Israel Secretly Building Buffer Zones Inside Lebanon and Gaza

JERUSALEM—Israel has been secretly building military outposts in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as part of a plan to create buffer zones along both borders.

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Trump minces no words when asked about maintaining ceasefire in Gaza: 'Not our war'



President Donald Trump, while signing executive actions in the Oval Office Monday evening, was asked by a reporter whether he was confident that he could maintain the ceasefire in Gaza.

"I'm not confident," said Trump. "That's not our war. It's their war."

While Trump's response, which came just hours prior to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's swearing in, further evidenced his general preference for nations to sort out their own problems, it may have also had something to do with the current pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lay waste to the remainder of Hamas.

CNN noted that the ceasefire deal has tested Netanyahu's parliamentary majority, which is already slim.

After Itamar Ben-Gvir, part of the Jewish Power Party and Netanyahu's Cabinet, resigned Sunday as national security minister over the approval of the ceasefire deal with Hamas, the government's finance minister threatened to follow suit. Such departures will weaken the prime minister's ruling coalition.

Netanyahu signaled a willingness to spike the ceasefire, making reassurances Sunday that Trump gave "full backing to Israel's right to return to fighting, if Israel comes to the conclusion that negotiations on Phase B are futile."

'It's a phenomenal location on the sea, the best weather.'

Unless such a decision is made, the second phase of the ceasefire deal, which requires that the Israeli military completely leaves Gaza, is scheduled to take place on Feb. 4.

Trump, who proved instrumental in securing the return of the first group of hostages from Hamas, signaled that Israel might be in a position to end the conflict, if resumed, noting, "I think they're very weakened on the other side. Gaza, boy — I looked at a picture of Gaza. Gaza is like a massive demolition site."

"It's got to be rebuilt in a different way," continued Trump. "It's a phenomenal location on the sea, the best weather. You know everything's good. It's like some beautiful things can be done with it."

The president indicated further that in terms of governance, "You certainly can't have the people that were there. Most of them are dead, by the way, right? Most of them are dead. But they didn’t exactly run it well. It was run viciously and badly. So you can't have that."

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Putin congratulates 47th president, says Russia ready for peace talks with Trump team



Top officials from around the globe reached out to congratulate President Donald Trump on his return to office Monday, in many cases sneaking in their respective asks to the leader of the world's pre-eminent superpower. Among them was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who indicated that Russia was open to discussing "long-term peace" in Eastern Europe.

During a September town hall interview, Trump warned that "we're heading into World War III territory" because of the war in Ukraine, adding that unlike the "clowns" in power, he would "heal the world."

Trump was ridiculed then and on numerous other occasions for suggesting that he would bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table and the war to an end.

"This is a war that should have never happened. It should have never happened. ... It's a shame," Trump said after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in September. "We'll get it solved. It's a very complicated puzzle, very complicated puzzle, but we'll get it solved, and people [will] get on with their lives. Too many people dead."

Although reportedly poised to pour 8% of GDP and 40% of total federal expenditure into continued defense and security spending, Putin appears ready for an end to the fighting.

'The peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace.'

"We see statements by the newly elected US President and members of his team about the desire to restore direct contacts with Russia, interrupted through no fault of ours by the outgoing Administration," Putin said in a meeting Monday with elements of his security council. "We also hear his statements about the need to do everything to prevent a third world war. Of course, we welcome this attitude and congratulate the elected President of the United States of America on taking office."

After claiming an openness to establishing "smooth relations of cooperation" with the U.S., Putin noted, "We are also open to dialogue with the new US Administration on the Ukrainian conflict."

Putin stated the goal of such talks "should not be a short truce, not some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict, but a long-term peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people, all nations living in this region."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy similarly congratulated Trump on his inauguration and noted in a statement that the 47th president "is always decisive, and the peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace, which is the top priority."

Following President Joe Biden's suggestion that Putin "does not want any full-blown war," Russian forces stormed into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. After 1,061 days of fighting, which has brought death to hundreds of thousands and displacement to millions of people — Russia now occupies roughly 18% of the country.

