Ali al-Taher’s White Night

One explosive drone, three seriously wounded Israeli soldiers, and a whole night of war machinery started moving.

Israel’s security establishment believes Hezbollah launched Saturday’s drone from the underground complex beneath the Ali al-Taher ridge near Nabatieh.

The Israeli reading is blunt: the fighters inside are not preparing to surrender. They are preparing to fight. The IDF describes the site as Hezbollah’s regional “nerve center,” with dozens of operatives believed to be underground.

Then came the long night.

Israeli aircraft struck the ridge and areas around Kfar Rumman, Deir Siryan and Qantara. Heavy artillery hit Nabatieh al-Fawqa. Lebanese media reported illumination rounds over the ridge, fires on its slopes and extensive Israeli aircraft activity. Hezbollah-linked outlets said the group fired anti-aircraft missiles toward the planes.

By Monday morning, strikes and shelling had also reached al-Mansouri, Kafra and Majdal Zoun. Reports said two civilians were wounded in a drone strike in Kafra.

The ridge has become a tunnel with a town attached.
Israeli and Lebanese reports describe a widening ground operation involving infantry, air power and other forces. Israeli officials say they want to destroy the underground system and remove Hezbollah from the area.

Lebanese sources describe exchanges of fire and a campaign to take control of the hill. The contest is no longer about one drone. It is about who owns the ground above a buried command structure.

Iran’s reported threat to fire missiles at Israel if Hezbollah and IRGC intelligence material is captured completes the picture.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said “no account on any front will remain unsettled” and promised forceful action to protect Israeli soldiers and civilians. The language is designed to make an operation around a single ridge sound like a regional ledger.

A Lebanese political source told Nidaa al-Watan that Hezbollah is escalating militarily in order to derail the possibility of direct Israel-Lebanon negotiations, while waiting for an Iranian green light for a broader confrontation.

#Israel #Lebanon #Hezbollah #AliAlTaher #Nabatieh #IDF #Iran #FrameworkAgreement

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Gaza: Two Drones an Hour, Three “Martyrs” in One Family

At noon, an Israeli drone struck a tent near the Kuwaiti Hospital in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis. Less than an hour later, another drone hit a home in northern Nuseirat.

Palestinian reporters described injuries in both places. The first strike hit the tent of the al-Rai family in a displacement camp. The second hit the home of Raafat Abu Khabiza.

In the official IDF version, the same hour contained two threats removed from the map: one Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative in Khan Younis and one Hamas operative in Nuseirat, both allegedly advancing attack plans.

The agreement, then, is functioning normally. It includes targeted killings.

By evening, the first target was identified as Tareq Anwar al-Rai, described by Israeli sources as a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative. Palestinian accounts called him the third “martyr” from his family.

That word has a family archive behind it.

His brother, Mohammed al-Rai, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in 2007. Israeli security sources identified him as the militant who fired the grenade from a mobile launcher during the 2004 APC disaster on the Philadelphi Route, which killed five Israeli soldiers transporting explosives.

Another brother, Khamis al-Rai, was described as a senior Islamic Jihad commander and was killed in Rafah in 2015.

Three brothers. Three Israeli strikes. More than two decades of attrition, promotion, revenge and obituary language.

Israel calls it removing immediate threats. Gaza calls it martyrdom. Both descriptions avoid the more durable fact: a militant organization and the military targeting it have spent a generation turning a family name into a recurring file.

#Gaza #Israel #Hamas #IslamicJihad #KhanYounis #Nuseirat #AlMawasi #war

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Kim’s Remote-Work Revolution

North Korea did not need to invade Silicon Valley. It needed stolen identities, decent Wi-Fi, American laptops and employers desperate to fill remote roles.

A Wall Street Journal investigation says thousands of North Korean operatives have used fake or stolen identities to obtain remote jobs at U.S. companies, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars back to Kim Jong Un’s regime.

The Journal traced one team that infiltrated at least eight companies within months.
This is not a spy thriller with trench coats. It is payroll fraud with Slack accounts.

The workers allegedly pass interviews, submit code, attend video calls and collect salaries under borrowed American names. The regime gets hard currency. U.S. companies get developers who may be working from another continent, behind another person’s face, for a state Washington has sanctioned into permanent hostility.

For years, America has funded wars, enforced maritime blockades, built regional security arrangements and sent its intelligence agencies around the globe to locate threats. Meanwhile, Pyongyang apparently found a cheaper route into the country: apply for a remote job.

