Category: Indigenous or Original People

AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR EACH

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

As we face the possible escalation of an extended regional war in West Asia it is worthwhile to consider what’s at stake for some of the various ‘players’.

‘Israel’ constantly claims existential threats to its state but Iran has stated the same with regard to attacks upon it by the US and ‘Israel’. The Resistance in Palestine and in Lebanon have also spoken in those terms with regard to themselves.

It might seem that the US is the only major participant in the wars in Western Asia which is not itself threatened existentially. However, in a sense it too is facing a kind of existential threat, the threat to its continuing existence as a superpower.

Dr. Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, one of the panel of regular news updates on YouTube for The Cradle online media regularly states that in reality, all of the principal actors are indeed fighting a threat to their existence, though the weight of threat being of varying degrees for each.

The ‘Israeli’ state

The Zionist state of ‘Israel’ came into being in 1948 as a Zionist-led European settler project to impose itself on the indigenous Palestinian people of all ethnic groups. Supported by the USA, Zionism gathered force since 1945 to the full-blown terror and ethnic cleansing of the 1948 Nakba.1

Despite claims of recovering ancestral lands, the culture of Ashkenazi colonisers and their languages were European, not West Asian, in keeping with their origin. Citizenship was opened to any Jewish person around the world but not to the Arab Palestinians who had been driven out.

The Zionist state is of course completely dependent on western imperialism for its defence and its very he existence. But ‘Israel’ is not content with that alone and in the logic of all settler colonialism, is constantly fighting wars of expansion with its neighbours.2

The location of this settler colony makes it of important political and military value to western imperialism and in particular to the USA superpower. It is a dagger at the throat of West Asian sovereignty, let alone socialism and in the region is totally free of both those dangers internally.

The settler colony is never secure until it has either wiped out the indigenous people or totally broken their resistance and scattered them. Consequently the indigenous people will resist and if they can, logically, aided by their threatened neighbours, will overthrow the occupation.

Therefore the Zionist State is truthfully facing an existential threat.

The Resistance

The Resistance to imperialism and Zionism in West Asia is wide and multi-faceted but for the purpose of this examination we’ll look at sum of the factions inside Palestine, both Islamic and secular factions as one Resistance; and Hizbollah and political allies in Lebanon as another.

Because of its practices, its origins and attitudes to the cultures of West Asia, ‘Israel’ is viewed by Palestinians and most people of the region as an occupier. It has functioned as a proxy of imperialism, particularly the US variety, in the region since it came into being.

Like settler colonies in general, the Zionist state has been expanding its territory since its inception.

It has also waged war on its neighbours for most of its existence: 1948 against Palestinians and Arab states, 1950s-1960s against the Palestinian Resistance; with France and UK against Egypt (Suez) 1956; 1967 against Egypt, Jordan, Syria; 1973 against Egypt and Syria.

And in 1971-1982 in South Lebanon.3 In September 2024 it attacked Lebanon with assassinations and exploding pagers and in December of that year, invaded Syria4 (though it had regularly bombed it previously) and attacked Iran (during peace negotiation) in February 2026.

The Zionist military carried out a great number of major attacks within Palestine including against the West Bank and Gaza in between what the Zionists call ‘mowing the lawn’, i.e. regular assassinations, raids, arrests and imprisonment of hostages.

The attitude of the ‘Israeli’ occupation to the Palestinian resistance is typified in its attitude to Hamas, the political party elected by significant majority across Palestine in 2006: it totally rejects the people’s choice and attempts to eliminate it in Gaza through economic and military means.

In the West Bank the Occupation’s proxy, the Palestine Authority refused to accede to the popular vote and collaborates with the Occupation, even though the even more extreme elements in ‘Israeli’ government and society despise it, regularly denouncing it and calling for its elimination.

The PA represses criticism by Palestinians in the West Bank, jails critics and fighters, sets them up for ‘Israeli’ jailing and has even murdered Resistance fighters.

‘Israel’ and the US are in concert attempting to use elements of the Lebanese Government against Hizbollah and political parties close to or friendly with them, attempting to turn the Lebanese Army to that purpose. Were they to succeed this would result in another Lebanese civil war.

It is a fact that the state of ‘Israel’ has no formal borders, except where its present territory reaches the borders of Egypt and Jordan.5 The ‘Greater Israel’ concept6 and Zionist aspiration exceeds far beyond even those,7 including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and swathes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Many Israeli political leaders including Ze’ev Jabotinsky,8 Menachem Begin9 and Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir10 have openly promoted the ‘Greater Israel’ (sic) concept as an objective and seems to have the support of US foreign policy and the ‘Israeli’ opposition.11

In all ‘peace’ proposals the ‘Israeli’ establishment seeks the ‘disarmament’ of the Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance, while itself remaining the most heavily armed state in the whole of West Asia, the only one with a nuclear weapon and a long history of committing massacres and genocide.

Hizbullah and the Palestine Resistance are therefore indeed facing an existential threat.

Image by D. Breatnach

The USA

The USA is the chief world imperialist power and in order to maintain that position has a number of requirements, among which are that it can direct or at least influence events around most of the world and that its military might is seen as impossible to defend against.

The Warsaw Pact bloc, a former impediment to expansion of US dominance has gone, though the Russian Federation remains. However the rising economic power of China already threatens the world dominance of the US imperialist ruling class.

But it has faced a new threat to its hegemony of West Asia. Although the non-compliant regimes there of Iraq and Syria (and Libya in North Africa) have been overthrown, US influence in Iran12 had been defeated by uprisings and founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.

Despite war against the Republic (1980-’88) by then western-supported Saddam Hussein, the Islamic Republic survived and supplied resistance organisations in Lebanon and in Palestine with weapons.

The US failed to subdue Iran with decades of sanctions or to instigate popular or separatist insurrection against the ruling elite during unprovoked attack in February, having to accept the stability of the Republic and to agree to ceasefire terms, losing much of its mythos of invincibility.

Not only were its military installations in West Asia shown to be vulnerable but they became regular targets in retaliation for US strikes against Iran. Client regimes began to wonder whether they could even afford to have such failed protection US military bases on their soil.

