Analyst flags 'most telling' sign that Trump admin is hiding something about boat strikes

Robert Davis
December 3, 2025 
RAW STORY


CNN screenshot

CNN anchor Abby Phillip on Wednesday flagged what she described as "the most telling sign" that President Donald Trump's administration is trying to hide something about the strikes it conducted against alleged drug boats.

Phillip opened her nightly show, "NewsNight," with a montage of shifting claims made by administration officials about the boat strikes. She said the comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio were the "most telling" because they showed the administration knows it needs to stick to a pre-determined narrative about the event.

She played a clip of Rubio telling reporters that one boat the administration struck in September was "probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean." A few months later, Rubio told another group of reporters that the same boat was traveling to the United States.

"That very first clip that we played of Marco Rubio, where he said initially that it was not going to the United States, it was going to Trinidad or some other country, and then he corrected himself to get in line with what the administration was saying," Phillip pointed out. "That's the most telling to me, that they know that they need to have a particular narrative about this."

The video also highlights other contradictions in the Trump administration's explanation about the boat strikes. For instance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed during Tuesday's cabinet meeting that he did not "stick around long enough" to see if there were any survivors from the September 2 attack. That statement seemed to contradict a previous claim he made about seeing the entirety of the attack live on television.

To date, the administration has conducted more than 20 strikes against alleged drug boats, killing more than 80 people, according to reports.

There They Go Again: Venezuela Edition

A US president is trumping up a nonexistent threat to menace a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map.


The USS Gravely warship enters the port of Port of Spain on October 26, 2025; the US warship will visit Trinidad and Tobago for joint exercises near the coast of Venezuela amid Washington’s campaign against alleged drug traffickers in the region.
(Photo by Marin Bernetti/ AFP via Getty Images)

Kevin Martin
Dec 03, 2025

Common Dreams


Mark Twain allegedly quipped, “God created war so Americans would learn geography.” Whether or not he actually said that, might it not be a good test, that the world’s most mighty military power be prevented from waging war if a majority of Americans failed to find the alleged enemy on a world map?

Frivolity aside, this should not need to be said, but the United States has no legal authority to attack Venezuela (nor Iran, Sudan, Somalia, or any other country), nor engage in covert action to overthrow its government. Should the US do so, it will be opposed by everyone south of the Rio Grande, and rightly be seen as a racist resumption of the Monroe Doctrine. Whatever one thinks of the current government, nearly 30 million people live in Venezuela, and they don’t deserve to be demonized or threatened for the policies of their president, as Venezuela poses no threat to the United States.

The American people get this. A recent CBS News poll shows widespread public skepticism and disapproval of any US military attack against Venezuela, properly so, with 70% opposing the US taking military action.

Moreover, the current US military buildup in the Caribbean is an unnecessary and dangerous provocation. US Navy warships and Marine deployments to the region should be reversed to ease tensions. It is very unlikely the US would invade Venezuela with ground forces as even gung ho for blood Secretary of War Pete Hegseth must know a quagmire would ensue, but the Trump administration may see political advantage to have this as a simmering, manufactured “crisis,” to distract from the Epstein files; President Donald Trump’s sagging popularity; and his failed economic, domestic, and foreign policies. And Trump’s declaration closing Venezuelan air space has zero legitimacy, though it did scare many airlines into changing flight routes.

Trump is about to risk American lives, when nobody voted to have their sons and daughters fight a war with Venezuela, or any other country.

An obvious question comes to mind. Is this really about oil, not drugs? Fentanyl is not coming into the US via Venezuela, and the alleged drug ring run by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not exist. However, Venezuela does have the world’s largest known oil reserves.

I can’t imagine anyone wants a rerun of the Iraq wars. Let’s not test the adage that “history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme” (which again, Mark Twain may or may not have said). We don’t want to have to dust off our “No War for Oil!” protest signs. And there is also already a metastasizing problem with violent competition for rare earth minerals in Venezuela.

The brouhaha about the second attack on the alleged “drug boat” on September 2 (and no evidence has been presented that it was a “drug boat” and even if it was, there was no legal authority to attack it, once or twice) possibly being a war crime misses the point, though Hegseth should be held to account; all the attacks on the alleged “drug boats” are illegal, and unauthorized by Congress.

Speaking of which, Congress needs to not only investigate these shady “drug boat” attacks, but assert its constitutional authority by passing a War Powers Resolution to stop the out-of-control Trump administration from further attacks or escalation. The US Senate failed to pass such a measure last month, 51-49, with all Democrats voting in favor and all but two Republicans voting against upholding the Constitution, but “the world’s greatest deliberative body” should try again. Perhaps Republicans can read the polls better now.

Also, US economic sanctions are hurting the people and economy of Venezuela, and should be at least reconsidered, if not scrapped altogether. Unfortunately, some self-appointed foreign policy experts think sanctions are a humane alternative to war, and better than “doing nothing.” The reality is broad economic sanctions hurt ordinary people the most, and are an immoral and ineffective way to try to get hungry people to overthrow their government, regardless of its domestic popularity or lack thereof.

Lastly, while I never bought this, wasn’t Trump supposed to be about “America First” and avoiding foreign wars? His voters thought so. Trump is about to risk American lives, when nobody voted to have their sons and daughters fight a war with Venezuela, or any other country. Congress needs to listen to the wisdom of the American people and shut this ill-conceived threat to Venezuela and its neighbors down now.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Kevin Martin
Kevin Martin is the president of Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund, with over 40 years experience as a peace and justice organizer. He is helping coordinate the Cease-Fire Now Grassroots Advocacy Network.
Full Bio >

Pope Leo Presses Trump to End Military Escalation Against Venezuela

“So often, who suffers in these situations is the people, not the authorities,” the first American pope said as another regime change war looms.


Pope Leo XIV meets with journalists aboard the papal plane on December 2, 2025 on a flight back to Rome, Italy.
(Photo by Elisabetta Trevisa/Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Dec 03, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Amid escalating threats from the White House in recent days, Pope Leo XIV pleaded for President Donald Trump to pursue diplomacy with Venezuela rather than another regime change war.

“It is better to search for ways of dialogue, or perhaps pressure, including economic pressure,” said the first American pope as he returned to Rome from Lebanon.

Since September, the Trump administration has launched airstrikes against at least 22 boats mostly in the Southern Caribbean that have extrajudicially killed at least 83 people. While the administration has claimed these people are “narcoterrorists” from Venezuela, it has provided no evidence to support this.

Trump said he had ordered the closing of Venezuela’s airspace on Saturday, which has left many observers holding their breath in expectation of military action against the South American nation.

As Reuters reported Monday, Trump also offered safe passage to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro last month if he left the country, suggesting that regime change is the administration’s ultimate goal.

“On one hand, it seems there was a call between the two presidents,” said the pope, referring to that ultimatum from Trump last month. “On the other hand, there is the danger, there is the possibility there will be some activity, some [military] operation.”

“The voices that come from the United States, they change with a certain frequency,” Leo added.

The pope has been a frequent critic of the Trump administration’s policies since he was elected earlier this year, with harsh rebukes issued towards the White House’s attacks on immigrants.




While the pope did not denounce the idea of US-imposed regime change in Venezuela entirely, he said it should search for other means “if that is what they want to do in the United States.”