The operation exposes a particular weakness in the American economy. The modern corporation asks whether a worker can log in, produce and keep costs down. It does not always ask who is actually behind the webcam. In a labor market built around outsourced identity checks, one fake résumé can be more useful than a missile test.

Washington calls North Korea a rogue state. North Korea has apparently discovered that the most reliable way to enter America is through Human Resources.

#NorthKorea #USA #cybersecurity #remoteWork #KimJongUn #AI #SiliconValley #nationalSecurity

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Kushner in Cairo: Hamas First, Netanyahu Later

Jared Kushner met Hamas leaders in Egypt before flying to Israel to see Benjamin Netanyahu. In Middle East diplomacy, this is what a hierarchy looks like when the person with guns must be persuaded before the person with an army can be briefed.

Kushner’s meeting with Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya lasted more than two hours and included Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators.

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s director general for Gaza, also took part. Tony Blair was part of the wider delegation expected to continue on to meetings with Netanyahu.

The purpose was direct. Washington wanted a personal Hamas commitment to the roadmap for Gaza, especially disarmament, before Kushner met the Israeli prime minister.

The U.S. message was reportedly blunt: no political role for Hamas, no reconstruction and no wider Gaza political track until the group gives up its weapons and military infrastructure.

Hamas has already agreed, in principle, to a phased disarmament plan. Heavy weapons, production sites, depots and tunnel infrastructure would be inventoried and placed under a Palestinian national committee, with international verification and a stabilization force involved.

Israeli withdrawals are supposed to follow verified steps in that process. Hamas insists that implementation depends on Israel meeting its own obligations.

That is the part no one says loudly enough. Hamas is being asked to trade guns for a future administration it will not run, reconstruction it will not control and Israeli withdrawals it cannot enforce.

Israel is being asked to withdraw after Hamas disarms, but is also resisting the political plan built around that sequence.

Kushner reportedly told Hamas not to wait for Israeli elections, because Israel’s position on Gaza would not meaningfully change. That may be the clearest line of the meeting. Elections can change ministers. The U.S. message is that they will not change the terms of Palestinian surrender.

Israel’s Tzav 9 movement condemned the meeting, saying Hamas should have no legitimacy or voice after October 7. The group’s objection is instructive. The preferred peace process is one in which Hamas disarms before it speaks, and speaks only after it has disappeared.

Meanwhile, the personal commitment to disarm was reportedly delivered on the same day Israel struck two alleged militants in Gaza.

First, Hamas promises to put down its weapons.

Then Israel decides whether the promise counts.

#Gaza #Hamas #Israel #Kushner #Trump #Netanyahu #Egypt #disarmament

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Sixty Days Are Up

The 60-day clock on the U.S.-Iran memorandum expires today. The document was supposed to turn a pause in fighting into a wider deal on sanctions, the nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.

Instead, the naval blockade is back, shipping remains disrupted, sanctions relief is ending, and both sides are preparing new ways to call escalation “leverage.”

Washington is expected to unveil new economic measures against Tehran this week. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described the planned pressure as unprecedented.

Iran’s short-lived oil-sanctions waiver runs until August 21, but it was always a temporary permit, not a peace dividend.

Iranian Army commander Amir Hatami offered $30,000 to anyone who kills or captures an American soldier involved in an attack on Iran. He said women who do so would receive double. Hatami also responded to Trump’s Hormuz claims with a threat that Iran’s defenders would “break your legs.”

It is a striking vision of national defense: a state-sponsored cash prize for taking U.S. personnel, announced at a ceremony for journalists.

Behind the rhetoric sits a more expensive equation. A July strike on a U.S. base in Jordan killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 100 after Iranian missiles reportedly evaded defenses by changing course in flight.

The Pentagon has used more than 1,500 Patriot interceptors during the war and reportedly has fewer than 1,700 left.

Iran is learning how to penetrate American defenses. America is learning how quickly expensive interceptors disappear. Israel, meanwhile, warns that Tehran’s missile-production capacity is rebuilding even after the central phase of the war.

The memorandum was meant to buy time.

It bought both sides time to reload.

#Iran #USA #Hormuz #sanctions #Patriot #Trump #war #MiddleEast

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Likud Primaries: Democracy by Spreadsheet

About 140,000 Likud members were eligible to vote. The party’s morning announcement listed 80 polling stations; later updates referred to 107 voting locations. It was unclear whether the number had expanded or whether the party had begun counting satellite sites differently. Polls were open from 10 a.m. into the evening, with an extension becoming part of the day’s political argument.

