IRGC Threatens To Attack If Any State Allows Israeli Military Bases

In a second day of Russian attacks on cities and civilian infrastructure, 16 16 Shahed suicide drones were sent over Ukraine, where military official said all were destroyed. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said 7 were aimed at city and that one administration building was partly destroyed.

On Thursday, Russia fired dozens of cruise missiles and drones at Ukraine, to disrupt electricity and water supplies on the eve of the New Year celebrations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said most regions hit in Thursday's massive air attack suffered power outages.

The areas where loss of power was "especially difficult" included the capital Kyiv, Odesa and Kherson in the south and surrounding regions, and around Lviv near the western border with Poland, Zelenskiy said.

Iran’s delivery of hundreds of Shahed-131 and 136 drones to Russia has enraged the West, which is assisting Ukraine to resist Moscow’s invasion. Western officials have been citing Iran’s weapons deliveries as one reason why they are not inclined to continue nuclear talks with Tehran.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Friday called on member states to supply more weapons to Ukraine.

"I call on allies to do more. It is in all our security interests to make sure Ukraine prevails and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not win," Stoltenberg told German news agency DPA.

Stoltenberg said that military support for Ukraine was the fastest way to peace.

In a statement released on Thursday, the US President called Netanyahu “my friend for decades” and said he looks forward “to working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been my friend for decades, to jointly address the many challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Middle East region, including threats from Iran.“

Netanyahu who always opposed the Obama-era nuclear accord with Iran known as JCPOA was a close ally of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump and opposed Biden’s policy to negotiate with Tehran to revive the deal. Trump abandoned the agreement in 2018 demanding more concession by Iran.

However, Biden’s diplomatic effort came to a standstill last August, and since then Iran has been supplying suicide drones to Russia to attack Ukraine and has killed hundreds of antigovernment protesters. Both the United States and its European allies say that resuming the nuclear talk sis not their priority in the current situation.

Biden also praised more integration in the Middle East, calling it a „more hopeful vision of a region at peace, including between Israelis and Palestinians.“ This is an endorsement of the 2020 Abraham Accords that established full ties between Israel and four Arab states. Reports in recent days indicate Netanyahu is hopeful to also establish relations with Saudi Arabia.

Military cooperation between Israel and several Arab states is also expanding aimed mainly at containing the Iranian threat.

Israel’s parliament, or Knesset, passed a vote of confidence in his new government Thursday with 63 voted in favor and 54 votes against.

Outgoing Yair Lapid, who was in the Prime Minister's office for only half a year, said during the swearing -in session that his joint government with Bennett thwarted US President Joe Biden's efforts to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal.

“Contrary to all the rageful predictions and prophecies, our government managed to stop the signing of a revived nuclear agreement with Iran,” Lapid said.

"The Revolutionary Guards were not removed from the list of terrorist organizations and the International Atomic Energy Agency did not close its investigatory files on Iran," he added.

In his parliamentary speeches beforethe swearing in on Thursday, the 73-year-old Netanyahu said his three big missions are stopping Iran’s nuclear program, developing state infrastructure, and restoring internal security and governance to Israel.

Earlier, in an interview with Al-Arabiya Netanyahu reiterated his long-standing opposition to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and urged Saudi Arabia to ‘normalize’ with Israel.

He called the JCPOA, signed by world powers in 2015, a “horrible agreement because it allowed Iran basically with international approval, to develop a nuclear and basically an atomic arsenal paved with gold, with hundreds of billions of dollars of sanction relief.”

Moscow fired 69 cruise missiles and an undetermined number of Iranian suicide drones. Ukrainian officials said that they had shot down 11 Iranian-made drones and most of the missiles.

Observers were anticipating a large-scale Russia missile attack to disrupt electricity and water for Ukrainians on New Year eve, but Ukraine’s air defenses have substantially improved, and the damage Thursday seemed to be manageable.

Iran’s delivery of hundreds of Shahed-131 and 136 drones to Russia has enraged the West that is assisting Ukraine to resist Moscow’s invasion. Western officials have been citing Iran’s weapons deliveries as one reason why they are not inclined to continue nuclear talks with Tehran.

Iran has claimed that it delivered the drones before the war, but it has not clearly denied their use in attacking Ukraine.

The United States is scrambling to try to "choke off Iran’s ability to manufacture the drones” as US forces help “Ukraine’s military to target the sites where the drones are being prepared for launch…,” according to a source that spoke with the New York Times.

Russia’s missile and drone attacks started in September targeting Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure after its military campaign began to unravel. So far Ukraine has shot down 430 drones Russia has used in conjunction with the missile barrages. Most of these drones are believed to have been Iranian made.

A 2,000-word New York Times story published December 28 was based on un-named United States officials proclaiming Iran and Russia to be “building a new alliance of convenience.” This had prompted an “expanding US program…to choke off Iran’s ability to manufacture the drones” as US forces help “Ukraine’s military to target the sites where the drones are being prepared for launch…”

But the day before the Times outlined the “breath of the [US] effort,” the Jerusalem Post was more sanguine. “No matter how many Iranian drones Russia has access to, it can’t defeat Ukraine,” it noted. With the vast majority of the drones used by Russia easily shot down, “big army formations like tanks, infantry and artillery, still decide wars,” the Post observed.

The newspaper also conceded that while Iran had developed drones due to its lack of an effective air-force in the face of international sanction, Israel, whose advanced US-supplied aircraft include F35s, was “one of the world’s leaders in drone technology.”

‘An important tool’

Both the Ukraine war and a trumpeted ‘Iranian threat’ are boosting Israel’s weapons sales, including to disillusioned customers of Russia, as its arms exports reached a record $11.3 billion in 2022. “Iran…is suddenly sending drones to Russia, and is forming a military and security alliance with Russia…the war is helping Israel in that sense…as a by-product Israel is increasing its share of the arms market,” Yossi Melman, Haaretz Intelligence correspondence, told Voice of America December 22.

“Iranian military technology is seen as an important tool against the growing threat of Iranian military power – ­­the concern about Iran is shared by both European and Middle Eastern countries,” VOA said.

But while Iran’s supply of drones to Russia – and Tehran claims these were sent before the current phase of conflict began February – has helped Israel’s arms sales, the US has been less successful, the New York Times reported, in hampering Iran’s drone industry given the expertise developed by Iran over many years evading American sanctions and surveillance. This was, the Times said, “proving as difficult as the decades-old drive to deprive Iran of the components needed to build the delicate centrifuges it uses to enrich near-bomb-grade uranium.”

Israeli expertise in “undermining Iran’s nuclear program” could help over Iran’s drone exports, the paper suggested: “In the effort to stop the drone attacks,” the Times said, “Mr Biden’s [President Joe Biden] aides are also engaging an ally with a long history of undermining Iran’s nuclear program: Israel.”

The Times referred to a recent video meeting between Jake Sullivan with Israel’s top national security, military and intelligence officials – which came as talk increases in Israel of a military attack on Iran and as Benjamin Netanyahu returns to power with the support of ultra-Zionists. “The fact that the administration chose to highlight the discussion…was notable,” the Times observed.