The repercussions of that will extend right around the World.

Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran came into existence in 1979 in a revolution against the Pahlavi monarchy, its repressive Savak secret police and against Iran’s client status of US imperialism (such that the CIA’s head office for the whole of West Asia was located there).

The revolution found the CIA desperately shredding their spy documents (many of which were later painstakingly stuck back together by the Iranian revolutionaries). The revolutionary leadership and its followers were immediately targeted by imperialism, in particular by the USA.

The imperialists instigated Saddam Hussein (at the time their client) to have Iraq invade Iran in a war which lasted eight years during which 188,015 to 217,489 Iranians were killed (about 70 people per day).13 Hussein used gas attacks14 as well as bullets and explosives.

In addition, US imperialism has imposed sanctions on Iran since 1979, which is to say threatened sanctions on any state prepared to sell to or trade with the Islamic Republic and these have had a heavy negative impact on the population, in particular in the area of health treatment.15

In January 2026 the USA manipulated currency trading and the value of the Iranian rial fell. Protest demonstrations took place which Israeli and US intelligence operatives in places turned into armed attacks on police, government buildings and even some place of religious worship.

The Iranian authorities issued figures of 3,117 killed during the disturbances,16 which included civilians and agents acting under foreign direction, without identifying which was which. A significant number of those killed were State employees, including public security and police.

Sources sympathetic to the West have issued a range of fatal casualty numbers, rising to 36,000. It does not seem possible to separate real figures from propaganda, certainly of Western sources and possibly too of the Iranian State.

However the involvement of agents working for foreign powers to destabilise Iran has been established, not only in results of raids by Iranian State security forces but also in statements by US and ‘Israeli’ authorities17 and in admissions of Starlink-linked devices smuggled into Iran.18

Trump admitted that the US had supplied weapons to Iranian Kurdish pro-independence groups at this time also and complained that the Kurds had failed to use them against the US. Probably Baluchistan separatists were similarly urged to rise but did not do so in any numbers.19

The presence of foreign agents in Iran was also evident not only by intelligence possessed by the aggressors during the following war but also by when drones were launched against targets in Iran from within the country.

‘Israel’ accompanied by the USA,on 28 February, during negotiations, assassinated the religious and political supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and others, along with families and launched air strikes across Iran, including killing 124 schoolgirls with their teachers in a ‘double-tap’ strike.

The USA is too far away for a retaliatory strike but their military assets are distributed around the Gulf and Iran’s response struck those hard, US defences proving inadequate in action. Iran also closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting the flow of essential gas and oil from the region to the West.

The US was forced to negotiate and to agree to Iranian terms in a Memorandum of Understanding for peace talks, most of which the US has yet to carry out in practice and much of which it has violated. But it is difficult to see what final options it has other than compliance.

The intentions of US imperialism to the Islamic Republic of Iran are irremediably hostile, proven in sanctions, assassinations, war, subversion attempts, rhetoric and threats, wishing the Iranian revolutionary regime overthrown and Iran dismembered, i.e. indeed an existential threat to Iran.

CONCLUSION

The mutual existential threats of antagonists do not usually cancel each other out. Rather, one of the antagonists must fall. Liberal solutions of ‘peace’ between them are illusory and chasing such mirages is not only fruitless but diverts attention from the necessary resolution.

In fact, wars where none of the antagonists feel they can afford to give way are complicated and very hard to resolve.

In the short term, for relative peace in Western Asia, both the US imperialists and the Israeli Zionists need to be severely weakened and those who wish for that relative peace must logically wish success to the struggles of the Islamic Republic of Iran and of the Resistance organisations.

In the medium term, the existence of the state of ‘Israel’ needs to cease and the democratic state of Palestine to come into being with US Imperialism weakened further or overthrown.

The ruling class of the strengthened Iran will need to see how they can manage Iran’s new status and the Resistance organisations how they develop and grow their respective nations as independent and sovereign states.

In the longer term, new threats and new conflicts will emerge throughout the world. As long as capitalism exists, parts of it will grow into monopoly capitalism and that in turn will seek to maximise its profits by venturing abroad in competition and/or in coercion.

End.

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FOOTNOTES & SOURCES

1During the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”), approximately 750,000 to one million Palestinians were displaced from their homes, and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians were killed.

More than 80% of the Palestinian population living in the territory that became Israel was forced to leave.At least 530 villages and towns were destroyed or depopulated.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reports that this initial displacement grew into an ongoing crisis, with nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees registered today. Historians and organizations generally estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians were killed. Deaths occurred during combat, in dozens of targeted massacres, and from the general violence of the war.

2https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-permanent-security-doctrine-turns-war-into-the-states-condition

3From 16 to 18 September 1982, the IOF’s proxy, the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, massacred between 1,300 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias — in the Sabra neighbourhood of Beirut and in the nearby Shatila refugees camp, with the support of the IOF. 

4As the Syrian regime collapsed in early December 2024.

5https://campaigns.acri.org.il/50yearsen/

6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel

7https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greater_israel.jpg

8An early leading Zionist ideologue and activist.

9Leader of Zionist terrorist group Irgun, founder of political parties Herut and Likud, Prime Minister of ‘Israel’ 1977-1983.

10Respectively in order: Leader of Likud party of current ‘Israel’ government coalition; leader of Religious Zionist Party and current Finance Minister since 2022;  National Security Minister since 2022, leader of Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), an Israeli far-right, Kahanist and anti-Arab party which won six seats in the 2022 legislative election and is part of the thirty-seventh government of Israel (Wikipedia).

11https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/26/what-is-greater-israel-and-how-popular-is-it-among-israelis

12 Formerly referred to internationally as ‘Persia’ until 1935.

13https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23981159/

14Western media were not interested at the time – Hussein was attacking Iran and was therefore one of ‘the good guys’. Journalists who tried to get western media to cover the wiping out of a Kurdish village Halabja by gas attack in 1982 were getting nowhere. However, many years later, when the Saddam Hussein had switched and started defying the western imperialists, western media suddenly found the story valuable even though years old by then.

