Occupation Bulldozes Farmland, Uproots Vineyards
IMEMC | May 7, 2026
On Wednesday, Israeli occupation forces invaded the Al‑Baq’a area east of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank’s southern region, and carried out a large‑scale destruction of Palestinian agricultural land, uprooting thousands of grape vines and bulldozing more than 200 dunams of privately owned farmland over the past three days, in one of the largest agricultural demolitions reported in the district this year.
Eyewitnesses said multiple military units accompanied Israeli bulldozers as they invaded the area at dawn, sealed all access roads, and prevented Palestinian farmers from reaching their land while the machinery destroyed entire vineyards, vegetable fields, and irrigation networks.
The bulldozing and uprooting of the privately owned Palestinian land was carried out under the pretext of expanding the colonial bypass road known as “Route 60.”
According to the Hebron Directorate of Agriculture, the targeted zone is part of one of the most important agricultural areas in the governorate, known for its high‑quality grape production.
Officials confirmed that more than 200 dunams were bulldozed and that 40,000 productive grape vines—many of them decades old—were completely uprooted. The destruction remained ongoing throughout the day.
Farmers from Al‑Baq’a said the occupation is bulldozing land on both sides of the bypass road at a depth of up to 20 meters, destroying vineyards, seasonal crops, and greenhouses.
Soldiers threatened anyone who attempted to approach their land and refused to allow families to salvage tools, irrigation pipes, or agricultural equipment.
Residents stressed that the area produces over 13,000 tons of grapes annually, in addition to 1,000 tons of grape leaves, forming the primary source of income for hundreds of Palestinian families.
The Al‑Baq’a area has long been targeted by the occupation and by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers from nearby colonies, who have repeatedly attempted to seize agricultural land, attack farmers, and block access to fields.
Local human rights groups say the current destruction is part of a broader campaign to forcibly remove Palestinian communities from fertile agricultural zones surrounding Hebron.
‘Israel’ kills Azzam al-Hayya, son of Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya
Al Mayadeen | May 7, 2026
Azzam al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, leader of the Hamas Resistance movement in Gaza, was martyred on Thursday after succumbing to wounds he sustained in an Israeli attack on Gaza City on Wednesday evening, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent.
The correspondent reported on Wednesday night that Hamza al-Sharbasi was killed and Azzam Khalil al-Hayya was injured in an Israeli airstrike near the Jabalia bus stop in the al-Daraj neighborhood, in central Gaza City.
PIJ condemns assassinating Resistance forces, their leaders
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement condemned the assault, saying, “The government of war criminals in the occupying entity continues to escalate its crimes against the Gaza Strip.”
In a statement, the movement noted that “the occupation army is carrying out ongoing assaults aimed at assassinating Resistance forces and their leaders, particularly within Islamic Jihad and Hamas.”
It further highlighted that the latest in these assassinations was “the treacherous airstrike that targeted Hamza al-Sharbasi, a leader in the al-Qassam Brigades, yesterday.”
“The attack also injured several others, including the martyr Azzam, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, the head of the Hamas movement in Gaza, who succumbed to his wounds this morning,” the movement added.
The PIJ accused “Israel” of using the strikes to impose its terms on Gaza, evade agreed-upon ceasefire commitments, block reconstruction efforts, and continue committing massacres, including by disrupting the Rafah crossing.
‘Israel’ continues its genocide amid so-called ceasefire
In a separate incident on May 6, and as part of ongoing Israeli violations, several Palestinians were wounded when an Israeli strike targeted a displacement camp in Gaza City’s al-Zaytoun neighborhood.
Further south, police colonel Naseem al-Kalzzani was killed and others were injured after an Israeli strike targeted his vehicle in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.
Hamas said the escalation by the Israeli occupation forces, which continued to target civilians in Gaza, constituted a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement. The movement called on the United States administration and the guarantor states of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement to intervene immediately to restrain Israel.
Despite the ceasefire reached in October 2025, Israeli forces have continued near-daily aggression across the Gaza Strip.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the death toll has risen to 837, with 2,381 wounded and 769 bodies of martyrs retrieved since the ceasefire took effect.
The cumulative toll since the start of the Israeli genocide on 7 October 2023 has reached 72,619 killed and 172,484 injured.
What has Guterres supported in Gaza?
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | May 7, 2026
In March this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had stated that the UN is “cooperating actively with structures created by the Board of Peace.” By the time Guterres made his statement, US Board of Peace High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov had already warned, in February this year, that Hamas bears the burden of Israel’s full resumption of genocide in Gaza if it fails to disarm.
In a letter that was quoted yesterday in Israeli media, Mladenov and senior US official Aryeh Lightstone warned the Palestinian technocratic government, “Failure by Hamas to accept the framework within a reasonable timeframe, as determined by the Board of Peace and after consultation with the parties, shall render such commitments null and void.”
Two days before Mladenov’s warning was made public, a senior military official said that it was inevitable that Israel would resume “fighting” in Gaza if Hamas refuses to disarm. Israel has in fact not stopped colonising Gaza through violence – what we are seeing now is a slower form of genocide in the aftermath of a very visible genocide which world leaders and diplomats preferred to watch rather than stop.
