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The Israeli government wants to make it clear throughout the region - to Hezbollah, to Palestine Islamic Jihad, to Syria, and especially to Iran - that the country will never be passive in the face of attack. Michael Clarke Military analyst Israel will be looking at all military options at the moment. And they don't look very good - not with 130 or so Israeli hostages imprisoned and dispersed all over Gaza. But after Israel's current bombing campaign - designed to go after Hamas ammunition supplies and command facilities, most of which are disguised in ostensibly civilian buildings - there will be no alternative but for the Israeli Defence Forces to invade the whole Gaza Strip. Israel vows to 'wipe out' Hamas - live updates Anything less would not achieve Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated objective of "destroying" the Hamas terrorist group completely. There is no mileage for him in "hurting it" or offering Hamas some lesser response. After the attacks of Saturday, the Israeli government reacted in the same way the British and American governments reacted to the atrocities of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq - with a legal justification and a political determination to eradicate it completely. Whether or not that can be achieved through a military campaign remains a moot question, but there certainly will be a full-scale military campaign in the very near future. Not least, the Israeli government wants to make it clear throughout the region - to Hezbollah, to Palestine Islamic Jihad, to Syria, and especially to Iran - that the country will never be passive in the face of attack. It will never turn the other cheek. What form might the full-scale response take? The overwhelming military preference will be for Israel to launch a multi-pronged attack into Gaza, probably from the landward and seaward side simultaneously, coupled with an even greater intensity air campaign in the hours preceding zero hour. FULL ARTICLE

The Metropolitan Police has appealed for footage or images of last weekend's attack in Israel after a number of British citizens were confirmed dead in the country. The force's counter-terrorism unit is "appealing for anyone in the UK who has direct evidence related to the terrorist attacks". It added: "This appeal is directed at anyone who may have already returned from Israel in the past few days. "There may also be people in the UK who have friends, relatives or loved ones in Israel and have been sent direct messages, images or videos. "UK nationals are among those who were killed or are missing. "Specialist officers are in close contact with colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to act upon information about UK nationals being received." The police are discouraging people from sending them footage or information from social media, online sources and media reports. Seventeen British nationals, including children, are feared to have been killed or are missing in the country, Sky News understands. Four British men have been confirmed to have died as a result of the incursion. Jake Marlowe, a security guard at the Supernova music festival raided by Hamas over the weekend, was confirmed dead today. FULL STORY

Alliance’s chief says if there is proof of attack it will be met with ‘determined’ response, amid speculation about Russian sabotage Alliance’s chief says if there is proof of attack it will be met with ‘determined’ response, amid speculation about Russian sabotage Nato has promised a “determined” response if damage to an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia proves deliberate, as investigators said traces of an “external, mechanical force” had been found on the seabed. Amid widespread media speculation about the likelihood of Russian sabotage, Risto Lohi of the Finnish national bureau of investigation told a press conference in Helsinki on Wednesday: “There is reason to suspect an external force … caused the damage.” The force, he added, “appears to have been mechanical, not an explosion”. The agency’s chief, Robin Lardot, said marks had been found on the seabed at the site of the damage to the Balticconnector pipeline. Its operators said it would take at least five months to repair the pipeline, meaning it was unlikely to come on stream again until April 2024. But Lardot said the investigation into aggravated vandalism was in its “very early technical stages” and could take several more days because of poor weather and the large search area. The bureau was working to “find facts and analyse them”, he said. Finnish authorities announced on Tuesday that a sudden fall in pressure in the pipeline recorded on Sunday had been caused by extensive damage that “appeared to be deliberate”. Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday that if the damage to the Balticconnector was “proven to be an attack on Nato critical infrastructure … it will be met by a united and determined response from Nato”. The incident happened just over a year after a series of underwater blasts burst three of the four pipelines that make up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, a major conduit for Russian fossil gas exports to western Europe, spewing gas into the Baltic Sea. Finland’s preparedness level was raised on Wednesday after an extraordinary meeting of a high-level ministerial committee on foreign and security policy, but the security of the country’s energy supply – of which gas accounts for just 5% – was rated stable. FULL STORY

