Beggared and Battered The Islamic Republic Believes It is In Charge

"[The United States must agree to a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the] war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq]."

Iranian Security Chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr 

 

"[Hormuz’s reopening had] nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman."

"[The] enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait."

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 

 

"[We condemn the] hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) with a missile while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz, [despite that the attack occurred] without causing casualties."

United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry

 

"[We condemn] repeated attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz."

"Ongoing negotiations regarding navigation arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz are proceeding in a positive and constructive atmosphere. [We urge against any actions that might jeopardize the progress]."

Omani Foreign Ministry

 

"We are low-keying it."

"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money."

"It will work out. It's like a chess game."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump  

"

A man walks in front of a wall mural in Tehran, Iran, on August 6, 2026. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

 

"We currently have no negotiations with the United States. Intermediaries are still making efforts to find ways to resume negotiations. From our perspective, there can be no resumption of talks until the United States ends its violations of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and makes amends for the breaches it has committed."

"Until the violations of the memorandum of understanding by the United States are ended and the United States does not make amends for what it has violated, in our opinion, there is no possibility of resuming negotiations." 

"Of course, this [agreement with Oman] does not mean the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. This agreement may be reached, but the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is subject to a series of conditions." 

"The opening of the Strait is subject to other conditions, including the compensation for the US's violations of the Islamabad Agreement." 

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi  

"I try to remind people that we're really in the middle of the game here."

"[The question is whether Iran will be able] to give the things that are necessary for us to be happy, for us to feel like we've gotten what we need out of this particular engagement."

"What we're really working through now is how you can actually set up a traffic scheme so that the ships that pass can pass through safely."

U.S. Vice-President, J.D. Vance  

Battered and bruised, many of its key government figures, including the Grand Ayatollah, high-placed members of the Iranian military, nuclear scientists, IRGC officials were targeted and eliminated in the February aerial attacks coordinated between the U.S. and Israel. Iranian shipping and military fleets were bombed, its aircraft destroyed, nuclear facilities bombed as well as government offices, communications were hit and the country's munitions stockpiles destroyed. What wasn't destroyed is the arrogant assumptions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that despite these massive losses, they remain 'in charge'. 

 

They engineered a response, though considered by analysts prior to its implementation as a possibility, that was a stroke of Byzantine economic/military genius; blocking the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping as a critical gateway from the Middle East to the rest of the world dependent for their energy supplies and agricultural fertilizers. Holding the Strait hostage to the world's dependency on this energy lifeline represented a clever move to squeeze the political fortunes of a foreign government that 'won' a war and lost the rewards of its aftermath through sheer economic gangsterism.

 

That 'conquered' nation whose economy is in tatters, whose military infrastructure is in huge upheaval, whose population prays for its downfall still managed to terrorize its neighbours in destructive bombardments of their territories housing U.S. military assets, in targeting their oil depots, in threatening that for every U.S. military move on Iranian assets in reaction to Iran's intransigence for refusing to be defeated, has demonstrated its cunning manoeuvres counteracting the 'victory' of a much more powerful military. 

 

A small boat sails past cargo ships and other commercial vessels anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP) | AP

 

Iran, the defeated, yet actively defiant assailant of its own people, of its neighbours, has delivered an ultimatum to the world's most powerful nation: do as we demand or your victory will turn to the dust of history's recounting of a debacle of unforeseen consequences. Just as the Islamic Republic demands reparations from the very neighbours it has pounded time and again with missiles and drones in retaliation for their having acceded to hosting U.S. military emplacements, to prod its nemesis, the United States, to rethink its flawed efforts to bring down the regime, it now demands the same from the U.S.

 

Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, has issued a list of new demands, emphasizing that the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened to international marine traffic until such time as the United States "corrects its behaviour" by adhering to the following:

• The United States must never again threaten Iran;
• The United States must permanently end its war with Iran and its regional armed proxies;
• The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports;
• The U.S. must withdraw its military from the area;
• The U.S. must completely compensate Iran for war damages;
• The U.S. must life sanctions and unconditionally release Iran's frozen assets.

Separately, Iran has been negotiating a stand-alone agreement with Oman to manage the Strait running between the two countries' borders. The waterway's reopening rests on other conditions, including the stalemate resulting from the U.S. violation of the interim deal signed in June to end sanctions and plan on compensation as part of a final agreement, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.  