'Politics is the art of compromise.'

While both nations reportedly came close to negotiating an end to the conflict in early 2022 — where Russia's primary requirement was that Ukraine stay indefinitely out of NATO — the talks fell apart. The New York Times indicated that Russians killed the negotiations with a toxic clause that would have given Moscow a veto on military interventions by the U.S. and other nations on Ukraine's behalf. The Kremlin alternatively suggested that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was responsible for killing the talks.

In the years and months since, Kyiv and Moscow have worked to maximize battlefield advantage and territorial coverage at least in part to negotiate ultimately from relative positions of strength. Zelenskyy, however, told the French paper Le Parisien last month that Ukraine does not have the military wherewithal to retake the territory presently occupied by Russia.

"If today we don't have the strength to win back all of our territory, maybe the West will find the strength to put Putin in his place ... at the [negotiating] table and diplomatically deal with this war," said Zelenskyy.

Putin told reporters in December that "politics is the art of compromise. And we have always said that we are ready for both negotiations and compromise."

He previously noted, however, that while amenable to "reasonable compromises," the "outcome should be in favor of Russia."

The Times noted that negotiations will likely require consensus not only on territorial recognition, troop withdrawals, and on Ukraine's potential international affiliations, but also on a host of secondary questions regarding, for instance, the matter of reparations and who will rebuild Ukraine's toppled cities; what will happen to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Putin; and whether the U.S. will lift its sanctions on Russia.

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Former Israeli Military Officials Float Audacious Plan To Strike Iran in Final Days of Biden Presidency

JERUSALEM—Two former Israeli military officials have proposed that Israel launch a major attack on Iran in the final days of Joe Biden's presidency.

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Report: China Rapidly Builds Up Weapons And Psychological Warfare Operations

China’s military buildup and cognitive warfare strategy are clear indications of its intent to defeat the U.S. and its allies by any means necessary.

US Navy apparently shot down own plane over Red Sea



The U.S. Navy apparently shot down one of its own two-seat F/A-18F Super Hornets over the Red Sea on Sunday around 3 a.m. local time. Although one of the pilots was injured, U.S. Central Command indicated that both were safely rescued.

CENTCOM did not provide an indication of the American F/A-18's mission prior to being shot down; however, U.S. forces in the area have recently been conducting airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi militants and their facilities in Yemen as well as taking out ISIS targets in Syria.

Over the weekend, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy assets reportedly shot down multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile and also conducted strikes against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility in Sana'a, Yemen. Days earlier, CENTCOM whacked ISIS leader Abu Yusif aka Mahmud via a precision airstrike in the Dayr az Zawr province.

A Navy official told U.S Naval Institute News that the downed F-18 was assigned to Carrier Air Wing One and embarked aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, which entered the CENTCOM area of responsibility on Dec. 14.

'Another indicator of how pathetic a state of readiness our military is in.'

USNI indicated that the crew are most likely with the Red Rippers of Strike Fighter Squadron 11 from Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.

The strike group, part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, is presently focused on razing Houthi military installations and protecting merchant traffic and American vessels in the southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden from attack.

CENTCOM said in a statement that the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, commanded by Alaska native Captain Justin Hodges, "mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18" fighter craft that was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman, confirming that "this incident was not the result of hostile fire."

The Associated Press suggested that earlier Houthi drone and missile attacks may have been responsible for the confusion that led to the alleged friendly fire.

Yahya Saree, a spokesman for the Houhi militants, claimed without evidence that Houthis shot down the F/A-18.

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor noted, "Yes, we shot down our own plane. If this doesn't put a cap on the worst Presidency of modern history, I'm not sure what does."

"This is another indicator of how pathetic a state of readiness our military is in, especially our U.S. Navy," tweeted retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

According to a 2024 Government Accountability Office report, "47 of the 49 aircraft we reviewed did not meet DOD's mission capable goals." A previous GAO report noted that between 2011 and 2021, the Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 jets under review almost always failed to meet their mission capable goal.

The Heritage Foundation concluded in its 2024 index of military strength that "as currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America's vital national interests."

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Biden calls toppling of Assad by US-designated terrorists who previously targeted Christians 'fundamental act of justice'



Turkish-backed Islamic militants led by the al-Qaeda spinoff group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization linked in its formative years to the late leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and whose current leader is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist who fought against American forces in Iraq — have seized the Syrian capital of Damascus following a 10-day shock offensive.

President Bashar al-Assad and his family successfully fled to Russia — a nation that with Iran backed the Assad regime during Syria's 13-year civil war despite its reported use of chemical weapons in Ltamenah and various other war crimes.

President Joe Biden addressed the regime change in a speech Sunday evening, claiming partial responsibility and stating, "Rebel forces have forced Assad to resign his office and flee the country."

"At long last, the Assad regime has fallen," continued Biden. "This regime brutalized and tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians. The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice. It is a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country. It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty."

Biden indicated further that the U.S. "will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk."

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of HTS who has a $10 million State Department bounty on his head, noted in his victory speech in Damascus' Umayyad Mosque that Syria would become "a beacon for the Islamic nation," reported Al Jazeera. "This victory is for all Syrians; they were all part of this victory."

Although HTS generally advocates for the imposition of Sharia law, al-Jolani has suggested there might be relative tolerance, including for non-Muslims. Nevertheless, the fate of the country's beleaguered Christian population — which has been reduced from 1.5 million people, or 10% of the population, to roughly 300,000 over the past decade — is uncertain.

'Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East.'

Jeff King, president of the persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern, said in a statement to the Christian Post, "The coming days and weeks will be crucial for the fate of [the] Christian community."

The European organization Christian Solidarity noted in a statement that reports from Aleppo indicated that so far, "Christians and religious minorities have been treated well by HTS and its allies. Still, HTS' ideology and history give religious minorities in Aleppo serious reason to doubt these promises."

Christian Solidarity indicated that the three primary religious minorities under threat in Syria are the Alawites, Druzes, and Christians. The first two groups are Muslim sects regarded as heretical by the jihadists that were previously protected by the Syrian government. Christians, while not similarly regarded as heretical, were also brutalized throughout the civil war by HTS terrorists.

"HTS has often targeted Christians throughout Syria in violent attacks and kidnappings, repeatedly killing Christian civilians and confiscating their property. Since 2012, the vast majority of Christians who lived in Aleppo or Idlib during the periods under the jihadists’ authority have fled," said Christian Solidarity.

Biden acknowledged in his speech that "some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human right abuses."

'THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.'

The Democratic president suggested that the victorious terrorists are, however, "saying the right things now, but as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words but their actions."

Within hours of U.S. Central Command forces conducting precision airstrikes on a different group of Islamic terrorists in Syria, Biden claimed credit for the demise of the Assad regime, suggesting that the following proved decisive: a "comprehensive sanctions program against [Assad]"; America's continued military presence in the country; support for "Israel's freedom of action against Iranian networks in Syria and against actors aligned with Iran"; and American military action against "Iranian networks."

"Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East," said Biden. "Through this combination of support from our partners, sanctions, diplomacy, and targeted military force when necessary, we now see new opportunities opening up for the people of Syria and for the entire region."

Biden vowed that the U.S. would do "whatever we can to support [the Syrian people], including through humanitarian relief to help restore Syria after more than a decade of war."

Although with just weeks left in office, Biden has signaled a role for the U.S. in Syria following the regime change, President-elect Donald Trump appears less than enthused about the prospect of getting bogged down.

Ahead of the rebel coalition taking Damascus, Trump noted on Truth Social, "Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"

Vice President-elect JD Vance, responding to Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin's celebration of the regime change, tweeted Sunday, "As President Trump said, this is not our fight and we should stay out of it. Aside from that, opinions like the below make me nervous. The last time this guy was celebrating events in Syria we saw the mass slaughter of Christians and a refugee crisis that destabilized Europe."

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This December, let's recall the spirit of the 1914 Christmas truce



That morning, the skies were clear. For the first time in months, they weren’t swarming with fighter planes and missiles. The air wasn’t yellow with noxious gas or red with the mist of blood.

You could not hear gunfire or explosions or the screams of dying men.

'First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up "O Come, All Ye Faithful," the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words "Adeste Fideles."'

“I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence,” veteran Alfred Anderson later said.

“It was a short peace in a terrible war.”

A pope's request

On that day in 1914, Christmas Day — not even six months after the start of World War I and about three years before it would end — troops all along the Western Front had a few precious hours to remember what peace was like.

Soldiers from England and Belgium and France arose from their muddy trenches, facing their enemies, and stepped onto the battlefields without a single weapon at the ready. The German troops did the same, and all the men gathered on the battered fields of Europe, where many of their fellow soldiers had lain dead for weeks, stuck in “no man’s land.”

Pope Benedict XV had called for a Christmas Day truce. Commanders on both sides outright rejected the idea and insisted that the men would fight, Christmas or not. But when Christmas Day arrived, a wave of humanity overtook the soldiers.

It began slowly, on Christmas Eve, described by one soldier as “a beautiful moonlit night, frost on the ground, white almost everywhere.”

It began quietly. It began with a song.

All ye faithful

Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade wrote:

First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up "O Come, All Ye Faithful," the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words "Adeste Fideles." And I thought, well, this was really a most extraordinary thing — two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.

The truce spread throughout the front, and about 100,000 soldiers honored the pope's truce.

The next morning, on Christmas Day, Germans troops shouted “merry Christmas” in English across the battlefield. They held up signs that read, “You no shoot, we no shoot.”

Men exchanged gifts. They gave haircuts; they even played soccer. For one day, they could live a somewhat normal life.

Life multiplied

Too often, the public is disconnected from its military. We forget the atrocities of war. Journalist Sebastian Junger writes about this in his book “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.” In 2009, Junger spent a year embedded with a platoon of Marines in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan, which was one of the deadliest places on earth at the time. He saw the tragedies that war brings.

He writes: “War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.”

By the end of World War I, there were an estimated 20 million people dead and 20 million wounded. It had been billed as “the war to end all wars,” but that would not be the case. In a matter of years, the world would become embroiled in yet another apocalyptic war.

But amid it all, the Christmas truce stands as a reminder that humanity can emerge at the darkest times, in the most broken places.

The truce of 1914 was seen by many officers and commanders as an act of mutiny and cowardice. To them, 100,000 had disobeyed their superiors’ orders. Adolf Hitler, then a corporal of the 16th Bavarians, reportedly said of the truce: “Such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor?” The fact that Hitler hated it makes the whole miracle shine even brighter.

A war on war

The soldiers themselves, the men dying in trenches and fields, engulfed by gas and smoke and blood, they saw it differently. For one day, the warfare did not involve one superpower against another superpower, with all the soldiers as pawns; it was bedraggled men against the superpower of war itself.

British soldier Murdoch M. Wood later said: “I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired.”

Unfortunately, that is not the case. War remains. Despite the dramatic drop in war and violence following World War 2, we still have to deal with the ugly realities of war. The people who live with those ugly realities the most are not the superpowers but the men themselves.

Sebastian Junger, in "Tribe," again: “Today's veterans often come home to find that, although they're willing to die for their country, they're not sure how to live for it.”

On Christmas Day, many soldiers will find themselves in combat zones, thousands of miles from home, and many veterans will find themselves just as lost and broken.

Let’s bring back the Christmas Day truce, for the women and men who must fight every other day of the year. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with, may Christmas be a day of peace and compassion. A day guided by hope. A reminder that our shared humanity is stronger than we know.

Israeli Cabinet Poised To Approve Lebanon Ceasefire Deal, With Biden Reportedly Promising 'Relief' From Delayed US Arms Shipments

Israel is reportedly poised to sign a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah that would pause hostilities for two months, remove fighting forces from both sides of the war-torn border, and deliver "significant relief from the arms embargo imposed by the U.S. on Israel."

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Biden Just Invited World War 3 By Greenlighting Long-Range Missiles Against Russia

'It would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict,' Putin warned in September.