This is the moment a Range Rover exploded at Luton Airport before a blaze that ripped through a car park and sparked travel chaos for thousands of passengers. One hundred firefighters spent 12 hours battling the inferno at the airport's Terminal Car Park Two when the £20million block was engulfed by flames and caved in just before 9pm last night. Up to 50,000 passengers are suffering disruption at the airport, which only reopened at 3pm this afternoon, as more than 140 flights were cancelled. Five people were taken to hospital during the fire, which was finally extinguished this morning. Investigators believe the blaze was started when a diesel car suffered an electrical fault or leaking fuel line. The fire then spread as a number of electric vehicles burst into flames in a domino effect, one firefighter suggested. As many as 1,500 vehicles are feared to have been damaged. Dramatic footage on CCTV captured the moment the explosion erupted, as light fixtures crashed from the ceiling and a fireball soared through the building. The vehicle appears to be in the middle of the track used to get around the car park, rather than a designated space. The car park, which opened in 2019 as part of a £20million modernisation drive, did not have sprinklers. One fire chief urged the airport to install them in existing and future car parks, adding that it 'may have made a positive impact on this incident'. He added that the building's open sides meant the fire will have spread 'horizontally' before it went up through the structure. The inferno was so hot that the car park building is unsalvageable and will eventually be demolished, sources claimed. The temperature of the flames soared well over the 600C (1,110F) that would destroy the building's integrity, and one fire officer said it would have hit six million watts. The contractor for the car park was Buckingham Construction, which went into administration last month with 500 jobs lost. Lancashire-based Raised Floor Solutions installed part of the floor system but had no design involvement. It comes as devastated Britons told MailOnline how their cars went up in flames at the site - including one couple who had parked a new £48,000 Mercedes there. Some are scrambling for parking spaces at different sites while several chain hotels including the local Marriott, Best Western and Hampton have sold out for tonight. FULL STORY

House Republicans on Wednesday nominated Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) to be the next Speaker, sending his candidacy to the House floor following Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) stunning ouster last week, multiple lawmakers told The Hill. Scalise secured the nomination 113-99 in a closed-door GOP conference meeting, defeating House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a close race that did not have a clear front-runner heading into the internal vote. Scalise will now take his candidacy to the House floor, where he will be up against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who Democrats nominated for Speaker on Tuesday night. The floor fight could get messy. Candidates need the support of a majority of the chamber to take control of the gavel and Republicans hold a razor-thin majority. McCarthy required 15 rounds of voting to secure the gavel. At least six Republicans have already said they’ll vote for someone other than Scalise on the floor, and and handful of others remain undecided or declined to comment. Jordan, however, said he offered to deliver a nominating speech on Scalise’s behalf. Scalise’s nomination marks the pinnacle of his congressional career, which began in 2008 and has spanned more than nine years in leadership, including stints as Republican whip and, most recently, majority leader. Throughout the week-long race for the top spot, Scalise branded himself as the Republican who could unite the conference following McCarthy’s ouster, which bitterly divided the GOP and inflamed tensions within the party. “I’ve got a long history of bringing people together, uniting Republicans, focusing on the issues that we’ve got to do to address the issues we came here to do to get our country back on track,” Scalise told Fox Business in an interview Tuesday. FULL STORY

As bombs rained down on Gaza Monday, Palestinian-Americans visiting or living there said they were desperately trying to find ways out of the region but have received little or no support from US Embassy officials, even though they are US citizens. They said they were told by the embassy that routes out of the Gaza Strip had been narrowed down to one: A passage though Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which reportedly had been closed for a period of time Monday because of bombing. “U.S. citizens in Gaza who wish to leave and can do so safely are advised to check the status of the Rafah Crossing into Egypt,” the US Embassy in Jerusalem said in a security alert on Monday. Said Shaath, 64, of Fresno, California, who is currently working in the humanitarian sector in Gaza, said embassy officials told one of his cousins to make his way to the Egypt border crossing if he could do so safely. “I don’t know what ‘safely’ means? We are living in Rimal, it’s very risky to drive all the way to south Rafah terminal,” he said. “This is not secure because along the way there is a chance that you will be targeted,” given the constant barrage of Israeli airstrikes. Under normal circumstances, the drive from Rimal to the Rafah crossing can take up to an hour. A CNN reporter on the phone with Shaath could hear loud explosions from the bombardment throughout the call. FULL STORY