The US has notably already applied a great deal of “economic pressure” to Venezuela, via a regime of crippling sanctions that are considered one of the major causes of the nation’s economic instability in recent years.

On Tuesday, Abigail Hall, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, warned that “a US invasion, however framed, would impose steep costs on both nations.”

“For the United States, an attempt at regime change in Venezuela would likely be another foray into failed foreign policy, with all the costs that go with it,” she said. “A destabilized Venezuela could also trigger another wave of migration across the region, straining neighboring countries and potentially reaching US shores.”

“For Venezuelans, the costs would be even greater,” she added. “Beyond the immediate human toll of conflict, the long-term costs are incalculable. Even if Maduro were removed, a chaotic transition could destroy prospects for rebuilding Venezuela’s institutions, economy, and civil society.”

Amid Trump’s latest series of threats, Pope Leo echoed this warning aboard the papal plane. He said Venezuela’s bishops are “looking for ways to calm the situation” and pursue “the good of the people, because so often who suffers in these situations is the people, not the authorities.”

Lebanese army boosts its presence along border with Israel, dismantling Hezbollah posts

BASSEM MROUE
Fri, November 28, 2025 
AP


A Lebanese army soldier stands at the entrance of a tunnel dug into a mountain that was used by Hezbollah militants as a clinic and storage facility near the Lebanese-Israeli border in the Zibqin Valley, southern Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Boxes of canned food are scattered inside one of the rooms of the tunnel dug into a mountain that was used by Hezbollah militants as a clinic and storage facility, near the Lebanese-Israeli border in the Zibqin Valley, southern Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Lebanese army soldiers look at the Israeli military post of Hanita, left, and the Labbouneh post, one of five hills occupied by Israeli forces since last year, right, from a Lebanese military position in the village of Alma al-Shaab in south Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Lebanese army soldiers walk through a tunnel dug into a mountain that was used by Hezbollah militants as a clinic and storage facility, near the Lebanese-Israeli border in the Zibqin Valley, southern Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

ZIBQIN VALLEY, Lebanon (AP) — The Lebanese army has intensified its efforts in areas along the border with Israel, in the volatile area that witnessed the 14-month war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.

Parts of the zone south of the Litani River and north of the border with Israel were formerly a Hezbollah stronghold, off limits to the Lebanese national army and U.N. peacekeepers deployed in the area.

But since a ceasefire ended the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago, Lebanon's army has boosted its presence along the border to nearly 10,000 troops, closed 11 crossing points used for smuggling along the Litani River, and is dealing with huge amounts of unexploded ordnance, according to several senior army officers.

The army took dozens of journalists from local and and international media outlets Friday on a tour of the rugged area along the border. Its troops could be seen in places where Hezbollah once had a heavy military presence.

Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes since the November 2024 ceasefire, mainly targeting Hezbollah members but 127 civilians have also been killed, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Hezbollah has only claimed responsibility for an attack on an Israeli military post since last November. The group maintains it no longer has an armed presence south of the Litani River, close to the border.

Hezbollah rejected disarmament plan

Hezbollah refuses to discuss full disarmament across Lebanon until Israel stops its attacks and withdraws from five hilltop points that it captured during the war and still holds.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas. Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon for two months last year that severely weakened Hezbollah, followed by a ground invasion.

In August, the Lebanese government voted in favor of a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah rejected the plan.

In recent weeks, Israel has said that Hezbollah is working on rebuilding its capabilities in south Lebanon.

“The Lebanese army is making tremendous efforts during this critical period in the history of the region,” said Brig. Gen. Nicolas Thabet, Lebanese army commander in the sector south of the Litani River.

The journalists were taken Friday to Zibqin Valley, where Hezbollah once had rocket launchers, tunnels and posts hidden in the bushy region. There was no presence of the militant group and its former posts were either struck or now controlled by Lebanese troops.

A nearly 100-meter (328 feet) tunnel inside a mountain, used by Hezbollah in the past, contained what appeared to be a small medical clinic, a ventilation system, power cables, water tankers and large amounts of canned food.

Zibqin Valley is where munitions in an arms depot exploded in August, killing six army experts who were dismantling them.

“We will not abandon our goals no matter what the difficulties are,” said Thabet, adding that “the army is making major sacrifices” in one of “the most dangerous parts of the Middle East.”

Weapons and tunnels discovered

Army officers told journalists that there have been 5,198 violations by Israel since the ceasefire, including 657 airstrikes. They added that 13,981 housing units were destroyed by the war, in addition to the damage done to infrastructure in border villages.

They said that some of the weapons and ordnance they found were dismantled or ,detonated while others have been put in storage. Weapons that can be used are taken by the army, they said.

The officers added that the army now has 200 posts south of Litani River, in addition to 29 fixed checkpoints, and it operates patrols around the clock.

On Sept. 5, the army strengthened its efforts in the region after the government's decision to disarm Hezbollah. Since then, troops have discovered 74 tunnels, 175 rocket launchers and 58 missiles.

Thabet said the army does not enter homes to search them without a judicial order and only do so if they witness illegal activities as they're taking place.

Why Pope Leo’s Visit To Turkey Is Important – Analysis

Pope Leo XIV addresses bishops, priests, religious, pastoral workers, and laypeople at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul, Turkey, on Nov. 28, 2025. | Credit: Vatican Media

November 29, 2025 
Arab News
By Dr. Sinem Cengiz


Pope Leo XIV’s much-anticipated visit to Turkiye — his first official foreign trip as pontiff — has both diplomatic and religio-historic importance.

Paul VI became the first pope to visit Turkey in 1967, following the establishment of relations between the Holy See and Ankara seven years earlier. This is the fifth papal visit since that landmark trip.

Leo arrived in Turkiye on Thursday and will stay until Sunday, with a busy itinerary. Traditionally, papal visits to Turkiye have had two main stops: Ankara and Istanbul. In Ankara, meetings with officials are held, in which discussions mainly focus on regional and international humanitarian issues. While in Istanbul, meetings are held with religious figures and community members.

In this visit, Ankara was the pope’s first stop. There, he visited Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye, and was then welcomed with an official ceremony at the Presidential Complex by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Leo’s visit serves several purposes. While Turkiye is a Muslim-majority country, it is also home to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is considered the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church. His headquarters are in Istanbul. The first purpose of the visit is to send a unification message regarding Catholic-Orthodox relations.



In addition, Turkiye is considered by the Vatican as a significant geopolitical actor that plays a key role in regional crises. Thus, the second purpose of the visit focuses on Turkiye-Vatican relations, which have seen improvement of late, particularly in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Gaza war.

The Vatican has expressed appreciation for Turkiye’s efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Although the Holy See has also attempted to broker a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, those initiatives have so far failed. In addition, the war in Gaza has intensified diplomatic traffic between the Holy See and Ankara. Erdogan and the late Pope Francis held several phone calls on the Gaza war. The Holy See has particularly drawn international attention with its stance on the plight of the Palestinians, an issue also of deep sensitivity to Turkiye.

The last papal visit to Turkiye took place in 2014, continuing the tradition of popes visiting the country in the early years of their tenures. During his 2014 visit, Francis visited the Hagia Sophia, then a museum before it was converted to a mosque in 2020, and the Sultanahmet Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, where his prayer was widely seen as a gesture of interfaith dialogue and a symbol of strengthening Catholic-Muslim relations. Leo’s itinerary includes only the Blue Mosque. In 2014, Francis was warmly welcomed by the Turkish public and a similar atmosphere surrounds this visit. Souvenirs and posters featuring a portrait of Leo alongside the Turkish flag have been prepared.