 

Iran's UN envoy demanded full reparations from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Jordan, accusing them of facilitating unlawful armed attacks and breaching international obligations that led to significant material and moral damage to the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Tasnim News Agency

More recently, an Abu Dhabi state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company vessel while transiting the Strait was attacked, according to Emirati authorities. A reflection of Iran's tendency to fire missiles on commercial shipping as it seeks to 'privatize' the formerly international waterway by imposing stiff tariffs for passage through the Strait, paid directly to the Islamic Republic. The tentative agreement with Oman would see that country too exacting tariffs for safe passage through its side of the waterway. 

 

According to ADNOC, over a dozen of its vessels have been hit by missiles and drones while  transiting the Strait, since the war on Iran was launched in February. In that time, one crew member was killed and twenty others wounded. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center confirmed that a vessel east of Khasah, Oman, was struck by a projectile causing a fire which the  crew put out. 

 

Iran demands US reparations and Hormuz control in latest peace proposal. (Photo: FILE) / Reuters

 

 

North America Gripped by Wildfires

"In Canada, temperatures have increased by more than one degree Celsius, and in the north, where those fires are having huge consequences, many of those areas have warmed more than two degrees Celsius."

"Doing those improvements [suppression and Indigenous burning practices] isn't going to stop wildfires."

"We are going to be living with more and more fire on our landscape."

Lori Daniels, professor of forest and conservation sciences, University of British Columbia

 

"Thinning and prescribed burning helps us with some particularly problematic components of that fuel equation."

"[Instead of doing what's needed], the fuels have just continued to accumulate [for lack of budgets, commercial markets, liability concerns and insufficient numbers of trained professionals]."

John Bailey, associate forestry professor, Oregon State University 

 

"There are ways that we're having to pay that debt [of tardy forest management]: We're getting bigger fires, more extreme fires, a lot of smoke."

"If we want to pay down the debt, we have to invest in restoration." 

"Even if Canada was doing everything right with climate change, there are things that are going to burn hotter and more aggressively than they used to."

Robert Bonnie, former undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, U.S Department of Agriculture

 

"The United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air."

"[This is] wilful negligence. [Canada is] not properly maintaining [its forests]."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Firefighters and first responders wait in line for dinner at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center which is being utilized as a base camp for firefighters on August 5, 2026 in Spokane, Washington. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 

Wildfires are ablaze in Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California and Utah, placing communities, building infrastructures and residential homes -- not to mention the firefighters dispatched to fight those blazes, at high risk. In Canada too, there are wildfires in Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories, and the worst-hit of the Canadian provinces, British Columbia. Smoke wafts everywhere, a threat to human health. Just as the smoke from Quebec and Ontario wildfires float over to the northern U.S. States, smoke from wildfires in Colorado, Oregon and Washington State waft over to British Columbia.

 

Smoke from Canadian boreal forest fires swept into the United States, resulting in air quality alerts for over 120 million Americans. Air quality in New York and Chicago was heavily compromised with smog blanketing their regions. Canada was accused by four Republican lawmakers of failing to prevent wildfire smoke from covering areas in the United States; that "continued inaction" was "unacceptable", they huffed in concert with President Trump's fuming condemnations. 

 

 

 

The U.S. President threatened new levies once again, this time imposed as punishment for the smoke Canada has allowed to drift over the U.S. He more recently announced the finalization of his plan to punish Canada for the smoke. This interpretation of natural events has forest management experts declaring the oversimplification of a complicated problem by the Trump administration. Robert Bonnie, for one, points out that the president's own decision-making has cut Forest Service capacity and  resources, under-investing in fire prevention and restoration.

 

Despite that both countries are facing similar fire pressures, Canada's forests are for the most part public lands that provinces and territories manage. There are far more private forestlands in the United States, with a fragmented federal-state system prevailing. And, as Lori Daniels of the University of British Columbia points out, both countries make use of similar suppression tools even while Canada has far more forest, fewer people and remote boreal areas where wildfires ignited by lightning can be dreadfully difficult to reach.

 

Residents look toward the Bald Range wildfire. (Jay Bertagnolli/CBC)

 

Thinning and prescribed burns are fundamental to fuel management in forests; reducing ladder and surface fuels to make it more difficult for fires to reach up to the mass of forest crowns, spreading the fires with the help of prevailing winds. "Thinning and prescribed burning helps us with some particularly problematic components of that fuel equation", pointed out Oregon State University's John Bailey.