Mladenov is aware that Israel kept killing Palestinians in Gaza after the ceasefire came into effect, that more buildings were detonated, that the Yellow Line keeps expanding in Gaza besides already occupying more than half of its shrinking territory.
Therefore, the pretence of a before and after the ceasefire does not hold. It is merely a convenient veneer for the Board of Peace’s next rhetorical step that asserts its agreement with genocide.
Israel violated the October 2025 ceasefire multiple times, so in a way the letter is not a warning of novelty. However, the text of the October ceasefire does not stipulate that Hamas should disarm for the ceasefire to hold; that was a clause for the second phase of the ceasefire. The US Board of Peace is therefore saying that Israel is exempt from upholding its obligations stipulated in Phase One if Hamas does not agree to a clause from Phase Two.
In the entire Western narrative of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Mladenov is not employing a new tactic when blaming Hamas for refusing to disarm. However, exploiting the ceasefire text, which was based on the resumption of humanitarian aid and the return of Israeli hostages, is insightful in terms of how institutions hold the power to manipulate the parameters of international law, accountability and impunity. The October 2025 ceasefire text, which was not dependent on Hamas disarming, can now be discarded simply because the focus is on Phase Two and diplomacy will not check the specific stipulations of Phase One.
Mladenov and Lightstone, therefore, are legitimising institutional complicity with genocide.
This is one clear admission in which a body supposedly tasked with rebuilding Gaza and its governance will not hold Israel accountable for continuing to commit genocide.
By stepping back, the spectator tactic has now been fully employed by Mladenov and the so-called Board of Peace.
When has genocide even been advocated for so smoothly among diplomats? Guterres should take note of what he and the UN have supported.
Iran War Reality BITES – SPIN HARDER /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Mario Nawfal
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – May 6, 2026
Texas has an Israel Investment Problem
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | May 6, 2026
Investing is generally understood to be about seeking to preserve and grow wealth. But the Texas government seems to be making an exception to that understanding in buying the bonds of the Israel government and enabling other government entities in Texas to do so as well.
In February, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock touted in a press release that the state government was doubling its holdings of Israel bonds “from approximately $140 million to $280 million, marking the largest one-time investment in Israel bonds in Texas history and elevating the state from the sixth-largest to the second-largest U.S. state investor in these securities.”
That is a significant investment action. How did Hancock describe that the action was taken to best preserve and grow the wealth held by state government? He did not. Instead, Hancock provided a political justification in the press release:
‘Texas proudly stands with Israel,’ Hancock said. ‘This expanded investment reinforces our long-standing relationship and shared commitment to faith, freedom and economic opportunity. Texas and Israel have built a partnership that stretches beyond finance, and this step reflects both our solidarity and our belief in what we can accomplish together.’
This sort of reasoning does not bode well of the finances of the state. Liking a government is not a valid investment reason for buying its bonds. Is Hancock next going to “invest” in truckloads of puppies because he thinks they are adorable?
The state government, in addition to piling up Israel bonds, has also decreed that government entities in Texas can buy Israel government bonds but are forbidden from buying bonds of any other foreign government. This special permission to purchase Israel government bonds is provided in chapter 2256 of the Texas Government Code (the Public Funds Investment Act). There the listed “authorized investments” for government entities in Texas include “bonds issued, assumed, or guaranteed by the State of Israel” but no similar investments related to any other foreign government.
Is there any reason to think that the bonds of Israel are uniquely good investments when compared to the bonds of every other foreign nation? It seems the answer to that question is “no.” Consider that in May of 2025 Daniel Liberto reported at Investopedia that then “10 countries had perfect credit ratings from all three rating companies” — Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service, and S&P Global Ratings. Israel did not make the list. Yet, Israel’s bonds are determined by the Texas government to be an acceptable investment while these other bond options that have been rated safer are verboten.
It looks like the Texas government, through its preferred treatment of Israel bonds, is ensuring that politics triumphs over sound investing.
Trump’s ’Project Freedom’ just got blown out of the water. What now?
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 6, 2026
The escalation trap seems to be pulling Donald Trump deeper and deeper into the quicksand of the Iran war. Following Iran’s strike on a UAE oil terminal, Trump has had to back down and “pause” his plan to create a military escort that would chaperone oil tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Project Freedom, according to the president’s own social media posts, has been suspended before it even started as Trump struggles to find more smoke-and-mirror tactics to fool a gullible American public that the war in Iran has been “won”. Eight times, in fact.
But it’s easy to see how Trump is getting pulled about by various players and may still be clinging onto the idea of some sort of military manoeuvre in the Persian Gulf. I have previously speculated that I don’t believe he will launch a second strike, but an attempt at landing on an island and installing US soldiers there must still be something he is considering. And since the Iranian strike on the UAE, something extraordinary has happened that will now lodge this idea further in his head—that such a plan might work. The UAE just went out on a limb and beefed up its relations to a whole new level with Israel, even beyond the special status it had as being the Zionist entity’s only solid partner in the entire GCC. After the strike on its oil terminal, news flooded social media that the UAE was planning a retaliatory strike and has teamed up militarily with Israel. This is significant on many levels, as not only does it create a clear dividing line between itself and other GCC countries that would like to make a statement to Iran that they are not its enemy, but it also positions the UAE as a major target for Tehran, and so the move is incredibly risky, if not foolish for its elite in Abu Dhabi. It is almost as though they are prepared to destroy everything the country has accomplished in fifty years as an economic miracle of the entire region just to make the point that signing the Abraham Accords was, in fact, not an egregious error on their part. Israel or nothing.
