Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 15-16/2023
Audio Documentary on Hezbollah Assassinations Unit 121, From Washington Institute
Report: US puts Lebanese file on front burner
Border clashes intensify after relatively calm morning
Mikati heads meeting to discuss the national emergency plan
Geagea calls for border stability: Reinforcing Resolution 1701 and Lebanese Army's role
Geagea says border clashes not in Lebanon's interest
The army commander's term extension will only happen with these terms
Hankach to LBCI: If they want Lebanon to be a 'missile platform,' we want it to be a 'technology platform'
Russia says Iran and Lebanon want to avoid 'big war'
Hezbollah to likely endorse army chief term extension
Islamic Resistance strikes occupied Shebaa Farms, inflicting direct hits
Lebanon releases a man on bail who's accused of killing an Irish UN peacekeeper
Lebanon's struggling hospitals could collapse if war escalates, doctors fear

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 15-16/2023
Link For A Video Discussion table from Washinton Institute/ Iranian Escalation in Iraq and Syria: Implications and U.S. Options/Michael Knights, Devorah Margolin, Andrew J. Tabler, Wladimir van Wilgenburg
Netanyahu says 'there's no place in Gaza we won't reach'
Gaza's death toll from Israeli bombing reaches 11,500, including 4,710 children
Israeli army spokesperson: Weapons and intelligence materials found in Al Shifa Hospital
Qatar calls for international investigation into Israel's targeting of hospitals in Gaza
A Hamas hostage gives birth to a child in Gaza: Israeli Prime Minister's Office
Injuries among seven staff members of Jordanian field hospital: Official
UN security council calls for ‘urgent and extended’ humanitarian pauses in Gaza
Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Shifa hospital after gunbattle at gates
First fuel truck starts crossing into Gaza from Egypt
How the Israel-Hamas war is aggravating already dire food situation of Palestinians in Gaza
Iran's 'Axis of Resistance' against Israel faces trial by fire
Iran tells Hamas it will not enter the war with Israel
Israeli troops deepen search at main Gaza hospital for evidence of Hamas
Israel-Hamas war roils UC over the line between free speech and unacceptable behavior
TDs reject call to expel Israel's ambassador
France issues arrest warrants for Syrian president, 3 generals alleging involvement in war crimes
IAEA: Iran's exclusion of inspectors "seriously affected" activities

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 15-16/2023
Middle East crisis the catalyst for change in the UK/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/November 15, 2023
France charts an independent course on Gaza/Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab News/November 15, 2023
The tango in Gaza and its destructive repercussions/Eyad Abu Shakra/ Asharq Al-Awsat/November 15/2023
‘All they want to do is murder Jews’: The Israeli peace activists slaughtered by Hamas/Nicole Lampert/The Telegraph/November 15, 2023
Secularism vs. Theocracies: Bangladesh - and the West - Under Threat/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute./November 15, 2023
Israel’s (and the West’s) Islamic Ribat Problem/Raymond Ibrahim/November 15/2023
Can the world order survive Israel’s war on Gaza?/Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/November 15, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 15-16/2023
Audio Documentary on Hezbollah Assassinations Unit 121, From Washington Institute
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/124339/124339/
رابط بودكست لتقرير باللغة الإنكليزية من موقع "معهد واشنطن" يشرح بالتفاصيل كل ما يجب معرفته عن تركيبة وآلية عمل ومهمات "وحدة الإغتيال 121" في حزب الله، مع سرد لكل وقائع الإغتيالات التي اركبتها الوحدة بدءاً من رفيق الحريري وحتى لقمان سليم/يشارك في الحلقة مونيكا بورغمان وديفيد شينكر وجوبي واريك.
Audio Documentary on Hezbollah Assassinations Unit 121, From Washington Institute
November 15/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/124339/124339/
Hezbollah buys grassroots support in Lebanon where and when it can, but the group turns to intimidation and even murder when a vocal opponent can’t be bought. Hezbollah’s elite, highly-secretive Unit 121 is the group’s death squad, which carries out assassinations of Lebanese politicians, military and law enforcement officers, and intellectuals who oppose the group’s illicit activities. This is no rogue unit–officials say Unit 121 operates under the direct orders of senior Hezbollah leadership.
Guests:
Monika Borgmann, German-Lebanese journalist and documentarian David Schenker, former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, U.S. State Department; current Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab PoliticsJoby Warrick, national security reporter at The Washington Post
Breaking Hezbollah’s Golden Rule is hosted by Dr. Matthew Levitt from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It is produced by Anouk Millet from Earshot Strategies, and written by Dr. Levitt, Lauren von Thaden, Camille Jablonski, and Delaney Soliday, research assistants at The Washington Institute.
Explore my map and timeline of Hezbollah’s Worldwide activities. For a full transcript of the episode, a list of sources, recommended reading, and information on our guests, visit our website

Report: US puts Lebanese file on front burner
Naharnet/November 15, 2023
The Lebanese file has been put on the front burner after the United States reactivated its role in the region in light of the raging Israel-Hamas war, a media report said on Wednesday. Moreover, U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein’s latest visit to Beirut was not only aimed at keeping Lebanon away from what is happening in Gaza, but also reflected “a key side of the U.S. administration’s approach in terms of putting Lebanon’s file on the front burner,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported. “For the first time in several years, Lebanon has returned to the scope of official U.S. attention,” the daily quoted sources from the Vatican, the Lebanese lobby in Washington and Catholic circles close to President Joe Biden as saying. “This attention is still in its initial phase, after the Gaza war expedited it,” and “agreements” over the country’s political crisis will eventually be sought, al-Akhbar added.

Border clashes intensify after relatively calm morning
Agence France Presse/November 15, 2023
Israeli drones and artillery bombed Wednesday several southern towns including Markaba, Rab Tlatine, al-Khiyam, Tayr Harfa, al-Jebbayn, Yarine, Blida, Kfarkela, Jabal Blat, Aita al-Shaab, Yaroun, Houla, al-Labbouneh, Marwahine, Rmeish, Odeisseh, al-Bustan, al-Naqoura, Mays al-Jabal, Kfarshouba and al-Dhaira. Hezbollah for its parts targeted several Israeli posts including the Ramim barracks, the Rwaisat al-Alam post on the occupied Shebaa Farms, Berket Risha, Jabal al-Tiyarat, and Jal al-Alam, "inflicting casualties", amid reports of a volley of rockets launched from Lebanon, which activated alert sirens in Kiryat Shmona, Margaliot and Misgav Am. These Israeli towns have been largely evacuated of civilians. Israeli reports said the volley of rockets has landed in open areas in the Kiryat Shmona region.
Also on Monday, an Iron Dome interception missile exploded over the Khiam plain and another one exploded over Zar'it on the Israeli side. Since the Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel from Gaza, Lebanon's southern border has seen intensifying tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, stoking fears of a broader conflagration. At least 88 people have been killed in Lebanon since hostilities began: more than 60 Hezbollah fighters, 13 other combatants including from Palestinian groups, and 10 civilians, according to a revised AFP tally.
Nine people have been killed in northern Israel including six soldiers, according to Israeli authorities.The United States, France and other Western countries have warned against crisis-hit Lebanon being drawn into all-out war.

Mikati heads meeting to discuss the national emergency plan
LBCI/November 15, 2023
The Minister of Public Health, Firas al-Abiad, confirmed that there is an agenda item in the Cabinet related to providing a loan to government hospitals to assist them in enhancing their readiness in case of any emergency. Al-Abiad explained that, during a meeting at the Saraya, he discussed with the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati the preparations undertaken by the ministry as part of the emergency plan and the approach to treating the injured in the face of Israeli attacks in the south. In addition, the discussion also covered the ministry's efforts to secure medication and healthcare for citizens, as well as the allocations for the ministry.

Geagea calls for border stability: Reinforcing Resolution 1701 and Lebanese Army's role
LBCI/November 15, 2023
Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces party, emphasized the necessity of finding a solution to the Palestinian issue based on the two-state solution outlined in the 2002 Beirut Declaration "to ensure stability in the Middle East region."
During a meeting in Maarrab with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, Geagea expressed that what is happening in southern Lebanon serves no one. Following this, he called for ensuring stability on the borders by reaffirming the effectiveness of Resolution 1701 and improving its implementation, with the Lebanese Army taking on this task with the support of international peacekeeping forces. Geagea stressed the importance of "not compromising the cohesion of the military institution or involving it in adventures and experiments with uncertain outcomes, as well as avoiding any changes during this delicate phase."