 

The U.S., he points out, has been tardy to adapt that methodology at the required pace and scale, partially as a result of weak commercial markets for small-diameter wood, along with local and state smoke rules. "The fuels have just continued to accumulate", as a result, he added. Both countries, points out Lori Daniels, must move toward forest management, reflecting the hotter drier conditions of today's natural environment. 

 

The areas so susceptible to wildfires have seen multi-year droughts, and since Indigenous burning practices were banned while suppression took its place as the dominant policy, forests grew denser. "I don't think the problem is forest management. I think the problem is climate", stated Jonathan Boucher, researcher at the Canadian Forest Service. While he agrees that thinning out trees, adding fuel breaks, conducting prescribed burning, and producing defensible spaces near communities can be of help, they would not stop every fire. 

 

BCWS crews battling the Bald Range wildfire overnight.  Photo: BCWS

 

"Our agencies work together. We're going to throw smoke your way. You're going to throw smoke our way."

"Let's work together to make sure we can restore our forests in a way that we can contain this problem going forward."

Robert Bonnie, associate forestry professor, Oregon State University 

Poland, Building a Resilient Defence System Against Russian Expansion

"This is a watershed moment in the history of both Poland and the European Union [with the signing of the Security Action for Europe defence budget]."

"Poland will be safer in these difficult and highly risky times."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (May 2026), Warsaw

 

"Poland has long warned the rest of Europe of Russia's expansionist ambitions, even when other EU leaders weren't always willing to listen."

"Poland sees itself as a guarantor of regional security along the EU and NATO's eastern frontier, including the more vulnerable Baltic states. 

"[Poland's history with Nazi and Communist occupations has made its leaders] wary of being caught unprepared for foreign aggression."

"NATO's resolve is the single biggest deterrent to a westward expansion of the current conflict. Poland led the way at the start of the full-scale [Russian]invasion of Ukraine by supplying weaponry to the Ukrainians, that some said would lead to 'escalation'."

"[A key indicator of the program's success] will be a strong and sovereign Ukraine, because stability to Poland's east is inseparable from Poland's own."

Dominic Roszak, president, Canadian Polish Congress

Poland is spending more on defence than any other large EU nation. / WIKI COMMONS

 

With mysterious cyberattacks on Polish railways and hospitals; drones and missiles straying across Polish borders; jets scrambling to intercept Russian aircraft over the Baltic, it is more than obvious to Polish politicians that the imperative for deterrence is here and now, not at some indeterminate time in the future when it might face an existential crisis. Now, a European Union loan has enabled Warsaw to commit close to 44 billion euros toward upgrading its military infrastructure.

 

Poland has become the largest single beneficiary of Security Action for Europe's 150-billion-euro defence budget to modernize its military, expand its domestic arms sector and reward Polish companies collaborating with defence manufacturers. Poland has long plannede to commit 4.8 percent of the Nation's GDP to defence. Poland's link with Canada will see them pursue "joint projects involving emerging technologies", according to the Canadian Department of National Defence.

 

Poland is investing billions in a major military build-up to deter Russia, strengthen NATO and bolster European security. Photo by WOJTEK RADWANSKI /AFP via Getty Images

 

"For us, safety -- or I would say lack of safety - is a very present topic. It started long before the full state invasion of Russia to Ukraine."

"Russia has been always a threat for centuries. And we know that there is not much needed for Russia to be encouraged to attack again, either us or Baltic states."

Natalia Walsh Iwaszko, former vice consul economic affairs, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Toronto  

According to Minister Bartosz Grodecki, head, National Security Bureau of the Republic of Poland, in the almost 30 years in NATO, Poland has "transformed from a recipient of security to a creator of it". Poland, he stated, is aware that in "the event of an attack,the costs of a defensive operation and the consequences of wartime destruction will be far greater than those incurred in building a resilient defence system." 

 

As a result of the current paradigm shift and the consequent reconstruction of the international order, Poland is taking massive action to ensure its national and international security.  fondapol.org

 

"[Poles today] are conscious of bad things happening. It's a part of Polish history ... So they are attuned to kind of, better be prepared, and prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and work for the best."

