Archive December 31, 2025

The first quarter of the 21st century has come to an end, and so has the year 2025. It’s difficult to overstate the impact of the military excesses of the United States on the course of the last 25 years when comparing these two events.

The US launched the so-called “global war on terror” shortly after the start of the new century under the enlightened leadership of President George W. Bush, who made the professional call to arms following the 2001 attacks by 9/11: “We have our marching orders. Let’s roll, American people.

Bush claimed that the US had “engaged in a war to save civilisation itself,” leading to the destruction of numerous nations and the massacre of millions of people.

I was a junior at Columbia University in New York City, the site of the World Trade Center attacks, on September 11, 2001. However, I was actually in Austin, Texas, where my family then resided, because I was supposed to study in Italy that fall.

I watched apocalyptic replays of the incoming planes on a large projector screen set up by my colleagues specifically for that purpose during the day at the office where I had been working for the summer.

As the nation attempted to rank itself as the most perilous victim of terrorism in the world’s history, American flags started to appear on every surface, not to mention the quite literal terror the US had been inflicting on other countries for decades, from Vietnam and Laos to Nicaragua and Panama.

My boyfriend and I went over to see them that evening, and they were morosely urinating on the living room floor amid numerous buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which they explained was meant as a “comfort food” to ease the suffering of a national tragedy.

Massive fast-food takeaway orders were generally not an option for the countless civilians who were soon to be hit by US bombs.

I flew from Austin to Rome via New York, where I watched on Italian television as my nation bombed Afghanistan’s daylights to “saving civilization itself.” By the time the Iraq War broke out in 2003, a country well aware of the phenomenon, it was estimated that half a million Iraqi children had perished as a result of US sanctions.

Bush would say, “You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is making a connection between Iraq and the war on terror,” in a rare and presumably unintended moment of clarity.

And while Bush, the president’s vice president and the recently deceased Dick Cheney, who were much more serious about producing threats to justify war forever, were on his side as well. He may have been better known for his grammatical incompetence than for his ability to instill existential fear in Americans.

Barack Obama, a premature Nobel Peace Prize winner, who managed to drop no fewer than 26, 172 bombs on seven different nations, succeeded Bush as the leader of the world superpower.

Yemen was one of these nations, where Obama’s illegal drone strikes had already claimed the lives of Yemeni weddinggoers. In the first 100 days of his presidency, Donald Trump changed the rules to allow the military to “authorize strikes without running them through the White House security bureaucracy first,” according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Joe Biden, who previously served as president between the two Trump administrations, distinguished himself during his term in office by expanding Washington’s historically egregious support for the massacres of Palestinians to fund a total genocide in the Gaza Strip with the aid of US taxpayers’ billions.

Israel, which jumped on the “war on terror” bandwagon right away after 9/11, is now killing Palestinians in Gaza under the guise of a Trump-brokered ceasefire.

Trump’s resumption of control over world-wide “counterterror” operations has been underscored by even less restraint this time around, as his newly renamed Department of War deliberately bombs boats off Venezuelan waters and extrajudicially murders the people on board.

Trump can’t seem bothered to waste too much time creating a veneer of legality, preferring to fling about absurd claims of Venezuelan “narcoterrorism” and oil “theft,” as the US did in the old Bush-Cheney days.

A man’s spontaneous and haphazard bombing of Iran, Yemen, Syria, and other locations resembles his pathological stream-of-consciousness style of discourse, is now increasingly being used to control the US military might.

One cannot help but think of those unfortunate “marching orders” that sparked the beginning of the 21st century as we enter the second half of a country already defined by the disastrous legacy of US militarism: “My fellow Americans, let’s roll.”

Life in Gaza is still divided between Israel’s killing machine and the world’s growing indifference. Another year has passed. Our unique calendar of death, destruction, and loss has been expanded to this year.

In a March article, I expressed my concern that Israel might pursue its genocide even further than it had already done. And it succeeded. Israel exceeded even my worst fears, achieving unfathomable levels of evil. That evil made our entire year in Gaza special.

I saw a lot of people posting recaps of their favorite 2025 moments, so I thought I’d share my own version. What did this year look like to me?

The brief brief respite from the bombs was insufficient for us to mentally process the 15 months of continuous killing and destruction that had come before it.

I had the opportunity to meet many of the Palestinian prisoners who had been freed as a result of the ceasefire and hear their gruesome accounts of how the Israeli army had forcibly taken them out in February. Antar al-Agha, my high school teacher, was one of them. I was shocked when I first saw him. He couldn’t even stretch his arm to touch me because he was so pale and gaunt.

He described how long he spent in the Israeli detention facility’s “scabies room,” an area that was intended to house scabies. I finally had the opportunity to wash my hands at one dawn, but it didn’t come as a relief. The skin began to peel as though it were a hot boiled potato once the water touched my hand. My hands were covered in blood. He recalled how he could still feel the pain.

More than 400 people were killed in a single blow in the middle of the month as a result of Israel’s continued genocide in March. It obstructed all crossings into the Strip.

The first signs of widespread starvation started to appear in April.

I and my family were forced to leave our home in eastern Khan Younis in May by the Israeli army.

Israel had already arranged a new, inventive form of mass murder and humiliation, cynically dubbed the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” by the end of that month. This organization began providing food to afflicted Palestinians through “hunger games,” which was established with the assistance of the United States.

I also went to a GHF point in June because I was extremely hungry. I witnessed my people scurrying for food on the scorching hot sand. A young man hid behind another person to defend himself from bullets, I witnessed. Over a kilogram of flour, I witnessed young men slit each other’s throats.

