"The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, is “on the ground” in Lebanon and has been coordinating with Hezbollah, informed sources told UK-based outlet, Amwaj Media.

According to the sources, Qaani arrived in Lebanon one day after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.

They added that he left Lebanon for meetings between 16 and 20 October and has “since maintained a constant presence” in the country, where the “focus of his mission … is to help coordinate a possible broader confrontation with Israel.”

Following his return to Lebanon, Qaani met with the leaders of Hezbollah and the Palestinian factions based in Lebanon, “conveying messages from Iran’s Supreme Leader.”

However, Amwaj Media cites a senior security official as saying that Hezbollah Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, is the one “really calling the shots.”

Last week, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah confirmed that Nasrallah is “actively monitoring” and supervising the southern Lebanese front against Israel.

“While the [Joint Operations Room of the Resistance Axis] is nominally led by the Quds Force, Nasrallah appears to be in charge of what may come next on the border between Israel and Lebanon,” Amwaj Media writes.

During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, former Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani was on the ground with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

Since 7 October and the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hezbollah has launched daily attacks on Israeli military sites, outposts, and surveillance towers. Dozens of Israeli soldiers have been killed or wounded, and at least 15 Merkava tanks destroyed.

Hezbollah’s attacks are being carried out in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. According to The Cradle’s Hasan Illaik, these attacks have succeeded in essentially wiping out much of the surveillance equipment Israel has amassed on the Lebanese border over the years.

The Lebanese resistance has documented these attacks with videos that they are periodically releasing on their media page.

The latest attack was launched at noon on 31 October.

“At (12:22) noon on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, after careful monitoring of the occupation forces on the border by the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance, an ambush was laid for an Israeli force positioned on Al-Khazzan Hill in the vicinity of the Al-Asi site,” a Hezbollah statement said on Tuesday.

The fighters targeted the force “with guided missiles, which led to direct hits and all of its members being killed or wounded.”

After Israel announced expanding limited ground incursions into Gaza last week, the army is now attempting to advance deeper into the besieged strip, engaging in fierce clashes with the Palestinian resistance.

Many are concerned, in line with what analysts have said, that a full Israeli ground invasion will trigger direct involvement in the war by the Axis of Resistance. This would see Hezbollah fully and officially open up the southern front against Israel and would see involvement from several other factions and players, including Iran.

Nasrallah is set to give a heavily anticipated speech on 3 November. "

"Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that martyrs have fallen en masse in a new massacre committed by the occupation forces against civilians in the vicinity of the Indonesian hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

Our correspondent added that the surgical operations in the hospital are being performed without anesthetics.

The casualties were transported to the Indonesian Hospital where they fell victim to another airstrike.

According to Preliminary reports by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the number of martyrs in the massacre is more than 100, and the injured number more than 300.

The Israelis bombed the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip with 6 bombs, each carrying 1 ton of explosives, the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza said.

The ministry added that the Israelis raised an entire neighborhood inside the Jabalia camp completely.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health revealed earlier today that the death toll from the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has risen to 8,525 martyrs, including 3,542 children and 2,187 women, with 21,543 citizens injured with various injuries since October 7th.

The ministry's spokesperson stated in a press release that the Ministry of Health has received 2,000 reports of missing persons, including 1,100 children still under the rubble.

He explained that the Israeli occupation "committed 18 massacres in the past hours, resulting in the deaths of 216 martyrs, most of whom were displaced to areas in the south of the Gaza Strip that the Israeli occupation claims are safe."

This raises the number of massacres committed by the Israeli occupation against the families of the Gaza Strip to 926 massacres.

Israeli occupation forces has been persistently targeting hospitals in Gaza since the onset of the war.

It was reported on Monday that Israeli airstrikes targeted the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza, which is the only medical facility in the besieged territory specifically designated for cancer patients.

According to the hospital's medical director, Mohammed Abu Nada, the area surrounding the hospital resembles a war zone, and the hospital faces constant threats of bombardment by "Israel".

Abu Nada appealed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him to intervene and halt the Israeli aggression against the hospital and its patients.

The director-general of hospitals in the Gaza Ministry of Health stressed that the most pressing concern currently is the continuous shelling of hospitals and their surroundings.

Gaza Mayor Yahya al-Sarraj reiterated his warning about potential disease outbreaks and epidemics due to blocked sewage systems in some hospitals.

Concurrently, our correspondent reported that the Israeli warplanes bombed the vicinity of al-Quds Hospital, causing damage to multiple departments.

Furthermore, on October 17, an Israeli airstrike on al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City resulted in the loss of a minimum of 500 lives, leading to extensive international and Arab condemnations."

