International – Page 5

A Rifle Behind Every Blade Of Grass: Why The Taiwanese People Must Arm Themselves Like Americans

Communism is the most murderous ideology in recent history. Communists around the world killed close to 100 million people; that’s more than 5 times the number killed by the Nazis. Of those 100 million, the Chinese Communist Party is culpable for 65 million dead.

Luckily for the world, communism was dealt a decisive defeat last century. Within a few years of the Berlin Wall coming down, communism imploded across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. There were other unforeseen benefits: with its Soviet benefactor gone (and with other economic triggers), India had to roll back democratic socialism. Billions of people suddenly experienced freedom like never before.

There was hope that the Chinese regime would also suffer the same fate as other communist governments. But they managed to hang on to power, crushing dissent with tyrannical, barbarous force.

Despite the persistence of the Chinese Communist regime, the end of the Cold War marked a victory for liberal democracy. The 1990s were a time of optimism, as the world enjoyed a peace dividend.

All of this resulted in a belief that communist China could be wooed and charmed into what seemed like the future: a peaceful, liberal global order, with free enterprise, free trade, and open engagement among the peoples of the world.

The United States, Europe, and Japan opened up trade and travel with communist China. Entire industries were offshored with the belief that as the Chinese people engaged with liberal democracies, the communist regime would loosen its grip on them, like how Augusto Pinochet eventually ceded power and Chile became a democracy.

Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. The Chinese Communist Party remains entrenched, having transformed China into a surveillance state. The 26-year old Great Firewall of China looks quaint as compared to their modern Black Mirror-like dystopian social credit system. They’ve leveraged technology to create an authoritarian regime unprecedented in history. Rather than adopting liberalism, China is exporting illiberalism. (As an example, see how western governments imitated the harsh Chinese COVID lockdown model, instead of going the way of Sweden.)

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Trump Warns ‘All Hell Will Break Out’ If Gaza Hostages Aren’t Released Before Inauguration

President-elect Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Hamas terrorists in Gaza, vowing that “all hell will break out” if the hostages held by them are not released before his inauguration on January 20. Trump made it clear that his administration would not tolerate the continued suffering of innocent Americans and other hostages, promising swift and decisive action once he is sworn in as the 47th president.

His remarks underscore the situation’s urgency and starkly contrast the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis, as Trump reiterated his commitment to ensuring the safety and security of American citizens abroad.
During an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what exactly he meant when he said “all hell will break out” if Hamas doesn’t follow orders.

“Exactly what it says — if those hostages aren’t released by the time I get office, there will be hell to pay,” Trump reiterated. “I don’t think I have to get into it, but it won’t be the word ‘don’t.’” Trump was referring to the joke of a warning outgoing President Joe Biden made on October 10, 2023, in a speech vowing his support for Israel after Hamas initially attacked the Jewish state.

Trump cautioned that if Hamas terrorists don’t release the remaining hostages before he takes office, “it won’t be good for anyone.” The president-elect’s comments come after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s pick to serve as the special envoy to the Middle East, expressed optimism that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is making “a lot of progress.” He appeared sure that by the time Trump was inaugurated, there would be “good things” to announce on behalf of the new administration.

“It’s the president, his reputation, the things that he has said that are driving this negotiation, and so hopefully, it’ll all work out, and we’ll save some lives,” Witkoff said, echoing the same stern warning to Hamas saying, “This better get done by the inaugural.”

The UK is not a laughing stock around the World, it is worse than that, we are seen as an Authoritarian country that turns a blind eye to our young girls being raped, doesn’t lock up paedophiles, but jails those that use language online that the Government doesn’t like.

— Adam Brooks AKA EssexPR 🇬🇧 (@EssexPR) January 5, 2025

Report: Israeli tanks reach point 25km [15 Miles!]from Damascus

Netanyahu says Golan Heights will always be ‘part of Israel’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria highlights the “great importance” of the occupation state’s presence on the Golan Heights. Israeli control of the Syrian territory “guarantees” its security and sovereignty, he insisted. “The Golan Heights,” he added, “will forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel.”