Overseas trips are considered an important part of the Holy See’s soft power, giving the pope the opportunity to meet leaders, engage with Christian communities and draw global media attention to regional issues. During his visit to Turkiye, Leo is expected to focus on continued efforts toward Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation, strengthen dialogue between Christians and Muslims, raise concerns over regional issues, and support local Christian communities.

There have been reports that the pope is likely to raise the possible reopening of a Greek Orthodox religious seminary in Turkiye, known as Heybeliada school, which was closed in 1971 following a Constitutional Court ruling that private higher education institutions must be affiliated with state universities. The seminary, founded in 1844, is a symbol of Orthodox heritage and it trained generations of Greek Orthodox patriarchs, including Bartholomew.

Turkiye has long faced pressure from the US and EU to reopen it. Optimism grew after US President Donald Trump discussed the issue with Erdogan at the White House in September. Erdogan reportedly told Trump at their meeting that “we are ready to do whatever is incumbent upon us regarding the Heybeliada school.”

However, the central purpose of Leo’s Turkiye trip is to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council, which was held in 325 A.D. in today’s Iznik, in the northwestern Turkish province of Bursa. The pope will pray with Bartholomew toward the ruins of the Basilica of St. Neophytos and sign a joint declaration as a symbolic gesture of Christian unity. According to reports, 15,000 Christians are expected to attend the ceremony in Iznik.

Data from the Catholic Church states that about 33,000 Catholics currently live in Turkiye. The meeting between Leo and Bartholomew is considered an important step for the convergence of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The pope is also scheduled to perform a prayer service to an estimated 4,000 people at the Volkswagen Arena in Istanbul. Leo has also met the head of Turkiye’s Presidency of Religious Affairs and the country’s chief rabbi.

Within this context, the pope’s first overseas visit being to Turkiye comes as no surprise. It is both a papal tradition and a deliberate choice. Turkiye is a mosaic of faiths, home to Muslims, Christians, Jews and other religious minorities. It also hosts religious archaeological sites, making the country particularly important in the eyes of other communities. The timing of the visit is also important, as it comes when greater reconciliation is needed. Leo hopes to foster stronger Turkiye-Vatican relations, while also encouraging a united moral stance toward crises from Gaza to Ukraine.

Dr. Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkiye’s relations with the Middle East. X: @SinemCngz


Arab News

Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).

Pope Leo calls for Christian unity at Turkish site where Nicaean Creed originated

On the second day of his visit to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV joined Orthodox patriarchs on Friday in a commemoration ceremony at the site of the origin of the Nicaean Creed, a central Christian statement of belief that was adopted 1,700 years ago.


Issued on: 28/11/2025 
By: FRANCE 24



Pope Leo XIV joined Eastern and Western patriarchs and priests Friday in commemorating an important anniversary in Christian history, gathering at the site in Turkey of an unprecedented A.D. 325 meeting of bishops to pray that Christians might once again be united.

Leo, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and other Christian leaders met on the shores of Lake Iznik, the site of the Council of Nicaea that produced a creed, or statement of faith, that is still recited by millions of Christians today.

Standing over the ruins of the site, the men recited the creed, which Leo said was “of fundamental importance in the journey that Christians are making toward full communion.”

“In this way, we are all invited to overcome the scandal of the divisions that unfortunately still exist and to nurture the desire for unity for which the Lord Jesus prayed and gave his life,” he said.

Pope Leo meets Turkey's Erdogan and Orthodox leaders on first overseas trip

The 70-year-old pontiff spent Friday morning with Catholic leaders before going to Iznik to celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a gathering of bishops who drew up a foundational statement of faith still central to Christianity today.

The prayer marked the highlight of Leo's visit to Turkey and the main reason for his trip, the first of his pontificate.

The Nicaea gathering took place at a time when the Eastern and Western churches were still united. They split in the Great Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope. But even today, Catholic, Orthodox and most historic Protestant groups accept the Nicaean Creed, making it a point of agreement and the most widely accepted creed in Christendom.

As a result, celebrating its origins at the site of its creation with the spiritual leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches and other Christian representatives marked a historic moment in the centuries-old quest to reunite all Christians.

“The Nicene Creed acts like a seed for the whole of our Christian existence. It is a symbol not of a bare minimum; it is a symbol of the whole,” said Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians.

At the start of the prayer service, he told the men they were gathering not just to remember the past.

© France 24
01:34

“We are here to bear living witness to the same faith expressed by the fathers of Nicaea. We return to this wellspring of the Christian faith in order to move forward,” he said.

Roman Emperor Constantine had convened the gathering of bishops from around the Roman Empire after he had consolidated control following years of civil war and political intrigues.

Constantine wouldn’t formally convert to Christianity until the end of his life, in 337. But by 325, he had already been showing tolerance and favor toward a Christian sect that had emerged from the last great spasm of Roman persecution.

The version of the creed that emerged from the council, and recited today by Catholics, begins: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty … ”

Catholic and Orthodox hymns

The service commemoration, which featured alternating Catholic and Orthodox hymns, took place at the lakeside archaeological excavations of the ancient Basilica of Saint Neophytos. The stone foundations of the basilica, which were recently uncovered by the lake's receding waters, are believed to be on the site of an earlier church that hosted the council 1,700 years ago.

In addition to Leo and Bartholomew, the participants of the commemorative service included priests, patriarchs and bishops from Orthodox Greek, Syrian, Coptic, Malankarese, Armenian, Protestant and Anglican churches.

In his remarks to the men, Leo said all Christians must strongly reject the use of religion to justify war, violence “or any form of fundamentalism or fanaticism.”

“Instead, the paths to follow are those of fraternal encounter, dialogue and cooperation,” he said.

Small protest

Christians are a minority in predominantly Sunni Muslim Turkey, and ahead of the prayer in Iznik, around 20 members of a small Turkish Islamic party staged a brief protest. They said the encounter posed a threat to Turkey’s sovereignty and national identity.

Under a heavy police presence, Mehmet Kaygusuz, a member of the New Welfare Party, read a statement denouncing what he said were efforts to establish a “Vatican-like Greek Orthodox state” in Turkey. The group dispersed peacefully shortly after.

Iznik resident Suleyman Bulut, 35, acknowledged his town’s deep historical and spiritual significance for Christians and said he had no issue with them coming to honor their heritage.

“Muslims (too) should go and visit places that belong to us in the rest of the world, in Europe,” he said.

But Hasan Maral, a 41-year-old shopkeeper said he felt uncomfortable with visit. “The pope coming here feels contradictory to my faith,” he said.

'Viva il Papa'

Leo began his first full day in Istanbul by encouraging Turkey’s tiny Catholic community to find strength in their small numbers. According to Vatican statistics, Catholics number around 33,000 in a nation of 85 million, most of whom are Sunni Muslims.

He received a raucous welcome at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, where he was greeted with shouts of “Papa Leo” and “Viva il Papa” (Long Live the pope).

“The logic of littleness is the church’s true strength,” Leo told them in English. “The significant presence of migrants and refugees in this country presents the church with the challenge of welcoming and serving some of the most vulnerable.”

Leo later visited with a group of nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, who run a nursing home in Istanbul.

