The Region

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Things are not improving for the residents of Gaza. In particular there is an Israeli policy of refusing to allow aid or food or fuel for producing potable water through the checkpoints. Added to that, residents keep dying when they're shot or blown up.

On a point of information, there are no living Israeli hostages in Gaza any longer, the last living hostage was released some weeks ago. Hamas now has forty or so corpses which were taken into Gaza to be held for ransom. I take exception to calling the corpses hostages. I suggest all future mention of hostages in Gaza should be taken as references to the resident population.

I also note that in Friday, after the assassination of a dozen or so Iranians in Tehran, 200 IDF aircraft started blowing up infrastructure in Iran. The commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, the commander of the Khatam al-Anbia Central Headquarters (the most important strategic IRGC military command body in Iran), the head of the IRGC's Air Defence, Ali Shamkhani, a close security aide to Khamenei, the successor to Qassem Soleimani as Quds Force commander, and a half dozen scientists employed by the Iranian government, died in these attacks, all with the credibly alleged agreement of the White House administration. The Pentagon was sufficiently engaged with the bombings last night that its local Pizza delivery shops were noticeably busier than usual in the hours leading up to the explosions. This is apparently a recognized signal that events are about to unfold.