"Israeli ground operations in the Gaza Strip have begun. The Financial Times says Israel will not reveal much about these military operations in order to avoid Hezbollah and Iran entering the war.

The Americans are now orchestrating Israel's military campaign against the Gaza Strip. Washington believes this will maximize the potential of achieving both US and Israeli goals, without the conflict leading to a major regional conflagration - but it cannot guarantee that. The Israeli war on Gaza - managed, funded, and armed by the US - has a high possibility of turning into a regional war.

Impossible goals

Since 7 October, after Israel awoke to a nightmare called “Al-Aqsa Flood,” Tel Aviv has set itself goals so high that they are impossible to implement:

Israel's first stated goal is the total elimination of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, as announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and other military and civilian officials in Tel Aviv.

They know that achieving this is next to impossible. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak - also a former defense minister and army chief of staff - has said that eliminating Hamas is impossible because it (resistance) is an ideology that exists in people’s minds and hearts.

The only way this goal can be achieved practically is by getting rid of the entire population of the Gaza Strip. This matter was put on the table in Tel Aviv - and first came to our attention when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi announced he was rejecting an Israeli proposal to allow Gaza residents to flood into the Sinai Peninsula.

The Kingdom of Jordan - adjacent to the occupied West Bank, which has no physical connection to Gaza - also rejected a similar Israeli proposal to allow Palestinians to flood into Jordan, via its Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi.

These Israeli proposals to uproot and displace millions of Palestinians were not just an idea flitted about casually. Hebrew media outlet Mekovit has leaked an official Israeli Ministry of Intelligence document that proposed the displacement of more than 2.4 million Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt.

Just these two Israeli goals - in addition to being nigh impossible to achieve - could ignite all of West Asia and beyond. The region's Axis of Resistance has sent several clear messages expressing its readiness to enter the war if Israel and its allies either threaten the existence and capabilities of the Palestinian resistance, and/or implement the project to displace Palestinians.

Resistance factions in Lebanon - including Hezbollah and allies such as Al-Fajr Forces, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) - have been carrying out operations against Israeli army positions along the Lebanese-Palestinian border, on a daily basis, since 8 October.

US occupation military bases in Iraq and Syria have been subjected to more than 20 attacks by missiles and drones to date. From Syria, missiles are launched from time to time towards Israeli army positions in the occupied Golan Heights.

From Yemen, the Ansarallah resistance movement has launched three batches of missiles and drones, which have reportedly been intercepted by US and Israeli air defense systems.

On the Iraqi-Jordanian border, thousands of resistance supporters have gathered, hinting at the possibility of crossing the border to head toward occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank. In general, the Axis has loudly proclaimed that it is not afraid to enter the war if the Palestinian resistance forces need that help.

Washington, leading Israel's Gaza war

On the other side of this conflict, Washington has weighed in to offer full support to the occupation army in its military campaign against Palestinians. To date, the US has deployed two aircraft carriers and dozens of naval vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. Its air defenses (Patriot and THAAD systems) have been strengthened in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Jordan, and the occupied Palestinian territories. In addition, the Americans have deployed 2,000 special forces soldiers in Palestine, strengthened their forces and increased the number of combat aircraft in all their military bases in West Asia, and added military advisors to “assist” the Israeli army in its war on Gaza.

Both in practice, and publicly, the US government and military are running this Israeli war.

Washington has convinced Israel to dial down its objectives, firstly, by reversing plans for a large-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, and replacing those with smaller, targeted operations with specific objectives.

These goals notably include: controlling uninhabited areas on the northern and central edges of the Gaza Strip; carrying out raids to kill the largest possible number of resistance fighters and destroy as much of the resistance's infrastructure as possible; and launching operations to find or rescue Israeli captives held by the resistance.

Moreover, Washington is working hard to whitewash its right-wing Israeli ally's genocidal assault on Gaza by introducing humanitarian aid in small quantities. At the same time, the US seeks to get rid, even if only partially, of the burden of Israeli captives, via Qatari-mediated negotiations to release a number of Israeli and foreign prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance since 7 October.

Although Tel Aviv prefers to wrap up the prisoner file in one go, the resistance refuses to do so: it seeks to maintain this power card, whether for the purpose of negotiating the release of more than 7,000 Palestinian captives held in Israeli detention centers, to negotiate Gaza's reconstruction after the war - or to lift Israel's siege over the beleaguered territory.

What can the ground war achieve?

On the night of 27-28 October, the Israeli army began to occupy agricultural lands in northern Gaza, and penetrated - from its eastern borders - into a sparsely built-up area in the center of the Strip.

