On 25th March 2026 the Irish State’s UN representative declined to vote in favour of the UN Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity.1
The voting patterns reveal much about the world and the position within it that is occupied by the Irish state. The total voting membership present was 193, out of which 123 voted YES, i.e. in favour of the resolution. But where was the Irish State? It abstained, along with 51 other states.2
The Western Powers, its chief the United States and including Australia, Canada and all western Europe, including of course all EU states, abstained.
But most of the eastern Europeanstates also abstained: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
Voting YES in Eastern Europe were Azerbaijan, Belarus and the Russian Federation,
In Africa, including North Africa, all states voted YES for the motion.
In East Asia, China, Mongolia, North Korea and South Korea voted YES but Japan followed the Western Powers in abstaining (Taiwan is not a UN member state).
In S.E. Asia only Cambodia abstained, the rest of the states in the region voting YES.
In Central Asia, all UN member states voted YES.
In Western Asia (previously termed ‘the Middle East’), only Oman abstained, all other states in the region voting YES, i.e. in favour of the resolution.
In the Western Pacific only Palau and in the Southern Pacific, only Fiji abstained (along with Australia and New Zealand, as noted earlier, as medium powers within the Western Bloc).
In Latin America, only Paraguay abstained and as we’ll see, Argentina voted No to the motion. All other Latin American countries vote in favour.
Yes, Argentina actually voted against the motion, one of only three states voting NO, the other two being the United States and Israel.
The Irish state’s excuse for their abstention included3 “ … concerns regarding certain legal references and assertions that are either inaccurate or inconsistent with international law.”
While the Minister’s response seems to indicate concern over terminology and legality, the Irish representative’s abstention coincided with the whole of the EU, as the Minister indicated but also with most European states and with the Western Powers.
Or in line with the ‘Global North’, in other words. And against the votes of the overwhelming majority of the states of the ‘Global South’. Ireland is geographically located in Western Europe but as a neo-colony (and direct colony in the Six Counties), Ireland belongs much more to the Global South.
In declining to join the vote for the Declaration, the representatives of the Irish State not only aligned themselves with the Western Powers and took a shameful stand in modern times but also went against the history of the Irish people and even of the Irish bourgeoisie itself.
In one of the two recorded writings of 5C St. Patrick, he wrote fiercely denouncing Coroticus, the British Celtic leader who was raiding Ireland and taking slaves.4
Cromwell in 1649 after his sack of Drogheda had Irish men and women sent as slaves to English colonies in Virginia and Barbados.
Yes, I say SLAVES. Although later Irish people were transported to the British colonies as contracted indentured servants, bound to their master for up to 10 years, the notion that Cromwell managed some kind of servant recruiting service among surviving captives in 1649 is ludicrous.5
Irish patriotic songs are full of hostile references to symbolic slavery, for example The Soldiers’ Song: No more our ancient sire land/ Shall shelter the despot or the slave and Who Fears to Speak of ‘98: He’s all a knave or half a slave/ Who slights his country thus …
Many Irish Republicans of the late 18th Century including the United Irishmen abhorred slavery and boycotted sugar because it was harvested by slave labour from sugar cane on colonial plantations.
Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847), better known for campaigning for an end to the anti-Catholic laws of the English occupation, was nevertheless a tireless campaigner against chattel slavery. Escaped slave and campaigner Frederick Douglass recorded hearing him mentioned by Irish labourers in the US.
Douglas came to Ireland to escape slave-catchers, staying from 31 August 1845 to January 1846, being welcomed into upper class private houses across Ireland and to address meetings and congregations. In Dublin, Douglass attended a Repeal Association meeting to hear O’Connell speak.
Frederick Douglass (Photo sourced: Internet)
At the meeting at Conciliation Hall on September 29, 1845, learning that the famous abolitionist was in the crowd, O’Connell invited Douglass to join him on stage and to address the audience, which experience made a deep impression upon Douglass’ life.
Although Irish migrants enlisted in the US Army and fought in wars of conquest, in the US-Mexican War (1846-1848) a significant number had deserted to form the St. Patrick’s Battalion and fought on the Mexican side against the USA.
Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829 while many states in the US still upheld it, including Texas which the US had conquered earlier from Mexico.
The Young Irelanders received the Irish Tricolour from women activists of the 1848 French revolution in Paris. They supported the Second French Republic and its Abolition of slavery.
Although John Mitchell, one of the Young Irelanders’ leaders, espoused the Confederacy other Young Ireland leaders supported the Union in the American Civil War (1861-1865), including Thomas Meagher as Captain in the 69th New York Militia, later as Brigadier-General in the Union Army.
Thomas Francis Meagher as Union Army officer and Governor of Montana. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The vast majority of Irish young males who survived emigration to the US from 1845 to 1866 fought in the Union Army in the American Civil War, which is to say on the anti-slavery side.The Fenians in the USA too, as an organisation, mostly fought on the Union side.
The Irish capitalist bourgeoisie, now the neo-colonial Gombeen class, has degraded so much, sunk so far that it cannot even stand by its own weakly progressive strands, never mind by the principles of the earlier Irish Republican bourgeoisie or those of the democratic populace today.
end.
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APPENDIX
First modern abolition of slavery
Vermont Republic (later a State in the USA) 1777
Second
Republic of France 1794 but reinstated briefly by Napoleon 1802
Third
Haiti Revolution and Independence (1791), 1804.
Fourth
Mexican Republic, 1810-1829
Fifth
UK 1833/ 34 (but the UK undermined the US Union during the American Civil War by building warships for the Confederacy, contraband smuggling and raids from Canada. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Affair)
5Unlike the case of the imported black slaves, their slave status continuing on to their children if occurred at all, would have been rare unless of course the children were visibly part-African.
SOURCES
2026-03-25 UN General Assembly Resolution on the Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660
Cycling along the Liffey quays some time back I saw a crowd waving Tricolour and other flags and heard a roar of “Get them out!” No mystery about the origin: the far-Right racists that crawled out into the light in recent years, targeting migrants.1
The same cry has been heard outside proposed IPAS centres and in other demonstrations that can mostly be characterised as anti-immigrant and anti-refugee.
Scene with cars set alight by racist Loyalist mobs in Belfast on 6 June.At least three houses were also set ablaze. (Photo: Getty images)
But why should we be “getting them out”? In answer to that question all we get is lying propaganda. “They are getting housing instead of Irish people.” No, they are not. Some refugees are getting hostel accommodation and many are not, even though Ireland has signed up to accept some.
