Qatar puts pressure on Iran re Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes

Qatar teamed up with the United States on Monday to ramp up pressure on Iran to loosen its grip on shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-of Thani bin bin said he spoke directly with his Iranian counterpart on the matter, urging Tehran not to treat the strait as a "bargaining chip."

"HE Sheikh Mohammed emphasized the need for all parties to respond positively to ongoing mediation efforts, calling for dialogue and peaceful means to address the root causes of the crisis and reach a sustainable agreement that prevents renewed escalation," the ministry said in a statement.

"He also underlined the importance of keeping maritime routes open and ensuring freedom of navigation, warning against using them as a bargaining chip," the statement continued." 

His Excellency further cautioned that any disruption to shipping lanes could have serious consequences for countries in the region, as well as for global energy and food supplies, with wider implications for international peace and security," it added.

Look, this is classic Gulf diplomacy at work. Qatar, playing its usual balancing act between Washington and Tehran, is making it crystal clear that choking off one of the world's most critical energy chokepoints is a non-starter. The last thing the region needs right now is another self-inflicted wound on global trade, especially when energy markets and food supplies are already on edge. 

Tehran would be wise to heed the call for de-escalation before things spiral further. Of course they did, otherwise the regime would be totally destroyed.

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Iran strikes tanker off coast of Qatar, and Kuwait Airport and IDF kills 5 in Beirut attack

Iran hit a tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait International Airport early Wednesday as Tehran remained unrelenting in its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors, while acknowledging for the first time that Washington had been in direct contact about a possible ceasefire.

Israel sounded warnings of incoming fire from both Yemen and Iran, while launching its own attacks in Lebanon that killed at least five people.

An airstrike on Tehran appeared to have hit the former US Embassy compound, which has been controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard since the 1979 hostage crisis. Witnesses said buildings outside the massive compound had their windows blown out and that it appears the strike happened inside the walled facility.
A firefighter extinguishes a car at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.AP

With no sign of the war abating and more than 3,000 lives already lost, US President Donald Trump suggested it could be over within two weeks even as he moved to bring thousands more troops to the region.

No signs of Iran relinquishing grip on Strait of Hormuz shipping

Trump has been under growing pressure to end the war as Iran’s grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on regional energy infrastructure have sent gas prices skyrocketing to their highest level since 2022 and caused broad stock market fluctuations.

Iran throttled ship traffic through the strait, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, after it was attacked by the US and Israel on Feb. 28. In peacetime, a fifth of the world’s oil transits the strait and the spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, is up more than 40% since the start of the war, trading at more than $104 a barrel.

The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan aimed at bringing about a ceasefire, which includes a demand for the strait to be reopened. Iran’s own five-point response includes it retaining sovereignty over the waterway, and Trump on Tuesday suggested that the war could be brought to an end even with Iran still controlling the strait.

The US “will not have anything to do with” what happens in the Strait of Hormuz, instead telling reporters that the responsibility for keeping the vital waterway open would belong with countries that rely on it.
Firefighters and rescue workers work at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.AP

“That’s not for us. That’ll be for France. That’ll be for whoever’s using the strait,” Trump said.

It was not clear why Trump brought up France, since Europe receives very little oil shipped through the strait, with most going to Asian countries. The president plans a prime-time address on Wednesday.
Push for diplomatic solution showing little signs of progress

Trump, who has vacillated between insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and threatening to widen the war, added that the US is “finishing the job” in Iran and predicted it will be “maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job.”

Trump has warned that if a ceasefire is not reached “shortly,” and if the strait is not reopened, the US would broaden its offensive, including by attacking the Kharg Island oil export hub and possibly desalination plants.

Thousands of Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region in possible preparation for an assault in Kharg, though to reach the island by ship would mean transiting the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, which Iran has threatened to mine.

In an interview with pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged receiving direct messages from US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. He insisted, however, that there were no direct negotiations and said Iran has no faith that talks with the US could yield any results, saying “the trust level is at zero.”

He warned against any attempt to launch a ground offensive, saying “we are waiting for them.”

“We know very well how to defend ourselves,” Araghchi said.
Iran hits tanker off Qatar’s coast and attacks other Gulf states

Qatar was attacked with three cruise missiles early in the day, the Defense Ministry said. The country’s defenses intercepted two but the third slammed into an oil tanker off the coast, the Defense Ministry said. The 21-member crew of the tanker, contracted by state-owned QatarEnergy, were evacuated and no casualties were reported.

Israel’s rescue teams and residents take shelter as sirens sounds next to a site struck by an Iranian missile in Bnei Brak, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.AP

A fully-loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker came under attack off Dubai the day before, one of more than 20 ships attacked by Iran during the war.

In the United Arab Emirates, a person was killed when a drone was intercepted and debris hit him while he was working on a farm in Fujairah, one of the country’s seven emirates.

Bahrain sounded two alerts for incoming missiles, and said an Iranian attack had caused a fire at a business facility.

In Kuwait, the state-run KUNA news agency said a drone had hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport, sparking a “large fire” that crews were working to control.

Two drones were also intercepted in Saudi Arabia, which has come under repeated Iranian attack, and air raid sirens sounded in Israel though there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
Israel hits Iranian fentanyl plant and kills 5 in strikes on Beirut

In Iran, Israel said it had hit a plant producing fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, to allegedly be used in a chemical weapons program. Iran acknowledged the strike on Tofigh Daru factory, but insisted it only supplied “hospital drugs” used for medical purposes.

The strike happened Tuesday, both the Israelis and the Iranians said.

Hospitals extensively use fentanyl to treat severe pain. But a small amount of the drug can be fatal.

Two men ride scooters past charred debris at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.AP

Both Israel and the United States have alleged in recent years that Iran was experimenting with fentanyl in munitions.

