43031
The Cradle is an online news magazine covering West Asian geopolitics from within.
⭕️ Lebanon's LBCI Reports Three Detained in Rocket Launch Investigation
Lebanon's LBCI news channel reports that security forces have detained three individuals – two Lebanese nationals and one Syrian – in connection with a recent rocket launch incident. Investigators are currently conducting forensic examinations, including fingerprint and DNA analysis, to determine their potential involvement.
Authorities became suspicious of the detainees due to their presence near the launch site. The Syrian national in particular drew attention after being observed at the location at 3:00 AM, despite having no apparent reason to be in the area given his place of residence.
Security officials caution that the investigation remains ongoing, stressing that any connection to the incident cannot be confirmed until forensic analysis of evidence collected from the launch pads is completed and matched to the suspects.
⭕️ A group of pro-Palestinian activists vandalized the Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland on 8 March, splashing red paint across the main building and spray-painting the words "Gaza is not for sale," Free Gaza," and "Free Palestine" in multiple areas.
On Saturday, a 33-year-old man was charged and will appear in court after his 12 March arrest. A 75-year-old man and a 66-year-old woman were also detained but later released pending investigation.
US President Donald Trump posted the following message on Truth Social as a response, calling the people responsible "terrorists":
"I was just informed by Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom, that they caught the terrorists who attacked the beautiful Turnberry, in Scotland. They did serious damage, and will hopefully be treated harshly. The three people who did this are in prison. You cannot let things like this attack happen, and I greatly appreciate the work of Prime Minister Starmer, and UK Law Enforcement."
BREAKING | The Israeli military has threatened to use "significant force" against Palestinians in Rafah ordering civilians to evacuate the entire area in southern Gaza.
This marks the largest order since Israel resumed its military assault on the strip.
❗️Israeli occupation forces invade Qabatiya, south of Jenin, occupied West Bank, raiding homes and deploying throughout various neighborhoods.
Читать полностью…
Intense crying and grief: A glimpse of the farewell to the eight Red Crescent paramedics who were besieged and cold-bloodedly executed by Israel in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.
(Quds Feed)
❗️Local Syrian sources report Israeli tank shelling towards Eastern Tal Ahmar in the vicinity of the town of Kudna in southern Quneitra countryside.
(Al-Mayadeen)
BREAKING | US warplanes launch 13 airstrikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa, and counting.
They have carried out 8 airstrikes on the al-Malika area and 5 airstrikes on the Sarf area in Bani Hashish District, northeast Sanaa.
Red Crescent recovers bodies of missing paramedics, civil defense workers killed by Israel in Gaza's Rafah
Israeli forces killed the first responders during an assault and siege on Rafah's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood that began eight days ago
Hamas slams Israel’s ‘colonial’ road project meant to split West Bank, isolate East Jerusalem
Building the Fabric of Life Road is part of Israel's effort to control and annex the E1 corridor, which would make hope for a contiguous Palestinian state 'vanish'
❗️Statement by Hamas:
"The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) strongly condemns the Israeli occupation cabinet’s approval on Saturday of a new settlement project aimed at constructing strategic roads to further connect illegal settlements and isolate Palestinian towns around the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in occupied Jerusalem.
The continued implementation of settlement projects in occupied Jerusalem reveals the occupation’s malicious intent to expand settlements and push for the displacement of Palestinians from the holy city.
We affirm that these colonial plans will ultimately be shattered by the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, their rootedness in their land, and their unwavering commitment to their rights despite all sacrifices.
We call on our people in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank to escalate resistance and confront the occupation and its settlers in all arenas, using all available means to thwart their schemes."
BREAKING | Israel commits massacre in its targeting of the Al-Tayef family home on Mashtaha Street in Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City.
At least 5 Palestinians, among them children, were killed and several wounded.
❗️BREAKING | Palestinian Red Crescent has confirmed that the bodies of 11 people have been recovered so far in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah, southern Gaza, including 6 paramedics from Red Crescent teams, 4 Civil Defense crew members, and 1 UN employee.
Search efforts remain ongoing.
⭕️ Israel's Security Cabinet has approved the final phase of the "Fabric of Life Road" near occupied Jerusalem, a project that will reroute Palestinian traffic and effectively sever territorial continuity in the occupied West Bank.
While framed as a logistical upgrade, the road will block Palestinian access to the critical area between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim, including Khan al-Ahmar — a village seen as pivotal to the viability of a future Palestinian state.