15https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_impacts_of_U.S._sanctions_against_Iran

16https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/5/questions-after-irans-government-releases-victim-list-in-protest-killings (Qatar-based Al Jazeera, while hostile to Israeli Zionism, is also hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran. However other online sources I found in a quick search were even worse.)

17https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/14/iran-accuse-foreign-intelligence-behind-protest-movement

18https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgzk91leweo and https://www.aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/us-sent-thousands-of-starlink-terminals-to-iran-after-january-protest-crackdown-report/382849

19https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-claims-he-disagreed-with-arming-kurds-against-iran-ill-remember-that-kurds/

TOXIC LOYALISM IN IRELAND – WORSE THAN DANGERS OF 12th JULY BONFIRES

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Racism, Religious Sectarianism, Traditions & Folk Custom2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

If it turns out that the fire destruction of homes in Greenisland, Carrigfergus was caused by Loyalist bonfire embers,1 there may be renewed calls to ban the construction of such bonfires in the cause of safety.

Or even to prevent the deaths of people from Loyalist bonfire tower construction.2

If so, such calls will miss the main point, which is that Ulster Loyalist bonfires are an expression of sectarianism and racism. It is Ulster Loyalism itself which is toxic and more lethal than any mismanaged fire. That is what is expressed in burning Irish Tricolours, Palestinian flags, images of Irish individuals, representations of migrants and of Islam.

A Loyalist bonfire with Irish Tricolour and Palestinian flags to be burned along with images of the popular rap group Kneecap and an attempt at some message aimed at them in Irish. The rejection of SDLP and Alliance colonial political parties is clear, while that of Sinn Féin is taken for granted. (Photo: Niall Carson/ PA Wire).

The record of Ulster Loyalism is as the communal enforcers of settler colonialism upon the indigenous Irish. When the United Irishmen, mostly led by Protestants, were organising in unity with Irish Catholics for Irish independence, the Orange Order was founded in 1795.

At that time it was not controlling the indigenous Irish that was of greatest concern to the British ruling class as much as the Republican Protestants, in particular the Republicans among the Presbyterians and the Orange Order targeted them too with propaganda and intimidation.

Once the threat of Protestant Republican rebellion was contained through intimidation, repression and emigration, the Orange Order concentrated on the majority mostly Catholic indigenous Irish, with general repression and periodic pogroms, continuing after Partition of Ireland in 1922.

The colonial Statelet institutionalised in law and practice discrimination against Catholics, enlisting the help and support of the majority of the Protestant working class, with the result of the worst housing and generally lowest wages in the UK – for workers of both communities.

The Loyalists mobilised against the Civil Rights campaign in the Six Counties, a campaign led by liberal Protestants as well as Catholics. During three decades of war that followed, Loyalist militias with British colonial army and police help, carried out bombings and sectarian murders.3

At this time of year people concerned for their safety or just peace of mind temporarily leave areas near to those under Loyalist control and not only in the Six Counties colony but in parts of Scotland too.

A REACTIONARY FESTIVAL

Unionist and liberal propaganda tell us that some of the bonfires are just good community fun, without flags, politician faces, migrant boat or mosque replicas on top. But the historical excuse for the marking of the 12th of July is the victory of William of Orange’s forces at the Boyne in 1690.

Loyalist mural probably in Belfast depicting at top gable end King William at the Battle of the Boyne. (Photo source: https://petermoloneycollection.com/category/events-people/king-billy/)

The Unionists celebrate this chiefly because they perceive it as a victory of Protestant forces over Catholic but also because it facilitated the destruction of the remnants of the Gaelic Order, breaking the power of Irish resistance in Ulster and completed the British conquest of Ireland.

Even without a single representation of person, country or religion on top of the bonfires, their very nature and what they intend to celebrate is reactionary, sectarian and colonial.

Most Ulster Protestants are probably unaware that although William was a Protestant and James II a Catholic, from whom Irish Catholics hoped to gain relief from repression, the Battle of the Boyne was actually part of the Nine Years War with William fighting for the League of Augsburg.

And one of the supporters of that League was none other than Pope Innocent XI because of what he and the League saw as the threat of King Luis XIV of France. The News of William’s victory at the Boyne was celebrated with high mass in a number of Catholic countries.

This year’s Loyalist Bonfire in Moygashel, Co. Armagh, with a representation of a Mosque to be burned on top and a placard calling for ‘secure borders’ against emigration. (Photo sourced: Sky News)

Loyalism has gone on to extend its hatred of Catholicism to Islam, of indigenous Irish to migrants from other lands, for example in the recent riots in Belfast.4

‘ONE MILLION PROTESTANTS IN A UNITED IRELAND’

We are frequently counselled to tolerate Ulster Loyalism, told that we must make Loyalists welcome into a united Ireland, that we need to accept their culture on equal level with others and are also subtly threatened with the potential violence of ‘One million Protestants’ if not accommodated.

The culture of Loyalism is toxic. It is intolerant, racist, homophobic, sectarian and violent. Might as well ask black people or native Americans to accept the Ku Klux Klan – after all, the KKK too have a community culture and they live in the USA along with everyone else.

A united 32-County Ireland should of course accept everyone as citizens. That is not at all to say that it should tolerate religious sectarianism, racism or homophobia. On the contrary it should oppose those evils through education and if necessary through application of the law.5

As for the implied threat of “one million Protestants”, that is to assume that all are sectarian Loyalists or at least that such are in leadership over the rest. Not all those reared in Six Counties Protestantism are Loyalists nor in fact even necessarily Unionists.

Removing the military, ideological and structural support for Unionism and Loyalism and also the control exercised by Loyalists on sections of communities will reduce Unionism and its most virulent expression, Loyalism, to a much smaller core who will have to make their choice.

Adjust to get on with your fellow citizens, or leave.

End.

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FOOTNOTES:

1https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html

22026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

3According to Wikipedia, Loyalist paramilitaries killed 1,027 people during the 30 Years War, approximately 30% of all conflict-related deaths. 911 according to https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/sutton.htm (a biased source) including 33 in the no-warning Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 1974.