Geagea says border clashes not in Lebanon's interest
Naharnet/November 15, 2023
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stressed the need for a two-state solution as "Palestinians cannot remain without a state."In a meeting Wednesday with United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka, Geagea said that the border skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah in the south do not serve anyone, "especially Lebanon and its people." As he called anew for the implementation of U.N. resolution 1701, Geagea warned against involving the Lebanese army in "adventures and experiments with uncertain results."

The army commander's term extension will only happen with these terms
LBCI/November 15, 2023
Semi-official sources revealed to Al Joumhouria that caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati informed the ministers that “the extension of the army commander’s position will not happen except by consensus.” This article was initially published in, translated from, the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria. The sources confirmed that the issue “is not subject to a challenge.”

Hankach to LBCI: If they want Lebanon to be a 'missile platform,' we want it to be a 'technology platform'
LBCI/November 15, 2023
MP Elias Hankach expressed that "the Lebanese people refuse to have decisions of peace and war in the hands of those who take orders from abroad."Speaking on LBCI's "Nharkom Said" TV show, he stated, "If we had a state that enforced Resolution 1701, we would have avoided the anxiety we are experiencing about the possibility of front expansion."He added, "No one can appease Hezbollah, let alone discuss with it. It has been revealed that it is the state and acts independently with the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament awaiting its decision to act on."
Hankach emphasized that "the Lebanese Army is the only one that can ensure Lebanon's protection, and we can stand with Gaza and its people without plunging into war."He added, "If they want Lebanon to be a 'missile platform,' we want it to be a technology platform, and we do not want war."He stressed that "as long as the party has not received orders from Iran to open a larger war, it is disciplined within the rules of engagement" and asked, "How do enemies decide the rules of engagement, and how do they agree on them?"Hankach pointed out that "we must rise to the level where there is a state that decides in this country. We must sit with others at the same table and not act unilaterally in decision-making."He also noted that "the 'unity of the arenas' is the unity of 'theatrical performances.' In practice, the Axis was waiting for the October 7th moment, claiming that the reason for its existence was to erase Israel from the map, but nothing happened, and the skirmishes did not go beyond the designated decree." Regarding the extension of Army Commander Joseph Aoun, Hankach said, "We reject risking a leadership vacuum in the army, and the law is clear. Postponing the commander's retirement is the responsibility of the defense minister, and if the minister refuses, the government takes over the file. We oppose appointing security leaders through quota in the absence of a president, and our principled stance is not to legislate in a vacuum."

Russia says Iran and Lebanon want to avoid 'big war'
Naharnet/November 15, 2023
Hezbollah is not eager to ramp up its hostilities against Israel, the Russian foreign minister has said. Moscow does not believe that Iran, Lebanon or Hezbollah want the Israel-Palestine war to escalate into a broader regional conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told Russia’s RT television. Concerns continue to be raised that the fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas could spark a wider war in the Middle East. Israel’s defense minister has threatened to bomb the Lebanese capital Beirut in a similar way to Israel’s campaign in Gaza, while some U.S. hawks have called for an attack on Iran. Moscow, however, believes there is “no appetite” for a major conflict in Lebanon or Iran, Lavrov stated, adding that neither country wants “any involvement in this crisis.” While there have been border clashes between Israeli troops and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Lavrov claimed that recent televised remarks by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah suggest that the group has “no appetite for a big war.” That may change if Hezbollah is provoked into action by an attempt to force Palestinians out of Gaza, the Russian diplomat warned. The same assessment is true for Iran, Lavrov argued, regardless of an escalation of attacks by militia forces on American bases in the region, which Washington has blamed on Tehran. “Yes, Americans say that some pro-Iranian armed groups in Syria and Iraq are trying to attack American military sites,” the Russian minister said, describing such incidents as “nothing new.”Lavrov suggested that the U.S. military presence in Syria was clearly illegal and was also questionable in Iraq, considering that the latter country’s parliament had ordered the government to oust American forces in 2020. Regional militias may be “agitated” by the mistreatment of Palestinians and proceed to “bite the Americans and the Israelis here and there,” but that does not indicate an intention by senior leadership to escalate the situation, Lavrov said. However, he warned against perceiving this restraint as “weakness and a greenlight” for Israel to have a free hand in Gaza. Israel has besieged Gaza since Hamas launched a surprise deadly incursion last month, allegedly killing hundreds of civilians and capturing scores of hostages. Israel’s response, which it claims is necessary to “obliterate” the Palestinian militant group, has resulted in over 11,000 deaths in Gaza.

Hezbollah to likely endorse army chief term extension
Naharnet/November 15, 2023
Lebanese political parties are trying to come up with a solution before Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun's planned retirement in January. Aoun's retirement would add another gap to crisis-hit Lebanon's withering and paralyzed institutions. Although Hezbollah hasn't announced its position regarding the extension of Aoun's term, informed sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, in remarks published Wednesday, that Hezbollah would likely endorse the extension of Aoun's term, despite the opposition of Hezbollah's ally, FPM chief Jebran Bassil. The tiny Mediterranean country has been without a president, while its government has been running in a limited caretaker capacity. Lebanon has also been without a top spy chief to head its General Security Directorate since March, and without a central bank governor. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has said that he prefers that cabinet take the decision to extend Aoun's term. The cabinet's Secretary-General Judge Mahmoud Makiya has reportedly completed a legal and constitutional study including legal proposals to avoid a vacancy in the army command. The extension of Aoun's term is the most possible solution, al-Liwaa newspaper said Wednesday.
And although the Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party also support the term extension, the FPM's objection would obstruct it, as FPM Defense Minister Maurice Slim would not give his required approval.

Islamic Resistance strikes occupied Shebaa Farms, inflicting direct hits
LBCI/November 15, 2023
The Islamic Resistance announced on Wednesday the targeting of the Roueissat Al-Alam Site in the Occupied Lebanese Farms of Shebaa, resulting in direct hits.

