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Displaced Palestinians struggle carrying on with daily life amid the rubble left by Israeli attacks in Jabalia, Gaza on January 12, 2026. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
Japan has urged Israel to immediately cease actions that undermine a two-state solution, expressing “serious concerns” over the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said, Anadolu reports.
The message was conveyed by Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi during a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar in Tel Aviv on Sunday, according to the ministry.
While Motegi condemned the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, he expressed “deep concern” over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Motegi urged Israel to “take appropriate responses as to protection of civilians and ensuring the humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” the statement said.
He “strongly urged Israel to take appropriate responses” to ensure unimpeded humanitarian assistance by international organizations, including the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and other NGOs.
On the situation in the West Bank, Motegi told his counterpart that settlement activities violate international law.
Expressing Japan’s “serious concerns” that settlement expansion and rising settler violence could further destabilize the region, he urged Israel to “immediately cease any unilateral actions that run counter to a two-state solution.”
Japan has dispatched Ambassador Takeshi Okubo and a specialist to the Civil-Military Coordination Center, which Motegi also inspected during the visit.
The US-led center was established to monitor implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement and coordinate humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian enclave.
Japan-Palestine High-level Political Dialogue
Motegi later met Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in the West Bank, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement.
He explained Japan’s “consistent support” for a two-state solution and its position on Gaza reconstruction and Palestinian state-building.
Motegi said Japan would “actively” engage in international efforts toward rebuilding Gaza through its “efforts for sustaining peace.”
The two sides agreed to work together for peace and stability in the Middle East and to establish a “Japan-Palestine High-level Political Dialogue,” the statement said.
Motegi also visited Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah.
The visit aimed to “comprehend the situation of Palestinian refugees” in the West Bank and to observe Japan’s support for Palestinian state-building efforts on the ground.
During his Middle East trip, Motegi will travel to Doha for talks with his Qatari counterpart before visiting India and the Philippines.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu [Wikipedia]
Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu has revealed that Israeli agents are currently active in Iran.
In an interview with Israel’s army radio, Eliyahu discussed Israeli operations in Iran over the past year and claimed that activities are ongoing, according to Israel Hayom newspaper.
He said, “When we struck Iran last year, we were on their territory and knew how to prepare the ground for the attack. I can assure you that our people are working there right now.”
Referring to Iran’s internal situation and possible Israeli involvement, he added “Are they now acting directly to topple the regime? No. Are they acting to ensure that Iran cannot threaten us from all other aspects? Yes.”
Earlier this week, Eliyahu called for action against “terrorist elements in the Bedouin diaspora,” saying the issue “is no less serious than jihadist terrorism.” He also urged that “the same measures used against Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists” be applied against those causing unrest.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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A view from the exhibition as Iran exhibits its missiles, satellite-carrying rockets and air defence systems, including the missiles and drones used in the Israeli attack, at the Aviation and Space Park Permanent Exhibition Centre of the Revolutionary Guards Army in capital Tehran, Iran on November 12, 2025. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
Iran has warned that it may carry out a pre-emptive strike against its adversaries, signalling a potential escalation in regional tensions, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the newly formed Iranian Defence Council.
In the statement, the council said any interference in Iran’s internal affairs or attempts to destabilise the country would be met with a decisive response. It stressed that Tehran would not restrict its actions to responding only after an attack, but would also take into account what it described as “tangible indicators of threats” as part of its security calculations.
The warning comes two days after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted military exercises involving air defence systems and missile units, aimed at testing readiness levels.
The statement was issued amid heightened internal pressures, as Iranian security forces seek to contain widespread protests driven by inflation and the sharp depreciation of the national currency.
The Iranian Defence Council, which was established following the June 2015 war between Iran and Israel, said that Iran’s security, independence and territorial integrity constitute “a red line that cannot be crossed”.
“Any aggression or continued hostile behaviour will be met with a suitable, decisive and harsh response,” the statement said, adding: “Whoever attacks you must be attacked in kind,” without explicitly naming any specific adversary.
Iran’s state-run English-language newspaper, Tehran Times, also referred to the possibility of what it described as “pre-emptive self-defence”, reinforcing the message conveyed by the council.
The remarks are likely to heighten concerns over further escalation between Iran and Israel, amid an already volatile regional security environment.