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said every Hamas member was "a dead man" after the first meeting of his country's emergency government. Alongside him, opposition figure Benny Gantz said it was "a time for war". But US President Joe Biden said he had spoken to Mr Netanyahu and made it clear that Israel must "operate by the rules of war". The death toll in Israel has reached 1,200. More than 1,100 people have been killed by Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Mr Biden said he understood the anger and frustration of the Israeli people but urged Israel to adhere to the principles of the Geneva conventions. He also warned Iran - which has welcomed the Hamas attack - to "be careful". Earlier on Wednesday Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz agreed to put aside a bitter political rivalry that had escalated into widespread protests. Mr Gantz told Israeli citizens that the newly-formed government was "united" and ready to "wipe this thing called Hamas off the face of the Earth". Alongside Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz, the centrist National Unity Party leader and a former defence minister, the new temporary cabinet would also include Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The country's main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has not joined the alliance. However, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz said in a joint statement that a seat would be reserved for him in the war cabinet. "During the war period, no bills or government decisions will be promoted that do not concern the conduct of the war," said a statement. "All senior appointments will be automatically extended during the war period." The emergency government will give broader national consensus to military action. It also brings to the war cabinet two voices who are experts in military strategy. Both Mr Gantz and also Gadi Eisenkot, who joins as an observer, are former Israeli military chiefs of staff. The announcement of the new cabinet came in the wake of savage attacks by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip. FULL STORY

As per request of OP Topic Closed

Reported post removed. playground name calling like "orange cult" is juvenile trolling ! persist in such trolling and your ability to post may be removed.

If you have it tracked, and showing delivered to them, they cannot fine you for not reporting as you have evidence you did.

Officials in the Israeli military say they have uncovered evidence of a bloody assault by Hamas fighters on the village of Kfar Aza that included the killings of women and children as young as infants. “They cut heads of children, cut heads of women,” David Ben Zion, a deputy commander in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), said in an on-camera interview with Israeli television station i24 News. IDF officials took a group of reporters to the Kfar Aza village near Gaza, but much of the information on specifically what happened has come from IDF sources. Nicole Zedeck, an i24 correspondent, said she had been told by soldiers that 40 babies had been killed in the attack, a figure that has widely been picked up elsewhere. “The horrors that I’m hearing from these soldiers that … about 40 babies, at least, were taken out in gurneys,” Zedek said. “Still, right now, they’re going house to house, still evacuating dead bodies.” Major Nir Dinar told Insider that forces had found the corpses of decapitated babies at the village but said he had not seen images or videos himself. He also could not confirm the number of casualties a soldier had told the i24 reporter. “We cannot confirm any numbers. What happened in Kibbutz Kfar Aza is a massacre in which women children, toddlers and elderly were brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action,” he said in a statement to Insider. The Hill has not confirmed the accounts from i24 or IDF personnel. The Hill has reached out to the State Department and an Israeli military spokesperson for more information about what happened at the village. President Biden, during remarks from the White House on Tuesday, talked of his horror at “stomach turning reports of babies being killed.” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN that he heard that a woman who gave him a tour of Kfar Aza sent him a message that her parents had been killed in the village. FULL STORY

Mary Trump, an outspoken adversary of former President Trump, called him a “f‑‑‑ing maniac” in a social media post Monday. She specifically criticized Trump, who is her uncle, for his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and its possible relation to the war in Israel. “This f‑‑‑ing maniac likely gave Putin (who gave Iran, who gave Hamas) Israel’s national security secrets,” Mary Trump wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Plus, he divulged highly classified information about our nuclear subs to an Australian cardboard guy,” she added. “Why is he still allowed to roam free?” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday after the group launched a barrage of rocket strikes and entered the country in a surprise attack. In her post, Mary Trump shared a screenshot of her uncle’s comments on Truth Social that compared the ongoing situation in Israel to the U.S.-Mexico border, suggesting President Biden and former President Obama could be responsible for a Hamas attack on the U.S. “The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers,” Trump posted. “Are they planning an attack within our Country? Crooked Joe Biden and his BOSS, Barack Hussein Obama, did this to us!” In a follow-up post, Mary Trump urged the public to join her newsletter and support her mission. “If you agree my uncle is unfit to be in the White House or anywhere but prison, please support my mission to get this f‑‑‑ing maniac off our TVs – and our streets,” she said. Mary Trump has been a prominent critic of Trump, even publishing a book titled “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” STORY