And so the strategy of Israel is shifting from convincing America that it needs to take huge collateral losses, both militarily and in terms of human life, to now convincing the UAE. But do Abu Dhabi’s rulers have the guts to take on Iran head-on? Can they take the losses of life and the destruction of their infrastructure that is inevitable? One can only imagine that the Israelis have turned on the charm and sweet-talked its rulers into the fantasy zone that Trump was dragged into. Perhaps Trump himself has played a minor but important role as well, as it cannot be a coincidence that just a week earlier he commented to journalists that the US should consider compensating the UAE for the damage caused by Iran’s strikes. Of course all this is linked, and we shouldn’t consider it a coincidence that the UAE has just made the decision on a capricious whim.
Trump’s idea of taking an island in the Persian Gulf and the UAE now making a military alliance with Israel are all part of the same doomed blueprint, which must be bringing new levels of joy to Tehran, whose leaders can hardly believe their luck. They will be thinking, “We’ll destroy Dubai and Abu Dhabi and then watch their rulers beg for mercy, while the whole GCC gives in to whatever demands we have, including rule over the straits.”
Trump’s idea of taking an island is probably his most stupid yet and may well be the brainchild of Israel’s military planners. It’s dumb on so many levels, but it’s easy to see how it is appealing in that it is feasible to install US troops on one of the many islands the UAE claims Iran took from them. Iran would probably allow the operation to go ahead anyway, as allowing the US to install itself on an island would be the perfect way to hold them hostage. Even from a logistical point of view the idea is doomed. It is one thing to put US troops on an island but quite another to supply them. The Iranians could simply block US ships and planes supplying them once they are there and have set up their base. Troops need food, water, and equipment just to function. The military planners who came up with the idea are probably thinking that such an island could be a base to launch operations from, but have not figured that Iran will be one step ahead and will not allow the second part of this plan to bear fruit. And so the island idea will blow up in the faces of those who signed it off, as the soldiers will effectively be hostages to be paraded on social media platforms every day while it is Iran, out of an act of decency, who will be feeding them—unless Tehran is so enraged by a strike on its energy infrastructure that it decides to kill them all to send a message to the US and Israel. It’s all madness. But the problem with such madness having got to this stage is that the only solution seems to be more madness. Trump, Israel, and now the UAE are all fighting fire with fire, and ironically it is the UAE—the only country in the region that had, at one point, quite cordial relations with Iran—that could have been the diplomatic conduit to finding a peaceful solution. The UAE, which has a huge Iranian community in Dubai, could have been the one country to have stopped the madness and to have brokered peace given its unique relations with both Israel and Iran, and yet it chose not to. This is the escalation trap, as Professor Bob Pape calls it, and it just took its latest victim in Abu Dhabi.
Rubio ‘lying’: Cuba slams denial of US blockade; claims debunked
Al Mayadeen | May 6, 2026
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected accusations that Washington is enforcing an oil blockade on Cuba, instead attributing the island’s deepening energy crisis and blackouts to the end of Venezuelan subsidized oil shipments and internal mismanagement.
Speaking publicly, Rubio said, “Here’s what’s happening with Cuba, okay? Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela. They would take like 60% of that oil and resell it for cash. It wouldn’t even go to benefit the people. So the only blockade that’s happened is … the Venezuelans have decided we’re not giving you free oil anymore.”
Rubio further criticized Cuba’s leadership, stating, “The reason that I can’t fix it is not just because they’re communist. That’s bad enough, but they’re incompetent communists.”
His remarks come amid a worsening fuel and electricity crisis on the island, where oil imports have fallen sharply. Venezuela had previously supplied Cuba with subsidized crude, reportedly up to 100,000 barrels per month, under a barter system in which Havana sent medical personnel in return. That arrangement collapsed following the US-backed ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early 2026, cutting off a key energy lifeline.
Rubio’s comments also contrast with reports and assessments pointing to US sanctions and restrictions as a major factor in the island’s energy shortages, with measures targeting entities involved in supplying fuel to Cuba.
Trump admin statements casually doing backflips
Additionally, all the way back in January, the Trump administration was considering new measures aimed at forcing political change in Cuba, including the possibility of a “full blockade on oil imports to the island,” three sources familiar with the discussions told Politico.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on countries exporting fuel to Cuba, prompting suppliers such as Mexico to halt shipments. Reports indicate that only one tanker has reached Cuba in the past four months, contributing to widespread blackouts, school closures, and growing public protests.
According to people familiar with the matter and cited by Politico, Marco Rubio at the time even backed this decision, being a vehement critic of the Cuban government.
Cuba slams US denial as ‘lies’
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez dismissed Rubio’s current statements as “lying”, accusing Washington of intensifying pressure on the island as it faces historically low oil imports and a worsening humanitarian situation.
“He has simply chosen to lie. He contradicts the President and the White House spokeswoman,” Rodriguez wrote on X.
Citing the US president’s January 29, 2026, Executive Order that threatened to impose tariffs on any country exporting fuels to Cuba, he said, “It is impossible to hide the truth.”
“After four months, only one fuel tanker has arrived in Cuba. All our suppliers are being intimidated and threatened in violation of the rules that govern free trade and freedom of navigation.”
