Israeli attack hits Lebanon’s al-Majadel: Report

Lebanon’s National News Agency reports Israeli warplanes have now carried out an attack in the southern town of al-Majadel, around an hour after they threatened to strike a building there.

It is the third Lebanese town targeted by Israel today, after earlier attacks in Mahrouna and Jbaa. Israel’s military has also threatened to attack the southern Lebanese town of Braashit.

Israeli military strikes Lebanon’s Braashit

Israel’s military has hit a building in the southern Lebanese town of Braashit, shortly after issuing a warning. Lebanon’s National News Agency said the building, which was among several marked as targets, was completely destroyed.

Israel ‘sending a message’ with timing of Lebanon strikes

The timing of these strikes is significant. It appears Israel is sending a message. The strikes come just a day after there was an unprecedented shift in the nature of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon.

Lebanon agreed, no doubt under pressure, to appoint civilian representatives in talks as part of the US-led ceasefire monitoring committee, saying that they’re ready to discuss issues beyond security.

Now the message from Israel – this is the way it’s being seen here – is that despite the fact that they’re sitting down and talking for the first time in decades … these strikes will continue. Negotiations will be held under fire until Hezbollah is fully disarmed.

Why are they still calling it a ceasefire... 

Lebanese president says next round of talks with Israel later this month

President Joseph Aoun says further talks with Israel will take place on December 19 as Israeli forces continue routine attacks inside of Lebanon.

“It is natural that the first session would not be highly productive, but it paved the way for upcoming sessions that will begin on the 19th of this month,” said Aoun, according to Information Minister Paul Morcos.

The Lebanese leader said discussions are aimed at avoiding a “second war” while scores of people in southern Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect a year ago.

Guterres says Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza ‘fundamentally wrong’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the way Israel has waged its genocidal war on Gaza, describing it as “fundamentally wrong” and saying “there are strong reasons” to believe that Israeli forces have committed war crimes in the Palestinian territory.

“I think there was something fundamentally wrong in the way this operation was conducted with total neglect in relation to the deaths of civilians and to the destruction of Gaza,” Guterres told Reuters in an interview.

“The objective was to destroy Hamas. Gaza is destroyed, but Hamas is not yet destroyed. So there is something fundamentally wrong with the way this is conducted,” he said.

Asked if he believed Israeli forces may be guilty of carrying out war crimes since the conflict began more than two years ago, Guterres said, “There are strong reasons to believe that that possibility might be a reality.”

The goal was never to destroy Hamas, Hamas is the excuse to (continue to) destroy Gaza and make it unlivable. Guterres knows full well, but needs to be very careful with his words. Compromised. "that possibility might be a reality" How much evidence does he need... He's simply not allowed to state the facts. War crimes have been committed and continue to be committed on a daily basis.

Microsoft faces new complaint for allegedly aiding Israeli war crimes in Gaza

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has announced it filed a complaint against Microsoft, accusing the global tech giant of unlawfully processing data on behalf of the Israeli military and facilitating the killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

In the complaint, the council asked the Data Protection Commission – the European Union’s lead data regulator for the company – to “urgently investigate” Microsoft Ireland’s processing.

“Microsoft’s technology has put millions of Palestinians in danger. These are not abstract data-protection failures — they are violations that have enabled real-world violence,” Joe O’Brien, ICCL’s executive director, said in a statement.

“When EU infrastructure is used to enable surveillance and targeting, the Irish Data Protection Commission must step in — and it must use its full powers to hold Microsoft to account.”

After months of complaints from rights groups and Microsoft whistleblowers, the company said in September it cancelled some services to the Israeli military over concerns that it was violating Microsoft’s terms of service by using cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians.

Prisoners’ groups denounce death of 3 Palestinians in Israeli jails

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society have confirmed the death of three prisoners from Gaza in Israeli detention. The Palestinian prisoner rights NGOs issued a joint statement identifying the men as Taysir Saeed al-Abd Sababa (60), Khamis Shukri Mar’i Ashour (44), and Khalil Ahmad Khalil Haniyeh (35).

