Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 14-15/2023
Saint Nimatullah Hardini’s Annual Day – December 14 عيد القديس نعمة الله الحرديني
The Hamas-Israel War: End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End? frrom Washington Institute. Participants : Robert Staloof. Hanin Ghaddar. Matthew Levitt. Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion
Report: Cabinet to OK Aoun's extension, Hezbollah and PSP to abstain
Adwan says Aoun's term will be discussed in parliament as session adjourned
Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Mosque hit as raids, phosphorus bombs strike southern Lebanon front
UK discusses border security, urges 'full implementation' of 1701
Parliament approves amendments to social security law, discusses sovereign fund proposal
Parliament approves agreements with European Investment Bank, Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in legislative session
Parliament approves renewable energy generation draft law, loan agreement with Kuwait Fund
Parliament approves urgent law for ratifying loan agreement between government, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Berri adjourns legislative session to Friday at 3 PM
Israel: One in five rockets fired by Hezbollah falls inside Lebanon
Israel's conditions and Sullivan's agenda: Northern front, Gaza aid, and post-war plan
Israel's conditions and Sullivan's agenda: Northern front, Gaza aid, and post-war plan
Land Registry reopens: Reversal of decision amid corruption allegations
Persistent challenges in Lebanon and Syria: UNHCR addresses political and economic instabilities
Christmas in Kawkaba: A timeless celebration of joy and unity
UN says Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan face socioeconomic downturn from Gaza war
Geagea: I no longer expect anything from France
Moody's affirms Lebanon's C rating, changes outlook to stable
Lebanon crises have 'devastating' effect on children, UNICEF says
Mikati Warns of Lebanon Collapse due to 'Syrian Displacement'

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 14-15/2023
Gaza war to take 'months', Israel tells White House
Israel tells top US official war will last ‘months’
Israel bombs Gaza as rift with US grows
Eleven Killed in Days-long Israeli Raid in West Bank
UK, US Sanction Iranians Linked to Quds Force, Palestinian Militant Groups
Israel Strikes Length of Gaza as US Presses for More Accurate Targeting
Gaza Families Beg for Bread, Eat Donkey Meat as Aid Deliveries Falter
Number of Journalists Killed On Job In 2023 Declines Despite Gaza
UNRWA: People of Gaza 'Running Out Of Time and Options
New Attack on Red Sea Cargo Ship as US Proposes Naval Coalition
'Gate of Tears': Iran-aligned Houthis a growing threat in the Red Sea
Hungry, thirsty and humiliated: Israel’s mass arrest campaign sows fear in northern Gaza
Unprecedented tensions between White House and Netanyahu as Biden feels political price for standing with Israel
Israeli Knesset passes new wartime budget
Israeli president speaks against 2-state solution ahead of meeting with U.S security chief
Liberal MPs ask universities if calling for genocide of Jews violates school codes
Iran lifts visa rules for 33 countries including Gulf states -ISNA
Turkish Lawmaker Who Gave Speech Criticizing Israel Dies after Collapsing in Parliament
Saudi FM and UK’s David Cameron discuss Gaza ceasefire, aid in London

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 14-15/2023
Iran Sponsored the October 7 Massacre. America Paid for It./Tony Badran/The Tablet/December 14/2023
The 'Biden Border Crisis' Comes to the Big Apple/Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute./December 14, 2023
I Saw the Haunting Reality of Palestinian Child Prisoners/Fadi Quran/Time/December 14, 2023
Exploding attack drones causing chaos in the Middle East are no match for US Navy warships, former captains say/Jake Epstein/Business Insider/December 14, 2023
On a War No One is Likely to Win Absolutely/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/14 December 2023
US Vetoes Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Resolution at UN Security Council/Farnaz Fassihi, Michael Levenson, Aaron Boxerman and Victoria Kim/The New York Times/14 December 2023
Risks involved in AI revolution can be overcome/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/December 14, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 14-15/2023
Saint Nimatullah Hardini’s Annual Day – December 14 عيد القديس نعمة الله الحرديني
هو يوسف بن جرجس كسّاب ومريم رعد، من قرية حردين – أعالي البترون؛ وهو الرابع في عائلةٍ مؤلّفةٍ من خمسة شبّان : عسّاف، الياس (الحبيس أليشاع)، طانيوس، يوسف (القدّيس نعمة الله)، ويعقوب، ومن فتاتَين : مسيحيّة ومريم. أبصر النّور في شهر آذار سنة 1808.
St Nimatullah Youssef Kassab Al-Hardini (1808-1858)
Youssef Kassab Al-Hardini was born in 1808 in Hardin, Lebanon. As a child, he was strongly influenced by the monastic tradition of the Maronite Church. Four of his brothers became priests or monks, and Youssef himself entered the Lebanese Maronite Order in 1828.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125171/125171/
December 14/2023

من موقع معهد اشنطن حلقة نقاش باللغة الإنكليزية تحت عنوان حرب حماس وإسرائيل. تقديم روبرت ستالوف وومشاركة حنين غدار والجنرال عساف اوريون وماثيو لفي
The Hamas-Israel War: End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End? frrom Washington Institute. Participants : Robert Staloof. Hanin Ghaddar. Matthew Levitt. Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125184/125184/
Washington Institute
With the end of the humanitarian pause for hostage/prisoner exchanges and the resumption of full-scale fighting, especially in southern Gaza, the Hamas-Israel war appears to be reaching a decisive moment. To discuss the situation on the battlefield and its impact on Israeli security, Palestinian humanitarian concerns, and U.S. policy, The Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual Policy Forum with Assaf Orion, *Hanin Ghaddar, and Matthew Levitt, moderated by Institute executive director Robert Satloff.
*Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion (IDF, Res.) is the Rueven International Fellow at The Washington Institute and former head of the Israel Defense Forces Strategic Planning Division, where he oversaw communications with the Lebanese army and represented the IDF in talks with the Palestinian Authority.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Institute’s Friedmann Senior Fellow, co-creator of its interactive map tracking clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border, and coauthor of its study "Iran's Precision Missile Project Moves to Lebanon."
*Matthew Levitt is the Institute’s Fromer-Wexler Fellow, director of its Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, host of its podcast Breaking Hezbollah’s Golden Rule, and author of the landmark book Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad.

Report: Cabinet to OK Aoun's extension, Hezbollah and PSP to abstain
Naharnet/14 December 2023
The issue of extending the term of Army chief General Joseph Aoun by six months will likely be tackled from outside the agenda during Friday’s Cabinet session, a media report said on Thursday. The move will be discussed “based on a legal study prepared by Council of Ministers Secretary-General Judge Mahmoud Makiyyeh,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported. Aoun’s “retirement postponement is expected to be approved while the ministers of Hezbollah and the Progressive Socialist Party will abstain from voting,” the daily added. It however noted that approving the postponement does not mean that the resolution would go into effect, “amid indications that the Free Patriotic Movement will appeal it before the State Shoura Council and will perhaps ask Defense Minister Maurice Slim to task the highest-ranking officer with assuming the missions of the army commander pending the appointment of a new commander.”
Asharq al-Awsat newspaper for its part said that “it has become almost confirmed that the retirement postponement will not take place in Thursday’s parliamentary session.”“Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will schedule another session that will be held after the Cabinet session,” sources from Berri’s parliamentary bloc told the daily. “Berri has taken all the measures to immunize extension and should Cabinet fail to do so, parliament will carry out the mission in its second session,” the sources reassured.

Adwan says Aoun's term will be discussed in parliament as session adjourned
Naharnet/14 December 2023
Parliament convened Thursday morning in a legislative session that did not discuss extending the term of Army chief General Joseph Aoun, ahead of his planned retirement in January. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati attended the session boycotted by the Free Patriotic Movement MPs. A media report published Thursday in al-Akhbar newspaper claimed that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will not discuss Aoun's term extension today. The session will resume at 6:00 PM, and another one might be held on Friday if needed, Amal MP Ali Hassan Khalil said. Cabinet will also meet on Friday and will likely discuss Aoun's term from outside its agenda. Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan said after the session that Parliament will discuss Article 56 of the Defense Law and approve Aoun's term extension regardless of what the government decides in its session. "Parliamentary blocs have agreed on a draft law that would delay the retirement of all security chiefs," Adwan said.

Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Naharnet/14 December 2023
Hezbollah targeted Thursday a group of soldiers in the Shumira and the Yeftah barracks, while the Israeli army bombed Jabal al-Bat, Mays al-Jabal, al-Jebbayn, al-Khiam, Blida and the outskirts of al-Taybeh with artillery shells and warplane missiles. Hezbollah announced the death of another one of its fighters, marking the 100th militant killed since clashes began with the Israeli military along the tense Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8. Hezbollah entered the fray in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militants launched their unprecedented attack on south Israel. The clashes have intensified in recent weeks but have remained mostly contained to handful border towns, forcing thousands of local residents on both sides of the tense divide to flee. The Lebanese government, United Nations peacekeepers, and international governments have scrambled to keep the war in Gaza from spilling over into neighboring Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a draw. Israel considers Hezbollah as its most direct threat, estimating that the Iran-backed group has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, as well as drones and surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles. 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. Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, while Hezbollah always says in daily statements that its attacks on Israeli soldiers are direct hits and claims after most of its attacks having inflicted casualties.

Mosque hit as raids, phosphorus bombs strike southern Lebanon front
Arab News/December 14, 2023
BEIRUT: Israeli artillery shelling intensified on Thursday at various Lebanese border towns where Hezbollah is active. War correspondents reported “the use of phosphorus bombs by the Israeli army in shelling the outskirts of the town of Khiam.” Israeli Channel 14 reported that the Iron Dome intercepted 20 missiles fired from southern Lebanon towards the Galilee Panhandle. The Israeli military launched a drone strike on a house located in the town center of Aita Al-Shaab. The property belongs to Lebanese citizen Haidar Srour, who evacuated with his family at the start of escalations on the border. Israel targeted the house in a previous raid as well. An Israeli drone bombed a mosque in the town of Jebbayn with a missile, causing damage to it, and the region between Alma Al-Shaab and Naqoura came under artillery shelling from the Israel Defense Forces. Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes in the forested and plain areas near Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras, and the area between Chihine and Marwahin was subjected to Israeli shelling. Wadi Saluki and Mays Al-Jabal were also subjected to artillery fire. In the morning, Israeli artillery targeted the Awaidah and Aaziyyeh hills on the outskirts of the town of Taybeh, which experienced a power outage due to a targeted attack on the high-voltage transmission network supplying the area. Lebanon’s southern border is split into three sectors known as the Blue Line — west, central, and east. The east sector is the most important strategically as it includes disputed mountain villages of the Arqoub area between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Reports of unknown callers asking homeowners to evacuate before shelling have increased in the southern region. Political analyst Ali Al-Amin told Arab News several people had reported being contacted by people who speak Arabic, and they had experienced similar situations.
“This does not mean that the Israeli army is showing mercy to civilians because we can see its massacres in the Gaza Strip, but it seems that its current plan in Lebanon is not to target civilians,” he said. “The Israelis have access to the communication data of people in southern Lebanon and perhaps in other regions. “It is concerning that some people who received calls from unknown people were unaware that the caller was from Israel. “Men and women answered normally, thinking the caller wanted to ensure they were safe.”Al-Amin added: “The technological advancement possessed by the Israeli army during these confrontations may have surprised Hezbollah as it accurately hits targets. In return, Hezbollah may have achieved field gains through its tactics to mitigate its losses.”Hezbollah announced Thursday that it targeted the Yiftah outpost and a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in its surroundings. The group also targeted the Israeli forces in the vicinity of the Shomera outpost. Army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said that Israeli fighter jets struck Hezbollah’s infrastructure and military buildings inside Lebanon. Adraee said that the Israeli side “detected the launching of a rocket from Lebanon toward the Shomera region on the Lebanese border.” Hezbollah announced the death of one of its fighters, Ahmad Hassan Moukahal, from Jouaya village in southern Lebanon. The militant group announced the death of two of its fighters on Wednesday, bringing the total toll of Hezbollah fighters killed since the violence broke out along the Lebanese border on Oct. 8 to 101 as of Thursday afternoon.

UK discusses border security, urges 'full implementation' of 1701
Naharnet/14 December 2023
During a meeting to discuss security on the Lebanese-Syrian border, British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell expressed his condolences for the death of a Lebanese soldier in Lebanon last week and called for the restoration of calm on the Blue Line. Cowell, U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea and Canadian Ambassador Stefanie McCollum met the Commander in Chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) General Joseph Aoun during the High Level Steering Committee (HLSC) to discuss security on the Lebanese-Syrian border.The HLSC oversees internationally funded efforts to support the four Land Border Regiments to continue to deliver external security and reinforce the authority of the Lebanese state along its land border with Syria. Following the meeting, Ambassador Cowell said: “It was an honor to meet General Aoun to discuss positive progress on the border project. I was saddened to hear about the death of a LAF soldier in south Lebanon last week. I convey my deepest sympathies to his family and comrades."“With General Aoun I stressed the need for a cessation of hostilities across the Blue Line and for a renewed commitment to implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701," he added. “Ongoing hostilities in South Lebanon only serve to delay any long term solution for peace," Cowell warned. “I am, as ever, impressed by Lebanese Armed Forces’ outstanding work of its officers and soldiers during this challenging time. Since 2009, the UK has committed over £99 million to support optimization of LAF capabilities, including through development and modernization," Cowell added. "We are proud of our contribution to building the LAF’s reputation as a respected, professional armed forces able to defend Lebanon and provide security along its border with Syria," he said.

Parliament approves amendments to social security law, discusses sovereign fund proposal
NNA/14 December 2023
The House of Parliament on Thursday approved a draft law outlined in Decree No. 13760 concerning the amendment of certain provisions of the Social Security Law and the establishment of the retirement and social protection system after introducing amendments to some of its articles. Additionally, the Parliament’s General Assembly deliberated on the proposal for the Lebanese Sovereign Fund.

Parliament approves agreements with European Investment Bank, Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in legislative session
NNA/14 December 2023
The legislative session continues as the General Assembly of the Lebanese Parliament has approved on Thursday two draft laws related to agreements with the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The first law, specified in Decree No. 9288, concerning the approval of a loan agreement with the EIB to contribute to financing the "Roads and Labor Project" in Lebanon, has been passed with amendments. Following that, a second law outlined in Decree No. 9910, pertaining to the approval of an agreement between the Government of the Lebanese Republic and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies regarding the legal status of the Federation in Lebanon, has also been approved.