“He was so simple. We just felt he was at home. He felt very much at ease. Everybody got what they expected: a blessing, a kind word. It’s just enormous,” said Sister Margret of the Little Sisters of the Poor Nursing Home.

On Saturday, Leo continues with his ecumenical focus, meeting with Bartholomew and other Christian leaders. But he’ll also visit the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, commonly known as the Blue Mosque, and will celebrate a late afternoon Mass in Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena.

Leo heads to Lebanon on Sunday for the second and final leg of his trip.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

Pope to visit Istanbul's Blue Mosque

Istanbul (AFP) – Pope Leo XIV will visit Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque early on Saturday on the third day of his trip to Turkey.

Issued on: 29/11/2025 - RFI

Pope Leo XIV is on a four-day visit to Turkey, the first overseas trip since he was elected as head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics © Andreas SOLARO / AFP

It will be the first time the American pope, who was elected in May as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, visits a Muslim place of worship since taking over from his late predecessor Francis, who championed dialogue with Islam.

With such a highly symbolic gesture, Leo follows in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the site in 2006, and Francis who did the same in 2014 accompanied by the Grand Mufti of Istanbul.

But unlike them, he will not be visiting the nearby Hagia Sophia, the legendary sixth-century basilica, which was built during the Byzantine Empire and converted into a mosque following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

In a key reform by post-Ottoman Turkish authorities led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Hagia Sophia became a museum in 1935. And 50 years later, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

But in 2020, it was converted back into a mosque in a move that drew international condemnation, including from the late Pope Francis who said he was "very saddened" by the decision of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Critics have accused Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AKP party of chipping away at the Muslim-majority country's secular pillars.

The Blue Mosque -- which gets its name from the vibrant blue Iznik tiles that line its interior -- is one of Istanbul's main tourist attractions.

With its six towering minarets, the mosque was built in the early 17th century during the reign of Sultan Ahmed I, on part of the former Hippodrome, a huge chariot-racing stadium that was a central feature of Constantinople when it was the Byzantine capital.

On Saturday afternoon, Leo will meet local church leaders and attend a brief service at the Patriarchal Church of St. George before joining Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I at his palace on the banks of the Golden Horn estuary.

There, the two spiritual leaders will sign a joint declaration, the content of which has not yet been made public.

Later that same day, Leo will hold a mass at the city's Volkswagen Arena, where some 4,000 worshippers are expected to join him.

The pontiff flew to Iznik on Friday for an ecumenical prayer service to mark 1,700 years since one of the early Church's most important gatherings.

On Sunday morning, after a prayer service at the Armenian cathedral and leading a divine liturgy, the Orthodox equivalent of a mass, at St George's, he will head to Lebanon for the second leg of his trip -- his first overseas tour since being elected to the position.

© 2025 AFP

'So stupid it feels like a joke': Trump admin ruthlessly mocked over bomb return request

Alexander Willis
November 28, 2025

RAW STORY


Smoke billows from a location in southern Lebanon as seen from Marjayoun near the Israeli-Lebanese border, Lebanon, November 27, 2025. REUTERS/Karamallah Daher

The Trump administration was dog piled by critics after a Lebanese news outlet claimed that the United States is demanding the return of an advanced bomb it had recently dropped on the country but failed to detonate.

A local Lebanese news outlet, Al-Markaziya, reported that a recent Israeli strike on central Lebanon near Beirut that killed five people and injured 25 saw at least one bomb – an American-made GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, a precision-guided glide bomb that costs around $39,000 to manufacturer – land without detonating.

And, according to the outlet as reported by India Times on Friday, Trump administration officials are now asking for the bomb to be returned, and out of fear that it could be reverse engineered and allow Trump administration adversaries like China or Iran develop similar weapons.

With more than 4,000 Lebanese having been killed from Israeli strikes since late 2023, a significant share of which was done with American-made weapons given Israel is the single-largest recipient of American foreign aid, the alleged request was largely met with mockery and scorn among critics.

“Is this a meme?” asked X user “tweeterbird,” who’s shared content critical of the Trump administration for its focus on artificial intelligence, as well as content critical of the Israeli government. “This is so stupid it feels like a joke.”

“What can be more ridiculous than this?” asked another X user, “ManofGod,” whose profile says they specialize in AI and robotics.

Israel has launched an extensive campaign against Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent siege on Gaza. Among Israel’s most notable operations in Lebanon was its 2024 pager attack, an operation that saw thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies explode simultaneously across the country, killing and injuring thousands of civilians and Hezbollah members alike.

Opinion

The price of reintegrating Syria? Become Israel and America’s slave.

To reintegrate Syria in the region, acting president Ahmad al-Sharaa must accept that Israel is the master of the house, and that Syria's control over its energy resources will be subject to the will of the Arab Gulf states and the U.S.

By Rania Hammad and Tawfiq Al-Ghussein

November 25, 2025 
MONDOWEISS

Syrian President, Ahmad al-Sharaa, meets with U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack and his accompanying delegation at the People’s Palace in Damascus, Syria, on July 9, 2025. (Photo: Syrian Arab News Agency “SANA”/APA Images)

President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House earlier this month is being framed as Syria’s return to international legitimacy. In reality, it means something profoundly different: the reshaping of a shattered state into a system of managed dependency — and the process is being overseen by the very powers that helped destroy it.

What Washington calls “rehabilitation” uses humanitarian language to mask external control. The key sector where that control is exercised is the energy sector.

The limits of Syria’s permitted recovery are already clear in the language of Western policy institutes, donor coordination platforms, and Gulf-Western investment forums: low-risk sectors such as logistics, agriculture, and labor-intensive manufacturing are allowed to revive, while strategic sectors — energy, major infrastructure, telecommunications, and defense — remain locked behind political conditions tied to sanctions relief and regional alignment.

Energy is the decisive lever in this system: by regulating Syria’s access to its own oil and gas fields, refining capacity, electricity generation, and pipeline routes, external actors are setting the parameters for Syrian sovereignty.

This means that Syria’s diplomatic “normalization,” presented as a step towards stability, is actually designed to entrench dependency rather than overcome it. This is evidenced in Syria’s emerging postwar architecture.

These dynamics are not speculative. Since 2022, the Brussels Syria Conferences, IMF technical workshops, and analyses from the Atlantic Council, Carnegie, and the European Institute of Peace have openly stated that sanctions relief affecting the energy sector will depend on Syrian compliance with Western regional priorities. Under these conditions, aid ceases to serve reconstruction, instead becoming a technology of political supervision. In this sense, western consultancies, Gulf sovereign wealth vehicles, and donor agencies function less as partners than as custodians of Syrian recovery. And most importantly, “normalization” is, in practice, the monetization of sovereignty, because access to energy revenues is now contingent upon political obedience.

Al-Sharaa’s political posture mirrors this regional recalibration. As early as 2020, during the acceleration of Arab normalization under the Abraham Accords, Syrian and Lebanese outlets quoted him telling his cadres that “the world is changing.” He went on to say:

“Arab states are normalizing relations with Israel. We must read these realities carefully.”

His refusal to criticize the Accords and his silence during Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza in 2023–2025 — and during Israel’s consolidation of its control over the Syrian Golan Heights — indicate acceptance of a regional structure built around Israeli military primacy and Gulf-Israeli energy integration.