“The new Executive Order issued on May 1st establishes secondary sanctions in the field of energy. The Secretary knows only too well the harm and hardships that is being caused by the criminal oil siege that he himself suggested the President to impose on the Cuban people.”
It is worth observing that back in 2024, the United Nations General Assembly had, for the 32nd consecutive year, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling for an end to the US blockade on Cuba, with only the US and “Israel” opposing the measure.
Only the US and “Israel” have been so insistent for years on this blockade, while framing it as something that the Cubans themselves have been asking for, and then turn around and blame Venezuela for it.
Trump threatens immediate US takeover of Cuba
Only a few days ago, Trump stated that Washington could move to take control of Cuba “almost immediately”, in remarks signaling a sharp escalation in the long-standing hostile US rhetoric toward the Caribbean island.
Speaking at an event in Florida last Friday, Trump said, “Cuba, which we will be taking over almost immediately,” adding that “Cubans got problems.”
The US president outlined a potential show of force involving a US aircraft carrier, indicating that such a move could compel Cuba to submit without direct conflict.
“On the way back from Iran, we’ll have one of our big, maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world, we’ll have that come in, stop about 100 yards offshore,” he said.
He further claimed that the presence of such military force alone would force a rapid capitulation. “They’ll say ‘thank you very much. We give up,’” Trump added, concluding: “I like to finish a job.”
The reference to the USS Abraham Lincoln highlights Washington’s reliance on naval power projection as a central tool in its strategy.
Earlier in April, sources told USA Today that US defense officials were moving forward with plans to potentially conduct military operations against Cuba.
Trump’s Self-Serving Narrative Crashes Against the Reality of War
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | May 6, 2026
Within a few days at the end of March, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made two claims. He revealed that Russia had given him two months to withdraw all forces from areas still under its control in Donbas, or Russia would take it by force and change the terms of the settlement. Russia said that was not true.
And he said that the United States had conditioned security guarantees on Ukraine withdrawing from Donbas. “That’s a lie,” U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio said. “I don’t know why he says these things; they’re just not true.”
That Zelensky was constructing a false narrative about the war does not bother him because he is not trying to reflect reality; he is trying to reshape reality. With Russia’s military acquisition of Donbas appearing increasingly inevitable, American peace plans conceding it, and Ukrainians increasingly accepting it, Zelensky’s survival depends on crafting a narrative in which he did not betray the nationalists or his promise but had no choice but to surrender Donbas because he was forced by both his enemy and his supporter.
In another war, in another part of the world, another president is doing the same thing. All Iran has to do to end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump said last week is to “cry uncle, that’s all they have to do. Just say, ‘We give up.” It doesn’t matter if they really give up: they just have to say it.
Trump’s team is crafting a narrative that provides them with an off ramp to a war they have lost that tells the story of a war they have won.
The U.S. had no legal reason for its war on Iran, and what publicly stated reasons they had were forever shifting. But there seem to have been four key goals:
- Regime change.
- Removing Iran’s ballistic missile program.
- Severing Iran from its forward deterrent network, or proxies.
- Zero enrichment of uranium.
Trump has repeatedly identified regime change as a key goal of the war. He has called for it, and he has explicitly said it is “time to look for new leadership in Iran.” The promised change in regime did not occur. The narrative response to that reality has taken two forms. First, Trump simply rewrote history and said regime change was never the goal: “regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change.”
Second, Trump and his team simply continuously repeated that there had been regime change when there had not, as if saying it made it so. Aboard Air Force One on March 30, Trump told reporters that “We’ve had regime change.” One week later, he posted that “we have Complete and Total Regime Change.”
There has been no regime change. Following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime underwent a seamless transition to his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, though he was specifically declared unacceptable by Trump. That is the opposite of regime change; that is regime continuity. Mojtaba Khamenei is a hardliner who was a close advisor to his father. He has been a core part of the regime, and his selection represents a preservation of, and not a change from, the regime.
Other new leaders who replaced the old, assassinated leaders, also represent regime continuity and survival. Ali Larijani’s replacement as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, is a former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps who has served in government since the days of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is very close to Mojtaba Khamenei and has always been aligned with the hardliners in the political establishment.
When you spend $25-35 billion, destroy a country, kill thousands of people, devastate the environment, damage the United Nations, discredit international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and irreparably wound relations with your European and NATO allies to bring about a regime change that never materialized, just say it did. You might remember another U.S. administration in another U.S. war, saying “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
As part of his checklist of goals that have been accomplished by the war, Donald Trump has repeatedly included that Iran’s “missiles are just about used up or beaten.” Trump says Iran’s military has been “beaten and completely decimated.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says Iran’s ballistic missile program has been “functionally destroyed.” That’s not true.
Many of Iran’s missile stockpiles were protected deep underground and were untouched by American strikes. Some that were struck were actually dummy decoys. Many of the ballistic missile launchers that were hit were repaired and reactivated within hours. Hegseth now concedes that Iran is “digging out” its struck missiles and launchers. U.S. intelligence and the military assess that Iran still has at least 60% of its missile launchers, nearly half of its missiles, and 40% of its attack drones.