The far-right Israeli leader, for whom an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity has been issued by the International Criminal Court, said on Monday evening that the Assad regime was a “central element of Iran’s axis of evil,” noting that Tehran invested a lot in Syria, but everything collapsed.

Netanyahu pointed out that the Assad regime committed massacres of thousands in Syria, and “fostered hostility and hatred” toward Israel, acting as the front line in what he called “Iranian terrorism”, as well as a route to transport weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The day that the regime fell, he said, signals the beginning of a “new and dramatic chapter” in the history of the Middle East.

Here is Jeffrey Sachs on Morning Joe explaining how Obama deployed the Brennan CIA in a regime change op to begin the Syrian Civil War to take out Assad that armed jihadists and created ISIS pic.twitter.com/ClQoSPZVYx

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) December 8, 2024

Something Something Ancient Chinese Curse Something Something

Jubilation and gunfire as Syrians celebrate the end of the Assad family’s half-century rule

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrians poured into streets echoing with celebratory gunfire on Sunday after a stunning rebel advance reached the capital, ending the Assad family’s 50 years of iron rule but raising questions about the future of the country and the wider region.

Joyful crowds gathered in central squares in Damascus, waving the Syrian revolutionary flag in scenes that recalled the early days of the Arab Spring uprising, before a brutal crackdown and the rise of an insurgency plunged the country into a nearly 14-year civil war.

Others gleefully ransacked the presidential palace and residence after President Bashar Assad and other top officials vanished, their whereabouts unknown. Russia, a close ally, said Assad left the country after negotiations with rebel groups and had given instructions to transfer power peacefully.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaida commander who cut ties with the group years ago and says he embraces pluralism and religious tolerance, leads the biggest rebel faction and is poised to chart the country’s future.

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The facial expressions say everything 🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/SqAj5NiPPj

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) December 7, 2024

In Germany, A Man Who Was Stabbed by a Jihadi Has Been Fined for Criticizing Islam.

Here is a story that neatly encapsulates the threat that the West faces, and the weakness of its response to that threat. In Germany, a vociferous critic of jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women and others, Michael Stürzenberger, was stabbed several months ago by a jihadi precisely because of his opposition to those evils. Now, a German court has added insult to injury, convicting Stürzenberger of “incitement to hatred” and fining him €3,600 ($3,800). So it has come to this: what the jihadi began, the German government is now continuing. What will be the effects of this on the freedom of speech in Germany? That’s obvious: if this continues, Germany is dead as a free society.

In Spiked Wednesday, the publication’s Germany correspondent Sabine Beppler-Spahl was generally sympathetic to Stürzenberger, but added a significant and telling caveat. She asserted that “there’s little doubt that Stürzenberger can be offensive. He claims that his criticism only applies to ‘political Islam’, calling it a threat to democracy and an ideology that oppresses women. But he has also compared parts of the Koran with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and – while saying that not all Muslims are rapists – has talked of ‘thousands of women’ who have been sexually assaulted by Muslims from Northern Africa and Arabia.”

Here yet again we see how unpopular and unwelcome truths are stigmatized as “offensive” even among people who should know better; but does that make them any less true? Sabine Beppler-Spahl appears to be unaware of the fact that the Qur’an contains numerous passages (not just one or two) that are profoundly and disturbingly antisemitic.

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“So your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion?”

Trudeau Tells Trump Canada Wouldn’t Survive His Tariff, and Trump’s Response Is Priceless.

Canada’s vapid and callow Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an emergency trip to Mar-a-Lago Friday to see the president-elect. Trudeau was thoroughly alarmed over Trump’s threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canada (as well as Mexico) if they don’t do anything to stop the flow of illegal migrants and drugs into the United States. Trudeau was clearly hoping to talk some socialist internationalist sense into Bad Orange Man, but instead, the vacant-faced Canadian authoritarian got a response that was pure Trump, and revealed once again how deeply Trump holds his America-First principles.