If refugees are getting such good treatment, why would so many be living in tents on streets, parks or along canal banks? And why are far-Right fascists threatening them and slashing their tents? Are they claiming that refugees are doing them out of living in tents themselves?
In fact we never had widespread affordable decent housing but high emigration made it less noticeable. All the same there were struggles in the 1960s and 70s led by the Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Housing Action Committees, involving occupations of houses and fighting evictions.
Another claim is that migrants are a threat to Irish women. Why would that be the case? Yet, every day in the mass media we read of cases of rape, sexual harassment and controlling behaviour of women — by Irish men!
The far-Right also claim that migrants are a threat to children (actually, they often claim that LGBT people are also, calling them ‘paedos’). Fact: the major threat to children in Ireland have been Irish institutions including the Catholic Church, which is strongly defended by the far-Right.
Sociological research shows that most sexual abuse of children happens in the family or friend circle and we regularly read in the media of those cases also – nearly always by Irish men.
Then there’s the “military-age single men” mantra – what does that even mean? Military age is usually understood to be between 17 and 45 years of age. It is in other words the age at which most men emigrate to work in other lands. The age at which most Irish emigrated!2
It’s also an age of most health and physical ability to travel, to work and to send money home, as hundreds of thousands of us Irish did, whether single or married, or the optimum age to risk the dangers of being a refugee trying to find somewhere safe for one’s family to follow.
Research shows that the “military-age single men” mantra is a recent addition to Irish far-Right discourse, some believing it an import from the far-Right in the USA, along with the racist “great white replacement” conspiracy theory, adapted here to “replacing the Irish” conspiracy theory).
Which reminds me that the arrival of migrants is often characterised as “an invasion.” Really? When we emigrated in the past or today for work or safety from persecution, were or are we invading England, Scotland, Wales, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Or other countries?
We are not being invaded by refugees or migrant workers. But we have been invaded by British troops and colonial police, foreign multinationals, and US and NATO flights.
The far-Right in Ireland hate foreigners and their imagined ‘invasion’, but not it seems the reality of British troops occupying one-sixth of our country and patrolling it with their colonial and sectarian police force. Nor the reality of the RAF and the USAF violating our airspace.
Nor the foreign multinationals and vulture funds controlling our housing market, taking over Irish firms and public infrastructure and plundering our national resources.
Get them out? Well if migrants and their contribution to Irish society were to be ‘got out’, there would be a massive task facing the far-Right.
We should then get rid of the Tricolour, as it was presented to us by foreigners: revolutionary Republican women in Paris in 1948. We should also reject the Irish Republic flag, which was created on domestic material in the home of Constance Markievicz, who was born in London.
Yes, and she delivered it in 1916 to the GPO so that it was raised on the Princes Street corner of the GPO by a man who was born in Argentina. Of course, inside the GPO were Thomas Clarke and James Connolly, the first born in England and the second in Edinburgh (where he was raised too).
I do recall a racist recently denouncing the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign for pointing out the foreign origins of those two signatories of the 1916 Proclamation and insisting that it was where their parents came from that mattered.
What then of Patrick and Willie Pearse, whose father was English or Tomás McDonagh, whose mother was English too? Or Thomas Davis, whose father was Welsh? Clearly there’s a massive job ahead with “getting them out”, all these foreign connections in our resistance history.
Many of our martyrs and heroes, writers, song composers, musicians, flags, songs, poems, literature, documents “contaminated” by migrants will need to dumped if the far-Right are honest in their slogans. But they are not, of course – they only use them to fool the masses.
“But who is he writing this for? The organised fascists won’t care and their followers won’t read it.” A good question – to whom we speak and write is as important as what we speak and write. I don’t write it for the organised fascists of course, the debate with them will inevitably be a physical one.
Nor do I write it for their deluded followers, who would hardly be reading articles in the Rebel Breeze blog. I write it for you and you and you, to use in your discussions with the deluded followers, those who are willing to listen because you are neighbours, workmates or families.
And if you already knew all this or I have not written it well enough or you fail in using it and other arguments you use, I’m sorry, I and you did our best. In the end, the argument will be resolved in the street and on barricades. And we need to get ready for that too.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1I wrote this quite some time ago but it never got posted for some reason or other. After the racist riots in Belfast seems a good time to dig it out and post it.
As campaigners marched in Dublin on June 6th seeking justice for the death of Terence Wheelock in a Garda station in 2005, yet another death in Garda custody was announced in the media.1
Terence Wheelock was a young man from Summerhill, a north Dublin inner-city area housing many from a working class background. On that fateful day he set out to buy a paintbrush for a painting job but was ambushed by Gardaí lying in wait for youths who had stolen a car.
Terence had nothing to do with that but his protests were ignored and it may be that his insistence on his innocence merely infuriated the Gardaí further. In Store Street Garda station Terrence acquired his fatal injuries which the Gardaí claimed resulted from attempted suicide.
However, the Gardaí directed the family to the wrong hospital for Terence, which gave them the time and opportunity to dispose of his clothes (which were never produced in evidence) and quickly redecorated the cell in which Terence had been held.
Tension between youths and police is a well documented social fact but when the youth are from working class areas a certain dimension is often added to that antagonism. In addition, the Gardaí are aware that the families of the youths lack access to middle-class sources of social influence.
MARCH THROUGH CITY CENTRE TO GARDA STATION
Saturday’s protest began at Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance with a rally addressed by Sammy Wheelock, brother of the deceased Terence and campaigner for justice for the family over many years, taking over a leading role from another brother, Larry Wheelock who died a few years ago.
Campaign banner held up beside Remembrance Garden by (R-L) Sammy Wheelock and Mary Lou McDonald. (Photo supplied by S.Wheelock)
The march set off down along Parnell Square and into O’Connell Street, Dublin city’s main thoroughfare, down to the quays and left along to the Busáras, turning left again there and up to Store Street Garda station, the location where Terence Wheelock received his fatal injuries.
In front of the station Conor Reddy and Boyd Barrett of PBP both spoke, as did Janice Boylan of Sinn Féin, James O’Toole of Red Media and Sammy Wheelock again. Róisín Tracy read a poem and Jacob Guerin sang a song, both compositions regarding Terrence’s death.