Lebanon releases a man on bail who's accused of killing an Irish UN peacekeeper
BEIRUT (AP)/November 15, 2023
Lebanon's military tribunal released a man accused of killing an Irish United Nations peacekeeper almost a year ago on bail, security and judicial officials said Wednesday. The development comes as UNIFIL, the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, monitors ongoing clashes along the border between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops. Lebanon’s military tribunal in June charged Mohamad Ayyad and four others with the killing of Pvt. Seán Rooney, 24, of Newtown Cunningham, Ireland, following a half-year probe. Rooney was killed on Dec. 14, 2022. Ayyad was detained in December 2022. The four others facing charges — Ali Khalifeh, Ali Salman, Hussein Salman, and Mustafa Salman — remain at large. All five are allegedly linked with Hezbollah. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any role in the killing. Hezbollah representatives did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said he was aware of reports about Ayyad’s release due to his “deteriorating health” and that UNIFIL is "working to confirm this information with the military court."“The Government of Lebanon has on several occasions stated its commitment to bring the perpetrators to justice,” Tenenti told The Associated Press. Last June, Tenenti said the indictment was an “important step towards justice.”“We continue to urge that all perpetrators be held accountable, and for justice for Private Rooney and his family,” he said. Two Lebanese officials confirmed that Ayyad was released on bail, which one of them said was in an amount of 1.2 billion Lebanese pounds (approximately $13,377). The official said the Ayyad had cancer and his lawyer had provided the necessary medical documents, adding that the trial is still ongoing and that Ayyad would go to jail should he be convicted and sentenced. Both officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. On the fatal night, Rooney and several other Irish soldiers from UNIFIL were on their way from their base in southern Lebanon to the Beirut airport. Two U.N. vehicles apparently took a detour through Al-Aqbiya, which is not part of the area under the peacekeepers’ mandate. Initial reports said angry residents confronted the peacekeepers, but the indictment concluded that the shooting was a targeted attack. The U.N. peacekeeper vehicle reportedly took a wrong turn and was surrounded by vehicles and armed men as they tried to make their way back to the main road. The Lebanese Army on Dec. 27 arrested a suspect but did not disclose their name. The Irish military did not immediately comment on the development. UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. The U.N. expanded its mission following the 2006 war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border to help the Lebanese military extend its authority into the country’s south for the first time in decades. Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon frequently accuse the U.N. mission of collusion with Israel, while Israel has accused the peacekeepers of turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s military activities in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon's struggling hospitals could collapse if war escalates, doctors fear
MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (Reuters)/Wed, November 15, 2023
From his office overlooking the border with Israel, Dr. Mounes Klakesh can hear the thump of artillery rounds and air strikes landing on nearby Lebanese towns. The increasing frequency of those strikes has the staff of his small hospital on edge. "We’ve already had to treat 51 people wounded by explosions in the last month or so. Seventeen of those died, or arrived dead. More than that and we’d be overwhelmed,” Klakesh said. Klakesh, director of the Marjayoun Hospital in southern Lebanon, said it serves nearly 300,000 people in the area. It has 14 emergency beds and struggles to operate because of a lack of staff and, crucially, lack of fuel. The hospital runs on generators 20 hours a day and has to pay up to $20,000 a month for the fuel. “None of that money comes from the government anymore. We rely on what funds the hospital has from one week to the next,” Klakesh said. If the fuel runs out, the hospital closes. “We can’t just switch off part of the hospital.” Dozens more public hospitals are in a similarly precarious state. Lebanon's economic collapse in 2019 left them barely able to cope in peacetime. Now, an escalating conflict on the southern border with Israel is pushing the healthcare sector into a new crisis. Doctors worry the latest Middle East war could stretch it beyond breaking point. Fighting broke out here after Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas went to war in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7. The Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has fired rockets at Israeli troops and Israel has bombed and shelled areas along the border in increasing attacks that are fuelling concerns of a widening conflict. It is the deadliest violence here since Israel and Hezbollah fought a devastating war in 2006 and has killed more than 70 Hezbollah fighters, 10 Lebanese civilians and 10 Israelis, mostly soldiers. Shells land on Lebanese towns and villages on a daily basis. The hilltop hospital in Marjayoun has had its share of worse humanitarian crises. Doctors evacuated patients under Israeli air strikes during Israel’s 2006 invasion in which hundreds died. In the 1980s another Israeli invasion cut south Lebanon off from the rest of the country. But this time, Klakesh and doctors in other hospitals say they are ill-equipped to handle any more than current levels of violence, let alone another major war. Lebanon has lurched from one crisis to another in recent years. The 2019 financial collapse and a devastating chemical explosion at Beirut port in 2020 left the state crumbling.Government money dried up, thousands of doctors and nurses left the country and hospital budgets were slashed.
'WE EXPECT STRIKES ON HOSPITALS'
Marjayoun Hospital is no exception. Many of its staff left for bigger cities or foreign countries, Klakesh said. “We had four or five surgeons, bone doctors and women’s doctors, and we’ve maybe got one of each now which means they’re working long shifts on their own with no one to rotate in,” he said. The Lebanese health ministry has said its budget can no longer meet demand. It rushed trauma kits to state hospitals this week, anticipating the worst. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it supplied fuel to hospitals including Marjayoun. Emergency aid will only go so far if fighting intensifies, a surgeon at a private hospital in nearby Nabatieh said. “Hospitals could maybe absorb 40 to 50 wounded a week, but if it’s more than that no hospital in Lebanon would cope properly,” Dr. Moussa Abbas said. The Lebanese exodus after the financial crisis at least means there are fewer people left to treat, Klakesh said. But an influx of patients would clog the narrow driveway that feeds into the joint emergency room and reception area. Klakesh equipped and renovated the hospital in the months before the financial crash, when government money was still available. He bought kidney dialysis machines and moved a laundry room to an outhouse to create more space to treat patients. He worries that could all vanish in an air strike and has watched with horror the failure to protect medical staff in Gaza. Israel's Gaza bombardment has knocked out 25 hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave, Hamas officials say. Closer to home, Lebanese authorities said an Israeli shell hit a small hospital near the border last week. “We don’t just worry about Israel hitting a hospital, we expect it. After what happened the other day we could be next,” he said.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 15-16/2023
Link For A Video Discussion table from Washinton Institute/ Iranian Escalation in Iraq and Syria: Implications and U.S. Options
by Michael Knights, Devorah Margolin, Andrew J. Tabler, Wladimir van Wilgenburg
Nov 15, 2023
https://youtu.be/oMSi6bIOVfM
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iranian-escalation-iraq-and-syria-implications-and-us-options
Watch an expert conversation on the escalating violence against U.S. forces in Iraq and eastern Syria being launched by Iran-backed militias.
Since the Gaza war erupted, Iran-backed militias have targeted U.S. forces in Iraq and eastern Syria more than sixty times and counting, accelerating an already worrisome 2023 trend. To deter further attacks, Washington has ordered at least two strikes on militia bases in Syria. Yet questions remain about the militias’ intentions and the impact that these growing cycles of escalation may have, including on U.S. deployments in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State. To address these questions, The Washington Institute hosted a virtual Policy Forum featuring Michael Knights, Devorah Margolin, Andrew J. Tabler, and Wladimir van Wilgenburg.
Michael Knights is the Institute’s Bernstein Fellow and cofounder of its Militia Spotlight platform.
Devorah Margolin is the Institute’s Blumenstein-Rosenbloom Fellow, focusing on terrorism governance, the role of women in violent extremism, and related issues.
Andrew J. Tabler is the Institute’s Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow, former director for Syria at the National Security Council, and former senior advisor to the State Department’s special envoy for Syria engagement.
Wladimir van Wilgenburg is coauthor of the book The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity, and Conflicts and a contributor to the Institute’s Fikra Forum.
The Policy Forum series is made possible through the generosity of the Florence and Robert Kaufman Family.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael Knights
Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow of The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf states. He is a co-founder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.
Devorah Margolin
Devorah Margolin is the Blumenstein-Rosenbloom Fellow at The Washington Institute.
Andrew J. Tabler
Andrew J. Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow in the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on Syria and U.S. policy in the Levant, and Director of the Institute's Junior Research Program.
Wladimir van Wilgenburg
Wladimir van Wilgenburg is the coauthor of the recently published book The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts. He is a contributor to Fikra Forum.

Netanyahu says 'there's no place in Gaza we won't reach'
Agence France Presse/November 15, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Wednesday there is no safe place for the Hamas militants behind the October 7 attacks and "no place in Gaza" the army wouldn't reach. "They told us we wouldn't reach the outskirts of Gaza City and we did, they told us we wouldn't enter Al-Shifa (hospital) and we did," he said hours after troops raided the territory's biggest hospital. "There is no place in Gaza that we won't reach."

Gaza's death toll from Israeli bombing reaches 11,500, including 4,710 children
AFP/November 15, 2023
The Hamas government announced on Wednesday that 11,500 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip since the outbreak of the war with Israel on October 7. Among the casualties counted so far are 4,710 children and 3,160 women, according to the same source. Additionally, 29,800 people have been injured.

Israeli army spokesperson: Weapons and intelligence materials found in Al Shifa Hospital
LBCI/November 15, 2023
The spokesperson for the Israeli army announced the discovery of weapons and intelligence materials in Al Shifa Hospital. Israeli forces continue to comb through Al Shifa Hospital in search of additional weapons and materials. The spokesperson also alleges that Rantisi Hospital in Gaza was used for "terrorist activities."

Qatar calls for international investigation into Israel's targeting of hospitals in Gaza
LBCI/November 15, 2023
Qatar issued a statement on Wednesday calling for an international investigation into Israel's targeting of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, condemning the Israeli army's intrusion into the Al Shifa Medical Complex as a "war crime." The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged an "urgent international investigation, including the dispatch of independent UN investigators to uncover the facts behind the Israeli army's targeting of hospitals." The statement strongly denounced the Israeli army's incursion into the Al Shifa Medical Complex, considering it a "war crime and a blatant violation of international laws and agreements."

A Hamas hostage gives birth to a child in Gaza: Israeli Prime Minister's Office
AFP/November 15, 2023
A Hamas hostage gives birth to a child in Gaza: Israeli Prime Minister's Office
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife announced in a letter released on Wednesday by his office that a woman abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attack has given birth in Gaza.In a letter to the First Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, Sara Netanyahu stated in English that "one of the women kidnapped by Hamas was pregnant, and she gave birth to her child in captivity."In her letter, Netanyahu's wife appealed for action "to release the Israeli hostages."