Tel Aviv's goal was to cut off the northern part of Gaza - which includes the heavily populated Gaza City - from the south, and to continue to apply fierce pressure on the city and its surroundings in a protracted battle to wear down its inhabitants. This operation was flanked with air and ground bombardment, the likes of which Palestine has never, ever witnessed before.

In the past two days, Palestinian resistance forces have managed to confront the enemy with anti-armor missiles, carried out an operation behind enemy lines near the Erez crossing, continued to fire missiles toward Israeli cities and military sites, and confronted an infiltration by Israeli armored vehicles into Wadi Gaza, an area in the middle of the Strip.

In the meantime, the US is working overtime to ensure that Israel's enemies do not interfere in the war by threatening them with diplomatic messages, fleets, planes, and soldiers - which has de facto transformed this armed conflict from a broad and rapid operation into a low-boil, long-term war.

Washington has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Israel: military cover, weapons, operations management, and even engineering the theater of operations to bolster the restoration of Israel's image of deterrence. The US is betting that the military pressure on Hamas, in addition to the humanitarian burden it has placed on it, will eventually lead to political concessions by the Palestinian resistance. So far, Israel has killed nearly 10,000 civilians in Gaza, and has either damaged or partially or completely destroyed most civilian buildings In the Gaza Strip.

'Israel lost the war'

Despite the oversized US assistance, Israel's military position is more fragile than it has been in decades. As former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces General Yair Golan strikingly tweeted on October 27: “We lost the war. No step, no matter how strong or successful, is able to erase the defeat of October 7. However, from this failure, there must be a political victory that will ultimately lead to the disarmament of the Gaza Strip."

This is Washington's ultimate political goal too. But to reach this end, the US must juggle an infinite number of variables, any of which could set the region afire. Without even offering a light at the end of the tunnel - i.e., a political solution to the Palestinian plight - the US, and its unconditional, early war support for Israel, has attracted an improbable number of regional armies and militias to the conflict in Gaza: the Israeli army, US fleets, marines, and special forces in the eastern Mediterranean and West Asia, 50,000 resistance fighters in Gaza, tens of thousands of resistance fighters in Lebanon, tens of thousands of resistance fighters in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of fighters in Yemen, naval vessels from Britain and other western nations deployed to ensure Israel security.

This, without even considering the game-changing arrival of Iran's armed forces and missile batteries into the war.

Amidst this huge number of troops exchanging fire, any one error could lead to the outbreak of a regional war that would, in reality, be a global war, since the US is the conflict's main actor. This is akin to bringing a herd of elephants into a china shop, and remaining convinced all the while that there is a force capable of keeping them calm.

The bottom line? The US is presenting itself as a guarantor that Israel's assault on Gaza will remain territorially limited, but is, in reality, adding every possible ingredient to this conflict that could transform it into a regional war."

Al Mayadeen's sources revealed on Sunday that the Israeli Occupation Forces had been deploying poison gas prior to their incursions into the Gaza Strip.

The source explained that the IOF had attempted to penetrate the Gaza Strip four hours after deploying the toxic gas, noting that this strategy was "used in the main areas of operation, specifically in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun [Gaza]."

This comes after Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza reported that an Israeli infantry unit fell into an ambush set up by the Resistance in Soufa.

Our correspondent confirmed that "the Israeli infantry unit withdrew from Sofa after intense clashes with the Resistance that lasted for 3 hours."

Furthermore, the IOF's spokesperson announced that an Israeli officer was seriously injured as a result of the detonation of an explosive device and that another soldier was injured during confrontations in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli land invasion waged against Gaza along three axes was driven back by the Resistance, which confirmed that the occupation's soldiers suffered casualties in the process.

The Resistance said that the enemy fell into "ambushes prepared by the Palestinian Resistance" and also noted that it expected the occupation to "attempt to invade Gaza again."

"Nevertheless, all estimates, based on the statements of the resistance forces, their spokespersons, and analysts, and based on simple logic, say: do not negotiate for the release of detainees or engage in a prisoner exchange without a cessation of aggression. Who would be foolish enough to think that the resistance will hand over hundreds of its prisoners for nothing, especially since they declared from day one, through the words of Ismail Haniyeh and others, that the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood is for the sake of the prisoners and detainees? Therefore, the resistance will not forfeit what it achieved on October seventh, and it will not turn its back on the sacrifices of our people in the Gaza Strip over 19 days for nothing.