His attempt to recast himself as a statesman in a 2021 PBS Frontline interview — declaring that “we are not a threat to the West…we want to build a balanced relationship with all countries that respect our identity” — fits neatly within this trajectory. The language of “balance” signals an understanding that Syrian political legitimacy now depends on adopting frameworks designed outside Syria, particularly those governing the energy sector. Sovereignty is performed, but increasingly displaced to foreign centers of power.
Sidestepping Palestine

This alignment extends to his policies towards Palestinian movements in Syria. In a 2022 internal address, he insisted that “we will not allow external groups to drag Syria into wars that serve other agendas.” While couched in the language of sovereignty, the formulation conforms to Western and Gulf expectations that Palestinian factions in Damascus be restricted, especially those linked to Iran or Hezbollah, and thus capable of influencing regional energy and security arrangements.

Yet this is not a break from Syrian history. Under Hafez al-Assad, rhetorical solidarity with Palestine existed alongside interventions that weakened the Palestinian movement, from Tal al-Zaatar to the War of the Camps. As Rashid Khalidi and Patrick Seale both observed, Palestinian factions were treated as both assets and liabilities, to be shaped according to Syrian state strategy. Al-Sharaa’s stance reproduces this pattern within a landscape now dominated by external powers.

His rise unfolded as Israel intensified its dismantling of Syria’s military and industrial infrastructure in late 2024. As Gaza endured genocidal destruction, Israel expanded operations across Syria, striking air-defense systems, command centers, power stations, fuel depots, and the fragile national electricity grid. These strikes prevented any reconstitution of deterrence and reinforced Israeli control over Jabal al-Sheikh and the wider Golan Heights. Al-Sharaa’s silence signalled acceptance of a regional alignment in which Syrian strategic and energy sovereignty is effectively suspended under the pretext of “security.”

For Washington, al-Sharaa offers an anti-Iran axis without direct American intervention. Sanctions relief — especially those governing oil-export waivers and regional electricity transfers — is granted selectively.

Israel’s actions reveal the scale of external interference. Beyond occupying Jabal al-Sheikh and the sustained air campaign targeting Syrian energy and transportation infrastructure, Israel’s intelligence networks have exploited grievances in Suwayda, amplifying Druze separatism to weaken the state. These operations are part of a coherent strategy of keeping Syria militarily incapacitated and economically vulnerable. The objective is to limit Syria’s ability to challenge Israeli dominance.
Israel is the master of the house

This strategy is guided by Israel’s doctrine of “calibrated containment,” which treats permanent Syrian fragmentation as a security objective. Israeli operations across Syria and Lebanon, including restrictions on Hezbollah’s mobility, help preserve a system of managed instability in the country. The suppression of Palestinian political forces in Damascus fits the same logic, preventing any alternative political pole from emerging that could disrupt the regional energy architecture now being built.

Arab regimes reopening their embassies in Damascus present their engagement as a sign of solidarity, yet their calculations are fundamentally transactional. Reintegration under U.S. oversight stabilizes their own regimes and embeds Syria within a regional system governed by Western control over energy flows, transit routes, and infrastructure investment.

As Israel launches periodic strikes across the region with total impunity, it is sending a message to the people of the region: we are the masters of the house.

Turkey has entrenched a parallel form of dependency. Its shift from direct intervention to structural integration has transformed northern Syria into an extension of its border economy, where Turkish currency, contractors, and energy distributors dominate. This is framed as “stabilization,” but it institutionalizes long-term dependence on Ankara.

The Gulf monarchies have become Syria’s principal financiers. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar deploy reconstruction capital through corporate vehicles tied to their national energy strategies. Their funding is not aid but leverage, conditioning liquidity on political conformity. These arrangements fold Syria into a Gulf-Israeli energy framework that privileges external interests over national renewal.

Russia and Iran, though critical to preventing state collapse, now find their influence shrinking. Moscow remains militarily present but strategically diminished; Tehran’s networks have been disrupted by al-Sharaa’s restructuring. Their foothold is tolerated only insofar as it does not challenge the architecture shaped by Western, Gulf, and Israeli priorities.

And amid all of this, Israel remains the uncontested regional hegemon. As Israel launches periodic strikes across the region with total impunity, it is sending a message to the people of the region: we are the masters of the house.

For Syrians, the implications are profound. A state that once claimed centrality in the Arab liberation project risks becoming the conduit through which the Palestinian presence is erased on its own soil. If pressure on the remaining Palestinian factions continues, al-Sharaa faces a historic choice: revive a meaningful liberation project or preside over Syria’s absorption into a regional order built on foreign control and energy dependency.

This is not rehabilitation: it is annexation through consent.

As Gaza burns and Lebanon falters, the same powers that invoke security to justify genocide invoke stability to legitimize Syria’s subordination. The vocabulary shifts, but the logic doesn’t.

Yet Syria’s predicament is not solely the result of foreign manipulation. Dependency took root in decades of authoritarian governance, economic mismanagement, and the suppression of dissent. External powers merely exploited vulnerabilities already embedded.

True independence begins with self-critique as much as it does with resistance. It demands institutions capable of withstanding external pressure, particularly in the energy sector, where sovereignty is most easily compromised.

Sovereignty cannot be reclaimed by aligning with stronger states or through orchestrated defiance. It begins with knocking down the political foundations that allow dependency to take hold. Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.

UN committee warns of ‘organized, widespread’ ill-treatment in Israel’s actions since October 2023


November 28, 2025 

Middle East Monitor 

Palestinians continue their daily lives with limited resources amid the massive destruction in the Tel al Hawa neighborhood in western Gaza, following Israeli army attacks. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras – Anadolu Agency]


The UN Committee against Torture on Friday published its findings on Israel, expressing deep concern over what it described as Tel Aviv’s “disproportionate” response and reports of widespread torture and ill-treatment during the current conflict, Anadolu reports.

In its concluding observations, the committee “unequivocally condemned” the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and acknowledged the security threat Israel faces. However, it said Israel’s response has been “disproportionate,” resulting in “a massive loss of human life and profound suffering for the Palestinian people.”

It expressed “deep concern” about reports of “a de facto State policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” that has “gravely intensified since 7 October 2023.” It added that several Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory would amount to “cruel, inhuman, or degrading living conditions” for the Palestinian population.

The committee called on Israel to establish an “independent, impartial and effective ad hoc investigatory commission” to examine allegations of torture and ill-treatment, prosecute those responsible “including superior officers,” and ensure “the immediate entry” of humanitarian aid and aid workers into Gaza.

It also highlighted spikes in settler violence and administrative detention, saying both have reached “unprecedented levels.”

On domestic legislation, the committee noted the absence of a standalone criminal offense of torture and raised concern that officials may invoke a “necessity” defense when using unlawful physical pressure during interrogations. It said the continued use of undisclosed “special means” in interrogations remains problematic.

The committee urged Israel to enact a specific criminal offense of torture aligned with the Convention, disclose what “special means” entail, and ensure that “no exceptional circumstances are invoked to justify torture or ill-treatment.”

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured more than 170,900 people in the over two-year war that has left much of the enclave in ruins.

International tribunal finds Israel guilty of genocide, ecocide, and the forced starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza

The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine held in Barcelona presented striking evidence of Israel’s forced starvation of the Palestinian people and the deliberate destruction of food security in Gaza.