Sammy Wheelock commented also on the harassment and rough treatment meted out to young men from the area on their way to or from work or college, when they are identified by their casual street clothes of tracksuits, etc. This is also a theme taken up in an article by the Aontacht media.2
A clip posted on Facebook recently (believed to be from the Coolock area) shows two plainclothes Gardaí treating a youth roughly while they search him.3
According to a report published by Fiosrú, the office of the Police Ombudsman,4 incidents in or following Garda custody accounted for eight referrals in 2024, involving five deaths and three serious injuries. The report for 2005 is awaited.5
The Gardaí have also killed before any arrest, as with George Nkencho who was shot dead during a mental illness episode in the family garden in 2020, Mark Hennessy in a car park in 2018, Gareth Molloy (2009) and Ronan Mac Lochlainn (1998) both shot by undercover Gardaí.
In each of those cases and in others the Gardaí have been officially exonerated of any blame.
Solidarity with Palestine protesters, housing activists occupying empty property and anti-NATO protesters have all been subjected to Garda violence6and humiliation7 during the past year.
As the State feels a growing necessity to increase repression and as economic conditions worsen, Garda violence will be on the increase with a probable increase also in deaths at their hands.
It is essential for all revolutionary, progressive and civil liberty sectors of society to unite against Garda violence, to protest incidents of Garda violence and to keep alive the memory of past incidents of violence by the police force of the Irish State.
There will be another public event in the campaign on Saturday September 19th with details to be announced nearer the time.
end.
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1https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2026/0607/1577165-garda-custody-death/ Fiosrú said that they would not comment as an investigation was underway but that did not prevent a number of media outlets and the Gardaí from making public remarks about the deceased’s alleged character and alleged crimes, the subtext seeming to be that it’s all right that he died in Garda custody or at least that no-one should worry too much about where and how he died.
4This agency is funded through the Department of Justice but claims to be independent, i.e not biased towards the Gardaí, a claim disputed by people including myself (from personal experience).
6Baton blows, rough handling such as throwing to the ground, handcuffs cutting circulation, pepper-spraying into the face from very close proximity and even breaking a foot.
Two famous people addressed a crowd outside Leinster House, home of the Parliament of the Irish State on 25th May. Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian scholar, had forged a remarkable friendship.
Section of participants in the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Bassam Aramin, now a Palestinian scholar, had been sentenced to a 7-year term of imprisonment for throwing a grenade at Israeli soldiers when he was 17 and had lost his daughter later to a plastic bullet fired at short distance by an IOF soldier.
Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, had also lost his daughter Smada but to a suicide bomber in 1997. Both men became advocates of peace and dialogue and friends to one another.
Their audience was the weekly Dubs for Palestine gathering outside Leinster House on Wednesdays 12 noon to about 1.00 pm, with speeches, songs and poetry and David Hickey as MC. This week’s was the 113th such weekly gathering and the duo had been invited to speak.
The broad group has of late been concentrating on parting the Gaelic Athletic Association1 from its sponsor and insurance underwriter, the former Nazi and since Zionist-friendly Allianz company, along with now campaigning for the Irish soccer team not to play the ‘Israeli’ team.
Rami Elhanan (L-R) and Basam Araminaddressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Rami Elhanan referenced his descent from Holocaust survivors and outlined the different living standards of the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish communities, commenting on the sickness in Israeli society, that they did not want to know what is being done in their name to the Palestinians.
Basam Aramin’s contribution was against the Occupation and claimed that without that, Palestinians and Israelis could live in peace (it was not clear whether he was referring to the ‘Two State’ proposal2). David Hickey, the MC of the group presented them with an Arum Lily each.3
After their speeches had been applauded, they were asked to comment on the recent Leinster House debate and the Government’s refusal to endorse a boycott of Israel. Rami Elhanan replied that boycotts entrenched opposing sides and that continuing to talk was the answer.
Singer and activist Emma Browne, invited next to the microphone, sang Keep the Little Flame Alive, among the lyrics of which Faye, Dolores, Bernadine, Table grapes and gasoline, Homemade rifles, kitchen knives, Kept the little flame alive riposted the previous speakers.
Soon afterwards, Paul Lynch read a poem of a Palestinian father mourning the killing of his child. Poet and activist Dorothy Collin declared that in order to have peace there must be justice first and that we must support the oppressed in whatever way they choose to resist.
Áine Ruttley reading her poem while addressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Áine Rutley also upheld our duty of solidarity and the right of the Resistance movement to choose its own methods, as did Jimi Cullen who then performed his own song composition The Freedom Fighter about a fighter from Gaza.
As I was called to the microphone, I commented that my views had already been well expressed in song and speech and that one of the forms of resistance is song, of which we had more than probably any other people in the world and sang An Dord Féinne,4 which is banned in Germany.
A little later the event came to an end with another song from Emma Browne, Never Again Is Now and with group chanting for Palestine, against Allianz and against playing the ‘Israeli’ team.
IN CONCLUSION
It is a popular proposition in certain circles that all social conflicts can be resolved by discussion, by understanding our opponents’ view. It is an attractive idea but flies in the face of history and of contemporary reality.
The interests of Occupied and Occupier are opposed and cannot be reconciled through understanding. The Occupier understands that the Occupied wish to be rid of them. The Occupied do understand that the Occupier wishes to continue appropriating their land and resources.
In this kind of situation one must win and the other lose. Far from understanding leading to peaceful resolution, the more the oppressed understand the nature of their oppressor, the more resolutely they are likely to resist and this is surely true of the Palestinians resisting the Zionist settlers.
The false proposition of resolving irreconcilable interests through discussion is usually of liberal or social-democratic origin when applied to anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-racist struggles and though appearing even-handed, always ends up disempowering the victimised.
The journeys of both these men is extraordinary and interesting but it should not be presented as representative of the Palestinian struggle against Occupation, Theft and Genocide. Each father lost a child but the Palestinian is losing a lot more on top.
Furthermore, a just resolution can only come about through the total defeat of the Zionist forces and the dismantling of their State, so that if we really want that kind of resolution we are called to support the Palestinian side, unequivocally and resolutely.
Of course, in reality there is no question of real peace without justice, for ultimately the oppressed (unless wiped out) will rise in struggle again and again. The proposition of accommodation of opposites by discussion can only undermine or distract the struggle of the oppressed.
We cannot take the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, however remarkable, as even a metaphor for a just resolution nor allow ourselves to be seduced from resistance nor our struggle undermined by it.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1The management of the Gaelic games, including hurling and Gaelic football. The GAA has teams in every one of the 32 counties of Ireland, crossing the colonial border and is the biggest community sports association not only in Ireland but also in Europe and perhaps in the world.
