Image is of the aftermath of an Israeli bombing of Beirut in 2006.
We are now almost one year into the war and genocide in Gaza. Despite profound hardship, the Gazan Resistance continues its battles against the enemy, entirely undeterred. Despite Israeli proclamations throughout 2024 that they have cleared out Hamas from various places throughout Gaza, we still see regular attacks and ambushes against Zionist forces. Just today (Monday), Al Qassam fighters ambushed and destroyed another convoy of Israeli vehicles. The predictions early on in the war were that Israel would defeat Hamas in mere months, needing only until December, then January, and so on. This has proven very much untrue. Israel is stuck in the mud; unable to destroy their enemy due to their lack of knowledge about the "Gaza Metro" and, of course, a lack of actual fighting skill, given how many times I've seen Zionists getting shot while they gaze wistfully out of windows.
The same quagmire will occur in Lebanon, only considerably worse. Both Nasrallah and Sinwar possess a similar strategy of luring Zionist forces onto known, friendly territory, replete with traps and ambushes, to bleed them dry of equipment, manpower, and the will to continue fighting. The scale of the invasion could fall anywhere on the spectrum from "very limited" - more of a series of raids on Hezbollah positions than truly trying to occupy land - to a total invasion which would seek to permanently take control of Southern Lebanon. Neither is likely to destroy, or even substantially diminish Hezbollah's fighting abilities. This is not wishful thinking: Hezbollah has convincingly defeated Israel twice before in its history, pushing them from their territory, and both times Hezbollah had almost no missiles and a limited supply of other equipment, relying on improvisation as often as not. The Hezbollah of 2024 is an entirely different organization to that of the early 2000s.
Attempts to drive wedges between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon are also unlikely to succeed. Hezbollah is not just a military force, it is extremely interlinked into various communities throughout Lebanon, drawing upon those communities to recruit soldiers. Throughout its history, it has provided education, healthcare, reconstruction, and dozens of other services one would attribute to a state. Amal Saad's recent suggestion of using "quasi-state actor" as a more respectful replacement for the typical "non-state actor" seems advisable. And the decentralized command structures, compartmented leadership, strong succession planning, and aforementioned community ties almost entirely neutralizes the effectiveness of assassinations. Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem has confirmed that Hezbollah's path has been set by Nasrallah, and his martyrdom will not stop nor even pause their efforts. Additionally, he confirmed that despite the recent attacks by Israel which nominally focussed on destroying missile depots, Hezbollah's supply of weapons has not been degraded, and they are still only using the minimum of their capabilities.
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Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Iranian news media asks: Where is top Quds Forces commander General Esmail Ghaani?
It's an update but the NYT mentioned it at the top of their homepage.
Full text
Iranian news media asks: Where is top Quds Forces commander General Esmail Ghaani?
As Iran awaited a potential counter strike from Israel on Saturday, senior officials and members of the Iranian news media were all asking a similar question: Where is Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the country’s top general and the commander in chief of its elite Quds Forces?
Officials in Iran have not yet given a clear answer, Iranian media reported.
“Public opinion is awaiting news that our general is alive and well,” said Tabnak, an Iranian news site. Another news site, Shahreh Khabar, published a long biography of the general’s decades of service as a veteran of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Quds Force is the branch of the Guards that is tasked with external operations, including overseeing militant groups that Iran supports in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, militia groups in Iraq and Syria as well as Hamas in Gaza. The network is regionally known as the “axis of resistance.”
The concerns about General Ghaani followed reports in some Israeli and Arab media on Saturday that he was either killed or injured in one of Israel’s recent attacks on Beirut. The Guards has yet to issue a statement confirming General Ghaani’s whereabouts.
General Ghaani, 67, was last seen publicly at the Tehran offices of Hezbollah, two days after Israel killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Lebanon, according to photos posted by Iranian media. The general was notably absent on Friday when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, led a prayer service commemorating Mr. Nasrallah.
Three Iranian officials said General Ghaani had traveled to Beirut last week to meet with senior Hezbollah officials and to help the group recover from the wave of Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and asked that their names not be published.
Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for the killing of Mr. Nasrallah and for the assassination in Tehran of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Israel has vowed to retaliate.
Iranian military officials said on Saturday that all the country’s armed forces had been placed on the highest alert, anticipating Israeli strikes. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in Damascus on Saturday, warned in a post on X that Iran’s response to any Israeli attack would be “stronger, and they can put our determination to that test.”
A member of the Guards stationed in Beirut who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information said that the silence from senior Iranian officials about General Ghaani was creating panic among rank-and-file members.
General Ghaani is known for his stern and cold demeanor. He has been assiduous in following through on the projects started by his predecessor Gen. Qassem Suleimani, integrating Iranian-backed armed groups in different countries so that they operate cohesively and are self-sufficient in manufacturing weapons, such as missiles and drones, with the training and help of Iran.
The United States assassinated General Suleimani in 2020 in Iraq.
Iranian media has called on officials to confirm the general’s whereabouts. “If General Ghaani is alive and well, the best way to clarify and assure us that he is well is to publish a short video of him,” said Tabnak.
Even if it turns out that Mr. Ghaani has been killed, this article is mere Western speculation. The mention of Iranian media does not erase the original source: the New York Times. Many others have posted these rules, but they bear repeating. Most especially:
i mean no disrespect, comrade, but you can see how this could be bait to reveal information about Ghaani, right? Or bait to demoralize parts of the Resistance, or to provide cope for zionists. If the general is dead, Iran will tell us so in a matter of time. i do not personally think it is reasonable, at least outside of the PR-based warfare of the West, to provide photos of your general while they are presumably planning and coordinating in the field as Lebanon is invaded
Especially since Israel has no qualms about razing city blocks to kill the leaders of the movements.