Michael Dimino, a former CIA analyst and counterterrorism expert, has been appointed as the Pentagon’s point man for Middle East policy in the new Trump administration. The newly elected US president also said: “Gaza looks like a huge demolition site. It needs to be rebuilt differently… Gaza is interesting; it’s a wonderful place. Right on the sea; the best climate… you can do wonderful, extraordinary things there.” According to rumors, Barron Trump, Donald and Melania’s eighteen-year-old son, “has announced that he will soon launch his own luxury real estate business!” Gas worth five hundred billion dollars has been discovered in the sea in front of Gaza.
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan announced that he will visit Lebanon this week.
The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronot reviews the most important figures who have resigned from the IDF’s leadership hierarchy due to their responsibility for the major failure of October 7 and cites: Chief of Staff: Herzi Halévy; Commander of the Southern Region: Yaron Finkelman; Leader of the Gaza Operations: Avi Rosenfeld; Head of the Military Intelligence Division: Aharon Khalifa; Commander of the 8200 Intelligence Unit: Yossi Sariel; Commander of the Northern Brigade in the Gaza Strip: Haim Cohen. All of them will no longer be part of the IDF by early March.
Researcher Harel Chorev-Halew of the Dayan Center explained regarding the ceasefire agreements: “Hamas will not give up its weapons. The belief that Hamas can adopt a more moderate approach reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of the situation, and unfortunately I see no possibility of reaching a peaceful solution with them.”
Military analyst in the Jewish daily Yedioth Ahronoth Ron Ben-Yishaii wrote: “It must be recognized that Hamas is not an extremist and foreign religious movement that has imposed itself on the people of Gaza. Hamas is a genuine organizational expression, in culture, ambition and ideology, of the grievances of the majority of the population of more than two million people in the Strip.” Terms such as “overthrow Hamas” and “complete victory” are expressions used in the fields of literature and poetry, and are not demanded or imposed by a responsible government on a “cruel ideological enemy” like Hamas.
In Lebanon, the Lebanese Army Intelligence Directorate arrested one of the most prominent suspects accused of collaboration and communication with Israel. A.H. was arrested in the central Bekaa region. This operation has been classified as qualitative, especially since the detainee is considered a treasure trove of information.
According to reports from January 21, the Lebanese PM-designate has backtracked on his negotiations with Amal and Hezbollah and will not allow them to appoint their ministers despite having 30 MPs and having obtained 500,000 votes in the last parliamentary elections. So, in addition to not wanting to recognize that the Shiites exist and not supporting these two parties, Nawaf Salam is facing challenges in working with the other parties who want to treat this government as theirs and appoint their ministers, portfolios and numbers. According to Lebanese social media sources: “Nawaf is also expected not to mention in the official description of the government “People, Army, Resistance”.
PM Salam, after the meeting with President Aoun, confirmed that he has not committed to giving any portfolio to anyone and that the finance ministry is like any other portfolio.
He said that he avoids using terms like sovereign portfolios and that he is with a government of 24 ministers and has committed to working according to the constitutional mechanism. In this statement, he singled out this ministry because the Shiites want it. The Sunnis always get the interior ministry, the Christians the defense ministry and so on. The finance ministry with Amal, would give the Shiites leverage.
Three days ago, Interim Prime Minister Mikati said that the US envoy to Lebanon in the ceasefire committee informed him that the Israelis may remain for a few more days after January 26. This could create clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese border as a number of residents have informed the Lebanese army intelligence that they will forcefully enter their cities next Sunday, even if the Israeli army does not withdraw.
Finally, the Council of Ministers issued a decision that prevents Syrians without identity documents from registering in the Lebanese schools. 45,000 illegal Syrian students were registered in semi-free schools through associations that obtained the students’ data from UNICEF, and so the latter respected the government’s decision and circumvented the law.
UNICEF pays 80 dollars for each of the 45,000 students, for a total of 3,600,000 dollars lost by public schools and earned by the associations and schools that collaborate with them, in flagrant violation of the state’s decision.
And now a look at the military situations.
Jordan on January 22 seized a large quantity of weapons that were to be sent to the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.
Israeli forces blew up the Al-Saqri company near the city of Jubata Al Khashab in the Quneitra governorate, the echo of the explosion reached some areas of Damascus and its countryside. And still between Lebanon and Syria, Israeli forces carried out intense combing operations near Al-Taybeh, in the district of Deir Saryan and Adshit Al-Qusayr.
Israeli drones flew over the skies of the city of Tyre and the surrounding villages and cities, up to the skies of the Litani River on both banks of al Qasmiyeh.
According to the Yemeni press, Israel committed 20 violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon on January 21 alone, bringing the total since the agreement came into force, 56 days ago, to 621 violations.
Israel also reportedly asked the Lebanese army to search a specific center in the Ghobeiry area. A reconnaissance drone was over Ghobeiry to follow the matter.
A large fire broke out in a field in the Ammiq reserve area (Western Beqaa) and its surroundings. A senior Hezbollah official, Mohammed Hamadi, was killed in the city of Mashghara. He died as a result of his wounds. He was the head of the Western Beqaa sector inside Hezbollah.
Major Israeli demolitions continue in the city of Mays al-Jabal. New Israeli demolitions in the Sluki Valley, several kilometers inside Lebanon. Also, an Israeli incursion in the city of Taybeh towards Deir Siryan with heavy machine guns, explosions and burning of houses.
A new Israeli demolition was recorded in Aita al-Shaab. For the first time since the start of the Israeli ground incursion in southern Lebanon, an Israeli patrol arrived in the vicinity of the Deir Saryan school, following an intensive search.
Israeli drone targets one of the plains between Majidiyeh and Wadi Khansa in southern Lebanon. Houses in the city of Taybeh, bombs and projectiles are constantly launched Al-Mayadeen.
Another explosion on the outskirts of the city of Houla, in southern Lebanon.
On the 21st evening a security incident, classified as a terrorist attack, was recorded in Tel Aviv that led to the wounding of four Israelis, two of them seriously injured, and the death of the perpetrator: a US citizen of Moroccan origin.
Hamas Political Bureau Abroad member Abdul Jabbar Saeed reports: “In light of the absence so far of a body responsible for supervising the situation in Gaza, the institutions in the Gaza Strip, such as the security apparatus, local authorities, civil defense, and others, naturally play their role in serving the people, Hamas does not want to be in power and does not cling to the front line of the administrative scene in the sector.”
The head of the Palestinian Fishermen’s Syndicate in the Gaza Strip, Nizar Ayyash, said that the Israeli army is preventing fishermen from entering the sea and targeting anyone who tries to fish, despite the entry into force of the truce. A young man was wounded by Israeli gunfire east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
A serious security incident in Jenin, West Bank: several soldiers were wounded by the detonation of a heavy explosive device. An Israeli security official said: “After the government’s decision, we have undertaken a large-scale campaign in the northern West Bank, which could take months. When it ends, the ‘resistance’ camps will cease to exist, and what we did in Gaza will happen there, and we will leave them in ruins.”
The Israeli army closed the entrance to the Jenin government hospital in the West Bank with earthen barriers and besieged a large number of doctors and patients inside. Authority agencies arrested Jenin Battalion leader Muslim Masarwa, who was wounded in Al-Razi hospital.
Al-Quds Brigades – Jenin Battalion reported: “We confronted Israeli forces invading the various combat axes and trapped them in a series of ambushes”.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
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