Media cites intelligence sources saying Russian sabotage suspected after unusual drop in pressure Extensive damage to an undersea gas pipeline and communications cable connecting Finland and Estonia “could not have occurred by accident” and appears to be the result of a “deliberate … external act”, Finnish authorities have said. “It is likely that the damage to both the gas pipeline and the communication cable is the result of external activity,” the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, said on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday, adding that the cause of the damage was not yet clear. Local media cited unnamed government sources as saying Russian sabotage was suspected, while regional security experts said a Russian survey vessel had recently been observed making repeated visits to the vicinity of the Balticconnector pipeline. Petteri Orpo, the Finnish prime minister, told a press conference in Helsinki that a preliminary assessment suggested that “the observed damage could not have been caused by normal use of the pipeline or by pressure fluctuations”. Asked directly about the likelihood of Russian involvement, Orpo said he did not want to speculate on potential perpetrators before the investigation was complete. “It’s important … not to jump to conclusions at this stage,” he said. FULL STORY

Joe Biden on Tuesday pledged unflinching support for Israel, calling the assault by Hamas militants that left nearly 1,000 people dead an “act of sheer evil” and confirming that some US citizens are part of the many currently being held hostage. In a televised speech from the White House, the US president said at least 14 Americans were killed in last weekend’s attack by Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza, and a yet unknown number of Americans are being held hostage. The attack saw gunmen crossing the border from Gaza, raiding Israeli cities and gunning down civilians in their homes, cars and at a desert music festival. As many as 150 hostages are believed to have been taken. More than 900 people in Gaza have been killed in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes while enforcing a “blockade” that sealed off the besieged territory of 2.3 million people from food, fuel and other supplies. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, later told reporters that “20 or more Americans” were unaccounted for following the weekend violence, though the number held captive by Hamas remains unclear. He said the US government was in regular contact with the families of the missing, some of whom have made public pleas to US and Israeli authorities for help locating their loved ones. “In this moment, we must be crystal clear: we stand with Israel,” Biden, flanked by vice-president Kamala Harris and US secretary of state Antony Blinken, said in a forceful speech, repeating: “We stand with Israel.” In a show of solidarity with Israel, the state department announced on Tuesday that Blinken will travel to Israel in the coming days. In his remarks from the White House State Dining Room, Biden was unequivocal in his condemnation of Hamas, calling it a terrorist organization whose “state purpose is the annihilation of the state of Israel and the murder of Jewish people”. “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination,” he added, echoing the sentiment expressed in a rare joint statement by the leaders of the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy on Monday night. FULL STORY

Australian researchers have developed a way of highlighting changes in the brain that mark the progression of Parkinson’s disease years before physical symptoms show. Researchers at the Florey Institute and Austin Health in Melbourne have shown it is possible to detect signs of Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating neurodegenerative condition, by injecting patients with a synthetic compound, known as 18F-AV-133, designed to bind to a protein in the brain known as VMAT2. There is significant evidence that deficiency of VMAT2, an essential protein for neurotransmitter regulation, is linked to Parkinson’s disease.The F-AV-133 compound becomes concentrated in areas of the brain where VMAT2 is active, with researchers then able to conduct a PET scan to capture images that show the strength and areas of VMAT2 activity in the brain, creating an imaging biomarker. The researchers studied 26 patients with Parkinson’s disease, a control group of 12 people, and 11 people with Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder, which is a significant indicator of Parkinson’s disease. Each person undertook two PET scans two years apart. The were no significant changes in clinical symptoms in any of the participants according to currently available assessments for Parkinson’s disease, which involve asking people questions about their symptoms. By contrast, the PET scans showed significant neuronal loss in three key regions of the brain in individuals with Parkinson’s disease, and in one key area of the brain in those with REM disorder, suggesting F-AV-133 is a more sensitive means of monitoring neurodegeneration. The findings were published in the international journal Neurology on Thursday. FULL STORY