Parliament approves renewable energy generation draft law, loan agreement with Kuwait Fund
NNA /14 December 2023
Under the chairmanship of House Speaker, Nabih Berri, the House of Parliament convened in a session, which commenced with a minute of silence dedicated to honoring the martyrs of Lebanon and Palestine. The agenda proceeded as the parliament approved a draft law, aligned with Decree No. 9000, focused on the generation of distributed renewable energy. During the session, the Parliament’s general assembly deliberated on a proposal outlined in Decree No. 9014, which aimed to impose temporary and exceptional regulations on bank transfers and cash withdrawals. This proposal was referred back to committees at the request of the Prime Minister for further review.Furthermore, the Parliament ratified a bill specified in Decree No. 9204, endorsing a loan agreement (1061) between the Lebanese Republic and the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development. The agreement aims to fund the construction of sewage systems in the Batroun district, marking a significant step forward in Lebanon's infrastructure development.

Parliament approves urgent law for ratifying loan agreement between government, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
NNA/14 December 2023
The Parliament’s General Assembly has just approved an urgent draft law outlined in Decree No. 12617, concerning the request for approval to conclude a loan agreement between the Government of the Lebanese Republic and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the implementation of the Second Additional Financing Project for the Social Safety Net Crisis. It is to not that the aforementioned draft law has been amended after the addition of a clause.

Berri adjourns legislative session to Friday at 3 PM
LBCI/14 December 2023
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned the legislative session to Friday at 3 PM.

Israel: One in five rockets fired by Hezbollah falls inside Lebanon
Reuters/14 December 2023
The Israeli army said on Thursday that the Iran-backed Hezbollah group launched hundreds of rockets and projectiles at Israel, with approximately one in every five rockets falling inside Lebanon. The army added, "Overall, about one in every five rockets launched by Hezbollah since October 7 at Israel has fallen within Lebanese territory. Hezbollah's rocket attacks pose a threat to both Israeli and Lebanese civilians."Hezbollah has been carrying out near-daily rocket attacks on Israel since the outbreak of the conflict between Hamas and Israel on October 7. Meanwhile, Israel has conducted airstrikes and artillery shelling in southern Lebanon.

Israel's conditions and Sullivan's agenda: Northern front, Gaza aid, and post-war plan
LBCI/14 December 2023
With protests intensifying among Israeli prisoner families captivated by Hamas, the issue of prisoners has entered the agenda of meetings between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli leaders. This follows their meeting with US President Joe Biden and the revelation of the Israeli cabinet's rejection of a deal presented by the head of the Mossad, who was prohibited from traveling to Qatar for discussions. The agenda encompasses developments on the northern front with Lebanon, an increase in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the removal of civilians from the target range, and, most importantly, the establishment of a timeline to end the fighting and a plan for the day after the war. Amid Israeli officials' concerns about Sullivan potentially specifying a timeframe for ending the war, the cabinet has prepared a report to present to the US officials. The report includes granting the military additional weeks after the cessation of hostilities to complete the withdrawal of its units from the center of the Gaza Strip and deploy them to defensive lines. It is worth noting that more than one Israeli security official anticipates that the phase of eliminating Hamas will continue throughout the year 2024. The northern front with Lebanon will also be a crucial part of the discussions, with Israeli officials presenting their stance on the region's future. A recent Israeli report suggests consensus within the War Cabinet that a large-scale military operation, without political pressure, is inevitable. The goal is to push Hezbollah away from the borders. To prevent war, Israel imposes two conditions for an agreement: -Pushing Hezbollah seven kilometers away from the border areas. - Preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding approximately 100 observation sites, which the army claims to have targeted in the last two months.These conditions, if agreed upon by the War Cabinet, will be met with determination by several ministers and security officials, insisting that the basis for a solution with Lebanon lies in UN Resolution 1701 and guarantees for its implementation.

Land Registry reopens: Reversal of decision amid corruption allegations
LBCI/14 December 2023
Finally, logic and the law have prevailed over corruption and lawlessness. After Finance Minister Youssef Khalil invited all employees of the Land Registry Departments in Mount Lebanon to return to work with the aim of reopening them after a year-long closure due to the judiciary investigating corruption, including employees facing arrest warrants and those in hiding who are accused of corruption, bribery, and illicit enrichment, the Minister himself has reconsidered his decision following the media uproar. According to LBCI, he has reinstated approximately 55 employees from the General Directorate of Finance to the General Directorate of Real Estate Affairs for this purpose. The Finance Minister distributed these employees among the six Land Registry Departments in Jbeil, Keserwan, Metn, Baabda, Aley, and Chouf to manage citizens' affairs. These employees will be assisted in their tasks by the 32 employees who were previously suspended in the corruption case and released and whom the Civil Service Council allowed to return to their positions until final judicial decisions are made regarding their cases, in contrast to the 81 employees deemed by the Council as illegally reinstated. The General Directorate of Real Estate Affairs has begun training the 55 employees, with sources anticipating the completion of their training by the end of next week. After Christmas and New Year's holidays, the real estate departments in Mount Lebanon are expected to reopen. Sources reported that in the initial phase, the reopening will focus on processing the pending transactions of citizens since the closure a year ago. Afterward, the Land Registry Departments will receive new transactions once the backlog is cleared.

Persistent challenges in Lebanon and Syria: UNHCR addresses political and economic instabilities
LBCI/14 December 2023
One appeal after another is launched from Geneva by UNHCR to urge donor countries to provide more funds for the care of refugees worldwide, including Syrian refugees in various countries, including Lebanon. UNHCR sees increasing challenges and difficulties in securing funds to support host communities and refugees, particularly in Lebanon. It also perceives political and economic obstacles preventing their return to Syria. In the Global Refugee Forum, there is an official participation from Syria, which often welcomes the return of the refugees but links it to the economic aid provided to it and the lifting of the siege imposed on it. In contrast, Syrians who have left Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon and elsewhere participate in the forum. They consider the reason for non-return to be political, stating that the war has not ended in their country. In Lebanon and Syria, unstable political, economic, and security situations persist. The presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon remains a significant problem, and their return to Syria faces obstacles. Resettlement in a third country remains the optimal solution, but the question is whether it is readily available.

Christmas in Kawkaba: A timeless celebration of joy and unity
LBCI/14 December 2023
Kawkaba, which believes that Lord Jesus passed through it, is preparing to celebrate his birthday. Feeling with their neighbors who are enduring Israeli shelling made Kawkaba residents decorate with simplicity. However, the holiday blessing was still present, with the Christmas tree and the humble Christmas crib in the village’s square.Upon entering the village, you meet Mary, who tells you Kawkaba holds a "special place" during Christmas. With the peace reflected on her face, Mary offers hope to Kawkaba’s visitors. The experiences of wars that women of her generation went through made them more resilient, even if it affected their source of livelihood through their work in traditional Mouneh, which they eagerly await from one holiday to another. On the other hand, the sweet shops eagerly anticipate the last week before the holiday, hoping to get orders as they did in the old days. But no matter how tough the economic situation becomes, the holiday's "essence" will remain in Kawkaba, and the sky will continue to smile with children's laughter.

UN says Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan face socioeconomic downturn from Gaza war
Naharnet/14 December 2023
Each day the Gaza war continues, the ripple effect to neighboring Arab countries will have lasting socioeconomic setbacks, two U.N. agencies have warned. Preliminary findings of a new rapid assessment by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) show that human development in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan is set to fall back. Should the war complete its current third month, initial estimates show that 230,000 additional people will fall into poverty in neighboring Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, by the end of 2023, as the cost of the war in terms of aggregated lost Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may amount to up to about US$10.3 billion or 2.3 percent for these three countries. “These countries were already experiencing economic challenges because of COVID-19 and a host of global economic crises, including those precipitated by the war in Ukraine. And we should not lose sight, that the spillover effects from the war in Gaza in trade, tourism, and livelihoods, are exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and putting at risk the modest gains that these neighboring countries have made to put their economies and societies back on track,” said Abdallah Al Dardari, Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP. Authors of the assessment estimate that, if the war prolongs beyond three months, the socioeconomic impacts to several neighboring countries will intensify. The upper bound estimates predict that close to half a million people are expected to fall into poverty and the aggregate total GDP loss would hit US$18 billion or 4 percent for the three countries, in 2024.

Geagea: I no longer expect anything from France
Naharnet/14 December 2023
In an interview with French weekly news magazine Valeurs actuelles, Geagea said that France supported Hezbollah's presidential candidate, which he finds "unacceptable.""From an emotional point of view, I always expect something from France but from a practical point of view, I don't." Geagea told the French magazine, quoting a British journalist, that France has always practiced a "let it be" policy in Lebanon. "France only listens to the balance of power," he said. "When it came to the Syrians, France (said) let it be. When it came to Hezbollah, France (said) let it be, even though supporting Hezbollah's candidate was against Lebanon's sovereignty, reforms and institutions." As for the U.S, Geagea considered that Lebanon is not in its priorities.

Moody's affirms Lebanon's C rating, changes outlook to stable
Naharnet/14 December 2023
Leading international ratings agency Moody's has affirmed the Government of Lebanon's issuer rating at C and has changed the outlook to stable from no outlook. The C rating reflects Moody's assessment that the losses incurred by bondholders through Lebanon's ongoing default since 16 March 2020 are likely to exceed 65%. The country is steeped in an economic, financial and social crisis, which its very weak institutions and governance strength appear unable to address. The collapse of the currency in the parallel market and the concomitant surge in inflation fuel a highly unstable environment. “In the absence of key steps toward plausible economic and fiscal policy reform, official external funding support to accompany a government debt restructuring is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near term,” Moody’s said. “The stable outlook reflects Moody's expectation that the rating will remain C for the foreseeable future, given the very high likelihood of significant losses for private creditors and Moody's expectation of a very unstable economic environment persisting as a result of recurrent political deadlock and weak institutions,” Moody’s added. “Lebanon's exposure to a further intensification of the Israel-Hamas conflict partially reverses recent gains in the tourism industry and further undermines economic activity,” it warned.

Lebanon crises have 'devastating' effect on children, UNICEF says
Agence France Presse/14 December 2023
Lebanon's compounding crises are having a "devastating" impact on children and their education, a United Nations agency said, warning of additional pressure as the Israel-Hamas war spills over into the country. U.N. children's agency UNICEF said more than a quarter of households surveyed last month reported children not attending school, compared to 18 percent in April. The number rose to more than half in Syrian refugee households, the report said, adding that "the cost of education materials" was the most commonly cited barrier to attendance. For four years, Lebanon has been gripped by a crushing economic crisis that has pushed most of the population into poverty. Some 16 percent of families and a third of Syrian refugees sent school-aged children to work, the report said, while more than 80 percent of households "had to borrow money or buy on credit to purchase essential grocery items".
Lebanon's "persistent and compounding crises... are exacting a steadily devastating toll on children nationwide, increasingly stripping them of their education and forcing many into child labor," the UNICEF report said. "Desperate parents, grappling with ever-dwindling resources, are forced into a heart-wrenching struggle to keep their families afloat amidst the unrelenting challenges."Since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, the frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen deadly exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, raising fears of a broader conflict and sending thousands fleeing border areas. "Several dozen schools in the southern part of Lebanon have been closed... affecting more than 6,000 students," the report said, noting that "attendance is minimal at schools that still remain open". UNICEF also warned of the emotional impact of the crises, saying "the deprivations and uncertainty are leaving children hungry, anxious or depressed". Some 38 percent of households reported their children were anxious, the agency said, with the figure rising to 46 percent in parts of south Lebanon near the cross-border hostilities, and almost half of Palestinian refugee children.
"The survey also shows that 34 percent of children in Lebanon believe their lives will be worse one year from now," the UNICEF report said. The agency urged Lebanese authorities "to take strong action to support, protect and ensure essential services for all children". The severe crises are "crushing children's dreams and taking away their learning, their happiness and their future", said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF representative in Lebanon.

Mikati Warns of Lebanon Collapse due to 'Syrian Displacement'
Paris, Beirut: Michel Abou Najm//Asharq Al Awsat/December 14/2023
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the international community to help Lebanon confront the Syrian displacement crisis, warning that the country was “on the brink of total collapse... and we will not remain idle.”
He added that the cost of the Syrian displacement was estimated at tens of billions of dollars, according to a recent World Bank report. Mikati’s remarks came during his participation in the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, where he called on the international community to “participate in the challenge of addressing the Syrian displacement, and put it on the list of priorities.”“We will not remain idle and suffer successive crises, and for some to consider us projects as alternative homelands. Rather, we will save our homeland, and we will fortify ourselves. Because we have the right, first and foremost, to live in our country with pride and dignity,” the Lebanese premier told the conference. Mikati renewed the demand to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon. He noted that the country was already suffering under enormous burdens, including the pressure of the presence of millions of displaced Syrians and Palestinian refugees. “The challenges we face as a result of this displacement go beyond the economic and social aspects, to affect societal security, and the destabilization of the sensitive demographic composition in terms of the number of Syrian births exceeding Lebanese births, and the high rate of crime and overcrowding in prisons... Competition for limited job opportunities has also led to increased tensions and security incidents,” he warned. Mikati put forward proposals to adopt “a practical classification that distinguishes between Syrian workers and immigrants in their capacity as refugees, establish a national mechanism to determine the legal status of every displaced Syrian in Lebanon, and oblige employers in the private sector to adhere to the conditions for employing Syrian workers in a way that reduces competition with Lebanese talent.” He also proposed identifying the categories of displaced Syrians whose return could be facilitated, and setting a timetable for their return, while ensuring the implementation of legal, security, economic and social guarantees.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 14-15/2023
Gaza war to take 'months', Israel tells White House
Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Washington/Jake Sullivan and Yoav Gallant/December 14, 2023
Yoav Gallant warned that Israeli operations in Gaza will 'require a period of time'
Israel's war in Gaza may take "more than several months", the country's defence minister has told US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Mr Sullivan arrived in Israel earlier on Thursday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials. Earlier this week, Joe Biden said Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza was costing it support globally. The UN this week warned of a dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. During a meeting with Mr Sullivan on Thursday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that "Hamas is a terrorist organisation that built itself over a decade to fight Israel". "They built infrastructure under the ground and above the ground and it is not easy to destroy them," Mr Gallant said. "It will require a period of time - it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them." While the US has repeatedly pledged its support to Israel and sent billions of dollars worth of military aid, alarm is growing over the mounting civilian death toll of the war. President Biden is also facing increasing domestic calls - including some from within his own party - to do more to pressure Israel to exercise restraint during operations in Gaza. In a brief speech on Thursday, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that US credibility is "on the line", as is the "credibility of our commitment to human rights" as a result of the Gaza conflict and a perception that Palestinian human rights are "conditional"."We cannot allow ourselves to set that precedent," she said. "There is a human cost that is too high and we have reached it. That's why we must join together and call for a ceasefire now."
The price of peace between Israelis and Palestinians
'Where is mum? Where is grandma? Where did they go?'
Mr Sullivan's visit to Israel comes just days after Mr Biden said that Israel was "starting to lose" international support because of the "indiscriminate bombing that takes place" in Gaza. On the same day, Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel had "the full backing" of the US, which had blocked "international pressure to stop the war".Citing two unnamed US officials, CBS - the BBC's US partner - has reported that Israeli officials have told the US that the current phase of military operations would last two or three more weeks, but would be followed by a prolonged campaign of targeted strikes aimed at Hamas leadership targets. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said more than 18,400 people have been killed by Israeli bombing since 7 October, when a Hamas attack into Israel left about 1,200 people dead. At a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, the head of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that conditions were becoming increasingly difficult, both for Palestinian civilians in Gaza and those who have successfully crossed into Egypt. "We meet more and more people who haven't eaten for one, two, or three days," he said.

Israel tells top US official war will last ‘months’
Reuters/December 14, 2023
GAZA: Israel’s defense minister warned Thursday the war with Hamas would last “more than several months” as he met a top US official amid a rift between the allies over mounting civilian casualties. The war, now in its third month, began after the Palestinian group’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an unrelenting military offensive that has left swathes of Gaza in ruins. The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said 18,787 people have been killed, mostly women and children.
In Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis, smoke rose from a grey landscape of rubble which people combed with shovels and their bare hands after a strike. One man sat on the broken concrete, wiping his eyes. “Around four people are still stuck under the rubble” after an airplane hit the building “without a warning,” said Hassan Bayyout, 70. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. In their meeting, Gallant warned that Israel’s fight with Hamas “will require a period of time — it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them.” Ahead of his trip, Sullivan had told a Wall Street Journal event he would discuss a timetable to end the war and urge Israeli leaders “to move to a different phase from the kind of high-intensity operations that we see today.”
US President Joe Biden, whose government has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, delivered his sharpest rebuke of the war this week. He said Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza was eroding international support.
But Netanyahu vowed to carry on “until victory” and Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the war would continue “with or without international support.”
The Israeli prime minister has said there is also “disagreement” with Washington over how Gaza would be governed after the war. Netanyahu rejects the two-state solution Washington is insisting upon. Qatar-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that “any arrangement in Gaza or in the Palestinian cause without Hamas or the resistance factions is a delusion.”This week, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly supported a non-binding resolution for a cease-fire, which Washington voted against. The United Nations estimates 1.9 million out of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Wednesday that Gazans were “facing the darkest chapter of their history.”He said they are “now crammed into less than one-third” of the territory, and hinted there could be an exodus to Egypt, “especially when the border is so close.”Cold wintry rain has lashed the makeshift tents where the homeless struggle to survive without sufficient food, drinking water, medicines or cooking fuel, with diseases spreading.
After a strike in Rafah, where many Palestinians have fled, the faces of relatives were contorted in grief after they identified the body of a child, Muhannad Ashour, at Najjar hospital. Despite the needs, aid distribution has largely stopped in most of Gaza, except on a limited basis in the Rafah area, the UN says.
COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said the military “is enabling tactical pauses for humanitarian purposes.” One was taking place Thursday for four hours in a Rafah neighborhood to allow civilians to restock supplies such as food and water, it said.
Fewer than one-third of Gaza’s hospitals are partly functioning, the UN says, and the World Health Organization expressed its concern about an Israeli raid on Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said Wednesday that the hospital director and about 70 other medical staff “remain detained in an unknown location outside of the hospital.”It said Israeli forces had released five doctors and female staff but there were reports of “ill-treatment” of those who had been held. The Hamas-controlled health ministry said Israeli forces had “fired at patient rooms.” AFP was unable to confirm the situation independently. On Thursday the army said that, during military activity in the hospital area, “over 70 terrorist operatives came out of the hospital with weapons in hand.”It said troops killed “a number” of militants during fighting in the area.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals, schools, mosques and vast tunnel systems beneath them as military bases — charges it denies. Israeli tanks shelled Gaza from southern Israel on Thursday. Militants have continued to fire rockets from Gaza toward Israeli territory.
The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces killed 11 people in the occupied West Bank since launching a raid in Jenin and its refugee camp on Tuesday. The army says it has seized weapons, dismantled explosives laboratories, tunnel shafts and other military facilities.
The war has led to increased popular support for Hamas in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. In Israel, the army is coming under growing pressure to limit troop deaths — it says 116 have been killed in Gaza — and secure the release of remaining hostages.
Israeli authorities say 118 hostages are still believed to be alive in Gaza after their capture by militants on October 7. Some were released during an exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long truce that ended on December 1.The Israeli military said fighter jets on Thursday struck infrastructure and compounds of Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, after a munition was launched toward northern Israel. Israeli forces and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have engaged in regular exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Israel bombs Gaza as rift with US grows
Agence France Presse/14 December 2023
Israel bombed Gaza on Thursday as a top White House advisor was due to arrive in Jerusalem with a rift growing over U.S. calls for its ally to exercise restraint. The war, now in its third month, began after the October 7 attacks on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people. It has left besieged Gaza in ruins and killed more than 18,600 people, mostly women and children. The ministry said Israeli air strikes early Thursday had killed at least 19 people across the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, which has also seen a surge in violence since October 7, the Palestinian Authority said two people were killed in Israeli strikes in the city of Jenin. U.S. President Joe Biden, whose government has provided Israel with billions of dollars of military aid, on Wednesday gave his sharpest rebuke of the war yet, saying Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza was weakening international support.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his offensive, vowing "we are going until the end, until victory, nothing less than that". And Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the war against Hamas would continue "with or without international support". On Thursday, Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was due to arrive in Jerusalem for talks with Netanyahu and his war cabinet. Sullivan told a Wall Street Journal event ahead of his trip he would discuss a timetable to end the war and urge Israeli leaders "to move to a different phase from the kind of high-intensity operations that we see today". Sullivan will have "extremely serious conversations" in Israel, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. Netanyahu has said there is also "disagreement" with Washington over how a post-conflict Gaza would be governed. Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday "any arrangement in Gaza or in the Palestinian cause without Hamas or the resistance factions is a delusion". He said Hamas was ready for talks that could lead to a "political path that secures the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital". A poll published on Wednesday by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed Haniyeh had the support of 78 percent of people in the Palestinian territories, compared with 58 percent before the war.
'Darkest chapter' -
International pressure is mounting on Israel to better protect civilians, with the U.N. General Assembly this week overwhelmingly backing a non-binding resolution for a ceasefire. While Washington voted against, the resolution was supported by allies Australia, Canada and New Zealand, who, in a rare joint statement, said they were "alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza". CNN reported on Wednesday citing U.S. intelligence that nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions used by Israel in Gaza since October 7 have been unguided, which can pose a greater threat to civilians. The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Wednesday that Gazans were "facing the darkest chapter of their history". Wintry rain lashed the territory, where the U.N. estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million population have been displaced, living in makeshift tents as supplies of food, drinking water, medicines and fuel run low. Ameen Edwan said his family was camped out with thousands in the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza."Rainwater seeped in. We couldn't sleep. We tried to find nylon covers but couldn't find any, so we resorted to stones and sand" to keep the water out, he said. The southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border has become a vast camp for the displaced, with hundreds of tents erected using wood and plastic sheets."We spent five days outdoors. And now the rain has flooded the tents," said a displaced resident, Bilal al-Qassas. Gusts of wind shook the fragile structures, while people tried to reinforce them with more plastic sheeting. "Where do we migrate to? Our dignity is gone. Where do women relieve themselves? There are no bathrooms," said 41-year-old Qassas. The U.N. warned the spread of diseases -- including meningitis, jaundice and upper respiratory tract infections -- had intensified. Gaza's hospital system is in ruins, and Hamas authorities said vaccines for children had run out, warning of "catastrophic health repercussions". The Hamas-controlled health ministry said Israeli forces opened fire on wards of Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza. The army has yet to comment, but Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals, schools, mosques and vast tunnel systems beneath them as military bases -- charges it denies.
Growing troop toll
In Israel, the army is coming under growing pressure to limit troop deaths and secure the release of hostages. It has lost 115 soldiers, including 10 on Tuesday, its deadliest day since the ground assault began on October 27. In the October 7 attack -- the deadliest in Israel's 75-year history -- Hamas also seized around 240 hostages. Hamas released dozens of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a week-long truce last month, but others have been found dead. Families of hostages said Wednesday they had demanded "an immediate explanation from the Prime Minister and cabinet members" after local media reported that the government had rejected a proposal to send officials to Qatar for a second round of hostage negotiations. Israel's embassy in Romania on Wednesday announced the death of Israeli-Romanian Tal Haimi, 41, who was held in Gaza. Washington and London slapped Hamas with further sanctions on Wednesday, targeting "key officials who perpetuate Hamas's violent agenda". Fears that the conflict could engulf the region continued to grow, with daily incidents along Israel's border with Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah is based.

Eleven Killed in Days-long Israeli Raid in West Bank
Asharq Al Awsat/14 December 2023
At least 11 Palestinians have been killed during a days-long raid by Israeli soldiers in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health authorities said on Thursday, amid reports of gunfire, hundreds of arrests and restricted hospital access. A young man died from his wounds on Thursday morning as a result of the Israeli operation in the northern West Bank city that began earlier in the week, the Palestinian health ministry said. Two other Palestinians were killed overnight, it added. Israeli forces have searched hundreds of compounds and questioned hundreds of suspects since the operation began on Dec. 12, the military said in a statement. They dismantled six explosives laboratories, underground tunnel shafts and explosive devices, it said. Since the start of the raid in the morning of Dec. 12, Israeli forces have arrested hundreds of citizens, with the majority of them since released, the Palestinian Prisoner's Club, an advocacy group said in a statement. Israel was not allowing ambulances to enter the camp to transport patients, Mahmoud Al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, told Reuters. "We have six ambulances, but we cannot even reach the patients who need to be transported to the hospital, some of whom need dialysis," Al-Saadi said. "The army did not allow us to enter," despite attempts to coordinate with the Red Cross and the UN Palestinian relief agency, he said, adding that soldiers were also stationed outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital. Four soldiers were slightly injured by controlled explosions and gunfire from Israel's own forces, the military statement said. Soldiers occupied a mosque where sporadic shots could be heard in the distance, a video circulating on social media showed. Reuters could not independently verify the footage. Asked about the Palestinian deaths and reports of soldiers stopping ambulances reaching the sick, the military confirmed "ongoing counterterrorism activity" in the city and said more details would be provided after the activity ended. Before the latest operation, the Palestinian health ministry reported 275 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza on southern Israel by the Islamist movement Hamas that killed around 1,200 Israelis. The mounting death toll in West Bank violence, which has included a surge of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian inhabitants, has underscored fears that the territory seized by Israel in a 1967 war could spiral out of control as Israel's blitz on the separate Palestinian enclave of Gaza proceeds. Deadly bloodshed had been worsening in the West Bank even before the war in Hamas-ruled Gaza erupted.Palestinians want the West Bank to be the core of an independent state. In recent years, Israel has greatly expanded Jewish settlements there that  most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land.

UK, US Sanction Iranians Linked to Quds Force, Palestinian Militant Groups
EPA/Asharq Al Awsat/December 14/2023
Britain said it had adopted a new sanctions regime against Iran on Thursday as it announced measures against seven individuals, including the head of Tehran's Quds Force, for threatening or planning the destabilization of Israel. The British government said the new regime, which it said gave it greater powers to act against Iran and its decisionmakers, had been brought in response to "unprecedented threats" from Tehran to peace in the Middle East and to plots to kill individuals in Britain. "The behavior of the Iranian regime poses an unacceptable threat to the UK and our partners," foreign minister David Cameron said in a statement. "It continues to threaten people on UK soil and uses its influence to destabilize the Middle East through its support to armed groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)." Those subject to travel bans and asset freezes under the new sanctions included Esmail Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, which is the arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that controls its allied militia from Lebanon to Iraq and Yemen to Syria. Also sanctioned were Mohammed Saeed Izadi, the head of IRGC-QF Palestine branch, and three other members from that branch: Ali Marshad Shirazi, Majid Zaree and Mostafa Majid Khani. The entire branch itself is subject to asset freezes, the government said, while Hamas and PIJ representatives to Iran, Khaled Qaddoumi and Nasser Abu Sharif, respectively, also face travel bans and asset freezes. London has accused Iran of supporting Houthi militant attacks on shipping in the Red Sea but the British Chief of the Defense Staff, Tony Radakin, said Britain did not think Tehran wanted a war in the Middle East. "We assess Iran doesn’t want a direct war ... But Iran is comfortable with the way events have unfolded, the dilemmas for Israel, the threat posed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, militia groups exploiting this crisis to challenge America’s role in the region," Radakin said in a speech on Wednesday. The United States on Thursday also imposed sanctions on a Quds Force official, the Treasury Department said in a statement, accusing Majid Zaree of being involved in support to groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The action freezes any of the official's US assets and generally bars Americans from dealing with him. Those that engage in certain transactions with him also risk being hit with sanctions. “The United States continues to coordinate with our partners, including the United Kingdom, to tackle terrorist financing and threats from Iran,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in the statement.

Israel Strikes Length of Gaza as US Presses for More Accurate Targeting
Asharq Al Awsat/December 14/2023
Israel pounded the length of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing families in their homes even as Washington sent an envoy to encourage its ally to guard better against civilian casualties in its war against Hamas militants. The more than two-month-old war is now raging across the entire Palestinian enclave, causing a humanitarian catastrophe, with little end in sight. "It will require a long period of time - it will last more than several months - but we will win and we will destroy them," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told visiting White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In Rafah, jammed with people in makeshift tents on Gaza's southern edge, people wept at a morgue near bodies wrapped in bloodied shrouds. Some of the dead were small children. Residents picked forlornly through the rubble of the adjacent homes of the Abu Dhbaa and Ashour families where Gaza health authorities said 26 people had been killed. Neighbor Fadel Shabaan had rushed to the area after the bombing. "It was difficult because of the dust and people's screams," he said. "This is a safe camp, there is nothing here, the children play soccer in the street." With Europe on alert for extremist attacks in response to the war, German prosecutors said four Hamas members were detained in Berlin and the Netherlands on suspicion of planning attacks on Jewish institutions. Israel also said that seven people working for Hamas had been arrested in Denmark for planning an attack on civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off calls for a ceasefire, including a resolution at the UN Security Council blocked by a US veto last week and another that passed overwhelmingly in the General Assembly this week. Washington has provided diplomatic cover for its longstanding ally but expressed increasing alarm, with President Joe Biden calling Israeli bombing "indiscriminate". Sullivan, who met Netanyahu, planned to discuss with the Israelis the need to be more accurate in strikes, spokesperson John Kirby said.
‘Dumb bombs’
Up to 45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza since Oct. 7 have been unguided "dumb bombs" according to a US intelligence assessment reported by CNN. Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a member of Israel's security cabinet and Netanyahu's Likud party, rejected Biden's characterization of Israel's strikes as indiscriminate. "There is no such thing as 'dumb bombs'. Some bombs are more accurate, some bombs are less accurate. What we have is mostly pilots who are precise," he told Army Radio, saying that only militants were targeted. Israel launched its campaign in retaliation for a rampage by Hamas, the Iran-backed group that rules Gaza, whose fighters killed 1,200 Israelis and seized 240 hostages in a cross-border raid on Oct. 7. Since then, Israeli forces have besieged the coastal strip and laid much of it to waste, with nearly 19,000 people confirmed dead, according to Palestinian health officials, and thousands more feared buried under the rubble. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been forced from their homes, many several times. The UN Palestinian Refugee Agency said hungry people were stopping trucks and eating food aid immediately. "We meet more and more people who haven't eaten for one, two or three days," Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva. People in Gaza described begging for bread, paying 50 times more than usual for a single can of beans and slaughtering a donkey to feed a large family. Israel has extended its ground campaign from the north to the south this month. It says it is offering warnings where it can before striking an area. In the main southern city Khan Younis, where advancing Israeli forces reached the center this week, a whole city block had been bombed overnight to dust. Though most people had fled after Israeli warnings, neighbors digging with a hand shovel believed four people were inside. One body had been recovered. "May God take revenge on them," said Nesmah al-Byouk, returning to the ruins of the home she had fled three days ago. "We came and saw everything destroyed, the house, the factory, our neighbors and house are all gone. Where can we go now?"
Revenge
In the north, including the ruins of Gaza City, fighting has escalated even after Israel announced its troops had largely completed their military objectives last month. Ten Israeli soldiers died on Tuesday, most in an ambush in a market area.
Um Mohammad, 53, a mother of seven still living in Gaza City, said intensified bombing overnight indicated the Israelis were seeking vengeance. "The resistance hurt them badly there," she said. The Israeli military said its troops had dismantled a "central operating site" of Hamas forces in a school in the Shejaia area and destroyed two tunnel shafts, a rocket launch pit and a weapons storage facility in Khan Younis. Elsewhere in the north in Jabalia, Gaza's health ministry said Israeli forces had stormed a hospital, detaining and abusing medical staff and preventing them from treating wounded patients, at least two of whom had died. Twelve children were in the intensive care unit where the electricity had been cut and there was no milk, Gaza health spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said. Israel's military said fighters had been operating inside the hospital, 70 of whom had now surrendered "with weapons in hand" and had been sent away for interrogation. It released pictures of a small group of men stripped to their waists, in track suit bottoms and sandals. In one picture, four prisoners are shown holding rifles over their heads. Another image showed a long column of clothed people walking with green slips of paper in their hands, apparently unarmed. Reuters could not reach the area. There has also been an intensification of clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Palestinian health ministry and international charities said at least 12 Palestinians, including a youth shot at a hospital, had been killed in a raid in the city of Jenin since Tuesday.

Gaza Families Beg for Bread, Eat Donkey Meat as Aid Deliveries Falter
AFP/14 December 2023
People in Gaza described begging for bread, paying 50 times more than usual for a single can of beans and slaughtering a donkey to feed a family as food aid trucks were unable to reach most parts of the bombarded Palestinian territory. Israel was pounding the length of the Gaza Strip in pursuit of its goal of destroying Hamas, the conflict making it almost impossible for aid convoys to move around and reach people going hungry. The UN humanitarian office OCHA said on Thursday that limited aid distributions were taking place in the Rafah area, close to the border with Egypt, where almost half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million is now estimated to be living. "In the rest of the Gaza Strip, aid distribution has largely stopped, due to the intensity of hostilities and restrictions on movement along the main roads," it said.
"Aid? What aid? We hear about it and we don't see it," said Abdel-Aziz Mohammad, 55, displaced from Gaza City and sheltering with his family and three others, about 30 people in total, at the house of friends who live further south. "I used to have a big house, two fridges full of food, electricity and mineral water. After two months of this war, I am begging for some loaves of bread," he said by telephone. "It is a war of starvation. They (Israel) forced us out of our homes, they destroyed our homes and businesses and drove us to the south where we can either die under their bombs or die of hunger."The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Thursday hungry people were stopping its aid trucks to take food and eat it straight away. In northern Gaza, which bore the brunt of Israel's military offensive during the first phase of the war, between Oct. 7 and the start of a truce on Nov. 24, intense combat has resumed and barely any aid has got through since the truce ended on Dec. 1. Youssef Fares, a journalist from Jabalia in the north, said staple goods like flour were now so hard to find that prices had gone up by 50 to 100 times compared with before the war.
North cut off
"This morning I went in search of a loaf of bread and I couldn't find it. What is left in the market is candy for children and some cans of beans, which have gone up 50 times in price," he wrote in a diary entry posted on Facebook. "I saw someone who slaughtered a donkey to feed it to hundreds of his family members," he said. All aid trucks are entering Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, but first they have to be inspected by Israel. Since deliveries began on Oct. 20, inspections have been taking place at the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt, forcing trucks to loop from Rafah to Nitzana and back, causing bottlenecks. Since Wednesday, Israel has begun additional inspections at another location, the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, which aid officials said should reduce bottlenecks. UN officials said 152 aid trucks had entered Gaza on Wednesday, up from about 100 a day previously, but this was only a fraction of what was needed to address the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. They called on Israel to let trucks directly into Gaza through Kerem Shalom rather than make them go back to Rafah. A senior UN official with detailed knowledge of the aid delivery issue said Israel could make a significant difference by letting trucks through Kerem Shalom, but was choosing not to. "It's not a breakthrough in any way since they return them back to Rafah ... It's another bluff," the official said. Israel started its campaign to destroy the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza after its fighters stormed across the border fence into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, including babies and children, and seizing 240 hostages of all ages. Since then, Israel's bombardment and siege have killed more than 18,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities, and have laid waste to much of the territory, displacing most of its population.

Number of Journalists Killed On Job In 2023 Declines Despite Gaza
Asharq Al Awsat/14 December 2023
The number of journalists killed in the line of duty fell this year, despite reporter deaths in Gaza in the past two months, media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said Thursday. In the first 11 months of 2023, 45 journalists were killed carrying out their work, down from 61 last year, according to the annual report by RSF. It was the smallest number since 33 died in 2002, largely due to a major drop in Latin America, AFP reported. While some 63 journalists have been killed in the Middle East since the October 7 start of fighting between Israel and Hamas, only 17 of those deaths fell under RSF's definition. "It takes nothing away from the tragedy in Gaza but we are observing a regular decline, and are very far from the 140 journalists killed in 2012 and again in 2013" because of the wars in Syria and Iraq, RSF secretary general Christophe Deloire told AFP. The decline is due to efforts by inter-governmental organisations and NGOs to combat impunity, as well as to greater "prudence" by reporters themselves, he said. Of the 17 journalists RSF counted as killed carrying out their profession in the Middle East since October 7, 13 were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, three died in Lebanon and one was killed in Israel by Hamas. RSF in November said it filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court for "war crimes" for these deaths. AFP last week said its investigation showed that Israeli tank fire was responsible for killing Reuters cameraman Issam Abdallah on October 13 and wounding six others, including AFP photographer Christina Assi. A spokesperson for the Israeli army said the journalists were in an "active combat zone" in southern Lebanon, an answer that Deloire called "not satisfactory."The war in Ukraine cost the life of two reporters in 2023, including AFP reporter Arman Soldin, "the only reporter to have lost their life outside their own country", RSF said. A total of 11 reporters have been killed since the start of the conflict in February 2022. There was a sharp drop in Latin America where six reporters were killed, down from 26 in 2022. In Mexico alone, the number fell to four from 11 the previous year. RSF warned that Mexico remains dangerous for journalists, citing continued kidnappings and attacks. Of the 84 journalists counted as missing worldwide, about a third are Mexican. The number of jailed reporters declined to 521 from 569 in 2022, with Belarus joining China and Myanmar as "one of the three biggest prisons in the world".

UNRWA: People of Gaza 'Running Out Of Time and Options
Asharq Al Awsat/14 December 2023
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday that the people of Gaza were "running out of time and options" as Israel's war against Hamas grinds on. "They face bombardment, deprivation and disease in an ever-shrinking space," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva. Lazzarini described the situation in Gaza as "hell on earth". People in the Palestinian territory were "facing the darkest chapter of their history since 1948, and it has been a painful history", he said, AFP reported. Now in its third month, the bloodiest-ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on October 7. Israel's relentless bombardment and ground operation in Gaza has left the territory in ruins, killing more than 18,400 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry. The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced and are receiving goods from only around 100 aid trucks per day. "We are very far from an adequate humanitarian response," Lazzarini said. When aid was delivered, it was often not more than a can of tuna or beans and one bottle of water for a large family to share, he added. He described seeing people halting an aid truck and in desperation and swallowing down the food found inside where they stood in the street. "The people of Gaza are now crammed into less than one-third of the original territory near the Egyptian border, he added, hinting that the dire situation might soon spark an exodus. "It is unrealistic to think that people will remain resilient in the face of unlivable conditions of such magnitude, especially when the border is so close," he said. The city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, the only crossing where aid is entering Gaza, has seen its population explode from 280,000 to more than a million, Lazzarini said.
And while most aid delivery in Gaza depends on UNRWA, he warned the agency's capacities were "on the verge of collapse". Addressing journalists at the same event, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi also warned of the danger of large population movements out of Gaza. Any such exodus "would be extremely destabilizing for Egypt, for the Sinai region, and it would make a problematic Palestinian problem more difficult", he said. It is vital that any evacuation of people out of the devastated territory "is not forced", he said. "Since these people are under bombardment and in a very difficult situation, it must be said that a ceasefire is the only way out of this impasse."

New Attack on Red Sea Cargo Ship as US Proposes Naval Coalition
EPA/14 December 2023
A Maersk cargo ship was targeted by a missile as it passed the coast of Yemen on Thursday, the Danish company said, amid a series of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen on shipping that have prompted the US to push for a naval coalition in the Red Sea. It was not immediately clear if the Maersk incident was the same as the one maritime security agencies reported in the same area, with a ship being fired on after being ordered to change course and sail to Yemen. Separately, the maritime security company Ambrey said a Malta-flagged, Bulgarian-owned bulk carrier was reportedly boarded in the Arabian Sea near the Yemeni island of Socotra. The Houthis, who have controlled the capital Sanaa since their coup against the legitimate government in 2014, have attacked ships and fired drones and missiles at Israel since the start of the war in Gaza over two months ago.
The US Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, told Reuters on Thursday that Washington wanted the "broadest possible" maritime coalition to protect ships in the Red Sea and signal to the Houthis that attacks would not be tolerated.
Iran's Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani warned that the proposed multi-national naval force would face "extraordinary problems" and nobody "can make a move in a region where we have predominance". Maersk said its ship Maersk Gibraltar was travelling from Salalah in Oman to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia when it was fired upon near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, linking the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. "We call on political action to ensure a swift de-escalation" of the recent attacks in the region, it said, warning that the "current situation puts seafarer lives at risk and is unsustainable for global trade". Ambrey and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said a vessel travelling northwards through the Bab al-Mandab Strait had been ordered to change course and sail to Yemen, and was fired upon when it did not. Ambrey said the group making the demand had identified itself as the Yemeni navy and was probably the Houthis. UKMTO said a missile blast had struck just 50 meters from the ship's side. The bulk carrier that Ambrey said was boarded on Thursday had increased and decreased speeds in possible evasive maneuvers before appearing to be adrift. Ambrey said an Iran-flagged fishing vessel in the vicinity had earlier turned off its transponder. On Wednesday, maritime sources said a tanker in the Red Sea was fired on by gunmen in a speedboat and targeted it with missiles, while a second commercial vessel was also approached by a speedboat but not attacked.

'Gate of Tears': Iran-aligned Houthis a growing threat in the Red Sea
Agence France Presse/14 December 2023
The spike in attacks claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea is dangerously increasing tensions in a bottleneck for international maritime trade and fuelling fears of an uncontrolled regional spillover of Yemen's longstanding conflict. Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, Yemen's Houthi rebels have threatened to attack any ship heading to Israeli ports and stepped up their raids. On Tuesday, Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a missile strike on a Norwegian-flagged tanker, an attack the Iran-backed group said was part of its military campaign against Israel. Last month, they seized an Israel-linked cargo vessel, the Galaxy Leader, and its 25 international crew. The Houthis, who control much of Yemen but are not recognized internationally, are part of the Iran-backed so-called "axis of resistance" arrayed against Israel. They say they are defending the Palestinians from an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and have launched a series of drones and missiles towards Israel. U.S. and French warships patrolling the Red Sea have shot down Houthi missiles and drones several times since the militants began the attacks. A vital link between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea is a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies. Some 40 percent of international trade passes through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, or the "Gate of Tears", a narrow waterway which separates the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa. "This is a rather dangerous moment for the stability of this strategic region," said Camille Lons, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies added: "The Huthis have the capacity to cause considerable damage." While warships passing through the Red Sea are well equipped and can retaliate, commercial vessels do not have the same protections. "The US Navy cannot escort every civilian vessel in the Red Sea," said Hinz.
Iran influence
In recent years ties have grown between the Houthi rebels and Iran but the extent of their cooperation and coordination remains a major question. Saudi Arabia and the United States have accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with drones, missiles and other weapons, a charge Tehran denies. The Houthis say they manufacture their drones domestically, although analysts say they contain smuggled Iranian components. "The big question of course is the exact nature of Iranian involvement in these strikes," said Hinz. "Houthi equipment is mostly Iranian technology, but we know very little about Tehran's involvement in decision-making."Many experts insist on the degree of autonomy of the Yemeni rebels. Lons said that Houthis "don't answer to Tehran like the Lebanese Hezbollah does, the jewel in the crown of Iranian proxies in the region." "The Houthis would exist with or without Iran," Franck Mermier, a Yemen expert at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, told AFP. "They have a religious and ideological closeness to Iran, but they are Yemeni fighters first and foremost", he said. "I'm not sure the Iranians push the button on every attack," added Mermier. In contrast to Hezbollah's creation during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, Iran had had no role in the birth of the Houthi movement. The rebels adhere to a branch of Shia Islam known as Zaidism. Yemen erupted into conflict in 2014 when the Iran-backed rebels seized Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene the following year to prop up the internationally-recognised government.
'Unpredictable and dangerous' -
At the weekend Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi urged the international community to rein in the Yemeni rebels. "If the world does not take care of it," Hanegbi warned, "we will take action."Analysts said that the tensions could get out of hand quickly. "The Houthis are totally unpredictable and dangerous. And the processes that trigger war are always unpredictable," said Mermier. "So far the Houthis have struck without attracting massive retaliation, but it can get out of hand," added Mermier. Lons said that so far Iran has demonstrated it has no interest in letting the situation escalate regionally. "However, Tehran has less leverage over groups like the Houthis," added Lons. Noam Raydan, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in a note to clients that since the capture of the Galaxy Leader some companies have been re-routing their ships around the Cape of Good Hope, opting for a longer and costlier route. "The risk of major disruption to global trade will remain high as long as commercial ships operated by various nationalities are being targeted," she said.