In Beirut, at least five people were killed in an Israeli strike on a Beirut neighborhood. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said another 21 people were wounded.

Israel invaded southern Lebanon after the Iran-linked Hezbollah militant group began launching missiles into northern Israel days after the outbreak of the wider war. Many Lebanese fear another prolonged military occupation.

More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
108

In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.

Since the Iran war began, 13 US service members have been killed and 348 wounded, six seriously, according to US Central Command.

More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank.

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US sanction Canadian company for its ties to $100,000,000 Hezbollah financing network

A Canadian company has been sanctioned by the United States government over its connections to a $100-million network accused of funding Hezbollah.

The US Treasury Department announced sanctions on Vancouver-based Seven Seas for International Trading and Logistics on Friday, as part of a move that targeted 16 individuals and entities led by Hezbollah financier and former public investment official Alaa Hassan Hamieh (Alaa Hamieh).

The Treasury said Alaa Hamieh owns multiple Hezbollah-associated companies, including Lebanon-based Seven Seas SAL Offshore, Seven Seas Group S.A.R.L, and others.

Seven Seas for International Trading and Logistics is the Canadian branch of Alaa Hamieh’s similarly named Lebanese companies. Its co-founder and CEO is Lebanese-Qatari national Raoof Fadel.

Fadel is sanctioned on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list by the Office of Foreign Assets Control on account of his involvement with Hezbollah and the financing of Hezbollah.Seven Seas is sanctioned due to its association with Fadel and, thus, its connection to Hezbollah-related financial activity. All Seven Seas assets in the US are now frozen, and US persons and companies cannot do business with them.

Corporate records obtained by Global News show the sanctioned Seven Seas was registered in BC in 2022 and remains active. Its directors, Mohamad Wehbe and Ahmed Wehbe, have also been sanctioned by the US.

The company is not sanctioned in Canada.

BC’s Finance Ministry told the Canadian Press that it was not alerted to the situation before the US announcement, and officials are reaching out to federal counterparts.

“Any next steps from the province would be informed by that engagement with our federal partners,” it reportedly said.

Hezbollah is a designated terrorist entity in Canada as per the Criminal Code, and has been since December 2002.

The Treasury Department has sanctioned 40 Canadian companies and individuals. However, only seven are on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list. One is Samidoun, which is accused of ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Look, folks, this is what actual financial warfare against terror looks like, and it is long overdue. While Canada sits there twiddling its thumbs and pretending Hezbollah is just some harmless social club with a rocket hobby, the U.S. Treasury is out here dropping the hammer on a slick $100 million money-laundering machine that funneled cash straight to the Iranian-backed killers.Alaa Hamieh, the former Lebanese public investment hotshot turned Hezbollah bagman, did not exactly hide his genius-level scheme. He just spread it around the family tree like a bad genetic trait. Lebanon-based Seven Seas outfits, Polish shells, Slovenian telecom fronts, a little Qatari flair, and boom, there is the Vancouver branch quietly humming along in British Columbia since 2022. Nice and legal on paper, until Uncle Sam notices the cash flow is not exactly headed toward puppy shelters.

Enter Raoof Fadel, the Lebanese-Qatari national playing CEO of the Canadian operation. Sanctioned. Frozen. Done. The whole Seven Seas crew in Canada now finds its U.S. assets locked tighter than a Trudeau apology, and American companies are officially told to steer clear or else. The directors, the Wehbe boys, they are on the list too. Shocker.

And yet, back in the Great White North? Crickets. The company is still active up there. BC’s Finance Ministry had to learn about it from the Americans, like some kid who missed the group text. “We are reaching out to federal counterparts,” they said. Translation: “We had no idea, please do not make us actually do something uncomfortable.”

Hezbollah has been a designated terrorist entity in Canada since December 2002, for crying out loud. That is not new information. It is not a surprise. It is just inconvenient when the money trail leads to nice Vancouver addresses and polite corporate filings.

The U.S. has now sanctioned 40 Canadian-linked folks and firms in this space. Only a handful make the big Global Terrorist list. One of them is Samidoun, the outfit accused of playing footsie with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Pattern recognition, people. It is not that hard.

Meanwhile, the Treasury keeps doing the job that half the Western world would rather outsource. They are following the money, freezing the accounts, and reminding everyone that funding rocket attacks on civilians does not get a pass just because you wrapped it in a logistics company with a fancy nautical name.

Seven Seas. Adorable. More like Seven Seas of Hezbollah cash. And Canada still cannot quite bring itself to care until Washington makes it impossible to ignore. Business as usual in the land of endless “engagements with federal partners.”

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Qatar demands American schools in Doha 'be aligned' in wake of Oct. 7th

The directive arrived on the very same day that the dean of Northwestern University in Qatar refused to append his name to a statement issued by his American counterparts, a statement that rightly condemned an NU-Q professor for seeking to minimize the sheer horror of the Hamas terrorist atrocities of October 7, 2023.

[Image of Northwestern University Qatar campus (top) and Georgetown University Qatar (bottom) would appear here if visuals were provided, but the substance stands without them.]In the immediate aftermath of that barbaric assault byl Hamas, the regime in Qatar, so notably hospitable to the leadership of that very terrorist organization, issued a clear instruction to the American universities it hosts in Doha. They must, in the regime's own words, "be aligned and in touch" regarding all official communications. This demand emerges plainly from emails released by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Those same emails form part of a report issued on Tuesday, titled "How Campuses Became Hotbeds: The Rise of Radical Antisemitism on College Campuses." The documents reveal that on October 17, 2023, the government-controlled Qatar Foundation convened a call with representatives of the American branch campuses in Doha. The purpose, according to a readout sent by NU-Q associate dean James Shaw to dean Marwan Michael Kraidy, was to discuss "how it is going" in the wake of the attack.

