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In an exclusive interview, Naim Qassem considers the looming risk of a region-wide war.Iran-backed Hezbollah is determined not to ramp up its monthslong firefight over Lebanon’s southern border, but will respond in kind to any Israeli escalation, the political party and militia’s second-in-command told NBC News in a rare and exclusive interview. Naim Qassem faulted Israel and the United States for perpetuating tit-for-tat attacks that have killed hundreds in southern Lebanon and displaced tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border. The conflict started with Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed more...

14 IDF soldiers were wounded on Wednesday by two Hezbollah drones and two anti-tank missiles at and around a community center in Arab al-Aramshe, a Bedouin village in the northern Galilee. Regarding the 14 soldiers, six are seriously wounded, two moderately wounded, and six more lightly wounded. Reports indicate that four civilians were also wounded in multiple waves of attacks. In addition, a vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile at the scene, and the wounded were brought to the Galilee Medical Center. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday,

US President Joe Biden has urged “the Israelis to just call for” a six-to-eight-week ceasefire, remarks the White House adamantly insisted did not mark a major shift in policy even though he did not mention Hamas or a hostage deal in his appeal to Israel. “What I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country,” Biden told Univision, a US Spanish-language TV network, in an interview aired Tuesday. “I’ve spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians...

DAMASCUS, April 1 (Reuters) - Iran's consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus was flattened on Monday in what Syrian and Iranian media described as an Israeli air strike, a startling apparent escalation of conflict in the Middle East that would pit Israel against Iran and its allies. A Lebanese security source, speaking to Reuters, said one of the dead was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Iranian state television said several Iranian diplomats had been killed. Reuters reporters at the scene in the Mezzeh district of the Syrian capital saw smoke rising from rubble...

Eliyahu Yossian is a man on a mission – waking up Israelis to the misconceptions that are endangering the survival of the Jewish State. The path to a secure future necessitates changing the mindset that led to the disaster of October 7th. The same mindset that for the past 30 years has led Israel to “manage the conflict” rather than attain clear and decisive victory over our would-be murderers – although the State is much stronger and better equipped than in her early years. “It all begins”, he explains, “with the way you perceive the world.” Eliyahu Yossian is a...

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah threatened on Friday that his armed group possesses rockets capable of reaching “anywhere” in Israel as the IDF says that its forces drilled war scenarios on the northern front. “The Americans and Israelis should know that they are also facing a people in Palestine that will not back down, no matter how many victims there’ll be,” he told his supporters via video link at a memorial event commemorating his terrorist group’s “martyred commanders” who were killed in recent Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon. "Hezbollah possesses tremendous and precise missile capabilities that can reach anywhere from Kiryat...

Israel carried out covert attacks on two major gas pipelines inside Iran this week, two Western officials and a military strategist affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps told The New York Times on Friday. The attacks resulted in explosions that disrupted the flow of heat and cooking gas to provinces with millions of people, the report said. “The enemy’s plan was to completely disrupt the flow of gas in winter to several main cities and provinces in our country,” Iran’s Oil Minister, Javad Owji, told Iranian media on Friday. Owji, who had previously referred to the blasts as “sabotage and...

Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted that the Middle East was in a dangerous situation, undermining National Security Strategy Advisor Jake Sullivan's claims last fall that President Biden’s policy led to a “quieter” region and de-escalated Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As Iranian proxy groups throughout the Middle East continue to attack U.S. forces with drones and missiles, senior Biden Administration officials have been forced to confront a region that is increasingly more dangerous and more volatile than the one that they inherited. Experts say that the new violence in the Middle East is a direct result of a failure...

CAPE TOWN — Presidents Putin and XI and other leaders from the Brics bloc of developing countries will hold a virtual meeting on the Israel-Hamas war on Tuesday, with Secretary General Guterres also participating. The leaders of fellow Brics members Brazil, India, and South Africa, as well as of Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, which are set to join the bloc in January, will also take part, according to the office of President Ramaphosa of South Africa. Mr. Ramaphosa will chair the “extraordinary meeting” because of South Africa’s position as current chair of Brics,...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

Israel is considering launching a major military operation against Hezbollah after months of harassment and threats from the terror group, alarming some U.S. officials. Hezbollah has threatened Israel on its northern border from Lebanon for months since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, murdering roughly 1,200 people and taking hostage hundreds more. Warnings from Israel that it intends to put a stop to Hezbollah’s threats have alarmed the Biden administration, which fears a growing Middle East conflict, according to The Washington Post. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has warned in recent days that Israel’s patience...