2This proposal came out of the Oslo Accords, to give the Palestinians 20% of their land for peace with the Zionist settlers who would own the remaining 80%. Apart from its basic injustice the proposal was never realistic since Zionist settlers continued to construct settlements on additional land. Despite this, supporting that proposal is the formal position of most western imperialist states and the Irish State and of most parliamentary political parties.
3In Ireland these are often viewed as symbolic of the 1916 Easter Rising.
4Also known as Gráinne Mhaol and Óró Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile, an Irish traditional song of some antiquity refashioned into an Irish resistance song by Patrick Pearse, a martyred leader of the 1916 Rising.
A vigil was held today outside Arnotts department store, Dublin at the site of the death of a man yesterday while being restrained by four men, apparently employed as security by the store.
The crowd grew dense in front of Arnotts in Henry Street Dublin as more people arrived to support the vigil about the killing of Yves Sakila. A woman can be seen displaying the flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A video of the four security staff restraining a man has now circulated widely. It is brutal. He is being held face down with one operative pressing his head to the ground. Another is placing his knee against the man’s neck and then shoving hard it inwards while the man’s cries are ignored.
The other two, not clearly in view, are presumably restraining at least his legs.
View of the initial crowd in front of Arnotts in Henry Street Dublin to support the vigil about the killing of Yves Sakila. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
According to media reports, the man is alleged to have shoplifted something. That is an unproven allegation but even had it been so, are we to accept the endangering of a life to defend a commercial company from the theft of some article?
Are we to accept the right of a commercial company’s security team to brutally take a suspect down and to restrain him without regard to the safety of his life?
It is possible but not yet certain that attitudes to race played a part in Yves’ treatment. One of the speakers at the vigil today seemed to say that was not so, that it could’ve happened to anyone in the hands of that security team. Perhaps. And perhaps not.
One of the Congolese adjusting flower offerings in mourning forthe killing of Yves Sakilain Henry Street in front of Arnotts. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Just over five years ago George Nchengo, a Nigerian experiencing an episode of mental illness, was shot dead by Gardaí. While brandishing a knife he was in his own family’s garden and of no immediate threat to the Gardaí or anyone else but they were cleared by GSOC investigation.1
The victim’s name is Yves Sakila, of Congolese background, who came to Ireland as a child, where he attended secondary school 22 years ago, according to one of the speakers at the vigil. A number of apparently Congolese spoke, most in English and one in French and were widely applauded.
One of the speakers angrily drew attention to the recently-reported racist comments of Fianna Fáil politician and former Taoiseach (Prime Minister equivalent) Bertie Ahern, who in his anti-immigration comment specifically mentioned people from the Congo.
Another view of the initial crowd in front of Arnotts in Henry Street Dublin to support the vigil about the killing of Yves Sakila. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
That is a man who used his Government positions to rip off the Irish people and was judged by the Mahon Tribunal to have lied during at least four sessions of the Tribunal from 2007 to 2008 about the purpose of substantial cash transactions during his time as Minister of Finance.
Gardaí were present at the vigil today but in the background. One Congolese man told the crowd he was an engineer and paid his taxes in Ireland. A few Congolese present were in Dublin Bus jackets, with a white-skinned man in the same uniform talking to them.
The crowd of both black and white-skinned people took up chants of No Violence! and Justice for Yves! Flowers were purchased from a street stall, brought to a nearby spot and attached to a lamppost. A group of African women led a chant in a circling dance around the spot.
One of the Congolese explained to me that the chant is a mourning one and, in reply to my comment about the keeners in our tradition, said that they also have women who come to funerals to perform that service; like ours, there are also stories, songs and laughter amid the mourning.
There were photo and video cameras much in evidence with individuals being interviewed but there was no mention of the vigil in Breaking News this afternoon. RTÉ News issued a reasonably full report while the Independent seemed to be slanting against the victim.2
Earlier today the Irish Network Against Racism (INAR) issued a statement expressing concern and its Director Shane O’Curry was quoted calling for a thorough investigation “in order to ensure minority ethnic community confidence in the criminal justice system.”3
While expressions of concern are welcome, one needs to ask why one should expect the minority ethnic community to have confidence in the Irish criminal justice system. Quite apart from their own experience of it, many in the host communitythemselves have no confidence at all in it.
A number of presumably Congolese called for further protests at the spot: Thursday at 1pm and Saturday also at 1pm, Thursday’s at least to be followed by a march to Leinster House, the seat of the Parliament of the Irish State.
IN CONCLUSION
From the video alone there are clear grounds for the charging of the security team with manslaughter.
An early inquiry should be held – not one sitting years down the road4 – to also produce recommendations on appropriate types of restraint by security guards and on what occasions.
But Arnotts, as the responsible employer of the security staff, also has tough questions to answer. According to RTÉ their management expressed regret at the death: at the very least, out of respect, Arnotts should have closed today rather than carrying on business as usual.5
end.
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The Ard-Fheis1 of the Fianna Fáil political party, one of the main two parties in the Coalition Government, on Saturday was visually and aurally disturbed by Palestine solidarity protesters outside the Royal2 Conference Centre in Dublin.
Section of the protesters at the side gate to the Conference Centre. From here the protesters could see and be seen and heard by many of the Ard Fheis attendees. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
At College Green a broad group broke away from the monthly national march of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and headed for the Conference Centre booked by the Fianna Fáil party for its annual conference, to protest Government collusion in ‘Israel’s’ genocide.
The Irish state is the single biggest importer of ‘Israeli’ exports, flights of military-use material are permitted regularly through its airspace and US military flights regularly refuel at Shannon Airport in violation of the formal neutral status of the State.
A placard held by one of the protesters at the side entrance to the Conference Centre. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
To the frustration of Palestine activists, this continues to be the case despite the overwhelming majority public’s feelings about Palestine, ranging from sympathy and horror at the carnage to outright solidarity, accompanied by hostility towards the actions of the ‘Israeli’ Zionists.
Chant leaders using megaphones led the protesters in the usual call-and-answer chants of From the River to the Sea/ Palestine will be free! Enact/ the Occupied Territories Bill! Mícheál Martin, you can’t hide/ You’re supporting genocide! and Your hands are bloody too!
The depth of the genocide collusion of the State is clear from its constant shelving of the Occupied Territories Bill, a very mild measure which passed through both Houses back in 2018 but, despite promises and weakening further, is yet to be brought on to the floor of Leinster House for a vote.
