An Israeli cruise ship touring the Greek islands has faced repeated protests, culminating in nationwide demonstrations, as activists would denounce the Israeli regime’s war of genocide on the Gaza Strip and oppose provocative behavior by Israeli tourists.

The Crown Iris, making regular trips from the occupied port of Haifa to Athens and the Greek islands, has been met with protests at nearly every stop this summer, Drop Site News, an American investigative outlet, reported on Friday.

The 10-deck vessel, with a capacity of 2,000 passengers, includes a casino, a theater, a waterslide, and a basketball court.

Since late July, protests have targeted its route, with demonstrators waving Palestinian flags, lighting flares, and in some cases attempting to block its docking.

On July 22, more than 300 protesters confronted the ship on the island of Syros, leading to most passengers staying onboard.

Throughout the vessel’s tour around Greece, activists and organizers pointed to growing frustration over “a recurring pattern of Israeli tourist provocations,” sometimes involving off-duty Israeli forces, the website reported.

Locals and activists cited acts of incitement by the tourists, who would gloat over the Israeli regime’s genocidal aggression against Palestinians and its decades-old occupation of Palestinian territories.

Those actions included “tearing down pro-Palestinian posters in streets and shops or verbally and physically harassing people wearing keffiyehs (Palestinian headscarves) or pro-Palestine T-Shirts,” the report said.

‘We can’t have Greece become Israeli forces’ playground’

“What kind of simple, innocent tourist keeps” the Israeli regime’s flag “handy while traveling?” asked Petros, a 30-year-old construction worker.

“We can’t have Greece become a playground for IDF (Israeli military) soldiers… It’s also a matter of dignity,” he added.

Subsequent stops saw escalating confrontations.

On July 28 on the Rodos Island, the police arrested at least eight protesters. The following day in Agios Nikolaos, Crete, demonstrators broke police barricades, unfurled a massive Palestinian flag, and clashed with riot police, who used tear gas against them.

These actions formed part of broader mobilizations culminating on August 10, when organizers said tens of thousands demonstrated in more than 120 locations across Greece in one of the largest pro-Palestinian mobilizations in the country’s history.

March to Gaza, Greece – a pro-Palestinian body – initiated the call, declaring, “As millions of tourists flood the country, let’s make our presence visible and loud. Let’s turn islands, beaches, alleys, mountaintops, and shelters into places of solidarity, not relaxation for murdering IDF soldiers.”

Paris Laftsis, a 33-year-old member of the coordination team, said the turnout “exceeded the most optimistic expectations” and included both the largest demonstrations in decades and entirely new initiatives.

The protests were supported by such pro-Palestinian organizations as BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Greece and the Palestinian Community in Greece as well as dozens of local groups.

Press TV’s website

The Gaza Strip’s Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has denounced the Israeli regime’s latest plan to move civilians to the southern parts of the coastal sliver, calling it part of a wider campaign of aggression and forced displacement.

“The announcement by the occupying Zionist army about transferring tents to the south of the Gaza Strip is part of the savage aggression aimed at occupying Gaza City,” the group said in a statement early Sunday.

“It represents an open and brazen mockery of international charters and a flagrant insult to the so-called international institutions that claim to exist for protection of civilians and guaranteeing the rights of people under occupation.”

The movement stressed that driving people from their homes while they were already enduring hunger, bombardment, and mass displacement was nothing less than “an ongoing crime against humanity.”

The regime announced the “relocation” plan earlier, claiming that it sought to transfer the civilians to “safe” areas. This is while the United Nations and numerous human rights bodies have repeatedly warned that no place throughout the Palestinian territory was “safe” amid Tel Aviv’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

Prior to announcing the scheme, the regime had approved a plan to fully occupy the Gaza City, the Gaza Strip’s largest urban area that houses around one million Palestinians, who have fled to the city from the regime’s ferocious bombardments elsewhere.

The Islamic Jihad linked the regime’s atrocities in Gaza to the “daily crimes” taking place across the occupied West Bank. It was referring to raids, arrests, and incursions that continued there, alongside a surge in armed violence by the regime’s illegal settlers.

These acts, the group said, reflected two converging forms of brutality, namely organized violence by the regime and unrestrained violence of the settlers.

Both, it added, served the aim of driving Palestinians from their land and stripping them of even the most basic means of survival.

The statement also condemned the Israeli authorities’ move to freeze the accounts of the Orthodox Church in the occupied holy city of al-Quds. The Islamic Jihad described it as a step designed to solidify annexation and accelerate “Judaization,” while endangering both Islamic and Christian endowments and holy sites.

‘Unprecedented savagery’

According to the movement, Gaza was suffering not only from the regime’s relentless assault, but also from the paralysis of the international community, which had restricted itself to “repetitive statements,” while Tel Aviv was trying to impose new realities on the ground “with unprecedented savagery.”

The group warned that international silence amounted to complicity, emboldening “the criminal regime” to press forward with its war policies.