4https://www.politico.eu/article/anti-immigrant-terror-takes-northern-ireland-back-darkest-chapters/

5In the wording of the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all …”

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html and https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/07/12/fire-that-destroyed-antrim-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire/

2026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

What to learn from 1,000 days of genocide

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Human beings can be amazing and none more so than the Palestinians. Dr. Munir Al-Bursh Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza released the following short statement, posted by Resistance News Network on Telegram today. Diarmuid Breatnach.

One thousand days was not just a number on the calendar, but 1,000 days of torment, pages of pain, and stories that were never written.

1,000 days of loss and betrayal, and the worst betrayal is the betrayal of kin. Humanity has stripped itself of its humanity in these days.

Cartoon by D.Breatnach from September 2024 (’04 is an error) and still true today.

Killing children has become fleeting breaking news, bombing hospitals a recurring scene, starving civilians a method of war, and preventing medicine, water, and food a matter discussed without shame.

Since the agreement, more than 1,000 martyrs have been killed, most of them children and women.

We are living through a suffocating medicine crisis; more than 52% of medicines are missing, and more than 59% of medical supplies are missing.

The citizen can no longer find a drink of clean water. The occupation began with killing, and now it kills silently.

Gaza has taught me that victory is only born from the womb of patience, and that peoples who believe in their right cannot be defeated by any power, no matter how intense the siege and how great the sacrifices.

Gaza has taught me that starvation, thirst, bombing, burning, displacement, and forced removal are but tools of helplessness before a people who loved freedom and believed that dignity cannot be bought or sold.

Gaza has taught me that homes may be demolished, hospitals destroyed, and schools bombed, but the will that dwells in hearts cannot be buried under the rubble.

Gaza has taught me that a doctor may treat a wound while bleeding, a paramedic may carry the martyrs while waiting for his turn, and a journalist may write the truth with his blood before his pen.

Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director General Gaza Health Ministry. (Photo source: Resistance News Network on Telegram).

Gaza has taught me that all conspiracies break before the unity and steadfastness of the people, and that the most dangerous thing the enemies want is for us to be divided, while the greatest thing we possess is to remain one front.

Gaza has taught me that the world may be silent, the law may fail, and justice may be delayed, but the truth does not die, the rights of peoples do not lapse, and history does not show mercy to those who witnessed the crime and chose silence.

end.

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EPIC LEBANESE RESISTANCE TARGETS INVADING COMMANDERS?

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National LiberationLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The operations of Hizbollah in defence of South Lebanon against the IOF, the most powerful military power in the region, have been epic enough. But now the ‘Israeli’ military fear their commanders are being specifically targeted by the Resistance.1

It may be unlucky coincidence that two commanders have been seriously wounded and one killed in a matter of weeks but the High Command of the Zionist army don’t think so, according to media in the Zionist entity, speculating instead ofn high level Hizbollah intelligence to target IOF commanders.

On Saturday/ Sunday night the Deputy Commander of the Commando Brigade’s Maglan unit was among 13 IOF injured by a Resistance drone strike and one killed.2 On Friday Lt. Colonel Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon, commander of the 52nd Battalion of the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed.3

Three members of Ben Simhon’s crew were killed with him after their tank was struck during operations near Kfar Tebnit in South Lebanon. The 52nd Battalion is the unit implicated in the killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab while she called for help after the killing of six family members.4

Northern Command’s Major-General Rafi Milo had a very lucky escape when his car was hit by an explosive drone minutes after he had left it in South Lebanon.5

Of course, assassinations are and have been a regular part of the offensive package of the IOF – not only assassination of military leaders but also civilian administrators, technicians, first responders, news reporters, writers, artists and poets. But the IOF are unaccustomed to being paid in kind.

It won’t be in kind from Hizbollah, for the Lebanese Resistance is hitting tanks, armoured troop carriers, military personnel and, when they killed an ‘Israeli’ civilian and injured his son, the man was driving an earth remover for the military, demolishing South Lebanese homes not yet bombed level.6

Hizbollah has been carrying out around 30 operations a day against the invading IOF, employing rockets, guided missiles and drones but also IEDs, RPGs and small arms fire. Hardly a day passed without their drones striking at least one Merkava tank, a Namer troop carrier and an earth-moving machine.7

Despite failing militarily, the IOF have killed at least 4,192 people (mostly civilians) in Lebanon since the current round of hostilities began, and displaced more than 1.2 million people, reports the Lebanese health ministry, as the IOF applies its Gaza destruction plan to South Lebanon.

According to a UN report, the IOF completely destroyed 11,095 buildings, affecting 17,891 housing units, while 2,242 buildings were partially damaged, equivalent to 5,219 housing units. The report also revealed that 9,311 buildings sustained minor damage, equivalent to 18,282 housing units.8

D.Breatnach cartoon drawn prior to the 2026 resurgence of February, during previous IOF invasion of South Lebanon, prior to the ‘exploding pagers’ and assassination of Nasrallah

Career progression from entry to NCO ranks in the IOF is largely based on service length rather than merit and for commanders, also based on meeting the requirements of command training school, so it is not easy for them to replace commanders injured or killed in battle.

The greatest damage perhaps will be to the IOF’s morale, already at far from optimum level.8 Personnel know that they will be required to remain on active service longer than normal and that they are outmatched on a level field, while currently the Haredim9 are exempted from service.10

Typically the IOF retreat quickly from contact with the Resistance and call for shelling or bombing but now Hizbollah’s mortars and rockets can bombard them too and thoughts of small explosive-carrying quadcopters appearing out of nowhere to hunt them down is really scaring them.

In some cases an explosive drone has followed running IOF into buildings, in one case into an IOF operations room. A drone targeting a covered IOF Humvee filmed two leaping out the back without attempting to shoot it down, leaving it to explode against the rest in back and against cab at front.

And what if the Resistance really can track commanders in the battle area, determine where they are and strike them down? IOF soldiers will be uncertain and nervous without leaders, (feelings which might be even worse if they are required to spend time close to possibly targeted commanders!).