The turnout dashboard told two stories at once. More than 2,000 members voted in the first hour, around 8,700 in the first two. Turnout reached 6.2% by noon, 19% by mid-afternoon and 26.44% at 4:30 p.m. The party spokesman said that last figure was 1.4 points higher than at the equivalent point in 2022.

Then came the familiar Likud miracle: the same number became both proof of enthusiasm and evidence of disaster.

One camp said turnout was higher than the previous round. Another said the voting day was shorter, making the comparison misleading and the pace weaker.

The first saw a mobilized party. The second saw a reason to extend voting. Both were reading from the same screen.

Haim Katz, already guaranteed a reserved slot on Netanyahu’s slate, urged members to vote for a “strong team.” Dudi Amsalem called it “a holiday for Likud democracy” while participation was still below one quarter.

In Likud, democracy does not need to be beautiful. It needs to be well organized.

Netanyahu’s influence was visible in the names he pushed at each site. He endorsed Osnat Zohar for a new women’s slot, reportedly worked on behalf of attorney Shlomo Lerner in Tel Aviv, and backed Erez Tadmor in Jerusalem.

Earlier rule changes had already given Netanyahu eight reserved positions through No. 29 on the next Knesset list.

The rest of the day was an industry of organized votes. Recommended lists circulated from Haim Katz’s camp and from activists linked to Israel Aerospace Industries, sometimes in several versions.

Haredi turnout was reportedly high, especially in Jerusalem, where 7,000 to 10,000 Haredi Likud members were expected to vote. Ministers and lawmakers stood at polling-station entrances in the final hours, asking members to make the correct free choice.

The party still uses in-person paper voting. Digital voting could produce higher turnout, but Likud opted against it despite assurances after the 2022 primary that the system could be protected from cyberattacks.

Paper ballots preserve the old-fashioned political advantage of knowing who can bring a bus, distribute a list and wait by the door.

The real contest is not only between candidates. It is between the independent member and the organized bloc.

Netanyahu traded a reserved slot for Haim Katz. Katz’s networks did not disappear. They became part of the governing architecture.

#Israel #Likud #Netanyahu #primaries #IsraeliPolitics #democracy #elections

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From Abraham Accords to the Mecca Pact

In 2020, Trump’s Middle East architecture had Israel near the center. The Abraham Accords were meant to link Israeli technology, intelligence and military power with Gulf money under an American security umbrella. Saudi normalization was supposed to be the crown piece.

Instead, on August 7 it signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Turkey and Pakistan. An attack on one signatory is now defined as an attack on all three. The pact links Saudi cash, Turkey’s NATO-scale military and fast-growing defense industry, and Pakistan’s armed forces and nuclear status. It includes deeper coordination on exercises, intelligence, air defense, drones, electronic warfare and defense production.


On Sunday, Trump praised the agreement as a “BIG, BOLD, IMPORTANT FIRST STEP,” saying it showed the Middle East “coming together” and becoming able to defend itself “in a more meaningful way.”

For Washington, this is burden-sharing. Fewer American troops, fewer direct guarantees, and more regional security paid for and operated by regional allies. The United States does not need every partner to love one another. It needs them to buy weapons, carry risk and stop calling for another carrier group whenever missiles start flying.

The new structure was built without Israel. The agreement does not name Israel as an adversary. Turkish officials have described it as defensive and open to other states. Saudi officials deny it is an axis against any country.

But one day after the signing, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif called Israel “a threat to the entire Muslim world” and urged a “united military front” against it. Turkish officials and analysts have presented the pact as a way to widen Ankara’s regional deterrence, including against Israeli power.

The Abraham Accords offered Israel a place inside the regional security system. The Mecca Pact offers a different formula: Saudi money, Turkish military infrastructure and Pakistani deterrence. Israel becomes an outside variable, sometimes a potential partner, sometimes a competitor, sometimes the threat used to sell the arrangement.

Trump supports this not despite American interests, but because of them. America does not need the most loyal ally. It needs a region that requires fewer dollars, fewer soldiers and fewer aircraft carriers.

Yesterday, Israel was meant to share that work with Arab states.
Today, the Arab states have been offered Turkey and Pakistan.
Allies are not betrayed. They are replaced when the contractor changes.

