Israeli President Isaac Herzog has said that his country cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a "very strong force" in the coastal enclave for the near future to prevent Hamas re-emerging in the besieged strip.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Herzog said the government was discussing many ideas about how Gaza would be run once the war between Israel and Hamas ended, adding that he assumed the US and "our neighbours in the region" would have some involvement in the post-conflict order.

"If we pull back, then who will take over? We can't leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air," Herzog said. "But no one will want to turn this place, Gaza, into a terror base again."

Israeli troops destroyed the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza on Wednesday, describing the act as part of the war against Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Arabic-language spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, posted a minute-long video of the demolition on X (formerly Twitter). It showed the heavily damaged building exploding in a pillar of smoke and dust, as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops in nearby trenches laughed and cheered.

"Today, our ground forces blew up the headquarters of the Hamas Legislative Council in the Gaza Strip as part of destroying the Hamas regime of oppression and terrorism," wrote Gendelman.

Moscow's policy is shaped by its confrontation with the West in Ukraine, forcing it to establish closer ties with countries that empathize with Hamas...

The acute crisis in Palestine came as a surprise to everyone - both those who were directly involved and external players. For years, the long-standing conflict was considered frozen and 'deadlocked', and because of this, for many global, and even regional, powers, the issue retreated into the background.

No one was really content with the status quo, but it didn't seem to bother anyone either. Apparently, other important events in the Middle East had overshadowed the Palestinian problem, which was once a key issue. For example, the Syrian war and the settlement of this conflict, the destruction of ISIS, and the rapprochement of the Gulf monarchies with Israel (the Abraham Accords) and Iran (the reconciliation between Riyadh and Tehran, mediated by China) were not related to the Palestinian issue. Some experts believed this could help form a 'new' Middle East - a more interconnected and independent region that would be less dependent on the interventions of external forces.

Solving the region's other problems while avoiding the Palestinian issue suited almost everyone - except, of course, the Palestinians themselves. Hamas wanted to crush these plans and force everyone to turn their attention back to Palestine - and whatever the outcome of the war, they have most likely achieved this goal.

Russia had not been active in the Middle East for years - since the collapse of the USSR and up to the mid-2010s. Moscow made a 'comeback' in 2015, when it conducted a military intervention to save the government of Bashar Assad in Syria. The goal was achieved, and there was a turning point in the Syrian war in favor of Damascus. Following this, Russia became one of the most influential non-regional forces in the Middle East. Both in the military-political and economic sense, it had become a lot more active.

Pretoria accuses the Israeli government of committing genocide in Gaza...

South Africa has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the Israeli government for alleged war crimes in Gaza, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Wednesday during a two-day visit to Qatar.

The claim against Israel, which has not ratified the Rome Statute - the treaty establishing the ICC - was taken "together with many other countries", Ramaphosa said, without specifying which states were involved.

Last week, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced Bogota would request that the court prosecute Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over "the massacre" of civilians in Gaza. Similarly, two Turkish lawyers and a former lawmaker have petitioned Ankara's government to file charges against Israel at the ICC, to which Türkiye is also not a party.

Among the items being provided by Washington are missiles for Apache helicopters and 155mm artillery shells, the media outlet claims...

The US Department of Defense has allegedly ramped up weapons deliveries to Israel without making any public announcements of the move, Bloomberg has reported. The media outlet claimed that deliveries of artillery shells, which supposedly feature prominently on Israel's wish list, continue despite protests by dozens of relief organizations.

The US has for decades been Israel's closest ally and a major weapons supplier. Following Hamas' surprise attack on the country on October 7, Washington quickly came to Israel's rescue, providing it with Iron Dome air defense missiles and smart bombs.

Citing an internal Defense Department list dated late October, Bloomberg on Wednesday reported that the Pentagon had been dipping into its stocks at home and in Europe to furnish Israel with 36,000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition and approximately 2,000 Hellfire Laser Guided missiles for the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. The list also included 57,000 155mm High Explosive artillery shells, as well as mortars, rifles, and night vision devices, among other items. Israel reportedly also requested 200 armor-piercing Switchblade 600 strike drones, which the US military does not have in its inventory.

Israel is being given carte blanche to do whatever it wants, the great-grandson of the late South African leader told RT...

Mayibuye Mandela, a South African political activist and great grandson of Nelson Mandela, spoke to RT about the late anti-apartheid leader, while calling for support for the Palestinian people.

He noted that Nelson Mandela had expressed his deep gratitude for the unwavering support of the Palestinians, who stood in solidarity with him during the dark days of apartheid in South Africa.

Speaking to RT in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, Mayibuye said it appears to him that Israel can do whatever it wants with impunity.

"It seems that Israel is being given almost a carte blanche to do whatever it is. And I don't blame America, they've always been on the wrong side of history. The US has a powerful media which is funded by the most powerful propagandists."

He compared the Israel-Hamas war with apartheid, claiming that the US had sent CIA agents to arrest Nelson Mandela, and "international forces sponsored what was happening."

He said:

"South Africa has imposed sanctions on Israel and calls for peace to support Palestine. Israel's embassies must be removed. The food on the shelves, if they come from Israel, must be removed. We must sanction Israel."

The Palestinians and Hamas must defend themselves, and "need to be armed" by South Africa, Mayibuye said.

Brussels is frantically looking for ways to reduce Russia's revenues...

In a stellar display of strategic brilliance, the European Union is preparing to launch another wave of sanctions against Russia, this time targeting Moscow's diamond exports and taking a desperate swing at Gazprombank. Josep Borrell, the EU's diplomatic luminary, proudly declared that the G7 and Belgium, a diamond trading powerhouse, have rallied behind this bold move. This ingenious plan to ban Russian diamonds and sever ties with Gazprombank, encapsulated in the EU's 12th sanctions package, is poised to be the coup de grâce in the ongoing saga of futile attempts to curb Russia's economic resilience.

Borrell's revelation that the EU seeks to "reduce the revenues Russia extracts from exports," with a special focus on "non-industrial diamonds, including those mined," is nothing short of revolutionary. Talks of restricting the Russian diamond trade surfaced earlier this year, and now, as the effects of previous sanctions are questioned, the European Parliament is throwing Gazprombank into the sanctions mix for good measure. The EP's resolution, wrapped in an air of uncertainty due to an undisclosed voting process, expresses discontent with the EU's lackluster strategies and demands stricter enforcement.

The leading American analyst has argued that Washington needs a new foreign policy after 15 years of failure in Eastern Europe

Washington has continually escalated a failed foreign policy in Eastern Europe since at least 2008, driving Ukraine to the brink of total destruction by failing to address Russia's legitimate security concerns in the former Soviet republic, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued.

"The US has played a losing hand badly for 15 straight years," Sachs said on Wednesday in an interview with independent journalist Glenn Greenwald. "This is really important to understand if one wants to learn a little bit about geopolitical poker, which is, we keep raising the stakes on a losing hand."

Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the Soviet Union's breakup, detailed how at various points in the past two decades, Washington could have forestalled a military conflict without Kiev losing any territory. He pointed out that Moscow was demanding that NATO not expand onto its doorstep, which US officials refused to concede.

The old saying by the German general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz that war is politics by other means is often true, most often when the politicians and generals running the war understand this. Otherwise, reckless war-fighting becomes very bad politics. Russian President Vladimir Putin has always been a cautious political animal, and he has carried out the 'special-military operation' (SVO) or NATO-Russia Ukrainian War consistent with his traditionally balanced approach to politics. Hence, Putin did not invade Ukraine on February 24, 2022 with overwhelming force, say with the half-million troops he could have deployed. Rather, he sent no more than 200,000 troops along a broad 900-mile front extending from Kherson in the south near Crimea up along the southeastern, eastern, northeastern and northern borders with Russia. In the north, the surge towards Kiev was insufficient to come close to occupying, no less holding Kiev and 'conquering all of Ukraine' as US President Joe Biden and Western propagandists claim was Putin's intent. Putin appeared simply to be escalating his pre-SVO coercive diplomacy in the hope that Kiev and/or Washington would be willing to negotiate on the basis of his December 2021 proposals on creating a new security architecture for Ukraine, Russia, and the West. This effort at politics by means of war failed, as the US and NATO somehow convinced Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy to abandon the negotiations and fight a war against his much more powerful neighbor, Putin's Russia.

In terms of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War since then, contrary to the Western misconception, Putin has been conducting neither terrorism nor all-out war. Government and civilian installations and objects have not been targeted unless they have been turned over to the military or the war effort (to house headquarters, store weapons, bivouac troops). Russian forces have been conducting neither 'human wave' attacks in frontal assaults on Ukrainian positions nor missile, drone, and artillery attacks targeting civilians. To the contrary, Putin's Russia is doing everything it can to limit casualties, except against Ukrainian military targets. This stands in sharp contrast to the way Israeli Defense Forces have waged their punitive expedition against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the Ukrainian army itself targeted civilians beginning with in April 2014 with the beginning of its 'anti-terrorist operation' against Donbass and has continued to do so intermittently during the present war.

On one side of the table, a Global South leader at the top of his game. On the other side, a mummy selling the illusion he's the "leader of the free world."

That was bound for a cliffhanger - before, during or after the crucial bilateral involving the world's top two powers. Already during the introductory remarks, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, sitting on the right side of the mummy, was as terrified as James Stewart afraid of heights in Hitchcock's Vertigo - sensing doom would dawn at any second.

Then it did - at the final presser. Joe Biden, the actor playing The Mummy, following a proverbial smirk, said Chinese President Xi Jinping is "a dictator". Because he is the leader of a communist country.

All those previous elaborate plans unraveled, in a flash. A tentatively rosy scenario turned into a film noir. The Chinese Foreign Ministry's response was as sharp as a Dashiell Hammett one-liner - and contextualized: this was not only "extremely wrong" but "an irresponsible political manipulation".

All of the above of course assumed The Mummy knew where he was and what he was talking about, "off the cuff", and not dictated by his ubiquitous earpiece.