D.Breatnach cartoon, June 2026

Zionist fragmentation is breaking out inside the Zionist entity with some arguing that the IOF should bomb Beirut, others claiming that the IOF is being held back from effective action in South Lebanon and a third group claiming that the IOF should retreat from Lebanon completely.

And hostility towards what Vice President Vance called their “only powerful ally” and sole superpower in the world currently sympathetic to the Israeli state, has grown hugely among the Zionists as they perceive the US-Iran agreement under current negotiation as shattering their military and expansion illusions.

End.

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Footnotes:

1https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

2https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-899975

3https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hezbollah-attack-kills-israeli-soldier–wounds-13-commando-t

4On January 29 2024 – Two paramedics who set out to save her were also killed by the IOF unit.

5https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

6https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-04-28/ty-article/civilian-contractor-working-for-defense-ministry-killed-in-southern-lebanon/0000019d-d5ca-d9f6-a1dd-ddca943a0000

7https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

8https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/lebanon-building-damage-in-israeli-attacks-estimated-at-138b/3974843

9https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-calls-reserves-amid-fears-low-turnout-and-lower-morale

10Fundamentalist Orthodox ‘Israeli’ sect who have been exempt from employment and military conscription, though including 10% of ‘Israel’s’ military age males. Their political representatives are part of Netanyahu’s coalition but are calling now for dissolving the Government and new elections, after other parts of the coalition passed an ordinance removing the Haredim exemption from conscription..

11https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-880294

Sources:

Targeting IOF commanders: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

IOF looting homes in Lebanon: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-05-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/it-was-okay-to-be-crazy-idf-soldiers-discuss-moral-decay-in-lebanon/

Declining IOF morale: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-calls-reserves-amid-fears-low-turnout-and-lower-morale

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

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 Aramin addressing 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.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeirogon_(novel)

“YOUR HANDS ARE BLOODY TOO” – Drumming, Whistles and Chants Disturb Conference of Irish Coalition Government Party

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, National Sovereignty1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

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 – they ARE 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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FOOTNOTES

1Annual Conference

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.

SOURCES

Brief coverage of some of the FF Ard-Fheis protest: https://www.thejournal.ie/protest-fianna-fail-palestine-dublin-7041797-May2026/

Coverage of the main IPSC march only: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/05/16/palestine-solidarity-march-calls-for-sanctions-on-israel-and-boycott-of-fai-match/

1Annual Conference

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.

HEZBOLLAH RISES FROM SUPPOSED GRAVE TO STRIKE HARD AT ‘ISRAEL’

On By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon comment, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

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.

2024 cartoon 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.

Footnotes

Sources

Al Mayadeen English: https://english.almayadeen.net/

Electronic Intifada: https://electronicintifada.net/ (also on a number of platforms)

The Cradle: https://thecradle.co/ (and its News Updates on Telegram)

and others quoted in Footnotes.

1https://reliefweb.int/report/lebanon/msf-update-southern-lebanon-where-ceasefire

2https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pagers-and-radios-terrifying-violation-international-law-say-un

3https://reliefweb.int/report/lebanon/msf-update-southern-lebanon-where-ceasefire

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

5https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/26/what-is-greater-israel-and-how-popular-is-it-among-israelis

6https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hy711hihfwx

7https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/houthis-claim-joint-missile-attack-with-iran-hezbollah-on-israel/3887706

8See the ‘Hanibal Doctrine’, resuscitated during 7 October 2023 and continued as ‘Israeli’ policy since.

9See Appendix

10 Which was the most intense month of the previous confrontation.

11Source: The Cradle news updates on Telegram

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.

Iran’s Resistance Sparks Hatred in the Spanish Left

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, Palestine, Political Analysis, Spanish State, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Translated by R. Breeze from Spanish-language post in Bultza, Basque Marxist-Leninist Telegram channel, 2 March 2026

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The armed resistance of the Palestinian people—the vast majority of whom are Muslim—has stirred up a kind of “neither-nor” sentiment. The “progressive” left refuses to take sides.

They labelled the acts of armed resistance on October 7, 2023, as terrorism and equated them with the genocidal policies of the State of Israel. Was terrorism that which the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto waged in their guerrilla operations against the Nazi occupation army?

This is not the first time we have heard the hackneyed rhetoric against the Muslim religion. A discourse cloaked in a “progressive” mantle, where they speak of human rights, freedoms, women’s rights, and so on.

Some even compare it to the Franco regime in a display of “intellectualism.” A comparison that cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny of logic. Did the Franco regime confront the greatest empire on the planet? Quite the contrary.

The fact that Francoism and its entire cultural and political apparatus existed was thanks, among other things, to the largest empire in the world today: the United States.

Trump has spoken, on several occasions, about how the Iranian government oppresses its people through Islam, that “the regime of the ayatollahs” must be overthrown, etc. This discourse has also been echoed by several European leaders, including the “progressive” Pedro Sánchez.

A few weeks ago, we heard Gabriel Rufián1—the future leader of the “re-establishment of the Left”—saying that the burka and the hijab should be banned. But there is one aspect they all have in common: they all say this from NATO countries.

Countries that exploit the wealth of every continent, including Muslim countries where religion is not conceived in the same way as it is in imperialist countries. Yet, they say absolutely nothing about the Atlanticist organization. They do not question its crimes.

In addition to discrimination based on religion, there are two more forms: discrimination based on belonging to a culture different from Western culture (imperialism and colonization) and class discrimination.

The “progressive” Left only mobilises when the oppressed are portrayed as victims, not when they gain strength and resist the assaults. In other words, if you are massacred by the empire, they will offer you alms. If you resist, you become the target of their criticism.

We’ve already seen this with the constant denunciations of the Palestinian armed resistance, or the scant impact the resistance of the Shiite armed movement Hezbollah, which has repeatedly halted Israeli Zionism, has had on the Spanish population.

We’ve also seen it when the Shiite movement Ansar Allah fired rockets at the US Sixth Fleet, cutting off the Red Sea and Israeli communications.