#Trump #SaudiArabia #Turkey #Pakistan #Israel #AbrahamAccords #MeccaPact #MiddleEast

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🇵🇱🇺🇦 Ukrainians in Poland: Moral Collapse, Political Hatred, Economic Instability


📊 The proportion of Poles who hold a negative view of Polish-Ukrainian relations has risen to 46%, the highest figure ever recorded by Polish state research agency CBOS.

Only 12% think relations are good. By contrast, three years ago, in mid-2023, only 3% had a negative view and 64% a positive one.

Meanwhile, CBOS also found that belief among Poles that reconciliation between the two neighbours, who share a difficult history, is possible is at its lowest level on record, 53%, down from 78% three years ago.

The findings follow other polls showing worsening attitudes towards Ukraine and Ukrainians in Poland in recent years, and come amid an ongoing diplomatic crisis triggered by Zelensky naming a military unit after a group that massacred Poles in World War II.

In its regular surveys since 1997, the agency has also asked Poles if they believe that reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians is possible or not. In the early 2000s, that figure rose to a record level of 81%, and in 2023 it still stood at 78%. Now, however, it has dropped to an all-time low of 53%.

There have long been tensions between Poland and Ukraine over their difficult, intertwined histories, in particular during the first half of the 20th century.

In World War Two, Ukrainian nationalists killed around 100,000 Polish civilians, mostly women and children, in an ethnic-cleansing operation known as the Volhynia massacres.

Poland has officially recognised that episode as a genocide. However, Ukraine rejects that label and also points to the persecution of Ukrainians who lived in the interwar Polish state, as well as to massacres of Ukrainians by Polish groups during World War II.

Zelensky’s decision prompted his Polish counterpart, Karol Nawrocki, to strip the Ukrainian president of Poland’s highest honour. While tensions have since calmed somewhat, the dispute remains unresolved.

However, even before that diplomatic crisis broke out, polling showed increasingly negative attitudes in Poland towards both Ukraine and Ukrainians, who are by far the country’s largest immigrant group.

In its annual survey of attitudes towards various national and ethnic groups, published in February, CBOS found that the proportion of Poles who said they disliked Ukrainians had increased by five percentage points year-on-year, to 43%. Only 29% said they liked Ukrainians.

Poland’s government has blamed increasing anti-Ukrainian rhetoric from the right-wing and far-right opposition. Last month, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, called on “Polish politicians to stop inciting hatred against Ukrainians”.

#proportion #polish #ukrainians #vision #negative
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Jared Kushner Is Talking Directly To Hamas 🗣


Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, held a rare meeting with Hamas’s political chief on Sunday in Egypt, in a new diplomatic effort to make progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire.

Kushner will meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed road map.

The talks aim to salvage the plan for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territory shattered by war.

At stake are the lives of some 2 million people in Gaza and reconstruction of the crowded enclave now largely controlled by Israeli forces, more than 10 months since the ceasefire ended major military operations.

A meeting between Kushner, fellow envoy Steve Witkoff and Hamas leaders in Egypt last year helped clinch the ceasefire, whose progress until now had been stalled over the key issue of Hamas’s disarmament.

The over two-hour meeting in Egypt with Hamas’s political chief, Khalil al-Hayya, was confirmed by a regional official and a Hamas official, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Kushner was one of a trio of envoys meeting with al-Hayya, with officials from mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and Turkey also there.

Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, last week rejected the 15-point plan in a rare public show of defiance against the Trump administration, Israel’s closest ally.

Kushner’s meeting with the Hamas leader aimed at ensuring the militant group’s commitment to the road map, particularly disarmament, before his meeting with Netanyahu, the regional official said.

The Hamas official said the group is committed and waiting for mediators to start the 14-day negotiation period to work out a timetable for implementation. That period requires all parties’ approval of the road map to begin.

The Hamas official also said the Hamas leader demanded that Israel halt its attacks on Gaza and withdraw to the so-called “yellow line” dividing the territory before beginning implementation. The yellow line was never precisely defined. Israeli forces have moved beyond it and now control about 60% of Gaza.

Under the road map, Hamas would hand over weapons to the Palestinian technocratic committee meant to oversee daily operations in the territory. The committee has not yet entered Gaza. But Hamas has linked the surrender of its heaviest weapons to the creation of a Palestinian state, something Israel’s current government rejects.

Netanyahu faces a challenging election on 27 October as he tries to hold on to power with a coalition that includes ministers taking a harsh line on Gaza, and it’s not clear whether he will take decisive steps on the ceasefire before then. Also coming up is the three-year anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October.

Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday responded to the statement by regional powers by claiming “Arab states want to topple” Netanyahu so that centrist challenger Gadi Eisenkot and center-left party leader Yair Golan “will give them everything they want. That will not happen.”

#kushner #trump #hamas #netanyahu

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Trump Is Gambling With World War III By Threatening To Destroy Oman 🇴🇲


Trump has again threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of his effort to end the US-Israel war on Iran, as the two-month window to negotiate peace with Iran expired on Monday with no end to the conflict in sight.

The latest threats against Oman, which is not a party to the war, have illustrated how Trump’s unpredictable and often outrageous approach to diplomacy has upset US partners and failed to achieve the breakthrough that he has promised to end the war.

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,”

Trump told Fox News on Monday, the second time he has directed such a threat at Muscat, a longtime US strategic partner that has traditionally served as a key backchannel between Washington and Tehran.

The various conflicts in the Middle East continued on Monday, with Yemen’s Houthis claiming to have targeted military ships from Saudi Arabia – a US ally – in a missile and drone strike in the Red Sea. Saudi officials did not confirm the strike, which the Houthis said had struck a Saudi military ship and four escort vessels. The attack is said to have taken place at a port close to the Bab-al Mandeb strait, an important global shipping route that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

In Israel, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Benjamin Netanyahu for more than four hours after the Israeli prime minister rejected a US-backed peace plan for the Gaza war that included a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the devastated territory.

Netanyahu has said he rejected any withdrawal that would take place before Hamas fully disarms. Kushner was said to have told Netanyahu not to create obstacles to a peace deal, US officials told media outlets.

Trump has staked the political legacy of his second presidential term as being the “peacemaker-in-chief”, but his efforts to disengage the US from conflicts across the Middle East are stalling.

The US president delivered the threat against Oman as he struggles to draw the conflict to a conclusion, almost six months after it was launched, and as a diplomatic window agreed with Tehran ran out with no final agreement in sight. But Trump also claimed during Monday’s interview that he was “not in a hurry” to reach a deal.

That two-month window for a negotiated settlement closed on Monday without a breakthrough. Trump has repeatedly claimed the war would end “soon”, and talked up the prospect of a lasting peace deal in recent months, without such a breakthrough materialising.

The strait of Hormuz – a crucial chokepoint for global trade, through which about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supplies typically pass – has been all but closed since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February.

In addition to Oman’s decades-long military and economic ties with the US, the Gulf nation of 5.3 million people has played a mediation role in the war and has itself come under attack from Tehran.

Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that talks with Oman were “continuing in earnest”, despite Trump’s latest outburst.

Trump also confirmed for the first time that Washington had opened a direct backchannel to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the US and Israel have targeted throughout the conflict.

“They’re good poker players, but they’re dying,”

he said of the IRGC leadership.

#trump #threatened #bomb #oman

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Netanyahu, Kushner, and the Board of Peace

Jared Kushner arrived in Jerusalem after sitting in Cairo with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators, in meetings that included Hamas representatives. Then came more than four hours with Benjamin Netanyahu, a prime minister who had called the new Gaza roadmap “unacceptable” only days earlier.

Netanyahu brought Shin Bet chief David Zini and military-intelligence chief Shlomi Binder. Israel’s message was that Hamas had violated its commitments and that Turkish funding remained part of the problem.

The American delegation included Kushner, Gaza Board of Peace director-general Nickolay Mladenov, Tony Blair and senior advisers.

The agreement, in the Israeli telling, is simple. No reconstruction before Hamas is fully disarmed. No further Israeli redeployment before Gaza is demilitarized.

Every rifle, rocket, tunnel and workshop must become an item in a supervised disposal process. Israel will retain what it calls the right to self-defense and to act against any renewed Hamas activity.

Then comes the public-health track.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the sides created two working groups. One will handle Hamas’s disarmament and Gaza’s demilitarization. The other will address sanitation, clean water and public health, including issues that “also impact the people of Israel.” Gaza’s future has been divided into two tasks: remove the weapons, then contain the disease.

The mechanics of disarmament changed during the day. Early reports said Hamas would hand weapons to an American force for destruction.

Later accounts said Hamas would first transfer them to a Palestinian technocratic government, which would then pass them to an International Stabilization Force. One thing did not change: an American general would supervise and verify the process.

The underlying dispute did not disappear. Netanyahu insists targeted killings will continue while Hamas remains armed. Kushner reportedly wants Israel to take limited steps that could test whether Hamas’s disarmament pledge is genuine, while the U.S. works to prevent a wider escalation.

