LEBANON - The Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah is now part of the Israeli-Palestinian war and regularly attacks the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the group’s spokesman Haji Mohammad Afif has told RT in an exclusive interview. The group has essentially opened a second front against Israel amid the conflict in Gaza. The Hezbollah movement is one of the most powerful political and military forces in Lebanon and claims to have as many as 100,000 fighters, a large range of weapons and military equipment, as well as a giant missile arsenal. Although Lebanon and Israel are not officially in a state of war, the Israeli army has nevertheless shelled the country’s southern regions, where Hezbollah fighters are entrenched. According to Mohammad Afif, these attacks have caused tens of thousands of Lebanese people to flee their homes.

USA - A survey has found that two-thirds of US adults under age 25 see Jews as “oppressors”. Over half of US adults from ages 18 to 24 believe the ongoing crisis in Gaza should be resolved by abolishing the state of Israel and turning it over to Hamas and the Palestinian people, a new poll has found. The Harvard-Harris poll, conducted this week and released on Friday, showed that 51% of young Americans believe the Israeli state should be “ended,” compared with 32% who favor a two-state solution. Just 17% said Arab countries should absorb the Palestinians to resolve the conflict. Among all age groups, six in ten Americans call for a two-state deal, while only 19% want Israel to be given to the Palestinians. The survey marked the latest poll showing a dramatic divide between Americans young and old on issues relating to Israel and the Jewish people amid the ongoing war between West Jerusalem and Hamas.

ISRAEL - On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Representative Haley Stevens (Democrat for Missouri) said that the media “rarely” cover Hamas continuing to fire rockets at Israel and that Hamas misfires plenty of rockets and ends up hitting Palestinian civilians. Stevens responded to a question on whether Israel has “gone too far” by stating, “Let me respond very clearly: Hamas went too far. Hamas went too far taking hundreds of people from multiple nationalities hostage, some 130 still being held hostage, infants, the elderly, Holocaust survivors, women brutalized and raped in free, democratic, and open society.

GAZA - The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, has said the militant group is open to negotiations to end the war with Israel, but stressed that any final deal would have to lead to an independent Palestinian state. In a televised speech on Wednesday, Haniyeh said Hamas is prepared for dialogue with Israel, hoping that future talks could put “the Palestinian house in order both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” “We are open to discuss any arrangement or initiative that could end the aggression” and lead to a “political path that secures the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.” Haniyeh’s comments came just one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that a Palestinian state was out of the question, vowing to never “repeat the mistake of Oslo,” a 1993 peace deal which created a roadmap for a sovereign Palestinian nation.

USA - Americans have had a love affair with their televisions for decades. Most of us consume more than a thousand hours of “programming” each year, and the vast majority of that “programming” literally celebrates evil. Just think about it for a moment. When is the last time that you watched a program on television that focused on things that are noble, true, honest, pure and virtuous? From time to time you can find a show like that, but most of the content on our televisions is full of garbage. And if you pour thousands of hours of garbage into the minds of the American people, you are going to get a demonic society in which just about every form of wickedness that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us.

USA - On Wednesday, Karl Frisch, a Democratic member of the Fairfax County School Board, was sworn in for his second term not on a Bible, but on a stack of banned LGBTQ children’s books. This unconventional choice by Frisch has received criticism for attempting to normalize unacceptable behavior, which indicates moral decay. Frisch, who is the Vice Chair of the Board and soon-to-be Chair, is both the first LGBTQ+ individual elected to local office in Fairfax County—Virginia’s largest—and one of the few openly LGBTQ+ school board members across the Commonwealth, according to Blue Virginia. He won his re-election by more than 30 points and received a larger share of the vote (67%) than in 2019. Fischer was not the only individual to participate in this outrageous swearing-in method. Karen Smith, recently appointed as the Central Bucks school board president in Pennsylvania, also took her oath of office on Monday, choosing a stack of banned children’s books instead of the traditional Bible.

UK - A school has been forced to apologise to parents after a teacher falsely told her class that Father Christmas was not real. The stand-in teacher at Hill View Primary School in Bournemouth, Dorset made the blunder while her class of 10 and 11-year-olds were making Christmas cards on Wednesday. The festive faux pas is said to have caused quite the scene as the Year Six pupils left the school quizzing their parents to see if what she said was true. The school later that day emailed a letter to parents 'apologising profusely' for the upset caused to the children by the Santa slur. One parent, who did not want to be named, said: 'Christmas is a stressful time of the year as it is, the last thing we need is the school ruining it by taking away the magic. It's really not on.”

MIDDLE EAST - A US warship shot down 14 suspected attack drones over the Red Sea on Saturday, and a Royal Navy destroyer downed another drone that was targeting commercial ships, the British and American militaries said. Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, and have launched drones and missiles targeting Israel, as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to spread.

GERMANY - Military chief Boris Pistorius has said Europeans have five to eight years to arm up before US focus shifts to the Asia-Pacific. European nations have less than a decade left to ramp up their military capabilities so that they can fend for themselves in case of conflict, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has estimated. He also predicted that the US, regardless of which candidate comes out on top in next year’s election, will become less involved in European security down the road.

ISRAEL - Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the United Nations General Assembly that Israel had protected the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a holy site for Muslims in Jerusalem, from Hamas. Sharing his speech on X on Saturday evening, Erdan wrote, “Israel is defending Al-Aqsa Mosque from Hamas missiles!! Just as ISIS destroyed mosques, Hamas-ISIS is willing to blow up Al-Aqsa. For Hamas, murdering Israelis is more important than Islamic holy sites. This is what I said today in the UN General Assembly as I showed the Iron Dome interception of a Hamas missile fired towards the Temple Mount. These are the terrorists that the UN has chosen to protect. Unbelievable!!'

MALI - The Bundeswehr mission in Mali has come to an end. Tuesday 12 December 2023, the last 142 German soldiers withdrew from their former base in Gao in northern Mali. They are making their way back to Germany, where they are expected to arrive on Friday. German soldiers were stationed in the country for ten years, most of that time alongside French combat troops as part of an EU and a UN mission – EUTM Mali and MINUSMA respectively.

USA - The United States is set to enter 2024 with its smallest military in more than eight decades and faces one of its 'greatest challenges' as it tries to boost recruiting from Gen Z, Pentagon officials said. Under the $886 billion annual defense bill passed by Congress this week total active-duty troop numbers will fall to 1,284,500 next year. That is the lowest total since before the US entered the Second World War in 1941 and officials said there should be a 'national call to service'. Recent recruitment targets were missed in the Army, Navy and Air Force, although the Marine Corps and the newly established Space Force reached their goals. This week Ashish Vazirani, the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told the House Armed Services Committee that the individual services missed their recruitment goals in 2023 by a combined 41,000 personnel.

USA - On the night of her election as Boston's first Asian mayor, Michelle Wu proclaimed defiantly: 'We are ready to become a Boston for everyone. We're ready to become a Boston that doesn't push people out, but welcomes all who call our city home.' It was a rallying cry for unity and inclusion from a young, idealistic politician who was determined the capital city of New England should shed its conservative image and embrace its increasing ethnic diversity. But two years later, Wu is in the extraordinary position of herself being accused of racism after hosting a Christmas party on Wednesday night exclusively for 'non-white' members of the city council. Her decision has stoked a nationwide row over 'reverse racism' and exposed once again a deeply polarised American electorate that once put Donald Trump in the White House because they shared his contempt for wokeness, and may well do so again.

USA - Just about every aspect of American life is under a new threat from unimaginable debt. There is record credit card debt, an implosion in commercial real estate, millions are delinquent on mortgage payments and car payments and, to top it all off, hundreds of trillions in unpayable derivative debt that Warren Buffett called “weapons of mass destruction” is coming due. It’s all coming to a head in a so-called debt reset we have heard about for years.

EUROPE - EU agrees on law to secure strategic raw materials to reduce vulnerabilities in the West’s economic war against China. China responds to sanctions and restricts exports of important resources. Beijing, which has always been a reliable supplier, is currently beginning to defend itself against the West’s economic war, in which it is coming under increasing attacks with punitive tariffs and sanctions. It is resorting to restrictions on its exports of strategically essential natural resources – including gallium, germanium and soon also graphite. If the West persists in its economic warfare, it will face material shortages in the foreseeable future, for example, in regards to the production of semiconductors and climate change technologies.