Once completed, Palestinians will be able to access this area only by foot, advancing de facto annexation and deepening Israel's stranglehold on the E1 corridor, a strategic zone whose control determines whether a contiguous Palestinian state remains possible at all.
❗️Israel's Channel 12 reports the details presented by the negotiating delegation at last night's cabinet meeting:
– Israel received a proposal from the mediators between Thursday night and Friday, and Israel presented its counter-proposal yesterday afternoon.
– The Israeli proposal calls for the release of 10 living detainees and 11 bodies held in the Gaza Strip.
– Israel awaits Hamas's response to the proposal it submitted yesterday to mediators.
– Hamas's proposal calls for the release of five living detainees, including American Edan Alexander.
– Israel threatens to increase military pressure if Hamas's position does not move closer to the Israeli position.
Hamas accepts Egyptian ceasefire proposal, Israel seeks further concessions
Netanyahu said on Sunday that ending the war on Gaza is conditional on Hamas's complete surrender and disarmament
❗️Gaza government media office
- "We strongly condemn the horrific and deliberate killing of 15 humanitarian workers by Israeli occupation forces during an emergency evacuation in Rafah, southern Gaza. The victims—including 8 paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, 6 Palestinian Civil Defense personnel, and a UNRWA employee—were targeted while responding to an urgent SOS call to evacuate the wounded."
- "This cold-blooded massacre was compounded by the Israeli military’s eight-day blockade, preventing the recovery of the victims’ bodies. Such acts expose a systematic policy of attacking medical and relief teams, in blatant violation of international law, including the Geneva Conventions, which mandate protection for humanitarian and medical personnel."
- "Evidence and field testimonies confirm that some victims were physically liquidated while handcuffed and were shot in fatal locations in the head and chest by the occupation army. This confirms that this crime was not a random targeting, but rather a deliberate execution by official order of the occupation army."
Israel continues massacres in Gaza on second day of Eid al-Fitr
The Israeli army issued threats to several areas of Rafah in preparation for an expansion of ground operations in the area
⭕️ Netanyahu appoints former navy chief Eli Sharvit as Shin Bet Director
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed Major General Eli Sharvit, who led the Israeli Navy from 2016 to 2021, as the new Director of the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet/Shabak).
The appointment follows a recent Cabinet vote to remove current director Ronen Bar.
Sharvit, originally of Moroccan origin, does not speak a word of Arabic and is inexperienced in everything Palestinian-related—a notable shift for the head of an agency heavily involved in what Israel calls “counterterrorism operations” in Arabic-speaking areas.
The announcement came despite the suspension of Bar’s removal and sparked criticism from the Israeli opposition. Opposition leader Benny Gantz said Sharvit had the necessary “experience,” but warned that “it is clear the prime minister has decided to continue his campaign against the judiciary and drag Israel into a dangerous constitutional crisis.” He added that the appointment should only be made after the Supreme Court issues its decision.
❗️Six Palestinians killed and 10 injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the Tahliya area of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip.
Читать полностью…
❗️Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri:
"Netanyahu’s statements that the goal of the war is to implement the Trump plan for displacement confirm unequivocally that we are facing an American-Zionist scheme linked to a displacement project. In the face of this diabolical plan that combines massacres and starvation, everyone who can bear arms anywhere in the world must act. Spare no bomb, a bullet, a knife, or a stone. Let everyone break their silence — we are all complicit if American and Zionist occupation interests remain safe while Gaza is being slaughtered and starved."
❗️Head of the Civil Defense Follow-up Committee in Gaza to Al Jazeera:
"The [Israeli] occupation killed the paramedic teams, bulldozed their bodies, and buried them in Rafah ... What happened was a field execution of Civil Defense and Red Crescent crews."
⭕️ “We operate a sub-army of slaves.”
That is how a former Israeli soldier described the systematic use of Palestinian civilians as human shields by Israeli forces in Gaza, in a harrowing anonymous op-ed published by Haaretz.
According to the soldier, who served nine months in Gaza, Israeli troops are using human shields “at least six times a day” under an informal practice known as the “mosquito protocol.”
Palestinians—often elderly men or young boys—are forced to enter homes and tunnels ahead of soldiers to check for traps or fighters.
“Almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish,’” he wrote, using the term for these forced human scouts.
The author said the practice has become normalized across the Israeli military, with commanders openly endorsing it. Though safer alternatives like drones or dogs had been used earlier, the military prioritized speed over protection:
“We forced Palestinians to act as human shields not because it was safer for IDF troops, but because it was faster.”
Despite mounting evidence and internal awareness, military authorities have only opened six investigations—an effort the soldier calls a “cover-up.”
“This procedure is a crime—even the army now admits that. It happens daily and is much more common than the public is being told.”
❗️Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS):
"The Palestine Red Crescent Society was devastated today by the killing of eight of its paramedics in Rafah, targeted by the Israeli army while performing their humanitarian duties in response to a call to aid the wounded and injured following an Israeli strike in the Hashashin area of Rafah, Gaza Strip.
The ninth paramedic remains missing and is believed to have possibly been detained.
Names of the fallen paramedics:
1. Mustafa Khafaja
2. Ezzedine Shaat
3. Saleh Muammar
4. Rifaat Radwan
5. Mohammad Bahloul
6. Ashraf Abu Labda
7. Mohammad al-Hila
8. Raed al-Sharif
Mercy to these heroes of humanitarian work."
❗️US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with bombings and renewed secondary tariffs if Tehran does not reach a nuclear agreement with Washington.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump told NBC News.
“But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”
❗️Medical sources in Gaza to Al Jazeera:
"43 martyrs in Israeli raids on several areas in the Gaza Strip since dawn today."
⭕️ Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during a cabinet meeting, stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s response to the US President’s letter had been delivered through Oman.
In this response, while the idea of direct negotiations between the two sides was rejected, it was emphasized that the path for indirect talks remains open. It was also stressed that Iran has never avoided negotiations, and that it was only the Americans’ breaches of commitments that created problems on this path — breaches that must be corrected and trust must be rebuilt.
Ultimately, it is the nature of the Americans’ behavior that will determine the future of the negotiations.
(IRNA)
Syrian interim president appoints new transitional government, promises 'new state'
A Christian woman, a Druze, a Kurd, and an Alawite were appointed to posts in the new government in line with western calls for ‘inclusivity’
❗️PALESTINE RED CRESCENT SOCIETY (PRCS):
"The Palestine Red Crescent Society is shocked by the occupation's targeting of its crews in Rafah and demands that the occupation reveal their fate.
March 30, 2025
For the eighth consecutive day, the fate of nine Palestine Red Crescent paramedics remains unknown after they were directly shot by the occupation forces, wounding several of them.
Contact with them was lost about a week ago, when they responded to a call to provide first aid to a number of people injured by the occupation forces' shelling in the Hashashin area of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. The Palestine Red Crescent Society is shocked by the occupation forces' targeting of its paramedics while they were carrying out their humanitarian work, despite them bearing the Red Crescent emblem, an emblem protected by international laws, including international humanitarian law, which requires the occupation forces to respect and protect the emblem, facilitate the mission of humanitarian workers, and refrain from harming their lives in any way. If they are injured, they must be provided with the necessary medical care to preserve their lives and not expose them to danger.
The occupation's targeting of Red Crescent paramedics and their international emblem can only be considered a premeditated crime punishable by international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate in full view of the entire world without taking serious steps to prevent these blatant violations of international conventions.
Not knowing the fate of our paramedic colleagues is a great tragedy, not only for us at the Palestinian Red Crescent, but also for humanitarian work and humanity.
The Society holds the occupation authorities fully responsible for the safety and lives of its paramedics, especially since they have been delaying allowing Red Crescent crews to enter the area to find out the fate of their colleagues from the very beginning.
The Society calls on the international community to pressure the occupation authorities to reveal the fate of the missing crew.
We also call on the international community and the states that have signed the Geneva Conventions to take serious steps to provide protection for medical personnel.
The Society renews its call on the international community, represented by the United Nations with all its bodies and institutions, the states party to the Geneva Conventions, and all international human rights and humanitarian organizations, to fulfill their legal obligations by urgently taking the necessary measures to compel the occupying state, "Israel," to immediately stop committing further grave violations against Palestinian medical personnel in particular and Palestinian civilians in general, to fully comply with the principles and provisions of international humanitarian law and human rights law legally applicable to the occupied Palestinian territory, and to work to put a final end to the occupying state's policy of impunity."
🇾🇪 Yemeni Armed Forces announces that it targeted Ben Gurion Airport in occupied Jaffa (Tel Aviv) with a 'Zulfiqar' ballistic missile.
Читать полностью…
The United Arab Emirates has reportedly imposed death sentences on three men of Uzbek origin for the kidnapping and killing of Israeli-Moldovan soldier and Chabad emissary Rabbi Zvi Kogan back in November 2024, according to Israeli journalist Amit Segal, who says they will be "executed," citing officials.
Читать полностью…