Calls on the Government to Do your job! are mistaken and unfair – theyARE doing their job, their real job as representatives of the neo-colonial, neo-liberal Irish Gombeen class. What we need is for them to be unable to do their job and to be replaced by a people’s socialist government.
Garda violence had erupted earlier in the day when protestors sought to take advantage of an unsecured gate to bring their protest closer to the FF conference, Gardaí hurling people away and pepper-spraying a number.
No headlines such as “Protesters batoned and pepper-sprayed at Fianna Fáil conference” appeared and the fact received no mention in the media. Protesters expressed hostility towards a press photographer wearing a FF conference lanyard but others stepped in to his defence.
Presumably protesters want media coverage? The reporter was seen earlier inside the conference centre grounds attempting to approach the barrier where the protesters gathered but was repeatedly refused by the chief security person. He then came out to take photographs from among them.
Section of the IPSC march passing the main gate of Trinity College (the couple in foreground are probably just crossing the road here). Another section has passed and has reached and possibly passed Dawson Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The IPSC had advertised a protest at the FF ard-fheis for earlier in the day and presumably this was the one where people had tried to gain entry and had been attacked by the Gardaí. But most of those protesters had departed to join the IPSC march at 1pm from the Garden of Remembrance.
Could the main march not have been brought past the Conference Centre, even if continuing to the IPSC’s stage in Molesworth Street? Of course, many might have stayed to protest the FF event. Would that have been so bad? What has been achieved by the monthly ritual march up to now?
Possibly a shawl, carried by one of the women, possibly West Asian, who was happy for me to photograph it, on the IPSC march. (Photo: D.Breatnach).
In any case, the party faithful attendees at the annual conference of a senior member of the neo-liberal, neo-colonial Coalition Government were made unmistakably aware of what a section of the population – representing a great many others – think of them.
However the genocide continues without visible end. As does the Irish Government’s collusion. Wednesday will see a bill proposing sanctions against Israel being debated in the Irish Parliament; despite its broad support, the Government Coalition usually has the necessary numbers to beat it.
end.
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2Strange name for a venue chosen by a party with a Republican past history and which recently enough was claiming to be the ‘REAL Republican party’! The party was formed in a split in 1926 from the abstentionist Sinn Féin party on the issue of its elected representatives taking seats in the parliament of a partitioned Ireland.
2Strange name for a venue chosen by a party with a Republican past history and which recently enough was claiming to be the ‘REAL Republican party’! The party was formed in a split in 1926 from the abstentionist Sinn Féin party on the issue of its elected representatives taking seats in the parliament of a partitioned Ireland.
Outside the German Embassy in Dublin speakers denounced the German State’s repression of Palestine solidarity activists and their treatment as terrorists in solitary confinement in dispersed locations, increasing the visiting difficulties for relatives.
Organised by the broad group Dubs for Palestine, scores of people attended a lunchtime picket of the Embassy on Monday 27th April.1 In addition to the speeches and chants, songs were sung with particular relevance to the occasion and location.
The focus of this rally was in support of a group of five activists that includes a young man formerly of Dún Laoire, Daniel Tatler-Devally and have become known as the Ulm Five. They were alleged to have broken into an Elbit Systems facility in Ulm, Germany and caused damage inside.
Lynn Treacy, of the Devally-Tatler family support grou, speaking outside gates of the German Embassy, Dublin on Ulm Five solidarity rally April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Their action was in protest at the Israeli military systems company and its part in the genocide of Palestinians supported by the German state. One of the speakers was Daniel’s father, Conor Devally while Lynn Treacy, a friend of Daniel’s mother spoke on her behalf too.
Jimi Cullen, accompanied by Dermot outside gates of German Embassy, Dublin on Ulm Five solidarity rally. (Photo: R.Breeze)
The activists are being treated as terrorists, in seven months of solitary confinement, separated and dispersed throughout different jails long distances apart. Their trial is scheduled for separate days over a period from April to July, also causing relatives and friends great difficulty.
Jimi Cullen singing and playing guitar performed his own We Are All Palestinians, developed from the well-known chant on Palestine solidarity demonstrations, accompanied by Dermot Sheehan on drum.
Two prominent members of People Before Profit spoke, Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, a political and cultural activist and noted singer in the sean-nós style. Raymond Deane, composer and founding member of the IPSC spoke too as did political activist and singer Diarmuid Breatnach.
Richard Boyd Barret speaking at Ulm Five solidarity rally at German Embassy April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Ó Ceannabháin spent some time demolishing the discourse that Germany has an excuse for its repression of pro-Palestine solidarity because of alleged guilt due to its perpetration of the Hollocaust. He pointed to its genocidal history in Namibia and its leadership of EU imperialism.
The PBP member and election candidate for a councillor vacancy in DCC told the rally of Germany’s banning not only some Palestinian solidarity chants2 but also the song known as ‘Óró Sé do Bheatha Abhaile’3 which he proceeded to sing, the participants joining the chorus with gusto.
Ó Ceannabháin at Ulm Five solidarity rally at German Embassy April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Diarmuid Breatnach pointed out that the German working class had a strong history of struggle and at one time led the world in socialist and social-democratic representation, even recording a vote of 4.8 million votes for the Communist Party in the midst of Nazi repression.
Hans Beimler, a communist trade union activist, Breatnach said, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, went to Spain to fight in the Anti-Fascist War there and was killed. In his honour Breatnach sang two verses of The Peat Bog Soldiers4 followed by the ballad about Beimler.
Breatnach was accompanied on drum by Dermot Sheehan, a regular attendee at the weekly Wednesday Dubs for Palestine event outside Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State. An anti-Zionist Jewish activist spoke against Israeli Zionism and its support by Germany.
Naoise Dolan speaking at Ulm Five solidarity rally at German Embassy April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Speaking in German, Irish and English, Naoise Dolan, novelist, supporter of Palestine Action who was captured in piracy action by the IOF on the October 2025 Gaza aid flotilla, also spoke to denounce the attitude and actions of the German Government and Berlin police.
Ken Powell of Dubs for Palestine, who had acted as MC throughout, led the rally in chanting slogans of solidarity with Palestine including calling for the freedom of each of the Ulm Five by name before thanking all for their attendance and concluding the event.
end.
Early view of Ulm Five solidarity rally outside German Embassy April 29th as people are still arriving. (Photo: R.Breeze)
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FOOTNOTES
1The day the trial began in Germany but however did not proceed due to the presiding judge refusing to allow the Defence lawyers to sit with their clients and the lawyers’ refusal to proceed under those restrictions
2“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” which they claim is ‘anti-Semitic’; also “Globalise the Intifada.”