My house and the entire neighborhood were completely flattened by the Israeli army in July.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) made the official announcement that Gaza was experiencing a famine in August. Then, not even flour, was left over for us to consume. Red lentils or rice bird feed were being ground to make thin-layered bread. That was my only meal of the day, a portion.

The Israeli army mandated yet another large displacement of Gaza’s northern and southern populations in September, putting hundreds of thousands of people in agony of having to relocate once more.

Another ceasefire agreement was made public in October. I was then unable to feel anything. I already felt depressed for losing my home, my entire city, and many of my close friends and relatives. Due to the oppressive conditions of displacement, I lost both of my freelance content writing contracts.

I was well aware that Israel would not adhere to its side of the truce, and that this would not be the end alligator.

My suspicions were confirmed in November. Israel continued to bomb us. The genocide has just been replaced by a less violent, loud, and intense murder campaign. The so-called “yellow line” was constantly expanding and evicting more and more land, including what was left over in my neighborhood, as the Israeli land-grabbing continued. Governments in that month chose to denounce Israel’s ceasefire violations and instead lavish it with benefits, such as a $35 billion gas deal, making the world’s indifference even more acute.

The brutal winter of December flooded tents and collapsed buildings. Hypothermia began to cause babies’ deaths.

My trip to the GHF site would be the one thing that would make a year of misery disappear from my memory. What I saw there was, in my opinion, the highest level of evil. When I pass by locations I passed on the way to the GHF site and back, I still can’t shake the fear I feel.

As I wander the rain-soaked, confined alleys of my tent camp today, I wonder why all these people continue to cling to life despite having lost their homes, jobs, and loved ones.

It’s not a hope, as far as I’m aware; instead, it’s a mix of surrender and helplessness.

Perhaps it’s because time has slowed down in Gaza. The present, the future, and the past all occur at once in this place.

Time is not flying; it is not an arrow here. There are endless episodes of horrifying agony between beginning and end in a circle that combines beginnings and ends.

The tragedy in Gaza does not differ from the fundamental laws of physics, which make no distinction between the present and the past.

The opposite direction’s movement of a pendulum has the same energy and momentum as its right-to-left movement. The past and future cannot be identified unless we start the process.

In Gaza, where the future influences the past or where the effects are before the causes, I recently started making fun of the idea of retrocausality. I can picture how Israeli planes might bomb buildings when they collapse on their own, but as we watch them crumble, we can see how they will eventually crumble.

Of course, one could argue that in Gaza, buildings are still collapsing because Israeli bombardment had already done so. However, it is also true that Israel continues to bomb Palestinian homes. It is not beyond the imagination to imagine how Palestinian rubble will be destroyed in the future by an Israeli bomb because the same building would be bombed and rebuilt over and over again.

We in Gaza are terrified of what lies ahead as the world prepares for a new year and a better future. We are caught between a future and a past that we don’t dare to imagine.

Because we have no control over our lives, we are unable to even make New Year’s resolutions.

Israel might block all food from entering Gaza again because I want to eat less sugar.

Although I want to learn to swim, Israel might shoot me if I venture into the water.

My back yard needs to be replanned, but I’m not even close to doing so.

Although Israel forbids us from traveling, I want to take my mother to Umrah and to Masjid al-Haram, Mecca’s Great Mosque.

The only New Year’s resolution I can probably make is to get used to the cold showers. Having no gas and firewood might make that wish much simpler.

There is nothing to plan for in Gaza, but everything to aspire to.

A senior military officer in Bashar al-Assad’s regime, who had leaked hours of leaked audio recordings, spoke about plans and efforts to destabilize Syria, and suggested cooperation with Israel.

More than 74 hours of leaked audio recordings and hundreds of pages of documents were uncovered during the investigation, which is scheduled for broadcast on the program Al-Mutahari, or The Investigator, on Wednesday evening.

The senior officers in charge of the notorious Quwwat al-Nimr (Tiger Forces), an elite division of the former regime, are implicated in the leaks, particularly Suheil al-Hassan, the brigadier-general.

Israel will support you, promise you.

Following the ousting of al-Assad, these officers attempted to regroup, gather funding, and seize weapons to undermine stability in the nation.

A source whose identity is revealed in the leaks as a hacker or intermediary is heard confirming al-Hassan’s support in one of the most significant recordings.

The source tells al-Hassan, “The State of Israel will stand with you with all of its capabilities.”

According to al-Hassan, “There is a level higher than me, Mr. Rami is the one who coordinates.” Additionally, I have sensitive intelligence.

A lightning offensive by allied rebel groups, led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa, put an end to the Assad dynasty’s 54-year rule, forcing Bashar al-Assad into Russian exile, in a year.

Israel, however, seized on the instability by significantly escalating its military assault on Syria, occupying more of Syria’s Golan Heights, bombing Damascus, and launching an assault on the country’s largest airport in July, and launching a rocket attack against its neighbor.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), Israel has launched nearly two air, drone, or artillery attacks across Syria over the past year, averaging nearly two per day.

The coast’s feeling

Ghiath Dalla, a former brigadier-general in al-Assad’s forces, who appears to support al-Hassan’s status as a representative of the regime’s traditional strongholds, is also on the recordings.

According to Dalla, “My Master, Suheil the Tiger, spoke the feeling of the entire mountain and the entire coast,” referring to the coastal and mountainous regions that have long been regarded as the family’s backbone.

Additionally, the conversations that were leaked show al-Hassan’s disapproval of recent events, known as “the flood.”

According to al-Hassan in the recording, “Our prayers for you all are that this foolishness, this evil, and this blackness called the flood ends.”

investigation conducted on air

The Investigator, which is hosted by Jamal el-Maliki, will cover the entire course of the plot in detail in its upcoming episode.