They agreed to build a “deconfliction” mechanism, diplomacy’s way of admitting that the deal is being negotiated under live fire.

Smotrich said the quiet part out loud. Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas, he argued, is incompatible with negotiating with Hamas leaders who “should not be alive at all.”

That is the whole roadmap in one sentence. Hamas must negotiate its own disappearance. Israel must decide whether each weapon surrendered is enough to pause the next strike. The Americans must turn those two incompatible jobs into a working group.

Inside Gaza, the practical question remains: who will hold the keys to the arms depots while everyone waits to see whether the war is truly over?

#Gaza #Israel #Hamas #Kushner #Netanyahu #BoardOfPeace #disarmament #MiddleEast

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Trump: Iran, Oman, Gaza, and Israel’s Election

Donald Trump spent Sunday conducting four foreign policies at once. Iran should surrender. Oman could be bombed. Hamas is supposedly disarming. Israeli elections are none of his business, unless he chooses a candidate.

The president returned from New Jersey saying he had a “great weekend” with “a lot of meetings,” but refused to say whether Iran had been discussed.

Hours later, he posted that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon “in any way, shape, or form.” Silence at the airport, capital letters online, threats on television.

In a Fox News interview, Trump said Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender.” He said he had no deadline and was “not in a hurry,” dismissing the idea that U.S. midterm elections would affect his decisions. Iran, he said, was full of “good poker players,” but was “dying.”

Trump also claimed Washington has a secret backchannel with senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials. Iran denied it. An IRGC spokesman called the claim a product of Trump’s “illusions and nightmares” after U.S. failure in the war.

The reported channel is now either a diplomatic breakthrough or a fantasy, depending on which capital is speaking.

Oman received a threat, not mediation. As Muscat negotiates with Tehran over arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said that if Oman “gets in the way,” the United States would “bomb the shit out of them.”

Oman has been one of Washington’s most useful regional intermediaries for decades. The reward for mediation is apparently to be threatened on Fox News.

On Gaza, Trump told Israel to avoid further attacks because Hamas had agreed to lay down its weapons. “We have our own relationship with Hamas,” he said. “They are giving up their guns.” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem welcomed the remarks and urged Trump to pressure Israel to honor the next phase of the peace plan.

Then Trump addressed Israeli politics with the evasive skill of a man who has already decided he wants to be asked. “I think it’s most appropriate for me to stay out of Israeli elections,” he said. “But I may endorse somebody.”

That is not noninterference. It is a public auction for relevance.

Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene added to the confusion, claiming without public evidence that the administration had discussed using nuclear weapons against Iran in strategy meetings. The White House has not confirmed the claim.

Trump’s diplomatic style is simple. He offers surrender, a backchannel, a threat and an endorsement. Each feature activates when the microphone is on.

#Trump #Iran #Oman #Hormuz #Gaza #Hamas #Israel #MiddleEast

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Sixty Days, No Deadline, and a Strait That Stopped Moving

On August 17, the 60-day period in the U.S.-Iran memorandum expired. Tehran’s response was to deny that it had ever existed.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the memorandum contained no clause titled “60-day deadline.” It only set a 60-day period for discussions on sanctions relief and the nuclear file, he said, with room for an extension.

Because Washington had allegedly violated the agreement within weeks of its signing, Baghaei argued, the talks never began and the entire deadline question had become irrelevant.

That is one way to end a deadline: declare it legally imaginary after it arrives.

Another Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran has moved from a defensive posture to a “fully offensive” one. Iran has given the United States a few weeks to implement the memorandum in full, the official said, and will consider a “timely and precise” military action to break the U.S. naval blockade if diplomacy fails. The deadline does not exist. Iran has simply replaced it with its own.

The immediate battlefield is Hormuz. Ship-tracking firm Kpler recorded five commodity vessels crossing the strait on Saturday and none on Sunday, versus 31 during the preceding weekend.

This is not an Iranian declaration of control or an American declaration of control. It is commercial shipping voting with its engines.

Iran says the strait will reopen only when the United States meets its obligations under the Islamabad memorandum.

It is still negotiating with Oman on a mechanism that, Tehran says, would respect the sovereignty of both Iran and Oman while allowing commercial traffic to transit safely.

The proposed formula has all the usual regional ingredients: sovereignty, security, mediation and somebody else’s oil.

