☦️🤝✝️ — His Beatitude Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church received a message from His Holiness Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, Mor Ignatius Aphrem II of the Syriac Orthodox Church, wishing him a Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

✝️🤝✝️ — His Beatitude Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church received a message from His Holiness Patriarch Awa III of the Assyrian Church of the East, wishing him a Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

🇮🇱❌🇵🇸 — On December 21, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli medias via an official statement announced that it had established full operational control over Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, where the heaviest battles between Israeli and Palestinian forces took place over the past weeks.

In a statement, the IDF says the 36th Division has completed dismantling Hamas’s “core capabilities” in Shejaiya area.
According to the IDF, the Israeli Army gained operational control, however, troops will continue to carry out limited cleaning operations in the neighborhood to destroy the remaining Hamas infrastructure and kill any remaining Palestinian militant in the area.

The IDF claimed that troops of the Israeli Army's Golani Brigade raided the homes of senior Hamas military wing's members and seized intelligence materials in Shejaiya, meanwhile the 188th Armored Brigade captured the headquarters of Hamas’s Shejaiya battalion, from which, according to the IDF, Al-Qassam Brigades set out to carry out the October 7 attacks.

Per Israeli Media, the IDF Paratroopers Brigade, during the combat operations, demolished more than 100 buildings used by HAMAS military wing in the area, with the Bislamach Brigade also demolishish a number of buildings used by Palestinian fighters

🇮🇱🕎📹 — Video shared by 🇮🇱 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shows the documentation of a Shabbat reception held by the soldiers of the 12th Battalion of the Golani Brigade in the heart of Khan Yunis

🔗 צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline)

🇹🇷❌🇹🇷 — At least six Turkish soldiers have been killed in the Kurdistan Region while in a fight with PKK militants in Duhok province.

🇹🇷❌🇹🇷 — Turkey has extended a travel ban to the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani International Airport for six more months, alleging the airport has become a hub for the PKK.