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The Cradle is an online news magazine covering West Asian geopolitics from within.
⭕️ WSJ: Lebanon disarms most of Hezbollah in south with Israeli intelligence aid
Senior Arab officials said Israeli intelligence relayed through the US has assisted the Lebanese army in locating and dismantling Hezbollah’s remaining arms depots and military positions in the south. The army reports that while some seized weapons are destroyed, others are retained to reinforce its own limited supplies.
According to Salam, the government has met approximately 80% of its goals in disarming militias in Lebanon’s southernmost regions.
“All over the Lebanese territory, the state should have a monopoly on arms,” Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said, striking his fists on a dining table.
❗️Qassam Brigades publishes: as part of the 'David's Stones' series of operations: Footage showing the targeting of an Israeli force that had fortified itself inside a house, and a Merkava tank, with an anti-personnel shell and a Yassin 105 shell in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
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❗️Gaza Ministry of Health:
– “The intravenous chemotherapy service and medical follow-up for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip have been halted.”
– “The evacuation of the European Hospital and the Gaza Cancer Center has worsened the catastrophic situation for patients.”
– “11,000 cancer patients in Gaza are without treatment or adequate healthcare.”
– “5,000 cancer patients have urgent referrals for treatment abroad, either for diagnosis or for chemotherapy and radiation therapy.”
– “The lack of early diagnostic and follow-up equipment is aggravating the patients’ health conditions.”
– “64% of cancer medications are completely out of stock.”
– “Cancer patients are trapped in catastrophic health, social, psychological, and economic conditions.”
❗️Government Media Office in Gaza says Israel killed 10 Palestinian civilians seeking aid and injured 62 others at distribution centers in Rafah in the last two days.
The statement comes on the second day since the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was launched. The UN has refused to take part in the US-Israeli plan, saying it aims to further the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and will deepen the crisis.
China, Russia, Iran cement Kabul ties as US reenters Afghan game
With Washington seeking to reassert its Afghan presence, a new Eurasian alliance is investing heavily in Kabul and rearming the regional balance against US and Indian ambitions.
By F.M. Shakil
❗️An Israeli official tells Channel 13 that Hamas's proposal is unacceptable to both Israel as well as the US administration.
Israel's public broadcaster KAN reports that according to Israel, there is no new US proposal, and this appears to be just another Hamas response to Bishara al-Bahbah's proposal.
White House 'concerned' Israel preparing attack on Iran to upend nuclear talks: Report
Reports say US President Donald Trump recently held a ‘tense’ phone call with Netanyahu over disagreements regarding the nuclear talks
❗️Statement by Hamas:
"Hamas affirms that it is making significant efforts to end the brutal war on the Gaza Strip, the latest of which was reaching a general framework agreement with US envoy Steve Witkoff. The agreement would establish a permanent ceasefire, a full withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the flow of humanitarian aid, and the formation of a professional committee to manage the affairs of the Strip upon the announcement of the agreement.
The agreement also includes the release of ten Israeli prisoners and a number of bodies in exchange for a mutually agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners, under the guarantee of mediators. The movement is now awaiting a final response to this framework."
❗️Palestine Red Crescent says Israel handed over body of man killed in West Bank raid
The Palestine Red Crescent has confirmed receiving the body of Jassem Ibrahim al-Sada, a Palestinian man shot dead during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank. The organization said Israeli occupation forces provided no explanation regarding the circumstances of his death.
Speaking to AFP, Sada’s cousin, Ahmad, said soldiers stormed the house at dawn and opened fire, despite the fact that Sada “wasn’t wanted and had no known affiliations.”