Injuries among seven staff members of Jordanian field hospital: Official
AFP/November 15, 2023
Jordan announced on Wednesday that seven members of the Jordanian field hospital staff in Gaza were injured due to Israeli shelling in the vicinity of the hospital.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the government is awaiting the results of the investigation "to take the necessary legal and political steps against this heinous crime."A statement issued by the Jordanian army quoted an official spokesperson for the Jordan Armed Forces, stating, "Seven members of the Jordanian field hospital staff in Gaza were injured at the entrance of the emergency department of the hospital while attempting to provide assistance to Palestinian citizens who were injured during Israeli shelling and transported to the hospital." The spokesperson clarified that "the injuries of the staff members range from minor to stable," noting that "their colleagues are providing the necessary care for them and for a number of Palestinian brethren."

UN security council calls for ‘urgent and extended’ humanitarian pauses in Gaza
Arab News/November 15, 2023
NEW YORK CITY: The UN security council on Wednesday adopted a draft resolution calling for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and aid corridors throughout the Gaza Strip. They should remain in place for a sufficient number of days so that aid is able to reach civilians who need it, the council said, especially children, who are mentioned in almost every paragraph of the resolution. The vote marked the first time council members have managed to adopt a resolution related to the war in Gaza. The text of the resolution, proposed by Malta and seen by Arab News, also calls for the release of all hostages and for all sides to refrain from depriving Gazan civilians of the basic goods and services that are critical to their survival. It further demands the urgent implementation of recovery efforts to find those trapped under rubble of damaged and destroyed buildings. Throughout the resolution, the council also rejected the forced displacement of Palestinians. Twelve of the 15 council members voted in favor of the resolution, with US, UK and Russia abstaining. Before the vote, Russia’s representative, Vassily Nebenzia, proposed an amendment calling for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to the cessation of hostilities.” This was voted down by the council, with only five members voting for it, including the UAE. The US voted against it and the nine remaining members abstained. The US and Russia have both accused each other of blocking attempts to agree on action related to the conflict in Gaza. The council, the UN body responsible for maintaining international peace and security, failed to adopt four previous draft resolutions, exposing the bitter divisions between members. The US has been adamant about rejecting any language that calls for a ceasefire, does not assert what Washington describes as “Israel’s right to self-defense,” or fails to unequivocally condemn Hamas for its actions. Before the vote, Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s permanent representative to the UN, warned that to the outside world the Security Council appears “indifferent to carnage and dismissive of the suffering.” She added that “the protection of children has been the North Star that has guided this council’s approach on (the Maltese) draft.”She urged the council not to underestimate the significance of the draft resolution for “the children and other Palestinians sheltering from the hostilities, for the Israeli children and others still held hostage, and for UN humanitarian and medical workers who are risking their lives to help alleviate the enormous humanitarian suffering on the ground.”The resolution means providing enough time and space for search and rescue operations to save those children who are buried under the rubble, Nusseibeh said, including 1,500 reported missing in the territory. “It means that fuel, food, water, medicine and other essential goods can be delivered at scale,” she added. “It means that sick and injured children can be evacuated. These extended pauses will also help reach those held hostage, particularly children, whose release this resolution calls for unconditionally.”
The US representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who abstained from the vote, blamed Russia and China for the council’s paralysis over the war in Gaza, and said she was “horrified” that “some council members” still cannot bring themselves to condemn Hamas. “Hamas set this conflict in motion,” she said as she repeated the accusation that the group was using civilians as human shields. She reiterated that the US cannot support any resolution text that does not unequivocally condemn Hamas and assert “Israel’s right to self-defense.” But she added that the actions of Hamas do not lessen the responsibility of Israel to protect the lives of innocent civilians.

Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Shifa hospital after gunbattle at gates
Reuters/November 15, 2023
GAZA: Israeli troops entered Gaza’s biggest hospital on Wednesday and were searching its rooms and basement, witnesses said, culminating a siege that caused global alarm after what Israel said was a deadly clash at the gates. Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City has become the main target of the ground operation by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters have their headquarters in tunnels beneath it, which Hamas denies. World attention has been focused on the fate of hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced civilians trapped inside. Gaza officials say many patients including three newborn babies have died in recent days as a result of Israel’s encirclement of the facility.Israel said its troops killed fighters in a clash outside the gates, and had brought medical supplies for those inside. “Before entering the hospital our forces were confronted by explosive devices and terrorist squads, fighting ensued in which terrorists were killed,” the Israeli military said. “We can confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies brought by IDF tanks from Israel have successfully reached the Shifa hospital. Our medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need,” the Israeli military said. Dr. Ahmed El Mohallalati, a surgeon, told Reuters by phone that staff were in hiding as the fighting unfolded outside the hospital overnight. “So yesterday early evening it started... shooting around the hospital and within the hospital. And the sound was really horrible. Look, you can feel that it’s, you know, it’s very near to the hospital,” he said. “And then we realized that the tanks are moving around the hospital. One of the big tanks entered within the hospital from the eastern main gate, and they were, they were they just parked in the front of the hospital emergency department.”
“All kinds of weapons were used around the hospital. They targeted the hospital directly. We try to avoid being near the windows,” he said. Another witness inside the hospital, reached by telephone, said tanks had entered the compound at 3:00 a.m. The Israeli troops dismounted and spread out in the yard, and began searching the basement and entering buildings. “It was very dangerous looking from the glass window. The administration of the hospital told us the occupation army informed them they wanted to search us and search room by room. I am very scared,” the man said, asking that his name be withheld for fear of Israeli reprisals. “There was no shooting because there were no gunmen inside the facility. The soldiers were acting freely as were people inside the hospital, the doctors, the wounded and the displaced,” the man said. He later said that gunfire could occasionally be heard and he was remaining in hiding. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “Based on intelligence information and an operational necessity, IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa hospital.”
Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a center of gravity.” The US said on Tuesday that its own intelligence supported Israel’s conclusions. Hamas said that amounted to giving Israel a “green light” for Israel to raid the hospital, and it held US President Joe Biden fully responsible for the operation along with Israel itself.

First fuel truck starts crossing into Gaza from Egypt
Reuters/November 15, 2023
RAFAH: The first truck to deliver fuel to the Gaza Strip since Israel imposed a total siege on the enclave in its war with Hamas began crossing from Egypt on Wednesday, two Egyptian security sources said. The delivery was made possible by Israel giving its approval for 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons) of diesel fuel to be allowed into Gaza for use by UN aid distribution trucks, but not for use at hospitals, according to a humanitarian source. Limited deliveries of humanitarian aid have been crossing from Egypt into Gaza since Oct. 21, but Israel had refused to allow in fuel, saying Hamas held plentiful stocks.
The United Nations had warned in recent days that it would soon have to halt humanitarian operations, including the distribution of relief within Gaza, as its fuel stocks became fully depleted. Aid workers say a lack of fuel, which is needed for hospital generators and provision of water as well as the distribution of relief, has contributed to a sharp deterioration of conditions for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. The initial delivery of 24,000 liters of fuel was intended to be carried out over two days, with 12,000 liters allocated for each day, an international source with knowledge of the operation said.
“This is not enough for anything – not for hospitals, not even for aid deliveries,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s meant to be enough only to bring some of the aid that has been outside – and got rained on for example – indoors to the warehouses.” Witnesses said two other trucks were lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and waiting to drive into Gaza, but it was unclear when they might enter.
Israel began its military campaign to wipe out Hamas after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 captives taken in the attack. Gaza health officials say more than 11,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in Israel’s military offensive.

