Karl Toriola, CEO of MTN Nigeria, has advocated for a 100% increase in tariffs to counter soaring operational costs driven by inflation and naira devaluation. Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Toriola explained that telecom operators have not adjusted prices in over a decade despite significant economic pressures.

“We at MTN believe we need a tariff adjustment of about 100%. The industry is aligned because we all face the same headwinds,” Toriola said. He noted that sectors such as aviation and power have already adjusted their prices, leaving telecommunications behind.

Toriola emphasized that the proposed hike would help ensure the sustainability of the telecoms industry and allow operators to maintain and improve service quality. He also highlighted Nigeria’s low data and voice tariffs, which he said are among the cheapest globally.

The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) warned on December 30, 2024, that operators might be forced to reduce services if tariffs are not reviewed urgently.

Subscribers Reject Proposed Tariff Increase

However, the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS) has strongly opposed the proposed hike, calling it “insensitive” and a burden on consumers already grappling with rising living costs.

Sources indicate that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) may have approved a 40% tariff increase starting January 2025, although the commission has yet to confirm this. Under the proposed adjustments:

• Voice calls would rise from ₦11.00 to ₦15.40 per minute.

• SMS charges would increase from ₦4.00 to ₦5.60.

• A 1GB data bundle would jump from ₦1,000 to ₦1,400.

NATCOMS, in a communique signed by its President Deolu Ogunbanjo and National Secretary Bayo Omotubora, described the proposed hike as exploitative. They argued that telecom services, already burdened by multiple taxes and levies, should not become inaccessible to ordinary Nigerians.

Balancing Industry Sustainability and Consumer Burden

Toriola acknowledged the government’s concern over adding pressure to consumers but suggested a phased approach to tariff adjustments. “I’m optimistic they will grant something substantial and progressively over the year,” he said, emphasizing the need for sustainable operations to avoid potential service disruptions.

Meanwhile, NATCOMS called on the NCC to reverse the approval, urging telecom operators to explore alternative revenue streams rather than burdening consumers.

As the debate continues, the sector faces a critical test of balancing operational viability with affordability for millions of Nigerians dependent on telecom services.

Israeli airstrikes push up Gaza death toll amid new truce push

Israel has carried out airstrikes on dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours, it said on Friday, in attacks that Palestinian health authorities said had killed more than 110 people in two days.

The surge in operations and casualties comes amid a renewed push to reach a ceasefire in the 15-month-old war and return Israeli hostages before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Israeli mediators were dispatched to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators and on Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, which is helping to broker the talks, urged Hamas to agree to a deal. Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement but it was unclear how close the two sides were.

The Gaza health ministry said more than 40 people were killed on Friday after 71 were killed a day earlier including in Al-Mawasi, an area in central Gaza previously declared a humanitarian safe zone by Israeli authorities.

The Israeli military said it had hit around 40 Hamas gathering points as well as command and control centres. It said it had taken numerous measures to reduce the risk of harming civilians, including using precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.

It accused Hamas, the Islamist movement that formerly controlled Gaza, of placing fighters in civilian areas including buildings formerly used as schools, where it said troops had found a number of weapons. Hamas rejects accusations it deliberately uses the civilian population to shield fighters.

On Friday, the military told civilians in the area of al-Bureij in central Gaza to evacuate ahead of an operation it ordered following rocket attacks from the area. It said residents should move to the humanitarian zone for their own safety.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops have been battling Hamas fighters holding out in towns around the northern end of the enclave for the past month and continued to find weapons stores and underground infrastructure, the military said.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which militants stormed border communities from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Its military campaign, with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas, has levelled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has killed 45,658 Palestinians according to the Gaza health ministry.

Severe winter weather has caused bitter hardship to hundreds of thousands who are sheltering in makeshift tent encampments.

STALLED DIPLOMACY

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to mediate a deal for a ceasefire and hostage release for a year with no success and are making another push this month before Trump's inauguration.

Ceasefire efforts have continually stumbled on a fundamental disagreement over how to end the conflict. Hamas says it will accept an agreement and release the hostages only if Israel commits to ending the war. Israel says it will agree to stop fighting only once Hamas is destroyed.

On Friday, Hamas said it wanted "a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip" and the return of displaced people to their homes in all areas of the enclave.

