Iran’s support for resistance ‘will not change with new government’: Interim President
The Cradle, May 26 2024
Acting Iranian President Mohammad Mokhber stated on May 26 that Iran’s fundamental strategy of supporting resistance, especially the Palestinian resistance, to US and Israeli hegemony and occupation in West Asia will not change in the new government. Mokhber succeeded Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash last week along with the popular foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Mokhber made the comments during a phone call with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhala, who expressed condolences to the new president over Raisi’s death.
Nakhala praised Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian for always being “on the front line in defending the interests of the Iranian nation and supporting the Resistance movements.” Both leaders made supporting the resistance in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen a priority of Iranian foreign policy, both before and after the start of Israel’s genocide on Gaza. Mokhber considered the strategy of resistance as the most effective way to deal with the “crimes and aggressions of the Zionist regime.” In a meeting with Iraqi President Abd’ul-Latif Rashid on 25 May, Mokhber stated that Raisi’s legacy of establishing strong ties with Iran’s neighbors will also continue. Mokhber said:
Our martyred president did great actions and made important achievements. Perhaps one of his most outstanding actions was to raise the level of Iran’s relations with Islamic, neighboring, and aligned countries, which was honestly very successful in that regard. No doubt that the strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the government and people of Iraq, which was pursued by Ayatollah Raisi, will continue with force from now on.
The Iraqi president also offered condolences for Raisi’s death, stating:
His martyrdom was a great loss and unparalleled tragedy not only for the Iranian nation but also for the Iraqi nation and the entire region.
Only 200 aid trucks enter Gaza via Kerem Shalom crossing
The Cradle, May 26 2024
Israel agreed on May 26 to allow around 200 aid trucks into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing at the southeastern edge of the besieged Palestinian enclave, bypassing the main Rafah crossing. The main crossing has been blocked for three weeks due to Israel’s ongoing military assault. Since Israel began its assault on Rafah on May 6, aid deliveries “have slowed to a trickle,” the Guardian reported, with both crossings effectively blocked by the fighting and as Palestinians face widespread starvation. Reuters reports that the aid shipments through Kerem Shalom are coming after an agreement was reached between Biden and Sisi on Friday.
The Egyptian Red Crescent told Reuters 200 aid trucks, including four fuel trucks, were expected to enter on Sunday through the crossing.
Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV shared a video on Twitter showing what it said were aid trucks as they entered Kerem Shalom. Deliveries through Kerem Shalom are crucial, as the main crossing in Rafah has been closed since Israel began its assault on the city three weeks ago, creating a backlog in aid deliveries and threatening Palestinians with starvation. Aurelie Godard of MSF in Gaza said of Sunday’s deliveries:
It’s a very small drop in the ocean, but hopefully, it’s a start.
However, the Guardian noted further:
With Rafah still closed and fighting raging, it remains unclear whether relief agencies will be able to access or distribute deliveries.
The UK paper notes as well that aid deliveries from a new highly-touted and US-funded floating pier were halted almost immediately after they began last week. At the start of the war, Israeli officials vowed to cut off food, water, and electricity to Gaza, causing widespread hunger throughout the strip and full-blown famine in some parts of it. Since then, Israeli officials have largely dismissed international pressure to allow aid into Gaza or to end military operations that have further threatened Palestinians with starvation. On Friday, the International Court of Justice demanded Israel end the military operation in Rafah as part of the ongoing suit brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide. Israel responded by escalating its bombing of Rafah and massacring several Palestinian families in their homes. Last week, the International Criminal Court applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, in part due to their efforts to starve Palestinians in Gaza. In December, Human Rights Watch issued a report saying Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war.
Hamas strikes Tel Aviv for first time since February
The Cradle, May 26 2024
Hamas’ Qassam Brigades announced on May 26 that it targeted Tel Aviv with a large barrage of rockets, marking the first salvo launched by the group towards the heart of Israel for the first time since February.