How the Israel-Hamas war is aggravating already dire food situation of Palestinians in Gaza
Arab News/November 15, 2023
DUBAI: Queuing for hours for even a modest amount of bread is now a common experience in Gaza, where rapidly diminishing food supplies and a shortage of safe drinking water have added to the challenges already faced by the Palestinian population living under Israeli siege. Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel and the resulting Israeli retaliation, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached an unprecedented scale as hospitals are overwhelmed, residential buildings bombed, and supplies of basic necessities run out. “The situation on the ground is alarming,” Alia Zaki, spokesperson for the UN World Food Program’s Palestine office in Jerusalem, told Arab News. “Existing food systems are collapsing. The last bakery that WFP has been working with has shut down because it has no fuel or gas.”Bread, a staple of the Palestinian diet, has become increasingly scarce since the conflict began due to a lack of key ingredients, including clean water and wheat flour. “Some bakeries have also been hit by air strikes,” said Zaki. “People are risking their lives and queuing for hours to get bread for their families, and many times are coming back empty-handed.”The WFP has been closely monitoring the availability of food in shops since the outset of the war. The majority of businesses it had been collaborating with report shortages of essential items. Non-essential food products that do not fulfill nutritional needs, and those that cannot be consumed without cooking, are also rapidly dwindling. “Shelves are nearly empty. Hunger is spreading in Gaza and cases of dehydration and malnutrition are increasing rapidly,” said Zaki. Officials at Gaza’s largest flour and wheat manufacturing facility, Al-Salam Mills, told CNN on Tuesday they were operating at just 25 percent of capacity because of electricity and fuel shortages. It is the only one of five mills still operating in southern Gaza. Before the war, it could produce 480 tons of wheat a day or 300 tons of flour. Now it is limited to 75 tons daily.
Early in the conflict, the WFP and other aid agencies began to provide emergency assistance in the form of ready-to-eat rations and electronic vouchers that can be used to purchase food at designated shops using a standard Point of Sale machine.
“We were working with local bakeries to deliver fresh bread to those who have been displaced to UN designated shelters, and distributing nutritionally condensed date bars and canned food that have come in from across the Rafah border,” said Zaki.
The WFP said it has helped more than 700,000 people in Gaza since Oct. 7 through this type of food assistance. In an attempt to stave off the worsening hunger crisis, aid agencies have called for significant levels of funding so that they can deliver emergency supplies to communities inside Gaza, many of which were, after 17 years of an Israeli embargo on the territory, already food insecure prior to the start of the current conflict.
Approximately $112 million of funding is needed for aid to help 1.1 million people — just the half the population that is “at risk of malnutrition” — in the next 90 days, said Kyung-nan Park, director of emergencies for the WFP. “Before Oct. 7, some 33 percent of the population were food insecure,” she told Arab News. “We can safely say that 100 percent are food insecure at this moment.”
Despite many countries in the Arab world and beyond providing millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, including supplies of food and medicines, the Israeli blockade and restrictions on entry to Gaza and the movement of aid have drastically impeded people’s access to essential food items. Prior to a partial lifting of the total blockade of Gaza on Oct. 21, Israel was accused by international aid agency Oxfam and other organizations of employing starvation against the civilian population as a tactic of war, a claim that Israel denies. On Nov. 9, Col. Moshe Tetro, head of coordination and liaison at the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli Defense Ministry body that handles civil affairs in Gaza, denied there was a humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. “We know the civil situation in the Gaza Strip is not an easy one,” he said during a media briefing at the Nitzana border post between Israel and Egypt. “But I can say that there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.”
Tetro added that the Israeli military had helped facilitate the delivery of “water, food, medical supplies and humanitarian aid for shelters,” but warned that “if we see that Hamas is using the humanitarian aid (that arrives in Gaza), we will stop it.”
Although shipments of aid have been permitted to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, the average number of trucks entering the besieged enclave each day has fallen to less than 19 percent of pre-conflict levels, according to the UN.
“At the Rafah border we have mobilized efforts, experts, storage units and trucks to provide the necessary support to maximize the number of trucks crossing into Gaza,” said Zaki. However, only a fraction of that support has been permitted to enter the territory. Currently, about 40 to 50 aid trucks enter Gaza each day, a number Zaki said needs to increase to 100 in order to meet the most significant humanitarian demands of the Gazan people. Besides the shortages of food, access to clean drinking water has also become a critical concern. “Cases of dehydration and malnutrition are increasing rapidly,” Riham Jafari, coordinator of advocacy and communication for ActionAid Palestine, said recently. “Hospitals, which have remained overcapacity for weeks on end, can offer no solace to those on the brink of starvation as medical supplies run low, fuel is scarce, and bombs are indiscriminately dropped across Gaza, including on the doorsteps of hospitals.”According to Dr. Hafeez ur Rahman of nongovernmental organization Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan, the average person requires between three and four liters of drinking water each day to remain healthy. “In Gaza, UNICEF has informed us that 96 percent of the underground water is not fit for human consumption,” he told Arab News.
Gaza has about 300 wells in which desalination equipment is installed, and three pipelines supply water from Israel. “Since the start of the war, two pipelines from Israel were cut off and many of the desalination plants were bombarded and destroyed,” said Rahman. “Others stopped working due to the lack of electricity and fuel.”According to the World Health Organization, the average amount of water available per person in Gaza currently stands at about three liters a day for all essential needs, including drinking and hygiene — and is likely to dwindle further.Even before the current conflict began, Gazans had limited access to safe drinking water. In 2021, the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health, along with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, labeled Gaza’s water “undrinkable,” saying 97 percent was unfit for consumption. Now, electricity shortages are exacerbating the situation by rendering surviving desalination and wastewater-treatment plants inoperable.According to Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, Israeli airstrikes damaged a public water tank that supplies several neighborhoods east of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and another critical water tank in Tal Al-Zaatar in the north of the territory. As a result, many residents have reportedly been forced to consume polluted or salt water, or endure long queues in the hope of obtaining some water that is safe to drink. With each passing day, the lack of adequate nutrition and sanitary facilities that can help prevent gastric infections are compounding the problems of malnutrition and dehydration, which in turn can impede the regular growth and cognitive development of children, aid organizations warn. “These conditions are fueling infections, diarrhea and parasitic diseases, which negatively impact the body’s ability to absorb nutrients and profoundly impair health and development,” leading to an increased risk of death, said Zaki. Pregnant women and new mothers are especially vulnerable to the effects on health of restricted food supplies and insufficient safe drinking water. According to the WHO, there are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, more than 180 of whom give birth every day. Of those, 15 percent will experience complications that require additional medical care — which is no longer available. “Given the current conditions in Gaza it is likely that the nutrition status of the whole population, in particular infants and women who are pregnant and breastfeeding, is in a state of rapid decline,” said Zaki. “Around 2.2 million people, nearly the entire population, in Gaza now need food assistance. Inadequate diets and inadequate safe water are core drivers of acute malnutrition.”