"Where do we go? Is there a safe place left in this neighbourhood, which was so quiet and beautiful?" residents of an apartment block in Rimal asked me, with heavy sarcasm. I had just spent the most difficult seven hours of my life inside there, as Israeli warplanes carried another wave of air strikes in retaliation for the Palestinian militant group's unprecedented assault on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday. The Israeli strikes also caused significant damage to dozens of residential buildings, the offices of telecommunications companies and faculty buildings of the Islamic University of Gaza. Terrifying explosions shook the area throughout Monday night. Children were screaming and nobody had a moment's sleep. It was a night that the residents of Rimal - Gaza City's wealthiest neighbourhood and usually its quietest - will not forget for a long time. As dawn broke on Tuesday, the intensity of the strikes decreased and people discovered the extent of the destruction. The south-western neighbourhood's infrastructure was severely damaged and most roads leading to it were cut off. As I drove around it felt as if there had been an earthquake. There was rubble, shattered glass and severed wiring everywhere. Such was the devastation that I did not recognise some of the buildings that I passed. "I lost everything. My apartment, where my five children lived, was here in this building. My grocery shop below the building was destroyed," Mohammed Abu al-Kass told me while carrying his daughter Shahd in the street. "Where do we go? We have become homeless. There is no shelter for us anymore or work." "Are my house and my grocery shop a military target, Israel?" he added, accusing the Israeli military of lying when it says it does not target civilians. The Palestinian health ministry said that about 300 people, two thirds of them civilians, were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza on Monday. It was the deadliest day there for many years. At least 15 people were killed in the densely-populated Jabalia refugee camp, north-east of Gaza City, in the afternoon. The Israeli military said it targeted the home of a Hamas commander. But many people at a nearby market or in neighbouring houses were killed. FULL STORY

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MOVED to forum support

Reported Off topic content removed.

The Italian military police stationed outside Turin's synagogue on Sunday. Italy’s interior ministry said it had ordered surveillance to be increased across the country. Photograph: Matteo Secci/AP Governments across Europe said they had bolstered security as Jewish groups warned that the surprise attacks by Hamas had led to a rise in antisemitic rhetoric online. In France, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, called on regional officials across the country to urgently put in place heightened security at synagogues and Jewish schools. “At a time when terrorist attacks from Gaza are hitting Israel, I ask you to immediately step up vigilance, security and protection of Jewish community sites in France,” he wrote in a message seen by AFP. Darmanin also called for the soldiers from France’s Opération Sentinelle, a special force that patrols streets and protects key sites, to be deployed in order to create a “visible and systematic” security presence. The surprise attacks had left many in France’s Jewish community reeling, said Samuel Lejoyeux of the Union of Jewish Students of France. “We woke up with a sense of dread,” he told Le Figaro newspaper. “We were reminded of a fragility we had forgotten. It’s a feeling similar to what we felt at the time of 11 September or the Bataclan [attacks].” His concerns were echoed by the Council of French Jewish Institutions. “We were very shocked and worried by this outburst of violence,” Pierre Haas of the council told AFP. The council, he added, was also wary about the “possibility of the conflict being imported to France”. In Germany, the police in Berlin said on social media they had filed complaints after being alerted to “people celebrating the attacks on Israel by handing out baked goods” along a main avenue. Soon after, the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said in a statement that the government would “not accept it when the heinous attacks against Israel are celebrated here on our streets”. The Central Council of Jews in Germany said they were in close contact with authorities and that police measures were being increased at Jewish institutions across the country. In London, the Metropolitan police said they had increased patrols across parts of the city amid a “number of incidents, including those that have been shared on social media, in relation to the ongoing conflict in Israel and [at] the border with Gaza”. FULL STORY