A Qatar Foundation official, Francisco Marmolejo, President of Higher Education, called for "information sharing and no surprises," as Shaw recorded. He added, "Also each PU's [partner university's] Comms Team to be aligned and in touch with QF," thus conveying the Qatar Foundation's explicit expectations.

Shaw, for his part, voiced what he termed a "slight concern," not at the prospect of aligning with a regime that sustains Hamas, but rather at the fact that his own institution had "navigated the first 10 days of this crisis with minimal comms support due to absence."

One need hardly labor the irony. Here was an American university branch, funded and hosted by a state that harbors and finances terrorists, being pressed to synchronize its public voice with that state, even as its dean recoiled from condemning a colleague who cast doubt on documented atrocities. The alignment demanded was not with truth, or with moral clarity, but with the preferences of those who prefer obfuscation. It is a small but telling illustration of how influence, money, and fear can quietly erode the principles that Western institutions claim to hold dear.

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Besides destroying IRGC infrastructure, the US destroys their lies after Khamenai is also destroyed

The United States didn't pull any punches. It straight-up called out Tehran by name, shredding what CENTCOM describes as outright lies from the Iranian regime in a no-nonsense, point-by-point smackdown posted just hours after the joint U.S.-Israel operation that took out Iran's Supreme Leader.

This fact-check blitz hit right after the coordinated strike that eliminated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a hit that U.S. officials are calling a major takedown in the regime's long-running terror spree and chaos across the region.In a couple of tough posts on X, CENTCOM directly slapped down claims from Iran's UN ambassador and the IRGC, branding them false and accusing Tehran of trying to snow the whole world.

At a UN Security Council session, Iran's ambassador insisted Tehran's retaliation was aimed "solely and exclusively at the bases and assets of the United States. "CENTCOM shot that down hard."

The Iranian Regime is actively targeting civilians and has attacked more than a dozen locations," the command declared, then rattled off the sites it says got hit.Those include: 

Dubai International Airport

Kuwait International Airport

Zayed International Airport in Dubai 

Erbil International Airport in Iraq, 

Fairmont Palm Hotel in Dubai, 

Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai, 

Crowne Plaza Hotel in Bahrain, 

Port of Dubai, 

residential areas in Beit Shemesh, Israel, 

residential areas in Tel Aviv, 

Israel, residential area of Era Views Towers in Bahrain, 

residential areas in Qatar.

This public call-out ramps up the messaging war big time, with Washington accusing Iran of slamming civilian targets while feeding the international community a bunch of garbage.In another whopper, the IRGC claimed it nailed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier with ballistic missiles. CENTCOM wasn't having it.

"The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close," the command fired back, and media video shows that this is true.

The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.

"These blunt denials drop as the U.S. and Israel keep hammering Iranian military targets in their joint ops, going after air defenses, missile setups, naval forces, you name it. 

By flat-out labeling Tehran's spin as bogus, the U.S. is fighting the info war right alongside the kinetic one, pushing back on Iranian propaganda, steadying allies, and making crystal clear that key American assets are still locked and loaded.

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Elise Stefanik Goes Nuclear on Kathy Hochul Over Qatar-Funded Propaganda in NYC Schools

The leftists in New York never sleep when it comes to indoctrinating kids, so why should we?

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and House Oversight leader James Comer (R-KY) are rightfully torching New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-uh) over some seriously shady Qatar-funded curriculum sneaking into Big Apple public schools. We're talking materials backed by the same folks who bankroll Hamas's favorite network, Al Jazeera, and some homegrown radicals who apparently think twisting the truth about 9/11 and the October 7 atrocities is just another day at the office.

The New York City Department of Education is stonewalling like pros, refusing to hand over these "teaching materials" that, according to the GOP duo, blatantly "twist the narratives" around those horrific attacks. Hochul's the only one with the power to force transparency, but surprise — crickets from the governor's mansion.

"The [NYC] DOE has refused to provide copies of teaching materials that twist the narratives of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, in Israel," Stefanik and Comer wrote in a letter obtained by the New York Post.

They're zeroing in on a cool $1 million from the Qatar Foundation International dumped into schools like P.S. 261 in Cobble Hill and P.S./I.S. 30 in Bay Ridge. Then there's Bridging Cultures, headed by Dr. Debbie Almontaser of the Muslim Community Network (MCN) fame, an outfit accused of soft-pedaling Islamist terror, fighting funding for the 9/11 Memorial, and smearing anyone who dares point out radical Islam's starring role in the attacks. 

These groups say their workshops on October 7 "erase Israeli suffering," and together they've raked in at least $14.7 million from NYC taxpayers since 2014.

"The NYC DOE partnered with Bridging Cultures to train teachers on how to speak to students about 10/7, the war in Gaza, and the anti-Israel protest movement," Stefanik and Comer said.The lawmakers are demanding contracts, full curriculum copies, and real explanations for cozying up to these partners. Hochul's team? They brushed it off, claiming Stefanik "misunderstand[s] how New York's education system and mayoral control operate." Classic deflection from the "Worst Governor in America" crowd.

This is just the latest salvo in Stefanik's full-court press on Hochul as the 2026 governor's race heats up. She's been hammering Hochul for backing incoming NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the communist jihadi who just endorsed radical activist Aber Kawas for State Assembly.