Iran's 'Axis of Resistance' against Israel faces trial by fire
DUBAI, Reuters/November 15, 2023
Iran's supreme leader delivered a clear message to the head of Hamas when they met in Tehran in early November, according to three senior officials: You gave us no warning of your Oct. 7 attack on Israel and we will not enter the war on your behalf.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Ismail Haniyeh that Iran - a longtime backer of Hamas - would continue to lend the group its political and moral support, but wouldn't intervene directly, said the Iranian and Hamas officials with knowledge of the discussions who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely. The supreme leader pressed Haniyeh to silence those voices in the Palestinian group publicly calling for Iran and its powerful Lebanese ally Hezbollah to join the battle against Israel in full force, a Hamas official told Reuters. Hezbollah, too, was taken by surprise by Hamas' devastating assault last month that killed 1,200 Israelis; its fighters were not even on alert in villages near the border that were frontlines in its 2006 war with Israel, and had to be rapidly called up, three sources close to the Lebanese group said. "We woke up to a war," said a Hezbollah commander.
The unfolding crisis marks the first time that the so-called Axis of Resistance - a military alliance built by Iran over four decades to oppose Israeli and American power in the Middle East - has mobilised on multiple fronts at the same time.
Hezbollah has engaged in the heaviest clashes with Israel for almost 20 years. Iran-backed militias have targeted U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. Yemen's Houthis have launched missiles and drones at Israel. The conflict is also testing the limits of the regional coalition whose members - which include the Syrian government, Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups from Iraq to Yemen - have differing priorities and domestic challenges. Mohanad Hage Ali, an expert on Hezbollah at the Carnegie Middle East Center think-tank in Beirut, said Hamas' Oct. 7 assault on Israel had left its axis partners facing tough choices in confronting an adversary with far superior firepower. "When you wake up the bear with such an attack, it's quite difficult for your allies to stand in the same position as you."
HAMAS PLEA FOR AXIS HELP
Hamas, the ruling group of Gaza, is fighting for its survival against an avenging Israel, which vows to wipe it out and has launched a retaliatory onslaught on the tiny enclave that's killed more than 11,000 Palestinians. On Oct. 7, Hamas' military commander Mohammed Deif called on its axis allies to join the struggle. "Our brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, this is the day when your resistance unites with your people in Palestine," he said in an audio message. Hints of frustration surfaced in subsequent public statements by Hamas leaders including Khaled Meshaal, who in an Oct. 16 TV interview thanked Hezbollah for its actions thus far but said "the battle requires more" . Nonetheless, alliance leader Iran won't directly intervene in the conflict unless it is itself attacked by Israel or the United States, according to six officials with direct knowledge of Tehran's thinking who declined to named due to the sensitive nature of the matter. Instead, Iran's clerical rulers plan to continue using their axis network of armed allies, including Hezbollah, to launch rocket and drone attacks on Israeli and American targets across the Middle East, the officials said. The strategy is a calibrated effort to demonstrate solidarity for Hamas in Gaza and stretch Israeli forces without becoming engaged in a direct confrontation with Israel that could draw in the United States, they added. "This is their way of trying to create deterrence," said Dennis Ross, a former senior U.S. diplomat specialising in the Middle East who now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank. "A way of saying: 'Look as long as you don't attack us, this is the way it will remain. But if you attack us, everything changes'."Iran has repeatedly said that all members of the alliance make their own decisions independently. The Iranian foreign ministry didn't respond to a request for comment about its response to the crisis and the role of the Axis of Resistance, a term of disputed origin that has been used by Iranian officials to describe the coalition.
Hamas didn't immediately respond to questions sent to Haniyeh's media adviser, while Hezbollah also didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
HEZBOLLAH'S HOME PROBLEMS
Hezbollah, the most powerful group in the axis, boasting 100,000 fighters, has exchanged fire with Israeli forces across the Lebanon-Israel border on an almost daily basis since Hamas went to war with Israel and more than 70 of its fighters have been killed. Yet, like its backer Iran, Hezbollah has avoided an all-out confrontation. The group has calibrated its attacks in a way that has kept the violence largely contained to a narrow strip of territory at the border, even as it has escalated those strikes in recent days, according to the people familiar with its thinking. One of the sources said Hamas wanted Hezbollah to strike deeper into Israel with its massive arsenal of rockets but that Hezbollah believed this would lead Israel to lay waste to Lebanon without halting its attack on Gaza. Hezbollah, which is also a political movement deeply involved in Lebanese government affairs, knows Lebanon can ill afford another war with Israel, more than four years into a financial crisis that has driven up poverty and hollowed out the country's governing institutions. Lebanon took years to rebuild from the 2006 war, during which Israeli bombardment pounded the Hezbollah-controlled south of the country and destroyed swathes of its stronghold in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a Nov. 3 speech that Hamas had kept its attack on Israel a secret from its allies and this had ensured its success and not "upset anyone" in the axis. Hezbollah attacks at the Israeli border were unprecedented and amounted to "a real battle", he said.
AMERICA COMES UNDER FIRE
The United States, too, is keen to avoid the war spiralling beyond Gaza. Having fought two costly and ill-fated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades, it now finds itself bankrolling Ukraine's defence against Russia's invasion. President Joe Biden has so far sought to limit the U.S. role in the Gaza crisis mostly to ensuring military aid to Israel. He has also moved two aircraft carriers and fighter jets to the eastern Mediterranean, partly as a warning to Tehran. The temperature is rising; at least 40 drone and rocket attacks have been launched at U.S. forces by axis militias in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war began in response to American support for Israel, according to the Pentagon. U.S. officials say America has conducted three sets of retaliatory strikes against facilities in Syria used by militias linked to Iran. On Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed the risk of another major front being opened in the conflict. "What we've seen throughout this conflict, throughout this crisis, is tit-for-tat exchanges between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israeli forces," he told a news conference in Seoul. "No one wants to see another conflict break out in the north."
ISRAEL LOOKS TO THE NORTH
Austin emphasised the need to avoid any regional escalation when he spoke to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant over the weekend, according to a readout of the call. The Israeli prime minister's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment for this article. Two Israeli security sources, who declined to be identified, said that Israel didn't seek any spread of hostilities but added that the country was prepared to fight on new fronts if needed to protect itself. They said security officials deemed the most potent immediate threat to Israel came from Hezbollah. Enmity runs deep between Israel and Iran. Iran does not recognise Israel's existence, while Israel has long threatened military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to curb its disputed nuclear activity. In the current crisis, real politik may prevail for Tehran, according to Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank. "Iran has shown a four-decade commitment to fighting America and Israel without entering into direct conflict. The regime's revolutionary ideology is based on opposition to America and Israel, but its leaders are not suicidal, they want to stay in power." (Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Laila Bassam in Beirut and Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minn; Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem, Idrees Ali in Washington and Phil Stewart in Seoul; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Tom Perry and Pravin Char)

Iran tells Hamas it will not enter the war with Israel
The Telegraph/November 15, 2023
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Iran will continue supporting Hamas but will not intervene directly - Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader
Iran’s supreme leader told the head of Hamas in a face-to-face meeting in Tehran that his country would not enter the war with Israel and accused the terror group of not giving any prior warning of the Oct 7 attacks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Ismail Haniyeh that Iran – a longtime backer of Hamas – would continue to lend the group its political and moral support, but would not intervene directly, according to three Iranian and Hamas officials with knowledge of the discussions who asked to remain anonymous. The supreme leader pressed Haniyeh to silence those voices in the Palestinian group publicly calling for Iran and its powerful Lebanese ally Hezbollah to join the battle against Israel in full force, a Hamas official told Reuters. Hezbollah, too, was taken by surprise by Hamas’s devastating assault last month that killed 1,200 Israelis. Its fighters were not even on alert in villages near the border that were frontlines in its 2006 war with Israel, and had to be rapidly called up, three sources close to the Lebanese group said. “We woke up to a war,” said a Hezbollah commander. The unfolding crisis marks the first time that the so-called ‘axis of resistance’ – a military alliance built by Iran over four decades to oppose Israeli and American power in the Middle East – has mobilised on multiple fronts at the same time. Hezbollah has engaged in the heaviest clashes with Israel for almost 20 years. Iran-backed militias have targeted US forces in Iraq and Syria. Yemen’s Houthis have launched missiles and drones at Israel. The conflict is also testing the limits of the regional coalition whose members – which include the Syrian government, Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups from Iraq to Yemen – have differing priorities and domestic challenges.
Mohanad Hage Ali, an expert on Hezbollah at the Carnegie Middle East Centre think-tank in Beirut, said Hamas’s Oct 7 assault on Israel had left its axis partners facing tough choices in confronting an adversary with far superior firepower.
“When you wake up the bear with such an attack, it’s quite difficult for your allies to stand in the same position as you.”Hamas, the ruling group of Gaza, is fighting for its survival against an avenging Israel, which vows to wipe it out and has launched a retaliatory onslaught on the tiny enclave that has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians. On Oct 7, Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander, called on its axis allies to join the struggle. “Our brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, this is the day when your resistance unites with your people in Palestine,” he said in an audio message. Hints of frustration surfaced in subsequent public statements by Hamas leaders including Khaled Meshaal, who in an Oct 16 TV interview thanked Hezbollah for its actions thus far but said “the battle requires more” .
Nonetheless, alliance leader Iran will not directly intervene in the conflict unless it is itself attacked by Israel or the US, according to six officials with direct knowledge of Tehran’s thinking who declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
Instead, Iran’s clerical rulers plan to continue using their axis network of armed allies, including Hezbollah, to launch rocket and drone attacks on Israeli and American targets across the Middle East, the officials said.
The strategy is a calibrated effort to demonstrate solidarity for Hamas in Gaza and stretch Israeli forces without becoming engaged in a direct confrontation with Israel that could draw in the US, they added. “This is their way of trying to create deterrence,” said Dennis Ross, a former senior US diplomat specialising in the Middle East who now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank. “A way of saying: ‘Look, as long as you don’t attack us, this is the way it will remain. But if you attack us, everything changes’.”
Iran has repeatedly said that all members of the alliance make their own decisions independently. The Iranian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment about its response to the crisis and the role of the ‘axis of resistance’, a term of disputed origin that has been used by Iranian officials to describe the coalition. Hamas did not immediately respond to questions sent to Haniyeh’s media adviser, while Hezbollah also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hezbollah, the most powerful group in the axis, boasting 100,000 fighters, has exchanged fire with Israeli forces across the Lebanon-Israel border on an almost daily basis since Hamas went to war with Israel and more than 70 of its fighters have been killed. Yet, like its backer Iran, Hezbollah has avoided an all-out confrontation. The group has calibrated its attacks in a way that has kept the violence largely contained to a narrow strip of territory at the border, even as it has escalated those strikes in recent days, according to the people familiar with its thinking.
One of the sources said Hamas wanted Hezbollah to strike deeper into Israel with its massive arsenal of rockets but that Hezbollah believed this would lead Israel to lay waste to Lebanon without halting its attack on Gaza.
Hezbollah, which is also a political movement deeply involved in Lebanese government affairs, knows Lebanon can ill afford another war with Israel, more than four years into a financial crisis that has driven up poverty and hollowed out the country’s governing institutions. Lebanon took years to rebuild from the 2006 war, during which Israeli bombardment pounded the Hezbollah-controlled south of the country and destroyed swathes of its stronghold in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a Nov 3 speech that Hamas had kept its attack on Israel a secret from its allies and this had ensured its success and not “upset anyone” in the axis. Hezbollah attacks at the Israeli border were unprecedented and amounted to “a real battle”, he said.