U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly called for a ceasefire agreement. Trump has said that if there is not a deal to release the hostages before his inauguration, "all hell is going to break out".

Israel's military has entered nearly every part of Gaza but is still fighting Hamas militants who are waging guerrilla warfare across the ruins of the tiny enclave.

Over the autumn, Israel's military resumed intense combat in northern Gaza, which it has repeatedly told all civilians to leave, while still continuing heavy strikes in the south.

In late December single-day death tolls announced by the Gaza health ministry included 48 on Dec. 28, 58 on Dec. 22 and 77 on Dec. 20. The toll rose by 1,124 in December, compared to 1,170 in November and 1,621 in October according to ministry figures.

Israel's military said strikes on Thursday targeted Hamas militants in the southern city of Khan Younis and the Mawasi camp for displaced people, which it designates as a humanitarian zone.

Asked about Thursday's reported death toll, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said it followed international law in waging the war in Gaza and that it took "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm".

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia launches new barrage of drones at Ukraine, kills one, Kyiv says

Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Friday, killing one civilian and injuring four others in the Kyiv region, the military and regional officials said.

Ukrainian air defences shot down 60 out of 93 Russian drones, the air force said. It also said that 26 drones were "lost", in reference to Ukraine's use of electronic warfare to redirect Russian drones.

One Russian drone was still in the air, the air force added.

Mykola Kalashnyk, acting governor for the Kyiv region, said that a truck driver was killed by drone debris. The debris also damaged several private houses, injuring four people, including a 16-year-old boy, he said.

The air force said that the Russian drones targeted nine Ukrainian regions across the country. Residential houses and commercial buildings were damaged in the Donetsk region in the east and the Chernihiv region in the north, the military said.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Kiev set to comply with US demand to draft teenagers – Moscow

Kiev will make a decision soon on how to respond to US demands that it lower the conscription age in the country to 18, in order to bolster troop numbers on the front lines of the conflict with Moscow, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on Friday.

Concerns are growing in Western countries regarding the Ukrainian army’s capacity to withstand pressure from Russian forces, an SVR statement has claimed. US President Joe Biden could intervene to prevent this, according to the agency. 

Merely supplying advanced weaponry, including long-range missile systems, will not be enough to stabilize the front lines, the SVR added.

“Countries in Eastern Europe bordering Ukraine are quietly preparing to receive new waves of Ukrainian refugees, who this time will be fleeing not from an imaginary threat posed by Russia, but from the real danger of getting a one-way ticket to the front lines,” the press release claimed.

According to the SVR, Western leaders are acutely aware that the conflict represents an “existential” challenge for Russia, and retreat is not an option.

In a televised interview on Ukraine’s Telemarathon on Thursday, Zelensky acknowledged that desertions within the army surged in 2024 amid escalating war fatigue and a shortage of reserve forces.

Reuters/RT

A 32-year-old Indian man admitted to cutting off four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to continue working as a computer operator at a relative’s company.

Learning to say ‘no’ sounds easy, but for some people, it can be harder than crippling themselves for life. Case in point, a Gujarat man who staged an “accident” that left him missing four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to tell his boss that he wanted to quit his job. Earlier last month, Mayur Tarapara showed up at a police station in his native city of Surat to report that four fingers were missing from his left hand. He claimed to have been riding his motorcycle to a friend’s house when he suddenly felt dizzy and passed out on the side of the road. When he woke up 10 minutes later, four fingers on his left hand had been chopped off. Police initially believed that the man’s fingers had been stolen for black magic rituals, but their investigation found huge holes in Mayur’s story.

The bizarre case was registered at Amroli police station in Surat before being transferred to the city’s Crime Branch. Investigators started checking CCTV footage in the area where the victim claimed to have passed out as well as investigating eye-witnesses, but virtually nothing checked out. Mayur appeared to park his bike near a ring road before casually walking away and returning with an injured left hand. Plus, no one had seen him passed out by the side of the road. Pressed by police, the man admitted to cutting the fingers off himself.

“Tarapara confessed that he bought a sharp knife from a shop near Char Rasta in Singanpore, a police official told The Hindu. “Four days later, on Sunday night, he went to Amroli Ring Road and parked his motorcycle there. At around 10pm, he cut off four fingers with a knife and tied a rope near the elbow to prevent blood flow. He then put the knife and fingers in a bag and threw it away.”

Mayur Tarapara reluctantly told investigators that he resorted to maiming himself because he didn’t want to work at his relative’s diamond company anymore. He didn’t want to tell them, though, but missing four fingers made him unfit for the job.

Police managed to find a bag with three of the man’s fingers, but they are still trying to get more information from him to piece this bizarre story together.

“He admitted that he didn’t want to work in the diamond factory and had planned to chop off his four fingers so that he did not have to work in the diamond factory,” a crime inspector said. “We are trying to dig out more information from him.”

Oddity Central

Alan England

Have you ever wanted to know what someone’s thinking, or what their motives are? Maybe it's a colleague, someone you have a crush on, or simply an old friend you haven't seen in a while.

We might not have telepathic powers nor can we read minds, but we can read people to gain insight, taking into account things like body language, nonverbal cues, and how they say things – not just what they say. 

It’s not an exact science, and everybody is different, but if you’d like to know how to read people like a book, this is a great starting point. 

The Psychology of Reading People

First, what does it mean to read people? Essentially, it’s the ability to better understand someone through nonverbal cues, communication, and behavior – you aren’t just hearing what they say, but looking at who they are through their body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions. Albert Mehrabian found in 1981 that facial expression accounts for 55% when it comes to how much someone is liked, while tone of voice accounts for 38%, and the words they use account for 7% – showing just how impactful it can be to go beyond what people are saying.1

Carole Railton, FRSA, global body language expert, says, "As society is becoming more visual, with large lit up adverts, instant video, and conference calls, body language becomes more important. This new technology speeds up our decisions about others. We make up our mind about someone in the first few seconds, changing our opinion about someone takes a lot longer. First impressions count.

Key Elements of Reading People

“When reading people, we're looking for basics first: facial expressions, physical stance, movement,” says Inbaal Honigman, body language expert. “Facial expressions can be happy, sad, or tense. Physical stance can be confident or nervous. Movement can be calm and deliberate or stressed and jumpy. A combination of all three can give us some initial clues about the person - but of course, there's a lot more to it.”

Alexandra Stratyner, PhD, licensed psychologist, explains, “Body language can be a telling aspect of how a person is feeling or what they might be thinking, often revealing more than words alone.”

Create a Baseline

When reading people, remember that you’re dealing with human beings. Everyone’s different, and we all have our own patterns of behavior. Create a baseline of people’s normal behavior—if they often fold their arms, look at the floor, scratch their head—and then look out for any deviations from their norm. If you’ve noticed that they often do one thing when they’re nervous, and they’re doing it more regularly in this conversation, what might that tell you? 

Look for Body Language Consistency

"Consistent body language will display cohesion between facial expression, body posture, and movement. Excited face, excited pose, excited movements can tell you a lot when displayed all together,” says Honigman. “Inconsistent body language, such as a smile changing to a frown, or wringing hands suddenly dropping to the sides, show that the person is trying to hide how they truly feel.”

Look at Their Posture

Stratyner describes this as a good starting point, explaining, “Someone who stands tall with their chest open and shoulders back typically appears confident and comfortable. In contrast, hunched shoulders or slouched posture can indicate insecurity, defensiveness, or exhaustion.”

Watch for Mirroring

Often, people will mirror others. We have neurons in our brain that fire when someone mirrors us or when we mirror someone else. When the person we’re talking to smiles, the smile muscles in our own faces activate, for example. So, if someone doesn’t reciprocate and mirror us, it could indicate that they don’t like us or aren’t happy with us for some reason. 

Keep an Ear Out for Their Choice of Words

“The specific words a person uses can reveal how they feel or what they value. For instance, frequent use of ‘I’ might indicate self-focus or ownership of their perspective, while a lot of ‘we’ language suggests a more collective or team-oriented mindset,” says Stratyner.

Look at Their Breathing

“Breath speeds up when we are excited and slows down when we are relaxed. People who are always excited tend to have raised shoulders too, which can be an indicator of stress or that they are an extreme extrovert,” says Railton.

Common Mistakes When Reading People

Honigman says, “The most common mistake when trying to read people or ascertain their true intentions, is focusing on a single part of their body language or facial expression, rather than reading the person as a whole.”

When figuring out whether someone is happy for example, a smile with raised cheekbones and eyes narrowed in a full happy face is a good start, but those clues are not nearly enough. We want to have matching body language throughout the entire scenario.

