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Iranians carry flags as they participate in a march pledging loyalty to new leader Mojtaba Khamenei, stretching from Imam Hussein Square to Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, on April 29, 2026. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force warned the United States on Thursday against potential military action amid reports Washington is considering new strikes against Tehran, Anadolu reports.
The warning followed a report by US news website Axios that US President Donald Trump is expected to receive a briefing from US Central Command (CENTCOM) on options for a “short and intense” series of strikes aimed at breaking the current stalemate.
In response, Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, said Tehran would respond to any such operations “even if short and rapid” with “prolonged and painful blows.”
“We have seen the fate of your bases in the region; we will also see your vessels,” he added in his comments carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
According to Axios, CENTCOM has prepared plans that could include strikes on Iranian infrastructure, as well as broader options such as increased naval pressure in the Strait of Hormuz.
The proposals are reportedly aimed at forcing Iran back to negotiations with greater flexibility, particularly on the nuclear issue.
The report also said Washington is considering steps to secure maritime routes in the Strait of Hormuz and is preparing for possible Iranian retaliation.
The US and Israel began strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, prompting retaliation from Tehran against US allies in the Gulf and closing the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire was announced on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, followed by talks in Islamabad on April 11, but an agreement could not be reached. Trump later unilaterally extended the truce without any new time frame, at Pakistan’s request.
He also rejected a proposal from Iran, in which Tehran suggested reopening the Strait of Hormuz while leaving questions about its nuclear program for later negotiations.
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People carry injured Palestinians with a horse cart as six Palestinians were reported injured in a strike by the Israeli army using an armed drone near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Palestine, on April 30, 2026. [ Mohammed Eslayeh – Anadolu Agency]
Nine Palestinians were injured in fresh Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as Israel continued daily violations of a ceasefire in place since last October, medical sources said.
The sources said two Palestinians were wounded after being targeted by a quadcopter drone in the Shujaiya area east of Gaza City.
Six more Palestinians were injured in a drone strike targeting a group of civilians near Shuhadaa Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
A fisherman was also wounded by Israeli naval fire off the northwestern coast of Rafah in the south, the sources said.
Israeli artillery also shelled areas northeast of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza with several rounds, with no injuries reported, witnesses told Anadolu.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, the Israeli army has committed 377 violations of the ceasefire agreement during April, resulting in the killing of 111 Palestinians and the injury of 376 others, while continuing to restrict the entry of aid.
“Only 4,503 aid trucks entered Gaza out of the 18,000 stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, representing no more than 25%,” the office said in a statement.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll from Israeli attacks since October 2023 has reached 72,601, while 172,419 others have been injured.
According to the ministry, at least 824 Palestinians have been killed and 2,316 others injured by Israeli fire since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, 2025.
The ceasefire agreement was reached after two years of Israeli genocidal war that began Oct. 8, 2023, with US support, causing widespread destruction affecting about 90% of civilian infrastructure, with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at around $70 billion.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.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 of a banner featuring Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the attacks by the United States and Israel against Iran continue on March 14, 2026. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
Iran’s supreme leader said Thursday the future of the Gulf will be “without US presence,” stressing that new legal and management frameworks for the Strait of Hormuz will bring stability and economic benefits to the region, Anadolu reports.
In a written statement released by his office to mark Persian Gulf National Day, Mojtaba Khamenei said the presence of foreign powers, particularly the United States, has been a source of instability in the region, adding that a “new phase is emerging.”
He said the Gulf is a key part of regional identity and global economic connectivity, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman.
Khamenei said Iran would ensure security in the Gulf through what he described as new management of the Strait of Hormuz, including updated legal frameworks.
“These frameworks will bring stability, progress and economic benefits for all nations in the region,” he added.
The supreme leader said regional countries share a common destiny in the Gulf and that external actors “from thousands of kilometers away” have no place in its future.
The message also referred to what it described as a “new regional order” emerging from recent developments.
The statement comes amid heightened tensions following the war that began on Feb. 28 between Iran and the United States and Israel, which disrupted shipping and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire announced on April 8 has so far held, while diplomatic efforts continue to reach a broader agreement, including discussions over maritime access and security in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran designated April 30 as Persian Gulf National Day in 2005, commemorating the expulsion of Portuguese forces from the Strait of Hormuz during the Safavid era.
Mojtaba Khamenei was selected supreme leader on March 9 following the killing of his father, Ali Khamenei, in US-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. Since taking office, he has communicated only through written statements.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.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.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displays map during United Nations 79th General Assembly (UNGA) speech showing West Bank, Gaza as ‘Israel’ on September 27, 2024 in New York, United States [Fatih Aktaş/Anadolu Agency]
For seven decades, Israel has functioned not within fixed borders, but through the calculated deployment of “fluid lines.” From the 1947 Partition Plan to modern military doctrines, its geography remains a moving target—a series of unilateral impositions designed to facilitate expansion while evading international law. Effectively, Israel recognizes no definitive borders for itself, nor does it respect the sovereign boundaries of its neighbors. From Iran to Egypt, international borders are treated as mere sketches on a map rather than inviolable markers. This refusal to define its own limits maintains a permanent “frontier status,” where expansion is the only constant and international law is merely an optional suggestion.