By Marianne Dhenin 

 November 27, 2025

MONDOWEISS

Jurors Abdessalam Kleiche, Ceren Uysal, and Bishop Joris Vercammen* hear testimony at the International People’s Tribunal on Palestine. (Photo: Carlo Manalansan)


The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine convened on November 22 and 23 in Barcelona. The event brought together organizers, human rights advocates, and legal experts and offered a platform for survivors of the ongoing assault on Gaza to present evidence of Israel’s international crimes. After two days of testimony, jurors returned their verdict: Israel, the United States, and other Western powers are guilty of the crimes of genocide, ecocide, and the forced starvation of the Palestinian people.

“The mass killings, deliberate starvation, systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, environmental devastation, and the targeting of hospitals, shelters, schools, and places of refuge were carried out as a matter of state policy, and with full knowledge of their fatal consequences,” said head juror Ceren Uysal, reading from the verdict as the tribunal closed.

Hosted by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, International People’s Front, and People’s Coalition of Food Sovereignty (PCFS), the tribunal offered a quasi-judicial platform for advocates and survivors of Israel’s ongoing genocide to present evidence and legal arguments related to the crimes committed against the Palestinian people. It follows in a tradition of popular forums seeking justice and accountability where institutions have failed to provide it, including previous tribunals on recent crimes in Gaza.

It came as Israel continues to commit violence in Palestine. Israel has violated the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in effect since October 10, 2025, at least 497 times, killing more than 340 people, according to the Gaza Government Media Office. On November 17, the United Nations Security Council endorsed President Donald Trump’s plan for an international force that he will lead to oversee the continued occupation of Gaza, drawing condemnation from legal experts and rights groups, who argue the plan violates Palestine’s right to self-determination and will fail to protect Palestinians.

Against this backdrop, the International People’s Tribunal repudiated the status quo. It offered striking evidence for Israel’s guilt, particularly for the forced starvation of the Palestinian people and the undermining of their food security. “The strategy of using food as a weapon has been going on for a long time in Palestine and Lebanon, but now it is intensified,” Razan Zuayter, PCFS global co-chairperson, told Mondoweiss. Zuayter also chairs the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN), which endorsed the tribunal.

Suzanne Adely, President of the National Lawyers Guild, speaks about ecocide for the prosecution on November 22 at the International People’s Tribunal on Palestine.

 (Photo: Carlo Manalansan)

Over the course of the two-day event, more than a dozen witnesses made this case. Farmers testified that Israeli forces had razed their lands, uprooting trees, killing livestock, and blackening the soil. One witness, who testified anonymously for fear of reprisal, described an attack Israeli forces committed on their land in May 2024. “A group of bulldozers and tanks attacked our area and destroyed a set of chicken farms for meat and egg production,” they said. “The stench of death and foul odors spread throughout the place, forcing us to flee.”

Musheir El Farra wept on the stand on November 23, recounting Israeli attacks on his hometown of Khan Younis that killed more than 200 members of his extended family. El Farra, a human rights campaigner and documentarian, was working on his film Shanshula about Gaza’s fishing communities in the lead-up to October 7, 2023. Even before Israel launched its genocidal attack on the enclave, El Farra testified that over 1,000 attacks had been committed against the fishing communities since 2020. Since October 2023, he told Mondoweiss, “the infrastructure has been destroyed completely.” A fisher who testified anonymously told the court that more than 90% of Gaza’s fishing boats are too damaged to use: “Seven hundred boats now lie sunken in the harbor basin, destroyed by Israeli aircraft.”

Others spoke about the destruction of critical infrastructure, including irrigation systems, food processing facilities, and food storage facilities. “Food production at scale is not possible,” Omar Nashabe, a scholar of international human rights law who testified as an expert, told the court. “It comes as over 500,000 people in Gaza are facing famine conditions.” The United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification found in August 2025 that over half a million people in Gaza were facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution, and death. Another 1.07 million people, more than half of the enclave’s population, were on the brink.

“The children born in Gaza now don’t know what an apple looks like; they’ve never tasted a banana,” said Diana Nazzal, a surgeon who testified to the long-lasting harms of malnutrition and the depth of the hunger in Gaza based on a January 2024 medical mission to the enclave. Nazzal showed the court images of the baby formula that Israeli police confiscated from a colleague’s suitcase before the medical mission was allowed to enter Gaza, as well as food prices behind the separation walls. A kilogram of tomatoes cost $190 in North Gaza, while flour reached upwards of $1,150 per kilogram when Nazzal was there.

The complete devastation of Gaz’s agricultural land, livestock, farming and fishing equipment, and irrigation, food processing, and storage infrastructure means that not only are its people starving now, but the work required to rebuild its agriculture and food sectors is unprecedented in scale. During her opening remarks at the tribunal, Zuayter said that these attacks aimed not only to kill in the present, “but to kill in the future: to sterilize soil, poison water, and prohibit even a single seed from entering Gaza.”

Still, efforts to green Gaza after years of Israeli bombardment are already underway. Through its Revive Gaza’s Farmland project, APN has helped local farmers plant 30,000 fruit-bearing trees and sow and harvest almost 7 million kilograms of vegetables. “We work under the slogan ‘They uproot one tree, we plant ten,’” Zuayter told Mondoweiss.

Organizers at the International People’s Tribunal said they hope the tribunal’s findings will be used as a tool to pressure governments and mobilize further popular support for Palestine’s right to self-determination and for Palestinian-led efforts to rebuild and remain in Gaza.

In her final remarks as the tribunal closed on November 23, Uysal called on states, institutions, and all people of conscience to “support the Palestinian people in their efforts to restore, rehabilitate and reconstruct their territory and natural resources.”

Israel is violating all its ceasefire agreements and escalating on all fronts

Israel is using existing ceasefire agreements to establish new realities on the ground, projecting itself as the regional hegemon by launching attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.

By Qassam Muaddi and Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau

November 28, 2025 

MONDOWEISS

Israeli army tank deploys near the Gaza border, May 20, 2025. (Photo: © Saeed Qaq/ZUMA Press Wire/ZUMA Wire/APA Images)

The war that Israel allegedly fought on “seven fronts” a year ago is supposed to be over. But Israel is now escalating on all fronts to achieve what it could not during the war, launching strikes and military incursions across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.

In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day last Sunday as home demolitions have continued throughout the week; in Lebanon, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Hassan Ali Tabtabai; in the West Bank, the Israeli army has launched a wide-ranging military operation concentrated around the towns and villages of the northern Tubas governorate; and in Syria just this morning, Israel launched missile and artillery strikes in the southern Damascus countryside, killing 13 Syrians.

All of this takes place as Israel is nominally party to two ceasefires, respectively with Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel’s violation of both has become routine and has escalated significantly in recent weeks.

In Gaza, local sources tell Mondoweiss that a new status quo has emerged in which Israel continues to seize the opportunity to assassinate Hamas leaders in Gaza while claiming its actions are in response to an alleged “violation” on the part of Hamas. Israeli forces have also conducted dozens of demolitions of Palestinian buildings over the week, accompanied by shelling in eastern Gaza City, Rafah, and Khan Younis. Last Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day, and on the Tuesday before that, the Israeli army killed 33 Palestinians in a single night.