Sababa, a father of nine, died on December 31 last year, two months after his arrest. Haniyeh, a father of four, died on December 25, almost a year after his arrest. The statement did not specify when Ashour, a father of six, died.

The organisations said Palestinian prisoners continue to die in detention due to torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual assault, and systematic violations of human rights.

Palestinian detainees suffering ‘severe hunger’: Israeli legal office

A report by Israel’s public defender’s office says detention conditions for Palestinian prisoners have grown markedly worse since October 7, 2023, with many suffering severe hunger, massive overcrowding, and poor sanitary conditions.

Israeli officials such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have often bragged their policies have led to harsher conditions for Palestinian inmates.

The report said reduced food allotments for Palestinian prisoners introduced after the October 7 attacks on Israel have led to “severe hunger, manifested in sharp weight loss and accompanying physical symptoms including extreme physical weakness and even fainting”, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The public defender’s report – based on visits to Israeli detention facilities such as Ramon, Megiddo, Ayalon, Shatta, Eshel and Ketziot – also stated that Palestinian detainees “are held in dark cells without lighting, in harsh sanitary conditions, in stifling heat and without ventilation”.

Many detainees suffer poor health conditions as a result, it added.

Netanyahu will win again because in Israel ‘there is none like him’

Israel hasn’t talked about the “war” in Gaza for many weeks. After all, there’s a ceasefire in place, is there not?

The fact that more than 350 Palestinians, including more than 130 children, have been killed during this so-called “ceasefire” is neither here nor there, as is the fact that Israel killed them. Palestinians die because that is what Palestinians are there to do. There is nothing to discuss.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pardon request, however, is another ball of wax. It is all anyone in Israel seems to be talking about, on every side of the political divide.

Nothing better reflects the Netanyahu age.

Eurovision allows Israel to compete in 2026 despite calls for ban

Eurovision says it will not hold a vote on Israel’s participation in the musical contest, dodging calls for a ban over widespread rights abuses by Israeli forces in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Eurovision’s decision not to hold a vote means Israeli contestants will be able to compete in 2026, prompting pledges to boycott the competition from countries, such as Spain and the Netherlands.

Other international bodies, such as the football organisation FIFA, have also sidestepped calls to bar Israel from participation over its genocidal war in Gaza.

Critics say those refusals point to a double standard that has shielded Israel from accountability, pointing to past actions against countries such as Russia, which was swiftly banned by FIFA and UEFA within four days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Slovenia says it won’t participate in Eurovision as Israel allowed

Slovenia is the latest European country to refuse to take part in Eurovision in 2026 after the competition declined to hold a vote on whether to ban Israel.

“Our message is we will not participate … if Israel is there – on behalf of the 20,000 children who died in Gaza,” said RTV Slovenia Board Chairwoman Natalija Gorscak.

Earlier, Ireland’s public broadcaster RTE said it will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest after organisers of the massive music event approved Israel’s participation despite calls for its exclusion.

“Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,” RTW said.

Israel says negotiators in Cairo to discuss last captive’s remains

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office says a team of Israeli negotiators travelled to the Egyptian capital today to discuss the release of the final Israeli captive’s remains from Gaza.

The body of Ran Guili, an Israeli police officer, is believed to still be in the Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli delegation in Cairo was led by Gal Hirsch – Israel’s hostages and missing persons coordinator – and included representatives from the Israeli military and the Shin Bet and Mossad security agencies, according to the statement from Netanyahu’s office.

Once the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase is finished with the return of all living and deceased captives, the second phase is supposed to begin with its military’s full withdrawal. Israel, however, still refuses to discuss the second phase until the last body is returned.

A lack of progress is not surprising. Analysts point out the previous truce collapsed in March before the second phase had even begun as Israel launched major military strikes.

What happens next under the US-brokered Gaza peace plan?