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Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A composite image, assembled from left to right with photos depicting events from the Western world’s agenda in 2025 alongside the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Gaza, reflects two contrasting faces of the world in Ankara, Turkiye on December 29, 2025. [Stringer, Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
President Donald Trump is once again surrounded by a cast of political lightweights and constitutionally hollow obedient courtiers on one end, and Israel-first operatives on the other. They run US foreign policy where constitutional restraints are subverted, and American power is used as a blunt instrument to advance agendas that are neither democratic nor American. This is not chaos or mismanagement, its planned.
What is being presented as “drug enforcement” against Venezuela’s president is a premeditated act of war orchestrated, in part, to advance Israeli strategic interests and the profits of multinational oil corporations. It is a manipulation of US power in service of foreign actors, with consequences that threaten global stability and undermines international law.
The most disastrous US foreign policy failures of the past quarter century in Iraq, Libya, and Syria were not driven by American interests. They were Israeli wars, sold to American officials through pressure, cooked intelligence, and a compliant political class.
Iraq war was designed in the dens of the pentagon by Israel-first neocons who fabricated the weapons of mass deception to drag America into a made-for-Israel war. Libya was obliterated under the pretext of humanitarian intervention. Syria was turned into a prolonged proxy battlefield. The promised prosperity, stability, democracy, or security never materialized. One thing materialized: delivering Israel’s objectives with American money and the lives of American soldiers.
Today’s war threats against Iran are following the same script. A war manufactured carefully and cynically by Israel-first American Jewish billionaires such as Miriam Adelson, and journalist advocates bought and employed by Larry Allison. These actors have exerted extraordinary influence over Trump, and even audaciously calling for violating the U.S. Constitution by floating a third term run, all to serve of Israeli strategic interests.
Trump branded Maduro a “drug trafficker” to justify his kidnapping, while pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández, a former Honduran president and a US-indicted cocaine kingpin who ran a narco-state shipping hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.
Could it be because Hernández was pro-Israel, but Maduro was not? Maduro dared to condemn Israeli genocide in Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank.
This has nothing to do with American interest. It is another Israeli account to settle with the president of Venezuela. These wishes were expressed by Benjamin Netanyahu—an internationally indicted war criminal welcomed in the White House—during his interview with Fox News just three days before the illegal American operation in Venezuela. Not surprising, Israel was possibly the only country who praised Trump for kidnapping Maduro.
If Trump can be the bully of the “neighborhood” and topple or coerce regimes that do not comply with his political and financial desires. Why not for Russia or China in their alleys? What stops China from “trumping up” charges in its courts against Taiwanese political leaders? What stops Russia from kidnapping political figures it deems hostile under the guise of law enforcement?
In fact, China has a far stronger historical, geographic, and political claim to Taiwan than the United States has to Venezuela more than 2,500 miles from American shores. Russia, likewise, has greater strategic ties to countries on its backyard than Washington does in Latin America.
Enforcing international law by local courts only leads to the collapse of international norms. Countries should not be able to use its legal system to supersede international law and UN Charter. The International Criminal Court (ICC), is the only body that can indict and issue arrest warrants. Claiming a law enforcement operation does not make it lawful, especially when the White House welcomes a war criminal and refuses to enforce the ICC arrest warrant.
Unfortunately, the attempt to topple Maduro is not a one off in Latin America. Washington has a bloody history of intervening and regime change, propping dictators, and removing democratically elected leaders. Unlike this case, most were done under the CIA clandestine operations. To name just few, and not in any order: The 1964 Brazilian coup d’état, the 1971 coup in Bolivia, Chile military coup in 1973. The CIA coups in Ecuador between 1960 and 1963, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état, 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, and the 1983 invasion of Grenada.
Israel’s influence over US foreign policy has become so pervasive that America is perceived as a rattle saber wielded to settle Israeli scores with other countries, sanctioning the ICC, and even suppressing local dissent against Israel. By conflating American national interests with Israel’s strategic objectives, Washington is inviting international chaos, and serving Israel by diverting global attention from Israeli war crimes in Palestine.
And the American taxpayer is paying for all of it. Since 2001, the US has spent more than eight trillion on made-for-Israel wars. This is enough to give 32 million American families free homes ($250,000 each).
Not passing a judgment on the legitimacy of Maduro or his style of governance, that is for the Venezuelan people alone to decide. But an administration that openly expresses admirations to “friendly” dictators, where free press and elections do not exist, has neither the credibility nor the moral standing to decide on legitimate systems of government.
