for reconstruction and international involvement in Gaza. Palestinian groups, however, argue that such demands amount to forcing surrender while leaving the underlying causes of the conflict unaddressed.
Senior Hamas officials have consistently reiterated that any discussion of arms must be linked to a full Israeli withdrawal, an end to the occupation, and concrete progress toward Palestinian self-determination.
‘Israel’ rejects, obstructs Palestinian Statehood
Talks of disarmament appear pointless when contrasted with repeated statements from Israeli officials rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, even as they insist on Gaza’s demilitarization.
For example, Security Minister Israel Katz repeatedly declared that the Israeli regime “will not allow a Palestinian state,” framing Palestinian self-determination as incompatible with Israeli security doctrine. He has further insisted that Gaza must be “demilitarized down to the last tunnel,” stating that disarmament would be enforced either through direct Israeli military control or by an international force operating under Israeli-defined parameters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed this position, saying “Israel’s” opposition to Palestinian statehood “has not changed one bit.” Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar echoed that his government would refuse the establishment of what he described as a “Palestinian terror state.”
Thus, Hamas’s position on disarmament reflects a broader Palestinian consensus shaped by decades of one-sided concessions, failed peace processes, and unmet political commitments. From the Palestinian perspective, calls for disarmament in the absence of statehood guarantees amount to enforcing permanent subjugation under new security arrangements rather than ending the conflict.
Continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire
As US President Donald Trump pushes to advance the Gaza ceasefire toward its second phase, the Israeli regime has failed to uphold even the basic commitments of the first stage of the agreement. Since the truce took effect on October 11, at least 414 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunfire since the ceasefire began. Gaza Media Office has documented 969 Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement.
Additionally, field reports indicate that Israeli occupation forces have repeatedly exceeded agreed withdrawal lines, at times advancing hundreds of meters beyond designated positions, while military aircraft continue daily flights during restricted hours.
“Israel” has also systematically obstructed humanitarian relief. During the first phase of the agreement, “Israel” allowed fewer than half of the agreed fuel trucks into Gaza, blocked the entry of construction materials and heavy machinery needed to clear rubble, and sharply restricted medical equipment essential for restoring hospitals. Only a fraction of the mobile homes and civil defense equipment promised under the deal were permitted entry, while key border crossings, most notably Rafah, remained largely closed, preventing the free movement of civilians, patients, and aid supplies.
Somali president rejects displacement of Palestinians from Gaza
MEMO | December 29, 2025
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has said Somalia will not accept any attempts to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, describing such efforts as unacceptable and dangerous.
Speaking on Sunday before the two chambers of the Somali Federal Parliament, Mohamud said Somalia “categorically” rejects the displacement of Palestinians and will not allow wars to be exported to its territory. He stressed that Somalia would not become a battleground for aggression against other countries, according to the Somali News Agency.
Mohamud said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had committed “a grave violation” of Somali sovereignty, reiterating Somalia’s rejection of transferring Middle East conflicts onto Somali soil.
Separately, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre condemned Netanyahu’s announcement recognising the Somaliland region as an “independent and sovereign state”, calling the move “null and void” and without legal effect.
Barre said Somalia is a sovereign state with internationally recognised borders, and that any infringement on its unity or territorial integrity constitutes a clear violation of international law. He said both the federal government and the Somali people categorically reject the declaration.
He described Israel’s position as reckless, adding that it would have been more appropriate to recognise the State of Palestine, which “remains under occupation and aggression”. Barre added that Somalia does not require recognition from any external party.
Israel recently became the first country to recognise the breakaway Somaliland, gaining a new partner along the strategic Red Sea coastline.
Featured Video
Israelis SUDDENLY Mass Deported From Many Countries
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj
By Dr. Mathew Maavak | RT | May 30, 2025
In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing “national security” and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America’s “intellectual leadership and soft power.” At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US.
But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script.
China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government.
So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? ... continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
loongtip on Report warns that ‘Jewish terr… Craig Nelms on New study shows that toxic gas… loongtip on A Funny Thing Happened on the… loongtip on EU free trade pact on hold as… John Edward Kendrick on Regime Change In Iran Is The F… Bill Francis on Australia Passes New Hate Spee… seversonebcfb985d9 on Australia Passes New Hate Spee… Bill Francis on Britain’s AI Policing Plan Tur… loongtip on Miami Beach Resident Questione… loongtip on Israeli agricultural export co… loongtip on The War On Free Speech In Aust… seversonebcfb985d9 on Scott Ritter Hiding the Domina…
Aletho News- Ukraine Blackouts Caused by Zelensky’s Terrorist Attacks on Russia
- Orban Hits Out at EU Green Light for $1.5 Trillion Ukraine Aid
- World has had enough of confused clowns: Araghchi to Zelensky
- Jordan using Israeli software to monitor journalists, rights defenders: Report
- Israelis SUDDENLY Mass Deported From Many Countries
- Peace Plan Phase 2 Without Phase 1: Can the US Really Bring Peace to Gaza?
- Hamas: Netanyahu’s inclusion in ‘peace council’ threatens justice
- Report warns that ‘Jewish terrorism is out of control’ and could lead to major security escalation
- Lebanese Resistance will inevitably triumph: Former President Lahoud
- Iran: The Eurasian Lock
- If Americans Knew
- War criminal Netanyahu kills 11 in Gaza, joins Board of Peace – Not a ceasefire Day 104
- Another baby dies of cold in Gaza, as Rafah crossing remains locked down – Not a ceasefire Day 103
- Brutal Beatings, Arson, and Impunity: A Palestinian Plant Nursery Becomes a Target for Settler Pogroms
- On Iran’s protests, Israeli hypocrisy knows no limits
- A Cease-fire for Israelis and a War for Palestinians
- ‘When will Baba come back?’ Gaza’s widows and orphans struggle to survive
- Genocide research institute levels accusations against Germany for denying Israel’s genocide against Palestinians
- Over 1,200 Israeli truce violations in Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 102
- Trump has created a monster: Gaza Board of Peace – Not a ceasefire Day 101
- As world leaders squabble over controlling Gaza, another baby freezes to death – Not a ceasefire Day 100
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
- As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
- New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
Aletho News 