"Reliance on America for moneys [sic] and/or sophisticated systems, which need constant replacement and upgrading [is precarious and unpredictable] with [U.S. President] Donald Trump being Donald Trump." 

David Lesperance, Lesperance & Associates, Gdynia, Baltic port city, northern Poland 

The 'Unnoticed' Presence of Islamist Terror Groups in Canada

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

"Those allegations [accusations of paramilitary group Kata'ib Hezbollah linked to the IRGC] include two attacks here in Canada; the March 10 shooting at the United States consulate in Toronto and an attack against a Canadian synagogue."

"He [Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi] also allegedly said he was running multiple teams and sought help carrying out further attacks against Jewish and other targets in Canada and the United States." 

"There is no justification for the delay [in placing the group with Canada's terrorist list]."

"Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats."

"Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil." 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Parliamentary opposition

Counter-rally against the Al-Quds day event in Toronto  The Hub

 

The Liberal government of Canada -- under both prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney -- has failed to stem the duress under which Canadian Jews have found themselves over the past three years, assailed verbally and physically, threatened and slandered by 'pro-Palestinian' groups in Canadian society led by Palestinian student groups supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran and funded by Qatar. Led by the fundamentalist Islamist focus on jihad. This is a jihad that penetrates Western society through sanctimoniously disingenuous diplomacy that government cannot see through, and the violent jihad of the terrorist battlefield. 

 

While moderate Islamic governments in the Middle East recognize the Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots and associates for the threat they represent not only to the West but to their own governance and security, and have taken steps to outlaw it, the West is amenable to its presence, its infiltration through ingratiating itself as a reasonable, moderate representative of Islam to be respected and heeded as a portal to understanding and welcoming the presence of inordinate numbers of Muslims through immigration, refugee intake and migrant presence. 

 

The little-recognized presence of terrorist groups within Western society working to undermine democracy and to silence critics and opponents present the other side of penetrative jihad. These groups, like the members of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps whose presence in Canada affront and concern Canadian Iranians who fled their brutal dictatorial rule in Iran, operate with impunity, with little-to-no 'notice' taken of the menace they represent, by Canada's Liberal government.

 

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pointed out to Canada's Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree through a letter, that American authorities arrested Mohammad Baqer Saad Daewood Al-Saadi, senior commander of Kata'ib Hezbollah, accused of coordinating dozens of attempted and completed terrorist attacks in Europe and North America. 

 

Founded in 2007, Kata'ib Hezbollah, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, has some 7,000 to 10,000 members. They operate primarily in Iraq with a purported presence in Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. They were listed in 2009 as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Mr. Poilievre asked the Minister of Safety to investigate whether operatives for the group have established networks in Canada. To further investigate linkages between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime. 

 

Further, that it be disclosed the number of operatives connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies that have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed from Canada. Previously Minister Anandasangaree, pressed by the opposition why the government had deported only one Iranian official from among the dozens known to be present in Canada, the minister cited a requirement to follow due process, to explain the delay. The reality is that of 24 individuals identified as former IRGC officials, one only has been deported.

 

Iran-Inspired Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto    The Hub

 

The Liberals have failed to enforce Canada’s terrorist laws with the urgency and strength Canadians expect. Parliament did not list terrorist entities merely to put their names on a government website. Canadians expect their laws to be enforced to the fullest extent: terrorist assets frozen and seized, financing networks dismantled, and operatives stopped at the border or removed from the country. Yet Canadians have seen little evidence of serious enforcement against the IRGC and other listed terrorist groups threatening our people, our communities and our national interests. A terrorist listing is only as strong as the action that follows it.

Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats. Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil.

A year-long Global News investigation reported that upwards of 700 Iranian regime-linked associates were operating in Canada and threatening the lives of Canadians. The RCMP subsequently acknowledged receiving reports of foreign interference committed by, or at the direction of, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Canadians deserve to know who these individuals are, how they entered Canada and what your government is doing to remove those who pose a threat.

The IRGC was finally listed as a terrorist entity only after years of pressure from Conservatives. Even now, your government has been unable to tell Canadians how many IRGC operatives have been identified, denied entry or removed from the country.

Listing the parent organization means little if its commanders, proxies, financiers and hired criminals remain free to operate here.