3An Dord Féinne is the actual title given by Patrick Pearse in his adaptation of a traditional song in Irish.
4A translation from the German song of the Communists in Nazi concentration camps which was eventually banned by the camp authorities under pain of death.
A recent arrest in France and concert in Dublin are connected by events in both countries a half-century earlier.1
The arrest in question by French police was on 16 April of Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, for alleged involvement in the 1982 attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the Marais district of Paris.2
The report of the arrest came less than a week after the Dublin commemoration by concert of another event, also half a century earlier. And strangely, there was a connection between both events.
On 11 April, a concert was held in Vicar Street to commemorate the arrest, torture, framing of three Irish Socialist Republicans and their jailing in 1986.3
Musicians, poets and journalists came together at the event, organised by musician Cormac Breatnach, brother of one of the accused, to commemorate the event and to press for an inquiry into three activists being tortured into making false confessions incriminating themselves.
And into how, despite their retractions and medical evidence of torture, they were then convicted of an event they had not committed. And how the legal system, from the Court of Appeal to the High Court, had all colluded in the injustice.
The trial in Ireland was for the Sallins Mail Train Robbery of 1976. The convicted three were Osgur Breatnach, Nicky Kelly and Brian McNally: Breatnach and Kelly were sentenced in the no-jury Special Criminal Court to 12 years, McNally to nine.
The day before sentence, Nicky Kelly jumped bail but returned nearly two years later when the convictions of Breatnach and McNally were deemed ‘unsafe’ and that their statements had ‘not been made voluntarily’.
However, the State insisted that the time period for registering an appeal had by then been exceeded and it took much campaigning and his own hunger strike before Kelly was finally released, on a Presidential pardon for a crime he had not committed.
A fourth, Mick Plunkett, had stood trial with the three on the same charges but having succeeded in not making a false confession under torture and threats, was finally acquitted. The French connection with the extradition of Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, is Plunkett’s.
Mick Plunkett4 had decided that, despite his escaping the framing, that the Garda Heavy Gang5 would be out to get him and that a departure to other climes might he healthy. Plunkett settled in France but did not give up his politics.
Photo: Joel Robine/ AFP
The Jo Goldenberg restaurant was subjected to a grenade and firearms attack on 9 August 1982, killing six and injuring 22.
On 28 August that year, Plunkett, Mary Reid and Stephen King (not the novelist) were arrested by a special anti-terrorist unit of the Gendarmerie (perhaps Le Gang Lourd, the Heavy Gang a la Francaise!).
The police claimed that all three were part of a terrorist organisation and that leaflets confirming that had been found in their apartment. And also firearms. All the allegations were vigorously denied by the three Irish activists.
Eventually the case against all three fell apart and they were released with, in time, the Gendarmerie admitting that the evidence against them had been ‘planted’ and the special unit was disbanded.6
One of the acts which the French police had claimed for the organisation of which they had falsely claimed membership of Plunkett, Reid and King was the attack on the Jo Goldberg Restaurant — the same incident for which the French Police have now charged Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra.
The French state got Khader Abed by extradition from Occupied Palestine. The State of Israel does not extradite its citizens anywhere but the Palestinian Authority was willing to do the job for France, which last year had officially recognised ‘the State of Palestine.’
end.
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Footnotes
1This story was published recently in the Irish language-only weekly An Páipéar (available in newsagents and online).
Last Saturday (26th April) in Dublin a march took place in support of Irish neutrality and in opposition to Irish Government attempts to remove an obstacle to joining some future imperialist military alliance.
The march was organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement, an organisation that flickers into life on occasion as desired by the leaders of the People Before Profit organisation, although some of its activists are not members of PBP. And not all marching by any means were members of either.
I have a regular commitment on Saturdays elsewhere until 1.30 and it’s at least 1.45 by the time I’m free. I caught up with the march as it began to wheel around Trinity College. At its destination1 I looked around to see how many flags were representative of the Irish nation.
I counted three Irish Tricolours and one other which was also combined with a Palestinian flag. I was carrying a Starry Plough flag (the original version of gold design on a green background).2 A total of four Irish national flags in a march of several hundred amidst lots of Palestinian flags.
The stupidity is almost beyond belief. The march was not organised primarily to express solidarity with Palestine but to call for Irish neutrality and for remaining outside NATO. However, one-sixth of the nation is inside NATO without even the pretence of democratic agreement.
The other five-sixths are what constitutes the Irish State, the one upon which the march was focused, to save the Triple Lock,3 to prevent the Gombeen Government from driving us into NATO or some other military alliance. But apparently to be done without symbolising the Irish nation.
Again, the stupidity stretches credulity. We have passed through a number of years in which the Far-Right and outright fascists, in order to disguise themselves as Irish nationalists, have appropriated primarily the Tricolour but also the Irish Republic flag which was created in 1916.
A situation was permitted to arise whereby to see many Irish Tricolours being carried was to suspect a far-Right event — and usually to have that suspicion confirmed as accurate. This occurred because the broad anti-fascist anti-racist movement in general allowed it to happen.4
The fault is primarily that of the Irish socialist Left and their dislike or distrust of nationalism and their association of the Tricolour with the Irish State. They fail to recognise it as a democratic, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist republican symbol of national sovereignty and resistance.
The design was presented to the Young Ireland movement by revolutionary women in Paris in 1848, the ‘Year of Revolutions’ in Europe. Its colours represent national revolutionary unity (White) between the indigenous Irish (Green) and the descendants of colonial settlers (Orange).
Unlike its presence among racist and homophobic gatherings, the Tricolour was completely appropriate for a march in support of Irish neutrality. But somehow this did not occur to the organisers of the march nor, apparently, to most of the participants.
There would be no need to exclude flags representing the socialist or anarchist movements nor indeed of struggles in other countries but on this march they should have been outnumbered by Irish Tricolour and Starry Plough flags.
The Republican movement, for all its faults, would not have failed in this representation. Sins of omission in politics can be as bad as those of commission and the almost absence of Tricolours on this march epitomises how badly some of the movement in defence of neutrality is being led.
The general absence of the Republican movement from this march, whatever their reasons, is to my mind another part of this problem.
End.
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1Molesworth Street, facing Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish State.