And they are very capable of hitting their targets and doing damage. U.S. bases in the region suffered a degree of damage thought unthinkable before the war and have been rendered uninhabitable. Radar systems, air defense systems, and aircraft were damaged and destroyed. And recent reporting reveals that the actual damage they sustained far exceeds what has been reported.
The reality falls far short of the narrative and calls into question, not just the claim that the U.S. has won this war, but its ability to win a future war against a real power, like China.
The Trump team’s narrative has consistently told a tale of Iran’s forward deterrent network of proxies being “crushed,” amputating Iran’s ability to reach into the region. Contrary to the narrative, the surprising reality is that Iran’s proxies and partners have survived and are far more resilient, capable and integrated than the United States believed. Hezbollah has launched sophisticated missiles that the U.S. believed they no longer possessed at a rate greater than they have ever launched before. Iraqi militias are launching drone strikes on U.S. bases in the region. The Houthis entered the war and launched several barrages of missiles, some carried out in coordination with Iranian missile strikes.
The primary goal of the war on Iran was the final death of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “There will never be a deal unless they agree that there will never be nuclear weapons,” Trump said again last week.
That nuclear narrative is the central lie in the justification of the war. Iran has never pursued a nuclear weapon. Washington knows that. The 2022 U.S. Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review concluded that “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.” That assessment was repeated in the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment that clearly states that U.S. intelligence “continue[s] to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” As recently as March 18, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate Intelligence Committee that since the June bombings, “there has been no efforts [sic]…to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.” All Iran has done is insist on their right—like so many other countries—as a signatory to the NPT to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. And that is all they have ever done.
Trump was handed a mechanism for ensuring Iran could never build a nuclear bomb in the form of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement, which Iran was honoring and which was working. Trump was the author of the current problem because he illegally pulled out of the agreement.
There has been zero progress in negotiations toward forcing Iran to terminate its civilian enrichment program. As at the start of the war, the right to enrich continues to be an absolute red line for Iran.
Trump’s vocabulary alters the narrative. The most concerning 970 pounds of 60% highly enriched uranium is rendered insignificant by renaming it “nuclear dust.”
Trump’s narrative not only renders the highly enriched uranium insignificant, it renders it irrelevant. He doesn’t really care about it because it is “so far underground,” the Americans can watch it, and the Iranians can’t get it. “I had one goal,” Trump said, “They will have no nuclear weapon, and that goal has been attained.”
At times, Iran’s enriched uranium is insignificant, at times it is irrelevant, and at other times it is resolved. According to Trump’s narrative, Iran has already agreed to hand over all of its enriched uranium. “They’ve agreed to give us back the nuclear dust,” he said. The reality, of course, is that, though Trump says it, Iran has agreed to no such thing.
Iran still possesses a quantity of its enriched uranium. More importantly, it still possesses advanced scientific knowledge of how to enrich uranium and the legal right to do so. Most importantly, despite starving sanctions and the most lethal bombing the U.S. can deliver, protecting its right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes remains a redline that the U.S. has been unable to erase.
That is the reality. The rest is fiction: a narrative fiction crafted by Trump’s team to give them a way to tell an angry and betrayed public that they won the war when none of the goals—and all of the nightmares—have been achieved.
Though it may have cost $40-50 billion and used up half of its critical munitions, it is not a war but an “excursion.” Aspects of operation “Epic Fury” are rebranded for a public that is no longer buying it as “Project Freedom.”
And in an act of outrageous sophistry, it turns out that none of this matters because there isn’t a war. Seeking to circumvent the demand of the War Powers Resolution to receive permission from Congress to wage war after sixty days of troops being deployed, On May 1, Trump notified Congress that “hostilities” against Iran “have terminated.” Erase Trump’s threats, and the ships, aircraft and tens of thousand of troops in the region. Erase the fact that the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is an act of war under international law and that the U.S. fired on an Iranian flagged ship only days ago. Erase that the day before, Trump was briefed by CENTCOM on new plans for potential military action against Iran and that, days later, U.S. forces sank seven Iranian boats.
This is reality. But the reality is erased by a narrative fiction crafted by the Trump team in which the war is over because they define it as over. So, none of this matters any longer because the war is over.
This article was originally delivered as a speech at the West Suburban Peace Coalition Educational Forum on May 4, 2026.
‘Project Freedom’ perishes in 48 hours as Trump retreats under the wall of Iran’s asymmetric deterrence
Press TV | May 6, 2026
In a dramatic and entirely predictable turn of events, US President Donald Trump early on Wednesday announced the immediate suspension of “Project Freedom,” the high-stakes naval offensive launched 48 hours ago with the stated goal of forcing open the Strait of Hormuz.
This is not an isolated tactical pause, as he wants the world to believe, but the third strategic retreat by the United States in less than a month – a sequence of capitulations that reveals a profound and irreversible shift in the balance of power in the Persian Gulf.
The first retreat was the ceasefire following the devastating 40-day full-scale war against Iran, in which the US-Israeli war machine failed to achieve even a single strategic objective.
The second retreat was the unilateral extension of that ceasefire after the first round of Islamabad negotiations. The third, and most telling, is the suspension of an operation whose very continuation would have inevitably reignited full-scale Iranian retaliation.