British NGO behind 'makeover' of Al-Qaeda leader turned Syrian president
Former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford publicly stated earlier this month that he was invited by a British NGO to help bring Ahmad al-Sharaa ‘out of terrorism and into politics’
❗️Yemeni plane bombed by Israel was headed for Hajj pilgrimage
Newly confirmed flight data reveals that the Yemeni Airlines aircraft destroyed in this morning’s Israeli airstrike on Sanaa International Airport was a civilian aircraft scheduled to fly pilgrims to Jeddah for Hajj. The Airbus A320-233 had arrived from Amman and was preparing to operate part of a planned series of twice-daily flights for Yemeni pilgrims over the next nine days.
The strike, which hit both the runway and the last operational aircraft in Yemen’s capital, now appears to have directly disrupted Hajj travel for dozens of civilians. Airport director Khaled al-Shaif called it a deliberate targeting of a humanitarian corridor.
❗️Iran hangs man accused of spying for Israel
Iran has executed Pedram Madani, a man convicted of espionage for Israel, according to a report by Iran’s IRNA news agency. Authorities say Madani traveled to Israel and passed on classified information, specifically about infrastructure sites, to Israeli intelligence officers. He was compensated with foreign currency and cryptocurrency and reportedly met with Mossad operatives at Israel’s embassy in Belgium.
This marks the second known execution this year linked to collaboration with Mossad. In April, Mohsen Langarneshin was also executed for espionage and for his reported involvement in the 2022 assassination of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer in Tehran.
❗️The UN sharply criticized the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on Wednesday after 47 people were injured during a chaotic aid distribution in Gaza. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini condemned the alternative system as wasteful and harmful, calling it a distraction from Israel’s ongoing atrocities and a threat to existing humanitarian efforts.
“We already have an aid distribution system that is fit for purpose," Lazzarini said during a visit to Japan, warning that the GHF’s operations bypass the UN-led mechanism and deepen the crisis rather than address it.
❗️Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inspected ongoing construction on the Kalbajar-Lachin highway, a key infrastructure project in the occupied Karabakh region. The 75.8-kilometer road, which includes 17 planned tunnels and multiple lanes, is intended to connect Kalbajar and Lachin while significantly reducing travel time to the newly built Lachin International Airport.
Azerbaijan says 44% of the highway is complete, with construction progressing on 16 tunnels. The project aims to tighten control over the formerly Armenian-populated areas and integrate them into Azerbaijan’s transport network, in coordination with Turkiye.
⭕️ Speaking before the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Saleh Hijazi, Policy Coordinator at the BDS National Committee (BNC), praised the growing global grassroots momentum for an arms embargo on Israel and called on states to uphold their legal responsibilities by enforcing one.
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⭕️ UN World Food Programme (WFP) says that 'hordes of hungry people' stormed one of its warehouses in central Gaza yesterday
According to initial reports, two people were killed and several others injured. In a statement, the WFP emphasized, "Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve."
❗️Qassam Brigades reports that on Tuesday, one of its fighters managed to snipe an Israeli soldier and directly wound him on Baghdad Street, east of the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.
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❗️Israel has killed at least 60 Palestinians in attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn today.
(Medical sources to Al Jazeera)
GHF says operating 'without incident' in south Gaza as Israeli army guns down aid seekers
UN officials lambasted the 'symbolic and superficial' US-Israeli aid mechanism for failing to deliver sufficient aid to starving Palestinians
‼️"I did not see or treat a single combatant during my five weeks in Gaza. My patients were six-year-olds with shrapnel through their hearts and bullets in their brains, pregnant women with their pelvises obliterated and their fetuses cut in two while still in the womb."
– Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a surgeon who volunteered in Gaza, at the UN Security Council
⭕️ US envoy Morgan Ortagus praises Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s recent comments regarding Hezbollah's weapons
During a visit to Dubai on Monday, Salam stated that “the era of exporting the Iranian revolution has ended” and added, “we will not remain silent over any arms outside the state’s control.”
Diplomatic sources told Nidaa al-Watan newspaper that Ortagus, who is expected to visit Lebanon soon, will bring with her “specific deadlines for the handover of Hezbollah’s arms both north and south of the Litani,” and that “there will be no grace period after the deadlines she will specify.”