2Essentially the original design of the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, a workers’ defence militia during the 1913 Lockout which also fought in the 1916 Rising.
3A measure which does not permit the State to send more than 12 personnel abroad on a military mission unless with 1) a government decision, 2) a majority vote in the Irish Parliament and 3) a UN mandate. Recently leaders of the Coalition Goverment parties have been saying that a vote in the Parliament would not be necessary.
4This is not alone the fault of the PBP but also of the anarchists who did fight the fascists but also of the Republicans who, some notable attacks on the National Party aside, largely ignored the fascist and far-Right protests.
Until very recently it was a widely-held belief that Hezbollah, the main Lebanese Islamic resistance organisation, was finished as a serious threat to western imperialism in Lebanon and to Israeli Zionism.
Such analyses ignored the fact that the organisation’s fighters for nine weeks held back the IOF from advancing into South Lebanon and made the Zionist army pay a very heavy price for even trying to advance – a heavy price in tanks and bulldozers destroyed and in personnel casualties.
2024cartoon by D.Breatnach
All the same, it seemed strange that after doing so and agreeing to the ‘Israeli’ request for ceasefire, they suffered daily violations by the IOF including regular assassinations of people in Lebanon, many or at least some of which were presumably Hezbollah personnel, without a return to war.1
Hezbollah’s statements during that period indicated that they wished to expose the weakness of Lebanon’s Government and their domination by US imperialism. Yes, we might have thought, but day after day, and your people being bombed and members assassinated?
It did look as though not so much their military capabilities but their political leadership had been weakened greatly. Of course, the loss of Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated by the IOF, was grievious, as had been the mayhem of the exploding pagers and cellphones.2
And since despite all that, Hezbollah nevertheless stopped the IOF at their border and made them weep for their losses, it seemed that it was the political leadership that had weakened, rather than their fighting ranks.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese government reported on 26 February more than 15,400 ceasefire violations by Israeli forces, while more than 370 people had been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire requested by ‘Israel’ began.3
Whatever Hezbollah were waiting for is hard to say for sure. Possibly they were waiting for a Zionist war with Iran, in order to open up a second front against their enemy but if so it is strange that they did not go on the offensive immediately but launched their attack on March 2nd.
Even then, the initial Hezbollah attack seemed performative and Hezbollah quoted the Israeli assassination of Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran and leading Shia Cleric in West Asia as the reason for their offensive, in addition to daily deadly ceasefire truce violations by the IOF.
Hezbollah fired its initial barrage days after the US and ‘Israel’ had attacked Iran. It did seem as though their leadership were hesitant to return to war and perhaps initiated their attack in response to intelligence that the IOF were planning a war against them (which they referenced later).
The official plan of the Zionist is to occupy southern Lebanon to the Litani river as a “buffer zone”. However, this occupation can also be a part of the “Greater Israel” plan, which Netanyahu and a number of Israeli Zionist leaders4 and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee have publicly espoused.5
Hezbollah is fighting two kinds of war with ‘Israel’, one in which they bomb the state as part of the ‘axis of resistance’, against the state’s genocide against Palestinians and its attack on Iran, the other in which they defend Lebanon against ‘Israeli’ invasion and occupation.
In the first, they have clearly coordinated bombardment barrages with Iran6 and, more recently with Yemen.7 Hezbollah fires at targets in northern occupied Palestine, while Iran and Yemen concentrate on southern occupied Palestine.
Hezbollah was at first only firing at the IOF in the north but recently targeted what might be seen as civilian sites, since the IOF are using them, many of which are deserted, as staging and rest areas. However, Hezbollah issued public warnings before they began that stage of bombardment.
The IOF, on the other hand, in keeping with its traditions, has been bombing Lebanese civilians, housing, paramedics, hospitals and civilian infrastructure. And carrying out targeted assassinations.
Hezbollah employs its intelligence, mostly compiled from observation, to bomb areas where IOF personnel and vehicles are gathering, after which it bombs that area (or houses, in the case of these occupied by the IOF), all of which makes it very difficult for the Zionists to organise an invasion.
A picture taken from from the southern Lebanese village of Tayr Harfa, near the border with Israel, shows smoke billowing near an Israeli outpost from rockets fired by Hezbollah on Dec. 15. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
With the Zionist state currently having dominance in the air, the Resistance cannot hold static positions at the border and therefore has to allow the IOF to advance into Lebanon to ambush them there, either with missiles and artillery or at close quarters with light and medium weapons.
The latter can also be dangerous for the fighters for as their positions are revealed, they can then be bombed by the IOF. Even the fighters’ close proximity to the invaders may not restrain the IOF, as the orders of the latter are to kill their own personnel if they are in serious risk of capture.8
That said, it is reported that some of the missiles fired into occupied Palestine, i.e ‘Israel’, have been launched from north of the Litani river. Meanwhile the IOF take propaganda and morale-boosting photos of themselves in Lebanese villages in which they cannot remain.
A feature of the ambushes and battles in Lebanon which differs significantly from Gaza Resistance operations is that Hezbollah target the IOF rescue forces and medical evacuation transports. Considering the targeting of ambulances by the IOF the restraint of the Gaza resistance is strange.
Ambulance struck by ‘Israeli’ drone in Bint Jbeil, S. Lebanon recently.
Sources report nearly 100 Merkava tanks of the IOF hit by Hezbollah missiles, rockets or IEDs and many videos have been posted on social media by Hezbollah. In addition, fortified positions, radar units, artillery batteries, troop transporters and bulldozers have been partially or fully destroyed.
The skies are also gradually getting cleared of Zionist drones too. The number of daily operations by Hezbollah is high, having risen from around 20 per day previously to 30 on 5th April9 and to between 80-90 recently.
According to the northern correspondent of the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Hezbollah has carried out 779 attack waves against Israel between 2 March and 21 March, a tempo that could surpass the number of attack waves recorded in October 2024.10
The figures refer to the number of observed “attack waves,” not the total number of munitions launched.11
TRYING FOR CIVIL WAR AND SUBVERSION
The imperialists tried, through their clients in Lebanese society and armed forces to get the Lebanese national army to disarm Hezbollah. That was never going to happen since Hezbollah is more the real national army and the official armed forces just a poor imitation.
But a civil war, with outside involvement, like the one from 1975 to 1990 with Israeli intervention12 was a possibility. However, now the Lebanese people have seen their government neglect to defend them and the official army retreat from invading IOF, while Hezbollah stopped them hard instead.