"Kathy Hochul endorsed Mamdani and now owns his latest public endorsement of radical activist Aber Kawas for New York State Assembly, a proud terrorist sympathizer and denigrator of the United States," Stefanik said in a statement. "Kawas notoriously blamed America for 9/11 that claimed the lives of thousands of New Yorkers, citing the United States' 'system of capitalism,' 'racism,' 'white supremacy,' and 'Islamophobia' as justification for the terrorist attacks that killed New Yorkers. It is clear that Mamdani owns and controls the Worst Governor in America, Kathy Hochul, as she cowardly remains silent on the anti-American and antisemitic filth spewed by the incoming Mayor and his endorsed candidates. Kathy Hochul must condemn Mamdani's endorsement of Kawas immediately."

Look, if you're letting Qatar, the same regime that hosts Hamas leaders in luxury, fund lessons on 9/11 and October 7 while radicals downplay the horror, you're not educating kids, you're grooming them for the next generation of America-hating protesters. Stefanik's spot-on here: This isn't "diversity" or "inclusion," it's straight-up malign influence, and Hochul owns every bit of it.

The Democrats' obsession with importing foreign cash and far-left nonsense into classrooms is peak insanity. Good on Stefanik and Comer for shining a light on this garbage. New York parents deserve better than having their kids taught to apologize for terrorism.

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Syrian President shows his true hatred of Israel

One is almost tempted to feel a pang of sympathy for the new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. After all, the man has only just finished overthrowing one of the Middle East's most durable dictatorships, and already he finds himself on the conference circuit, dispensing wisdom to the assembled worthies at the Doha Forum. Yet any such sympathy evaporates the moment the Jew hating scumcrumpet opens his mouth.

Al-Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, was the leader of al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. In other words, he is a jihadi terrorist commander in the Syrian Civil War, and now wears a suit and meets with world leaders.

"Israel has become a country that is in a fight against ghosts," Sharaa told the Qataris, with all the confidence of a man who has never had to worry about rockets falling on his own cities. 

"Israelis," he continued, use "their security concerns, and they take October 7 and extrapolate it to everything happening around them." One cannot imagine a more tone-deaf formulation. The events of October 7 were not some collective hallucination cooked up in a Tel Aviv focus group; they were the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust and for this thug to call it an hallucination is an obvious lie. To describe Israel's perfectly rational determination never to let it happen again as "fighting ghosts" is the sort of moral inversion that has become the regional specialty of the Jew haters.

But Sharaa was just warming up. 

Israel, he informed his admiring audience, "often brings its crises to other countries and tries to evade taking responsibility for the 'horrifying massacres it committed in Gaza'." This from the leader of a regime whose forces have, in the mere blink of an eye since seizing power, been accused by the United Nations and Syria's own minorities of targeting Druze in Sweida and Alawites in Latakia. 

Naturally, the Syrian president presented himself as a paragon of peaceable intent, much like the scorpion convincing the frog to carry him across the pond. Since toppling Assad, he has sent a "positive message regarding regional peace and stability," and his regime "does not seek conflict, including with Israel." How unfortunate, then, that Israel has repaid this olive branch with "extreme violence," a thousand air strikes, four hundred incursions, and so forth. 

One might ask why, if Damascus is so very peaceful, Israel feels compelled to treat Syrian airspace as its own private highway. Perhaps because the new Syrian authorities have shown no particular eagerness to evict the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah remnants, or any of the other charming guests who made Syria such a delightful neighborhood under the previous management.

The Doha Forum, of course, is laughably billed as a "neutral platform." Its Qatari hosts insist it exists to promote dialogue on everything from conflict resolution to economic inequality. This year's theme, "Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress" has a pleasantly earnest ring to it. Yet when the star speakers include a Syrian warlord lecturing the region's sole democracy on "horrifying massacres," a Turkish foreign minister pondering how best to separate Israelis and Palestinians "along the border," and a Qatari prime minister explaining that the current pause in Gaza is not a ceasefire because Israeli forces have not yet withdrawn completely, one begins to suspect that "neutrality" in Doha is rather like "peace" in Damascus: a word with highly elastic meaning.

Qatar's Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani was particularly instructive. "We are at a critical moment," he intoned. "We cannot consider it yet a ceasefire. A ceasefire cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal of the Israeli forces, (until) there is stability back in Gaza, people can go in and out, which is not the case today." 

In other words, Hamas may fire rockets and bullets whenever it pleases, but Israel must retreat unconditionally, or the whole thing is invalid. The same Qatar, let it never be forgotten, that has bankrolled Hamas for years, housed its leaders in five-star hotels, and now presides over a conference where Israel is ritually denounced by every speaker who matters.

And yet, in a final touch of surrealism, this same gathering, funded by a state that remains Hamas's principal financial and diplomatic sponsor is playing host to prominent American conservatives, including Tucker [Tuck You] Carlson. For many in Israel and the Jewish world, the spectacle of Western figures lending their presence to an event staged by a regime that has October 7's blood on its checkbook is simply incomprehensible. Senator Ted Cruz's sardonic “#QatarFirst” hashtag rather said it all.

One leaves the Doha Forum with the distinct impression that "justice in action" means something very specific in that part of the world: the continued demonization of the Middle East's only liberal democracy, the rehabilitation of its enemies, and the polite preterence that none of this has anything to do with the pogrom of October 7, 2023. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose – only now with better canapés and a more expensive backdrop.

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Hamas is stockpiling weapons outside of Gaza

One might have thought that the notion of "disarmament" could be taken seriously when applied to an organization whose very charter calls for the destruction of a sovereign state and the extermination of its Jewish inhabitants. Yet here we are, in the curious aftermath of a ceasefire brokered by Washington, confronting the predictable farce that is Hamas’s response to Phase Two of President Trump’s twenty-point plan for Gaza.

The plan, in its admirable clarity, insists that Hamas must disarm if the Strip is ever to be rebuilt and its people given even the slimmest chance of a future unburdened by perpetual war. Hamas, being Hamas, has no intention of complying unless the pressure becomes quite literally unbearable. And so, with the foresight of a criminal syndicate that has survived longer than anyone predicted, it has already begun spiriting away its arsenal to safer climes.