Israeli troops deepen search at main Gaza hospital for evidence of Hamas
Nidal al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 16 (Reuters)/Wed, November 15, 2023
Israel said its forces were operating in and around Gaza's biggest hospital, a chief objective in its campaign to destroy Palestinian Hamas militants that the army says stored weapons and ran a command centre in tunnels beneath the buildings. Israeli troops forced their way into Al Shifa hospital in the early hours of Wednesday and spent the day deepening their search, the army said. An army video showed automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and flak jackets it said were recovered from an undisclosed building within the complex.
"The troops continue to search the hospital in a precise, intelligence-based, manner," army spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a press briefing late on Wednesday. "We will continue to do so, in order to gather further information, to discover additional assets, and to expose the terror activities within the hospital."The military made no mention on Wednesday of finding any tunnel entrances in Al Shifa. It previously said Hamas had built a network of tunnels under the hospital. Hamas has denied it and dismissed the latest army statements.
"The occupation forces are still lying ... as they brought some weapons, clothes and tools and placed them in the hospital in a scandalous manner," Qatar-based Hamas senior member Ezzat El Rashq said. "We have repeatedly called for a committee from the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the Red Cross to verify the lies of the occupation." Israeli forces raided the Shifa complex on Wednesday evening "for the second time in 24 hours" WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported. Bulldozers and military vehicles were used, the agency said, citing local sources.
Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency reported early on Thursday that Israeli tanks raided Al Shifa from the complex's southern side and that gunfire was heard in the area.
Israel began its campaign against the Islamist group that rules Gaza after militants rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 people taken hostage in the deadliest day of its 75-year-old history.
Since then, Israel has put Gaza's population of 2.3 million under siege and carried out an aerial bombardment. Gaza health officials, considered reliable by the United Nations, say about 11,500 Palestinians are confirmed killed, around 40% of them children, and more are buried under the rubble. Israel has ordered the entire northern half of Gaza evacuated, and around two-thirds of residents are now homeless.The first truck carrying fuel into Gaza since the start of the war crossed from Egypt on Wednesday to deliver diesel to the United Nations, though it will do little to alleviate shortages that have hampered relief operations. The delivery was made possible by Israel approving 24,000 litres (6,340 gallons) of diesel fuel to be allowed into Gaza for U.N. aid distribution trucks, though not for use at hospitals, according to a humanitarian source.
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday called for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in fighting for a "sufficient number of days" to allow aid access. It also called in a resolution for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas. The 15-member council overcame an impasse in four attempts to take action last month. Israel has so far rejected calls for a ceasefire, which it says would benefit Hamas. A pause in fighting has been discussed, however, in negotiations mediated by Qatar to release some hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack.
Qatari mediators were seeking a deal that would include a three-day truce, with Hamas releasing 50 of its captives and Israel to release some women and minors from among its security detainees, an official briefed on the negotiations said. Gathering the hostages for any simultaneous release, which Israel wants, would be logistically difficult without a ceasefire, said one source in the region with knowledge of the negotiations.