In other words, the “progressive” left supports you if you die, not when you fight.

It’s the practical application of putting money into the coffers of the missions. If you’re a sovereign country seeking liberation from imperialist yokes and you fight with all your might, you’re labelled a terrorist and an oppressor.

And the media plays a significant role in this, the same media on which progressives occasionally complain of not being given as much airtime as before.

In the words of the African American leader Malcolm X: Beware of the media; they will make you hate the oppressed and love the oppressor.

In the world of social media, we easily lose our memory. Therefore, it’s necessary to remember that the Algerian separatists of the National Liberation Front were Marxist-Leninists. And this didn’t prevent them from also being Muslim.

The People’s Republic of North Yemen—Muslim—along with the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, supported the anti-fascist armed movements in the Spanish state.

In other words, Islam and anti-imperialist (and anti-fascist) resistance are concepts that have gone hand in hand on numerous occasions.

The USSR itself not only maintained but also promoted madrasas, or Islamic schools, in Muslim-majority territories. Was the USSR—the world’s first secular state—the same as Francoist Spain? But perhaps this doesn’t mean much to the progressive, or the purist of the moment.

In the 1960s, there emerged in Latin America a concept called Liberation Theology. This movement led to the creation of armed groups of Catholic origin whose demands included socialism and social justice.

Movements like the Montoneros in Argentina and the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) emerged from this context. It is important to remember Father Carlos Mugica, the priest and guerrilla leader.

These armed movements caused considerable headaches for Washington’s Operation Condor and all the dictatorships imposed by the School of the Americas—dictatorships that, incidentally, sympathised with and admired Francoism.

Were these guerrilla priests the same as their enemies in the White House and their puppets?

These movements resonated in Spain. This theory spread throughout the Basque Country and the working-class neighbourhoods of major cities like Madrid and Barcelona, ​​as well as regions like Andalusia.

The parishes of Vallecas, Carabanchel, Moratalazo, and Vicálvaro2 became meeting places for numerous anti-Francoist movements and groups, where these same worker-priests were active.

A very recent example is that of Father Diamantino García: one of the founders of the Andalusian Rural Workers’ Union (predecessor of the Andalusian Workers’ Union). Were these worker-priests the same as Francoism?

Fr. Diamentino Garcia Acosta (1943-1995) addressing a worker’s rally.

Let’s remove once and for all the veil that prevents us from seeing the reality of Third World countries. Who are we to tell oppressed countries what to do? Isn’t that just another form of imperialism? Do we fight in the same way they do?

We cannot view the processes of decolonization and liberation of those who are fighting with all their might against the West and its empire through Western eyes.

To paraphrase our Asturian comrades from La Clase Trabayadora:3 we must put an end to the left wing of imperialism and all that it entails. Even in the cultural sphere.

End.


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FOOTNOTES

1MP and spokesperson of the Ezquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalan Republican Left) in the Spanish Congress, also active in left-social democratic coalition Súmate and the grassroots National Assembly of Catalunya. (R.Breeze)

2Particularly working-class areas of Madrid (R.Breeze)

3Anti-NATO and anti-rearming organisation based in Asturies. (R.Breeze)

THE QUISLING PA KILLS TEENAGER & CHILD WHILE HUNTING PALESTINIAN FOR ISRAEL

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The quisling Palestine Authority killed a three-year-old girl and her teenage brother Ali in an ambush to capture their father, Amer Samara, whom they also shot in both legs. The reason? Amer was wanted by ‘Israel’.

If the PA represents the Palestinian people, why would they even try to arrest someone for the Occupation, never mind open fire on the family car? But this is not out of character – Samara is not the first member of the Resistance wanted by ‘Israel’ that the PA have hunted or even killed.

In May 2024, the PA forces shot dead Ahmed Abed-Foul in his car in Tulkarem and in December of that year also killed Yazeed Jayasa’a, a senior member of the Jenin Brigade of Islamic Jihad. In January 2025 they killed father and son Mahmoud and Qasem al-Jalqamousi, also in Jenin.

In March 2025, again in Jenin refugee camp, they added Abdul Rahman Abu al-Muna of Islamic Jihad to their toll, the PA calling him ‘an outlaw’. There are others who were captured alive and fill the PA’s prison while others, after highlighting by the PA, are arrested by the IOF.

Some escaped for awhile, like the wounded Abu Sujaa(Mohamed Jaber), when the community packed the hospital and prevented the PA from arresting him. The PA fired tear gas inside the hospital, pepper-sprayed and batoned people, including women but had to leave empty-handed.1

Photos of Rozan Samara before and in hospital after being shot by PA armed forces. She died shortly afterwards, as had her teenage brother, also shot by the PA. (Photo sourced: Palestine Chronicle)

And not just resistance fighters but also dissenters, critics of Fatah, the PA and its repression like activist Nizar Banat in June 2021, beaten to death.2 Palestinians in the West Bank have to be careful what they post about the PA on social media because people get arrested or beaten up for that too.

The creation of the PA is part of the Oslo pacification process of 1993-2000.3 The secular then-resistance organisation Fatah got elected in the West Bank and Gaza to run it, run by their man Mahmoud Abbas but in the next elections, people overwhelmingly voted for Hamas instead.

The western imperialists couldn’t manipulate Hamas and refused to recognise the people’s wish and so cut their finances. Fatah tried to ignore the election results in Gaza which led to a short civil war which Hamas won, then taking the positions to which they had been elected there.

In the West Bank, Hamas also had the majority of votes but pulled back from civil war, so Abbas held on to his and Fatah’s corrupt and repressive fiefdom, never holding elections again because they would lose them. Even the western imperialists admit that PA needs radical reform.

But they do so for the same reason that they support the two-state solution (sic), as a Quisling neo-colonial administration to buy off while it divides, spies upon and controls the Palestinian people on 20% of Palestinian land under the guns and eyes of the Israeli Zionists.

The Zionists however no longer desire even this, wanting now only the elimination of any idea of Palestine, hence the genocide and holocaust they are committing in Gaza and the further takeover of the West Bank, settler attacks on Palestinians and further expansion of Jewish settlements.

Reluctance to picket or denounce them?

To my knowledge the representative of the PA in Ireland has been confronted publicly and accused of working for a quisling organisation only once and their official residence in Dublin picketed only twice. I am glad to say I was able to attend on those two occasions.4

View of Palestine solidarity marchers picketing the PA’s Palestine Dublin Embassy (building on the top right of photo) in January 2025 (Photo sourced: R.Breeze)

The public denunciation of the PA Ambassador was by a small group of Palestinians at a Belfast Sinn Féin meeting she was addressing a very little over two years ago5. The Palestinians6 were quickly silenced and evicted to cheers from many in the attendance.

Meanwhile, the PA continues to work against the majority of Palestinian society, both inside Israel-occupied territories and in the diaspora, continues its corruption and nepotism and repression against Palestinian dissent with active operations against those wanted by the occupying Zionists.

The PA is getting a relatively free from criticism ride in Ireland and some may say this is in order not to split the solidarity movement. But the split between the people and their traitors is already there and is marked by the actions of the collaborators.

View of section of the crowd protesting the Palestine Authority’s Dublin Embassy (in photo background) in January 2025. (Photo sourced: R.Breeze)

Some may object that exposing the PA will distract from the movement of solidarity with Palestine. How so, do they claim? Collaborators are an important part of occupation and repression and exposing them is an integral part of resistance and solidarity work.

Epstein, Trump, Mandelson etc are all part of the same evil and exposing them, far from being a distraction, shows us the linkages between them, amplifies the call for solidarity with the Palestinian people and educates us in the struggle for a just world.

The representatives of the PA should be shunned by all who are in genuine solidarity with the Palestinian people but furthermore their representatives and offices should be picketed frequently in order to expose them and what they represent.

We need to ask ourselves whether we really support the Palestinian people or do so while somehow also tolerating its quislings and traitors. Have we learned nothing from our own history and our cultural hatred, expressed in song and story, of collaborators, traitors, agents and informers?

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

Murder of Nizar Banat by PA police: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/24/critic-of-palestinian-authority-dies-during-arrest

Failure to punish Banat’s murderers: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/justice-remains-elusive-two-years-after-the-killing-of-palestinian-dissident-nizar-banat/

PICKETING THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IN DUBLIN
“SOLIDARITY WITH THE RESISTANCE” AND “DOWN WITH COLLABORATION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY!”

1https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/07/26/palestine-authority-prevented-from-arresting-resistance-fighter-in-hospital/

2https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/24/critic-of-palestinian-authority-dies-during-arrest

3Although the Epstein scandals have now reached the Oslo Pacification (my word) Process, any anti-imperialist or even anti-colonialist should have seen through this (and any of the associated pacification processes) right away. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/oslo-accord-negotiator-s-epstein-links-raise-questions-about-integrity-of-middle-east-peace-process-report/3828636

4August 2024 and January 2025. https://rebelbreeze.com/2025/01/29/solidarity-with-the-resistance-and-down-with-collaboration-of-the-palestinian-authority/

5https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/palestinian-protesters-criticise-sinn-fein-after-being-ejected-from-belfast-rally-ANEZSGBQZFHQZHARJVRANEX5IU/ Of course, SF, like the ANC in South Africa are deeply implicated in the Pacification Processes of the late last century and each used the support of the other to promote it to their own fighters and supporters.

6The protesters were also calling on SF not to attend the US Presidential St. Patrick’s Day party; SF did so that year (as in all years previously invited) but felt obliged to skip it in 2025.

THOUSANDS OF ISIS FIGHTERS FREED IN SYRIAN FORCES ASSAULT ON AL-SHADADDI PRISON

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Kurdistan, NATO, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Religious Sectarianism, Syria, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

Thousands of ex-ISIL (ISIS) fighters and their families have been freed during the Syrian government forces assault on the SDF-guarded Al-Shaddadi jail. Both sides blame the other for the release although the Government forces admit their assault.

The SDF, mainly Kurdish forces supported by the US/ NATO coalition to oust the former Assad regime, have been guarding an estimated 10,000 prisoners in the jail since the collapse of the ISIS offensive in the region.1

Observers have feared the release of the ISIS fighters and their ‘radicalised’ families since the December 2024 collapse of the Assad regime in a Turkey-supported offensive.

That attack was led by Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, former Al Qaeda fighter and second-in-command of the ISIS-supported al-Nusra forces in Syria, a coalition of fundamental Islamist jihadists fighting under ISIS leadership though their leader claims to have fundamentally changed.

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa changed his name to al-Jolani and claims to have renounced ISIS, proclaimed himself President of Syria and filled his cabinet with ‘former’ ISIS commanders, since which Western imperialist leaders have accepted him and Trump praised him greatly.

Cartoon by Carlos Latuf depicting the Western imperialist makeover of the ISIS Ahmed al-Sharaa to al-Jolani, self-appointed President of Syria (Sourced: Internet)

The western powers cancelled his designation of ‘terrorist’, presented their compliments at his throne, some, including French and German envoys, travelling to meet him2 (even before the $10m bounty on his head3 had been removed). Or invited him to call, as Macron did for France.4

Al-Jolani offered friendship to ‘Israel’ even as the IOF occupied additional parts of Syria and bombed any remaining military installations of the Assad regime.5

THE KURDISH-LED SDF, TURKEY AND AL-JOLANI

The objective of the SDF had been to overthrow Assad so as to form a Kurdish state within Syria in order to link up with other Kurdish regions to create a federal Kurdish state. Turkey feared this project, having fought decades of bloody war against the PKK in its own Kurdish region.

Apologies for use of CIA map but difficult to get publishable image showing Kurdish-controlled areas within Syria. (Image sourced: Internet)

Consequently Turkey was at odds with US/NATO forces and the participation of the SDF within it, although Trump, as his previous Presidency drew to an end, publicly withdrew support for the Kurdish coalition. Turkey has welcomed the Damascus forces defeat of the SDF.

Since al-Jolani and his own coalition came to power, he attempted to integrate the SDF fighters within his own forces. The Kurds reluctantly agreed but insisted they be incorporated as a unit and not dispersed among al-Jolani’s forces, a proposal declined by the new President.

Since then there have been numerous clashes between the different forces, with the SDF holding their own, until the recent few days when they lost a number of strongholds, including that guarding the Al-Shaddadi prison, leading to thousands of former ISIS fighters being freed.

This prison breach, welcomed by Turkey,6 must be viewed with horror by many Syrians, in particular by the Yazidi, Alawite, Druze and Christian communities who have been subjected to home invasions, humiliation and massacres, along with rape and kidnapping of women.7

Neighbouring Iraq, Lebanon and even Jordan have cause to worry too.

Again, difficulty in getting publishable map showing Syria with its neighbours but also Iran. (Image sourced: Internet)

In sifting through the disputing claims, it is worth noting that the SDF claimed that the International Coalition base, only two kilometres away from the jail in Syria’s Hasakah province, did not respond to calls for assistance8 and the SDF denounced the failure of the USA’s forces to support them.9

It is relevant too that the SDF are not Islamist Jihadists and fought them many times in Syria, although it is true that the Western powers, while supporting the SDF, also supported and instigated ISIS to overthrow Assad, although bombing them too in periodic control operations.10

Events from the coming to power of Al-Jolani to the freeing of the Al-Shaddadi Prison may hold lessons of importance too for some strains of the Western Left and Liberals who supported the insurgent opposition to Assad in favour of ‘democracy’ while parroting mass media propaganda.11

It may also add a cautionary example to the dictum that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, often quoted by otherwise anti-imperialists who supported the IDF’s alliance with the US/NATO to overthrow the Assad regime.12

CUI BONO? WHO GAINS?

What now? (Cartoon by D.Breatnach)

One might think that the Western Powers, who have been in coalitions fighting ISIS and have suffered some attacks on themselves, including the Al Qaeda attack on New York’s Twin Towers, would be strongly opposed to this liberation of thousands of experienced Islamist jihadist fighters.

But if so, how are we to understand the refusal of the Coalition forces to intervene during the attack on the SDF forces guarding the jail? Or the Western Powers legitimising of the Al-Jolani regime running Syria, despite the al-Nusra background and religious sectarian massacres since?

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the imperialist powers wish to see those Islamic fundamentalist ex-fighters freed — but what could be their purpose? To instigate an internal conflict in Lebanon, perhaps, occupying Hezbollah away from ‘Israel’ and excusing foreign intervention?

Or keeping the Iraqi Government busy and deepening its reliance on US forces just as it seems to be asserting some independence. Or to sent north-eastwards against Iran. One thing is clear, the Western Powers allowed it and the reason nothing to do with concern about jail conditions.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1At the end of 2020, the U.S.-backed militia in northeast Syria held at least 10,000 ISIS prisoners, one of the largest populations of detained Islamists in the Middle East. Thousands of ISIS fighters were captured as the Islamic State collapsed in early 2019. The fighters were held in approximately 14 detention centers operated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-trained Kurdish and Arab militia that fought ISIS in Syria. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/islamists-imprisoned-across-middle-east

2https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/03/middleeast/eu-ministers-syria-visit-intl

3US scraps $10m bounty for arrest of Syria’s new leader Sharaa: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07gv3j818ko

4https://thecradle.co/articles/julani-in-a-suit-how-france-turned-a-pariah-into-a-partner

5https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250416-syria-leader-jolani-privately-promised-to-normalise-ties-with-israel-by-2026-ex-uk-diplomat-says/

6From The Cradle, on Telegram: Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, said that recent gains by Syrian government forces had “thwarted” attempts by Kurdish groups to obstruct Turkiye’s peace process. Feti Yildiz, deputy leader of the government-aligned Turkish nationalist MHP party, described Sunday’s agreement in Syria as having “a favorable impact.” “Things will become easier,” Yildiz told reporters in the Turkish parliament when asked how the Syrian deal affects the PKK process. “It had been standing like an obstacle, and for now it looks as though that obstacle has been removed.” Turkish security sources, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, called the deal a historic turning point.

7https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacred-1500-alawites-chain-command-led-damascus-2025-06-30/ and https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/21/the-situation-in-syria-is-worse-now-than-under-isis/

8Quoted in https://shafaq.com/en/Middle-East/Syria-s-SDF-loses-control-of-Al-Shaddadi-prison-holding-ISIS-detainees and many other sources.

9https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-forces-overrun-isis-prison-as-sdf-condemns-us-inaction

10The SDF contains female Kurdish and Yazidi fighters too which would be anathema to Islamist fundamentalists.

11It should not be understood from this that I was a supporter of the Assad regime; I attended demonstrations against imperialist invasion and regime change while also refusing to support the regime itself. I had arranged with Eva Bartlett, a much-publicised critic of the regime-change operations of the US/NATO forces, to organise a Dublin public meeting for her to address and had her stay at my home. After learning that I was also going to criticise the regime position against the Kurds she left without explanation and I had to cancel the meeting venue booking.

12In discussions with Anarchists of the WSM (organisation no longer in existence) and Irish Republicans of (Éirigí organisation much diminished since and now in coalition with another group) I refuted the correctness of application of this principle to the major imperialist power in the world, the USA. At a conference of the Éirigí group I spoke from the floor in criticism of that and some other aspects of the SDF and was heavily criticised from the floor also while the Chairperson reiterated support for the SDF. Though no-one spoke in my support, at least three Irish Republican activists approached me afterwards to express their support for my statements.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-forces-overrun-isis-prison-as-sdf-condemns-us-inaction

Battle over the jail with different outcome in 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Hasakah_(2022)

See Syria section in https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/islamists-imprisoned-across-middle-east

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/21/the-situation-in-syria-is-worse-now-than-under-isis/

Syria leader Jolani privately promised to normalise ties with Israel by 2026, ex-UK diplomat says

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_al-Sharaa