[Freeing] the prisoners, [securing] the Al-Aqsa Mosque, [ending] the siege, and nothing less, are what I believe to be the goals that the resistance seeks to achieve in the foreseeable future. I say the foreseeable future because the developments of the conflict are pushing towards the boundaries of a regional war, which will present the resistance and its allies with more strategic goals. It is not far from the truth to say that the most important of these strategic goals is the goal of return and liberation. The battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, with its achievements and its sacrifices, and the new realities it imposed on regional and international levels, has put the Palestinian issue back on the right track, the track of the national struggle until return and liberation."

"The Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement announced that it successfully repelled the Zionist occupation army’s most recent attempts to advance into Gaza. On the evening of October 27th, the Israeli occupation forces attacked Gaza on three different fronts and it failed to gain a foothold in the city.

In a statement released this morning, Hamas stated “the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Palestinian resistance heroically and steadfastly responded to attempts at a ground advance, clashed forcefully with the occupation army, and inflicted heavy losses on its soldiers and equipment.”

The statement continued by saying that “Gaza has been and will remain a graveyard for invaders… the era of arrogance and recklessness without accountability has ended. They will not be able to erase the impact of the strategic defeat they suffered on October 7.”

Expecting the enemy to continue attempting ground incursions, Hamas officials noted that “the Israeli occupation used helicopters to evacuate the wounded and the dead from the battlefield.”

..."

Tasnim News; Iranian State Media

"Around 5,000 American military forces have been engaged in the ground operation the Israeli army launched in Gaza on Friday night. Security sources told Tasnim that the Zionist regime’s ground onslaught against the Gaza Strip on Friday night involved three divisions and several brigades.

The sources have also pointed to the participation of some 5,000 US military forces in the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Tasnim had reported earlier that the American military commanders have practically taken charge of the situation in the Israeli army as the Zionist forces suffered a crushing defeat in the Al-Aqsa Storm operation and the Israeli leaders have lost trust in the management abilities and loyalty of a number of army personnel.

As the Gaza Strip on Friday night came under the heaviest bombardment since the Zionists waged a brutal war 22 days ago, the Israeli army made an attempt to enter the Gaza Strip from several areas, including Bureij, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and north of Khan Yunis.

The purpose of the Israeli army’s advance on those regions is to split the Gaza Strip into two or three sections and cut off the connection among the Palestinian resistance forces before launching the next stage of the war.

The Zionist regime had put the same plan into practice in 2014, which had ended in failure.

Every time the Zionist regime launches a land invasion of Gaza, its officials claim that the main operation has not started yet, describing the latest attack as being limited in scope or an extension of a previous operation.

The Zionists have planned a propaganda campaign to whitewash the failure of ground invasion of Gaza and suffer less humiliation.

The Israeli regime’s bombardment of Gaza intensified after the military said it was “expanding operations” into the territory.

The Hamas resistance movement says its fighters confronted the Zionist troops in various locations on Friday night.

More than 1 million Palestinian children and their parents are living through “pure horror” in the besieged enclave, humanitarian group Save the Children said.

At least 7,326 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7."

"The Israeli campaign of massacres and terrorism against the Gaza Strip has now extended to murdering Palestinian prisoners. The first martyr was a leader in the Hamas movement, Omar Hamza Daraghmeh, age 58, from the city of Tubas. On October 24, another prisoner was martyred. He was Arafat Yasser Hamdan, age 25, from the town of Beit Sira in Ramallah district, imprisoned in Ofer prison.

The occupation forces had arrested Daraghmeh, along with his son Hamza, on October 9, the third day of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle. Omar participated remotely in a court session held in Ofer camp on Monday, October 23. At that time, his lawyer confirmed that he was in good health. However, later that evening, the occupation prison department announced that he had died due to a “heart attack” in Megiddo prison.

Hamdan, on the other hand, was arrested on October 22 during a wave of arrests by the occupation forces.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Prisoners’ Club commented on Daraghmeh’s martyrdom in a joint statement: “the martyrdom of any prisoner, in light of the comprehensive aggression against our people and the genocide of our people in Gaza, is tantamount to a deliberate assassination.” The statement emphasized that “the occupation’s narrative has always been and continues to be a deception. Each time, the occupation creates stories about the circumstances of prisoners’ martyrdom, attempting to absolve itself of the crime.”

In this context, they pointed out that “based on the numerous testimonies of newly released prisoners, who spoke about torture and beatings during their transfer to the courtroom or the room dedicated to court video conferencing, and in light of all the information we receive about torture operations against the prisoners, we are not merely voicing concerns about the possible martyrdom of other detainees, but we are announcing that one has already been martyred.”

After Hamdan’s martyrdom, a second statement was issued highlighting that “the occupation has begun a systematic assassination campaign against the prisoners as part of the all-round aggression against our people and our prisoners.”