You must therefore:

• Immediately list Kata’ib Hezbollah as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code;
• Investigate whether its members, operatives, facilitators or financial networks are operating in Canada;
• Disclose how many individuals connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed;
• Investigate and disclose any known links between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime in Canada; and
• Explain what action Canadian authorities are taking in response to the alleged Kata’ib Hezbollah-directed attacks in Toronto.

Canada must be a safe haven for Canadians, not for the terrorists, agents and proxies sent to silence the victims of the Iranian regime.

Canadians must be free to worship without fear of gunfire. Iranian Canadians must be free to oppose the regime without facing its enforcers here at home. All Canadians deserve a government that stops terrorists before they attack rather than making excuses after the damage is done.

Conservative Party of Canada  

Protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate by the U.S. Consulate during a rally for Al-Quds Day in Toronto, on Saturday, March 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

 

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave Allowing Criminals to Deceive

"[To deny him the chance to appeal] means he will suffer the 'unduly punitive effect' of removal from Canada based on guilty pleas that would not have been entered had he been properly informed, and deportation to a dangerous country he does not know and that does not want him."

"He and his family were declared Convention refugees by the United Nations in 2013 based on race-based attacks in Somalia, where his parents were born."

"Immigration proceedings leading to deportation were initiated against the applicant in 2024 because of his convictions, and he has since been found inadmissible to remain in Canada on grounds of serious criminality."

Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Kevin Feth 

 

"Mr. Sharif's criminal activities were both serious and dangerous to the public, in addition to the lack of evidence of rehabilitation and the difficulty following rules."

"I have reasonable ground to believe that Mr. Sharif represents a present and future danger to the Canadian public, whose presence in Canada poses an unacceptable risk."

Immigration Minister delegate

 

"My lawyer also told me that I likely would not be deported after pleading guilty because the charges were not serious."

"When I pled guilty to the charges, I did not know that a conviction for sexual assault or a sentence of more than six months would make me inadmissible in Canada and subject to deportation. I also did not know that if I was ordered removed by immigration officials, I would not be able to appeal that decision because I was a permanent resident and not a citizen."

Mahir Yahya Sharif 

The Court of Appeal building in Calgary. Photo by Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald/Postmedia

 

This man of Somalian heritage who had been given refugee status in Canada with his family when he was 19 years of age in 2019, pleaded guilty to trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl, and committing  sexual assault. The Alberta judge whom the man stood before with his legal team allowed himself to be convinced by the man's pleas that he should be given more time to appeal his convictions, through his argument that he had been misled by previous legal advice.

 

Mahir Yahya Sharif, a permanent resident of Canada at the time of his 2022 conviction, having served three years for drug and sex crimes, now faces deportation to Somalia, having been declared a danger to Canada by the Department of Immigration. After his parents fled to Saudi Arabia from Somalia, Sharif was born there, in 1999. His first language is Arabic, speaking no Somali. The claim is that his substance abuse began after his arrival in Canada, exacerbating his history of schizophrenia.

 

He was returned to custody in 2024 when he breached his parole conditions, placed in the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatchewan. Claiming his English to be too poor for him to fully comprehend the language and portent of the immigration documents he was given by an immigration officer when he was told to respond by April 2025, Justice Feth is in complete sympathy with a man whose criminal record is serious and who was purportedly unable to master English in his years of residence in Canada. 

 

Justice Feth took issue with the Immigration Department delegate who "found a 'less than reasonable chance' that the applicant would be at risk if returned to Somalia, and that any humanitarian and compassionate considerations for his continued residency in Canada were outweighed by the danger he posed to the public". He had been transferred into the Custody of the Canada Border Services Agency in Ontario, awaiting deportation scheduled for June of 2025. 

 

He was to be deported to Nairobi, Kenya from whence he would be left to travel on to Somalia, since officials in Somalia informed Canadian officials that they were not prepared to accept him (or anyone else with a mental health condition). The Canadian Federal Court dismissed Sharif's application for a judicial review of the report by the ministerial delegate. Sharif applied for  judicial review of the Immigration Minister's refusal to accede to a request by the UN Human Rights Committee that Canada suspend the man's removal.

 

The appeal of that decision was also dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, leading Sharif to apply to the Albert Court of Appeal for more time to appeal his convictions. Justice Feth took issue with the delegate failing to touch on "Somalia's corresponding refusal to issue him travel documents ... the CBSA's decision not to accompany him to Somalia, contrary to CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) policy, and ... evidence about Al-Shabaab posing a significant and growing security risk in Mogadishu contrary to the author's conclusion that the group has not had a presence in Mogadishu in over a decade and poses minimal risk."

 

"The decision to remove Mr. Sharif given his mental health condition and concomitant needs is harsh", stated Justice Feth, noting that Sharif plans to apply for leave to appeal the outcome of his Ontario Court of Appeal case to the Supreme Court of Canada.  

 

The Rebel 

 

"You Can Choose Light and Choose Life"

"Then they shot at us. The car lost control, flipped over and  stopped. The doors were locked. We realized we couldn't get out, so we got out from the windows. The moment I landed on the ground, I was shot at point blank range."

"What good are your [United Nations] resolutions, your debates, your empty promises, if the sick, elderly, mothers and their children are left to rot in the terror tunnels?"

Israeli Hamas hostage Mia Schem

Chaim Otmazgin, one of the first ZAKA volunteers to arrive at the scene of the Nova massacre, forces himself to share the horrific stories because he ‘promised the bodies’ he would be their mouthpiece. Lisa Hostein; Photos of those who were murdered or abducted dot the landscape of the Nova music festival site. Yael Ilan

 

At the Nova Music Festival in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023, then-21-year-old Mia Schem, along with her friend Elia Toledano fled when "red alert" sirens sounded, with rockets from Gaza flying overhead. Twenty minutes driving away from the festival location failed to bring them to safety. When Mia Schem was shot as she emerged from the toppled car, she realized that pieces of her right hand were "flying into the air". She was was in the presence of burning cars, scattered bodies of the young festival-goers.

 

She made a split-second decision, her survival instinct directing her to "walk toward the terrorists", reasoning that to do so, might be her only chance of survival. "I was dragged by my hair into a truck with seven Hamas monsters", she recalled. Held captive initially in a private home in Gaza, she was later transferred to the Hamas' infamous tunnel system. There, she was placed in a small cage: "They treated me like an animal. They didn't give me any medicine, any treatment, nothing".

 

 A grab from a UGC video posted on Telegram on October 9, 2023, shows an armed Palestinian terrorist walking around the Supernova music festival, with a body behind him, near Kibbutz Re’im in the Negev desert in southern Israel (ANONYMOUS / AFP)

 

Held in this manner for 55 days, she was eventually released on November 30, 2023. The body of her friend, Elia Toledano, was returned to Israel several months later. A year afterward, while around a hundred hostages remained in captivity in Gaza, she addressed the United Nations Security Council, where she informed them that the Nova Festival was "a bloodbath". There, "hundreds of young men and women were shot, dismembered, raped and kidnapped".   

"I choose gratitude. Gratitude for the simple things. For waking up every morning. For breathing."

"For being able to hug my family. To be with my family."

"The most important thing I want people to understand is captivity didn't end the day I came home. My body came back, but part of my heart and soul is still there."
"Every day I make the choice to get  up and keep going, to live. I don't want people to remember me only as a hostage."

"I want them to remember me as a woman who chose life after everything I went through."

Mia Schem 

Screen capture from video of Hamas terrorist Muhammad Abu Aseed celebrates as he abducts IDF soldier Naama Levy on October 7, 2023.

 

During the time of her seemingly endless loss of normalcy, hope never left her tormented mind. She strove to be herself, to believe in herself, and to believe in others, and that some day she would be released, she would be reunited with her family, and she would go on to live her life, forever altered as it would be. In her dank, airless captivity, caged and incapable of normal movement, she turned to daily singing of Shir Lamaalot (A Song of Ascents), for comfort and to remind herself that she would surmount the trauma of what she had borne and witnessed.   

"I hope people understand what my story is. That my story is not only an Israeli story or Jewish story. It is a human story."

"Terrorism doesn't choose a religion and nationality, or skin colour. When we stay silent in the face of hatred and violence, everyone loses."

"I hope people will choose the trust, choose compassion, and the courage to stand with innocent people, and most of all, I want them to remember that there is always hope, even in the  darkest place."

"You can choose light and choose life." 