Kidnapping Maduro from his bedroom is not about democracy. It is an exercise of power on behalf of oil profiteers and Israeli strategic interests. The United States does not advance freedom in Latin America by violating international law, nor does it serve Americans when the US army is outsourced to serve the desires of the Israeli lobby, Zionist implants in the administration, and Israel-first donors.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
A woman carries a child as Palestinians whose homes were destroyed by Israeli attacks try to continue their lives in heavily damaged and unusable buildings in the Hamad al-Shihri area of Khan Younis, Gaza, on January 5, 2026. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Israeli forces reported blew up a 5-year-old girl and wounded two other children a day after fatally shooting a 15-year-old boy in Gaza.
With the world captivated by and concerned over the Trump administration’s weekend abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, continuing its devastating US-backed response to the Hamas-led October 2023 attack.
In Gaza, where Israel faces widespread accusations of genocide, an Israeli strike on Monday “hit a tent housing displaced people, killing a 5-year-old girl and her uncle and wounding two other children,” the Associated Pressreported, citing officials at Nasser Hospital. “Family members wept over the bodies as they were brought to the hospital.”
The Israel Defense Forces used one of its common claims for when it kills civilians. According to the AP, the IDF said that it struck a Hamas militant who planned an imminent attack on Israeli troops in Gaza, the strike complied with the ceasefire agreement, and it was conducted in a targeted way to limit civilian harm.
The tent strike in the Muwasi area northwest of Khan Younis came a day after Israeli forces shot and killed at least three Palestinians in that city on Sunday. According toReuters, “Medics reported that the dead included a 15‑year‑old boy, a fisherman killed outside areas still occupied by Israel in the enclave, and a third man who was shot and killed east of the city in areas under Israeli control.”
Gutting the most basic norms of #InternationalLaw to facilitate a genocide in #Gaza has made possible the kidnapping of a sitting head of state & the commandeering of a sovereign state & describing it as “self-defense”The atrocities committed in Gaza cannot b contained #Venezuela
Israel has killed at least 422 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 1,189 since reaching the ceasefire deal with Hamas three months ago. The overall death toll in the strip has climbed to at least 71,388, with another 171,269 people injured, according to local health officials. Global experts warn the true counts are likely far higher.
Meanwhile, according toAl Jazeera, journalists on the ground in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory observed that the IDF “has spent the past 24 hours expanding the so-called ‘yellow line’ in eastern Gaza,” or the boundary behind which Israeli forces officially withdrew as part of the October deal.
Al Jazeera‘s Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City:
The ongoing Israeli attacks on the ground, the expansion of the “yellow line,” are meant to eat up more of the territory across the eastern part, really shrinking the total area where people are sheltering.
Everyone is cramped here. The population here not just doubled but tripled in many of the neighborhoods, given the fact that none of these people is able to go back to their neighborhoods. We’re talking about Zeitoun, Shujayea, as well as Tuffah.
It was not until the past few minutes that the sounds of hums, the drones buzzing, faded away, but it had been going on for the past night and all of yesterday. Ongoing explosions that could be heard clearly from here.
Mahmoud also reported that “there’s nothing on the ground other than the headlines we’ve been reading over the past couple of days, the expectation now that within days the Rafah crossing is going to open and allow for movement in and out of Gaza. So far, we know the Israeli military is pushing for Rafah to be just a one-way exit.”
Throughout the Israeli assault, far-right officials in Israel have ramped up calls to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population and recolonize the territory. There has also been a surge in violence from Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank over the past two years, as well as renewed settlement-building efforts there.
Laila Al-Arian, an American journalist and executive producer for Al Jazeera‘s documentary series “Fault Lines,” said on social media Sunday, “With eyes on Venezuela, Israel is bombing Gaza and escalating its assault on the West Bank.”
In November 2024, nearly a year before the ceasefire agreement in Hamas, Israel struck a deal with the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah—and, since then, as with Gaza, has repeatedly violated it.
Israel launched strikes on eastern and southern Lebanon on Monday after an IDF spokesperson said the military would target alleged Hezbollah sites in Kfar Hatta and Ain el-Tineh, and Hamas sites in Annan and al-Manara.
Al Jazeerareported that “Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a drone strike on a car in the southern village of Braikeh earlier Monday wounded two people. The Israeli military said the strike targeted two Hezbollah members.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