The statement urged “living forces and free peoples across the world” to raise their voices, reject these policies, and demand an end to aggression, settler terrorism, and the ongoing assault on the Palestinian people.

Press TV’s website

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has asserted the Iranian nation’s readiness to decisively stand up to the Islamic Republic’s adversaries and force them into submission as in the case of previous confrontations.

The Corps delivered the remarks in a statement on Sunday, marking the anniversary of the return of liberated prisoners of the war that was imposed by Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein on the country in the 1980s.

“Today, the Iranian nation, standing at the height of experience, faith, and multiplied strength, is prepared to crush any enemy front and any malicious plan against the security and future of its land,” it stated.

The Corps hailed the former POWs as “the true symbol of active resistance and strategic hope.”

The truth of the former servicemen’s triumph in the face of the then-adversary, the IRGC underlined, was also manifested in the nation’s victory during the eight-year war and the imposed Israeli-American war in June.

It was referring to the Iranian Armed Forces’ compelling the Iraqi aggressors to retreat amid overwhelming popular support as well as their prompting the Israeli regime to request a ceasefire on June 25, despite its having received unprecedented American support throughout the 12-day war.

The reality of the triumph, the Corps added, was also witnessed by the Palestinian resistance’s power and the Zionist regime’s and its American supporters’ successive defeats in the region.

‘Power that can bend biggest war machines’

The Corps further commended the former servicemen over their resilience that proved that “the power of faith, national unity, and revolutionary steadfastness can bring the biggest war machines and imperialist policies to their knees.

The IRGC, meanwhile, pledged to remain unbowed in its perpetual commitment to the ideals of Imam Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and the Iranian nation.

The Corps finally foresaw liberation of the regional peoples from Western-backed Israeli occupation and American military adventurism.

The prospect, it concluded, would “expand the geography of resistance to the horizon of ultimate triumph for the [global] Islamic Ummah [Nation]."

Press TV’s website

Oxfam says Israel has been deliberately blocking entry of humanitarian aid and life-saving supplies into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Chris McIntosh, spokesman for the global charity, said in remarks on Friday that obstacles facing aid organizations include bombings and drone attacks by Israeli forces who were now pushing ahead with the occupation of Gaza City.

But there is also the challenge of “a deliberate delay by Israel in allowing us to bring in aid”, he said.

“Israel is preventing us from bringing in generators, citing security concerns. Israel is using blocking tactics as a weapon to frustrate us in providing relief to the people of Gaza,” McIntosh added.

More than 100 organizations said the Israeli authorities had rejected requests from "dozens" of NGOs for life-saving aid to enter the blockaded Palestinian territory.

A statement signed by NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Save the Children, said Israel had denied the requests because the organizations were "not authorized to deliver aid", despite many of them having worked in Gaza for decades.

Consequently, millions of dollars' worth of food, medicine, water and shelter equipment are currently languishing in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, the NGOs said.

Separately, a report released on Friday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said nearly 13,000 children in the Gaza Strip were hospitalized in July due to severe malnutrition.

The United Nations human rights office has issued a stark warning over the Israeli regime’s latest illegal settlement expansion scheme in the occupied West Bank.

The plan, which envisions the construction of thousands of new settler units between an existing settlement and the outskirts of East al-Quds in the West Bank, flagrantly violates international law, the office said on Friday.

Smotrich’s declaration: 'Burying' the Palestinian state

On Thursday, extremist Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich reaffirmed his commitment to the project, saying it would “bury” the prospect of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the prison cell of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian political leader imprisoned since 2002.

In a statement released on Friday, Hamas said Ben-Gvir’s threat to Barghouti in the jail cell was “a cowardly display that reveals the occupation’s fascism and hostility to all human values”.

Ben-Gvir has posted video footage in which he is seen taunting Barghouti in jail. 

The intimidating message has drawn condemnation from the Palestinian resistance groups, rights advocates and political officials, who view it as a direct threat to Barghouti’s life.

Hamas said the vicious move by the hawkish Israeli minister will “strengthen the unity of the prisoner movement in the face of the policies of systematic repression and abuse practiced by the occupation’s prison administration”.

“This criminal behavior is an extension of the war crimes committed in the Sde Teiman prison, which witnessed horrific violations against prisoners, including doctors, nurses, and journalists,” the statement added. 

The resistance movement called on the UN and other international bodies to take urgent action to provide support to prisoners held in Sde Teiman and other notorious prisons.

Israeli authorities earlier said they had begun transferring prisoners from Sde Teiman, a former military base in the Negev desert, after rights groups demanded the closure of the site.

Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq also condemned the far-right Israeli minister's visit to the jail cell of Barghouti.

“There is no longer any meaning to brutality except in the form of one of the leaders of this inhumane entity,” he wrote on Telegram.

“A Zionist minister gathers his army, his guards, and the blood of his state and stands before a captive leader, shackled and isolated in solitary confinement, barely able to stand, and addresses him, saying: ‘You will not triumph over us!'” al-Risheq said.

The Hamas official said that desperate remarks by Ben-Gvir show Israel's failures during the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.

“If Ben-Gvir had been victorious in Gaza, he would not have said what he said. But this is the arrogance of a criminal who failed to achieve his goal, whose prestige was defeated, and whose reputation was tarnished by the shame of the ages,” he said.

Arrest warrant applications against extremist Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich on apartheid charges are complete, but remain unsubmitted at the International Criminal Court (ICC), amid fears of US sanctions and external pressures, a report has shown.

The applications are finalized and currently rest in the hands of two ICC deputy prosecutors, the Middle East Eye (MEE) news and analysis website reported on Friday.

If the warrants are issued, they would mark the initiation of the first international prosecution of apartheid.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan had prepared the cases before going on leave in May 2025.

An ICC source told MEE, "Those applications for the arrest warrants are completely done. The only thing that didn't happen was submitting them to the court."

Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang have the authority to submit the applications, but sources fear they may be shelved due to unprecedented external pressure, including American sanctions.

In February, the administration of President Donald Trump sanctioned Khan, and in June, it sanctioned four ICC judges, two of whom had approved arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister for military affairs, Yoav Gallant.

The secretary general of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has stressed that the resistance movement will not lay down its weapons until the Israeli occupation ends, warning that the Beirut government’s decision on disarmament could create civil strife.

He made the remarks in a speech on Friday on the occasion of Arba’een, the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam and the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in southern Iraq in 680 AD while resisting the much larger army of the despot Umayyad ruler of the time, Yazid.

“The resistance will not surrender its weapons as long as occupation persists and aggression continues,” Qassem said, and vowed that Hezbollah will continue to resist against “falsehood”, describing the US and Israel as the modern-day Yazid.

Referring to the latest decision made by the Lebanese cabinet on Hezbollah disarmament, Qassem said "The government is implementing an American order and serve the Israeli project.”

Hezbollah will fight against the US-Israeli project and “we are confident of victory”, he stated.

He held the Lebanese government “fully responsible for any strife that may occur”, saying “We don’t want it, but there are those who are working towards it.”

The Hezbollah chief warned the government against “dragging the army into internal strife”, saying the movements Hezbollah and Amal opted not to take to the streets after the decision, but he didn’t rule out protests, if no amendments were made.

“If confrontation is imposed, we are ready for it,” he said. 

The Hezbollah chief stressed that the decision, which stipulates stripping Lebanon and its resistance and people of defensive weapons against any aggression, means “facilitating the killing of the resistance fighters and their families as well as their expulsion from their homes”, stressing that the government should have expelled the Israeli troops from Lebanese territories instead.

He urged the cabinet to convene to discuss confronting the aggression and rebuilding the country, "not to hand over the country to an insatiable Israeli aggressor or an American tyrant with limitless greed".

Qassem added that the “very serious” decision violates the Lebanese constitution that stipulates that there is no legitimacy for any authority that contradicts the pact of mutual coexistence.

He emphasized that the government can’t strip the resistance’s weapons of legitimacy, saying the resistance derives its legitimacy from the Taif Agreement—negotiated in Saudi Arabia’s Taif in 1989, which ended the civil war in Lebanon— and the blood of its martyrs, “not from you”.

مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَیْنِ یَلْتَقِیانِ، بَیْنَهُما بَرْزَخٌ لا یَبْغِیانِ، فَبِأَیِّ آلاءِ رَبِّکما تُکذِّبانِ، یَخْرُجُ مِنْهُمَا اللُّؤْلُؤُ وَ الْمَرْجانُ(الرحمان: 19-22)

  :It is narrated in Sunni sources from Ibn Abbas that

«فی قوله مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَیْنِ یَلْتَقِیانِ قال علی و فاطمة بَیْنَهُما بَرْزَخٌ لا یَبْغِیانِ قال النبی(ص) یَخْرُجُ مِنْهُمَا اللُّؤْلُؤُ وَ الْمَرْجانُ قال الحسن و الحسین» Suyuti, 1404: 6/14; Haskani Hanafi, 1411: 2/284

A similar interpretation is quoted from Imam Sadiq (AS) who said: “Ali and Fatima are two deep seas, neither of which encroaches on the other, and from these two seas have emerged pearls and corals, namely Hassan and Hussein” (Qummi, 1367: 2/344). Of course, it should be said that “the verses of the Quran have an external and an internal meaning. For this reason, a verse may have several meanings, and what is mentioned in these narrations is from the inner meaning of the Quran, which has come from the infallible leaders and does not contradict its external meaning,” as some of them have also been mentioned in Sunni sources.

Nearly 40 days have passed since the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS)...
Arbaeen has arrived
With the victorious army of honor and the heirs of blood and light
As Arbaeen approaches, we must speak of Zainab
From the wounds and the sitting prayers that still remember her
Arbaeen is a new look at Ashura
And a new review of the long themes of the fiery sermons of the Aqeelah of Bani Hashim, Zainab the Great (AS)
And the liberating captive of Hazrat Sajjad (AS)