As the Jerusalem Post reported on November 16, citing Israeli public broadcaster KAN: "Hamas has started stockpiling weapons in African countries, Yemen, and other nations sympathetic to the terrorist organization… The report follows the implementation of the US-broked ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which stipulates the disarmament of the latter. According to Kan, the weapons are being stockpiled so that they can later be smuggled to locations, including the Gaza Strip, where Hamas can access them."

In plain English: Hamas has agreed to disarm in the same spirit that a snake agrees to become a vegetarian while quietly relocating the contents of the henhouse to a neighboring county. The destinations, one hardly needs reminding, are the usual suspects: Somalia, the lawless east of Libya under the Tripoli-based regime, the Houthi-ruled wastes of Yemen, and, let us not pretend otherwise, the indulgent salons of Qatar, the accommodating ports of Turkey, and, at the end of the supply chain, the arsenals of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

A geography of fanaticism and failure, united by a single animating hatred.

Mossad, one presumes, is already mapping these ratlines across half the globe, though the task is rather like trying to count grains of sand in the Negev while the wind keeps blowing.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote on yet another resolution, this one authorizing a multinational force to "demilitarize" Gaza, destroy its military infrastructure, and secure its borders, as if the paper on which such resolutions are written has ever restrained a single jihadist.

Hamas, for its part, has refused even to pretend it will surrender its weapons. And why should it? Since October 2023 it is believed to have recruited another twenty thousand young men eager to die for the cause. The organization is bloodied, certainly, but far from broken. Like some malevolent organism that regenerates faster than it can be cut, it has already ensured that whatever is confiscated in Gaza today can be replaced tomorrow from caches scattered across continents that have never met a terrorist they didn’t wish to support.

This is the reality of negotiating with millennial apocalypticism dressed up as "resistance." One does not disarm such people; one defeats them, or one waits for the next massacre. Everything else, the ceasefires, the resolutions, the earnest twenty-point plans, is merely the interval between atrocities. 

Hamas understands this perfectly. It is long past time the rest of us did too and it's also time to end Hamas' existence.

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Senior Qatari Diplomat Warns of Gaza's Descent into Eternal Limbo: 'No War, No Peace'

One might have thought that after the horrific savagery of October 7, 2023, and the ensuing catastrophe in Gaza, the world would have learned to approach Qatari pronouncements with a healthy dose of scepticism. Qatar, after all, is not merely a bystander in this tragedy but a principal enabler of the very Hamas terror machine that ignited it, hosting its leaders in luxury while pretending to play the impartial peacemaker. Yet here we are, in the autumn of 2025, with Majed al-Ansari, adviser to Qatar's prime minister and spokesperson for the foreign ministry, issuing fresh warnings in The Guardian about the Strip's potential slide into a “no war, no peace” purgatory. As if the Qatari capital's five-star accommodations for jihadists hadn't already prolonged the agony.

"We don’t want to reach a situation of no war, no peace," al-Ansari cautioned, his words dripping with the earnestness of a diplomat whose government has bankrolled the very impasse he decries. The scenario he sketches is grimly plausible: Israeli troops lingering in Gaza, not out of imperial whim but necessity, because no sane soul, least of all the international community, with its track record of feckless interventions from Somalia to Afghanistan, would volunteer to plant a peacekeeping flag in a hellscape riddled with Hamas tunnels and booby-traps.

"There is a need for the international community to go in, assess the damage, start thinking about reconstruction, working on reconstruction, and to formally keep the peace," al-Ansari elaborated. "This is what will significantly shift the whole process from war to the day after.” Ah, yes, the "day after," that mythical horizon perpetually receding like a mirage in the Negev. 

One can almost hear the echoes of past follies: the Oslo Accords' grand promises, the Dayton Agreement's hollow vows, all crumbling under the weight of Palestinian rejectionism and Arab-state indifference. Qatar, ever the optimist (or opportunist), pins its hopes on a UN Security Council resolution to "mandate an administration and an international force in Gaza, that we would be able to stabilize the situation."

"In principle, a lot of the countries in the region and beyond have agreed to be part of this," he continued, "but in practice that needs a very concrete mandate for the force." In principle: where all the world's virtue-signaling converges, a cocktail party of platitudes. In practice: the yawning chasm where good intentions meet the rubble-strewn reality of Gaza, where "stabilization" means dodging RPGs and unearthing IEDs. It's a reminder that the UN's grand designs have a habit of evaporating when the first suicide vest goes off.

Al-Ansari didn't shy from the hostage horrors either, those Israeli families still chained to the barbarism of October 7. "There are a lot of challenges before we are able to dispense with stage one [of the deal]," he admitted. "Including the difficulty of excavating the remains of those [hostages] who were killed and ascertaining their identities, and the violations that result in the death of Palestinians every day at the hands of IDF soldiers." Here, in a single breath, the Qatari worldview crystalizes: the murderers' handiwork lamented, but swiftly pivoted to Israel's defensive operations as "violations." One searches in vain for mention of Hamas's deliberate use of civilians as human shields, or the rivers of blood from their unprovoked assault. But then, symmetry is not a virtue in Doha's diplomacy.

Lest we forget Qatar's own brushes with the conflict's sharper edges, al-Ansari revisited the IDF's audacious strike on September 9 against Hamas kingpins luxuriating on Qatari soil. "It was designed to push us out, not only out of these [Gaza] talks, but to push us out as an internationally trusted mediator," he claimed. "We were working on more than 10 mediations on the day of the attack." Trusted mediator? From the nation that has funneled billions to Hamas's coffers while lecturing the West on human rights? The irony is thicker than the fog of war itself. "This was not an attack we could brush off and continue doing the work that we were doing," al-Ansari insisted, revealing that Washington had to issue ironclad assurances against further incursions on Qatari turf before the talks could limp back to life. One wonders: if Doha's salons are so sacrosanct for "peace," why not extradite the Hamas butchers who plot from them? Or is the real "no war, no peace" the endless charade Qatar orchestrates, prolonging suffering while burnishing its image as the Middle East's indispensable broker?

