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Iran: Israel hits Beirut as US strikes Hormuz missile sites  dw.com

Video: Israeli air strike destroys building in Beirut  Footage captured the moment an Israeli air strike levelled a building in the Bachoura neighbourhood in central Beirut on Wednesday. Footage captured the moment an Israeli air strike levelled a building in the Bachoura neighbourhood in central Beirut on Wednesday pic.twitter.com/d8qxydR8T4 March 18, 2026

'Unprecedented expulsion': UN says Israel displaced 36,000 Palestinians in West Bank Elis Gjevori on Wed, 03/18/2026 - 07:02 UN warns Israel’s campaign of raids, settlements and settler violence is driving mass Palestinian displacement in the West Bank Mourners carry the body of Amir Mutasem Odeh, a 28-year-old Palestinian killed in an attack by Israeli settlers, in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on March 15, 2026. (Zain Jaafar/AFP) Off The number of Palestinians forcibly driven from their homes by Israel in the occupied West Bank has surged over the past year, with more than 36,000 displaced, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday. Covering the 12 months up to 31 October 2025, the report records 1,732 incidents of settler violence that caused casualties or property destruction, up from 1,400 in the previous reporting period - an increase of nearly 25 percent. The attacks included sustained harassment, intimidation and the destruction of Palestinian homes, farmland and livelihoods. “Settler violence continued in a coordinated, strategic and largely unchallenged manner, with Israeli authorities playing the central role in directing, participating in or enabling this conduct,” the report says, making it difficult to distinguish between state and settler violence. Longstanding and pervasive impunity is “facilitating and encouraging violence against and harassment of Palestinians”, it adds. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A large portion of the displacement occurred in northern parts of the territory. About 32,000 Palestinians were forced out of the Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Far’a refugee camps during a sweeping Israeli military assault. 'Displacement in the occupied West Bank, appears to indicate a concerted Israeli policy of mass forcible transfer' - UN report “The displacement of more than 36,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank represented the mass expulsion of Palestinians on a scale previously unseen, amounting to unlawful transfer that is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” the report said. Violence peaked around the October olive harvest, a critical economic season for Palestinian farmers. The report documented 42 settler attacks that injured 131 Palestinians, including 14 women and a boy, marking the highest monthly toll since records began in 2006. Daily assaults by armed settlers, Israeli soldiers and “settler soldiers”, many armed and trained by the state, turned the 2025 harvest into the worst in decades. 'Concerted Israeli policy of mass forcible transfer' In several communities, gender-based violence triggered families to flee. Some attacks split families apart, with women and children forced to leave while men remained behind to try to protect land and property. Israeli forces kill two children and their parents in West Bank Read More » “The displacement in the occupied West Bank, which coincides with the extensive displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, at the hands of the Israeli military, appears to indicate a concerted Israeli policy of mass forcible transfer throughout the occupied territory, aimed at permanent displacement, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing,” the report says. The report also warns that Bedouin communities northeast of East Jerusalem face heightened risk of expulsion as Israeli occupation authorities advance new settlement plans. It stresses that the unlawful transfer of protected populations is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and may also constitute a crime against humanity. Settlement expansion has accelerated sharply. Israeli authorities advanced or approved 36,973 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and roughly 27,200 more across the rest of the West Bank. The reporting period also saw the creation of 84 new settlement outposts, alongside expansion into Area B, which falls under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction under the Oslo accords. Since the Gaza genocide began in October 2023, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,071 Palestinians across the West Bank, according to the latest UN figures. Occupation News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Iran war enters dangerous phase as regime shows resilience despite pressure  Euronews.com

BEIJING, March 18 (Reuters) - China offered on Wednesday what it said would be energy stability to Taiwan if it agreed to Beijing's rule, part of a campaign by China to convince the island of the benefits of "reunification", which it has long rejected. Governments around the world are scrambling for alternative energy supplies during the Middle East War and severing of shipping lanes through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Your daily briefing on the Middle East conflict

3,200 casualties in US military within first week of war: Iran's big claim on American losses | World News  Hindustan Times

Iran launches ‘revenge’ missile attack on Israel after assassinations  Al Jazeera

Wave of Israeli air attacks launched as ground offensive widens in south where Hezbollah are fighting Israeli forces.

Iran vows revenge after Israeli strikes kill security chief Ali Larijani and Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani.

DUBAI, March 18 (Reuters) - Iran's stance against the development of nuclear weapons won't significantly change, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Al Jazeera in remarks relayed by Iranian media on Wednesday, cautioning that the new supreme leader is yet to publicly express his view on the matter. Former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed early in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, opposed the development of weapons of mass destruction in a fatwa, or religious edict, issued in the early 2000s.

Last year it was China’s answer to tariffs, now it’s Iran’s retaliation to airstrikes – ‘America First’ keeps foundering on global economics Donald Trump is teaching the world a lesson, but not the one he thinks. The attack on Iran was meant to be a dazzling display of military supremacy. It has instead illuminated chinks in the US’s armour. The US president’s formidable arsenal cannot summon up an insurrection from Iran’s tyrannised and leaderless opposition. It cannot force merchant ships to run a gauntlet of missile and drone attacks in the strait of Hormuz. The government in Tehran and the facts of geography that give it leverage over global trade are unchanged. Trump’s exasperation is showing. He urges tanker crews to “show some guts” by sailing into harm’s way. He calls on Nato members to provide naval chaperones and accuses them of cowardice and ingratitude for refusing. He comes across as peevish and flustered. Impotence is not a good look in a potentate. Continue reading...

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Video shows the moment a residential building collapsed in Beirut after an Israeli air strike.

The US-Israel war on Iran is doomed to fail. Will it take down America's crumbling empire? Ammiel Alcalay on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 13:23 After decades of waging wars against weaker enemies, the US and Israel may have finally confronted an immovable object, exposing the limits of American power Iranians stand on a large US flag during an al-Quds Day, an annual event in support of Palestinians, weeks after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran that triggered a regional war, in Tehran on 13 March 2026 (AFP) On Somewhere along the way, we have seen the rationale for the existence of the state of Israel transition from reliance on western guilt and being a safe haven for Jews after the attempted destruction of Jewish communities in Europe, to the violent biblical rhetoric now deployed across the spectrum. From marauding settlers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and even the leader of the purported "opposition", Yair Lapid, to US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, replete with his "kafir" and "deus vult" tattoos, we hear about Amalek, the Third Temple, and God's promises to the "chosen people". The recently televised split-screen on al-Quds Day in Iran showed Hegseth on the left, fulminating about Iranian leadership: "Desperate and hiding, they have gone underground, cowering. That is what rats do." On the right, we could observe President Masoud Pezeshkian and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani, along with other leading officials, mingling with crowds in Tehran, greeting people and having selfies taken along the way, with smoke from explosions ascending in the background. Most worrisome is that Hegseth, like most Israelis who have been brainwashed to take their edifice of lies as gospel truth, is all too ready to mock the "stupid rules of engagement", declaring that Iranians under joint US-Israeli attack would receive "no quarter, no mercy". Were we not witnessing a continuing genocide further in the making, the recent events initiated by the US and Israel would truly count as high-grade farce Pentagon whistleblower Wes J Bryant has characterised such statements as "blood lust" coming from the very top, making Hegseth unfit for office.  Brought up on bad cartoons and even worse movies, the secretary's mock outrage and staged delivery hark back to the lie someone of his generation would have had drummed into him ad infinitum - that the US fought in Vietnam with "one hand tied behind our backs", while still managing to defoliate the whole country with napalm and Agent Orange, and routinely massacre villages while raping and pillaging along the way. Were we not witnessing a continuing genocide further in the making, the recent events initiated by the US and Israel would truly count as high-grade farce. But the killing machine moves ahead, like some robotic Frankenstein mowing everything down in its way, inventing new forms of cruelty as the old ones just become part of the landscape. The killing machine Once upon a time, in another part of the "neighbourhood", as US pundits like to put it, King Hammurabi's code enshrined the concept of "one punishment for one crime", as expressed by "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" - something the American exceptionalists and the Israeli chosen do not seem to abide by, as they routinely exercise collective punishment. The first act presented a message: the US Tomahawk "double tap" on a girls' school in Minab, killing at least 168 girls between the ages of seven and 12, and then some of the parents and teachers who came to their aid. Amid holy war on Iran, will the West examine the roots of Christian and Jewish rage? Read More » And the corresponding assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - why kill only one when family members are present, and kin from three generations can all be killed in the same attack? While the US might make some pretence towards acting more circumspect, the Israelis are going full bore as they set up the conditions, along with US "diplomacy", for civil war in Lebanon: "Beirut will look like Khan Younis," they declare, dropping leaflets along the way, while massacring displaced families, medics, and rescue workers as they target homes, clinics, and medical facilities, all the while trying to ban self-defence. As the bigger picture of Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, skyrocketing energy costs, the rising price of fertiliser, regional security, and the role of the Gulf states in recycling petrodollars send shock waves around the world, attempts to redraw the West Asian map continue apace. While Israel threatens to occupy southern Lebanon and flatten Beirut, Gaza and the West Bank are hardly reported on, and the roughly 10,000 abducted, abused, and tortured detainees in Israeli prisons have been largely left to their own devices. Homes continue to be demolished and land seized. Settlers maraud and set fire to Palestinian property, vehicles, and livestock, while occupation soldiers protect settlers and arrest the assaulted Palestinians or the few foreigners standing in solidarity with them. An immovable object Just a few scant months ago, Hamas was presented by pundits, propagandists, and politicians as the greatest threat known to "western civilisation". Now one hardly even hears that "dreaded" name mispronounced, as the fabricated "nuclear threat" from Iran has displaced it. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); And even more telling: concepts like "ceasefire", "aid trucks", and "reopening crossings" have largely gone by the wayside, and are rarely even mentioned any more or, if so, almost as an afterthought. On Sunday 15 March, at least 13 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including nine police officers on Salah al-Din Street, and a family in Nuseirat: Kamel Ayyash, his pregnant wife Halima, and their son Ahmad. Another child, Ibrahim al-Hasanat, a neighbour, was also killed. Hours before, Israeli forces ambushed a family coming home from a shopping trip to Nablus, where they had bought new clothes for the Eid ending Ramadan. Ali and Waad Bani Odeh and their two youngest children, Mohammed and Othman, five and seven, were all shot in the face and head. The two surviving children, Mustafa and Khaled, eight and 11, were beaten, kicked, cursed and mocked by the soldiers who had just orphaned them. And yet, Israelis and Americans now seem to have bumped into an immovable object, an actual state of 90 million people whose strategic and political depth - not to mention their largely indigenous arsenal - is truly formidable. Neither the US nor Israel has been in such a position for a very long time. Iran's resolve serves notice as it provides an example to so many peoples deemed expendable by this very empire The vastly under-equipped Taliban outlasted the US in Afghanistan, while both Hamas and Hezbollah - with largely light arms and rockets - remain as fighting forces. They continue despite facing the onslaught of the world's most formidable combined military might, fighting through a mode of malicious cowardice that relies on vastly disproportionate air power, mass targeting of civilians, and the wholesale destruction of infrastructure. While it is hard to predict whether this particular confrontation will see the "Empire of Chaos" - economist Samir Amin's apt title for the forces led by the US - finally crumble, there can be little doubt that Iran's resolve serves notice as it provides an example to so many peoples deemed expendable by this very empire. For those of us within the empire - as we watch our own infrastructure fall apart and see our key institutions rot from the inside out, with Israel first and America last - one can only hope that the present confrontation will push people towards becoming more active in helping to bring this monstrous system of cyclical and perpetual warfare to an end. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. War on Iran Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

TEHRAN, Mar. 18 (MNA) – The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday announced that Basij Force Commander Major General Gholam Reza Soleimani was martyred in the US-Israeli attack.

Israel intensifies attacks on Tehran, Beirut as Iran vows ‘revenge’  Al Jazeera

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Middle East crisis live: Iran vows revenge for killing of security chief; Israel strikes central Beirut  The Guardian

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