Free Republic

First, the bad news: The Iran War shows no signs of ending soon. Tehran on Monday said it would suspend peace talks with the U.S. in protest of Israeli strikes in Gaza and Lebanon. Now, the even worse news: The Iran War is linked to the Ukraine War in myriad disturbing ways, and the longer the former drags on, the more dangerous the latter becomes. Talk of “World War III” tends to be ludicrously overwrought—crafted to generate clicks and grab eyeballs on social media, rather than highlight geopolitical risks—but the connections between these two wars have, if anything, been underdiscussed....

Iran survives by delay, deception, and deterrence games—but the moment may be coming when airpower, not diplomacy, decides how the nuclear standoff ends. The Trump administration has bent over backward to negotiate an end to Iran’s grand plans to develop nuclear weapons—before the June 2025 bombing, afterward, and again during the follow-up diplomacy of spring 2026. Yet Iran is unlikely ever to abandon its pursuit of the bomb voluntarily. With nuclear weapons, Tehran hopes to become the de facto hegemon of the Middle East. Only then could it effectively coerce or deter both Israel and the wealthy Arab Gulf states....

"The group's leadership repeatedly expressed support for the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah." Year after year, Toronto police have allowed Muslim pro-terrorist mobs to invade and harass the Jewish community. Now, PM Mark Carney has declared that there is a “scourge of antisemitism” and plans to combat it with a DEI council. To that end, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, today announced the launch and membership of Canada’s new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion to be chaired by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture. The Council has a clear mission: to combat racism and hate in...

Perhaps Hezbollah finally got a whiff of utter defeat. Either that, or they just got a reprieve courtesy of Iran. If it's the latter, though, they didn't get much. Donald Trump announced this afternoon that Hezbollah has had enough in Lebanon. The group had refused to comply with the ceasefire between Israel and the civilian government in Beirut, continuing to volley missiles at civilian targets. The IDF has captured strategic points in the sub-Litani region and had warned residents in Hezbollah-controlled areas of the capital to evacuate. That's when Hezbollah sued for peace, and Trump intervened:I had a very productive...

Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters commander warned residents of northern Israel to leave the area if Israel carries out threatened attacks on Beirut, in response to an earlier Israeli military evacuation warning for residents of areas in Beirut. "Given Israel's repeated violations of the ceasefire, if this threat is carried out, we warn residents of northern areas and military settlements in Israel to leave the area if they do not want to be harmed," Ali Abdollahi said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's office submitting his resignation, London-based anti-regime outlet Iran International reported on Sunday. An anonymous official told Iran International that the letter had called out the fact that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had effectively taken over large portions of the government, and that the president and other high-ranking officials had been cut out of vital decision-making. Pezeshkian, the letter emphasized, was unable to run the government or fulfill his responsibilities under the circumstances, and as such, requested to resign. Anonymous sources told Iran International that the primary source...

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has submitted an official letter of resignation to the Office of the Supreme Leader, a source familiar with the matter told Iran International. In the letter sent on Sunday, Pezeshkian stressed that the president and the government have effectively been excluded from major and vital decision-making processes in the country, and that the vacuum created by this situation has enabled hardline factions within the IRGC to take control of affairs, the source said. Pezeshkian added that under such circumstances he is unable to run the government and carry out his legal responsibilities, and for that reason...

Iran has damaged 20 US military sites since the start of the war, satellite images and videos analysed by BBC Verify show, suggesting the attacks are more extensive than publicly acknowledged. Iran has targeted key facilities across eight countries in the Middle East since the end of February, causing millions of dollars of damage to state-of the-art air defence systems, refuelling aircraft and radars. Tehran has targeted both US bases and shared military facilities in retaliation to the US-Israeli strikes across Iran and Lebanon over the past three months. The Pentagon says it has hit more than 13,000 targets in...

Key Points Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries in retaliation for ongoing ceasefire violations, Iran’s state-affiliated news outlet Tasnim said. Tehran will also move to fully block the Strait of Hormuz, Tasnim reported. Oil prices leapt more than 5% higher following Tasnim’s report. ============================================================ Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries, and Tehran will move to fully close the Strait of Hormuz, in retaliation for ongoing ceasefire violations, Iran’s state-affiliated news outlet Tasnim said Monday. The report, in a translated post on the social media site Telegram, homed in on Israel’s...

The world's diplomatic attention is fixed on Pakistan, on ceasefire memoranda, on whether Mojtaba Khamenei will emerge from hiding long enough to initial a document. In that distraction, Israel has done something strategically significant in Lebanon that has received almost no serious analysis (but was highlighted on Arutz Sheva). It has crossed the Litani River. Israeli forces have advanced beyond the Litani, a line that for decades functioned as an unofficial boundary in southern Lebanon. Troops are now pushing northward toward the Zahrani River, roughly ten kilometers away. The IDF has declared the entire area between the two rivers an...

A senior Hamas official told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hamas had sent messages to the mediating countries complaining about Israel’s alleged violations of the ceasefire agreement, while reaffirming its commitment to negotiations and efforts to reach a breakthrough in talks on Gaza. The official claimed that the assassination of Hamas military wing commander Izz ad-Din Haddad disrupted the negotiations, and called on the mediators to pressure Israel to halt what Hamas described as daily ceasefire violations. Hamas expressed hope that consultations with the mediators would help formulate a path forward in the talks, which have been postponed until after Eid al-Adha....

Faith FactsUnited Nations added Israel to its blacklist of entities accused of sexual violence in conflict zones, placing the democratic nation alongside terrorist organizations Hamas and ISISIsraeli Ambassador Danny Danon condemned the decision as disconnected from facts and reality, calling it a moral failure by the international bodyThe controversial listing comes despite documented evidence of sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians during the October 7 attacksIn a stunning and morally questionable decision, the United Nations has placed the nation of Israel on its official blacklist of entities accused of committing sexual violence in conflict zones. Israeli Ambassador...

The federal investigation into staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—the U.N. Gaza relief organization that's been closely linked to Hamas—will soon encompass at least 1,500 UNRWA-linked individuals suspected of terror ties. This unprecedented dragnet—reported here for the first time by the Washington Free Beacon—exposes an aid group brimming with Hamas operatives, and is generating momentum in Congress and the Trump administration for harsher sanctions on the embattled aid group, according to congressional staffers briefed on the matter. The punitive measures up for consideration include stripping UNRWA of its diplomatic immunity under U.S. law, which would open it...

The negotiations between the United States and Iran to end their war are following President Trump’s familiar playbook for resolving a Middle East crisis: agree to a cease-fire and deal with the toughest problems later. Analysts say the approach has had mixed results in the Gaza Strip, where Mr. Trump brokered a truce last year between Israel and Hamas, the Iranian-backed militant group. Plans for a so-called Phase 2 agreement — under which Hamas was to lay down its arms and Israel would allow Gaza to be rebuilt after a devastating war — have stalled. A similar approach in U.S....

Hamas officials confirmed Wednesday that the new military leader of the terrorist organization, Mohammed Odeh, was eliminated by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Tuesday. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz was the first to announce Odeh’s death on Tuesday. Katz said Israel remains determined to prevent Hamas from controlling Gaza, “either civilly or militarily.” A joint statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence agency, said that “several buildings in the heart of Gaza City that served as a hideout for [Odeh] were attacked, after months of intelligence surveillance in order to track his...

Israel has killed two top Hamas military chiefs in 11 days, demonstrating near-total surveillance, air supremacy, and intelligence capabilities across Gaza and the Middle East.What is so shocking about Israel's achievement of assassinating two Hamas military chiefs, Izz-al-Din al-Hadad, and his successor, Mohammed Ouda, within 11 days of each other, is that no one is even shocked anymore. Depending on the country or area, from drones to fighter jets, to the navy, to satellites, to Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF Unit 504 agents, Israel has its enemies' leaders covered and in its crosshairs practically on demand, including: Iran, the Yemen...

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has likely eliminated another of the prime butchers behind the Oct. 7 atrocities. And IDF also continues to eliminate Hezbollah targets on its other front.Hezbollah kills Israelis on a weekly basis and continues to devastate Israeli towns, some of which lost or suffered damage to most of their buildings in missile strikes since Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas jihadis also continue to conduct terrorist activities both in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (what they deceptively call the “West Bank”). And of course, many Oct. 7 terrorists came home to Gaza to receive a hero’s welcome and huge...

Iran's new leader Mojtaba Khamenei follows in his father’s footsteps with a series of anti-Israel posts on social media.

Israel has accused the Gaza flotilla protestors of faking their injuries after several organisers alleged abuse, sexual assault, and beatings in custody.

Israel's foreign ministry has mocked the activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla online, alleging that injuries were "staged" for the cameras after an activist pictured in a neck brace displayed a "miraculous recovery" when returning home without it. This comes as many activists have returned to their home countries after being detained and deported from Israeli custody. Multiple activists have accused Israeli forces of abuse, torture and even sexual violence and rape whilst they were held in detention. The provocative posts sparked a rebuttal from the Global Sumud Flotilla online, which said activist Nesrin Zeaiter had "experienced a concussion and...