Free Republic

A new attempt by Hamas to entice Israeli children to play with incendiary balloons includes choosing colorful balloons and attaching lights and toys to them, Yediot Ahronot reported. According to the report, a cluster of balloons recently found in the Eshkol Region was attached to an explosive toy. The balloons, found late at night, were colorful and included colorful flashing lights. Kibbutz Be'eri's secretary, Yaniv Hagi, told Yediot Aharonot: "Incendiary balloons land in our kibbutz at all hours of day and night. They arrive with flashing and sparkling lights, and some of the balloons have smiley faces on them, so...

Congress moved this week to tighten the economic noose on the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, passing new sanctions that directly target his military alliance with Russia and Iran that has resulted in scores of civilian casualties. The new sanctions on Assad seek to "halt the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people" by hitting the regime's financial and military alliances with Russia and Iran, both of which have provided Assad and his allies with military hardware and manpower. It also authorized Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to provide U.S. support to entities that are gathering and preserving...

“Death to Khamenei” and “Not for Gaza. Not for Lebanon. My life for Iran” are the most important slogans to explain how fed-up Iranians have become. Israel has only two options against Iran On August 27, Iran and Syria signed a military cooperation agreement. An official visit by Iranian Defense Minister Amir Khatami came at a time when the US started pressuring Iran to leave Syria. This clearly indicates both Syria and Iran want to show off the military cooperation and connections between Tehran and Damascus in light of US sanctions and pressures on the latter. This visit again proves...

Imagine being cut off from the world – for your whole life. That’s reality for children like Aya. The blockade of Gaza began when she was a baby, the occupation in the West Bank before her parents were born. Now she is eleven, and the blockade goes on. Aya’s childhood memories are of conflict and hardship, walls she cannot escape, and the fear that the only home she knows, however tiny, could be gone when she returns from school. This Ramadan, please help support children like Aya who have known nothing but conflict and hardship. Donate here: http://buff.ly/2qgsP0Y#forPalestinerefugees Yet neither...

The UN special envoy to the Middle East Nickolay Mladenov on Tuesday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to resume funding he had cut to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency which assists “Palestinian refugees”. Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East and quoted by Haaretz, Mladenov said that "UNRWA’s financial crisis remains a very serious concern. At present, UNRWA needs some $217 million to sustain its work in 2018. I urge the swift mobilization of support to enable the continuity of assistance and a maintenance of stability on the ground in the region."...

This month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intimated that his country might consider leaving NATO. Meanwhile, on a visit to Moscow last week, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to Russia as a “strategic partner”—a first. This talk is empty. Erdogan may well be angry at Washington, but ultimately, Ankara is going to have to do whatever it takes to restore its ties with the West. Doing so might not be enough to pull the country out of its economic crisis, but Erdogan has few other options if he wants to avoid a potentially worse political meltdown: He depends too...

On one of the nights of the last week of last June, the Syrian security forces imposed strict measures inside and around Damascus International Airport. Just before midnight, a private UAE plane landed on one of the runways. About forty minutes passed before a huge procession of black Four-Wheel vehicles took off carrying the passengers to the Mezzeh area, in the center of Damascus, where the new office of Major General Ali Mamlouk, director of Syria’s National Security Bureau is located. There, a senior US officer led a delegation that included officers from several US intelligence and security agencies. Ali...

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed a man by crucifixion in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday amid waging a public-relations battle with Canada over human rights. The man, Elias Abulkalaam Jamaleddeen, was accused of murder, theft, and attempted rape, according to Bloomberg. Saudi Arabia, ruled by its interpretation of Islamic law, rarely carries out crucifixions, but capital punishment remains common. Crimes in Saudi Arabia such as homosexuality and attending anti-government rallies have previously led to crucifixion sentences. Unlike the biblical crucifixions carried out by the Romans against Christians in antiquity, Saudi crucifixions usually involve displaying a beheaded corpse...

Not a single Christian was among the 1,112 Syrian refugees resettled in the UK in the first three months of this year, the Home Office has admitted. It agreed only to resettle Muslims and rejected the four Christians recommended by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), despite past US declarations that Isis was committing genocide against them. The disclosure was obtained by the Barnabas Fund, a charity that supports persecuted Christians, under freedom of information laws after a protracted tussle with the Home Office.

Israel is ramping up attacks against Iranian supply lines in Syria to block the flow of weapons to Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias, as it seeks to drive its foe away from its borders. In June Israel targeted a far-flung compound near the Syria-Iraq border, according to a security official, after carrying out multiple strikes closer to home against suspected Iranian military assets in Syria, where Iran is a key backer of President Bashar al-Assad. Israel, in accordance with its usual practice, didn’t confirm or deny it carried out the June airstrike. The U.S. denied responsibility, and a U.S. official...

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is blocking oil sales to northern Syria, activists say, unleashing an economic weapon that could cause food shortages and hospital shutdowns, and may undermine the rebels’ fight against the jihadi force. The blockade also shows how heavily dependent even the group’s enemies are on the crude it produces, and how much influence that allows the jihadis to wield.

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The armies of allah are CONVERGING RIGHT NOW towards Damascus. The sole obstacle is the Assad régime. Once Assad is down (and he will be, it’s only a matter of time: the Obama régime, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia are ALL against Assad), the armies of allah will mobilize in order to raid JERUSALEM. Should we not mobilize? Should we not be trying urgently to mobilize the antisemitic "Christians" among us, with the use of Reason, to become friends of the Jewish People -- in order to get their support in the CRUSADE to protect JERUSALEM? Abram...