“Many people will latch on to one clue and deduce what they believe the person to be feeling, but a cohesive body language extravaganza is needed, in order to figure someone out correctly,” adds Honigman. 

When reading people, it’s important to remember that body language is not a language in the real sense – most nonverbal cues don’t have clear-cut definitions in the way words do. A gesture or expression may not always mean the same thing, so don’t forget to consider the person and the wider context. Match the gesture with the words and the facial expression to best read someone. If someone yawns, for example, they might just be tired. If someone’s tapping their foot, they could be nervous. But if it isn’t paired with other typically nervous gestures, it could mean something else.(2)

Stratyner adds, “While facial expressions are important emotional cues, they can be subtle, ambiguous, and influenced by factors like tiredness, discomfort, concentration, and individual and/or cultural differences,” and the same goes for gestures when it comes to cultural differences. A gesture might mean one thing in one culture, and something entirely different in another.(3)

Remember, too, that someone might be nervous if they feel like they’re being interrogated or about to get into trouble, so don’t misinterpret this nervousness as something else. If someone’s displaying behaviors that could be suspicious, it might just be that they’re nervous. If they’re avoiding eye contact, it might be down to cultural norms, or they might just be shy. 

Not everyone will act the same way, either. As Stratyner says, “People have unique personality traits, cultural backgrounds, and coping mechanisms. For example, quiet or reserved people might not be anxious – they could just be introverted. Making assumptions based on your behavioral norms can lead to errors in judgment.”

Practical Tips for Improving Your Ability to Read People

If you’d like to get better at reading people, there are things you can easily put into practice. 

• Look at their eyes: The eyes can give a lot away – raised eyebrows can mean that someone’s interested, while narrow eyes can indicate suspicion. If someone’s eyes are darting around, they might be nervous or looking for potential exits, while a lot of eye contact could indicate interest or confidence.4 “It's how we make initial contact,” says Railton of the eyes. “Raising eyebrows is a sign people are interested, or even that they fancy someone, and it’s a movement that is difficult to control. Blinking is a little harder to read. It’s the change in the blinking pattern that will give clues.”
• Improve your listening skills: “To better understand what someone is communicating, it's essential to listen closely to both the content of their words and how they say them,” says Dr. Stratyner. “Important clues to someone's true feelings, intentions, or mood may not be found within the words themselves, but in their pitch, speed, and subtle emotional expressions.”
• Look for inconsistencies: When talking to someone, keep an eye out for any inconsistencies in their body language. “Ask yourself what it is that you’re noticing, and learn from that,” says Honigman. 
• Keep practicing: “Practice on your nearest and dearest, people who you already know well and can sense when they're being truthful and when they're not,” recommends Honigman. “The more you try, the better you become.”

Even if you aren’t necessarily practicing on people you know, it can be worth looking around you in public. If you see a group of friends, take a look at their body language. Honigman suggests keeping a journal of observations, so you can learn as you go. 

Keep in Mind

While it’s possible to get better at reading people, don’t expect to be perfect. We’re dealing with humans here, and there are so many variables that come into play. Someone could be having an off-day, be more nervous than you realize, or there might be subtle things that you don’t pick up on even with plenty of practice.

VeryWellMind

Despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts to curb liquidity through tightening measures, the country’s Broad Money Supply (M2) surged by 51% year-on-year (YoY) to ₦108.96 trillion in November 2024, according to the apex bank’s latest report.

The increase was primarily driven by rising domestic borrowings by the Federal Government, the CBN stated. Broad Money Supply (M2) encompasses the total money in circulation, including cash and various non-cash components such as savings deposits and time deposits.

The CBN’s Money and Credit Statistics revealed that M2 grew sharply from ₦72.03 trillion in November 2023. This growth was consistent for six months from April 2024, except for a 1.5% decline in October 2024, when the figure dropped to ₦107.7 trillion from ₦109.4 trillion in September. By November, however, the supply rebounded by 1.2% to ₦108.96 trillion.

The report attributed the YoY increase to growth across key components of M2. Quasi-money, which includes savings and time deposits, rose modestly by 1.96% YoY to ₦72.7 trillion from ₦71.3 trillion. Demand deposits grew significantly by 34.4% YoY, reaching ₦31.6 trillion compared to ₦23.2 trillion in November 2023. Currency outside banks also surged by 50.9%, climbing to ₦4.65 trillion from ₦3.08 trillion in the same period.

Credit allocation also increased substantially, with credit to the government rising 54% YoY to ₦39.6 trillion in November 2024, up from ₦25.7 trillion in 2023. Meanwhile, private sector credit rose by 27% YoY to ₦75.96 trillion, compared to ₦59.7 trillion in the prior year. These trends contributed to a 91% YoY increase in net domestic credit, which soared to ₦115.6 trillion from ₦60.5 trillion in November 2023.

Experts note that while higher liquidity can drive economic activity, balancing fiscal and monetary policies is crucial to preventing inflationary pressures. The CBN consistently raised its interest rate throughout 2024, reaching 27.50% in an effort to control money supply and combat inflation, which climbed to 34.60% in November 2024.

Peter Obi, the 2023 Labor Party presidential candidate, stated Thursday that President Bola Tinubu has spent approximately 180 days abroad since taking office in May 2023, representing over 30% of his time as president. Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja, Obi said these travels comprised more than 30 overseas trips to at least 16 different countries.

According to records, Tinubu's international visits included multiple trips to the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and various African nations. Notable travels included an August 2023 visit to China for bilateral talks with President Xi Jinping, followed by a week-long stay in the UK. Government data shows N2.3 billion was spent on foreign trips and related expenses in the first half of 2024.

Obi urged Tinubu to redirect his travel focus domestically in 2025, suggesting he spend at least 72 days visiting Nigeria's 36 states. He recommended the President inspect national hospitals, road infrastructure, military formations, and IDP camps to better understand the country's challenges. The former Anambra governor also called for quarterly presidential updates to the nation and increased attention to anti-corruption efforts.

"As President, such visits would give you the opportunity to better understand the dire economic and security situations across the country," Obi stated, emphasizing the importance of first-hand observation of Nigeria's infrastructure and public facilities.

Tinubu, who took office on May 29, 2023, is currently on holiday in Lagos State and has not traveled internationally in 2025.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Israeli airstrikes kill Gaza head of police, 67 others, Gaza authorities say

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 68 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including at a tent camp where the head of the enclave's Hamas-controlled police force, his deputy and nine displaced people died, Gaza authorities said.

Israel said the deputy was the head of Palestinian militant group Hamas' security forces in southern Gaza.

The attack occurred in the Al-Mawasi district, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians earlier in the 14-month-old warbetween Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza.

The director general of Gaza's police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, who were checking on residents of the camp, were killed in the strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.

"By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the (enclave) and deepening the human suffering of citizens," it added in a statement.

The Israeli military said it had conducted an intelligence-based strike in Al-Mawasi, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, saying he led Hamas forces in south Gaza. It made no mention of Salah's death.

"As the year begins, we got ... another reminder that there is no humanitarian zone let alone a safe zone" in Gaza, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said in a post on X.

"Everyday without a ceasefire will bring more tragedy."

Thursday’s death toll was among the highest of recent weeks.

Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 57 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in north Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, the Shati (Beach) camp, central Gaza's Maghazi camp and Gaza City.

Israel's military said it had targeted Hamas militants who intelligence indicated were operating in a command and control centre "embedded inside the Khan Younis municipality building in the Humanitarian Area".

Asked about Thursday's reported death toll, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said it followed international law in waging the war in Gaza and that it took "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm".

The Israeli military has accused Gaza militants of using built-up residential areas for cover. Hamas denies this.

Hamas' smaller ally Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets into the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holit near Gaza on Thursday. The Israeli military said it intercepted one projectile in the area that had crossed from southern Gaza.

Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to Gaza's health ministry. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny, heavily built-up coastal territory is in ruins.

The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine's Zelenskiy: Trump can be decisive in helping stop Russia's Putin

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could be decisive in the outcome of the 34-month-old war with Russia and help stop Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskiy, facing advances by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, said in an interview with Ukrainian television that Trump had told him he would be one of the first to visit Washington after the presidential inauguration this month.

Zelenskiy also said a priority was to stabilise the front line early in the new year. Putin, he said, feared negotiations as they would be tantamount to a defeat for Russia.

"Trump can be decisive. For us, this is the most important thing," Zelenskiy said in a televised interview.

"His qualities are indeed there," Zelenskiy said of Trump. "He can be decisive in this war. He is capable of stopping Putin or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin. He is able to do this."

Zelenskiy has said that achieving a just peace for Ukraine meant receiving solid security guarantees from its allies, joining the European Union and receiving an invitation to join the NATO alliance, a notion rejected by Moscow.

"Naturally, any security guarantees without the United States are weak security guarantees for Ukraine," he said.

Zelenskiy said he wanted to ensure that any U.S. plan on a settlement took account of Ukraine's views.

"It cannot be otherwise. We are Ukraine and it's our independence, our land and our future."

He also hoped that Trump's administration could establish quick contact with Russia. Putin has said Moscow is open to talks but they must take account of Russia's gains in the war and its annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

With Russian forces capturing village after village on the eastern front in their fastest advance since the February 2022 invasion, Zelenskiy said stabilising the front was critical.

"They are putting pressure on our boys, who are exhausted and that is a fact. We will do everything to at least stabilise the front in January," he said.

Zelenskiy, elected in 2019, repeated that new elections could not be held as long as a wartime state of emergency remained in place, but said he would consider running again once conditions permitted.

"I don't know how this war will end," he said. "If I can do more than I am able, then I will probably view such a decision (seeking a new term) more positively. For now this is not an objective for me."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian Armed Forces made more than 1,500 strikes by precision weapons in 2024

Russian troops made more than 1,500 group strikes by high-precision weapons and attack drones against military targets in Ukraine in 2024, according to TASS estimates.

According to data released in weekly reports of the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 1,500 group strikes by high-precision weapons and attack drones were made from the start of 2024. The targets were stationing areas of the Ukrainian army and mercenaries, defense industry facilities and power installations supplying them with power, trains with materiel, and so on.

At least five mass strikes were also delivered from the beginning of the last year.

Reuters/Tass

Perhaps three will be the lucky number. After at least two previous failed attempts, a peace deal between Israel and Hamas might be reached by January 20 or in the early days of Donald Trump’s second term. Or…

It's a matter of perhaps, with a big P. Optimism is a rare commodity in a region with the longest-running conflict and the largest river of bad blood. Yet, after over 450 days of war with its predations, traumas and devastations, a bit of optimism is not a bad thing.

In that spirit, I accepted the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs invitation for a five-day official visit between December 15 and 19.

To visit or not?

One week before my trip, Bashar al-Assad fell and fled to Russia. The inheritor of a legacy of hostility toward Israel, his father, Hafez, once demanded the cession of the Golan Heights as a precondition for peace between Israel and Syria. Bashar’s fall ended over 50 years of the Assad dynasty, leaving in its place an uncertain and dangerous void.

With a ceasefire holding by a thread, this was an inauspicious time to visit anywhere in the area, let alone the country at the heart of the renewed conflict.

Yet, after passing up the invitation in January 2023, I decided to go on my first trip to Israel. As our plane, Flight ET 404, descended from Addis Ababa, flying low over the Mediterranean, which bounds Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, at past seven in the morning, I couldn’t help imagining the worst.

With Hamas launching over 19,000 rockets – mainly unguarded missiles – against Israel since October 7, not a few of them targeting Tel Aviv, Israeli airspace has become something of an aviator’s nightmare. As Flight ET 404, carrying seven African journalists from Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana, among other passengers, approached Ben Gurion one hour behind schedule, I thought, what if a stray rocket hit us?

Never say never

It may sound like the product of an overwrought mind contaminated by familiarity with bad news. But after Hamas killed more than 1,139 people, including women and children, on October 7 and took 364 hostages, many of the victims at a peace party in Nova, southern Israel, overthinking the worst appears to be the standard way of life.

The pictures of the victims at the Nova party with their stories written on small boards and hoisted on wooden poles above beds of candles and flowers at the memorial site are also engraved in the hearts of families up and down the country, still struggling to come to terms with what happened on that day.

At the Bring Them Back Home Now office, an NGO in Tel Aviv, 82-year-old Itzik Horn, a survivor of two terrorist attacks in his original home in Argentina, shared the story of how his two sons, Yair, 46 and Eitan, 38, were kidnapped from the Nir Oz Kibbutz not far from Nova, the epicentre of Hamas crime scene on October 7. Eitan had gone to visit his brother Yair for the weekend when Hamas struck.

A father can’t forget

After the attack, Horn did not hear from his children again for weeks until a Hamas video surfaced showing they had been taken hostage.

“I’ve not heard any news about them again since November (2023),” Horn said, hunched over a chair on the verge of a forlorn hope from retelling this story a million times. “A father can’t just forget his children or give up on them, can he? I want to know what is happening to them. Are they gagged, dead or alive? I want to know. I want them back home, now.”

I still have, as a keepsake, the felt pen of one of Ela Ben-Zvi’s three children, scattered among the shards of glass and other household items, strewn on the floor of her vandalised, bullet-ridden home in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the oldest kibbutz in Israel impacted by the attack.

Seven hours in the bunker

Ela, her husband, Eyal, three children, and a dog had lived in Be’eri, separated by a wire mesh, only five kilometresfrom Gaza. On the morning of October 7, when the bomb alarm went off at 6:20 a.m., she had nine seconds to get to the shelter with her children, aged 8, 5, and 3, and her dog. It was not an unfamiliar drill.

Except this one was longer and more harrowing for the retired soldier and her husband, let alone for the children and the dog, who were consigned for seven hours to a relentless siege in a bunker hardly suitable for more than two.

The IDF later rescued Ela and her family, but her dog died afterwards. Her neighbour, a 78-year-old woman living alone, was not so lucky. The Hamas attackers murdered her in her bed, one of the reported 102 people killed in Be’eri on that day.

Some sheikhs were here

Upcountry, in the Ramim Ridge of the Naftali Mountains in Upper Galilee, the story of Orna Weinberg from four generations in the Manara Kibbutz, a community described as Israel’s northern shield, exemplified the paradox of the strife between Israel and Lebanon, its northern neighbour.

“When this Kibbutz was founded 81 years ago (before the State of Israel), we didn’t have water,” Weinberg said as we stood overlooking a UN truck on the other side of the border. “We used to fetch water from Lebanon, bringing them up here on mules and barrows. When the first water pipes were installed, the sheikhs of these Lebanese villages came to celebrate with us!”

As we inspected the ruins from the multiple rocket and mortar attacks launched by Hezbollah, the silence only broken by Weinberg’s narration and the sounds of our shoes crunching the remnant of mangled metals, twisted glasses, and other household utensils littering the floor inside one of the bombed buildings in Kibbutz Manara, Weinberg’s story sounded like a tale from another world.

“Nowhere to go!”

What is left today of that once thriving community of 260 people where Rachel Rabin Yaakov, sister of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, also lived, is a shadow of itself. With at least five older adults dead after the forced evacuations that followed the Hezbollah attacks that affected 70 percent of the community, Manara is a ghost town sustained by the stubborn spirit of a few like Weinberg, who have stayed back to rebuild.

“We have nowhere to go. I have nowhere to go,” Weinberg said. “This is the only place I know. It’s the shield of the North, without which Israel will not exist. If Hezbollah prevails, if Iran prevails, not only Israel, but the whole world is in trouble!”

About land?

While pro-Palestinian sentiments frame the question as essentially one of decades of oppression and injustice arising from a land grab, several Israeli officials I met on this trip dismissed such sentiments, citing two instances. One, in 1979, Israel ceded the Sinai Peninsula, twice the size of Israel, to Egypt as a peace offering.

Two, in 1993, even after Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with Arafat under a deal supervised by US President Bill Clinton to prevent the creation of new settlements and pave the way for a two-state solution, top PLO officials, including Arafat, later described the Accord as a strategic manoeuvre before “the great Jihad.”

Israel, they insist, is a victim of duplicitous diplomacy, mainly by Arab countries, that condemn its acts of self-defence in the daytime and, at night, urge it not to spare Shiite extremism, promoted by Iran, the most significant source of regional instability.

Against the odds

It's a measure of Israel’s resilience that, despite the war and disagreements even within Israel about how best to handle the war and the return of the remaining 100 hostages, despite a Hamas information machinery that brooks neither dissent nor filters, Israel is still standing.

Yet, its long-term security is intrinsically linked to its neighbours, with whom they have been joined by history and geography and must find and negotiate a common ground, one that might reenact Weinberg’s legend of the sheikhs from Lebanon.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media and Monetising It.