Mia Schem  

Screams Before Silence, October 7

 

France's Summer of Wildfire Discontent

The wildfire turns the sky red over Lake Moutchic in Lacanau. The popular tourist destination had to be shut down. Photograph: Sapte Fabrice/Abaca/Shutterstock

 

"I hear the anger and  understand the anger today but we're not in a place to analyze what happened yet."

"The resources were available, but the fire was out of control. It was spreading in all directions." 

"[The worst damage occurred at night, when water-bombing aircraft cannot fly to the firefighters' aid] yet with fires like this, aerial support is essential."

"Then there were tactical decisions to be made. Were the right vehicles used at the right time?"

"The conditions this year are totally exceptional. We’ve never seen anything like this. You can always say it’s not enough, we’ve not got adequate resources, enough planes, or whatever, but the scale is completely beyond anything we’ve seen before."

Le Porge Mayor Martial Zaninetti 

 

"It was a short circuit or something of that nature [a spark from a faulty machine being used by workers cleaning a high-tension cable had just ignited a fierce blaze] and immediately everything went up because it’s all so dry. The guys there tried to use a fire extinguisher but it was too intense. My guys basically ran for their lives and by the time the fire brigade turned up it was huge."

"The authorities should have stopped all work in the forest. Someone got their priorities wrong."

Nicolas Di Domenico, local public works contractor 

 

"We feared this for a long time, and were warning about the planes specifically since 2017."

"This summer has shown we have reached the extreme limit of what is possible for France’s firefighters."

Sebastien Delavoux, head, firefighting section, CGT union  

Avenue du Bassin d'Arcachon in Le Porge, France, seen Thursday, is the worst-hit street in the small town of 3,500 where 183 homes have burned in the Gironde wildfire near Bordeaux. (Verity Stevenson/CBC)

 

The French countryside west of Bordeau is burning. Residents of LePorge are furious in their belief their homes were 'sacrificed' so that other homes in the wealthy nearby Cap Ferret peninsula could be saved. When the Gironde prefect arrived to meet with the Le Porge mayor in a village where 12 percent of its 1,500 buildings went up in flames, a man hurled abuse at the prefect. "Now is not the time to play the blame game", said Sophie Brocas, as police and security led her from the town's community hall, while en route to the next blaze, a helicopter whirred overhead.

 

The locals of the village who witnessed 183 of their homes entirely consumed by the 42,000-hectare wildfire -- which had torched a total of 240 houses -- are livid, convinced that the inadequate support send to their area and the preferential aide sent to Cap Ferret with its millionaires' homes represented a political decision that led to a focus of early firefighting efforts at the peninsula. 

 

Coordinating volunteers aiding firefighters in the neighbouring village of Le Temple, Pierre Alexandre argued the region had not been given sufficient firefighting units and vehicles, and was thus 'sacrificed' to favour the well-heeled residents of Cap Ferret. "We should have distributed our resources better", he stated. 

 

Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas responded that the never-before-seen nature of the wildfire that changed direction unpredictably, made it impossible to predict when it would turn about and blow back toward La Porge, with the resulting devastating consequences. La Porge's 3,700 population failed to be convinced by that argument. Angry mistrust settled over the village where rows of ruined homes stood as silent accusing sentries.

 

None of the villagers cast any blame whatever at the firefighters, much less the volunteers who did what they could to augment the dangerous firefighting efforts alongside the firefighters. Residents set up improvised roadblocks, garbed themselves in fluorescent vests, on guard for potential opportunists looking to be able to loot abandoned homes after the owners rushed to escape the raging blaze. 

 

Villagers did what they could to cater food for hungry rescuers. "We found one firefighter sleeping in a ditch as a result of how tired  he was", said caterer Manu Goncalves in between offering portions of roast chicken to the volunteers and professional firefighters. "Here things were ablaze, while in Cap Ferret they weren't. Everyone went to Cap Ferret to protect that peninsula, even as things went up in flames here", said Theo Goncalves, in heated indignation.   

"[Residents ] felt abandoned [when the authorities diverted resources to Cap Ferret]."

"And that goes for everyone -- the volunteers, the firefighters, everyone."

Dorothe Benassy, La Porge municipal councillor  

A drone view shows burnt buildings in an area affected by a wildfire in Le Porge, Gironde, amid drought conditions following a heat wave and water shortages across much of France, on Tuesday. (Yves Herman/Reuters)