Fox News reported Monday that Trump has called his meeting with the vacuous and childlike Canadian leader “very productive,” but apparently not in the way that Canada’s most prominent Swiftie had hoped it would be. The atmosphere was convivial, with the two men “nibbling on crab cocktail and slurping down oysters” as they discussed “the issues of tariffs, border security and trade deficits.” Yet for all the superficial chumminess of the affair, Trump remained focused on what he wanted from Canada: “While cordial and welcoming,” he was “very direct when it came to what he wants from his counterpart to the North.”

Trump reportedly told Trudeau that “Canada has failed the U.S. border by allowing large amounts of drugs and people across the border, including illegal immigrants from over 70 different countries.” The once-and-future president “became more animated when it came to the U.S. trade deficit with Canada, which he estimated to be more than $100 billion,” and told his shallow Canadian counterpart that “if Canada cannot fix the border issues and trade deficit, he will levy a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods on day one when he returns to office.”

That was when Trudeau started whining and claiming victimhood status. After all, what else would you expect a leftist to do? Trudeau knows that playing the victim is the pathway to fame, favor, and fortune on the left, and apparently, he assumed this to be a universal tendency. So he told Trump, probably with tears glistening in eyes, that he just couldn’t impose such a tariff “because it would kill the Canadian economy completely.” There is nothing in the available reports about Trudeau offering to do anything about stopping the flow of migrants and drugs over the border. He just wanted Trump to withdraw his threat for nothing, out of his concern for the well-being of Canada.

Trudeau doesn’t seem to have realized, however, the implications of the fact that Trump is not a fellow socialist internationalist. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about Canadians; it’s that as president of the United States, he will act in the best interests of Americans. It’s actually Trudeau’s job, not Trump’s, to act in the best interests of Canadians.

And so the America-First president-elect asked Trudeau, “So your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion?” Driving his point home, Trump “suggested to Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state, which caused the prime minister and others to laugh nervously.” Displaying his never-failing sense of humor, Trump then told Trudeau “that prime minister is a better title, though he could still be governor of the 51st state.” Someone at the meeting, according to Fox News, then warned Trump that as a state, Canada would be deep blue, whereupon Trump suggested it become two states, a leftist one and a patriotic one.

Fox noted that “while sources say the exchange got many laughs, Trump delivered the message that he expected change by January 20.” Trudeau went away knowing very well that Trump means business and isn’t going to play the same game that he would have played with Obama or Biden. Neither of them would have threatened tariffs over the flow of illegal migrants and drugs into the United States in the first place, and if they did offer any criticism of Canadian policy at all, it would have been toothless rhetoric that would have been forgotten as soon as the meeting was over.

Trump, by contrast, is making it clear that he is very serious about tackling the problems that beset his nation, and doing everything he can to solve them. That there are so many Americans, as well as Canadians and others, who strenuously oppose his efforts to do so is an indication of how severe those problems really are.

TO THE LEFTISTS WHO DOMINATE “INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSE” THIS IS A FEATURE NOT A BUG:
Human rights law has been intentionally perverted by people who want the West to be unable to defend itself against terrorist groups and other non-state actors. Israel is their first target, but they will use any precedents set against Israel against the US and NATO. Israel is serving as the canary in the coal mine, and the US must do everything in its power to undermine the power of far leftists (and their Islamist allies) to set the terms of military engagement, especially given that Israel’s rules of engagement are stricter than NATO’s.

Israel Hits Iran in Multiple Waves of Targeted Bombing Strikes

Israel said it struck military sites in Iran early on Saturday in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on Israel earlier this month, the latest attack in the escalating conflict between the heavily armed rivals.
Iranian media reported multiple explosions over several hours in the capital and at nearby military bases, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

Before dawn, Israel’s public broadcaster said three waves of strikes had been completed and that the operation was over.