While the occupation maintains secrecy about the prisoners, including the number of people detained and the conditions for detention, it has significantly ratcheted up its repression in the prisons. It seeks revenge and death. The occupation prison agency is using the monstrous aggression against Gaza as an opportunity to target the prisoners with torture, assassination, execution, and stricter detention conditions.

After the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, Israeli prison authorities imposed several sanctions against the prisoners:

1. Removal of all electrical devices, including televisions, food heating plates, and water heating jugs.

Cutting off electricity to the prisoners from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Limited access to the courtyard for only 20 minutes, and sometimes completely depriving prisoners of it.

Destruction of all sports equipment.

Cutting off hot water supply to the bathing sections, forcing the prisoners to shower in cold water.

Closure of the kitchen and providing only two modest meals.

Regular and daily room searches.

Increasing the number of prisoners in each room from five prisoners to nine.

9. Converting the sentences of some prisoners whose terms have ended into indefinite administrative detention.

In conjunction with this, the occupation forces arrested more than 50 people, including former prisoners, on the night of October 23. The occupation has arrested more than 1,265 Palestinians since October 7, and this does not include workers or detainees from the Gaza Strip because the occupation authorities have imposed an information blackout on this information. Despite the prisoners’ support organizations’ demands to meet with the International Red Cross, there is no clear data from the human rights institutions or the Red Cross about the numbers or identities of the workers detained by the occupation, nor the places of their detention.

Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement Victory is an Implementation of Unity and True Partnership

The Israeli barbarism and terrorism against prisoners is not confined to the prisons; it begins at the first moment of arrest, starting with violently storming their homes. According to documentation from the Prisoners’ Club, the arrests are particularly brutal and include using families as hostages, vandalizing and destroying homes, subjecting the detainees to severe beatings causing injuries, and, sometimes, on-the-spot executions.

This campaign coincides with the implementation of strict military orders by the occupation authorities to facilitate arrest operations, torture of detainees, and restrictions on the work of legal teams. The most prominent example of this is the increasing use of “administrative detention”, as a significant portion of those arrested after the start of Al-Aqsa Flood were placed under administrative detention. The occupation has issued more than 300 administrative detention orders during this time. The occupation has also instituted temporary amendments to the administrative detention policies, including raising the initial detention period for warrantless detention (when the occupation determines the possibility of issuing an administrative detention order against them) from 72 hours to six days. Moreover, the time period before administrative detainees receive a hearing has been increased from eight days to 12 days. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, these amendments are designed “to escalate arrest campaigns, increase the ease of issuing administrative detention orders, and control the growing number of prisoners, including administrative detainees.”

On October 22, the prisoners’ families held a press conference in Ramallah, expressing their profound concern for the fate of their imprisoned family members, while the occupation isolates them and escalates its systematic crimes against them. The families stated that over the last two weeks the occupation’s prisons have become as savage and brutal as Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib prison. “The occupation has deprived the prisoners of visits, including visits by lawyers and legal staff; halted medical treatment; cut off water and electricity; and today, our children are facing hunger after the occupation confiscated food from them and reduced their meals.”

The wife of prisoner Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh said: “Since October 7, our loved ones have been subjected to attacks by severe beatings inside their cells, and to acts of abuse and torture that greatly exceed the abuse and torture that the occupation has previously pursued. [Meanwhile] the world is only speaking about the hostages held in Gaza for two weeks and ignoring the thousands of prisoners in the occupation’s prisons who were, and still are, just numbers to them!”

Since 1967, there have been 238 martyred prisoners, and the occupation still holds the bodies of 11 martyrs."

"Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s ‘strategic silence’ unnerves Zionists

By Julia Kassem

Amid the ear-splitting sound of air raid sirens and the relentless barrage of rockets pounding Palestinian homes in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, only the sound of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s silence is the most deafening.

Since the Lebanese resistance movement warned to join the war in the event of the Israeli regime moving ahead with its ambitious plan of ‘ground invasion’, both Israelis and Americans have been forced to sit back and consider different scenarios and consequences of the foolhardy, risky adventure.

US President Joe Biden, according to a report in Axios, was “particularly concerned” in his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv that Hezbollah “would decide to join the war”, which would “increase the odds of a broader conflict” in the West Asia region.

Amid the war rhetoric in the power corridors of Tel Aviv and Washington, one question everyone seems to be asking is: how would the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement react if the war expands?

Headlines in the Western and Zionist media in recent weeks point to the importance of Hezbollah and how the movement can damage the calculations of the Zionist enemy in the event of ground offensive.

“Where’s Nasrallah? Hezbollah leader silent among Gaza attacks,” asked Middle East Eye. “Nasrallah remains silent while thousands flee South Lebanon,” wrote Israeli Ynetnews. “Hassan Nasrallah’s ominous silence in Lebanon,” wrote Jewish News Syndicate.

What these headlines reveal is the desperation in the occupying regime to come out of the confusion it finds itself in and to get a sense of what lies ahead for it from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech.

The US has been urging Tel Aviv to hold back and delay the ground offensive, and the regime has so far obliged, primarily due to its own compulsions and the need for US reinforcements.

The Palestinian resistance, already gaining the upper hand in terms of strategy, strength, and might, has demonstrated that the ground offensive will be a costly proposition. It has prevented the much-hyped Merkava tanks from even entering the Gaza borders at Khan Yunus and Rafah – destroying them.

On October 25, Hezbollah leader announced that 41 soldiers of the group who were martyred in post-October 7 battles with the Zionist enemy were ‘Martyrs in the path of Al-Quds’, setting the tone for what lies ahead – the complete liberation of the Al-Quds from the Zionist occupation.

Hinting at the ultimate endgame of the current battle as the liberation of Palestine, the announcement has opened a new stage in the objectives of the Resistance Axis with greater conviction and resolve.

Though a speech is yet to be made, Hassan Nasrallah’s actions have been louder than any speech - desecuritizing the border, causing 40+ settlements within 5 km of the Lebanese border to evacuate, hitting every target with 20 mortar attacks, more than 70 AGTM launches, and over a dozen tanked Merkavas. These actions have spoken louder than words, but much more is yet to come.

The discourse around Hezbollah’s involvement in the war misses the point that all weaponry of the Axis of Resistance is employed with careful coordination and strategy.

On October 18, Biden warned Hezbollah against joining the war, terrified of the existential threat Hezbollah poses to the regime that is in reality a tinder box. This existential threat to the occupation prompted Biden to also advise his allies in Tel Aviv to not make any hasty, imprudent move.

While Hezbollah has engaged in limited battles against the Zionist entity from the North in recent weeks, basically aimed at distracting and confusing the enemy that is weaker than Spider’s Web, it has so far allowed the Palestinian resistance to manage the overall situation on the frontline.

Hezbollah has spun the Zionist entity around in a knot from the threads of its own weak web in the North - enough to increase the confusion and distraction without creating an escalation.

What the Zionist entity seems to be begging for is a response on its quickly ticking watch, a sign, an answer, a step in its plan to be watched, observed, and recorded.

The tactic of strategic patience, which US think tank The Washington Institute described as an "Enduring Challenge for the Biden Administration" - is derived from its Islamic root concept (patience) to be just as much of a political strategy in struggle as it is a personal struggle through one's personal trials.

Considering this, Washington-based war hawks are far from being good planners. The resistance, with his strategy and patience, holds the key here. And this battle will also end as the resistance plans."

"Around 5:30 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck entered the main compound of the United States Marine Corps (the marines) near Beirut Airport. The truck driver circled the area south of the parking lot of the compound and then left the premises. At 6:22 a.m., the truck returned and broke into the compound. However, this time it approached from the west side of the parking area, making a detour, before heading directly towards the barbed wire fence that separated the parking area from the building. After crashing through the fence, it broke through the front doors and exploded in the main lobby inside the building. The force of the explosion lifted the four-story building into the air, destroying the support columns and foundations before the entire building collapsed.

Numerous narratives and theories have been presented about what happened; most people agree with the conclusions of investigations conducted by the US government. However, no group has taken responsibility for the act or presented an explanation of how it was carried out. Eyewitnesses, on the other hand, unanimously agreed that what occurred seemed like a well-planned operation. The guards said they had previously seen the truck and did not suspect anything about it because it resembled the trucks that delivered supplies to the compound. The guards were caught completely off guard and did not even open fire on it before it breached the security checkpoint and the main entrance. According to Deputy Sergeant Eddie DeFranco, who survived and was stationed at guard post number seven, near the main entrance where the truck broke in, when he first saw the truck before it approached, he believed it was just another of the dozens of trucks that transported water, goods, and other equipment from the airport on a daily basis.

Conflicting estimates have circulated regarding the amount of explosives planted in the truck, but most experts believe it was approximately five tons of highly explosive TNT. The explosives were deliberately arranged in order to direct the force of the explosion upward, resulting in significant destruction and injuries to everyone inside the building. It was later announced that 241 US citizens were killed, including 220 marines.

Just a few minutes after the explosion, another massive explosion struck a building known as Drakkar, a few kilometers away, where the French paratroopers were stationed, killing 58 of them. The cause of this explosion is also disputed; however it was initially attributed to a car bomb loaded with approximately five tons of explosives.

Another narrative about the truck was presented 30 years later. In 2013, the French newspaper Le Monde published an investigation based on the investigations carried out by the French government. It cited testimonies from French soldiers who were in a nearby building called Catamaran, located less than 100 meters from Drakkar. They stated that they had gone onto the balcony after the US compound explosion, and, two minutes later, Drakkar exploded. However, they claimed they did not see any truck entering the building. The officer responsible for protecting the surviving building, Omer Marie Magdeleine, stated that “the building was surrounded by fences, each entrance was protected by barriers with machine guns and anti-tank weapons, and the street was closed from both sides. Between the fences and barriers it would be impossible for a truck to pass without being noticed.” Nonetheless, none of these witnesses were interviewed during the official investigations, and survivors were prohibited from speaking to anyone about the event.

Washington sent retired admiral Robert L.J. Long, a representative of the US Department of Defense, to investigate the bombing of the marines’ headquarters. But the situation was rapidly deteriorating for Washington’s forces, as operations against the marines continued until former US President Ronald Reagan announced, on February 7, 1984, the transfer of the marines from the bases in Beirut to US ships on the shore. Over the next two weeks, the battleship USS New Jersey carried out retaliatory bombing operations against many areas in Lebanon before the US order was issued to permanently leave Lebanon and its waters on February 26, 1984.

Who was behind the operation?

The bombing at the marines’ headquarters was not an ordinary event for Washington. It had significant repercussions which eventually led to the collapse of Washington’s puppet government in Lebanon and the retreat of “Israeli” forces into southern Lebanon. Because of the ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union, Washington initially accused Moscow and Damascus of being behind the attack or facilitating it. However, US military intelligence swiftly blamed a new group on the scene: mujahideen with connections to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A relatively short time after the US directly accused fighters close to Iran of being behind the attack, the West started linking it to the attacks on US intelligence officers in Lebanon, including the captured US and Western hostages. Within a few years, the Western governments began to suggest that the groups affiliated with Hezbollah were responsible for these operations. This is when the martyr Imad Mughniyeh was placed at the top of the US most wanted list.

US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) teams that rotated through Middle East assignments always carried a grudge against those whom they held responsible for the attack. According to a number of US reports written by former intelligence analysts, “the hunt for Imad Mughniyeh was personal.” Washington also accused al-Hajj Radwan (Imad Mughniyeh) of orchestrating the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, which led to the destruction of the entire CIA station and the death of the head of the agency’s Middle East branch. It was also claimed that he was responsible for the abduction and execution of the CIA station chief William Buckley in 1984. Buckley had been sent to Beirut in 1983 to establish a new CIA station after the previous one was destroyed. A senior official in the Central Intelligence Agency stated that “Buckley’s capture led to the closure of all CIA activities in [Lebanon].”

In his book Known and Unknown, Donald Rumsfeld, the US special envoy to Lebanon during the Reagan administration, devoted a special chapter to the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut, which he called “Smiling Death.” Everyone who writes about that operation mentions that, according to eyewitnesses, the driver of the truck that destroyed the marines’ headquarters was seen smiling seconds before the explosion. The explosion killed 241 soldiers out of the 350 who made up the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, and is the largest blow to the marines in their history. Rumsfeld stated the bombing of the Marine Corps Headquarters was the largest terrorist attack on the United States before September 11th.

Rumsfeld himself quoted a statement by the then US vice president, George H.W. Bush, in which Bush vowed, “we’re not going to let a bunch of insidious terrorists, cowards, shape the foreign policy of the United States.” Rumsfeld commented that “I was uncomfortable with his word choice. I have never thought people willing to drive a truck bomb into a building and kill themselves were cowards.” Rumsfeld also notes that he told US secretary of state at the time, George Shultz, firstly, that US policymakers “should close the gap between inflated perceptions of our abilities and reality;” secondly to “never use US troops as a “peacekeeping force,” we were too big a target;” and, thirdly, ”keep reminding ourselves that it is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.”

Today, 40 years after one of the most important resistance operations against the US occupation in the region, the leaders of the United States are repeating the same scenario. Just days ago, United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered 2,000 US soldiers to be prepared for the possibility of participating in a war alongside “Israel.” However, experts believe that this group of military personnel will not have combat roles but will be limited to logistical support. Nevertheless, this step may serve as a prelude to sending more soldiers on combat missions in the future. In the event that the United States decides to directly enter the ongoing war today, those in Lebanon and the region are waiting for them. Among them are Lebanese who adhere to the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism’s campaign, saying to them, “Ahla Bhal Talleh!”

"The US government has sent at least 80 military cargo planes and dozens of leased civilian aircraft to Israel, Jordan, and Cyprus since the start of the Gaza-Israel war on 7 October.

According to open-source information reviewed by Israeli daily Haaretz, over the past two weeks, at least eight heavy-cargo planes that set off from supply depots in the US and Europe have landed at a Jordanian airbase. Moreover, two fighter squadrons of F-15E fighter jets and A-10 attack planes have also been deployed to the Hashemite kingdom.

In Cyprus, Washington has delivered large quantities of weapons and equipment to UK troops stationed at a British Air Force base, with at least 20 heavy-transport aircraft reportedly landing in the island nation over recent days.

In the days following the start of the Gaza-Israel war, the UK sent surveillance aircraft, two Royal Navy support ships, and 100 Royal Marines to the Eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, Germany and the Netherlands have also deployed special forces units to Cyprus.

But most US arms shipments have headed directly to Israel, as the country has received thousands of tons of advanced armament, munitions, Iron Dome batteries, and armored vehicles, among other types of aid.

Moreover, Washington has deployed at least nine US warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to support Israel the moment a regional war breaks out. These ships include the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group, currently operating off the coast of Cyprus and which has onboard about 80 attack, electronic warfare, and intelligence aircraft.

The US announced on Sunday that it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD battery) to intercept ballistic missiles and additional Patriot missile systems to West Asia. Washington had already deployed several air defense systems and ground reinforcements to US occupation bases in Syria over the past year.

As Israel continues to struggle to launch its ground offensive into the Gaza Strip – and faces the looming threat of Hezbollah in the north – the US this week also took control of the Elefsina air base near the Greek capital Athens, as the US military base on the Greek island of Crete is already at "full capacity."

The massive buildup of US arsenal and troops near Israel comes when western arms manufacturers have already been stretched thin, arming Ukraine and Taiwan to wage war against Russia and China."

"The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for attacks on several US military bases in Syria on 23 October, the second series of attacks on US military bases in a week, Al-Mayadeen reported.

The Islamic Resistance stated that offensives were carried out with drones that caused severe damage after they directly hit their targets at bases in Al-Tanf and Al-Rukban near the Syria-Iraq-Jordan border.

The sources said that in Al-Tanf, the drones "managed to target the base without information about the extent of the losses," adding that there was a subsequent mobilization from the US military forces inside the base.

The US military established the Al-Tanf base in 2016, under the pretext of fighting ISIS.

However, Russian and Syrian officials say the US has supported ISIS from the base, which is located on the strategic M2 Baghdad–Damascus Highway. The US seeks to use its forces stationed at Al-Tanf to block Iran from moving weapons and fighters overland between Syria and Iraq. The US has also trained separatist Druze forces at Al-Tanf.

The Resistance also announced that its fighters conducted a drone strike on the US military's Al-Malikiyah base in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah Governorate.

The Al-Malikiyah base was established by the US in 2021 near the Turkiye-Syria-Iraq border to facilitate the theft of Syrian oil, Syrian state media SANA said.

Meanwhile, the US base at the Conoco oil fields in Deir Ezzor's countryside was struck with two missiles, sources speaking with Al-Mayadeen said, also noting that no information regarding damage has been revealed so far.

On 19 October, three drones were able to fly above the Al-Tanf base and launch several successful airstrikes.

Sources within the US-led coalition that spoke with Iraq's Shafaq News on Wednesday claimed that the occupation forces “successfully intercepted and downed two of the drones, but the third managed to target the base.”

The US base at the Conoco oil field was also hit by multiple rockets.

Hours before the 19 October airstrikes on US troops, the Israeli air force attacked the Syrian army in the southwestern Quneitra governorate, causing material damage. Explosions were also reported in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

US troops stationed in Iraq's Ain al-Asad airbase were also targeted by airstrikes on Wednesday, which were claimed by the Kataib Hezbollah resistance faction. Although the Pentagon initially claimed its forces repelled the attack, the official story changed to include reports of wounded soldiers as the hours went on.

“The resistance in Iraq has entered the battle of ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ and directed its strikes at US bases,” the military spokesman for Kataib Hezbollah declared on Thursday.

Since the start of the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in the Gaza envelope, factions within the Resistance Axis in West Asia have warned they are ready to join the battle against Israel in support of the Palestinian cause and that US occupation troops and bases would become “legitimate military targets” if Washington also decides to enter the fray.

As tensions escalate, the Pentagon has deployed multiple warships and thousands of troops to the Israeli coast. The UK, Germany, and the Netherlands have mobilized troops to support Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians."