Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 12-13/2023
France says 'light must be shed' on Oct 13 strike on journalists in Lebanon
Hezbollah targets Israeli posts, Israel bombs south Lebanon
French FM Colonna to arrive Friday in Lebanon
Lebanese politician says Israel deliberately targeted UNIFIL and army
LF slams Mikati for seeking to 'illegally' extend Aoun's term in Cabinet
Najat Aoun most politically active MP in Lebanese parliament, report says
Lebanon: Hezbollah Says It Struck Israeli Position
White House 'Concerned' at Reports Israel Used White Phosphorus in Lebanon Attack
Can an Israeli security zone succeed in Gaza when it failed in southern Lebanon?
Netanyahu must not be allowed a war with Hezbollah

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 12-13/2023
United Nations General Assembly votes to demand immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Middle East leaders have few answers for 'day after' Gaza war
Biden says Israel losing support around the world for Hamas war, suggests Netanyahu make change
Israel faces growing isolation as Gaza offensive grinds on with no end in sight
Anti-IS coalition forces targeted in Iraq and Syria
Four Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raid on West Bank's Jenin
Blinken: War in Gaza Could Stop When Hamas Surrenders
WHO Official Pleas for Gaza's Southern Hospitals to Be Spared
West Bank Economy Suffers as Palestinians Lose Israeli Jobs
Turkish Air Strikes Hit 13 Kurdish Militant Targets in Northern Iraq
Dozens Killed in Islamist Militant Attack on Northwest Pakistan Army Base
Zelenskyy Will Arrive on Capitol Hill to Grim Mood as Biden's Aid Package for Ukraine Risks Collapse
Swedish PM Demands Immediate Release of EU Employee Jailed in Iran]
Yemen's Houthi rebels claim attack on Norway-flagged tanker
Turkish Cypriots reject 'malicious' Israel allegation

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 12-13/2023
Ukraine: Biden Helping Putin to Win/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute./December 12, 2023
Gaza: Indeed… Silence Is Worth Gold/Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2023
Post-Gaza…Minimization is Not a Solution!/Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2023
Al-Habtoor Group mulls exit from Lebanon if government fails to protect investments/Reina TaklaLArab News/December 12, 2023
Israel uses mass displacement of Gazans as tool of war/Associated Press/By Nicholas R. Micinski, University of Maine; Adam G. Lichtenheld, Stanford University, and Kelsey Norman, Rice University//December 12, 2023
Hamas and the Debunking of War Fallacies/Charles Chartouni/This is Beirut/December 12/2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 12-13/2023
France says 'light must be shed' on Oct 13 strike on journalists in Lebanon
Agence France Presse/12 December 2023
France on Tuesday said "all light" must be shed on the strike in southern Lebanon on October 13 that killed a Reuters journalist and injured six others, including two from AFP. "All light must be shed on this tragedy," a French foreign ministry statement said, adding that international humanitarian law obliged warring parties to "protect civilians, and in particular journalists, who must be able to exercise their profession freely and in complete safety." An investigation by Agence France-Presse published on December 7 into the strike pointed to a tank shell only used by the Israeli army in the high-tension border region.

Hezbollah targets Israeli posts, Israel bombs south Lebanon
Naharnet/12 December 2023
the Israeli artillery shelled Tuesday the outskirts of the southern Lebanese border towns of Aitaroun and Houla while empty areas between Beit Leef and Ramia were targeted by drones. Hezbollah, for its part, targeted the Israeli posts of al-Raheb, Zariit, Khirbet Ma'ar and Malkia, and soldiers in the Jal al-Alam post. The attacks were direct hits and inflicted casualties, Hezbollah said. Also on Tuesday, an Iron Dome interceptor missile fell near a school in Yater, causing only material damage. The Israeli army had shelled at night the Hamoul region near al-Naqoura and al-Khiam with white phosphorus, burning a house, while drones attacked another house in al-Khiam and a building in Odeisseh. The border towns of Houla and Mays al-Jabal were shelled with flare bombs and a Lebanese army position was targeted with machinegun fire in the Kfarshouba Heights. Hezbollah says it entered the fray in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militants launched their unprecedented attack on south Israel. More than 120 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since October 7, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, and Lebanon lost its first soldier on Tuesday.

French FM Colonna to arrive Friday in Lebanon
Naharnet/12 December 2023
France's foreign minister Catherine Colonna will arrive Friday in Lebanon, al-Jadeed TV said Tuesday. The TV station reported that Colonna will visit the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon in Naqoura on Saturday and will leave on the same day.
Colonna had visited Beirut in October and met with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Speaker Nabih Berri, and army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun. She said in a press conference that Lebanese authorities should take all necessary measures to avert a war with Israel. Early this month, the French foreign minister warned in an interview with Al-Arabiya that "any miscalculation might drag Lebanon into an escalation that might spread beyond its south."

Lebanese politician says Israel deliberately targeted UNIFIL and army
Naharnet/12 December 2023
Israel has turned south Lebanon into a mailbox for sending messages to U.N. chief Antonio Guterres through its recurrent targeting of UNIFIL posts in south Lebanon, a prominent Lebanese political source said. “Israel’s targeting of UNIFIL wasn’t by mistake but rather deliberate, because through its repetitive attacks it is seeking to send two fiery messages,” the source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. “The first is for Guterres over his use of Article 99 which falls under his jurisdiction and the second is for the Lebanese Army through the targeting of its posts,” the source added. More than 120 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since October 7, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, and Lebanon lost its first soldier in the exchanges last Tuesday.
Several Lebanese soldiers and UNIFIL troops have also been wounded in the confrontations.

LF slams Mikati for seeking to 'illegally' extend Aoun's term in Cabinet
Naharnet/12 December 2023
The Lebanese Forces on Tuesday noted that caretaker PM Najib Mikati’s call for a Cabinet session is “on the face of it aimed at extending General Joseph Aoun’s term but in reality aimed at blocking this extension.”The LF, which supports the extension of Aoun’s term, pointed out that extension in Cabinet would require “the signature of the defense minister and, as it is known, he does not intend to make such a move.”“Accordingly, Cabinet would make an illegal step that would be only aimed at blocking real extension in parliament, after a session for this purpose was finally scheduled after a long wait,” the LF cautioned.It also warned that “an illegal extension in Cabinet would be very easily appealed and very easily annulled, which would plunge the military institution into major vacuum and chaos.”Mikati meanwhile voiced surprise over the LF statement, noting that extension for six months in Cabinet and extension for a year in parliament “do not contradict with each other” and have the same ultimate goal. The pro-LF Nidaa al-Watan newspaper meanwhile said that Thursday’s parliament session “will not reach a solution regarding extension due to a tacit agreement between the Shiite Duo and MP Jebran Bassil, who opposes extension.”Under the alleged agreement, “the session would protract and be adjourned prior to discussing the extension article,” the daily said. “The alternative would be another format that has been agreed with caretaker PM Najib Mikati under which Cabinet would take the extension decision and face an annulling appeal that has become ready,” the newspaper claimed. “Through this exposed scenario, Speaker (Nabih) Berri and PM Mikati believe that they would be satisfying Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and all those who support extension, whereas they would be betraying all the pledges that they have made in this regard,” Nidaa al-Watan said. The al-Markazia news agency had quoted parliamentary sources who communicated with Mikati, who is currently in Geneva, as saying that he intends to call for a Friday Cabinet session to take a decision on the issue of Aoun’s extension, although the matter is on the agenda of Thursday’s parliament session.

Najat Aoun most politically active MP in Lebanese parliament, report says
Naharnet/12 December 2023
Change MP Najat Aoun is the most politically active representative in the Lebanese parliament, Gherbal Initiative -- a non-profit civil company that aims to make political data visually accessible to the public -- said in a report. Five other Change MPs are within the top 10 in terms of political activity in submitting questions and inquiries to various governments, Gherbal Initiative said. MP Halimé El Kaakour is the 2nd most active, the report said, while MPs Ibrahim Mneimneh (4th place), Mark Daou (6th place), Yassine Yassine (7th place) and Paula Yacoubian (9th place) all submitted questions and inquiries far exceeding the number recorded by the rest of the political blocs per year. The top 10 also includes the following members of parliament: Elie Keyrouz of the Lebanese Forces (fifth place), Fouad Makhzoumi (eighth place), George Okais of the Lebanese Forces (tenth place). As for law proposals, the picture is completely different. Amal Movement submitted 554 law proposals, the largest number of proposed laws, followed by the Future Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Progressive Socialist Party, and the Lebanese Forces. "When evaluating productivity in regard to submitting law proposals, Progressive Socialist Party MP Bilal Abdullah ranks first, followed by Change MP Paula Yacoubian, and then Lebanese Forces MP George Okais, followed by Change MPs Elias Jarade and Firas Hamdan," Gherbal Initiative said.

Lebanon: Hezbollah Says It Struck Israeli Position
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said on Tuesday it attacked the Israeli Malkiya military base opposite Lebanon’s southern town of Houla.“In support of the staunch Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, we have launched a strike using the appropriate weaponry in the morning today at the Israeli Malkiya base inflicting direct damages”, a Hezbollah statement said. A pro-Hezbollah television station said earlier that “Israeli artillery has struck the outskirts of the town of Aitaroun in South Lebanon”.The Israel-Lebanon border has seen escalating tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between the Israeli army and Hamas ally Hezbollah, since the Palestinian group launched a shock attack on Israel on October 7. Israel has carried out relentless strikes on Gaza in retaliation.

White House 'Concerned' at Reports Israel Used White Phosphorus in Lebanon Attack
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
The United States is concerned about reports Israel used US-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon, White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday. "We've seen the reports. Certainly concerned about that. We'll be asking questions to try to learn a little bit more," Kirby told reporters on Air Force One. Kirby said white phosphorus has a "legitimate military utility" for illumination and producing smoke to conceal movements, Reuters reported. "Obviously any time that we provide items like white phosphorus to another military, it is with the full expectation that it will be used in keeping with those legitimate purposes ... and in keeping with the law of armed conflict," he said. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, asked about the report that Israel used white phosphorus in Lebanon, said the Israeli army “and the entire security establishment acts according to international law. That is how we have acted and how we will act."

Can an Israeli security zone succeed in Gaza when it failed in southern Lebanon?
Arab News/December 12, 2023
DUBAI: Israel has floated the idea of a buffer zone inside Gaza once the present conflict ends, with one policy adviser saying it would be part of a three-tier process that involves “destroying Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza and deradicalizing the enclave.”
Ophir Falk, the foreign policy adviser, said earlier this month that the Israeli Defense Forces might establish a buffer zone inside Gaza, adding that it would not include Israeli troops on the Palestinian side of the border. He did not outline who precisely Israel had in mind to police the Palestinian side of the border — an international or Arab-led force or one led by the Palestinian Authority.“There are discussions in Israel about how we want to see Gaza when the war is over, given the Oct. 7 attack,” Falk told Reuters news agency, referring to the assault on southern Israel by Palestinian militants that resulted in 1,400 deaths and the abduction of 240 people. He added: “The defense establishment is talking about some kind of security buffer on the Gaza side of the border so that Hamas cannot gather military capabilities to the border and surprise Israel again.“It is a security measure, not a political one. We do not intend to remain on the Gaza side of the border.”According to sources who spoke to Reuters, Israel has relayed these plans to officials in Jordan and Egypt, with whom Israel has had long-established ties, and the UAE, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020. Some experts believe that opposition from Washington, combined with bitter memories of similar — though ultimately unsuccessful — attempts in the past, makes the plan impractical. “A security zone in my opinion is a non-starter,” Dr. Ziad Asali, a retired doctor and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, told Arab News.In his view, any security solution for postwar Gaza must take into account the political aspirations of the Palestinian people as a whole. Even Israel’s backers in Washington do not appear convinced by the buffer zone proposal, which would entail encroachment on Gaza’s already limited territory.
“We don’t support any reduction of the geographic limits of Gaza,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in early December. “Gaza must remain Palestinian land, and cannot be reduced.”
Indeed, any such encroachment into Gaza, which is only 12 km wide in its broadest point, would cram its 2.3 million people into an even smaller area.
Furthermore, analysts warn that a buffer zone runs the risk of repeating past mistakes in the fragile Levant region. One historical parallel highlighted by experts is the ill-fated security zone established by Israel in southern Lebanon between 1985 and 2000.
The 24-km-wide security zone, which was policed by the Israeli military and its Christian militia proxies of the South Lebanon Army, was established during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in the aftermath of the 1982 Lebanon War.
Similar to the trigger for the war in Gaza, that conflict was sparked by a string of attacks on Israel by Palestinian militants launched from Lebanese territory, prompting Israel to invade Lebanon. At the time, Israel’s reasoning for creating the security zone in southern Lebanon was to establish a buffer separating Israeli civilians in its northern towns along the border from Lebanon-based militants. However, policing the security zone ended up costing hundreds of Israeli lives and it was quickly overrun by Hezbollah fighters the moment Israel, then led by prime minister Ehud Barak, chaotically withdrew troops in May 2000, abandoning its SLA allies.

Netanyahu must not be allowed a war with Hezbollah
Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/December 12, 2023
While the world is focused on Israel’s two-month-old military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the northern front is quickly heating up. A few days after Israel declared war on Hamas and started pounding the besieged Strip ahead of a ground invasion, tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border began to rise. A few skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel’s military soon developed into a daily exchange of firepower, forcing Israel to vacate the settlements and towns up to 5 km south of the Lebanon border.
And as the US dispatched two carrier groups to the Eastern Mediterranean, sending a stern message to Tehran and its proxies not to interfere in Israel’s war on Gaza, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah appeared — after the group released a couple of videos raising the level of suspense — to indicate that the his people were not about to break the truce with Israel under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, but would respond to provocations within the so-called rules of engagement.
But that did not stop the two sides from targeting each other in what can be described as low-intensity fighting. That forced Israel to mobilize three armored divisions to the north, something that Hezbollah said would relieve pressure on Hamas. Some of the skirmishes were deadly. While Israel was careful not to release figures concerning its own casualties, Hezbollah began, well into the first month of the Gaza campaign, to publish the names of its own fighters that fell during operations “in support of the people of Gaza and the gallant resistance.”
These operations were described as “support” and “diversions,” costing Hezbollah more than 100 of its fighters so far. On a few occasions, when Israel targeted civilians in southern Lebanon, the group launched rockets that hit Kiryat Shmona, one of the larger urban centers in the Upper Galilee, which is only 3 km west of the Lebanese border. Before it was evacuated, it was home to more than 22,000 Israelis.
Also, in response to Israel’s aerial bombardment of southern Lebanese towns and villages, Hezbollah fired a few heavy rockets, called Burkan, which have large payloads. It also admitted to sending drones across the border, a few of which sounded the alarm in northern Israel. On a number of occasions, it released videos of its fighters targeting Israeli armor, radars and fortifications. It claimed that it had killed and injured Israeli soldiers.
In addition to shelling southern Lebanon, Israel launched a number of aerial raids against Damascus airport, southern Syria and Qunaitra in the Golan. Some of these strikes reportedly killed Iranian advisers and Hezbollah fighters.
But last week and earlier this week, a noticeable spike in the scope of such exchanges resulted in Hezbollah firing rockets as deep as 9 km into Israeli territory in response to Israel’s bombing of Lebanese towns. On Monday, one Israeli strike killed the mayor of the Lebanese town of Taybeh and injured others. The day before, Israeli fighter jets destroyed an entire neighborhood in the border town of Aitaroun. In the past few days, Israel has also targeted journalists covering the skirmishes from the Lebanese side, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon and Lebanese army positions.
The rise in tensions along Israel’s northern borders comes in the wake of strong warnings and ultimatums made by a number of senior Israeli officials that the situation in the north must be dealt with. According to Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, Israel delivered a message to Hezbollah via UNIFIL that anything, military or civilian, spotted within a 3-km radius along the border with Lebanon would be targeted. Hezbollah responded that it too would consider anything moving within 3 km of the border a legitimate target.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a strong warning to Hezbollah last week that escalations along the border would mean “turning Beirut into Gaza.” A similar warning was issued by far-right Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich. Also last week, Israeli National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi claimed: “We will change the reality on the border with Lebanon and we will solve the problem militarily if it is not solved diplomatically.”Such statements from senior Israeli officials should be taken seriously for a number of reasons. Israel’s war in Gaza is not going well, despite the heavy civilian death toll and the global outcry denouncing Israel’s reckless regard for innocent lives and nonmilitary infrastructure. The Biden White House is coming under unprecedented pressure, both domestically and from allies, to call for a ceasefire.
Netanyahu and his war Cabinet reportedly have less than a month to wrap up the military campaign. But by Israeli and other accounts, that is not enough time to achieve the country’s elusive goals in Gaza: destroying Hamas, killing its military leadership and freeing the hostages.
In addition, Israel is beginning to admit that, despite all its firepower and heavy armor, it is incurring unusually heavy casualties. It admits that more than 100 soldiers have been killed and more than 5,000 injured, some seriously. Hamas says the number of Israeli dead is much higher. Israel also says that, despite the heavy bombing, Hamas’ military abilities remain intact. As of Monday, Hamas was still firing rockets toward Tel Aviv and southern Israel. Israelis and their apologists are saying that Israel is losing the public relations war. Millions around the world continue to march, demanding a ceasefire and putting additional pressure on their governments. The draft UNSC resolution calling for a ceasefire that the US vetoed last Friday was co-sponsored by more than 100 countries. The US is becoming isolated as the only country supporting the continuation of Israel’s war. The escalation of hostilities along the northern borders of Israel and the Israeli threat to push Hezbollah north of the Litani river can only mean war. Despite the US’ blind support and threats, Hezbollah, which is now in full control of Lebanon’s political fate, will not hesitate to defend the status quo in southern Lebanon.
This is complex geopolitical territory for all. Neither Iran nor the US wants to see an expansion of the war for differing reasons. But for Netanyahu and his cohorts, the perspective is different — and dangerous. A sudden end to the war on Gaza would mean defeat for Israel and would have far-fetched repercussions for the country, but most of all for Netanyahu. The circumstances surrounding what really happened on Oct. 7 are vague. An investigation into this would make many heads roll, foremost of them being Netanyahu’s. Despite the US’ blind support and threats, Hezbollah will not hesitate to defend the status quo in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah no longer acts as a nonstate actor. It must consider its gains in Lebanon and its alliance with Iran. It does not seek a 2006 version of a war with Israel, even though it has much more firepower than at that time. Those who want to expand the war and draw in the big powers are the extremists in the Israeli political scene. Netanyahu, who has sealed the fate of the Israeli hostages by ending the truce with Hamas, is looking out for his own personal interests. Fearing that time is running out on his war on Gaza, he is in a position to force Hezbollah into a wider confrontation — thus dragging the US, and possibly Iran, into a regional war. The Biden administration must draw the line here. Hamas is unlikely to be destroyed completely, even if the war drags on for a few more months. The hostages’ families are already putting pressure on the war Cabinet, saying that this has become an unnecessary war. Netanyahu is reaching the end of his tether. A war with Hezbollah would be catastrophic for all parties. The only immediate exit is to bring Netanyahu’s government down. That may not end the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. It would present a scenario for the day after, but it would also offer all stakeholders a way out of a conundrum that, unless it is addressed, could drag the region into a major war.
*Osama Al-Sharif is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 12-13/2023
United Nations General Assembly votes to demand immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Caitlin Hu, CNN/December 12, 2023
The United Nations General Assembly has voted to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in war-torn Gaza, in a rebuke to the United States which last week blocked a similar resolution in the smaller Security Council. A majority of 153 nations voted for the ceasefire resolution in the General Assembly’s emergency special session Tuesday, while 10 voted against and 23 abstained. Tuesday’s brief resolution calls for a ceasefire, for all parties to comply with international law, and for humanitarian access to hostages as well as their “immediate and unconditional” release. It notably contains stronger language than an October vote in the assembly that had called for a “sustained humanitarian truce.” While a general assembly vote is politically significant and is seen as wielding moral weight, it is not binding, unlike a Security Council resolution. The vote, hailed as “historic” by Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, comes as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its third month, and as medics and aid groups sound alarm bells on the humanitarian situation in besieged Gaza. More than 18,000 people have been killed in the enclave since fighting broke out, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the enclave said Monday. Israel has said it will not stop its military campaign until it eradicates Palestinian group Hamas, which controls Gaza, following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel which killed 1,200 people and saw around 240 kidnapped, according to Israeli authorities. Over 100 hostages are thought to remain in captivity in Gaza. Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan described the resolution as a “disgraceful” attempt to bind Israel’s hands, warning that “continuing Israel’s operation in Gaza is the only way any hostages will be released.”Israel along with the United States, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Austria, Czechia, Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia and Nauru voted against the resolution. While Israel says it targets Hamas militants in Gaza, aid groups have repeatedly raised alarms about the civilian toll of its military campaign. UN officials warn that with vital infrastructure blasted to rubble and limited access to water, medicine and food, more Gazans may end up dying of diseases than from bombs and missiles. Hunger is a growing issue in the enclave. “We are at a breaking point,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said last week. “There is high risk of the collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences.”Israel, with staunch US backing, has rejected calls for a ceasefire, though it previously agreed to a seven-day truce for the release of hostages held in Gaza. In comments to the assembly, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that Washington does “agree that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire…and that civilians must be protected with international humanitarian law,” but added that the resolution must include a proposed US amendment condemning Hamas. ”A ceasefire right now would be temporary at best, and dangerous at worst,” she said. “Dangerous to Israelis, who would be subject to relentless attacks, and also dangerous to Palestinians who deserve the chance to build a better future for themselves free from a group that hides behind innocent civilians.” The United States on Friday vetoed a separate ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council, which had been approved by a majority of the powerful 15-member council.

Middle East leaders have few answers for 'day after' Gaza war
Agence France Presse/12 December 2023
Middle East leaders gathered in Qatar sought ideas for what happens after the Gaza war, but remained firmly opposed to putting their own troops or international forces into the ravaged territory. The Palestinian question is extremely delicate for leaders in the Arab world, where the war has sparked massive protests in several countries. At the annual Doha Forum that ended Monday, Qatar reiterated that no Arab country would send in forces to stabilize the situation after the guns of Israel and Hamas fall silent. "No one from the region will accept... to put boots on the ground (following after) an Israeli tank. This is unacceptable," said Qatari premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. But he also opposed any international force in Gaza under current conditions. "We shouldn't always talk about the Palestinians as if they need some guardian," he said. The Palestinians were represented by the Palestinian Authority, which has power in the Israeli-occupied West Bank territory, but not Gaza, which is in the hands of Hamas militants. Despite their rivalry, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Hamas could not be eradicated. They are "an integral part of the Palestinian political mosaic," he told the forum. Yet, eradication is precisely what Israel is seeking with its war -- in retaliation for Hamas's unprecedented attack of October 7 which killed 1,200 people and saw some 240 hostages taken back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures. The ensuing Israeli offensive has claimed at least 18,200 lives, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
'Heart of all conflicts'
Jordan's Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh warned that failure to deal with "the day after" the war would mean "uglier scenes in a year or two". He hoped the war would act as a "wake-up call", especially as the conflict threatens a wider regional conflagration. The war has encouraged groups linked to Iran, which backs Hamas, to launch attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, while Israel is engaged in near-daily cross-border clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israel-Palestinian question was "at the centre and the heart of all conflicts in the region," said Thani. "What's coming out of Gaza every day is not just affecting those forces in Lebanon or Yemen. It also affects an entire generation that might be radicalized because of these images," he added. But concrete policies were lacking at the forum, which did not include high-level representatives from key regional players Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt. The United States, Israel's key diplomatic and military ally, has previously indicated the Palestinian Authority could govern both Gaza and the West Bank in the aftermath of hostilities. But the Palestinians say a much more fundamental response is needed, one that takes seriously "an independent, sovereign, viable state of Palestine on all the Palestinian territories" in Shtayyeh's words. Qatar, which hosts the Hamas leadership, said it is still working on a fresh truce like the one last month that saw a one-week break in fighting and scores of Israeli hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and humanitarian aid. But Thani warned that Israel's relentless bombardment in Gaza was "narrowing this window" for a ceasefire. "There is a collective responsibility on all of us to stop the killing, to go back to the table to find a lasting solution," he said.

Biden says Israel losing support around the world for Hamas war, suggests Netanyahu make change
Alex Gangitano/The Hill./December 12, 2023
President Biden on Tuesday warned that Israel is starting to lose support around the world for its war with Hamas, which began after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks the U.S.-designated terrorist organization launched against Israel. Biden reiterated his support for Israel amid the war but told a group of donors at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has to change, and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move.”“Bibi’s got a tough decision to make,” Biden said, referring to Netanyahu. “This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” he said, adding the government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”
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Biden on Monday called his commitment to Israel “unshakeable,” but he added, “They have to be careful. The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight. We can’t let that happen.”While the White House has supported Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, it has increasingly stressed concerns over causalities in Gaza and the need for humanitarian aid. It has also made clear its support for a two-state solution, a concept Biden has long advocated for. Meanwhile, Netanyahu on Tuesday said that while he appreciates the support from Biden for destroying Hamas, there are disagreements between them about potential next steps for the region after the war. “Yes, there is disagreement about ‘the day after Hamas’ and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well. I would like to clarify my position: I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo,” he said, referring to the Oslo Accords that were signed at the White House in 1993 for Palestinians and Israelis to recognize the other’s right to exist. Biden, during the Tuesday fundraiser, reiterated his support for Israel and his stance against antisemitism in the U.S. and elsewhere. “The safety of the Jewish people [is] literally at stake,” Biden said. Prior to the conflict, Biden had called Netanyahu’s government the most conservative in Israel’s history and urged the prime minister to pull back on the nation’s controversial judicial overhaul.

Israel faces growing isolation as Gaza offensive grinds on with no end in sight
Associated Presst/12 December 2023
Israel and the United States were increasingly isolated as they faced global calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, including a non-binding vote expected to pass at the United Nations later on Tuesday. Israel has pressed ahead with an offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers that it says could go on for weeks or months. The war ignited by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel has already brought unprecedented death and destruction to the impoverished coastal enclave, with more than 18,000 Palestinians killed, mostly women and minors, and over 80% of the population of 2.3 million having fled their homes. Much of northern Gaza has been obliterated, and hundreds of thousands have fled to ever-shrinking so-called safe zones in the south. The health care system and humanitarian aid operations have collapsed in large parts of Gaza, and aid workers have warned of starvation and the spread of disease among displaced people in overcrowded shelters and tent camps. Strikes overnight and into Tuesday in southern Gaza — in an area where civilians have been told to seek shelter — killed at least 23 people, according to an Associated Press reporter at a nearby hospital.
In northern Gaza, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said a surgeon in the Al-Awda hospital was wounded Monday by a shot from outside the facility, which it says has been under "total siege" by Israeli forces for a week. There was no immediate comment from the military. In a briefing with The Associated Press on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant refused to commit to a firm timeline, but signaled that the current phase of heavy ground fighting and airstrikes could stretch on for weeks and that further military activity could continue for months. He said the next phase would be lower-intensity fighting against "pockets of resistance" and would require Israeli troops to maintain their freedom of operation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will maintain security control over Gaza indefinitely. The U.N. secretary-general and Arab states have rallied much of the international community behind calls for an immediate cease-fire. But the U.S. vetoed those efforts at the U.N. Security Council last week as it rushed tank munitions to Israel to allow it to maintain the offensive. A non-binding vote on a similar resolution at the General Assembly scheduled for Tuesday would be largely symbolic.
CRUSHING HAMAS SEEN AS 'TALL ORDER'
Israel and its main ally, the U.S., argue that any cease-fire that leaves Hamas in power, even over a small part of the devastated territory, would mean victory for the militant group, which has governed Gaza since 2007 and has pledged to destroy Israel. But many experts consider Israel's aims to be unrealistic, pointing to Hamas' deep base of support in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it is seen by many Palestinians as resisting Israel's decades-old military rule. "Destroying Hamas, even its military capability — Israeli leaders' chief war aim — will be a tall order without decimating what remains of Gaza," said the Crisis Group, an international think tank, in a report over the weekend that also called for an immediate cease-fire. Gallant said Israel has already inflicted heavy damage on Hamas, killing half the group's battalion commanders and destroying many tunnels, command centers and other facilities. The Israeli military said Tuesday that its aircraft targeted rocket launching posts throughout Gaza and that ground troops has found 250 rockets, mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in a raid. Israeli officials have said some 7,000 Hamas militants — roughly one-quarter of the group's estimated fighting force — have been killed and that 500 militants have been detained in Gaza the past month, claims that could not be verified. At least 104 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive, the army says. Gallant said that in northern Gaza, Hamas has been reduced to "islands of resistance," while in the south, where Israel expanded ground operations earlier this month, "they are still organized militarily." Hamas says it still has thousands of reserve fighters — another unverified claim — and on Monday it fired a barrage of rockets that wounded one person and damaged cars and buildings in a Tel Aviv suburb. The attack set off sirens in the city, where Gallant's office and the military headquarters are located.
CIVILIAN PLIGHT WORSENS
Israel launched the campaign after Hamas broke through its defenses and militants streamed into the south on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and seizing about 240 others. More than 100 hostages, mostly women and children, were freed during a cease-fire last month in exchange for Israel's release of 240 Palestinian prisoners. Two months of airstrikes, coupled with a fierce ground invasion, have resulted in the deaths of over 18,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory. They do not give a breakdown of civilians and combatants but say roughly two-thirds of the dead are women and minors. The actual toll is likely higher, as thousands are missing and feared dead under the rubble, and efforts to maintain the count have been hindered by the collapse of the health sector in the north. Israel blames civilian casualties on Hamas, saying it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense urban areas, using civilians as human shields. With Israel allowing little aid into Gaza and the U.N. largely unable to distribute it amid the fighting, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods. Israel has urged people to flee to what it says are safe areas in the south, and fighting in and around the southern city of Khan Younis — Gaza's second largest — has pushed tens of thousands toward the city of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt. But Israel has also continued to strike what it says are militant targets in so-called safe zones. Most of the 23 dead brought into the Rafah hospital overnight were from three families, hospital records show.

Anti-IS coalition forces targeted in Iraq and Syria
Agence France Presse/12 December 2023
A drone and rockets have targeted two military bases in Iraq and Syria housing forces of the international coalition against the Islamic State group, a U.S. military official said. Both attacks were claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose formation of armed groups affiliated with the Hashed al-Shaabi coalition of former paramilitaries that are now integrated into Iraq's regular armed forces. These pro-Iran groups violently oppose U.S. backing for Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which erupted on October 7 when the Islamist group launched a deadly attack into Israel. The United States leads the international coalition battling jihadists in Iraq and neighboring Syria, and its forces have come under repeated attack in recent weeks. On Monday in western Iraq, a drone attack targeted the Ain al-Asad airbase, without causing casualties or damage, the U.S. military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. And in northeast Syria, "several rockets" were fired at a base in the Al-Shaddadi region, the official added. Washington has recorded at least 92 attacks in Iraq and Syria since October 17, 10 days after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. Early on Friday, salvos of rockets were fired at the American embassy in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone for the first time since the Gaza war began. At least five attacks targeted US troops and the international coalition in Syria and Iraq that day. On Saturday the Iran-backed Hezbollah Brigades issued a statement saying the attacks represented "new rules of engagement", and that they would continue until the last American soldier left Iraq. There are roughly 2,500 US troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of international efforts to prevent a resurgence of IS. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has accused the Hezbollah Brigades and another pro-Iran group, Harakat al-Nujaba, of being behind most of the attacks on coalition personnel. A U.S. statement on Friday following a call with Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said Austin stressed "that the United States reserves the right to act in self-defence against those launching any attack against US personnel". The Pentagon has launched several strikes against fighters belonging to both groups in Iraq, as well as in Syria against sites linked to Iran. On Friday, Sudani in a statement said targeting embassies "is unacceptable", and called on Iraq's security forces to track down those who fired rockets at the American embassy so they could be brought to justice.

Four Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raid on West Bank's Jenin
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
Four Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in a drone strike during an Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry and the Palestinian official news agency WAFA said.One other person was injured in the attack on Al-Sibat neighborhood in the city of Jenin, WAFA reported. Jenin hospital director told the agency the Palestinians were directly targeted. Israeli forces are encircling three hospitals in the area, WAFA added. Prior to this attack, the health ministry reported that 275 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by gunmen of the Islamist movement Hamas operating out of Gaza.

Blinken: War in Gaza Could Stop When Hamas Surrenders
Washington: Ali Barada/Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday that the war in Gaza could stop when “Hamas surrenders,” leaving Israel to determine the time it needs to stop the fighting. He then revealed that his country will take whatever other actions are necessary to protect commercial ships in the Red Sea. Blinken was commenting on a letter sent by five Democratic senators this week calling for increased accountability for Israel’s use of American weapons and the possible sale of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition for Israel, bypassing congressional review generally required for foreign arms sales. He said the administration of President Joe Biden is trying to make sure that civilians are protected to the maximum extent possible in Gaza and that humanitarian assistance gets in to the maximum extent possible. Blinken admitted “the terrible human toll” that this conflict is taking on innocent men, women, and children. He claimed that when it comes to the weapons that the US transfers, and the rules that go along with them, “those rules apply to Israel as they do to any other country, including the way they are used and the need, the imperative of respecting international humanitarian law.”The US top diplomat stated that the war is against “Hamas” that attacked Israel on October 7th, and therefore, he said Washington is sending weapons to Israel to make sure that it has what it needs to defend itself against Hamas. In an interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC This Week, Blinken said, “Look, this could be over tomorrow. This could be over tomorrow if Hamas got out of the way of civilians instead of hiding behind them, if it put down its weapons, if it surrendered.”Asked about the US being the only country to vote against a UN ceasefire resolution last week, Blinken said the Biden administration has been a strong proponent of humanitarian pauses. “In fact, because of our advocacy, because of the work we did, we got pauses, we got pauses on a daily basis, to make sure that people could get out of the way, that humanitarian supplies could get in,” he said. Later, when CNN asked him whether the US will continue to back Israel if the war continues for months and months, the US Secretary of State said, “Again, Israel has to make these decisions.”He added, “Everyone wants to see this campaign come to a close as quickly as possible,” adding that “when the major military operation is over... we have to have a durable, sustainable peace, and we have to make sure that we’re on the path to a durable, sustainable peace.”

WHO Official Pleas for Gaza's Southern Hospitals to Be Spared
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
A World Health Organization official said on Tuesday that only 11, or less than a third, of Gaza's hospitals remain partially functional and pleaded for them to remain intact, Reuters said. "In just 66 days the health system has gone from 36 functional hospitals to 11 partially functional hospitals - one in the north and 10 in the south," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told a UN press briefing by videolink from Gaza. "We cannot afford to lose any health care facilities or hospitals," he said. "We hope, we plea that this will not happen."

West Bank Economy Suffers as Palestinians Lose Israeli Jobs
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
West Bank Palestinian Ibrahim al-Qiq lost his Israeli job permit after the Gaza war began, sinking him into despair and debt like thousands of others in the occupied territory. The war between Israel and Hamas may be happening in Gaza, a separate Palestinian territory on the other side of Israel, but its impact is being powerfully felt in the West Bank.Israel terminated work permits for Palestinians from both the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza following the Hamas attacks on October 7 that triggered the war, leaving many people like Qiq struggling to survive. A 37-year-old father of three, Qiq earned around 6,000 shekels ($1,615) a month as a construction worker in Israel until he lost his work permit. "We have spent what we earned," he told AFP. "Our debts have piled up, and we need to buy provisions and pay the rent for our homes and the water and electricity bills."He has been forced to borrow nearly 7,000 shekels to cover expenses.His mountainous hometown of Kharas, near the West Bank city of Hebron, has around 12,000 inhabitants. Seventy percent of its workforce used to cross time-consuming Israeli checkpoints every day to work in Israel, according to local municipality. The rest are employed by the Palestinian Authority, but it is struggling to pay staff amid a downturn that saw economic output fall by more than a third in the month after the war began. Israel has terminated 130,000 work permits for West Bank Palestinians and withheld 600 million shekels ($160 million) in taxes on Palestinian goods, said Manal Qarhan, an official at the Palestinian ministry of economy. She said the administration was now losing $24 million per day thanks to the loss of taxes and reduced tourism from Palestinians living in Israel.
Jewelry sold
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 when militants broke through the militarized border to kill around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and drag some 240 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli figures. In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, unleashing a relentless bombing campaign and ground invasion that has killed at least 18,205 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Palestinian workers do not receive social insurance or unemployment compensation from the Israeli government, as Israeli workers do -- nor is any offered by the Palestinian Authority. The jobless are left to fend for themselves. "Those whose wives had gold jewelry sold it to feed their children," said Tareq al-Hlahla, also unemployed and struggling to support an extended family of 10. Jamil Siaara, an unemployed construction worker, said: "Our future is unclear. There is mental stress, and no savings."
'No hope'
The impact is rippling through the local economy.Ahmed Radwan, who owns a supermarket in Kharas, said sales were down 70 percent and he had stopped providing groceries on credit after customer debts reached 40 percent of sales. People are buying only "basics like milk, rice, sugar and flour, and those who used to buy bread now only buy half a loaf," said Radwan. He has laid off half his six workers, and two more will go this month. "There is no hope," he said. Violence has also surged in the West Bank, where Israeli forces conduct regular raids. The Palestinian Authority says around 270 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the war began. Israel "has set up around 130 permanent and moving military checkpoints in the West Bank, which force Palestinians to travel on rough side roads that are extremely dangerous, because they expose them to settler attacks," the Palestinian ministry of economy said. The checkpoints worsen the economic impact, say locals, as they complicate transport of agricultural goods and workers.

Turkish Air Strikes Hit 13 Kurdish Militant Targets in Northern Iraq
Reuters/December 12/2023
Türkiye’s military conducted air strikes in northern Iraq on Monday and destroyed 13 Kurdish militant targets, the Turkish Defense Ministry said, adding many militants had been "neutralized" in the attack. In a statement on social messaging platform X, the ministry said the targets hit in the strikes included caves, shelters, and storage facilities where militants were believed to be. It said the strikes targeted the Hakurk, Gara, Qandil, and Metina regions of northern Iraq. Türkiye typically uses the term "neutralized" to mean killed.

Dozens Killed in Islamist Militant Attack on Northwest Pakistan Army Base
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
Islamist militants rammed an explosive-laden truck into a police station in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 23 soldiers, the army said, the latest attack in recent months claimed by a Pakistani Taliban group.
The bomb and gun attack occurred in the district of Dera Ismail Khan on the edge of the lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, the army said in a statement. Two security officials had earlier put the toll at 24. The police station was  being used by the Pakistani Army as a base camp.

Zelenskyy Will Arrive on Capitol Hill to Grim Mood as Biden's Aid Package for Ukraine Risks Collapse
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will arrive on Capitol Hill to a darker mood than when he swooped in last winter for a hero's welcome, as the Russian invasion is grinding into a third year and US funding hangs in balance. Zelenskyy's visit Tuesday comes as President Joe Biden's request for an additional $110 billion US aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs is at serious risk of collapse in Congress. Republicans are insisting on strict US-Mexico border security changes that Democrats decry as draconian in exchange for the overseas aid.“It is maddening,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close ally of Biden, of the stalemate. “A very bad message to the world, to the Ukrainian people.”The White House said the time was right for Zelenskyy’s trip to Washington as Biden pushes lawmakers to approve the aid package before the year-end holidays. But the mood turned grim at the Capitol on the eve of his arrival. Zelenskyy will meet privately with senators and new House Speaker Mike Johnson, then talk with Biden at the White House as the once robust bipartisan support for Ukraine was slipping further out of reach. Ahead of Zelenskyy's high-stakes meetings, the White House late Monday pointed to newly declassified intelligence that shows Ukraine has inflicted heavy losses on Russia in recent fighting along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis — including 13,000 casualties and over 220 combat vehicle losses. The Ukrainian holdout in the country’s partly-occupied east has been the center of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks. US intelligence officials have determined that the Russians think if they can achieve a military deadlock through the winter it will drain Western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Russia the advantage, despite the fact that Russians have sustained heavy losses and have been slowed by persistent shortages of trained personnel, munitions, and equipment.
“Russia is determined to press forward with its offensive despite its losses. It is more critical now than ever that we maintain our support for Ukraine so they can continue to hold the line and regain their territory,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. She added that Russian President Vladimir Putin "is clearly watching what happens in Congress — and we need Congress to act this month to support Ukraine in its time of need.”Republicans in Congress, fueled by Johnson's far-right flank in the House, have taken on an increasingly isolationist stance in US foreign policy, demanding changes to American border and immigration policies in exchange for any funds to battle Putin's war in Ukraine. Biden has expressed a willingness to engage with the Republicans as migrant crossings have hit record highs along the US-Mexico border, but Democrats in his own party oppose the proposals for expedited deportations and strict asylum standards as a return to Trump-era hostility towards migrants. With talks at a standstill, one chief Republican negotiator, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said there was nothing Zelenskyy could say during his visit with the senators to sway the outcome.
“Hey, pay attention to us, but not your own country? No,” Lankford told reporters. “We’ve got to be able to deal with all these things together.”Zelenskyy, who visited Washington just months ago in September when the aid package was first being considered, is making his third trip to the Capitol since the war broke out in February 2022. His surprise arrival days before Christmas last December was Zelenskyy's first wartime trip out of Ukraine and he received thunderous applause in Congress. Lawmakers sported the blue-and-yellow colors of Ukraine, and Zelenskyy, delivering a speech that drew on the parallels to World War II as he thanked Americans for their support, presented the country's flag signed by frontline troops to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
But 2023 brought a new power center of hard-right Republicans, many aligned with Donald Trump, the former president who is now the GOP front-runner in the 2024 race for the White House. New Speaker Johnson, on the job since October when Republicans ousted their previous leader Kevin McCarthy, has spoken publicly in favor of aiding Ukraine, as has Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. But it's not certain they can steer an aid package through the House's right flank. Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Zelenskyy has an opportunity to impress on Johnson in their private talk “the moral clarity and why is Ukraine important.”He said Zelenskyy could shake up the stalemate in Congress by reminding Johnson and the senators, “If we abandon our NATO allies and Ukraine, like we did in Afghanistan, we’re just going to invite more aggression and embolden and empower our adversaries.”Zelenskyy kicked off the quick visit to Washington on Monday, warning in a speech at a defense university that Russia may be fighting in Ukraine but its “real target is freedom” in America and around the world. “If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just Putin and his sick clique,” Zelenskyy told an audience of military leaders and students at the National Defense University on Monday. He noted that on this day 82 years ago the US went to combat in Europe, as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the declaration of war against Germany. Now, he said, though the US has no troops on the ground in Ukraine, it is supplying critically needed weapons and equipment.
Of the new $110 billion national security package, $61.4 billion would go toward Ukraine — with about half, some $30 billion, going to the Defense Department to replenish weaponry it is supplying to Ukraine, and the other half for humanitarian assistance and to help the Ukrainian government function with emergency responders, public works and other operations. The package includes another nearly $14 billion for Israel as it fights Hamas and $14 billion for US border security. Additional funds would go for national security needs in the Asia-Pacific region. The US has already provided Ukraine $111 billion for its fight against Russia’s 2022 invasion. "Putin still aims to conquer the country of Ukraine and subjugate its people," Watson said. The White House has been more engaged with Congress, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in some discussions, according to a person familiar with the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them. But Republicans said the Democrats did not respond to their latest offer. Border security talks have focused on making it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum and releasing fewer migrants temporarily into the US while they await proceedings to determine if they can remain more permanently. Republicans have also proposed allowing the president to shutter parts of the border when crossings reach high numbers, as they have for the past two years. One White House idea would expand the ability to conduct expedited deportations, drawing alarm from immigrant advocates. As border talks drag, Biden’s budget director said last week that the US will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, which would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield. According to the Defense Department, there is about $4.8 billion remaining in presidential drawdown authority, which pulls weapons from existing US stockpiles and sends them quickly to the war front, and about $1.1 billion left in funding to replenish the US military stockpiles.

Swedish PM Demands Immediate Release of EU Employee Jailed in Iran
Asharq Al Awsat/12 December 2023
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Monday demanded the immediate release of Swedish European Union employee Johan Floderus from prison in Iran. Floderus was arrested in Iran in 2022. Iran said on Sunday it had begun a trial of the Swedish national, having charged him with spying for Israel and "corruption on earth," a crime that carries the death penalty. "He is entirely arbitrarily detained," Kristersson told a press conference. "We demand his immediate release."Relations between Sweden and Iran have been tense since 2019, when Sweden arrested a former Iranian official, Hamid Noury, on suspicion of torture and executions of political prisoners in Iran in the 1980s, Reuters reported. A Swedish district court in 2022 found Noury guilty of the charges. Noury appealed the case, and an appeals court ruling is expected next week.

Yemen's Houthi rebels claim attack on Norway-flagged tanker
Associated Press./December 12, 2023
A missile fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels slammed into a Norwegian-flagged tanker in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen near a key maritime chokepoint, the rebels and authorities said Tuesday. The assault on the oil and chemical tanker Strinda expands a campaign by the Iranian-backed rebels targeting ships close to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait into apparently now striking those that have no clear ties to Israel. That potentially imperils cargo and energy shipments coming through the Suez Canal and further widens the international impact of the Israel-Hamas war now raging in the Gaza Strip. Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree issued a video statement saying the rebels only fired on the vessel when it "rejected all warning calls."The U.S. military's Central Command issued a statement Tuesday saying an anti-ship cruise missile "launched from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen" hit the Strinda.
"There were no U.S. ships in the vicinity at the time of the attack, but the USS Mason responded … and is currently rendering assistance," Central Command said. The Mason is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that has been involved in several of the recent incidents off Yemen. The private intelligence firms Ambrey and Dryad Global had earlier confirmed the attack happened near the crucial Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. Geir Belsnes, the CEO of the Strinda's operator, J. Ludwig Mowinckels Rederi, also confirmed the attack took place. "All crew members are unhurt and safe," Belsnes said. "The vessel is now proceeding to a safe port." The Strinda was coming from Malaysia and was bound for the Suez Canal and then on to Italy with a cargo of palm oil, Belsnes said. Saree alleged without offering any evidence that the ship was bound for Israel.
The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, earlier reported a fire aboard an unidentified vessel off Mokha, Yemen, with all the crew aboard being safe. The coordinates of that fire correspond to the last known location of the Strinda based off satellite tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press. The Houthis have carried out a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and also launched drones and missiles targeting Israel. In recent days, they have threatened to attack any vessel they believe is either going to or coming from Israel, though there was no immediate apparent link between the Strinda and Israel. Israel's national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said over the weekend that Israel has called on its Western allies to address the threats from Yemen and would give them "some time" to organize a response. But he said if the threats persist, "we will act to remove this blockade."Analysts suggest the Houthis hope to shore up waning popular support after years of civil war in Yemen between it and Saudi-backed forces.
France and the United States have stopped short of saying their ships were targeted in rebel attacks, but have said Houthi drones have headed toward their ships and were shot down in self-defense. Washington so far has declined to directly respond to the attacks, as has Israel, whose military continues to describe the ships as not having links to their country. Global shipping has increasingly been targeted as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even during a brief pause in fighting during which Hamas exchanged hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The collapse of the truce and the resumption of a punishing Israeli ground offensive and airstrikes on Gaza have raised the risk of more sea attacks. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is only 29 kilometers (18 miles) wide at its narrowest point, limiting traffic to two channels for inbound and outbound shipments, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Nearly 10% of all oil traded at sea passes through it. In November, Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The rebels still hold the vessel near the port city of Hodeida. Separately, a container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean. A separate, tentative cease-fire between the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of Yemen's exiled government has held for months despite that country's long war. That's raised concerns that any wider conflict in the sea — or a potential reprisal strike from Western forces — could reignite those tensions in the Arab world's poorest nation. In 2016, the U.S. launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that destroyed three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory to retaliate for missiles being fired at U.S. Navy ships at the time.

Turkish Cypriots reject 'malicious' Israel allegation
ISTANBUL (Reuters)/Tue, December 12, 2023
Turkish Cypriot authorities have denied an "unfounded and malicious allegation" by Israel that Iran was using northern Cyprus for "terrorism objectives". The foreign ministry of breakaway North Cyprus released the statement on Monday after the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a day earlier that Israel helped Cyprus foil an Iranian-ordered attack against Israelis and Jews on the island. His office gave no details of the planned attack but the statement on behalf of the Mossad intelligence service said Israel was troubled by what it saw as Iranian use of northern Cyprus "both for terrorism objectives and as an operational and transit area". "The Israeli government continues to make statements that are inconsistent with the facts to distract international public opinion from its inhumane attacks in Gaza and the West Bank," the Turkish Cypriot statement said. Responding to the claim that Iran was using it for terrorist activities, the ministry said, "We strongly reject this unfounded and malicious allegation that lacks evidence." The breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus is recognised only by Turkey, which is sharply critical of Israel's actions in Gaza since Oct. 7. The internationally recognised government in the south of Cyprus has close relations with Israel. The Turkish Cypriot ministry said North Cyprus would not be "drawn into dark and dirty games" and will continue to resolutely ensure the security of everyone living there. On Sunday, a Greek Cypriot newspaper reported authorities had detained two Iranians for questioning over suspected planning of attacks on Israeli citizens living in Cyprus. The two individuals were believed to be in the early stages of gathering intelligence on potential Israeli targets, the Kathimerini Cyprus newspaper said without citing sources. Those individuals had crossed from the north, it said. Reuters was unable to verify the details in the newspaper report. A senior Cyprus official declined to comment, citing policy on issues concerning national security. Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 12-13/2023
Ukraine: Biden Helping Putin to Win
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute./December 12, 2023
The Biden administration's persistent failure to provide Ukraine with the military supplies it requires poses a serious danger of gifting victory to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
[T]he Ukrainians... remain desperately short of key ammunition.
[A]ny form of Russian success in Ukraine would not only spell disaster for Kyiv, but for the wider Western alliance. Putin has made no secret of his desire to extend Russian military aggression beyond Ukraine to include other regions of eastern Europe,
[I]t is vital that the Biden administration not only renews its support for Zelensky during his visit to Washington this week, but also ensures Ukrainian forces receive the equipment they desperately need to defeat Russia. Only by making certain that Putin suffers a humiliating defeat in Ukraine will the West succeed in deterring autocratic regimes such as Russia, China and Iran from committing further acts of aggression. From Abrams tanks to F-16 fighters, US President Joe Biden has constantly dithered over providing Ukraine with the equipment upgrades its forces desperately need if they are to succeed in defending themselves against Russian aggression. The Biden administration's persistent failure to provide Ukraine with the military supplies it requires poses a serious danger of gifting victory to Russian President Vladimir Putin. From Abrams tanks to F-16 fighters, US President Joe Biden has constantly dithered over providing Ukraine with the equipment upgrades its forces desperately need if they are to succeed in defending themselves against Russian aggression.
The failure, moreover, to ensure that Ukraine achieves victory in its battle against Moscow's unprovoked invasion has been a key factor in the failure of Ukraine's long-awaited counter-offensive to achieve a decisive breakthrough of Russia's heavily-fortified defences in Ukraine.
Even though it is a year since President Volodymyr Zelensky first made his request to the US and other Western allies to be equipped with superior heavy armour and warplanes, the equipment is only starting to become available on the battlefield now, just as the bitter Ukrainian winter takes hold, thereby severely diminishing its effectiveness.It was only last month that the first of the 31 US Abrams tanks pledged by the Biden administration were seen in action at an undisclosed location on the Ukrainian battlefield, while the US-made F-16 warplanes, whose delivery to Ukraine was only approved by the White House as late as August, are not due to arrive until next year, with the majority of the warplanes not scheduled for delivery until 2025. Having raised hopes that this year's Ukrainian counter-offensive would lead to a major breakthrough, Zelensky and his senior commanders are understandably frustrated that progress has been slow, a fact they blame on the inadequacies of the supplies they have received from the US and its allies.
As Zelensky himself conceded in a recent PBS interview, "We didn't get all the weapons we wanted, I can't be satisfied, but I also can't complain too much."Trying to persuade the Biden administration and the US Congress to maintain their support for Ukraine will top the agenda when Zelensky arrives in Washington this week for crucial talks.Biden and Zelensky "will discuss Ukraine's urgent needs" as it fights off a Russian invasion, and "the vital importance of the United States' continued support at this critical moment," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
The modest successes achieved by the Ukrainian counter-offensive has certainly not passed unnoticed in Moscow, where Putin believes the tide of the conflict is now turning in his favour. "I have no doubt that we will certainly achieve all the goals we have set for ourselves," a confident Putin told Russian soldiers this month at an event where he also announced his candidacy for the 2024 elections. The turnaround in Russia's fortunes in Ukraine is quite remarkable given that only a few months ago the Russian military appeared on the point of collapse after suffering a number of humiliating setbacks. The botched coup attempt in June launched by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group chief who had played a key role in Putin's so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine, undoubtedly marked the nadir of the Russian campaign, raising serious doubts about the Putin's ability to survive in office. Since Prigozhin's death in a mysterious plane crash in August, however, the Kremlin's fortunes have gradually improved after Putin ordered a dramatic increase in the production of military hardware to make up for the devastating losses in both men and equipment on the battlefield.
By September it was estimated that Russia had in some cases achieved a tenfold increase in the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, which have made a significant contribution to helping the Russians to seize the initiative while the Ukrainians, by contrast, remain desperately short of key ammunition. The result is that, as this year's fighting season draws to a close with the arrival of winter, Russia finds itself in the surprise position of moving onto the offensive, with Russian forces desperately battling for control of the crucial town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk, widely regarded as the gateway to the Russian-occupied area of Donetsk.
The prospect of Russian forces starting to regain the advantage in Ukraine is certainly a development that the West should view with deep alarm: any form of Russian success in Ukraine would not only spell disaster for Kyiv, but for the wider Western alliance. Putin has made no secret of his desire to extend Russian military aggression beyond Ukraine to include other regions of eastern Europe, with the head of Polish security recently warning that Nato has just three years to prepare for a Russia attack on its eastern flank. In such circumstances, therefore, it is vital that the Biden administration not only renews its support for Zelensky during his visit to Washington this week, but also ensures Ukrainian forces receive the equipment they desperately need to defeat Russia. Only by making certain that Putin suffers a humiliating defeat in Ukraine will the West succeed in deterring autocratic regimes such as Russia, China and Iran from committing further acts of aggression.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Gaza: Indeed… Silence Is Worth Gold
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2023
I remember that I have taken a particular interest in recent years in the question of the extent to which governments and parties need a spokesperson. Over time, with the expansion of the debate and the accumulation of practices, many in the Arab world have begun to seriously pose a more radical question: why do we need ministries of information in the first place?
Here, before going back to the models we had seen in the Arab world before the “setback of” 1967, or “Pravda” and “Izvestia” of the former Soviet Union, I would venture to say that what we have been hearing and seeing in many press conferences held in Western democracies... is not at all better than what we had heard from the “media” in the sixties. In the Cold War era, audiences understood that the media they were consuming was controlled by totalitarian authorities and that everything they read or heard was more “a point of view” or “justification for a political position” than it was objective reporting or solid analysis. Today, however, the audience finds itself facing a whole host of problems, the most prominent of which are...
Firstly, strategic political interests, especially those of the major powers, have not changed and are not expected to fundamentally change, despite the development of media technologies and the challenges of “packaging” and “falsifying” them. Thus, justifying these interests and 'polishing' and promoting them - even with a considerable fabrication - is not as different today than it had been in the past as we might assume.
Secondly, Western political culture, which many of us have had the opportunity to experience and whose benefits many of us have enjoyed, is not as absolutely perfect as we may have imagined as we stood before it in awe. While it appears civilized, sophisticated, and tolerant under normal circumstances, it sheds these layers of civilization, sophistication, and tolerance when tensions escalate and hostility intensifies. This is exactly what we are seeing today, not only in the atrocities committed against civilians, hospitals, schools, and places of worship in the occupied Palestinian territories, but also in blatantly government crackdowns on freedom of speech in US universities, the British media, and the shameless advertising boycotts aimed at silencing dissent.
Thirdly, the blackmail and censorship (even criminalization) referred to above were a natural outcome of a series of developments following the end of the Cold War and the rise of the US as a “unipolar” power after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the past, Washington's pretext for building Israel's military arsenal was “maintaining the balance of power in the Middle East.” Since Moscow's fall, however, Washington has begun to openly talk about “the need to maintain Israel’s superiority,” completely disregarding the ”power balance” narrative.
Moreover, in the fall of 1975, before Washington became a unipolar power, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379, which labeled Zionism a form of racism, and called on every country in the world to resist Zionist ideology, which the Resolution asserted was a threat to global peace and security.
However, after the collapse of the Soviet challenge, Washington forced the repeal of this resolution in 1991. From then on, we have seen a shift in the opposite direction, with criticism of Zionism being seen as racist. This push has gained so much momentum that today, any criticism of the Israeli government, regardless of the politics behind it, is seen as an 'anti-Semitic' offense that should be criminalized.
Fourthly, the events of October 7th have been exploited to launch a war that has led to unprecedented levels of destruction and displacement, though most of the Arab world sincerely condemned it at the time and it became clear that Hamas officials had not been informed about it.
Indeed, the killing and displacement have yet to stop... despite several lies and rumors about the operation being exposed, as well as intelligence reports presenting findings that turned out to be inaccurate or false. Some of these reports referred to the fact that some of Gaza's tunnels had been dug by Israel during its occupation of the Strip, as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has admitted, and the intelligence narrative relocating Hamas’s alleged command center from the Al-Shifa Hospital to Khan Yunis!Fifthly, defying the global public and a substantial segment of the US public, Washington insisted on using its veto to prevent an end to the exacerbating humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza after nearly 18,000 people were killed in two months. The justification given by Washington for its veto against the Arab project premised purely on humanitarian grounds, was that it was “politically unbalanced” because it did not condemn Hamas... and thus “paves the way for another war”! In any case, even though the “pretext” of the US representative was an insult to the intelligence of everyone who heard it, it remains far less problematic than the statements of White House Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, John Kirby, who said at press conference, without batting an eye: “Tell me — name me one more nation, any other nation, that’s doing as much as the United States to alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Gaza? You can’t. You just can’t.”After all this, do we still need official spokespeople, responsible media, and respect for logic... let alone humanity and international law??

Post-Gaza…Minimization is Not a Solution!
Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2023
The hell that is the war in Gaza is the result of a long series of minimizations. Firstly, the Israelis minimized the significance of Hamas’s ideology. They underestimated the capacities of some Hamas wings, assuming that these wings could never imagine the impossible and strive to realize it, and so the operation of October 7th unfolded as it did. On the other side, Hamas minimized the gravity of Israel’s retaliation. During the first few days of the war, many Palestinians with experience in dealing with Israel told me they were certain that the process would take no more than a few weeks, and that the attack had not precipitated a strategic shift but left a wounded beast lashing out.
Both the Israelis and Palestinians minimized the gravity of the situation. A third party also minimized the situation, the Arabs, primarily the Arab public, who readily assumed that Israel does not fight anymore and that a blow like that of October 7th would "send them back to where they came from!" Many failed to see the significance of hundreds of thousands of Israelis returning to their homes to join the war effort.
An even more substantial segment of the population has yet to understand how drastically the mindset of the Israelis has shifted, particularly among those who support peace and live in the agricultural "Kibbutzim" in the Gaza envelope, most of whom are socialist leftists, after hundreds of them were killed or kidnapped. Many also underestimated just how far the West would be willing to go in supporting Israel in the war it launched in response to the operation of October 7th.
These minimizations have led us to the hell we now find ourselves in. Added to them is the assumption we can simply begin discussions around what happens the day after the war ends based on pre-war views and conceptions.
Let us begin by acknowledging that three outcomes are not possible:
1. Hamas remaining in Gaza is not possible, to say nothing about the movement being a partner in any political process with the next government.
2. It is impossible for Israel to remain in Gaza and occupy it, as that would be to ensure that the next explosion is nothing but a matter of time, in the West Bank or perhaps beyond. This is a scenario that has been tried and tested; Israel is aware of its practical and political costs.
3. A vacuum in Gaza is not feasible. That would turn the devastated city into a hotbed of extremism.
It might seem like the Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza is the obvious solution. However, that would require the formation of a completely different Palestinian government with extraordinary powers that allow it to bypass all bodies of the Palestinian political system currently in place. The system has three branches: Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Palestinian Authority, with its presidency, government, and legislative council.
Reformulating Palestinian political bodies, uniting them under a single unit with exceptional powers intent on realizing a political project suited to the post-October 7th world seems almost unattainable given the current mood in both Palestine and Israel.
Indeed, the Palestinians do not have a conception of the minimal terms they would be willing to accept, i.e. they do not have a vision for a transitional phase that does not give rise to a two-state solution, since it would take years to create the kind of climate needed for such a solution. As for the Israelis, they are not ready psychologically, politically, as a people, or as elites, to offer the concessions needed for the kind of solution that the Palestinians could accept.
Israel's domestic crises, although potentially resolvable within the framework of its robust state institutions, are no less significant than those of the Palestinians, and they could also break the foundations of the political settlement needed.
The Palestinians need to lay out a clear political vision for any settlement with the Israelis that includes a narrow and defined timeline. On the other hand, the Israelis need to present a clear conception of a Palestinian political entity and the commitments it would have to for Israel to agree to a settlement. Here, we should keep in mind that the Likud party, until October 7th, had been pursuing a policy aimed at perpetuating Palestinian divisions and undermining Israel’s realist partner, the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the Israelis demand the security structures that give Israeli society back its sense of security, and this debate requires overcoming an endless list of obstacles and disagreements about the identity of these structures and their capacities.
Which comes first, then? Laying out visions for a political future or defining the political structures?
Matters are complicated further when we consider the developments we will see in the next year. Most notably, the U.S. elections will be held in November 2024, and none of the scenarios mentioned before are possible without US involvement, especially since European leadership is declining globally and the limits of what other international sponsors can offer during serious crises have been exposed.
Israel needs a few months to ensure that Hamas's military infrastructure has been destroyed, if its effort to do so is successful, and to create a new situation on the ground in Gaza. Only then can it focus its mind on political solutions. However, the US focus will have shifted by then. Starting in March, it will be entirely focused on the difficult elections, meaning that it will not have the political energy needed to focus on Palestine-Israel.
Once we add the prospect of a Lebanese-Israeli conflict to the mix in the next few months, as a sequel to the Gaza war from Israel's perspective, we are looking at years of reformulating the security and military order in the Middle East. Israel will certainly not wait for an attack like that of October 7th on its borders with Lebanon to work on totally changing the rules of the game with Hezbollah. That is the only way over one hundred thousand Israelis could return to their towns in northern Israel. If they do not, the notion that Hezbollah can displace Israelis and "send them back to where they came from" would become substantially more credible to both Israelis and Hezbollah, reinforcing delusions and fueling conflict. Among all the minimizations I have presented, the most prominent of them is presenting solutions that assume that everything we have seen is a more dramatic repeat of previous wars and confrontations. There is much that needs to change, in Palestine, Israel, and the Arab world, before we can begin to imagine a solution.

Al-Habtoor Group mulls exit from Lebanon if government fails to protect investments
Reina TaklaLArab News/December 12, 2023
Initial value of the group’s direct investment in Lebanon was over $1 billion with an additional $500 million in indirect investments
BEIRUT: Business giant Al-Habtoor Group is prepared to pull out of Lebanon entirely if the government does not take action to protect its investments, the conglomerate’s chairman has warned.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News, the UAE-based firm’s chairman Khalaf Al-Habtoor made clear his frustration with the economic decline of Lebanon, and revealed he was prepared to enlist “high-caliber law firms overseas” to recover lost assets.
His warnings came after he sent a letter to Prime Minister Najib Mikati in which he expressed deep concern over the threat to Gulf investments in the country.
Pointing out the illegal “seizure” of the group’s funds by Lebanese banks and the losses incurred due to the socio-political turmoil, the business tycoon emphasized that it is the moral duty and legal obligation of the government to pay compensation and protect foreign investments.
“If I find a buyer now for everything I invested there with a negotiable price, I will sell it,” Al-Habtoor told Arab News when discussing the possibility of withdrawing investments from Lebanon.
Once a thriving and vibrant economy, Lebanon now finds itself mired in deep political instability, financial crises, and a war at its border threatening to further destabilize the country. The economy of the country that was not so long ago called “the Switzerland of the Middle East” due to its scenic beauty and secured banking system is in shambles. Foreign investors particularly from the Gulf Cooperation Council states are concerned about protecting their business interests.
Al-Habtoor expressed his growing frustration over the worsening situation in Lebanon. He accused some militias of controlling the state’s resources leading to the current economic decline.
The UAE businessman called for the urgent dismantling of these armed groups to ensure the survival of Lebanon and the revival of its economy.
When asked about pursuing legal action, Al-Habtoor told Arab News: “We are discussing this seriously because now this is (a) warm-up.” The group’s chairman said they have set a timeframe for the Lebanese government to respond with appropriate measures to address the situation.
In case of its failure to take necessary actions, “we will have no choice except to consult high-caliber law firms overseas,” he said.
We reopened Al-Habtoor Grand and Metropolitan to let the families who work there survive. We are losing now and we don’t know for how long we (can) stay like this to let these families live
Khalaf Al-Habtoor, Al-Habtoor Group chairman
Al-Habtoor said the initial value of the group’s direct investment in Lebanon was over $1 billion with an additional $500 million in indirect investments. However, due to the economic downturn, the current value of these investments is almost zero. With approximately 500 employees in Lebanon, the impact of the economic crisis on the workforce and their families is substantial, he added.
Founded in 1970, Al-Habtoor Group has grown into one of the largest and most respected conglomerates in the region. With interests spanning hospitality, automotive, real estate, education, and publishing sectors, the group's investments in Lebanon have been significant. However, the economic crisis that unfolded in Lebanon in 2019, compounded by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastating Beirut explosion in 2020, has left the country in a state of economic despair.
In the face of economic hardships, Al-Habtoor reopened the Grand and Metropolitan hotels. When questioned about this decision, he said: “We reopened Al-Habtoor Grand and Metropolitan to let the families who work there survive. We are losing now and we don’t know for how long we (can) stay like this to let these families live.” The move reflects a commitment to supporting local communities and providing employment opportunities amid challenging circumstances.
The business community in Lebanon — local and foreign investors — are equally concerned about the current situation of the country. Al-Habtoor told Arab News that he was approached by the Lebanese depositors’ association and was open to collaborating with those who share a common cause.
He criticized Lebanese banks for giving investors’ money to unknown entities, putting the blame on them for the current predicament.
Al-Habtoor’s warning he could withdraw from the country comes at a time when Lebanon’s economic prospects look bleak, and confidence in the financial system is eroding. Last week, 11 out of 12 members of the Lebanese bankers association in Lebanon took a unique route in its attempt to recover deposits held with Banque du Liban. Banks including Bank Audi, BLOM Bank, Byblos Bank, and others, sent a formal notice to the Finance Ministry, a crucial step under Lebanese administrative law, signalling their intention to file a recourse against the administration. This notice requires the state to pay BDL nearly $68 billion within two months, with the banks aiming to move the judiciary if the state fails to comply.
As a preliminary step, the banks are demanding $16.5 billion borrowed by the state from BDL between 2007 and 2023. They also seek financing for the $51.3 billion losses recorded on the central bank’s balance sheet for 2020, as indicated in the Alvarez & Marsal audit reports.
This legal move comes at a critical juncture, coinciding with discussions in the Council of Ministers about a bank restructuring project.
The project, as it stands, absolves the government and the central bank of responsibility for the country’s multidimensional crisis, shifting the burden to banks and depositors. L’Orient-Le Jour reported that Deputy Prime Minister Saadeh Chami, allegedly the brain behind the project, denies responsibility, attributing its development to the Banking Control Commission in Lebanon, an entity under the jurisdiction of the BDL. BDL’s deficit, a major cause of the financial crisis since 2019, has implications not only for the banking sector but also for the wider Lebanese population. Deposit restrictions, implemented without parliamentary authorization, have led to legal actions by depositors against various banks, adding yet another layer of complexity to the crisis. A demonstration on Dec. 7, organized by depositors in front of BDL’s headquarters, revealed public outrage and condemnation of the banks’ legal action, with depositors describing it as a “smokescreen.” The Union of Depositors accused the state of contributing to the erosion of depositors' funds and criticized BDL’s perceived inaction.
Wassim Mansouri, acting as BDL’s governor since July, took the charge from Riad Salameh. Salameh, who held the position since 1993, faces investigations for financial wrongdoing. While external investigations often point to the state and BDL responsible for the crisis, there is a prevalent belief in Lebanon that banks were complicit, benefitting from high-yield investments and financial engineering initiatives.
As the banking sector anticipates potential restructuring in 2024 and Lebanon grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades, Al-Habtoor Group’s plea for government action serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need for reforms. The fate of foreign investments and the economic recovery of the country now hang in the balance, awaiting decisive actions from the Lebanese government.

Israel uses mass displacement of Gazans as tool of war
Associated Press/By Nicholas R. Micinski, University of Maine; Adam G. Lichtenheld, Stanford University, and Kelsey Norman, Rice University//December 12, 2023
As a result of the monthslong Israeli air and ground campaign in northern Gaza Strip, more than 1.8 million of the strip's population have been displaced from their homes. And with the operation heading into Gaza's south, many are now fleeing areas they were told would be safer. This mass displacement – some 80% of the Gaza population – is a deliberate element of Israel's military campaign, with complex objectives. In the early stages of the conflict, the Israeli military said it was emptying areas for civilians' own safety – despite mass evacuation orders being against international law, except in very discrete scenarios.
Since then, other longer-term objectives have been touted by voices in and around the Israeli government. On Oct. 17, 2023, the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, an Israeli think tank with links to the government, published a paper arguing that the current military campaign presented "a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip."Meanwhile, a leaked document from Oct. 13, purportedly from the Israeli intelligence ministry, proposed the permanent relocation of all or a portion of Palestinians in Gaza through three steps: set up tent cities in Egypt, create a humanitarian corridor, and build cities on the Sinai Peninsula. The document concluded that the relocation was "liable to provide positive and long-lasting strategic results."Similarly, Israel's intelligence minister has promoted a plan to resettle Gazan residents in countries around the world, while a pro-Israeli government news outlet has reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is eyeing a plan to "thin" Gaza's population "to a minimum." To be clear, the Israeli government has not publicly confirmed any plan for Gaza's population after the current conflict. But as scholars of migration and war, we understand that displacement in conflict is often strategic – that is, it can serve specific short-term and long-term goals.
Displacement as a tool of war
Historically, population displacement has been used for three strategic reasons in conflicts:
As a means of controlling or expelling a population seen as hostile or undesirable. This occurred during the war in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995, when the Serbian army expelled or killed whole communities of Bosniaks, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of 82% of the non-Serb population. More recently, nearly the entire Armenian population of the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh fled the threat of violence by Azerbaijan forces. In other cases, armed groups uproot civilians in order to subjugate them, rather than remove them en mass. From 1993 to 2002, security forces in Turkey used systematic village evacuations to control and pacify the Kurdish population as part of counterinsurgency operations against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. As a grab for territory and resources. This occurred in the Western Sahara, which Morocco claims as part of its territory. Since 1975, the Moroccan government has sought to repopulate the former Spanish colony by moving Moroccan nationals in and forcing the displacement of Sahrawis to refugee camps in Algeria. As a result, the population of Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara is comprised of twice as many Moroccans as Sahrawis, and nearly 200,000 Sahrawis remain refugees.
As a sorting mechanism to weed out disloyal or disobedient populations. During the Syrian Civil War, President Bashar al-Assad's government systematically depopulated rebel-held areas. Refugees returning to Syria from neighboring countries like Lebanon and Jordan – along with internally displaced Syrians – were put through laborious security checks to vet their loyalty and ensure they do not pose a threat to the Assad regime.
Permanent displacement
In the context of the current conflict in Gaza, all three strategies of population displacement – as control, territorial expansion and sorting – have been reportedly suggested by officials or others with Israeli government ties. Israel has leveraged the threat of mass exodus of Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula in negotiations with Egypt. Reports suggest that Israel has floated the idea of paying off Egypt's massive International Monetary Fund debt in exchange for the country hosting refugees from Gaza, or offering large aid packages in exchange for setting up temporary camps in Sinai. However, Egypt has refused to open its border beyond allowing a few hundred Palestinians with dual citizenship and several dozen critically injured individuals to cross. The mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza on a permanent basis – be it to Egypt or throughout the world – is unlikely, as it would require agreement from would-be host countries and the compliance of Palestinians, though the chief of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency recently cautioned that Israel is continuing to pursue this strategy. Moreover, the permanent resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza would amount to ethnic cleansing, something the U.N. has already warned of. Any temporary displacement from Gaza would require a guarantee of the right to return for the displaced, and a commitment from Israel that there would be a rebuilt Gaza to return to – and neither is certain.
'Indefinite' occupation
One option being discussed by Netanyahu is for Palestinians in Gaza to live under Israeli security controls for an "indefinite period," as they did before Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Such a move would be in line with Israel's security goal of removing Hamas from its borders. Reoccupation – or even annexation, as some Israeli analysts have promoted – of parts of northern Gaza, coupled with the depopulation of these areas, would enable the Israeli military to turn these areas into buffer zones. But occupation is very resource and labor intensive. Israel will be reluctant to commit to rebuilding Gaza, patrolling the streets and carefully monitoring and governing the population. And an indefinite occupation would put Israeli soldiers at risk and likely become unpopular with the Israeli public and the international community. Already, U.S. President Joe Biden has warned Israel against the reoccupation of Gaza, calling the option "a big mistake."
Filtering for Hamas
An alternative to a full occupation is for Israel to continue to drive the Palestinians in Gaza further south, and only allow those deemed not to pose a threat to Israel back in northern Gaza. Israel has stated its intention is to eradicate Hamas. To that end, it has pushed civilians into increasingly smaller areas in the south, with the implication being that those who fail to leave are suspect. Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, claimed as much in an interview with CNN: "We … asked all the civilians to leave, and most of them did. … One has to ask: They had ample time to leave, why didn't they heed the advice to leave the area?" Of course, the implication that those not fleeing are Hamas fighters or supporters ignores the plight of immobile populations like the elderly, disabled and orphans. It also puts the onus on civilians to know where the evacuation zones are.
After the seven-day pause in fighting, Israel resumed the bombardment and began issuing evacuation orders using a numbered grid of neighborhoods in Gaza, splitting the strip into more than 600 areas. The Israeli military said this is to protect civilians; however, it could also serve as a crude method of differentiating civilians from Hamas and other militants – the assumption being that people who stay will be viewed as as potential threat. Indeed, images emerged on Dec. 7 of Israeli soldiers detaining semi naked Palestinian men on their knees at gunpoint, allegedly filtering for Hamas fighters.
Controlling Gaza's population through the use of zones, formal occupation or resettlement elsewhere are strategies that have been repeatedly suggested during the course of the conflict. Which of them, if any, comes to fruition will depend not just on the actions of Israelis and Palestinians, but also on other states and international organizations – namely Egypt, the United States and the United Nations. And to greater or lesser degrees, all three entities have warned Israel against the strategic use of forced displacement to serve its political and military ends. After all, "forcible transfer" is in itself a crime under international law. The question now is whether such factors will influence how Israeli officials use strategic displacement – and what it will mean for the future of the Palestinians in Gaza. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/israels-
mass-displacement-of-gazans-fits-strategy-of-using-migration-as-a-tool-of-war-219361.

Hamas and the Debunking of War Fallacies
شارل شرتوني/حماس وفضح مغالطات الحرب
Charles Chartouni/This is Beirut/December 12/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125119/125119/
The unfolding of the Gaza War sends us to a basic reality check to understand its nature. This war was initially triggered by a terrorist attack that targeted the South of Israel and yielded a full-fledged pogrom with its cortège of horrors: mass murder (the rave party rampage), women’s rape and sexual atrocities, assaults on civilians in their neighborhoods, cold-blooded assassinations and torture (elderly, toddlers, youth, entire families…), dismemberment and calcination of bodies, hostage taking, vandalism and wild campaigns of terror… This violence equates with egregious Jewish hate crimes (Judenhaß), pogroms and a blatant declaration of war that leaves no room for semantic equivocations.
Paradoxically enough, the perpetrators of these deliberate crimes, while adamant in their denial, were the ones to document and disseminate these atrocities through their webcams. Ironically, their rebuttal was relayed by various Islamic, Palestinian and leftist woke mainstreams who blasted the Israeli accounts as fake justifications based on fairy tale-spinning and fabricated accounts.
What’s appalling is the persistence of obdurate denial and the intentional obfuscation between the Hamas declaration of war and the Israeli act of war, which exculpates the aggressor and prohibits Israel’s right to self-defense. The other intellectual fallacy is the moral devaluation of the massacre under the pretext of resistance to an occupying power, whereas the attack has basically targeted civilians who were not even in a state of self-defense. The criminal forays were legitimate and morally justifiable, whereas Israel’s act of war is inherently unwarranted and unjust. Otherwise, the ongoings of the war in Gaza and its humanitarian and urban devastations were ascribed unilaterally to Israeli military action, whereas the criminal strategy of the human shields and the instrumentalization of the urban setting for military purposes were discounted as the main drivers behind the unhinged violence and its calamitous consequences.
The ideological humbug and the simulated triumphalism of Palestinian militants and their Iranian handler, the woke hysterical rambling and cynical casuistry (the statements of Harvard, MIT and Pennsylvania University Presidents, the NUPES in France, the CAIR repeated statements in the US, the various incantations of leftist movements…), and the cynicism and duplicity of the Hamas bankroller, Qatari autocrat Tamim al Thani, turned out to be empty rhetoric, while the Israeli military plan is proceeding and achieving its objectives in an orderly manner. This tragic turn of events testifies to the criminal, cynical and irresponsible war planning of Hamas and its Iranian enabler, at a time when the Palestinian civilian population is cowed by terror and unable to have a say over what has been decided on its behalf.
The instrumentalization of the Palestinian scenery, far from being a novelty, is once again re-enacted by Iranian power politics under the empty rhetoric of Palestine liberation and restoration of national self-determination, and the military ineptitude of Hamas and its ilk was amply testified in this senseless and criminal marauding. The telescoping of events, the sabotaging of a legacy of international mediations, resolutions and peace agreements (UN resolution 1947, Camp David 1978, Madrid 1991, Oslo 1993-1995 and its derivatives, Abraham accords, 2020…) were overshadowed by the dismissal of the complex coexistence plot between the two people, the inter-Palestinian civil wars, the compounded failures of the Palestinian national authority, the takeover of zero-sum game politics and terrorism, in order to justify the nihilistic turn of events, convey the false picture of a free-floating conflict with a blunted temporality.
The devastating consequences of this war are pursuing their course, insofar as the polarization within the respective camps, the reconfiguration of regional and domestic geopolitics, the reshuffling of indigenous political landscapes and the future of diplomatic mediations. The management of the war aftermath is essential if we were to preempt the pitfalls of strategic voids, unattended squalor, systematic destitution and open-ended violence, and pave the way for working diplomacy. This protracted conflict has to redefine along the following parameters: the primacy of an elaborate diplomatic agency and legacy, the taming of extremism on both sides and all along the ideological and political spectrums, the reinstatement of Palestinian autonomy hobbled by strategic dependencies and ideological foreclosures, and the restoration of moral reciprocity, as a preliminary to the urgency of a mandated international conference. This conflict cannot continue as a nihilistic struggle shorn of normative and regulatory standards and constructive political and diplomatic engagements, and subjected to the sway of destructive power politics and their shifting configurations.