At its core, this decision exposes a singular, undeniable truth: Trump has belatedly realized that he holds no cards, no good options, no viable coalition, and no appetite for the catastrophic confrontation to challenge Iran’s legal sovereignty over the strategic waterway
The quiet abandonment of the so-called “Project Freedom” is not a strategic pivot, but a crushing defeat. It marks yet another failure for the US war machine, following closely on the heels of the 40-day war imposed on the Islamic Republic, and confirms that the era of unilateral American naval intimidation in the Persian Gulf is effectively over.
The immediate and decisive Iranian response
The suspension of the so-called “Project Freedom” was not born of American goodwill, but of raw, immediate, and overpowering Iranian military deterrence.
Within hours of its commencement 48 hours ago, Iran’s armed forces delivered a response that was as calculated as it was lethal in its messaging. Serious warning shots were directed squarely at US warships – a level of direct confrontation that Washington has historically sought to avoid.
Furthermore, the targeting of a South Korean vessel that violated the new maritime rules defined by the Islamic Republic served as an unambiguous signal: Iran will enforce its sovereign rights with kinetic action. Finally, a clear and serious ultimatum issued to the United Arab Emirates shattered any illusion that the war could be contained to international waters.
Iran showed that it will not cower under the shadow of American airpower. It is fully prepared for, and in some ways inviting, a decisive engagement. The message was unmistakable: Iran would not merely defend the Strait of Hormuz, but it would hunt aggressors within it.
The speed and severity of this response forced the war hawks in the Pentagon into a defensive crouch, demonstrating that the threshold for Iranian retaliation is far lower – and far more dangerous – than Washington had anticipated.
Perhaps the most ingenious move was the sudden, asymmetric expansion of the war’s geography. Extension of the definition of the Strait of Hormuz to encompass the entire territory of the UAE, specifically designating the port of Fujairah as lying within the Strait’s operational limits, is deemed a masterstroke of strategic redefinition.
For the US and its allies, this has come as an unexpected shock. The port of Fujairah, located on the Gulf of Oman outside the narrow choke point of the Strait of Hormuz, had long been considered a secure fallback. But the dynamics have changed now.
The impotence of American intimidation
The 48 hours of the doomed “Project Freedom” laid bare a critical strategic reality: America has completely lost its ability to intimidate Iran. The torrent of threats that emanated from Washington – warnings of “unmatched force” and “severe consequences” – landed on Tehran with the weight of a spent cartridge.
For Iran’s armed forces, American threats, regardless of their hyperbolic grandeur, no longer constitute actionable intelligence and execution. They are now understood as little more than psychological operations and media theater.
With this premature suspension, the US implicitly confessed that it still fears the risk of re-entering a war with Iran, particularly after the harrowing experience of the 40-day war.
This fear is not abstract but rooted in the traumatic memory of Iran’s deadly strikes against American forces and their allies during those 40 days, impacts whose full scale and intensity remain deliberately under-disclosed by the Pentagon.
The psychological scar tissue from those engagements is so deep that Washington has been forced to abandon all its prior claims regarding “Epic Fury.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the operation had ended – without anything in hand.
That campaign is effectively over. The US has declared, through its actions, that it will not risk a conventional military exchange with an Iran that has proven willing to draw blood. The credibility of American military threats has essentially evaporated.
The Pakistani intermediary – A pretext for surrender
Perhaps the most humiliating detail of this episode is the official reason offered for the suspension of the 48-hour offensive. According to Trump’s own social media post, the decision to halt “Project Freedom” came in response to a request from the army chief of Pakistan.
Let that sink in. A self-styled “superpower,” possessing the largest and most technologically advanced navy in history, abandons a prestigious military operation – one framed as vital to global energy security – at the behest of a foreign military commander.
This transparent pretext reveals two deeper truths. First, the US is in a state of urgent, almost frantic, need for negotiations with Iran. As became evident during Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s recent trip to Pakistan, the Americans are not just open to talks, but they are counting the moments to re-engage.
Second, the Trump administration is willing to seize upon the smallest request from any intermediary – even one as peripheral as a Pakistani general – to manufacture an exit ramp from a disastrous escalation.
The eagerness for a diplomatic off-ramp is directly proportional to the fear of war. America is not stepping back out of generosity but out of terror at the alternative.
The lonely superpower – No coalition for war
In essence, the failure of “Project Freedom” was sealed long before the first warning shot was fired. It was sealed when America discovered that it was entirely alone and cornered.
Shipping companies, the lifeblood of global trade, ignored the American proposal. Insurance firms, the arbiters of risk, refused to underwrite vessels sailing under the American flag in the troubled zone. Key regional allies, fearful of Iranian retaliation on their own soil and economic infrastructure, distanced themselves from the American offensive.
The American Empire is no longer capable of forming a coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz. Its scenario-planning has devolved into solitary fantasizing. This isolation is not a temporary diplomatic hiccup, but a structural reality.
The world’s biggest navies and commercial fleets have observed Iran’s previous responses and concluded that the cost of aligning with Washington exceeds any conceivable benefit. Trump finds himself commanding a fleet of one.
The triple crossroads: Trump’s impossible choices
Now, after this third and latest retreat, the most humiliating one, Trump stands at a very dangerous triple crossroads. Each path is clogged with thorns. He can choose to continue the war – an effectively impossible option, given the lack of coalition support and the certainty of Iranian asymmetric retaliation.
He can choose to accept Iran’s principles for ending the war – an option that would represent a total strategic surrender. Or he can choose to continue the naval blockade and await results.
The blockade is a particularly ambiguous gamble for Trump. On one hand, he urgently needs time to stabilize global energy markets before the upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the November midterm congressional elections.
The volatility of oil prices is a political enemy he cannot afford. On the other hand, it is entirely unclear – and virtually impossible – that continuing the blockade will force Iran to submit. All evidence from the past two months suggests the opposite: the blockade is hardening Iran’s resolve, not breaking it. Trump is trapped in a cycle where inaction hurts his domestic timetable, and action guarantees a wider war. He has no good options because he holds no cards.
Negotiations to end the war: Iran’s non-negotiable principles
With the back-and-forth exchange of draft principles now underway, under the Pakistani mediation, it is essential to clarify the fundamental and obvious conditions Iran has laid out to end the war. These are not bargaining points but structural realities of a new Persian Gulf order.
Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s management of the strategic waterway, even after the war, is permanent. This is not about temporary wartime measures. Iran must guarantee its own security in the Persian Gulf, a right that includes obtaining material compensation from vessel passage.
The recent wars have proven that the Strait has been used to equip and strengthen Iran’s enemy. Therefore, enforcing Iranian rules is a natural act of self-defense. Furthermore, effective sovereignty over the Strait can nullify the effects of sanctions.
The Strait is not a bargaining chip but an undeniable right of the Iranian nation. As the Leader of the Islamic Revolution has clarified, Iran’s new management of this strategic waterway is permanent and non-negotiable. There will be no return to the pre-war status quo.
Withdrawal of American forces: The complete withdrawal of American military forces from the Persian Gulf region is a definitive requirement. As the aggressor and perpetrator of unprovoked and devastating war against Iran, the US presence is the only remaining obstacle to peace.
As long as these forces remain in the region, the shadow of war will persist.
Reparations for damages: Iran’s damages from the third imposed war and before that the 12-day war represent an undeniable right of the Iranian nation. Every single Iranian citizen has been harmed by American aggression. Any shortfall in achieving this condition is unacceptable.
Inclusion of the Resistance Front: The terms of ending the ongoing war must include Iran’s allies on the resistance front, especially in Lebanon. This does not negate the right to legitimate resistance against occupation; rather, it codifies the reality that Iran’s security architecture is regional. Any peace that ignores Iran’s partners is no peace at all.
Negotiation from the position of victory: Iran’s post-war doctrine
The collapse of the so-called “Project Freedom” effectively closes the military chapter. What opens now is the diplomatic one – but on Iran’s terms alone. As the new doctrine makes clear, negotiation has no intrinsic value. Only its achievable objectives matter.
First, negotiation is only acceptable if it prevents the repeat of a new war of aggression, not causes it. After repeated American betrayals, Iran will not accept talks that merely delay the next war. The bar is absolute and clear – enduring peace or nothing.
Second, Iran negotiates from the position of the victorious party in the third full-scale imposed war. The goal is not to restore the pre-war status quo but to secure additional concessions not previously held, which includes full sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, expulsion of all American forces from the region, and protection of the resistance front.
Third, reparations are not a concession but a basic and inviolable right. The aggressor must pay for the damages of the imposed war. This is non-negotiable.
Fourth, any concession in any domain is forbidden. The enemy is defeated by all accounts. To concede what the enemy failed to win on the battlefield – whether in the 40-day war or the 12-day war before that – would be to validate its aggression.
Inalienable Iranian rights, including nuclear and defense capabilities, are entirely off the table.
Fifth, concessions guarantee future war. If the US learns it can extract through talks what it could not take by force, it will launch another war. Each retreat from an Iranian right is a green light for the next catastrophe – more martyrs, more disasters like the Minab school massacre.
Sixth, the current negotiation must achieve 100 percent of its objectives. Without full realization of Iran’s goals, no further negotiation of any kind will happen. There would be no phased deals, or interim frameworks, or endless talks without result.
Israel threatens Gaza flotilla activists with death after abduction
Press TV – May 5, 2026
Israeli forces have threatened two Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla activists, seized in international waters last week, with death or long prison terms, according to a rights group representing them.
The two pro-Palestinian activists, Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, were among dozens detained during an Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters off Greece on April 30.
On Tuesday, an Israeli court extended their detention until Sunday, May 10.
The legal rights centre Adalah, which represents the pair, said they have been subjected to psychological abuse and held in solitary confinement. According to the group, Israeli officers threatened to kill them or imprison them “for 100 years.”
Both men remain in “total isolation,” subjected to 24/7 high-intensity lighting in their cells and kept blindfolded whenever they are moved, including during medical examinations. They are also being held in very low temperatures, the group added.
Adalah said the court’s decision to prolong the detention “amounts to judicial validation of the regime’s lawlessness.” No charges have been filed, but the two face accusations including affiliation with a “terrorist organisation” and contact with “foreign agents,” which the legal centre described as “baseless.”
According to the group, the activists are continuing their hunger strike, consuming only water since their abduction.
Meanwhile, the flotilla’s organisers demanded their release in a post on X, urging the international community to intervene.
They said the activists were “forcefully brought against their will to occupied Palestine, where they have been subjected to interrogations, death threats, sleep deprivation and medical neglect.”
The governments of Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday describing the detention of Avila and Abu Keshek as illegal.
During the raid on the Global Sumud Flotilla, Israeli forces attacked 22 of the 58 aid boats heading toward the besieged Gaza Strip and detained 175 activists.
Testimonies indicate that the activists were tortured while in Israeli custody following their abduction.
Met refuses to probe British nationals accused of war crimes in Gaza
Al Mayadeen | May 5, 2026
The Metropolitan Police has refused to open an investigation into ten British nationals accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the genocide in Gaza. According to Novara Media, the decision follows the submission of a 240-page dossier of evidence by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and the Public Interest Law Centre.
The Met stated that the material provided “did not meet the threshold required” to launch a formal investigation. This decision came despite support from more than 70 legal experts and proof of the targeted killing of civilians, attacks on hospitals, and the forced displacement of Palestinians involving the nationals between 2023 and 2024.
Human rights barrister Michael Mansfield KC condemned the Met’s refusal as a denial of accountability and a misapplication of legal standards, and legal representatives stressed that the police applied the wrong test by requiring evidence sufficient for prosecution before even opening an investigation.
Concerns over lack of accountability
Consequently, legal advocates have raised concerns about accountability for British dual nationals involved in the aggression against Gaza. The case has intensified debate over how UK authorities handle cases involving international crimes committed abroad by British citizens.
Raji Sourani of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights accused the British establishment of politicizing international law and shielding perpetrators from accountability.
Human rights groups involved in the case say the refusal reflects a wider pattern of inaction by UK authorities regarding crimes in Gaza.
The Metropolitan Police decision comes amid concerns about the UK government’s approach to monitoring breaches of international law abroad. Reports have also pointed to the closure of a Foreign Office unit previously tasked with tracking such cases.
UK shuts down unit tracking Israeli violations of International Law
The Metropolitan Police decision comes amid concerns about the UK government’s approach to monitoring breaches of international law abroad.
Recently, the Foreign Office unit responsible for tracking potential breaches of international law by “Israel” in Gaza and, more recently, Lebanon has been closed as part of departmental spending cuts, according to The Guardian. The closure follows a review led by Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, who was dismissed last week by the prime minister over the Peter Mandelson scandal.
The decision comes just weeks after Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that respect for international law would be a cornerstone of the department’s work under her leadership. The shutdown of the international humanitarian law cell appears to contradict that stated policy direction.
The closure also ends funding for the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project run by the Centre for Information Resilience, which carried out large-scale open-source monitoring of incidents in occupied Palestine and Lebanon. The programme was the only UK-based system collecting and analysing human rights and conflict data in these areas, supporting assessments on potential breaches of international humanitarian law and informing decisions on issues such as arms export licensing to “Israel”.
Featured Video
Did the 9/11 Hijackers Really Fly the Planes?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Aaron Siri’s Book: Vaccines, Amen
By Maryanne DemasiMaryanne Demasi | Brownstone Institute | June 15, 2026
For decades, vaccines have been treated as the sacred cow of modern medicine. I was taught that they were the holy grail. To question them was heresy. To raise concerns about safety was to risk professional exile.
Aaron Siri makes it clear in Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines that the story we’ve been told about vaccine science rests far more on belief than proof.
“No child should be sacrificed on the altar of the religion of vaccines,” Siri writes, as he turns his focus to America’s overcrowded childhood immunisation schedule.
I assumed little in this book would surprise me. I’ve spent years reporting on drug safety, regulatory capture, and the corruption of science. But Siri showed me how wrong I was.
Siri is not a doctor or a scientist. He is an attorney, and this, he says, is his advantage. In court, rhetoric won’t save you. Evidence does. As he puts it, he doesn’t get to say “trust me” the way many doctors do. “I need to prove claims with real data.”
And he does. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Did the 9/11 Hijackers Really Fly the Planes?
- ‘Jewish lobby’ deceived Putin – Lukashenko
- The UK Joins the Pirates
- Israeli government plans to fund extremist occupier group in occupied West Bank with $1.89M: Report
- Press TV reporter wounded in Israeli drone strike on southern Lebanon
- Time for Trump to Tell Benjamin Netanyahu to Go Away!
- Israeli officials: ‘Security zones’ to remain in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza
- Israel Fails to Sabotage Islamabad Accord… At Least for Now
- Araghchi: US Responsible for Implementing MoU with Iran
- US must cut military, intelligence assistance to Israel to protect Iran deal: Ex-Trump official
- If Americans Knew
- Jared Kushner’s Israel-linked island, and other dubious projects
- Why Are Crypto Billionaires and AIPAC Spending $8+ Million to Elect Adrian Boafo?
- Why the Mainstream Media Should Stop Using the ADL as Their Go-To Antisemitism Source
- Censorship and Thuggery Won’t Save Israel’s Reputation
- Israel Searches for a Red Sea Foothold in Somaliland
- They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism, But These Palestine Activists Got Sentenced as Terrorists Anyway
- “Ceasefire” is not in Israel’s vocabulary – Daily Update
- Did Trump just threaten a nuclear attack on Iran? Another merger for Israel-Firster David Ellison –Daily Update
- Israeli Firm Accused of Launching Smear Campaigns During US, European Elections
- As World Cup kicks off, Gaza amputee girls chase football dreams
- No Tricks Zone
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
Aletho News 