The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s retaliation for a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran on Oct. 1, in which around 200 missiles were fired at Israel and one person was killed in the West Bank.

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IDF announces Israel carrying out ‘precise strikes’ on military targets in Iran

The IDF confirms launching strikes in Iran.

In a statement, the IDF says it is carrying out “precise strikes” on Iranian military targets, in response to “months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the State of Israel.”

“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7th – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” the military says.

“Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond,” the statement continues.

The IDF says its “defensive and offensive capabilities are fully mobilized,” and that it “will do whatever necessary to defend the State of Israel and the people of Israel.”

Ukraine, in an Unlikely Attack on an Iconic Cultural Mainstay, Is Sending Drones Into Russia To Blow Up Its Vodka Distilleries.

In a blow to Russia, Ukraine used the cover of night yesterday to blast four large vodka distilleries. Video clips posted online purported to show alcohol tanks burning fiercely in Tula and Tambov, two Russian regions about 300 miles from eastern Ukraine.

In the largest attack to date on Russia’s alcohol industry, drones flew from Ukraine and set off the pre-dawn blazes. In President Putin’s wartime economy, alcohol distilleries produce vodka for drinking and ethanol for the military machine.

Russia is the world’s largest consumer of vodka — about 21 shots per adult per month, according to the World Population Review. This is about 70 percent more than Ukraine’s per capita consumption and almost five times American consumption.

In a nation where vodka sales average 600 million liters a year, it is unclear whether yesterday’s pyrotechnics will seriously dent Russia’s vodka industry. However, it is a psychological blow to an industry revered by the average Russian man.

In 988, Prince Volodomyr the Great rejected Islam because of Islam’s prohibition of drinking alcohol. Instead, he Christianized Kievan Rus. He is quoted as saying: “Drinking is the joy of all Rus. We cannot exist without its pleasure.”

Vodka was for Tsarist Russia what oil is for modern Russia. In the mid-19th century, vodka taxes accounted for up to 40 percent of government revenue. By 1911, 89 percent of all alcohol sold in Russia was vodka.

In the opening days of Nazi Germany’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, the Luftwaffe sought out and severely damaged Moscow’s Kristall, the Soviet Union’s largest distillery. During World War II, Red Army soldiers advanced through Eastern Europe fueled in part by daily rations of two shots of vodka.

This week, it is unlikely that Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s iconic cultural product will galvanize Russians to rally around their President’s war on Ukraine. More likely, it will simply become the latest indignity that Russians have to put up with as they seek to avoid getting dragged into his war.

Two years ago, a national draft order prompted about 1 million Russian men to leave the country. To avoid a repeat this fall, Mr. Putin is burning through oil earnings to buy soldiers. First-time signing bonuses have soared to $25,000, the equivalent of two year’s annual salary for workers outside big cities. Enlistment bonuses rise as hair-raising news from the war front filters back home.

For Russian soldiers, last month was the bloodiest month of the 31-month war, American and British officials say. Daily Russian casualties averaged 1,200 killed or severely wounded a day. Ukraine’s August 6 invasion of a chunk of Russia’s Kursk region has not sparked a surge in enlistments.

“This unprecedented Ukrainian occupation of Russian territory” has exposed what the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine editor, Peter Dickinson, calls “the limitations of the Kremlin war machine.” Mr. Dickinson made that observation two weeks ago in an essay titled “Putin doesn’t have enough troops to defeat Ukraine and defend Russia.”

Mr. Dickinson contended that “while many continue to view the Russian military as an irresistible force with virtually limitless supplies of men and machines, it is now increasingly apparent that in reality, Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine has left his army dangerously overstretched and unable to defend Russia.”

In response to this shortage of warriors, Russia is training and equipping as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers to fight against Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say these units will go to Russia’s Kursk region to join the fight to expel Ukrainian soldiers from Kursk, the first invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II. In simple English, this means that the Kremlin is paying foreign mercenaries to liberate Russian soil because Russians will not fight for it.