In all cases, the military either claims that Palestinian fighters trapped in Rafah and surrounded by Israeli forces allegedly violated the ceasefire, or it claims that Palestinian fighters approached the yellow line demarcating the area from which Israeli forces had withdrawn since the ceasefire came into effect last October.

But Israeli forces have been shooting at Palestinians near the yellow line indiscriminately, many of them trying to return to their homes in the area. The line remains invisible to most Gaza residents and can only be identified by the yellow concrete blocks Israeli forces have placed across various points, supposedly demarcating the ceasefire withdrawal borders, which effectively cut Gaza in half. The Israeli army also dropped leaflets over Palestinian encampments west of the yellow line, warning them that anyone who approaches the virtual border will expose themselves to danger.

Through these policies, the Israeli army is entrenching Gaza’s de facto division into two areas, one controlled by Hamas and the other controlled by the Israeli army. Even though this state of affairs is supposed to be temporary and linked to the “first phase” of the ceasefire, the deliberate ambiguity of the deal’s terms and the lack of an implementation mechanism make it easy for Israel to declare that Hamas is in violation of the terms — and hence refuse to withdraw further from Gaza. The effect this has had is to force almost all of the Strip’s population into less than half of its already overcrowded territory.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli forces have launched a wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank concentrated around the so-called “pentagon of villages” — Tubas, Tammun, Aqaba, Tayasir, and Wadi al-Fara — which the Israeli intelligence establishment considers a “hotbed” of resistance activity. Ostensibly to root out resistance in the Tubas district, local residents told Mondoweiss that the real reason for the military invasion is to thin out the population in the area, laying the groundwork for land confiscation and settlement building.

In Lebanon, the international peacekeeping forces — UNIFIL — reported last week that Israeli forces had committed around 10,000 violations of the ceasefire deal with Lebanon, including 2,500 land incursions and 7,500 airspace violations, since entering into its ceasefire with Hezbollah a year ago in November 2024. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot also reported that the Israeli army has conducted 1,200 land raids into 21 Lebanese villages over the past year.

These violations escalated significantly over recent weeks, culminating in the strike that killed Hezbollah chief of staff Tabtabai on Sunday, who is considered the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be targeted since the ceasefire began. Following the assassination, Israel put its forces near Lebanon’s border on alert, as Hezbollah officials insinuated the possibility of a response. This series of escalations now threatens to blow up the Lebanon ceasefire.
Using ceasefires to establish realities on the ground

Both ceasefire deals in Lebanon and Gaza were only made possible after long months of mediation, in which Hezbollah and Hamas each eventually accepted terms that allowed Israel to maintain forces in their territories, without any practical guarantees that the ceasefires would be sustainable.

Yet Israel is using these truces to establish new realities on the ground, entrenching its occupation of parts of Gaza and southern Lebanon while asserting its military dominance on the regional stage. This projection of control aims to impose Israel’s vision for a “new Middle East” and a new status quo that recognizes Israel as the uncontested hegemon.

This can be gleaned in Israel’s active escalation in Syria, where Israel has tried to counter the expansion of Turkey’s influence in the country.

Israeli forces continue to position themselves in Syrian territory while conducting land raids in cities such as Quneitra and its surroundings. Last Monday, official Syrian TV reported that Israeli forces “bulldozed extensive farming areas” in the Syrian village of Breiqa in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, on Thursday, Syrian media outlets reported that Israeli fighter jets flew over several Syrian governorates, and on the following day, an Israeli force invaded the Syrian town of Beit Jinn. When the force was reportedly uncovered, clashes between the Israeli force and Syrians reportedly led to the injury of two Israeli soldiers. According to Syrian state TV, Israeli shelling and strikes led to the killing of 13 Syrians, including at least two children.

Israeli strikes across Syrian territory have continued to become more flagrant over recent weeks, while previous strikes in Damascus in July aimed to strengthen Druze separatist elements in Suwayda. The reality on the ground Israel hopes to create is one of regional fragmentation.

In Gaza, this is manifesting in the recently declared plan to build “alternative safe communities” that would make up a “new Gaza” in the part of the Strip under Israeli control, which appears to have received U.S. backing. Earlier in July, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had stated that Israel would create a “humanitarian city” built over the flattened remains of Rafah, which was supposedly meant to house 600,000 Palestinians and would be used as a pathway for Palestinians to “voluntarily migrate” out of Gaza, a plan that was characterized by UN officials and human rights experts as a “concentration camp.”

In that same month, a Reuters report revealed that the U.S.-run and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — so-called “aid” sites meant to replace the UN’s aid distribution system, but where thousands of Palestinians were gunned down in what were described by Gazans as “death traps” — had drafted plans to create so-called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” meant to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The GHF was itself the “brainchild” of Israeli officials, the New York Times reported last May.

Now that plans for a “new Gaza” have surfaced as part of the Trump-backed ceasefire framework, new reports have begun to emerge that UG Solutions, the U.S. military subcontractor that provided security for the GHF, is now recruiting for a new deployment in Gaza to run ten to 15 more aid sites during the ceasefire.

All these developments take place as Israel attempts to continue to advance its goals. In Lebanon and Syria, it is to establish itself as a regional hegemon, and in Gaza, it is to achieve during the ceasefire what it could not achieve during the war — the ethnic cleansing of Gaza under the rubric of “voluntary migration.”

Israel is losing the battle of public relations.

Israel is violating ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump is allowing it

In recent days, Israel has dramatically escalated its violations of the ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, which have been met with utter silence from the United States. Could this mean a return to the full-scale atrocities of the past two years?

By Mitchell Plitnick 

 November 27, 2025 

MONDOWEISS


Benjamin Netanyahu with Donald Trump at the Ben Gurion airport in May 2017. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom GPO)


According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “ceasefire” means: “a suspension of active hostilities.” The so-called “kids’ definition” is: “a temporary stopping of warfare.” That all seems clear enough.

But Israel’s definition differs significantly. They understand “ceasefire” to mean: “they cease, we fire.”

This is not news to Palestinians, Lebanese, or any of Israel’s neighbors. Much like how Israel and its supporters like to say that there was “peace” before October 7, 2023, questions of violence are always defined not by whether there is shooting or bombing but by whether Israelis are getting hit with those bullets and bombs.


When the United States imposed or brokered ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, it was well understood by all that Washington would have to keep Israel on a tight leash for the agreements to hold. It was not hard to anticipate that the attention to that task would not be sustainable under Donald Trump.

Recent events have proven that to be true. Israel has never held to either ceasefire, of course. But in recent days, it has dramatically escalated its violations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and these violations have been met with utter silence from the United States.

Are we about to see a return to the full-scale atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon that became so sickeningly familiar these past two years? And why did the U.S. go to the trouble of brokering these ceasefire agreements if they were just going to let Israel destroy them so flagrantly and easily?

Above all, what is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to achieve, as he seems to be calling all the shots, directly or indirectly?
Israel’s aims

Israel’s goals are clear enough: endless war.

After the United Nations Security Council shamefully voted to endorse Donald Trump’s colonialist plan to impose conditions on the Palestinians as the price for stopping Israel’s full-scale genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu reacted not like a leader who had gotten what he wanted, but like a man who just saw a development he needed to prevent.

“Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors” and calls on neighboring countries to “join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region,” he said in a series of posts on X.

Expulsion of Hamas was not part of Trump’s plan or the Security Council’s resolution. Netanyahu obviously added this to prick Hamas, add fuel to his efforts to undermine the Trump plan, and to toss a bone to his right flank.

Israel had never heeded the ceasefire to begin with. More than 340 overwhelmingly non-combatant Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was put in place, and over 15,000 more structures in Gaza have been destroyed, just as flooding, overflowing sewage, rains, and the cold weather of approaching winter start to hit the already battered population.

In just the past few days, though, Israel has killed more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza, a sign of escalation. It is no coincidence that this uptick comes on the heels of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman’s (MBS) visit to Washington where he once again insisted, much to Trump’s annoyance, that if Donald Trump wanted to see a normalization deal between his kingdom and Israel, there would need to be a clear, committed path to a Palestinian state with a timeline. Whether MBS was sincere about that or not, Netanyahu has no intention of making even the slightest gesture in that direction, and the escalation in Gaza was, at least in part, his response to that part of the Trump-MBS confab.

Israel’s justifications for its attacks on Palestinians are threadbare and reflect how little Washington cares.

Netanyahu claims that Hamas has repeatedly violated the ceasefire by sending their people across the arbitrary line Trump drew in Gaza, when, in fact, these are Hamas members who were caught on the wrong side when the ceasefire was imposed and have been cut off from their commanders.

Other Israeli claims are equally thin and disingenuous, such as the false claim that Hamas is killing Palestinian civilians or that they staged a body recovery, which is true but hardly merits the mass slaughter Israel engaged in response.

But for the most part, Israel is not even bothering to justify their actions. They simply say, “There was a Hamas person there,” and that is good enough for the U.S. and most of the mainstream Western media. This is despite the fact that Hamas has stuck to their side of the agreement, in terms of refraining from attacks on Israelis, despite the fact that, legally, they have every right to attack an occupying army.
Setting sights on Lebanon

Yet as much as Israel continues to escalate in Gaza, they are wary of reigniting the global outcry that has quieted a bit as some people — mostly those eager to go back to disinterest in the plight of the Palestinian people — accept the idea that the slightly slower pace of genocide occurring now can be called a “ceasefire,” and an end to “the war.”

Israel is hoping that the isolation that was created, mostly by popular movements, during the genocide might ease. Netanyahu, who is always seeking ways to have the best of both worlds, will not end the killing in Gaza to achieve this, but is hoping the illusion of an end to genocide might take hold. So far, it has not, despite the fact that many sources, even some Arab ones, persist in referring to the ceasefire as if it were genuine.

Netanyahu needs perpetual war. An Israel that faces diplomatic challenges abroad and internal questions at home is not a hospitable one for Netanyahu’s election chances next year.

Lebanon offers an alternative. While there may be protests regarding attacks on Lebanon as well, it has not generated the same kind of global response as attacks on Gaza. With even less provocation from Hezbollah than they have gotten from Hamas (which, itself, was virtually nil), Israel has stepped up the attacks on Lebanon that it also never ceased.

There could not be better proof that Israel has no interest in peace and regional stability, but prefers a state of constant war.

The ceasefire deal that was struck last year between Israel and Lebanon calls for the Lebanese military to take over the defense of the country in the south, where Hezbollah has been the de facto defense force for decades. The new Lebanese government agreed to do this and to work with Hezbollah to bring about the absorption of the group’s armed wing into the Lebanese military, unified under the solitary command of the Lebanese government.

This should be exactly what Israel wants. It would mean that Hezbollah, which would continue to be a political entity in Lebanon, would no longer have an independent armed wing. Their fighters and arms would instead be controlled by a government that is not only friendly to the West but also heavily dependent on it for its economic recovery.

The Lebanese military made it clear from the outset that they would not — and indeed, they could not — disarm Hezbollah by force. They are not about to risk another civil war after the way the last one devastated the small country.

Persistent Israeli attacks and Israel’s refusal to leave key areas in southern Lebanon have greatly complicated matters. Hezbollah has evacuated its sites in the south, but they are not prepared to disarm while Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory and launch regular attacks. That is not an unreasonable position; they are simply asking that Israel fulfill its side of the ceasefire.

Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabatabai last Sunday, in a clear escalation that was widely interpreted as a warning to Lebanon and the U.S. over what they considered the “slow pace” of Hezbollah disarmament and their claims that Hezbollah is slowly building up an arms cache again.

Indeed, the pace is slow, and it seems that Hezbollah is likely rebuilding its stock of weapons. However, their support from Iran is greatly diminished, as are their domestic manufacturing capabilities; therefore, any rearming is a much slower process than it might have been in the past.

Israel’s refusal to abide by even one moment of the terms of the ceasefire agreement is the greatest impediment to the process that the Lebanese government has been insisting is the only way they can not only disarm Hezbollah, but also normalize the country’s entire security apparatus, bringing it under one authority.
The U.S.’ short attention span

At first, when the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel was announced, the United States seemed to understand that the Lebanese military, weak as it is, would need to work with Hezbollah, not against it, in order to achieve the outcome everyone seemed to want. The Trump administration also seemed to get it.

But neither the outgoing Biden administration nor the incoming Trump one was prepared to push Israel to abandon its positions in southern Lebanon. Nor was either prepared to rebuke Israel for its continuous attacks, even when those attacks were directed at civilians, or even United Nations personnel.

American diplomats have sent mixed signals. Trump’s Special Envoy for the region, Tom Barrack, has vacillated between complimentary words on the progress being made by the Lebanese government in its talks with Hezbollah and threats of Israeli action if the process of disarming Hezbollah is not completed soon.

When Trump took office, he sent similarly mixed messages. While he voiced his support for the Lebanese government, he almost immediately started pushing the government to accelerate the process of disarming Hezbollah.

While Trump seemed to understand that Israeli attacks made this already difficult task much harder for the fledgling Lebanese government — asking Israel to “scale down” its attacks — he continued to show impatience with a process that requires careful steps, not bluster.

For Trump, his aims were largely achieved by his ability to claim a ceasefire in Gaza, however false a claim that may be. In Lebanon, the truce was not technically of his making; he likely would not mind a new round of large-scale warfare, which he could then claim to have brought to an end. The reality of such claims, and how they actually play out on the ground, is of no importance to him.

In recent days, Trump has focused his attention on Russia and Ukraine, and, as a result, he is paying even less attention to Gaza and Lebanon than he was before. Netanyahu noticed.

In looking at what Trump is pursuing in Ukraine, and the potential wealth he personally stands to gain from his plans there, it is obvious that any interests he may have had in Trump casinos and towers in Gaza or Beirut are insignificant next to the mineral and other forms of profit he hopes to leech out of Ukraine.

In the end, Trump decided to act in Gaza largely out of his concern for his business partners in Qatar, after Israel’s attack there crossed a line. That rebuke has now been registered, and his interest lies elsewhere.

No one is reading this more clearly than Netanyahu. He will continue to pursue his Genocide 2.0 in Gaza, allowing a quarter of the aid needed into Gaza rather than none of it, and featuring daily killings of a slightly lower number than before.

Lebanon is where he envisions a return to larger-scale fighting, but, at least for now, he needs Hezbollah to retaliate for his provocations. So far, they haven’t taken the bait.

But how much more provocation can they realistically be expected to stand for? That is the bet Netanyahu is making with the full knowledge that Trump has turned his attention away from these actions. Trump, being his mercurial self, could pivot back, but there is little reason for him to do so at this point.