In the end, al-Ansari's warnings serve less as prophecy than as a plea: spare us the consequences of the monsters we've harboured. Gaza's fate hangs not on UN resolutions or Qatari bromides, but on Israel's resolve to dismantle the terror infrastructure that birthed this nightmare. Anything less, and the Strip risks not limbo, but an eternal graveyard of squandered chances.

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Hamas given 24 hours to withdraw from Yellow Line in Gaza

In the arid theater of Gaza, where the sands still whisper the ghosts of the October 7th massacre, the IDF has drawn a line in the dust, not with mere words, but with the unyielding geometry of a "Yellow Line." Hamas, that perennial architect of its own immolation, was granted a fleeting 24 hours to slink back from this demarcation, lest the consequences descend like a biblical reckoning. As one US official confided to The Jerusalem Post, with the crisp finality of a diplomat who has seen too many olive branches snapped: "That 24-hour window expired at 8 p.m. local time, at which point Israel will enforce the ceasefire and engage Hamas targets behind the yellow line."

The mediators, those tireless Egypt and Qatar, ever the reluctant midwives to uneasy truces—had conveyed the ultimatum with the urgency of a ticking chronometer. "Mediators informed Hamas to withdraw from behind the Yellow Line before Thursday evening, otherwise the IDF would strike," another US voice relayed that same night, underscoring the fragility of pacts forged in the shadow of jihadist intransigence. And so it was: "Last night, Hamas was notified through Egypt and Qatar that they had 24 hours to evacuate their terrorists from the area behind the yellow line currently being held by the IDF," the source elaborated, before driving home the inexorable logic. "That 24-hour window expired at 8 p.m. local time, at which point Israel will enforce the ceasefire and engage Hamas targets behind the yellow line. This guidance was issued with approval from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar," the source stressed, a rare note of multilateral harmony in a discord that usually plays out to the tune of Katyusha rockets.

Yet amid this tactical chessboard, the human calculus remains a festering wound. Two years on from the savagery that razed Kibbutz Be'eri, where the echoes of slaughter still haunt the rebuilt porches and bullet-pocked walls, the hostages linger as spectral bargaining chips. Red Cross vehicles, those white-flagged chariots of mercy, ferried some of the living captives through the central Gaza Strip on October 13, 2025, but the dead? Hamas, true to its macabre choreography, has dribbled out their remains like reluctant alms, flouting the ceasefire's early stipulations for a single, dignified release. Israeli officials, their patience frayed to the consistency of worn kevlar, accuse the group of deliberate procrastination, a stalling tactic as cynical as it is cruel.

"There is little pressure on the organization from the mediators to release more hostages, and some of the bodies are located in places that will make a swift return difficult," one Israeli official confided to the outlet, his words laced with the quiet fury of the bereaved. "We still have leverage to apply pressure on the organization to return the hostages, and there are two more hostages we believe they can return immediately. Still, there is concern that we may see another situation where days go by without any bodies being returned." It is a tableau of exquisite torment: the living shielded by the leverage of the dead, while the mediators avert their gaze, lest the blood on the scales prove too indelible.

And when Hamas, predictably, tested the truce with fresh provocations, the IDF's response was not one of hand-wringing but of calibrated retribution. On Wednesday, before the ceasefire's iron grip tightened anew, Israeli forces dismantled dozens of terrorists, human instruments of an ideology that devours its own. Nor were the strikes confined to flesh; they cratered observation posts, a weapons production site, rocket and mortar launch positions, and those subterranean veins of malice known as underground tunnels. In Gaza's labyrinth, where every shadow conceals a fuse, such precision is not vengeance but the bare minimum of self-preservation, a reminder that lines drawn in yellow may yet turn crimson if crossed once more.

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Hamas's Latest Defiance: A 24-Hour Ultimatum Ignored, as Israel's Resolve Hardens

In the grim theatre of Gaza's endless absurdities, where Hamas plays the role of the unyielding fanatic and the world its bewildered audience, comes yet another chapter of predictable perfidy. The Israel Defense Forces, holding firm to their "Yellow Line"—that fragile ribbon of restraint amid the rubble—have issued a stark warning to the terrorists ensconced behind it. And, as one might have foreseen, Hamas has responded with the silence of the grave it so eagerly digs for others.

A US official, speaking to The Jerusalem Post, laid bare the mediators' desperate diplomacy: Hamas was informed, through the good (or at least intermediary) offices of Egypt and Qatar, to withdraw from behind the Yellow Line before Thursday evening, lest the IDF unleash its righteous fury.

"That 24-hour window expired at 8 p.m. local time, at which point Israel will enforce the ceasefire and engage Hamas targets behind the yellow line," the source stated, with the crisp finality of a man who has seen too many deadlines dissolve into dust.

"Last night, Hamas was notified through Egypt and Qatar that they had 24 hours to evacuate their terrorists from the area behind the yellow line currently being held by the IDF," the source elaborated, underscoring the multinational seal of approval on this ultimatum. "That 24-hour window expired at 8 p.m. local time, at which point Israel will enforce the ceasefire and engage Hamas targets behind the yellow line. This guidance was issued with approval from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar," the source stressed—a rare moment of alignment in a region where alliances shift like desert sands.

One might pause here to marvel at the spectacle: the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, three powers whose records on Islamist extremism range from the comically inconsistent to the outright enabling, now united in urging restraint on the very restraint that has kept Israel's hand from total devastation. Yet Hamas, true to form, has decamped not an inch. Their refusal is not mere obstinacy; it is the essence of their creed, a jihadist calculus where every concession is a betrayal of the divine delusion that animates them.

Compounding this farce is the matter of the hostages, those spectral figures whose fates hang like Damocles' sword over the negotiations. Hamas, in a predictable breach that is as brazen as it is heartbreaking, failed to release all the deceased captives in one fell swoop during the ceasefire's fragile dawn. Israeli officials, their patience frayed to the thread of steel, accuse the group of deliberate procrastination, a tactic as old as terror itself.

"There is little pressure on the organization from the mediators to release more hostages, and some of the bodies are located in places that will make a swift return difficult," an Israeli official confided to The Post, his words laced with the quiet outrage of the bereaved. "We still have leverage to apply pressure on the organization to return the hostages, and there are two more hostages we believe they can return immediately. Still, there is concern that we may see another situation where days go by without any bodies being returned."

How telling, this admission of mediator torpor. In the salons of Cairo and Doha, where the air is thick with the scent of incense and inaction, the urgency to reclaim even the dead evaporates like morning mist. Hamas, for its part, hoards these remains as bargaining chips in a game where human dignity is the first casualty. One wonders: if the bodies of innocents—tortured, desecrated, discarded like refuse—cannot stir the world's moral reflexes, what will? Another cycle of rocket fire? Another festival of global condemnation aimed squarely at the one force daring to fight back?

As the clock ticks past 8 p.m., and the IDF prepares to redraw the lines in fire, let us dispense with illusions. This is no mere skirmish in a ceasefire's footnotes; it is the unvarnished truth of a war where one side seeks annihilation and the other survival. Israel, cornered by geography and gaslit by geopolitics, must now act as judge, jury, and executioner in the court of necessity. Hamas, meanwhile, will cry victim from the shadows, their martyrdom myth intact—until the next yellow line is crossed, and the next ultimatum echoes into the void.

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Is it real? Does Hamas really accept the Trump peace plan?

Hamas terrorists

In the annals of human folly and fleeting redemption, few chapters rival the saga of Gaza, a strip of land that has, for decades, served as both a launchpad for terror and a stage for the world's sanctimonious hand-wringing. Yet here we are, two years and a day after the barbaric onslaught of October 7, 2023, when Hamas's jihadists unleashed a pogrom of such savagery that it evoked the bloodiest echoes of the Holocaust, slaughtering Jews in their homes, at a music festival, and in the streets, before dragging the living and the dead into the tunnels of their infernal lair. 

What followed was not merely war, but a humanitarian cataclysm of Hamas's own contrivance: a blockade of aid by its own fighters, a weaponization of suffering that the bien-pensants of the West have, with tiresome predictability, pinned on Israel alone, because, you know, Jews.

Into this morass strides Donald Trump, that most improbable of peacemakers, whose brash diplomacy has now, against all odds, pried open a door to something resembling peace. On Wednesday, the former, and perhaps future, president took to Truth Social to proclaim the improbable: "I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!"

He did not, this time, add: "Thank you for your attention to this matter."

One scarcely knows whether to applaud the biblical flourish or to chuckle at the irony: Trump, the man once derided as a bull in the diplomatic china shop, quoting the Sermon on the Mount while corralling the very devils who began this inferno. Moments before his announcement, images flickered from the negotiation chamber in Sharm el-Sheikh--that Egyptian resort more accustomed to sunburned tourists than to the grim handshakes of sworn enemies. There was retired General Nitzan Alon, clasping hands with Qatar’s Prime Minister Al-Thani, the special envoy Witkoff lurking approvingly in the shadows. Across the table, Hamas's Khalil al-Hayya and his cadre of apparatchiks beamed like schoolboys awarded a prize for good behavior. An Israeli source murmured of preparations for an official unveiling, while whispers suggested the ink might dry as early as Thursday. Israeli outlets, ever vigilant, reported the signing would unfold in that same sun-kissed enclave.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the indomitable prime minister whose tenure has been a gauntlet of betrayals and bombardments, wasted no time in framing this as divine intercession. "With God’s help, we will bring them all home," he declared in a statement, before adding in Hebrew: "A great day for Israel. Tomorrow I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home. I thank the heroic soldiers of the IDF and all the security forces, thanks to their courage and sacrifice we have reached this day. I thank from the bottom of my heart President Trump and his team for mobilizing for this sacred mission of freeing our hostages. With God's help, together we will continue to achieve all our objectives and expand peace with our neighbors."

From the other side of this chasm, the terrorist polity of Hamas issued its communiqué with the oily piety one might expect from a movement whose charter once called for the extermination of Jews, only later softened to mere subjugation. (How civil of them.) "After responsible and serious negotiations conducted by the movement and the Palestinian resistance factions regarding President Trump's proposal in Sharm el-Sheikh, with the aim of ending the war of extermination against our Palestinian people and the withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip, Hamas announces the reaching of an agreement that ends the war on Gaza, provides for the withdrawal of the occupation, allows the entry of aid and implements a prisoner exchange.

"We greatly appreciate the efforts of the mediators in Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, and thank U.S. President Donald Trump for his efforts to bring about a final end to the war and the full withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip. We call on President Trump, the guarantor states of the agreement, and all Arab, Islamic and international parties to oblige the government of the occupation to fulfill all the agreement’s commitments, and not to allow it to evade or delay implementation of the accords."