People watch the McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, in August 2023. Photograph: Darren Hull The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate. Storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts have taken many lives and destroyed swathes of property in recent decades, with global heating making the events more frequent and intense. The study is the first to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to human-caused global heating. It found average costs of $140bn (£115bn) a year from 2000 to 2019, although the figure varies significantly from year to year. The latest data shows $280bn in costs in 2022. The researchers said lack of data, particularly in low-income countries, meant the figures were likely to be seriously underestimated. Additional climate costs, such as from crop yield declines and sea level rise, were also not included. The researchers produced the estimates by combining data on how much global heating worsened extreme weather events with economic data on losses. The study also found that the number of people affected by extreme weather because of the climate crisis was 1.2 billion over two decades. Two-thirds of the damage costs were due to the lives lost, while a third was due to property and other assets being destroyed. Storms, such as Hurricane Harvey and Cyclone Nargis, were responsible for two-thirds of the climate costs, with 16% from heatwaves and 10% from floods and droughts. FULL STORY

Former President Trump on Monday questioned Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats and hammered President Biden’s foreign policy amid unfolding violence in Israel. Trump, in remarks to supporters in New Hampshire, claimed Biden “betrayed Israel” and cited the terrorist attacks in Israel and ensuing fighting in Gaza as the latest example of a foreign conflict bubbling up during the Biden administration. “I can’t imagine how anybody who’s Jewish or anybody who loves Israel — and frankly, the evangelicals just love Israel — I can’t imagine anybody voting Democrat, let alone for this man, who’s totally — he was shot 30 years ago. He’s more shot now. But the problem was all caused by crooked Joe Biden,” Trump said. Trump spoke to supporters in Wolfeboro, days after the militant terrorist group Hamas launched an attack against Israel. More than 1,000 people total have died amid the fighting in Israel and Gaza. The State Department confirmed at least nine Americans were among those killed. “Less than four years ago, we had peace in the Middle East with the historic Abraham Accords. Today we have all-out war in Israel, and it’s going to spread very quickly” Trump said. “What a difference a president makes.” The former president said that upon retaking office, he would cut off any money going to Palestinians and would reimpose and expand a travel ban that targeted several majority-Muslim countries. Trump has repeatedly positioned himself as deeply supportive of Israel, citing his recognition of the Golan Heights territory, his relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and his administration’s signing of the Abraham Accords to normalize relations among countries in the Middle East. But he has also drawn backlash for frequently suggesting Jews who do not support him politically or who are not supportive of Israel are disloyal. Trump in September shared an image on social media telling “liberal Jews” to “make better choices” amid celebrations of the Jewish New Year. FULL STORY

Regardless of whether Iran plotted and ordered the massive Hamas attack against Israel over the weekend, Tehran’s backing and support for the Palestinian militant group sends a clear and defiant message to Washington. The U.S. has yet to confirm a direct involvement from Tehran in the operation, but officials acknowledge Iranians are indirectly complicit in training, funding and supporting Hamas. The Hamas invasion, the worst attack on Israel in 50 years, shows Tehran is increasingly willing to damage U.S. allies and, in effect, try to weaken American influence through proxy groups. It comes as Iran’s influence as a regional power appears on the rise. Jonathan Spyer, the director of research at the Middle East Forum, said Iran seeks to defeat Israel with a strategy of “death by a thousand cuts.” “They intend to reduce the morale of Israelis, to cause Israelis to lose faith in their institutions, to cause Israelis to quit Israel,” said Spyer. “That’s the reason why they’re backing Hamas. That’s the reason why they created Hezbollah. They intend to try to surround Israel with what we would call hybrid military forces.” Iran has denied any role in the brutal surprise attack by Hamas but has welcomed the news, reportedly with celebrations of what Iranians are calling a Palestinian victory. Both Hamas and Iran have publicly acknowledged a strategic partnership. They hold separate goals in the decades-long conflict with Jerusalem, but those aims appear to have aligned during the early Saturday attack, which has left hundreds dead in Israel and fighting still flaring up in the south near Gaza. Iran has for years been fighting a shadow war against Israel through proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and others. Tehran considers Israel an American client state, hostile to Muslims. FULL STORY