Ortagus will also inform Lebanese officials that “Israel refuses to withdraw from the five points it still controls before agreeing on the remaining 13 disputed border points,” the sources said.
They also noted that “Lebanon will be told that Israel would refuse an extension of UNIFIL’s mandate, which would leave south Lebanon exposed to all scenarios should the extension fail to take place.”
❗️Israel has killed at least 36 Palestinians in attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn today.
(Medical sources to Al Jazeera)
BREAKING | For the first time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirms, while addressing the Knesset, the assassination of Hamas leader in Gaza, Mohammad Sinwar, brother of the late Yahya Sinwar.
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❗️Gaza humanitarian coordinator disputes US claims about aid delivery to the Gaza Strip
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While the US State Department announced that 8,000 food boxes, equal to 462,000 meals, were distributed on Tuesday through the US-Israeli Gaza 'Humanitarian' Foundation, Gaza humanitarian coordinator Eyad Amawi told Drop Site News that only 7 trucks arrived—barely enough for a single camp.
“Eight thousand food boxes would require more than 7 trucks to deliver,” he said.
Amawi called the effort “symbolic and superficial,” adding that Gaza needs at least 600 aid trucks daily to meet the needs of over 2 million people.
❗️President Boric ordered the withdrawal of Chilean military attachés from Israel
In a new milestone that marks the complex relationship of the government of President Gabriel Boric with Israel, the President ordered the Heads of the Armed Forces to withdraw the three military attachés of Chile in that country. The order was given last Friday and, as El Libero was able to corroborate, the military representatives already have tickets purchased to return to Chile this Friday with their families.
❗️“The hague doesn’t scare me”: Ben-Gvir vows to expand Israeli settlements despite possible ICC arrest warrant
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has doubled down on his plans to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, openly defying reports that the ICC is preparing to issue an arrest warrant against him. “No arrest warrant of any kind will stop me from continuing to work for the people of Israel and the land of Israel,” he declared on X. “The prosecutor in The Hague doesn’t scare me… I’ll do everything I can to protect my people, even if it costs me an arrest warrant.”
“When The Hague is against me, I know I’m on the right path,” Ben-Gvir concluded.
❗️Israel's Channel 12:
At the end of a closed session held this morning in the Knesset, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Coalition Chairman Ofir Katz, and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel announced that Israel has, for the first time, begun procedures to deport Palestinians with Israeli citizenship under a law that allows the revocation of citizenship from prisoners receiving stipends from the Palestinian Authority.
According to the statement, four detainees are currently in advanced stages of deportation, and preparations have begun to initiate similar proceedings against hundreds more.
❗️Gaza Health ministry: Only 17 hospitals partially operational
The director-general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Munir al-Bursh, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the healthcare situation in the war-ravaged coastal enclave:
– “There are only 17 hospitals in Gaza that are partially functioning today.”
– “Twenty percent of hospitals in Gaza are unable to provide ambulance services.”
– “The occupation arrested more than 360 of our medical personnel in Gaza.”
⭕️ A Minnesota couple has brought their grandchildren back to the US after discovering they were trapped for years in a Syrian prison camp in northeast Syria. The children were born to their son, who had joined US-backed ISIS and later died.
The grandparents spent years pressuring US authorities to repatriate the children, who had been held in dire conditions alongside thousands of others linked to suspected US-funded ISIS members.
❗️Italy's FM rejects expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani reaffirmed his rejection of Israeli ministers' calls to expel Palestinians from Gaza, stating that such a move is “not and will never be an acceptable option.”
Addressing parliament, Tajani also condemned Israel's brutal war on Gaza, describing it as "absolutely tragic and unacceptable."
“The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume immediately, and respect for international humanitarian law must be restored,” he said.
Tajani voiced support for Egypt’s initiative for Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction, emphasizing: "The expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza is not and will never be an acceptable option."