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Waiting for the Middle Eastern Storm to Settle

A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
JNS.org – Just days into 2025, Israel is still fighting a war on seven fronts, including Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, various Iranian proxies in Iraq, volatility in Judea and Samaria, and an extremely unstable and unpredictable Syria.
Israelis living in central Israel have been awoken by Houthi missiles several times this week. This is not simply Israel’s problem, but the world’s. The war from Yemen began in March 2020, when radical Houthis began attacking the shipping lanes in the Red Sea. U.S. and other vessels have to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, affecting the entire global economy and putting at particular risk the economy of Egypt.
The Houthis, who practice a strict form of Shi’ism called Zaydi Islam, seized control of the capital of Sanaa in 2014, demanding their own government and lower fuel prices. Their governmental infrastructure is confined to an extremely conservative Shura Council. More than 80% of the Yemeni population lives below the poverty line; their sophisticated weaponry is provided by Iran.
With Sanaa 2,096 kilometers away from Tel Aviv (1,290 miles), the Israelis might not yet have precise intelligence of where the Houthis have been launching their missiles from, but they are very rapidly gaining it. A ray of hope is that U.S.-backed CENTCOM has begun attacking Houthi bases within the last several nights.
Turning to Gaza, since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis have been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that the current warring situation continues to exacerbate. Without time to recover from that “Black Sabbath,” 15 months later, more than 800 soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force have lost their lives with thousands wounded. Many reservists’ lives have been put on hold for months at a time while they are called away from their jobs and their families to defend their country.
Israel has made significant gains on the battlefield within Gaza, killing Hamas senior leaders, and most recently, eliminating Hassam Shahwan, head of the terror group’s internal security. Ideologies, however, do not suddenly disappear. The tenacity of the relentless propaganda war against the State of Israel is a regnant aspect within the minds of many members of Hamas, and no one knows for sure what they might have in store for Israelis.
The IDF has uncovered more than 240 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists who had been cynically using the Kamal Adwan Hospital as a command-and-control center, which was replete with weapons found in babies’ incubators, tactical communications equipment and classified Hamas documents.
Predictably, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the U.N. World Health Organization condemned Israel, saying “hospitals in Gaza have once again become battlegrounds, and the health system is under severe threat.”
A similar problem awaits Israel in Southern Lebanon, where the halfway point of the 60-day ceasefire has passed. The IDF has collected a massive arsenal of 85,170 weapons from Hezbollah captured from about 300 Southern Lebanese villages.
However, rudderless ships can behave erratically. Hezbollah has just issued an aggressive statement saying that if Israel is not out of Southern Lebanon by the end of the ceasefire, the terrorist group will respond with renewed acts of violence.
Lebanon, a failed state without a real, centralized government is under the tight grip of Hezbollah, and a failing economy with approximately 89,500 Lebanese pounds equal to $1.
It remains to be seen how Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein’s plan is any different from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and UNIFIL supposed to once again fill the void. Both have demonstrably colluded with Hezbollah, going so far as giving Hezbollah LAF uniforms. Hezbollah is supposed to again move north of the Litani River. However, they are already returning to homes that have been used to build tunnels to supply weapons and fighters against Israel.
The late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, eliminated by U.S. forces in 2020, vowed to make “a ring of fire around Israel.” This has now proven to be a failed policy. The Shi’ite crescent running from Tehran through Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and to the Mediterranean Sea has a gaping hole at its core in Syria.
Israel shares a long border with Jordan, which has proven to be a vehicle for smuggling weapons into Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank). Despite a slim minority of Palestinian support for the Palestinian Authority, according to the Palestinian Center for Survey and Research, of all the candidates to follow 89-year-old leader Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian choice points to Marwin Barghouti, a convicted terrorist serving multiple life sentences for murder during the first and second intifadas (“uprisings”) against Israel.
Resurrecting the failed P.A. to take control of Gaza indicates nothing less than a supreme failure of imagination among the U.S. State Department and other foreign government officials.
Finally, there is some optimism that Syria no longer provides a direct route from Iran to Hezbollah, yet skepticism remains over the intentions of Abu Mohammed al-Julani, Syrian revolutionary militant and political leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Al-Julani, who had been a member of Jabhat al Nusra, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, has reinvented himself into Ahmed al-Sharaa and disavowed his ties to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He has promised to unify Syria, yet has also vowed revenge against the Alawites, who have ruled the Sunni majority with a brutal fist. He maintains particular animus against the Kurdish minority, who had always been loyal to the United States and who fought valiantly against ISIS. He has recently said about the Kurds that “the separatist will either bid farewell to their weapons, or you will be buried with your weapons.”
Much of al-Julani’s backing and training of his rebels has come from Turkey. A great deal of northern Syria is now being controlled by Ankara, which aims to resurrect the Ottoman Caliphate of the 15th and 16th centuries, creating a radical Sunni outpost that admires Hamas. It does not auger well that al-Julani has just changed the textbooks to revere Sharia law.
Israel is already fighting a war on seven fronts. An eighth front within Syria might well open up. What happens next well may predict the outcome for the rest of the Middle East.
The post Waiting for the Middle Eastern Storm to Settle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire

Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
The post UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
The post Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’

FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.