Negotiations on the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire continue without significant progress.

President Donald Trump’s plan has various stages: a truce, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, setting up a new administration for Gaza, and then finally the reconstruction of the territory levelled by Israel’s genocidal war.

For now, the Israeli government demands that the last captive’s remains are returned before any talks begin on the second phase via the mediating countries: the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye.

Egypt will also host a conference on Gaza’s reconstruction that will focus on the territory’s humanitarian needs, but no date has yet been set.

“Israel doesn’t really seem to be putting any serious thought into what the post-war phase is supposed to look like,” said Michael Milshtein, a researcher at Tel Aviv University.

Gaza family incinerated in Israeli air strike on ‘safe zone’

Israel burned a Palestinian family to death in their tent while bombing a displacement camp and a nearby hospital in southern Gaza. The victims included a father and his two children, aged eight and 10.

Israeli artillery shelling targets Syria’s Quneitra province

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reports the Israeli military fired several artillery shells into its southern Quneitra region, as well as the western countryside of Deraa. Citing a reporter in Quneitra, the news agency said Israeli forces attacked the outskirts of Kuwaya, a town in western Deraa, and Tal Ahmar Sharqi in Quneitra.

The Israeli army also set up a checkpoint on a road connecting two villages in Quneitra, the news report said.

Israel has carried out a series of deadly bombings as well as frequent army incursions into Syrian territory since the fall of longtime President Bashar al-Assad last December.

Hamas says slain Gaza gang leader Abu Shabab met ‘inevitable fate’

The Palestinian group says the killing of Yasser Abu Shabab in Gaza is “the inevitable fate of all who betray their people and homeland and are content to be tools in the hands of the [Israeli] occupation”.

As we reported, Abu Shabab led an armed group said to have received Israel’s support as part of an effort to weaken Hamas. His so-called Popular Forces were also accused of looting humanitarian aid during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“The criminal acts perpetrated by the so-called Yasser Abu Shabab and his gang represent a blatant departure from the national and social consensus,” Hamas said in a statement on Telegram.

“We affirm the occupation, which failed to protect its own agents, will be unable to protect any of its lackeys, and the fate of all who tamper with the security of their people and serve their enemy is to fall into the dustbin of history, losing all respect and standing in their society.”

More on Israeli collaborator killed in Gaza

Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader based in Israeli-held Rafah in southern Gaza, led the most prominent of several small anti-Hamas groups that emerged during Israel’s genocidal war that began more than two years ago.

Main events on December 4th

• Yasser Abu Shabab, who gained notoriety in Gaza as the leader of a gang accused of collaboration with Israel and the theft of humanitarian aid, was killed under circumstances that remain unclear.
• Hamas said Abu Shabab met the “inevitable fate” of those who betray their people and their territory.
• Israel carried out air strikes across Gaza, killing at least six people – including children and women – and wounding 16 others as it continues to violate the October 10 US-brokered ceasefire.
• The Israeli military attacked four towns in southern Lebanon as President Joseph Aoun announced a second round of civilian talks with Israel will take place on December 19 to prevent “a second war”.
• The singing tournament Eurovision said it will not hold a vote on whether to ban Israel from participating because of its genocide in Gaza, leading a number of nations to refuse participation.
• A 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shot in the head during an Israeli army raid on the city of Qalqilya, the occupied West Bank, in the latest military violence there.

Setback to Netanyahu in Gaza as key collaborator dies; Hillary Clinton’s warning

In a huge blow to Benjamin Netanyahu and his western backers, theman they projected as an alternative to Hamas has died. His name is Yasser Abu Shabab and he led a group called Popular Forces. He and his group members were responsible for looting aid materials during the Gaza siege. Rifat Jawaid looks at the significance of this man, fresh strikes in Gaza, how UK media reported this tragedy and why Hillary Clinton is issuing a warning to Tel Aviv.

Israel's Secret Plot EXPOSED



Not much of a secret, they have been shouting it since the start.