Hungry, thirsty and humiliated: Israel’s mass arrest campaign sows fear in northern Gaza
ISABEL DEBRE and WAFAA SHURAFA/December 14, 2023
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)
The Israeli military has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians across the northern Gaza Strip, separating families and forcing men to strip to their underwear before trucking some to a detention camp on the beach, where they spent hours, in some cases days, subjected to hunger and cold, according to human rights activists, distraught relatives and released detainees themselves. Palestinians detained in the shattered town of Beit Lahiya, the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya and neighborhoods of Gaza City said they were bound, blindfolded and bundled into the backs of trucks. Some said they were taken to the camp at an undisclosed location, nearly naked and with little water. “We were treated like cattle, they even wrote numbers on our hands," said Ibrahim Lubbad, a 30-year-old computer engineer arrested in Beit Lahiya on Dec. 7 with a dozen other family members and held overnight. “We could feel their hatred.”
The roundups have laid bare an emerging tactic in Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, experts say, as the military seeks to solidify control in evacuated areas in the north and collect intelligence about Hamas operations nearly 10 weeks after the group’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. Militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted over 240 that day. “This is already helping us, and it will be crucial for the next stage of the war,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “That’s the stage where we clean areas from all the remnants of Hamas.”
In response to questions about alleged mistreatment, the Israeli military said that detainees were “treated according to protocol” and were given enough food and water. The army spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said this week that arrests took place in two Hamas strongholds in northern Gaza and that detainees were told to strip to make sure they didn't conceal explosives. Hagari said the men are questioned and then told to dress, and that in cases where this didn't happen, the military would ensure it doesn't occur again. Those believed to have ties to Hamas are taken away for further interrogation, and dozens of Hamas members have been arrested so far, he said. The others are released and told to head south, where Israel has told people to seek refuge, Hagari said.
To Palestinians, it is a stinging indignity. Among those rounded up were boys as young as 12 and men as old as 70, and they included civilians who lived ordinary lives before the war, according to interviews with 15 families of detainees.
“My only crime is not having enough money to flee to the south,” said Abu Adnan al-Kahlout, an unemployed 45-year-old with diabetes and high blood pressure in Beit Lahiya. He was detained Dec. 8 and released after several hours when soldiers saw he was too faint and nauseated to be interrogated.
“Do you think Hamas are the ones waiting in their homes for the Israelis to come find them now?" he asked. “We stayed because we have nothing to do with Hamas.”Israeli forces have detained at least 900 Palestinians in northern Gaza, estimated Rami Abdo, founder of the Geneva-based advocacy group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which has worked to document the arrests. Based on testimony it collected, the group presumes Israel is holding most detainees from Gaza at the Zikim military base just north of the enclave. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are believed to have stayed in the north despite the danger — unable to afford a ride, unable to abandon disabled relatives or convinced things are no safer in the overcrowded south, which also has come under daily bombardment. Palestinians cowered with their families for days as Israel poured heavy machine-gun fire into Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya, the tank shelling and firefights with Hamas militants stranding families in their homes without electricity, running water, fuel or communications and internet service. Hundreds of buildings have been crushed by Israeli bulldozers, clearing paths for tanks and armored troop carriers.
“There are corpses all over the place, left out for three, four weeks because no one can reach them to bury them before the dogs eat them,” said Raji Sourani, a lawyer with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He said he saw dozens of dead bodies as he made his way from Gaza City to the southern border with Egypt last week. Israeli forces are holding one of his colleagues, human rights researcher Ayman al-Kahlout, in custody. Palestinians recount similar terrifying scenes as the Israeli military combs through northern towns. Soldiers go door to door with dogs, using loudspeakers to call on families to come outside, residents said. Or they blast doors of homes open with a grenade, yelling at men to remove their clothes and confiscating money, IDs and cellphones. In most cases, women and children are told to walk away to find shelter.
Some released detainees reported soldiers shouting sexually explicit insults at women and children and beating men with their fists and rifle butts after bursting into their homes. Others reported enduring humiliating stretches of near-nudity as Israeli troops took the photos that later went viral. Some guessed they were driven several kilometers (miles) before being dumped in cold sand.
The Israeli military declined comment on where the detainees were taken.
Abu Adnan al-Kahlout's family believes its members were singled out for mistreatment because they share a last name with the spokesman for Hamas’ military wing better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Obeida. But family members — among them electricians, a tailor, a bureau chief for London-based news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed and employees of Hamas' political rival, the Palestinian Authority — insist they have nothing to do with Gaza's Islamic militant rulers. Three family members remain in Israeli custody. No one has heard from them in days. Other relatives, like 15-year-old Hamza al-Kahlout and 65-year-old Khalil al-Kahlout, returned home Dec. 8 to find their five-story building a charred skeleton. They fled to a nearby U.N. shelter at a school. But the Israeli military stormed the school and arrested them again as it pressed on with its crackdown. Released detainees said their wrists were blistered from tightly drawn handcuffs. Exposed to the chill of night, they endured repeated questions about Hamas activities that most couldn't answer. Soldiers kicked sand in their faces and beat those who spoke out of turn. Several Palestinians held for 24 hours or less said they had no food and were forced to share three 1.5-liter bottles with some 300 fellow detainees. Construction worker Nadir Zindah said he was fed meager scraps of bread over four days in custody. Darwish al-Ghabrawi, a 58-year-old principal at a U.N. school, fainted from dehydration. Mahmoud al-Madhoun, a 33-year-old shopkeeper, said the only moment that gave him hope was when soldiers released his son, realizing he was just 12.
Returning home brought its own horrors. Israeli soldiers dropped detainees off after midnight without their clothes, phones or IDs near what appeared to be Gaza's northern border with Israel, those released said, ordering them to walk through a landscape of destruction, tanks stationed along the road and snipers perched on roofs. “It was a death sentence,” said Hassan Abu Shadkh, whose brothers, 43-year-old Ramadan and 18-year-old Bashar, and his 38-year-old cousin, Naseem Abu Shadkh, walked shoeless over jagged mounds of debris until their feet bled. They begged the first person they saw for rags to cover their bodies. Naseem, a farmer in Beit Lahiya, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper as they made their way to a U.N. school in Beit Lahiya, Abu Shadkh said. His brothers were forced to leave their cousin's body in the middle of the road. Israeli officials say they have reason to be suspicious of Palestinians remaining in northern Gaza, given that places like Jabaliya and Shijaiyah, in eastern Gaza City, are well-known Hamas bastions. “We will continue to dismantle each and every one of these Hamas strongholds until we finish in Jabaliya and Shijaiyah and then continue,” government spokesperson Eylon Levy said, signaling the military would widen its campaign as ground forces press deeper into the south, where over a million Palestinians have taken refuge. He said the southern town of Khan Younis, now at the center of fighting, would be next. “We will of course work out who needs to be arrested and detained and put to justice as a Hamas terrorist and who does not," Levy said.
Human rights groups say mass arrests should be investigated.
“It isn’t clear on what basis Israel is holding them and it raises real serious questions,” said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s regional director. “Civilians must only be arrested for absolutely necessary and imperative reasons for security. It's a very high threshold." Meanwhile, families plead for information about loved ones who disappeared. The International Committee of the Red Cross said its hotline had received 3,000 calls from people trying to connect with missing relatives from the beginning of the war until Nov. 29. “I can't take not knowing, I feel sick," said 40-year-old Zindah, the construction worker, who arrived Monday by foot at the hospital in Deir al-Balah after four days in Israeli detention with his 14-year-old son, Mahmoud. “I don’t know where my wife and seven kids are. Are they alive? Are they dead? Are they in prison?”

Unprecedented tensions between White House and Netanyahu as Biden feels political price for standing with Israel
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN/, December 14, 2023 at 9:15 a.m. EST
Joe Biden held Israel closer than any American president ever has in the horrific days after the Hamas attacks on October 7. But more than two months later, following days upon end of Israeli strikes in Gaza that have killed thousands of civilians, unprecedented tensions over the war are widening between the White House and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden accused Israel, for example, of carrying out “indiscriminate” bombing in an off-camera political event this week. He used exceedingly blunt language, which typically causes pushback from Israel’s leaders, who insist they try to spare civilians but accuse Hamas of using innocent Palestinians as cover. Diplomatic rifts are deepening as a new US intelligence assessment, exclusively reported by CNN on Thursday, shows that nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions used by Israel in Gaza have been unguided so-called “dumb bombs.”CNN was given a rare look inside a field hospital in southern Gaza where victims shared stories that showed the harrowing realities of the war.
The next big geopolitical question over the war in Gaza is not whether it will isolate Israel internationally — that’s already happened. It’s whether the White House’s firm support for the operation will also alienate the United States from its friends in a way that could severely compromise wider national security goals. And the unrelenting toll on Palestinians is also increasing the political price that Biden is paying at home for his backing of Israel — and raising doubts about his capacity to invigorate his political coalition ahead of the 2024 election.
This is the sensitive backdrop of a trip to Israel on Thursday by Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who will meet Netanyahu and other key officials following strikingly direct criticisms of the right-wing Israeli coalition from the president.
Sullivan plans to address the issue of aid flowing into Gaza and the “next phase of the military campaign,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. Biden’s top White House foreign policy official will also discuss with the Israelis “efforts to be more surgical and more precise and to reduce harm to civilians.”“That is an aim of ours. And the Israelis say it is an aim of theirs,” Kirby said. “But it’s the results that count.”Sullivan’s trip suggests Washington believes Israel did not sufficiently take into account warnings by Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the lapsing of a truce earlier this month that its continued operations should take more care to shield civilians than the initial phase of the Gaza operation did. The optics around Sullivan’s trip will also contrast with Biden’s visit to Israel in October, when he told Israelis he understood their pain, shock and “all-consuming rage.” But he also warned Israel not to make the same mistakes made by the US after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and told reporters on the way home that if Israel didn’t take steps to relieve the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, the country would be judged harshly by the international community.
According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, 18,412 Palestinians had been killed as of Tuesday. CNN cannot independently verify that number. Some 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas attacks, which caused horrific scenes, including the use of rape as a weapon of war.
Biden’s political exposure on the issue shone through two extraordinary moments on Tuesday that revealed his ebbing patience with Israel. In the off-camera fundraiser, the president warned that Israel was losing international support because of “indiscriminate bombing that takes place.” And, continuing his habit of being startlingly frank in such events, Biden also said that Israel’s right-wing coalition government was “making it very difficult,” adding, “We have to make sure that Bibi (Netanyahu) understands that he’s got to make some moves.”
Clear differences are emerging between the two governments on what happens to Gaza immediately after the war and on the distant dream of a Palestinian state.
The war has exacted a terrible human toll. But it has also triggered unforeseen political reverberations in the United States. It set off a fresh wave of antisemitism and exposed equivocation about discrimination toward Jews, including among some progressives and in America’s liberal Ivy League universities. There’s been anger at the carnage in Gaza among Arab American voters, a crucial demographic for Democrats in a key battleground state like Michigan, where Biden’s poll numbers are suffering. And Washington’s global leadership now threatens to take a hit over its support for Israel. In a hugely symbolic move Tuesday, three of America’s closest allies — Canada, Australia and New Zealand — broke with Washington to urge urgent efforts to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza. “The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians,” prime ministers of the three nations said. The issue has now caused a rare split in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, which also includes the US and the United Kingdom. And even the UK, which ensures its foreign policy almost always sides with the US, is hedging its bets, after abstaining on a UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire that the US vetoed. The dramatic diplomatic maneuvering seems to have got the White House’s attention. “The president yesterday reflected the reality of global opinion, which also matters. Our support for Israel is not diminished. But we have had concerns,” Kirby said. “And we have expressed those concerns about the prosecution of this military campaign, even while acknowledging that it’s Hamas that started this, and it’s Hamas that is continuing it.”But how much will increasing domestic and international pressure on Biden change his approach to Israel?
For all his increasing frustration, the president is pro-Israel to the core and it would still be a huge surprise if he adds tangible pressure to his rhetorical rebukes of Netanyahu. One possibility would be to back conditions on a $14 billion aid package to Israel – although officials told CNN the administration currently has no plans to do that, despite growing calls by Democratic lawmakers and human rights organizations for the US to stop providing weapons unless Israel does more to protect civilians in Gaza.
And that aid measure, mired in bitter clashes between the White House and far-right Republicans, can’t make it through Congress as it is. Plus, Israel believes it is engaged in an existential fight not just for itself, but for the survival of the Jewish people. The ferocity of its operation in Gaza is a signal that it will take care of its security however it sees fit. It’s not clear that Biden, or anyone else in the outside world, could stop this if he wanted to. But the political cost he is paying will continue to mount.

Israeli Knesset passes new wartime budget
AFP/December 14, 2023
The Israeli Knesset approved on Thursday a modified budget for the year 2023, allocating new funds for the war against Hamas and concluding intense debates on funds earmarked for settlements and radical Jews. The Israeli legislative council agreed by a majority of 59 votes to 44 against, out of 120 votes, on the budget, allocating around 30 billion shekels (7.5 billion euros) for expenses resulting from the Hamas attack on October 7 and the ongoing war in Gaza. The budget allocates seventeen billion shekels for military efforts. The remaining 13.5 billion is designated for residents of the towns targeted by Hamas during its attack on southern Israel, as well as residents of border areas with Lebanon, which are targeted almost daily by rockets from Hezbollah, allied with the Palestinian Islamic Movement that has governed Gaza since 2007. The total amount for civilian expenses will be distributed among the residents and the security needs of these areas (shelters, hospital support, emergency services, and various allocations). The 2023 budget, exceeding 600 billion shekels, was the subject of heated discussions within the coalition government between the right and far-right led by Benjamin Netanyahu, joined by part of the opposition (center-right) after the war, turning into a "national unity government."The controversy surrounds a fund of approximately 14 billion shekels, agreed upon by the "Right Bloc" parties before the war. The fund allocates hundreds of millions for radical Jews, as well as for settlements in the occupied West Bank, considered illegal under international law.

Israeli president speaks against 2-state solution ahead of meeting with U.S security chief
JERUSALEM (AP)/December 14, 2023
Israel's president has joined the ranks of high-ranking Israeli officials to speak out against a two-state solution after the war in Gaza.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Isaac Herzog said it is not the time to be talking about establishing an independent state when the country's pain from Hamas' Oct. 7 attack is still fresh. “What I want to urge is against just saying two-state solution. Why? Because there is an emotional chapter here that must be dealt with. My nation is bereaving. My nation is in trauma,” said Herzog. “In order to get back to the idea of dividing the land, of negotiating peace or talking to the Palestinians, etc., one has to deal first and foremost with the emotional trauma that we are going through and the need and demand for full sense of security for all people,” he said. Herzog spoke a day before a meeting with the White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The Biden Administration has said that after the war, efforts must be renewed to restart negotiations aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel under the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Herzog, whose position is largely ceremonial, is a former leader of Israel's Labor Party, which advocates a two-state solution with the Palestinians. But in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered Israel's war in Gaza, Israeli leaders have spoken out against attempts to restart peace talks after the war and ruled out any role for the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the Oct. 7 attack and 240 others were taken hostage. Israel immediately declared war, carrying out weeks of airstrikes and a ground offensive in which over 18,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. With the U.S. pushing for a timetable from Israel, Herzog predicted the Israeli campaign in hard-hit northern Gaza could wrap up within weeks. But he declined to say when the war would end. Israel has ducked international calls for a ceasefire, saying it will press ahead until it dismantles Hamas' military and political capabilities.
“I think one can see that in the northern part of Gaza, one can see the horizon," Herzog said. “We can see the end of that campaign, not far away in the next few weeks.” He added that the end of the campaign in the south would only come when Hamas was “completely eradicated."Herzog also spoke in favor of an emerging U.S.-led coalition to protect the Red Sea from the Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Iranian-backed 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. The coalition, set to be formally announced next week, is composed of U.S. and European allies, and aims to protect international shipping from the Houthi attacks. Israel will not be contributing its own ships to the coalition, Israeli officials told The Associated Press, preferring to allow the international community to target the issue and focus on the war in Gaza. “I demand and I call upon all nations who understand this to join the coalition, which is led by the United States of America, to fight against the Houthis and make it clear that this is unacceptable and won’t be repeated again,” said Herzog.

Liberal MPs ask universities if calling for genocide of Jews violates school codes
OTTAWA/The Canadian Press/December 14, 2023
Five Liberal members of Parliament are asking 25 Canadian university presidents to say whether calling for a genocide against Jewish people or the elimination of Israel violates their school policies. The letter, shared online by Montreal MP Anthony Housefather, comes amid a rise in antisemitism during the Israel-Hamas war, including on campuses. Former justice minister David Lametti, fellow Montreal MP Anna Gainey, Winnipeg representative Ben Carr and ex-public-safety minister Marco Mendicino also signed the letter. The heads of U.S. schools have been facing similar questions during recent congressional hearings about antisemitism on campuses. Former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill resigned amid controversy after telling lawmakers such a call would be "context-dependent," clarifying the next day that such language would be considered harassment or intimidation. The MPs' letter is asking Canadian educators to respond to their question by Jan. 20 and outline steps being taken to protect Jewish students facing "hostile environments."

Iran lifts visa rules for 33 countries including Gulf states -ISNA
DUBAI (Reuters)/December 14, 2023
Iran said it was lifting visa requirements for 33 countries, including Gulf states like Saudi Arabia with which Tehran had frosty relations for years until a recent rapprochement, the Iranian Students News Agency said on Thursday. "The ministry of tourism believes that an open-door policy will showcase Iran's determination to engage with different countries of the world," the semi-official ISNA reported. The decision will increase to 45 the number of countries or territories whose citizens can visit Iran without needing to obtain a visa, it said. The move is another step towards thawing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular after years of tension between the two oil-producing Gulf rivals. Riyadh and Tehran have aligned themselves with warring parties in Syria, Iraq and Yemen in the past decade. Attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, which Western officials blame on Iran and its Arab proxy forces, threatened in recent years to send the Middle East into further conflict. Iran denied involvement in those attacks. Iran and Saudi agreed to restore full diplomatic relations, severed in 2016, under a Chinese-mediated agreement in March. Nationals of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are included in the decision to waive visa requirements, in addition to Bahrain, with whom Tehran has not yet re-established full ties. ISNA gave a full list of the countries, which included Lebanon, Tunisia, India, several Central Asian, African and "Muslim" nations. Only one Western-allied European nation was on the list, Croatia, a small member of the European Union and NATO. "Russians will only profit from this visa exemption if they are visiting the country in groups," ISNA added. Omani nationals had been able to travel to Iran visa-free prior to this announcement. Iranian pilgrims will for the first time in eight years begin regular travel to Saudi Arabia from Dec. 19, Iranian media reported on Wednesday.

Turkish Lawmaker Who Gave Speech Criticizing Israel Dies after Collapsing in Parliament
AFP/14 December 2023
A Turkish opposition legislator died Thursday, days after he suffered a heart attack and collapsed in parliament just after delivering a speech critical of Israel and of the Turkish ruling party’s relationship with the country. Hasan Bitmez, 53, a member of parliament from the Islamist Saadet Partisi, or Felicity Party, died at the Ankara City Hospital, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced. Bitmez collapsed at the lectern of the Turkish Grand National Assembly on Tuesday after speaking for some 20 minutes. Legislators in the hall assisted Bitmez before he was rushed to the hospital in “extremely serious and critical” condition. During his speech, he was seen holding a sign that read: “Murderer Israel, Collaborator AKP,” in reference to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party. Bitmez accused the AKP government of continuing to engage in trade with Israel even as it became one of its most vocal critics. AKP lawmakers heckled during his speech. The legislator concluded his remarks by reading from a poem that ended with: “Even if you escape the torment of history, you will not be able to escape the wrath of God.”A ceremony was held for Bitmez on the grounds of the parliament building Thursday. A Palestinian flag was attached to his coffin, which was draped in the Turkish flag. His funeral was scheduled to be held in Istanbul on Friday. The Felicity Party joined an opposition alliance that failed to topple Erdogan in a May presidential election.

Saudi FM and UK’s David Cameron discuss Gaza ceasefire, aid in London
Arab News/December 14, 2023
LONDON: Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan held a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron during his visit to London, the Kingdom’s foreign ministry said on Thursday. The two sides discussed developments in the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas, and the need to take the necessary steps for a ceasefire and to ensure the violence does not spread, the ministry said in a statement. Prince Faisal stressed the importance of the international community, especially the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including the UK, intensifying efforts aimed at a ceasefire, as well as providing secure relief corridors to deliver humanitarian, food and medical aid to the Gaza Strip. The meeting, which was held in the presence of the Saudi Ambassador to the UK, Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Sultan, also reviewed relations between the two countries. Cameron then held a working lunch in honor of the Saudi minister and his accompanying delegation.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 14-15/2023
Iran Sponsored the October 7 Massacre. America Paid for It.
A chronicle of the Biden administration’s increasingly absurd attempts to hide its complicity in the worst mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust
Tony Badran/The Tablet/December 14/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125180/125180/
It may strike some observers as curious, and others as unimaginably evil, that only weeks after Hamas slaughtered over 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, the Biden administration awarded sanctions waivers worth $10 billion to Iran, the primary external sponsor of those attacks. The waiver, which allows Iran to collect money from the sale of electricity to Iraq, an arrangement that further deepens Iranian control of that country, came with an added bonus: Iran would be allowed to convert the funds into euros which it could spend immediately, without the usual requirement that the money remain in escrow inside Iraq. The prospect that Iran might immediately spend the money it receives on continuing to target U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria doesn’t appear to have disrupted the deal, either.
Which is strange. In the informal but apparently binding relationship between the Biden administration and the Iranians, minor events like a horrific, large-scale terror assault on a close ally, the kidnapping of American children and burying them in underground tunnels, and the regular maiming and occasional killing of U.S. military personnel on American bases in the region can hardly be permitted to interfere with the goal of ensuring that billions of dollars reach Iran every month, in order to buttress the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.
Showing its awareness that there is something obviously bizarre—not to mention hideously amoral—about this relationship, the administration has gone to absurd levels to downplay Iran’s role in the massacre. According to The Wall Street Journal, hundreds of Hamas terrorists who took part in the attack received specialized training in Iran. Meanwhile, reporting in Israel indicates that Tehran was involved at the operational level to the extent that it determined the actual timing of the operation, moving it to October from its originally planned date during Passover. These reports are the latest in a series that began to come out immediately after Oct. 7, that have directly implicated Iran in various stages and aspects of the terrorist onslaught, in addition to its already well-understood role as Hamas’ main funder, arms supplier, and political sponsor.
Iran, the state sponsor without whose material and logistical support Hamas would not be able to function, is naturally kept in the dark. Yes, that’s definitely how it all went down.
The detailed reporting on Iran’s direct involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre that has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and in the Israeli press stands in stark contrast with the public assertions of the Biden administration about the lack of any Iranian involvement. The administration staked out its position on the matter from the very day of the assault, which ostensibly took both Israel and the U.S. entirely by surprise: “On Iran’s involvement, I mean, look, specifically about what happened today, it’s too early—too early to say whether, you know, the state of Iran was directly involved or planning and supporting,” a senior administration official told reporters on a background call on Oct. 7. Asked again, the senior official gave a more specific answer: “Again, on that question, what I said: We don’t have anything to indicate Iran was involved in this specific—what is unfolding now.”
The weasel language the senior official used in both answers set the tone for subsequent pronouncements and leaks on the subject. Namely, that no “direct” evidence whatsoever existed that suggested “the state of Iran” was “directly” involved in planning and supporting this “specific” attack. In other words, the Biden administration understood from the day of the attack onward that its role was to serve as Iran’s lawyer, minimizing Iran’s involvement at every turn, in order to protect the U.S.-Iranian relationship from American legislative and public opinion.
So when the WSJ reported on Oct. 8 that Iran helped plan the operation—including in multiple meetings in Beirut with senior Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) officials, all the way to giving the green light a week before the attack—administration officials sprung into action, like any hardened Bronx defense lawyer would when informed that a notorious client with a rap sheet as long your arm had apparently gone on a wild rampage, murdering well over a thousand perfectly innocent people in cold blood. “We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account,” one official told the paper. In an interview with CNN, Secretary of State Antony Blinken robotically played back the buzzwords from the day before: “In this specific instance, we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.” (Emphasis added.)
Over the week following the WSJ report, administration officials drilled these stock talking points at every opportunity. They also began adding color to their story. Asked on Oct. 9 if the administration has any evidence to support the report’s revelations, NSC spokesman John Kirby jumped straight into his Sgt. Schultz routine: “Right now, none. We’re looking very hard to see if there is corroborating evidence that proves that Iran was a participant in these attacks, but we just haven’t seen it.”
Then Kirby leaned on a talker the administration deemed ultraclever: “But, look, I mean, make no mistake, there’s a degree of complicity here just because Iran’s been supporting Hamas now for many, many years, weapons, tools, capabilities, training.”
Sure, there’s a “degree of complicity” when a state sponsor, for the last 30 years, has financed, armed, trained, and hosted the leadership of a Palestinian terror army, including by establishing a joint operations room in Lebanon which oversaw the last war in Gaza in 2021. But, Kirby added, “in terms of the specific series of attacks we have seen … we just don’t have direct evidence.” (Emphasis added.)
I see nothing! Nothing!
Because that’s how the patron-client relationship works, you understand. Iran, the state sponsor without whose material and logistical support Hamas would not be able to function, is naturally kept in the dark on the most sophisticated and consequential terrorist operation of the group’s entire existence; an attack that has a very direct bearing on the state sponsor’s regional position.
Yes, that’s definitely how it all went down. In all those meetings in Tehran, Beirut, and Damascus with senior IRGC and Hezbollah officers—that is, the people who pay, train, equip, and host the Hamas cadres—the leadership of the Palestinian group hid this massive operation from everyone they talked to, including Esmail Qaani, the head of the IRGC-Quds Force, who just happened to be in Beirut days before the attack and then traveled there again the day after it was executed. That was just another in a series of extraordinary coincidences that together suggest, well, absolutely nothing.
In fact, it was just the tail wagging the dog, Team Biden retorted. A senior Biden administration official, reacting to the WSJ article, which cited Hamas and Hezbollah sources, broke down the 3D chess move: “Hamas and Hezbollah have an interest in getting Iran involved, so you can’t necessarily take what they’re saying at face value.” Dig? Not just Hamas, mind you, but Hezbollah, too. Hezbollah, the extension of Iran in Lebanon, was trying to embroil Iran. Circles within circles, my friends.
But just because we see nothing and know nothing doesn’t mean we’ll stop looking, Kirby reassured the press—even though, to be honest with you, so far, despite looking at “all the information streams” of the U.S. government, nothing has turned up. “We haven’t seen hard, tangible evidence” that Iran was “directly involved in participating in or resourcing and planning these sets of complex attacks,” Kirby said (emphasis added); at least not “wittingly involved.” Hell, even the Israelis “have publicly said they don’t see the—quote, unquote—smoking gun,” the NSC spokesman added, with what the administration clearly believed was a winning talking point.
And what would that “smoking gun” look like? Kirby helpfully explained: “We haven’t seen anything that tells us they knew specifically date, time, method, that they were witting to this. We haven’t seen anything that tells us they specifically cut checks to support this set of attacks or that they were involved in the training and that obviously this required quite a bit of training by these terrorists or that they were involved in any directing of the operation.” We haven’t seen any check with Khamenei’s own signature on it, or a memo in his handwriting that the tens of millions of dollars that Iran sent Hamas were meant specifically for this specific attack. I can categorically tell you that none of the receipts in our intelligence streams has “Al-Aqsa Flood murder expenses, 10/7” stamped on it. Sorry.
The White House couldn’t catch a break. Just barely a week after the WSJ report, a second report came out, this time in The New York Times, corroborating the Journal’s reporting: The Iranians “helped plan the attack starting over a year ago, trained militants and had advanced knowledge of it.” The NYT added that Hezbollah trained Hamas paragliders in Lebanon, while in Syria, the Hamas members were given training on raiding Israeli communities and taking civilian hostages.
Proof? By then, the Biden administration had rolled out another talker. They were so pleased with this one they even took it to brief members of Congress. Morgan Muir, a deputy director at the Office of the Director of Intelligence, told lawmakers the administration had gone back and taken another look at the intelligence, and they collected “multiple pieces of intelligence”—“good intelligence,” no, make that, “exquisite intelligence”—contradicting the news reports about Iranian involvement. Not only did the Iranians not “direct” or “orchestrate” the attack, but, in fact, “key Iranian leaders” were surprised by it.
To be clear, the intelligence assessment did say that “Iran likely knew that Hamas was planning operations against Israel.” But it had no idea about “the precise timing or scope of what occurred,” which is something the administration was looking into, as State Department spokesman Matt Miller reassured reporters, in order to determine, “whether at least there were some in the Iranian system who either had a clear sense of what was coming or even contributed to aspects of the planning.”
The tell was the term “scope,” which was transparently a way for the administration to give itself some additional cover. Paying billions to the regime behind the attack that resulted in the barbaric massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis and more than 30 Americans—many of whom, including babies, were beheaded, burned, baked, tortured, raped, and taken hostage—is an embarrassment for the administration, to be sure. But their reaction would have been different had the attack resulted, say, in the killing and kidnapping of IDF soldiers, or even the murder of a few “settlers.” By introducing the category of “scope,” the administration was distancing the Iranians from their client’s barbarism, and in so doing, clearing themselves of the stain.
Within a week, the administration was peddling this gibberish as established fact: There was now “a growing body of evidence that neither Hezbollah nor Iran helped plan such a major attack by Hamas.” (Emphasis added.) This is also what the administration was telling European countries. According to a French press report, the American debriefing “repudiates the existence of any co-organization of the October 7 offensive with Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.”
Weirdly, despite the administration’s supposed tsunami of evidence clearing Iran, on Oct. 25 the WSJ reported that in the weeks leading up to Oct. 7, some 500 members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “received specialized combat training in Iran.” The training was overseen by officers of the Quds Force, the external operations arm of the Revolutionary Guard. “Senior Palestinian officials and Iranian Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, also attended.”
Look, retorted U.S. officials on background: Iran trains its proxies all the time, both in Iran and elsewhere in the region. Listen to me when I tell you there are “no indications of a mass training right before the attack.” (Emphasis added.) So, maybe the Iranians did train 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in the weeks before the attack. But so what? Who is to say that this training was “specifically” for the Oct. 7 attack. Perhaps the Iranians believed that they were training Hamas for a different attack. Perhaps they were simply eager to introduce the young men of Hamas to the healthy recreational activity of paragliding, which is also enjoyed by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea. Without a signed check from Khamenei, it’s impossible to be absolutely, 100% sure, right?
That Qaani reportedly supervised the training is in line with his public itinerary in Lebanon and Syria in the months and weeks preceding the attack. In late September, Qaani made a stop in Syria, where he oversaw a joint military drill with the Syrian army. Then, on Oct. 2, he reportedly entered neighboring Lebanon, where he held the meeting with Hezbollah and Hamas, in which he was reported to have given the go-ahead for the attack.
What’s notable about the reporting on Qaani’s role is the picture it paints of Iran’s hands-on involvement during all stages of the planning down to the timing of the attack. That picture contrasts with the administration’s insistence on only a “broad complicity” and general Iranian support. One might assume, perhaps not unreasonably, that Iran would be involved at the level of strategic decision-making, resourcing, planning, and giving the final approval for an operation (like, say, the 1983 Beirut bombings) to proceed within a certain timeframe, while leaving the determination of the exact day to the tactical commanders. That the signs point to close Iranian involvement even at the tactical level shouldn’t be surprising. After all, that level of Iranian participation is the point of the IRGC-led Joint Operations Room in Lebanon, where Qaani is said to have been constantly present since Oct. 8.
In November, an Israeli news report claimed that the Iranians determined the date of the Oct. 7 attack. Initially, it said, the plan was for it to take place during Passover. However, the Iranians made the call to move the date closer to the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. The information was obtained from interrogations of Hamas prisoners who took part in the attack, although the degree of its reliability is not yet clear. The author of the report speculated that the reason the Iranians pushed back the date had to do with then-ongoing hostage ransom negotiations with the Biden team, and the unfreezing of $6 billion to Iran as part of the deal.
What this speculation overlooks, however, is that, in the end, Iran greenlighting the attack did not in fact hinder further payments by the Biden administration. The same goes for Iranian-commanded attacks against U.S. bases and facilities in Iraq and Syria, which have only increased. By March 2023, there had been 83 attacks since the Biden team came to power. Since mid-October, there have been 82 attacks.
*Team Biden’s overriding concern since Oct. 8 has been to safeguard its arrangement with Iran, which means extending a protective umbrella to Tehran’s Lebanese equity and working to pause the Israeli operation in Gaza—an explicit Iranian demand. That the price of this arrangement has been paid in Israeli and American blood doesn’t seem to bother the Biden administration one bit, even if the quantities of blood might have been a bit higher than expected.
** Tony Badran is Tablet’s news editor and Levant analyst.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/iran-america-october-massacre

The 'Biden Border Crisis' Comes to the Big Apple
Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute./December 14, 2023
You could not blame Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams, or anyone else, if -- as they remember the economic boom and global calm of the pre-Covid America of President Donald Trump -- they were to cast their secret ballot in November for more of the "Trump Boom."
US President Joe Biden's disastrous Open Border policy has turned "sanctuary cities" into unrecognizable migrant camps, and New York City is at ground zero of this crisis. More than 110,000 migrants have been left off on Manhattan streets, more than twice as many as cities such as Los Angeles and Houston.
Remember when self-proclaimed "Sanctuary Martha's Vineyard" would not accept even 50?
Not surprisingly, the New York mayor's poll numbers have plunged as New Yorkers of all stripes looked at what the city has become, reportedly finding his management of the issue pathetic. The problem is twofold. It was not Adams who created the problem, and when he looked to Washington for financial help, he came away with the warning, "the cavalry isn't coming."
The impact on New York City from the "Biden border crisis" is, on one hand, incalculable regarding the destruction of its quality of life. On the other hand, you can calculate down to the dollar what it is costing New York. Adams has told every city department commissioner that there will be the need for $4 billion in budget cuts over the next 18 months to close an even larger $7.1 billion gap expected in 2024. Every agency, from the police department to the parks, will be impacted. These cuts harm the very fabric of the city's ability to function, yet the Biden administration does not seem to have any intention of providing economic aid for a crisis of its making.
Although we are a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws. Virtually every one of us is the descendant of immigrants who risked everything to come to this country. Most came with a handful of currency and the name of some distant relative who would vouch for them. We recognize the enormous power that came from the collective energies of so many wishing to call themselves Americans, but that did not come about from an "open border" policy that now leaves our nation's cities picking up the tab and, worse, that potentially leaves the country open to terrorism from migrants who are not able to be checked or from the 1.6 million "gotaways" -- that we know about. It took only 19 terrorists on 9/11 to bring down the World Trade Center, in an attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Many involved in our government, including presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, are alarmed. Trump, for instance, has said that if he wins his bid to become president, he would make addressing this crisis as one of his "day one" priorities. He, among many others, recognizes the difference between immigrant patriotism and border pandemonium. Many American politicians, encountering furious taxpayers, "terrible" poll numbers, "frightening" deficits, and serious national security threats, appear to view this as a problem that needs immediately to be addressed.
*Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

I Saw the Haunting Reality of Palestinian Child Prisoners
Fadi Quran/Time/December 14, 2023
On the afternoon of Feb. 24, 2012, Israeli soldiers arrested me during the annual march to reopen Shuhada Street, in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. The street was once home to a popular market frequented by Palestinians until the Israeli military sealed it off to us in 1994. Palestinians have been protesting to reopen the road, which we call Apartheid Street, every year since 2010.
What happened after my arrest that day still haunts me.
As thousands of us marched toward Shuhada, the Israeli military began firing teargas and rubber bullets. A few of us ran for cover and found ourselves face-to-face with Israeli soldiers. One of my friends was injured after being hit by a teargas cannister, and I started tending to him. But the soldiers began harassing us, and I told them: “We do not fear you. This is Palestine. You should step back.”
The soldiers pepper sprayed me and pinned me to the ground. They slammed my head against a humvee and threw me into the back of the vehicle. About five minutes later, as they drove through the old city of Hebron, the humvee suddenly stopped, Israeli soldiers rushed out, and a boy began screaming. He was handcuffed and thrown in. He had been walking to his sister’s house for lunch when they picked him up.
When we arrived at the Israeli military outpost in the Kiryat Shmona settlement the soldiers dragged us out of the humvee. The kid, who was 14, was terrified. He pleaded with them not to pepper spray him, having seen me not be able to open my eyes. They smacked him around and told him to shut up. They then shackled my feet and had me sit on a bench outside the interrogation room, walking the boy in for questioning first. The Israeli military interrogator told him: “I can make your family’s life hell. But I’ll let you go home. You just need to confirm that the guy with you led the protest and told you to throw the stones at us.” The boy started sobbing and said: “But I don’t know this guy. I just met him when you picked me up.” The interrogator kept pressing him, at one point raising a pistol to his face.
The charge brought against this poor kid was stone throwing, based on the “testimony” of Israeli soldiers. The soldiers also accused me of assaulting them, which could have resulted in me spending up to three years in prison. They put me in solitary confinement for two days in a holding cell in the settlement. They then moved me to a heavily crowded underground holding cell in the Maskobiya prison in East Jerusalem, to await a military court hearing.
But as a well-known activist, American citizen, and recent Stanford graduate, my case gained international attention. I was also lucky, as videos of my arrest emerged, showing that I did not assault the soldiers and that their testimony was false.
I was released on Feb. 29 but the child was not as fortunate. I would later learn from prisoner-rights organizations Defence for Children International and Addameer that he spent three months in prison after being advised by lawyers to admit to stone-throwing so he would get out of jail sooner. Waiting for a ruling from Israel’s military courts can take months or more.
This is far from an isolated incident. Between 500-700 children are arrested a year. Israel denies mistreating prisoners but the majority of detained children are beaten, as I was that day, according to research by Save the Children. With a 95% conviction rate, according to the nonprofit Military Court Watch, lawyers and kids know it’s better to “confess” even if they are innocent, as waiting for a ruling and being stuck in limbo in an Israeli jail is hell. The world has turned a blind eye to this for years. Again and again and again. Just look at recent events. While the world celebrated the hostage deal and the return of Israeli and Palestinian loved ones to their families, Israel’s revolving door of arrests continued largely unnoticed. Almost as many Palestinians have been arrested as released, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. We know from recent reports from organizations like Military Court Watch as well as graphic videos showing Israeli soldiers beating, abusing, and tormenting children, that many will face what no child ever should.
Living in the West Bank, and after years of monitoring child arrests as part of leading Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq from 2012 to 2014, and now at global civic organization Avaaz, I see the systematic arrest of children as designed to achieve two goals.
The first is what Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have described as pursuing an “intent to dominate” and “systematic oppression” to maintain the system of apartheid. Palestinian children in the West Bank are often snatched away in the dead of night, subjected to questioning in the absence of any parent or guardian, and languish in pretrial detention for agonizingly long periods. This brutal treatment is not just anecdotal but is reflected in chilling statistics: 72% of Palestinian children arrested in the West Bank endure prolonged custody until the conclusion of legal proceedings, a stark contrast to the 17.9% of Israeli children subjected to similar conditions, according to HRW. The second goal is to indoctrinate these children with learned helplessness. The military experience suffocates a child’s sense of agency. They can miss a school year, end up being in classes one year younger than their friends, and often have unhealed trauma. These chilling facts, along with my arrest in 2012, are what inspired me to work with kids in areas with many arrests. I consulted with experts in children’s psychological health, lawyers, activists, and former prisoners to develop a curriculum for what children should do if detained. The training includes walking the children through what to expect, self-awareness and meditation tactics to calm their nerves, and legal knowledge, as well as providing community support for children who have gone through this experience. Yet this can only do so much. We need all violence against Palestinian children, including arbitrary detention, to end. The world has largely watched in horror as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has left at least 18,000 people dead, over 7,000 of whom are children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The victimization of Palestinian children is profound enough that one Hebrew University law professor has coined a word for it: “Unchilding.” The international community must act to stop the suffering of children, whether they are under bombardment, siege, or in detention. All children deserve dignity, protection, and a life free from fear. Palestinian children should be no exception.

Exploding attack drones causing chaos in the Middle East are no match for US Navy warships, former captains say
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/December 14, 2023
Iran and its proxies have increasingly used drones for attacks in the Middle East.
These drones have struck commercial ships and been shot down by US Navy warships in the region.
Even as the operating environment evolves, naval warfare experts say the US can handle the threat. US Navy aircraft carriers and other warships regularly sail through dangerous waters and are facing an evolving threat that has caused headaches for both militaries and civilians from the Middle East to Eastern Europe. Drones, exploding one-way attack drones in particular, used by Iran and proxy groups supported by Tehran are a manageable challenge, but warfare is always changing. Although US warships, like the carrier strike group on patrol in key Middle Eastern waters, have proven they can handle this threat today, the future may be less certain. The employment of one-way attack drones in the Middle East by Iran and its allies is not a new phenomenon. Over the past few years, these deadly weapons have been launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, militias in Iraq and Syria at US forces based in those two countries, and even Tehran itself at commercial ships transiting key waterways in the region. But the use of these weapons is on the rise. Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the Pentagon has outlined scores of one-way drone attacks carried out by Iran-backed actors across the region. The militias in Iraq and Syria, for example, have used the drones and rockets to target US forces there on a regular basis.
In waters off the coast of Yemen, American and French warships have repeatedly shot down Houthi one-way attack drones launched by the rebels as they continue to attack commercial ships. Some drones have even flown directly at US Navy destroyers, forcing the ships to defend themselves with force. At least one of the downed drones has been identified by the US military as an Iranian-produced KAS-04 system, which is also known as a Samad drone.
The most well-known — and perhaps notorious — of Iran's one-way attack drones is the Shahed-136. Though it's called a drone, this weapon is technically a loitering munition, which means it can lurk above a target before flying directly into it and detonating. The Iranian Shahed-136 is a small system that features a delta-wing shape and can carry an explosive payload of up to an estimated 110 pounds.
The Shaheds mainly garnered attention due to their relentless use by Russia against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, but this type of weapon has also been involved in attacks around the Middle East — including strikes on multiple commercial vessels.
The rise in use of one-way attack drones like these is changing the operating environment in Middle Eastern waters, where the US Navy regularly patrols. American warships are now having to consider the threat posed by lethal unmanned systems.
Naval warfare experts say well-armed US warships and carrier strike groups have plenty of capabilities to successfully defend themselves from one-way attack drones before they could even put a vessel at risk, including advanced radars, close-in weapons systems, surface-to-air missiles, and other sophisticated armaments. Sam Tangredi, a retired US Navy captain and surface warfare officer, said one way for a warship to defeat drones is by using the Phalanx close-in weapon system, which is an automatic gun that fires 20mm rounds. For greater ranges, the crew could use SM-2 missiles, although this would impose higher costs for the defenders, he noted. "An even better option might be gunfire from aircraft or even an attack helicopter," Tangredi, now the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare Studies at the US Naval War College, said in emailed remarks to Business Insider. "If the drones loiter — which is really the whole point of using them — that is certainly possible."
Individual drones may not be a significant threat on their own, but a concern with one-way attack drones and loitering munitions is that multiple systems could be fired in a salvo during a relatively short period of time in an attempt to overwhelm — or swarm — an target's defenses. The Russian military has attempted to do this with the Shaheds in Ukraine. Although Kyiv's air-defense network has been largely successful in stopping them, some of the drones make it through to their target.
Such an attack, however, requires a significant amount of coordination and sophistication against moving targets like warships, experts say. It would also require preparations that could be spotted by aerial surveillance assets.
"It's definitely a challenge when there's a lot of stuff up there, but then it kind of turns into a shooting gallery," Bradley Martin, a retired US Navy surface warfare captain, told Business Insider. "They have to be able to fly through everything that the ships are throwing up in order to actually hit something."
"One thing the US Navy's actually quite good at is air defense," Martin, now a senior policy researcher at the RAND Cooperation think tank, added. "So I certainly don't dismiss a threat at all — not in any way, shape, or form — but I would say it's something that's capable of being handled."
Even if a few one-way attack drones somehow make it past a warship's defenses, it's not certain that they will hit their targets, and if they do, tactical success is not a guarantee. These systems have relatively small warheads and are unlikely to cause much damage to the vessel compared to what a much larger missile could do. The drones could potentially distract defenses for a missile though. Iranian proxies have been using them together. The Navy has, however, been up to the task.
One-way attack drones "are not superweapons," Tangredi said. "They are basically low-explosive missiles that can loiter in the air while being directed to or seeking a target. In order to do so, they have to fly very slow, thus presenting themselves as a target for defense weapons that could never stop a Mach 3 ballistic or cruise missile."
Frequent provocations involving drones by Iran's proxy groups over the past two months have been directly tied to the Israel-Hamas war, and during this time, US Navy ships in the Middle East have only been shooting down threats off the coast of Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthis are active. But Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the possibility of escalation in waters closer to Iran should not be dismissed. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group recently entered the Persian Gulf — separating Iran from its historical rival, Saudi Arabia — after the collection of warships deployed to the Middle East in the wake of Hamas' October 7 terror attacks. Iran has drone capabilities, including bases, in the area, and it's not a fan of having the Navy operating nearby.
The presence of the carrier strike group strike in the region is a risky move because it exposes the warships to a variety of Iranian offensive capabilities there, Nadimi told Business Insider. But at the same time, he added, it sends a strong message to Iran that the US military is in the Gulf region to stay and protect commercial ships, which have frequently come under attack by Tehran's forces.
"Any attack against the Eisenhower carrier strike group would be considered a declaration of war," Nadimi said. He added that a strike on a US warship in the Gulf region is likely the "last thing" that Iran would want to do right now.
"But obviously," he said, "the threat should not be dismissed and their intentions — their activities — should be monitored constantly with both manned and unmanned assets." For now, Iran and its proxies mainly pose a risk to commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and off the coast of Yemen. But if that changes, the Pentagon is "well-postured" to safeguard its assets in the region, a US defense official said. "It's a very dynamic environment," the official told Business Insider. "So as the threat evolves, the posture is adjusted to ensure we do what we need to do to protect our forces."

On a War No One is Likely to Win Absolutely
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/14 December 2023
“America is Alone”: was the headline of this newspaper’s piece on what happened recently in the Security Council. The US was indeed alone when it used its veto. No country in the world supported it. Even Britain was content with abstaining, while France voted the other way.
This dire outcome tells us that Israel’s war can only be won by force, and wars cannot be won absolutely through force alone. With this characteristic, victory resembles the beast trumping humans and muscle trumping everything else. This is not to downplay the significance of force but to highlight its persuasive and ethical limitations and its inability to win over new allies, which ultimately leaves it confined to itself while the victor seems despised, imperious, and conceited.
How could things be any different when Israel has gone on an insane killing spree accompanied by disregard for public opinion anywhere in the world, as well as obvious contempt for people’s humanity and extremely unequal and discriminatory valuations of their lives, to say nothing about the perpetual flood of lies? That is how the Israelis have come to seem alone today, and who would dare to join them, even if they wanted to, on such a barbaric project - its most prominent images are the killing of children, mass displacement, and the destruction of homes?
However, this hemorrhaging of allies feeds on other factors that the protests we are seeing in capital cities around the world point to, as do so of its educational and media institutions. Israel has not supplemented its war effort with any policy or proposal for a solution, and the broad hostility towards it is part of hatred to the US and the West because it identifies itself with them. In turn, the memory of the Holocaust is waning and eroding, especially after Israeli leaders persistently exploited it. This comes amid a shift in the global mood that has left the world incapable of tolerating silence in the face of national suffering, especially the suffering of Palestinians. Moreover, this mood has left the world enamored of defeated victims, just as it had been enchanted by strong victors decades ago. Added to the rising prevalence of an aversion to violence (though this aversion is somewhat selective) is that social media has made all forms of speech readily available, ending the days when traditional media owned by wealthy institutions filtered and curated the content that reached their audiences. Finally, especially with immigration and the demographic changes it has given rise to, the contradiction between democracy and democracies’ foreign policy leaves politics liable to being held accountable, and examining “colonial history” has become widespread, rivaled only by all kinds of identities waking up to their particularity and the erosion of the universality contained in the values of the Enlightenment.
However, when these factors are brought together as part of a single whole, it muddles the waters. While it has afforded the Palestinians many allies, there remain fears that the Palestinian national project and its specificity could be suffocated by this abundantly intense embrace. As many reject the idea that the project could coexist with the Syrians’ pursuit of liberty, which is supposed to be the struggle closest and most similar to that of the Palestinians, some have made Palestine into a symbol for gender equality, opposition to Columbus’s discovery of America, rejection of neoliberalism, those pursuing a cleaner environment, those who want to Islamize the world, and those who want to remove the burden of religion from the world's shoulders.
Within these “social movements,” we find those who claim to want to right the wrongs of history, faulting geography because it has been marred by colonialism and the region’s borders and political entities were drawn up by the colonizers. We also find those who want to re-impose obedience on women, as well as those who want women to enjoy the freedom they claim women are denied by a blend of consumerism and reactionary values... Like ideas and worldviews, borders are also jumbled together around Palestine. Thus, Yemen, where a civil war is raging and Iran dominates, is being relied upon to save Gaza by plunging the region into a regional or perhaps global war. Meanwhile, the Lebanese fear the war spreading to the country every day, and such a development, which would supposedly be intended to support Palestine, could potentially light the fuse of a struggle fraught with sectarian strife that steals some of the limelight from the Palestinian cause. It is feared that, in the end, we could see a more expansive repeat of Arabs’ traditional use of the “central cause” as the cause of everyone and no one at the same time. This is time, though, "everyone" refers to the whole world.
The fact is that there are many indications that it will be difficult to turn this noise into a policy program that impacts decision-makers and institutions. Bringing down Joe Biden, for example, can only end with Donald Trump in the White House, provided he manages to avoid conviction. Meanwhile, denying the Labor Party a victory in Britain would allow the Conservatives to maintain power, and the same is true for France, where Marine Le Pen is an incomparably more likely successor to Emmanuel Macron than Melenchon. This brings to mind the observations of some scholars of anti-neoliberal movements made after this opposition was left without a strong social class like the working class and its unions, as a result of the technological revolution and robots. As a result, those who are not involved in production and are not part of a social class take on this task, raising slogans which are both reactionary and progressive as its practical impact declines. In turn, the many questions of the Palestinian cause should be contained and cut down so that Palestinians’ unique voice remains heard more clearly. Otherwise, this abundance would become a source of weakness for the Palestinians, just as scarcity is a source of weakness for the Israelis: one party is left isolated and the other lost in the crowd. And for this reason, any talk about sweeping and total victory, any victory, looks lacking credibility.

US Vetoes Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Resolution at UN Security Council
Farnaz Fassihi, Michael Levenson, Aaron Boxerman and Victoria Kim/The New York Times/14 December 2023
The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched hundreds of strikes, relief efforts were faltering and people were growing so desperate for basic necessities that some were stoning and raiding aid convoys. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, and most members of the Security Council had backed the measure, saying that the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal enclave where 2.2 million Palestinians live could threaten world stability. But the United States, which is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, blocked the resolution, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas attacks. The vote was 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining and some US allies like France voting for a cease-fire.
Robert A. Wood, who was representing the United States on the Council, said after the veto that the resolution for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire “was not only unrealistic, but dangerous — it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7.”
The failed resolution came as the United Nations reported that it was struggling to deliver essential goods like food, medicine and cooking gas to desperate civilians who have packed into shelters and tent cities after two months of war.
“Civil order is breaking down,” Thomas White, the Gaza director of the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, wrote Friday on social media. He added: “Some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse.”White spoke a day after the Biden administration warned that the Israeli military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians in Gaza.
“It is imperative — it remains imperative — that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “And there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”Fighting has been raging in southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, and in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have focused on the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City, and Jabaliya, a densely populated neighborhood north of the city, where they say Hamas operatives continue to hide. An Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said that Israel had been taking steps to keep civilians safe “despite attempts by their own leaders to deliberately sacrifice them as human shields.”
“That’s why we published a very detailed map to help civilians evacuate; it’s why we surrendered the element of surprise by urging the evacuation of areas before moving in,” Levy said. He added, “We believe we are setting the highest possible standard for the minimization of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in urban areas.”But Israel has been facing pressure from the United Nations to stop the fighting. On Wednesday, for the first time in his seven-year tenure at the helm of the UN, Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used rule that allows the secretary general to bring to the Security Council’s attention any matter that “may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Guterres argued that it was necessary because of the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza and because related conflicts were flaring in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. In an earlier address to the Council, he said: “There is a high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences. I fear the consequences could be devastating for the security of the entire region.” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told the Council that approving the resolution would only allow Hamas to regroup and plan more attacks on the Jewish state. Before the veto, Wood said the United States had tried to negotiate changes to the agreement, but “nearly all of our recommendations were ignored,” including adding a condemnation of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and an endorsement of Israel’s right to self-defense.
In a video statement, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus, who is commanding Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis, said that troops were “moving from tunnel to tunnel, house to house.”“The enemy is jumping out at us from the orchards, from tunnels,” General Goldfus said, as gunfire crackled in the background.
Israel has asked the US State Department to approve an order for 45,000 rounds of ammunition for the types of tanks operating in Gaza, according to US officials with knowledge of the request. The value of the order is more than $500 million, they said.
Some US lawmakers are likely to raise sharp questions about the order once the State Department submits it to Congress for review. But one official said the department was considering invoking an emergency provision in an arms export act to bypass congressional review.
An Israeli military roundup of hundreds of Palestinian men in Gaza has set off outrage after photos and video of men tied up outdoors and stripped to their underwear spread widely on social media on Thursday. Israeli officials said the men had been detained in Jabaliya and Shajaiye and stripped to ensure they were not carrying explosives.
“We’re talking about military-age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago,” Levy said. “Those individuals will be questioned, and we will work out who indeed was a Hamas terrorist and who is not.”
Critics said that the mass detentions and humiliating treatment could violate the laws of war. Brian Finucane, an analyst at the International Crisis Group and a former legal adviser to the State Department, said that international law set “a very high bar” for an occupying power to detain noncombatants and that “the base line is going to be humane treatment.”“That prohibits outrages on personal dignity and humiliating and degrading treatment,” he said. In southern Gaza, where some limited relief supplies have been delivered through a border crossing with Egypt, more than eight out of 10 households have taken extreme measures to cope with food shortages, the World Food Program said this week. In northern Gaza, 97 percent of households were doing the same, the survey found.
Israel said on Thursday it would allow a “minimal” supply of additional fuel into Gaza “to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics,” and would open a second border crossing for aid deliveries.

Risks involved in AI revolution can be overcome
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/December 14, 2023
Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly revolutionizing the way we live and work. It has become one of the world’s fastest-advancing technologies, as its applications in 2023 can be found in various industries, such as healthcare, finance, transport and entertainment. Nevertheless, this has raised several key questions and concerns, including: What are the social and technological implications of widespread AI adoption? What impact will AI have on the jobs market? And how can societies prepare workforces for the changes that AI brings?
In many sectors, tasks that typically require human intelligence in order to be performed are now being replaced by AI, which is built on algorithms and models that enable computer systems to analyze and interpret data, adapt to changing circumstances and improve their performance over time.
AI applications have evolved from performing simple tasks such as speech or image recognition to virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa and now to performing complex systems that are utilized in healthcare, finance and autonomous vehicles.
For example, in the healthcare system, AI algorithms can be instrumental in examining and analyzing medical images, such as X-rays, MRIs and CT scans, in order to identify patterns and abnormalities, assisting radiologists in making a diagnosis. This is why it is critical to encourage innovation in the medical field and invest in emerging technologies, including big data and AI.
Several countries in the Middle East have been investing significantly in this area. It is a step in the right direction that the Saudi Ministry of Health last month signed a memorandum of understanding with the medical technology giant Becton, Dickinson and Co. in order to advance its digital transformation through such novel technologies.
There are several benefits when it comes to using AI. First of all, it increases efficiency and productivity. In other words, AI systems can automate repetitive tasks, allowing organizations to streamline processes. This also allows organizations to allocate human resources to more complex and creative endeavors. This efficiency boost is particularly evident in industries like manufacturing, customer service and data analysis.
One of the most common concerns that people have is related to the intersection between AI and job displacement. Secondly, this can lead to an enhanced decision-making process and save a considerable amount of time due to the fact that AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data at incredible speeds, extracting valuable insights and patterns that may elude human analysis. This capability can assist decision-makers in making informed choices across various areas, from business strategies to healthcare diagnoses.
The third benefit is related to improving personalized experiences. For example, in sectors like e-commerce, entertainment and marketing, AI algorithms can examine and analyze user preferences, priorities and behavior to recommend products, services or content that are tailored to their individual preferences. This will, in return, enhance user satisfaction. But in spite of its benefits, there are concerns and potential risks associated with the development and deployment of AI. One of the most common concerns that people have is related to the intersection between AI and job displacement. The problem is that, as AI and automation technologies advance, there are concerns that certain jobs may become automated. This could lead to unemployment or underemployment for some workers. For example, some jobs in manufacturing, customer service and transport are considered to be at a higher risk of automation than other roles. But it is also important to point out that new jobs may be created in AI-related fields.
Another important risk to consider is related to fairness: how fair will AI be in the future and what impact will it have on society? To answer this question, it is critical to note that AI operates only on the data and information it has been provided with by human beings. As a result, AI systems can inherit and perpetuate any biases that are present in the data they are trained on.
So, if the input or training data contains biases and prejudices, the AI system built using this data may make biased decisions, reinforcing existing social inequalities. For instance, if a facial recognition system is trained primarily on the data of a specific demographic group, it may perform inefficiently on other demographic groups, which may lead to discriminatory outcomes.
Finally, we should pay attention to the issues of privacy and security. AI systems and technologies can be susceptible to cyberattacks and misuse, which could create significant security threats. In addition, the collection and analysis of vast amounts of personal data for AI applications raises concerns about privacy. For example, malicious actors could manipulate AI systems to make incorrect decisions, leading to significant financial or physical harm. In the context of privacy, concerns also arise when AI systems are used for surveillance or when personal information is mishandled.
It is important to note that these risks can be addressed, but doing so will require a combination of technical solutions and ethical considerations, as well as thoughtful regulatory frameworks in order to ensure the responsible development and use of AI technologies.
In a nutshell, AI has the power to transform industries, revolutionize the way we work and live and shape the future of technology by automating mundane tasks, improving efficiency and providing innovative solutions in almost every sector. Ethical concerns and risks related to AI can be adequately tackled by responsible advancement and deployment, ensuring that the benefits are maximized and potential risks are minimized.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. X: @Dr_Rafizadeh