A report in the Wall Street Journal says Arab intelligence officials have detected a strategic shift among Iran’s hardliners, who are preparing for a wider war and increasingly discussing offensive action inside enemy territory.

Options reportedly include disrupting Gulf internet cables, inciting unrest among Shia communities in Gulf states and even a ground operation against Kuwait.

That is the map of a regime trying to compensate for military pressure by making smaller neighbors feel the cost first.

The United States, meanwhile, is considering what Bloomberg described as unprecedented economic pressure: sanctions on Chinese financial firms and money-exchange companies linked to Iran, plus further freezes on Iranian assets abroad.

Washington’s wider blockade plans reportedly depend on cooperation from Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Two of those states, Turkey and Pakistan, signed the Mecca defense pact with Saudi Arabia days ago. The region is assembling overlapping security systems while everyone checks whether their names appear on the next sanctions list.

The new Middle East order is finally becoming self-reliant.
Everyone is now responsible for everyone else’s war.

#Iran #USA #Hormuz #Oman #SaudiArabia #Turkey #Pakistan #Houthis

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#trump #hormuz #territory

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Abu al-Duhur: Four Strikes, Eight Strikes, One Runway

Four strikes or eight, depending on who was counting. The runway got the message.

Syrian outlets first reported unidentified warplanes hitting Abu al-Duhur military airbase in eastern Idlib before dawn.

State television later cited a military source saying eight strikes damaged the runway, storage facilities and abandoned aircraft shelters. No casualties were reported.

Al Jazeera counted four strikes. Israel declined to comment.

The number matters less than the target. Bombing a runway is not an assassination. It is a veto on the future.

Abu al-Duhur lies about 70 kilometers from Turkey’s border, inside the area Turkey operates in. Syrian military sources and regional outlets say the base had become part of Damascus’s effort to revive its post-Assad air arm.

They reported roughly two refurbished Su-22 fighter-bombers, several L-39 trainer jets and aging helicopters at the site. Footage of Su-22 training flights over northern Syria appeared shortly before the strikes.

A Turkish military delegation had reportedly visited the airfield to assess runway rehabilitation. That created the obvious interpretation. Before Syrian or Turkish combat jets could use the facility, someone made the runway unusable again.

Satellite imagery reportedly shows new construction at the base since May, alongside ongoing runway and taxiway repairs. The site was not merely a relic of the Assad era. It was becoming a working base again.

In Syria, reconstruction is often a countdown.

#Syria #Israel #Turkey #Idlib #AbuAlDuhur #AirForce #MiddleEast

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Iran Prepares for the Next Round

Abbas Araghchi says Iran “fought with strength and negotiated with strength.” Foreign ministers from other countries, he says, told him Tehran won both the war and the diplomacy.

This is the official version of victory: missiles did the talking, diplomats kept the phone lines open, and the unnamed “senior leadership” decided when either tool would be used. Araghchi did not need to name Mojtaba Khamenei. The title did the work for him.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran has moved from a defensive posture to a “fully offensive” one. The United States has a few weeks to implement the memorandum in full. Iran will communicate the timetable through mediators, prepare for escalation in Hormuz and the wider region, and consider a “timely and precise” strike to break the U.S. naval blockade if diplomacy fails.

Tehran says that pressure on Washington and reliance on mediators cannot produce a permanent settlement. Yet it will use the same mediators to transmit its deadline. The channel survives. Confidence in what the channel can deliver does not.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Iran’s hard-line leadership used the pause under the memorandum to prepare for a longer war.

The Revolutionary Guard is expanding its authority over the regular military, tightening domestic counterintelligence, promoting battle-hardened veterans, and accelerating missile and drone production. The ceasefire became a rearmament window.

NBC News reports that Moscow is sending drone components, ammunition and TNT across the Caspian Sea to replenish Iranian stocks damaged in U.S. and Israeli strikes.

Russia is helping Iran rearm while both governments continue to describe their partnership as deeply respectful of other people’s sovereignty.

China has chosen the language of principle. Its ambassador in Tehran condemned what he called illegal U.S. and Israeli actions against Iran and set out four Chinese initiatives for regional peace and stability.

Iran’s next move will not be decided by an initiative. It will be decided by how quickly Tehran can rebuild its missiles, drones and confidence that the next round will cost its enemies more than the last one.

#Iran #USA #Russia #China #IRGC #Hormuz #missiles #MiddleEast

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🏦⚖️ Florida: Can MAGA Live Without Israel?

Florida Republicans vote today, and two candidacies put Israel’s place inside the American right on the ballot.

James Fishback is running for governor against Byron Donalds, Trump’s endorsed favorite. Fishback has made opposition to AIPAC and the U.S.-Israel relationship central to his campaign.

In Florida, where pro-Israel politics used to come with the Republican starter pack, it marks a break from the usual menu.

Then there is Dan Bilzerian, challenging Rep. Randy Fine in the 6th District. Fine is one of Congress’s loudest supporters of Israel.

Bilzerian went past the standard America First routine and made Fine’s Jewish identity a campaign target, including an ad invoking Hitler and antisemitic stereotypes. Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries both condemned the campaign.

Today’s question is less whether Fishback or Bilzerian wins. Neither is expected to. The useful number is their vote share.

There is now an online right for which AIPAC, aid to Israel, and the alliance with Jerusalem stand for the old Republican establishment: foreign commitments, donor networks, Washington rituals, all sold with a flag pin attached.

Bilzerian’s campaign is not skepticism toward a foreign alliance. It is antisemitism wearing an America First cap. Fishback’s campaign tests whether anti-Israel politics can draw a Republican vote without the open racial poison.

If either candidate posts a meaningful share, Republican operatives will notice. Not because Florida suddenly stopped loving Israel, but because every party eventually tries to monetize its angriest commenters.

#MAGA #Florida #Israel #AIPAC #Trump #Republicans #AmericaFirst

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🇺🇦 Ukraine’s Fired Defence Minister Demands Presidential Elections


Ukraine’s recently dismissed former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called for a wartime presidential election in the most direct political challenge Zelensky since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The politician, whose abrupt sacking last month triggered a wave of protests, said that Ukraine had to “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war” in a video address released online late on Tuesday evening.

“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state,” Fedorov said in his nine-minute speech.

Though he did not mention Zelensky by name, Fedorov implied the current president presided over a poorly functioning state that was struggling to tackle corruption despite the national emergency.

“People cannot endlessly live in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made. Why some reforms move forward while others are blocked,” Fedorov said, arguing that Ukraine could fight a war and hold a national poll.

“It is particularly dangerous when society develops the feeling that the main criterion for an appointment is not professionalism, results or the ability to transform the country, but personal loyalty to the system,” he said.

Elections have been suspended in Ukraine since martial law was imposed at the start of the full-scale invasion by Russia. Zelensky’s five-year term ended in May 2024 but there has been little desire in Ukraine to hold a contest while war continues.

Trump has previously demanded that Ukraine hold an election, though his once-fraught relationship with Zelensky has gradually improved over the past year as Kyiv has shown it can hold its own on the battlefield.

Fedorov, 35, was Ukraine’s digital minister from 2019 until January, fronting the country’s wartime adoption of drones, before briefly serving in what was considered to be a successful stint as defence minister until July.

But he was suddenly dropped by Zelensky in a government reshuffle after a falling out with military commander Gen Oleksandr Syrsky. Street protests followed, leading to the sacking of Syrskyi, but there was no sign Fedorov would be reinstated.

On Tuesday Zelensky formally nominated Yevhen Khmara, the acting defence minister, to take the post permanently. Khmara’s nomination has to be confirmed by Ukraine’s parliament, and a vote is expected to take place on Wednesday.

Artem Bronzhukov, a Ukrainian political analyst, questioned whether it would be practical to hold elections given that Russian bombing was continuing. “Today there is no clear understanding of how to ensure people’s safety in the context of a full-scale war,” he said.

There was, he added, “a fairly deep-rooted view within Ukrainian society” that elections are necessary but only after the hot phase of the war ends – and that the country remained “a warring democracy – confirmed precisely by the protests taking place after Fedorov’s resignation from the government”.

Protests had been taking place nightly in a square below the presidential office in the heart of Kyiv, but the numbers attending had been dwindling. However, the campaign was relaunched in a special rally on Sunday night that attracted about 2,000 people with regular chants of “Fedorov, Fedorov, Fedorov …”

Polling conducted at the turn of the month reported the ex-minister would come third in the first round of a presidential election with 13.1%, behind Zelenskyy on 22.3% and the former head of the armed forces, who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Valery Zaluzhny, on 21.4%.

The same polling, conducted by the Socis Centre for Social Research, also concluded that Zelensky would then be defeated in the run-off election by both Fedorov and Zaluzhny. Ukraine uses a two-stage voting system.

#ukraine #defence #minister #elections

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