The Qassam Brigades “bombarded Tel Aviv with a large rocket barrage in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians,” it said in a statement on Sunday afternoon. The Israeli army admitted that the rockets were launched from Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where the Israeli army is carrying out extensive operations under the cover of indiscriminate bombardment from its fighter jets. The rockets were reportedly fired from very close to where Israeli forces are stationed. They appeared to be long-range rockets, and Israel’s Iron Dome had great difficulty intercepting them. Video footage and images circulating social media confirm that rockets made impact in several areas, causing damage and resulting in three injuries.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Quds Brigades also announced a rocket barrage targeting the settlements of the Gaza envelope on the same day. Maariv reported:
Hamas launched a volley of ten rockets at noon today (Sunday) at the cities of Ramat Hasharon, Petah Tikva Ra’anana in Basra, Yakum, Rashpon Herzliya, Kfar Saba, and Tel Aviv.
It notes that Hamas has been conducting “psychological terror” against Israel, particularly with its latest announcement of taking new soldiers as prisoners in northern Gaza on May 25 and the videos of prisoners’ bodies released that same day. According to Hebrew Channel 13, rockets were also fired from north of the strip towards Sderot. Nearly eight months into the war, Hamas’ military capabilities remain intact. The attacks coincided with rockets fired at northern Israel from Lebanon, resulting in extensive fires near the Israeli Malikiya site, according to Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent. The head of the Mateh Asher settler council in the Galilee, Moshe Davidovitz, said:
Ten rockets fell in the center of the country, and the media is in an uproar, and the country is in turmoil. Every day, dozens of rockets are fired towards the conflict zone settlements and the Galilee, including anti-tank missiles and suicide drones, and the country remains silent. Once again, it’s proof that the north is not being counted.
Hamas captures new Israeli soldiers in ‘complex’ Jabalia ambush
The Cradle, May 26 2024
The military spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades’ Abu Obeida, said in a speech on May 25 that the group’s fighters took a number of new soldiers as prisoners in an operation in northern Gaza’s Jabalia that day. Abu Obeida said:
Despite the genocide war and indiscriminate destruction, our fighters have been and remain vigilant against enemy forces, carrying out dozens of operations against them for more than two weeks in Jabalia, Rafah, Beit Hanoun, and all axes of aggression and incursion. The latest of these operations was a complex operation carried out by our fighters this afternoon, Saturday, in the northern Gaza Strip. Our fighters lured a Zionist force into one of the tunnels in Jabalia camp, trapping them in an ambush inside and at the entrance of the tunnel.
He added that the Qassam fighters clashed with the force and attacked reinforcements that arrived with explosive devices. They then withdrew from the tunnel and detonated it after killing, wounding, and capturing all of the force’s members and confiscating their equipment. A video released by the resistance group shows a fighter dragging the body of an Israeli soldier through a tunnel. Photos of seized Israeli military uniforms and weapons are seen in the video. The Israeli army has denied that any soldiers were taken prisoner.
Earlier the same day, the Qassam Brigades released a video titled:
Your own army, under orders from Netanyahu, insulted your captives’ dignity, alive and dead.
The video shows the corpses of several unidentified Israeli captives, with the accompanying text:
Ask Netanyahu’s government about their identities and names.
The prisoners were likely killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes. Dozens of Israeli prisoners remain in Gaza. Last week, Israel approved a renewal of stalled prisoner talks, which have continuously failed due to Israeli reluctance to stop the war, as Hamas’ main terms stipulate. Abu Obeida affirmed:
We are continuing to confront the aggression in every street, neighborhood, city, and camp in our strip, from Beit Hanoun to Rafah.
Clashes have been raging across the northern Gaza Strip in the past weeks, particularly in Jabalia. Tel Aviv’s forces have expressed frustration over renewed fighting in Jabalia after having operated there earlier in the war and months after the Israeli army said it had dismantled Hamas’ battalions in the north. The army has been taking heavy losses in Jabalia and is facing fierce resistance in other areas of the north, including Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. The resistance is also confronting Israeli forces in the southernmost city of Rafah, where Israel launched an operation in early May in defiance of months of international warnings, displacing nearly a Palestinians and indiscriminately bombarding densely populated areas of the city.
Niqnaq 