We must not lose sight of the factual reality: immediately upon its creation on stolen Palestinian land, Israel was ostensibly bound by UN Resolution 181. This 1947 Partition Plan was presented by the international community as a definitive blueprint for borders—borders that the Zionist leadership, in truth, never intended to inhabit.
History records that while the Jewish Agency publicly accepted the plan to gain international legitimacy, its leaders privately viewed it as a mere “first step.” As David Ben-Gurion told the Zionist Executive at the time, statehood was a tool to “abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”
Following the 1948 war and the catastrophic displacement of the Palestinian people, the 1949 Armistice Agreements established the “Green Line.” It is a crucial distinction that this was never a “border” in the legal sense; at the insistence of both sides at the time, it was defined strictly as a military demarcation line “without prejudice to future political settlements.” However, while the UN’s intention was for this line to serve as the baseline for a future two-state reality, the Israeli leadership envisioned it only as a temporary pause.
By refusing to formalize these lines into permanent, recognized borders, Israel ensured its strategic flexibility—allowing it to treat the map as a work in progress, to be redrawn by force whenever the political winds allowed.
Today, the Green Line remains a strategic phantom. In the Zionist calculus, it is an optical illusion maintained for the consumption of the international community, while on the ground, it has been systematically erased by relentless settlement expansion. This “orthographic minimalism” applied to geography ensures the state remains in a permanent state of flux; it facilitates a “creeping annexation” that renders the logic of a two-state solution not only obsolete but self-defeating.
As the physical Green Line faded into geopolitical irrelevance, a new vocabulary emerged: the “Yellow Line.” This is no longer a fixed geographic marker, but a calibrated political-military tool used to project power across the region.
Unlike a border, the Yellow Line is an elastic boundary of “permissible” presence—a shifting gray zone that Israel expands or contracts to justify incursions, surveillance, and the gradual absorption of neighboring space under the guise of security necessity.
In Gaza and Lebanon, this strategy of fluid boundaries has transitioned into a violent re-mapping of the Levant. In Gaza, Israel has seized a significant portion of the devastated Strip under the perennial pretext of “security,” creating deep buffer zones that effectively shrink the territory. This occurs even as diplomatic overtures—such as Trump’s “Deal of the Century” and various “ceasefire” frameworks—theoretically dictate a full withdrawal. The reality on the ground mocks the paper promises; the “line” in Gaza is currently defined by the tread of a tank, not the ink of a treaty.
In Lebanon, the encroachment is even more brazen. Despite the technical existence of a ceasefire, the Yellow Line—now functioning as an aggressive “Security Line”—has pushed far beyond the UN-recognized Blue Line. It appears to have reached northward to the Litani River, effectively encompassing the entirety of South Lebanon. This is a profound historical regression; this very land was only liberated from Israeli occupation in 2000 through the sustained efforts of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance and its allies.
By unilaterally redrawing this line at the Litani, Israel is attempting to undo decades of Lebanese sovereignty, treating the South once again as a “frontier” to be managed by force rather than a border to be respected.
In the case of Iran, the discourse surrounding its nuclear program serves as the ultimate expression of the “Red Line” doctrine. Here, the term is weaponized to claim a total monopoly on regional security and to safeguard Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge—a mandated policy ensuring that no regional rival can achieve military or technological parity. These lines are not fixed by international law, nor are they rooted in objective security requirements; rather, they are unilaterally redefined according to Israeli strategic desires and bolstered by unconditional American financial, diplomatic, and military support.The ultimate goal remains the realization of the “Greater Israel” project. While historically this was pursued through conventional warfare and territorial seizure, we are witnessing a new phase of this expansion. Today, the project is being advanced through normalization.
The ultimate realization of the “Greater Israel” project is no longer being pursued solely through conventional warfare; it is now being finalized through normalization. By bypassing the Palestinian issue and establishing diplomatic and economic “lines” across the Arab world, Israel seeks to validate its territorial gains without ever committing to a definitive map. This strategy has enabled it to cultivate a network of both open and secret allies, even among Arab nations, effectively turning regional neighbors into partners in its “frontier” logic.
This is the shift from physical conquest to systemic hegemony.
The symbolic and the religious are frequently invoked here; historical narratives and biblical references are weaponized to frame these strategic choices as a “divine right” rather than a flagrant violation of modern international norms.
By refusing to settle within fixed borders, Israel maintains a permanent “frontier mentality” that thrives on perpetual conflict and the constant outward push of its influence.
Today, “Greater Israel” is a fact on the ground—a strategic reality that stretches its shadow from the borders of Iran to the gates of Egypt. This is a state defined not by geography, but by the “Red Lines” it imposes on others and the “Yellow Lines” it erases for itself. The inherent danger of this strategy is that such boundaries are unstable by design. When a state’s security is predicated on the constant movement of its political and physical boundaries, peace becomes a secondary concern.
In this framework, the primary goal is not coexistence, but a regional hegemony that ensures no border in the Middle East is ever truly inviolable.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.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.