Ah, the lexicon of victimhood: "war of extermination," "occupation"--phrases honed in the propaganda mills of Tehran and Doha, designed to invert the aggressor into the aggrieved. One might almost admire the shamelessness, were it not so drenched in the blood of innocents. Dr. Majed al-Ansari, the silver-tongued spokesman for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, chimed in on X with the mediators' seal of approval: "The mediators announce that an agreement was reached tonight on all terms and mechanisms for implementing the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to stopping the war, releasing Israeli detainees and Palestinian prisoners, and allowing aid to enter."

Israeli officials, pragmatic as ever, peg the release of the living hostages to a brisk 72 hours, a single, merciful phase. The remains of the dead will lag, a grim logistical hurdle, with Israel unyielding on their repatriation. Hamas, parroted by certain Israeli leaks, blames the delay on bodies lost to rubble, convenient rubble, one suspects, in a landscape they themselves have mined and booby-trapped into a labyrinth of death.

The families of the captives, those whose anguish has been the war's most piercing refrain, erupted in cautious jubilation. From their headquarters came a missive of raw gratitude: "The hostages' families wish to express deep gratitude to U.S. President Donald Trump and his team for the leadership and determination that led to this historic breakthrough: an end to the war and a comprehensive agreement to return all the hostages. There are 48 hostages in Hamas captivity. Our moral and national commitment is to bring them all home, both alive and fallen alike. Their return is a condition for the rehabilitation and revival of Israeli society as a whole. We will not rest or be quiet until the return of the last hostage. We will bring them back. We will rise."Netanyahu had, just last week, nodded to America's 20-point blueprint: a full Israeli pullback from Gaza in swap for all 48 souls--21 of them, by the grim calculus of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, still drawing breath. 

The negotiators, Israeli and Hamas alike, had jetted to Egypt on Monday to chisel out the devilish details, though the fine print remains as opaque as the tunnels beneath Khan Younis. The skeleton of the deal echoes the original: Hamas's disarmament for Israel's halt to operations; a surge of aid to the beleaguered enclave; the first sketches of reconstruction. Amnesty for those jihadists who meekly surrender their Kalashnikovs; and, once the last hostage is accounted for, Israel's release of "250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after Oct. 7th, 2023."

The 72-hour clock on releases ticks urgently, though Hamas, in a weekend wittering, hinted at snags, deceased captives allegedly entombed under debris of their own making. They nodded to chunks of Trump's terms but fretted over disarmament's bite and Israel's supposed perfidy: a resumption of arms once the bargaining chips are cashed in.

Ambiguities linger like smoke over the rubble. Who mans this vaunted "Board of Peace," chaired by Trump and that erstwhile British prime minister Tony Blair, tasked with Gaza's stewardship and rebirth? Trump teased "leaders from other countries" to join the roster soon enough. The blueprint envisions Gaza's interim rule by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee," a phrase redolent of bureaucratic fantasy, charged with the mundane toil of services and sanitation. 

Backed by Arab potentates and a chorus of Middle Eastern voices, the plan was funneled to Hamas last month via Qatari and Egyptian couriers. It sidesteps the siren song of Palestinian statehood, endorsed by 157 UN members, those paragons of wisdom, opting instead for a panel of "experts, who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East," to blueprint an economic phoenix from the ashes.

No expulsions under this scheme, no echoes of Trump's past musings that so riled the chattering classes. No annexations, either; Gaza remains, in the White House's emollient words, a place "We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza." 

Trump, ever the showman, dangled the carrot and cracked the whip: reject this, he warned Hamas, and Israel would have America's untrammeled license to prosecute the war to its logical end.

Skepticism, of course, is the sage's default in these parts. Hamas has shattered ceasefires before, like a child smashing toys for sport. Israel, scarred by betrayal, will watch with one eye on the horizon. Yet for a fleeting moment, amid the exhaustion and the elegies, one dares to glimpse a sliver of light: peacemakers blessed, hostages homeward bound, and perhaps, just perhaps, a Gaza unshackled from the tyrants who have long held it, and its neighbors, in thrall. 

If only the world, with its selective outrage and moral myopia, might now turn its gaze from condemnation to construction.

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Bibi’s Big Play: Full Deal or Bust for Hostages, War’s End

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu dropped a bombshell Saturday night, throwing his weight behind a deal to end the Gaza war, but only if it ticks every box on Israel's wishlist. 

"We will agree to an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war, which include the disarmament of Hamas, the demilitarization of the Strip, Israeli control of the perimeter, and the establishment of a governing authority that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, and that will live in peace with Israel," Bibi declared, per his office. 

No half-measures, no compromises, just the whole enchilada.

This comes after whispers from Netanyahu's adviser hinted at openness to a partial deal. Israel's Channel 12 News spilled the tea, reporting that the negotiating team sees a shift in Hamas's stance over the past week, potentially opening the door to phased talks based on U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff's outline. The defense establishment's all in for a partial deal, and some Likud ministers are pushing not to slam that door shut. But Bibi, alongside heavyweights like Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is holding firm: it's all hostages, all conditions, or no deal.

Meanwhile, a Qatari delegation's rolled into Egypt, trying to drag everyone back to the table. Over at IDF Southern Command, brass held a powwow Saturday night, prepping operational plans for a Gaza City offensive to present to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir. Zamir's set to green-light options for Defense Minister Israel Katz's final say-so. The IDF's already been busy, hitting Gaza City’s southwestern Zeitoun quarter, smoking out explosives, gunmen, and terror infrastructure above and below ground. They’re also gearing up to move residents south before the offensive kicks off.

The stakes? Palestinian terror groups still hold 50 hostages in Gaza, with 20 believed alive, per Israeli authorities. This traces back to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of the western Negev, when 251 people were snatched. Oh, and Hamas is still clutching the body of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin from 2014. No word on whether Bibi's hardline stance will break the deadlock or just keep the fires burning.

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