As the US leadership and the rest of western imperialism (and their proxies in Western Asia) felt Iran’s restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz bite into their profits, Trump indicated a wish to return to negotiations – to which Iran has responded positively but with caution.
Recalling assassinations of negotiators twice during negotiations, Iran’s caution is more justified than normal. But there is also the issue of dragging the confrontation on by insincere peace talks while the Zionist genocide continues in Palestine and is being exported to Lebanon.
Iran’s 10-point basis for negotiation, including an end to the aggression against Lebanon was accepted by the US and publicised by Pakistan, the intermediaries. But soon was refuted by ‘Israel’ and then by the US; the talks then foundered as the US tried to impose its own terms.
Once again, Iran reiterated that an end to US and ‘Israeli’ aggression in West Asia has to be part of any agreement. Jumping opportunistically on this, Lebanon’s quisling government sought talks on a ceasefire with ‘Israel’ through the offices of US imperialism.13
Though the craven Lebanese regime had no cards to play, a ceasefire in Lebanon seemed to have been agreed,14 which the IOF celebrated with a massive bombing attack on Lebanon, killing 300 people in the hours before the deadline and also another attack after.
Bint Jbeil resists still. D.Breatnach cartoon, April 2026
If the US leadership is not convinced they have lost this war and cannot replay it to win – and if they allow the ‘Israeli’ Zionist leadership to undermine any agreement, then the war will resume, whether including Iran or focused on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
If Hezbollah can hold their ground and prevent a successful IOF invasion into South Lebanon while continuing to respond to Zionist entity attacks and if Iran sticks to its conditions on an end to aggression in West Asia, then the future seems bright for the people of Lebanon.
There will be ongoing internal struggle of course between the mass of people and the neo-colonial clients of imperialism, also with a fascist rump of French ‘Christian’ colonials in Lebanon but, without outside interference, the people can resolve these with positive results.
End.
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APPENDIX
South Lebanon field report from Al-Manar correspondent Samer Haj Ali (17 April 2026):
•Eastern villages axis: From Blida to Mays al-Jabal, the situation remains unchanged.
Enemy forces are refraining from showing themselves west of these towns, as they would be exposed to direct fire from the resistance.
•Al-Hujair axis:
The enemy is mainly positioned in the Taybeh project area.
The situation remains unchanged in Deir Siryan, which the enemy has withdrawn from. The occupation forces attempted to advance from their positions between Al-Qantara and Taybeh toward the town of Al-Qantara once again.
They established an outflanking route reaching the Al-Khazzan area in Al-Qantara. They were met with resistance fire, which destroyed four Merkava tanks and two armored personnel carriers. They failed to reach the Litani River from the direction of Taybeh or Wadi al-Hujair.
•Khiam axis:
The resistance maintains its capability to prevent the enemy from advancing toward the northern neighborhood. The enemy circulated reports claiming progress toward Debbin, but these reports are denied by field sources.
The road from Debbin to Marjayoun and Ebl al-Saqi remains open for civilian movement.
• Arqoub axis:
The enemy has expanded its attacks in recent days, without any change in its ground deployment. Airstrikes targeted some of its villages such as Shebaa, Hebarieh, and Halta, accompanied by simultaneous artillery shelling.
Hezbollah announced 74 operations on 14–15 April against Israeli forces, sites, settlements, and military infrastructure
Border clashes
Heavy fighting intensified across Bint Jbeil, Khiam, Bayyada, Naqoura, Kfar Kila, Mays al-Jabal, Aitaroun, Shamaa, and surrounding axes, with repeated close-range engagements and sustained confrontations against advancing Israeli forces.
A major ambush targeted a paratrooper unit (Battalion 101) near Maroun al-Ras as it advanced toward Bint Jbeil, resulting in casualties and forced evacuation under heavy fire.
Israeli forces were repeatedly struck in troop concentrations, homes used for positioning, and along movement routes, while engineering vehicles, including a D9 bulldozer, were directly hit. Merkava tanks were also targeted by attack drones, with confirmed hits during ongoing clashes.
Drone and air defense operations
Attack drones were extensively deployed against artillery positions, command nodes, troop concentrations, and armored units, including direct strikes on Shraga base (Golani Brigade HQ), Meron air control base, and multiple frontline positions.
Air defense activity was notable, with multiple Hermes 450 drones intercepted over southern Lebanon and along the coast, alongside engagements against Israeli fighter jets and an Apache helicopter forced to withdraw.
Drone strikes also targeted artillery batteries in the Golan and northern front positions, as well as Israeli troop gatherings in Bint Jbeil, Khiam, and Naqoura.
Rocket and missile strikes
Sustained and high-intensity rocket barrages targeted Israeli troop concentrations, military sites, and settlements across the northern front, including Kiryat Shmona, Metula, Misgav Am, Nahariya, Shlomi, Avivim, Yir’on, Dovev, Kfar Giladi, and Manara.
Large-scale, synchronized barrages hit multiple settlements simultaneously, while repeated strikes targeted positions in Bint Jbeil, Khiam, Bayyada, and surrounding areas.
Fire was maintained throughout both days, with dozens of salvos launched in waves, including heavy bombardment of troop concentrations and staging areas.
Strategic military targets
Strikes hit key Israeli military infrastructure, including Shraga base (Golani command), Meron base for air surveillance and operations, Filon base near Rosh Pinna, Liman barracks, and artillery positions across the Golan.
Additional targets included communications infrastructure, newly established artillery sites, and logistics nodes in Karmiel, Maalot-Tarshiha, and other northern areas, alongside continued targeting of command, control, and fire management positions.
4Speaking on an Israeli radio program, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the war on Lebanon “needs to end with a different reality entirely, both with the Hezbollah decision but also with the change of Israel’s borders.” “I say here definitively … in every room and in every discussion, too: the new Israeli border must be the Litani,” he added
12With an estimated 150,000 fatalities, the externally-instigated civil war and ‘Israeli’ occupation gave rise to the creation of Hezbollah in 1982 and it was they who led the expulsion of the Zionist invaders and the collapse of their local fascist collaborators, the South Lebanese Army (sic).
13The Lebanese Government withdrew its army in the face of IOF advances and went against its own laws in recognising ‘Israel’ while seeking a ceasefire from it.
14The US Imperialists and their Zionist proxy want the Government and Army to disarm Hezbollah. While they also know that this is not possible, due to both the superior strength of Hezbollah and reluctance of many, including some senior officers in the Lebanese Army, a civil war would do instead.
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