NSSF Praises SCOTUS Decision to Review Mexico’s Baseless $10 Billion Lawsuit Against Firearm Manufacturers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant Smith & Wesson’s petition to hear Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al., Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against American firearm manufacturers seeking to blame them for the harm caused by lawless narco-terrorist drug cartels in Mexico. Mexico’s lawsuit also seeks to dictate how firearms are made and sold throughout the United States through a federal court injunction, in effect usurping the role of Congress and 50 state legislatures.

NSSF filed an amicus brief earlier this year in support of the Supreme Court granting the case, arguing that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s flawed decision, “blows a gaping hole in the PLCAA and rolls out the red carpet for a foreign government intent on vitiating the Second Amendment.” The U.S. Supreme Court will now set a briefing schedule and hold argument, likely early in the new year.

“Today’s announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that they are granting Smith & Wesson’s petition to hear Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against lawful American firearm manufacturers is welcomed news to the entire firearm industry. Mexico’s lawsuit seeks to blame lawful American firearm businesses for violence in Mexico perpetrated by Mexican narco-terrorist drug cartels and impacting innocent Mexican lives.

It is not the fault of American firearm businesses that follow strict laws and regulations to lawfully manufacture and sell legal products,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This case represents exactly why Congress passed, and President George W. Bush enacted, the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

The case was rightly dismissed by a federal judge before the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ erroneous ruling earlier this year that reversed the district court order and reinstated the case. Lawful American firearm manufacturers follow American laws to make and sell lawful and Constitutionally-protected products. The Mexican government should instead focus on bringing Mexican criminals to justice in Mexican courtrooms.”

Mexico alleges U.S. firearm manufacturers are liable for the criminal violence perpetuated by narco-terrorist drug cartels by refusing to adopt gun control restrictions that exceed what the law requires for the strictly-regulated production and sale of firearms. A U.S. District court in Massachusetts dismissed the case, finding the claims were barred by the PLCAA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, however, revived the case on Mexico’s appeal earlier this year.

The First Circuit held that Mexico’s claims alleging that the defendants know their regular business practices contribute to illegal firearm trafficking fit within a narrow exception to the PLCAA. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al, the petitioners, argue the First Circuit erred when it reversed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.

The petitioners also noted the First Circuit’s decision to allow for an exception to PLCAA fails because there is no evidence U.S. firearm manufacturers violated federal laws against aiding and abetting firearm trafficking. The petitioners explained to the Supreme Court that Mexico’s complaint “fails to identify any product, policy, or action by the American firearms industry that is deliberately designed to facilitate the unlawful activities of Mexican drug cartels.”

NSSF’s amicus brief concluded by urging Supreme Court action and pointing out that the First Circuit’s decision to reinstate the case was incorrect because it is “… emblematic of a recent trend of anti-gun governments (and courts) mendaciously skirting the PLCAA and using the resulting threat of bankruptcy-inducing tort liability to destroy a lawful industry that is vital to the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. This Court’s intervention is imperative.”

Hezbollah Confirms Its Leader Has Died in an Israeli Airstrike

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group confirmed on Saturday that its leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut the previous day.

A statement said Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs.” Hezbollah vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”

Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leadership were meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes, which leveled six apartment buildings. Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front and other commanders were also killed, the Israeli military said.

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Trump Finally Correct about Jewish Vote.

Last week Donald Trump created a bit of a brouhaha—doesn’t he always?—when he spoke to the Israeli-American Council in Washington regarding the Jewish vote.

The former president made two statements I question to some degree but I heartily agree with his overall conclusion, as excessive as it may seem to some, that Jews that do no vote for him are crazy.

Perhaps it would be better put in the mother tongue and say they are meshugga.

My qualification, such as it is, for saying that is I am Jewish and eighty years old, so have been a Jewish voter now for nearly sixty years. For forty or so of those years I voted for the Democratic Party candidate no matter who he or she was. I have to admit I did this blindly. It was a habit, not all that distant from smoking, which I was able to avoid more easily.

