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Israel-Palestine conflict: 136 UN staff killed in Gaza, says Guterres
A senior Iranian officer has warned that international sea routes other than the Red Sea could be blocked in response to the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
A spokesperson for Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, speaking on behalf of the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that “with the continuity of the crimes in the Gaza Strip,” the United States and its allies should also expect the emergence of further resistance groups.
“They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, (the Strait of) Gibraltar and other waterways,” the spokesman added.
Iran has no direct access to the Mediterranean itself, and it was not clear how the Guards could attempt to close it off.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have, over the past month, attacked merchant vessels sailing through the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The attacks prompted many of the world’s largest shipping lines to avoid the area and instead sail around the entire African continent.
Iran has denied US accusations of involvement in attacks by the Houthis.
On Friday, 22 December, US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told CNN that newly declassified intelligence suggested Iran had been “deeply involved in planning the operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea.”
Israel airstrike wipes out senior Hamas commander who helped launch October 7 attack
Israel has killed a top Hamas commander responsible for carrying out a raid during the bloody October 7 terror attack, according to an Israel Defence Forces spokesperson.
Haitham Khuwajari was the commander of Hamas’s Shati Battalion and helped organise the deadly attack which saw 1,200 Israelis killed – the majority civilians – and at least 240 taken hostages.
Speaking at a press conference Sunday night, IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “Today, the IDF, based on guidance by the Shin Bet and intelligence units, and as part of the Southern Command’s operation, targeted and killed the commander of the Shati Battalion through an airstrike.”
The IDF also claimed Khuwajari oversaw at least part of Hamas’s activity in the Al-Shifa hospital. The hospital is the largest in Gaza and Israel has claimed that the terror group uses the structure to hide one of its command centres.
Read Admiral Hagari added: “Under his command, there were also infiltrations into Israeli territory, including the brutal massacre on October 7th.
“We will continue to pursue, locate and eliminate every commander who terrorizes the area under their control, as we did yesterday in the Shejaiya Battalion.”
READ MORE: IDF says ‘powerful’ ground operation underway in Gaza after ceasefire ends
On Saturday, the IDF said it had killed another top Hamas commander, Wissam Farhat, who led the Shejaiya Battalion in its raid on Nahal Oz on October 7.
On October 7, the Nahal Oz military base was stormed by Hamas terrorists and most of the soldiers there were captured and killed. Kibbutz Nahal Oz was also attacked and civilian hostages were taken.
These included the daughters – one 14 and one eight – of Maayan Zin spoke to the Daily Express about her horrific situation. The girls have since been reunited with their mother although many hostages remain in Gaza.
Following the collapse of a temporary ceasefire deal, fighting began raging again in Gaza. That deal saw 78 hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
A total of 110 hostages have been released since the start of the war, some separately from the ceasefire deal. More than 100 remain in Gaza.
Israel has ramped up airstrikes and operations in the strip since the talks fell through and, on Monday, the IDF said it had struck about 200 targets in the last 24 hours. On Sunday, Israel said it would expand ground operations to all of Gaza.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza claims that more than 15,000 people have been killed there since the fighting began.
Israel intensifies search for Hamas leadership as terror group threatens to kill remaining hostages
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said Monday night that Harvard’s governing board was reluctant to fire University President Claudine Gay following her controversial comments before Congress about the rise in antisemitism on campus over concerns it would appear they were conceding to him.
Ackman, a Harvard alumnus who has been critical of the university’s response to antisemitic behavior on campus, said reporters informed him that one of the board’s reasons for not firing Gay was that they did not want the public to suspect they were “kowtowing” to him.
“I have been told now by two reporters that one of the factors that made it challenging for the @Harvard board to fire Gay was that they were concerned it would look like they were kowtowing to me,” Ackman wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“In other words, the reporters explained, quoting the trustees: ‘Had Bill just stopped tweeting, we would have come to the right answer.’ So much for Veritas,” he continued.
During last week’s hearing before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, House GOP Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., demanded Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth answer whether calls on campus for intifada, or the genocide of Jews, violated their respective universities’ codes of conduct or rules against bullying and harassment.
“It can be, depending on the context,” Gay responded, prompting Stefanik to press her for a yes or no answer.
“Antisemitic speech when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct, and we do take action,” Gay said.
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