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued a warning to Hezbollah on Friday, saying that although Israel favors a diplomatic resolution to the tensions along the Lebanese border, the likelihood of resorting to a military option is increasingly imminent. "We will continue to intensify our operations across the entire sector as needed. We have one clear objective - to safely return the residents of the north to their homes," Gallant said. "There are two alternatives here: one, a diplomatic option, which we are actively working on. Yesterday, I met with the U.S. president's special envoy Amos Hochstein. Soon, we will meet with...

An American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is in the Red Sea, U.S. Naval Institute reported on Friday. The deployment is said to be a part of Washington’s effort to prevent the Iran-backed Houthis’ attack on vessels in the area. “USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), the flagship of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, is in the Red Sea as part of U.S. efforts to prevent Houthi attacks on merchant ships, according to USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker,” said U.S. Naval Institute. Meanwhile, USS Gerald R. Ford is said to have headed back to the U.S....

Israel had decided to expand its military responses to Hezbollah aggression on the Northern front after Iran was seen to expedite weapons delivery to the Lebanese terror group ahead of a possible full-blown war with Israel. Attacks attributed to the IDF, targeted the Syria-Iraq border area at Al-Bukamal, a supply rout for weapons transported from Iran, resulting in some 19 non-Syrians killed. Hezbollah said four of its members were killed but did not say where and when, although pro-Iranian militias in the area confirmed four of the fatalities were from Hezbollah. The border crossing at Al-Bukamal had been attacked by...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday refused to answer whether he would take responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attack on Israel, saying that there would be time for such “difficult” questions once the war is over. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Netanyahu acknowledged that it is “a question that needs to be asked,” but that the country for now needs to unite around the goal of defeating Hamas – the militant group that controls Gaza and and launched the assault on Israel. “We’re going to answer all these questions,” the prime minister said, adding...

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for a summit on Gaza, state-affiliated media reported, his first visit since the two countries agreed to restore ties in March. Footage aired on the Al-Ekhbariya channel showed Raisi, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, greeting Saudi officials at the airport after disembarking from his plane. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for a summit on Gaza, state-affiliated media reported, his first visit since the two countries agreed to restore ties in March. Footage aired on the Al-Ekhbariya channel showed Raisi, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh...

Outstanding video where an average Israeli Jew shows the heart of the conflict there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-x-cRReI1A

The Hezbollah leader took his time to respond to the past month of bloodletting which has turned the Middle East into a tinder box. And when Hassan Nasrallah spoke, what he did not say was as important as what he said. There was no declaration of all-out war on Israel. At least, not now. ...Hassan Nasrallah insisted that the 7 October attacks by Hamas were a "100% Palestinian operation", carried out in great secrecy, concealed even from Hamas's allies. "It has no relation to any regional or international issues," he said, in effect claiming he did not know and neither...

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Friday that his powerful militia is already engaged in unprecedent cross-border fighting with Israel along the Lebanon-Israel border and threatened a further escalation as the four-week-long Israel-Hamas war rages on. In televised remarks — Nasrallah’s first since the beginning of the war sparked by the Palestinian militants’ deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel — he stopped short of announcing his Lebanese militia would fully enter the conflict. Nasrallah also said that Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers, is not deterred by U.S. warnings to stay out of the latest war. Referring to...

@MarioNawfal This is MAJOR. We were first to report 2 days ago that Hezbollah/Iran warned Israel through the U.S that Hezbollah will join if there is no ceasefire, or at least plans for a ceasefire (see tweet below) This started materializing in the past few hours, as: 1. Hezbollah received weapons and reinforcements from Syria 2. An Iraqi proxy warned Israel and launched a drone against Israel (very symbolic, as it was from Iraq) 3. Syria began preparing for a regional war (leaked documents) Well, a few hours ago, we also reported of a potential 'temporary truce' between Israel and...