In this century I have voted for Republicans, not because I have become a Republican. I find orthodox party politics noxious, frequently duplicitous and subject to change. Nevertheless, by the start of this century and even more with the candidacy of Barack Obama, it became clear to me that the Democratic Party was no longer what it was, but had become a rallying ground not just, obviously, for anti-Israel/antisemitic propaganda, but also for anti-American and even anti-Western Civilization thinking and policies.

I will get back to this in more detail but first the statements I question lightly. With Mr. Trump it’s usually a question of rhetoric. His policies are most always spot on. In this case he alleges that if he loses in 2024, it will be, at least in part, because of the Jewish vote of which, according to a poll he cited, he currently has 40%, up from 29% in 2020 and 25% in 2016.

He believes he deserves a much higher percentage because of all he has done for Israel—the Abraham Accords, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights and, most of all, imposing sanctions on Iran while pulling out of the senseless nuclear deal. He also mentioned that he has Jewish children and grandchildren.

He makes a good case that he has been the most pro-Israel president ever, with the possible exception of Harry Truman who recognized the state.

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Israel Confirms Beirut Airstrike

The Israeli air force killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil in an airstrike on Beirut. Aqil was in a bunker several feet below a residential building where he was meeting with the top brass of Hezbollah’s operations array and the leadership of the Radwan Force. Aqil was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations and commander of the elite Radwan force. Israel says that he was the commander of the operation to invade the Galilee in an October 7-style strike.

Alongside Aqil, the top brass of Hezbollah’s operations array and the leadership of the Radwan Force were killed in the strike, according to the military. In a statement, the IDF says Aqil was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, the acting commander of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, and the head of a plan to invade the Galilee.

“Aqil and the commanders who were eliminated were among the architects of the ‘plan for the occupation of the Galilee,’ in which Hezbollah planned to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the Galilee, murder and kill innocents, similar to what the Hamas terror organization carried out in the murderous massacre on October 7,” the IDF says in the statement.

Aqil was also wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut as well as directing the taking of U.S. hostages in Lebanon during the 1980s. The targeted killing of Aqil is one more sign that war between Israel and Hezbollah is liable to break out at any time.

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🚨 Breaking: Thousands of Hezbollah radio devices (“Walkie-Talkie”) have exploded during the past hour, in what appears to be the second wave of the attack..

Below is a footage from today, exploding during the funeral of another Hezbollah terrorist who was killed yesterday 👇 pic.twitter.com/o3ljPtgSZo

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) September 18, 2024

BREAKING UPDATE: 8 Killed, 2,750 Wounded, Mostly Hezbollah Terrorists, as Pagers They Use to Communicate Explode Across the Country

LATEST UPDATE: Lebanon’s Health Minister reports that eight people have been killed and 2,750 injured due to exploding pagers across the country, per ABC News.

Over 1,000 individuals, mostly Hezbollah terrorists, were wounded when the pagers they use for communication exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Authorities are expecting that the number of victims will continue to rise.

The incident, confirmed by security sources, is being called the “biggest security breach” the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror network has faced since its ongoing war with Israel began.

The explosions, reported by Reuters, occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time. Panic spread as Hezbollah-controlled areas in southern Beirut and other parts of the country were hit with explosions that lasted for over an hour.

Security sources confirmed that the devices were the latest models used by Hezbollah and were thought to be critical in their communications amidst their war efforts against Israel.

Despite Hezbollah’s close ties with Iran, which has been instrumental in supplying the group with weapons and communications technology, this incident marks a significant embarrassment for their operations.

Hezbollah’s use of technology, likely provided through Iranian channels, appears to have backfired in the most dramatic way possible. Even the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was reportedly injured in one of the blasts, according to Iranian media.

All signs indicate a remarkable operation orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad.