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The Cradle is an online news magazine covering West Asian geopolitics from within.
⭕️ Gaza Government Media Office: Israel now controls 77% of the Gaza Strip
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"The Israeli occupation has seized control of 77% of the Gaza Strip through ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and systematic genocide.
We warn of the consequences of Israel’s ongoing effective control over the vast majority of the Strip and its use of force to reshape the region’s demographic makeup.
The continued ethnic cleansing and takeover of most of the Strip requires a bold international response — before Gaza’s identity is wiped off the map entirely."
The hidden battle: India’s water war against Pakistan
New Delhi’s escalation over the Indus River isn’t just environmental – it’s strategic, existential, and signals a new front in the war of attrition with Islamabad.
By Abbas Al-Zein
Israeli settlers escalate violence, forced displacement across occupied West Bank
Illegal settlers have been setting fire to wheat crops, attacking livestock herders, and violently forcing Palestinian families out of their homes
⭕️ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite opposition from the High Court, has ordered the removal of 6 out of the 10 members of the committee responsible for approving the appointment of the new Shin Bet chief, David Zini.
The High Court had previously ruled that Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss the current Shin Bet Director, Ronen Bar, was unlawful.
(Yedioth Ahronoth)
US official denies breakthrough in efforts to release Israeli agent Tsurkov from Iraq: Report
Elizabeth Tsurkov disappeared in Baghdad in March 2023 after entering the country illegally on a Russian passport
⭕️ This morning, Israeli occupation forces carried out significant military movements in Syria’s Quneitra province, deploying a convoy of 14 vehicles and three Merkava tanks between Al-Hemaydiyah and the Quneitra Governorate headquarters.
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❗️Gaza Ministry of Health:
– "38 martyrs and 204 injuries arrived at Gaza Strip hospitals over the past 24 hours. (This figure does not include hospitals in the North Gaza Governorate due to difficulty in accessing them)."
– "The martyrdom toll and injuries since March 18, 2025 has reached 3,785 martyrs and 10,756 injuries."
US envoy to Syria praises Sharaa for counterterrorism, warming relations with Israel
following Istanbul meeting
The US has issued several demands that the new extremist-led government in Damascus must meet before sanctions will be removed
❗️Israeli Democrats party chairman Yair Golan:
"While soldiers and reservists are being sent to Gaza, Netanyahu is looting their tax money and using it to bribe the ultra-Orthodox who avoid service.
Netanyahu is a negligent, corrupt, and failed prime minister who sacrifices those who serve and work just to stay in power.
We will replace him. We will ensure conscription for all—and a country that respects those who carry it on their backs."
🇾🇪 Yemeni Armed Forces announces that it targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport with a hypersonic ballistic missile, halting airport operations and forcing countless settlers into shelters.
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Israel's deadly aid plan for Gaza delayed due to 'logistical issues’
The plan seeks to entirely sideline the UN and humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, advancing Tel Aviv’s broader objective of displacing the strip’s population further south.
⭕️ Aid trucks that managed to reach Gaza City were looted this morning in the Saraya area, resulting in an exchange of fire.
Criminal gangs continue to loot humanitarian aid trucks under Israeli protection.
❗️Iran’s Roads and Urban Development Minister Farzaneh Sadegh arrived in Iraq on Sunday to advance key infrastructure projects, with a focus on the $150 million Shalamcheh-Basra railway linking religious hubs and expected to serve over 3 million pilgrims annually.
Talks with top Iraqi officials will address mine clearance, bridge construction over the Arvand River, and border upgrades, while also coordinating preparations for the Arbaeen pilgrimage, including improved border controls and expanded facilities for Iranian pilgrims.
(Shafaq News)
❗️Gaza Ministry of Health reports that 22 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the strip since dawn today, 15 of them in central and southern Gaza.
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❗️According to local sources and documentation, Israeli settlers have begun establishing a new illegal settlement outpost in the middle of the Al-Auja Waterfall community in Jericho in the occupied West Bank, with the aim of displacing its residents.
Around 127 Palestinian families have lived in the area for decades.
This is the third attack today.
❗️The PIJ's Quds Brigades releases footage of an ambush by its fighters targeting Israeli military vehicles advancing into the Shujaiya neighborhood in north Gaza, using a repurposed Israeli explosive and an IED.
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❗️Gaza Civil Defense spokesman to Al Jazeera:
'Gaza needs 1,000 trucks of aid per day'
– "Death in the Gaza Strip is gradual, and the first to die are premature infants, followed by older children."
– "Patients' resilience is low due to food shortages."
– "The Strip needs 1,000 aid trucks daily."
– "Traditional food distribution mechanisms are no longer available."
– "Most citizens in the Strip have not received a single bag of flour."
– "A safe way must be found to provide aid, and international organizations must be tasked with distributing it."
⭕️ Four-year-old Mohammad Mustafa Yassin has died in Gaza City from prolonged, severe malnutrition as a result of Israel’s total blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip.
His death brings the number of Palestinians who have died from hunger-related causes to 58 over the past 80 days.
Many other children in Gaza are suffering from acute malnutrition and face the risk of dying under Israel’s ongoing and barbaric siege.
❗️German police assault a pro-Palestine activist during a demonstration against Israel's genocidal war in Berlin.
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❗️According to Hillel Biton Rosen, correspondent for Israel’s Channel 14, the Israeli occupation forces are set to officially expand their "ground operations" in Gaza following political approval, with five divisions—comprising infantry and armored brigades—maneuvering at full capacity.
Division 162 will focus on northern Gaza, Divisions 36 and 98 on Khan Yunis, Division 252 on central Gaza, and Division 143 will continue operations in Rafah, the buffer zone, and areas along the Gaza perimeter. The assault will primarily target Khan Yunis and neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip for the foreseeable future.
❗️❗️According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor:
A total of 7,756 families in Gaza have been completely or nearly wiped out as a result of Israel's genocide.
– 1,010 families were entirely wiped out.
– 2,620 families have only one surviving member.
– 4,126 families have no more than two surviving members.
❗️World Food Programme:
"Families in Gaza remain on the brink of starvation. Letting aid in is the first step — we need a sustained, daily flow of trucks. We also need the ability to move and distribute aid inside Gaza safely & without delay."
⭕️ In north Gaza's Jabalia, Palestinian journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda was killed along with several family members in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home.
His death brings the total number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 2023 to 220, according to Palestinian officials.
BREAKING | Intense Israeli bombing, belts of fire and artillery shelling target Khan Yunis in southern Gaza as tanks advance deeper into the area.
Israeli media reports that the political leadership has authorized the army to expand its assault and occupy territory in Khan Yunis.
BREAKING | Illegal Israeli settlers set fire to wheat fields in the Salim plain, east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Settler attacks on the West Bank have seen a dangerous escalation over the past two weeks.
⭕️ #OnThisDay 25 years ago, Israeli occupation troops completed their withdrawal from most of South Lebanon.
They were forced out by the Lebanese resistance after 22 years of occupation.
It was not just a historic victory, but a message of hope for Palestinian liberation.
❗️Russia accuses Macron of arresting Telegram founder to meddle in Romanian elections
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused French President Emmanuel Macron of arresting Telegram founder Pavel Durov to interfere in Romania’s elections, claiming it was a move to bolster a struggling liberal candidate.
The accusation follows Durov’s own claims that French authorities pressured him to censor conservative voices ahead of the Romanian vote. He also alleged that Nicolas Lerner, head of France’s DGSE intelligence agency, visited Romania days before the election.
Durov was arrested in France last August over alleged user-related crimes but was released on €5 million bail in March. France has denied the censorship request and political motives behind the arrest.
❗️Civil Defense Operations Director Ashraf Abu Nar and his wife were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Az-Zawayda, Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
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❗️Another 'serious incident' was reported in Gaza by Israeli sources yesterday. The Israeli army spokesperson revealed today that a soldier from Battalion 931 of the Nahal Brigade was seriously wounded last night (Saturday) in northern Gaza.
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❗️Qassam Brigades announces that on 20 May, 2025, its fighters carried out a complex operation targeting an Israeli force that had taken cover inside a house east of al-Qarara town, east of Khan Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip.
They blew up the house with several powerful explosive devices, killing/wounding soldiers as the house collapsed.
They also detonated a tunnel shaft targeting several soldiers who arrived at the scene and engaged them in close-range combat with light weapons.