Israel-Hamas war roils UC over the line between free speech and unacceptable behavior
Teresa Watanabe, Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times./November 15, 2023
At UC Davis, a professor posted warnings to "zionist journalists" with emojis of weapons and dripping blood. At UCLA, some students beat a piñata of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while a teach-in about "the crisis in Palestine" drew so many threats the organizers moved it online. At UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz and UCLA, academic departments have issued political statements variously condemning Israel or the militant group Hamas, locked in a war that has killed thousands of civilians in the land both claim as their rightful home. Across the University of California, scores of students on both sides are reporting harassment, intimidation and profound anxiety over their safety during what many longtime UC faculty and administrators say is the most emotionally charged time they've ever experienced on campus.
Five weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, the repercussions are roiling the nation's premier public university system — and raising challenging questions over the line between free speech and unacceptable behavior under campus codes of conduct.
The issue quickly took center stage Wednesday at the UC Board of Regents meeting at UCLA's Luskin Conference Center amid tight security in anticipation of protests, with campus officers stationed at entrances and the building encircled by a chain-link fence.
In public comments, students and other speakers decried rising antisemitism, and one said UC officials are falsely accusing Palestinian supporters of antisemitic behavior.
UC President Michael V. Drake acknowledged their anger and fear. Then, saying “words alone are not enough,” he announced a $7-million infusion of funds to help ease the campus conflicts. The funds include $3 million for emergency mental health services and $2 million to develop educational programs at every UC campus with aims to better understand antisemitism and Islamophobia, combat extremism and provide a viewpoint-neutral history of the Middle East. Another $2 million will be used to train UC leadership, staff and faculty on how to navigate their roles as educators around the issue, focusing on freedom of expression, diversity, equity and inclusion.
Drake also announced that the system's director of community safety would convene additional meetings with UC police and campus safety officers to ensure staff are appropriately responding to incidents of violence.
'In addition, a systemwide office of civil rights, which has been in the works since late last year, will be launched in spring with new offices for disability rights and for anti-discrimination efforts. "The war in Israel and Gaza presents a complex set of intersecting issues that require multiple solutions on multiple fronts," he said Wednesday. "Today we are doubling down on who we are: an educational institution that’s guided by facts and data, but also a moral compass that helps us find our way to compassion and understanding in difficult moments."UC Board of Regents Chair Rich Leib said he met with Arab, Jewish and Muslim students and acknowledged their feelings of anger and tension. He urged campuses to pour resources into safety measures, swiftly condemn inappropriate behavior and enforce rules against it, and call out hate speech, even if protected by the 1st Amendment. "I will not stand silently ... when members of our university community are made to feel unsafe," Leib said.
The regents were scheduled to meet in closed session later in the day over the legal issues related to free speech as they face rising demands to take stronger action.
Israel supporters are calling on university leaders to fire the UC Davis professor, better police pro-Palestinian campus rallies and bar the posting of statements about the conflict by UC departments. Supporters of Palestinians are accusing campus leaders of neglecting their reports of harassment and issuing lopsided statements that condemn Hamas and grieve the killing of at least 1,200 people in Israel without equally strong language criticizing the Israeli military response, which the Palestinian Health Ministry said has killed more than 11,200 people in the Gaza Strip.
The furor over free speech has engulfed campuses nationwide. A faculty member who spoke out in support of Palestinians at Emory was placed on leave; another accused of targeting Jewish students was suspended at Stanford. A USC faculty member who told pro-Palestinian student protesters that he wanted all Hamas members killed has shifted to remote teaching. Brandeis University withdrew campus recognition of the pro-Palestinian group Students for Justice in Palestine. The State University System of Florida moved to do likewise at two campuses but placed the plan on hold after the system head expressed legal concerns over such an action.
"There is absolute chaos over these issues — it's everywhere, coast to coast," said Alex Morey, director of campus rights advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. "What a lot of people are trying to do is target speech that is offensive to them. But the 1st Amendment is meant to stop government from being in control of our actions and words."Morey said that under the 1st Amendment, the only types of speech that can be barred at public universities, even under campus codes of conduct, is "discriminatory harassment" and "true threats." Under a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, she said, discriminatory harassment between students requires a showing of targeted, discriminatory conduct that is “so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.”Behavior that rises to a "true threat" must be a "serious expression of intent to commit an unlawful act of violence targeted to a group or individual," she said.
But how to decide what behavior crosses the line is provoking vastly different responses on campuses.
At UCLA, for instance, more than 300 faculty members have signed a letter demanding that campus leadership denounce pro-Palestinian rallies that cross the line from protected free speech to "unlawful incitement." They specified the definition includes celebrating Hamas violence, issuing event advertisements that feature images of weapons or violence, and chanting "intifada," an Arabic word that in the Palestinian context means uprising or rebellion against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
We "all cherish the First Amendment and its guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly. ... It is inconceivable why such celebrations are not denounced by the UCLA leadership, regardless of political views," the letter said, calling on students or community groups that participate in them to be held "accountable. ... The atmosphere on campus results in Jewish students, staff, and faculty who are afraid to be on campus, show solidarity with Israel, or practice their freedom of religion in public."
To Saree Makdisi, a UCLA English professor, assertions that such rallies amount to violent incitement are absurd. "What these people are asking for is the policing of speech on campus that ... prohibits speech with which they disagree," Makdisi said. "They don't want campuses to be a zone of free speech and free thought and open inquiry. This is absolutely repressive censorship that runs exactly contrary to what the function of a university ought to be and it is completely unacceptable."
Political statements about the war on UC department websites have also drawn fire. The UC San Diego ethnic studies department, for instance, has posted a statement grieving the loss of lives on both sides and supporting calls to end Israel's occupation and dismantle "the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance." UC Santa Cruz's critical race and ethnic studies department has posted a call for academic institutions to "act now to end Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza."
At UCLA, the Asian American Studies Center kicked up a furor in 2021 when it posted a statement — along with colleagues in feminist, Middle Eastern and gender studies — decrying a surge in Israeli violence against Palestinians as "the latest manifestation of seventy-three years of settler colonialism, racial apartheid, and occupation intended to terrorize and displace" them. The UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies has also posted a statement condemning the "horrific terrorist attack" by Hamas and mourning deaths on both sides.
Some critics are calling for UC to ban departments from posting such statements.
But James Steintrager, UC Academic Senate chair, said a systemwide faculty committee reviewed the issue in 2021 after the UCLA controversy and concluded, in consultation with university attorneys, that departments had the right to weigh in on political and social issues, although they cannot endorse candidates. The Academic Senate provided guidelines, such as making clear the statement represented faculty members or groups and not the university itself and ensuring that minority or dissenting views are not squelched. Morey, the campus free speech expert, agreed that such statements are legal, but she called them "ill-advised" because of the potential to chill the speech of those who might disagree with them. She added that her organization frequently gets such complaints from faculty.
Morey also said the UC Davis faculty member's conduct was probably also legal even if profoundly offensive. In screenshots of the now-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter, Jemma Decristo, assistant professor of American studies at UC Davis, posted under her account @jemmaisOKeh that “zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation” were a group that was easily accessible to the public. She said in the post that “they have houses w adddresses, kids in school,” and “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” The post ends with a knife emoji, followed by a hatchet emoji and emojis of three drops of blood.
UC Davis Chancellor Gary May called the comments by Decristo "revolting in every way" and said the case would be investigated for possible violations of the campus code of conduct in consultation with legal counsel regarding 1st Amendment rights. Morey said she did not believe the post was targeted enough at specific people with a serious intent to commit an unlawful act of violence to rise to the level of an actionable "true threat.""It's close to the line but not there yet," she said.
Likewise, she added, pummeling a Netanyahu piñata was protected free speech because the object of the beating was an effigy, not an actual person.
Meanwhile, students on all sides say that greater actions must be taken to help them feel safer from what many are experiencing as a hostile campus environment.
The UCLA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine has posted on Instagram reports of harassment and violence against their supporters. Students selling kaffiyehs on campus were shoved; those who tried to watch an online teach-in about the conflict were accosted by young men who screamed profanities at them and threw laptops in the trash can, and a woman stormed into the office of an allied student group, the Cultural Affairs Commission, and threatened those inside with sexual violence and femicide, the posts said. "SJP at UCLA is outraged by multiple hate crimes inflicted on UCLA students that have been attacked and violently threatened because of their refusal to remain silent against the ethnic cleansing and occupation of the Palestinian people," the group posted. "We demand action from the University to protect their Palestinian and supporting students."
Jewish students are also feeling afraid and helpless, said Bella Brannon, president of the Hillel student board. She said some students have received death threats from their pro-Palestinian peers and have been frightened by swastikas drawn on cars and graffiti on a nearby building exhorting people to "eat the rich, hunt down Jew vampires." They also are afraid of getting lower grades from faculty members who endorse Hamas, she said.
To them, Brannon said, the pro-Palestinian rallying cry, "From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab," is a call for the ethnic cleansing of Jewish people from the land they call Israel. She said they were afraid to wear Star of David necklaces and skullcaps known as kippot and introduce themselves with Jewish names. UC Student Regent Merhawi Tesfai, a UCLA doctoral student, said the issue has divided students more than any other he has experienced in his six years at UC. There was no clear way forward, he said, but inaction was not an option.
“How do people feel safe and advocate for their communities and make sure there is not political warfare?” he asked. “We need to find a way to achieve that." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

TDs reject call to expel Israel's ambassador
Dana Erlich/BBC/ November 15, 2023
The Social Democrats had sought backing to revoke the diplomatic credentials of Israel's ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich. A motion which called for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador to Ireland has been rejected in the Irish parliament. The Social Democrats had sought backing to revoke the diplomatic credentials of Dana Erlich over the conflict between Israel and Hamas. TDs instead backed a government motion which called for a ceasefire. Sinn Fein, the Labour Party and People before Profit all voted for expulsion as well as a number of independent TDs.
Dublin Gaza protest
Social Democrat leader Holly Cairns, who tabled her party's motion, said "despite the overwhelming support of the Irish people, this government has chosen not to act". A Sinn Féin motion was also defeated which urged the government to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court. The recent escalation in hostilities followed the killing of more than a thousand people by Hamas in Israel on 7 October, with more than 200 people taken hostage Israel has since taken military action in Gaza, with the Hamas-run health ministry stating more than 11,000 people have been killed.
What is happening in Israel and Gaza, and what is Hamas?
What is the Rafah crossing and why is it Gaza's lifeline?
On Wednesday, Tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) Micheál Martin said 23 Irish citizens had crossed into Egypt from Gaza. Speaking in Cairo, he said it was "very welcome news" that some families with children had successfully crossed the Rafah checkpoint.
An Irish diplomatic team is stationed at the crossing and would bring arrivals to Cairo, where medical assistance has been arranged, Micheál Martin continued. Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, Mr Martin said there is another group of about 40 Irish citizens and dependents due to exit the war zone.
"I am more relieved today now than I have been for a while because, of course, the situation in Gaza is very serious, very dangerous." In the UK Parliament, MPs voted to reject a call for an immediate ceasefire on Wednesday evening. Among Northern Ireland's MPs, the SDLP and Alliance voted in favour and four DUP MPs in the chamber voted against the move. The DUP also voted against a separate Labour amendment which stopped short of calling for a ceasefire. Also on Wednesday, the UN Security Council voted in favour of a draft resolution that calls for "urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors" throughout the Gaza Strip. Twelve members voted for the resolution with three abstentions from permanent members the US, UK and Russia.
Gaza map
Foreign passport holders are exiting Gaza via the Rafah crossing
On Monday, Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar reiterated his government's call for Hamas to release all hostages immediately. He was speaking after meeting the family of an Irish-Israeli girl - Emily Hand - who is believed to be a hostage. On Wednesday, Mr Martin said he has received a positive response from the Egyptian foreign minister regarding the eight-year-old. Similarly, the Qatari foreign minister gave a positive response, he said. Qatar is hoping to strike a deal between Israel and Hamas to release 50 hostages in exchange for a three-day ceasefire. Mr Martin said he hoped Emily Hand would be let go if this was achieved.
'It is a hell'
A father-of-two whose family was among a number of Irish-Palestinians on a list to leave Gaza said it feels "like God chose you to survive". Aymen Shaheen is hoping to leave the war zone on Thursday along with his wife, daughter and son. He said the family were being assisted by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. Mr Shaheen said Gaza had become "a hell" and he felt very fortunate to be able to leave. "We are lucky that we will cross the border, but 2.3m Palestinians in Gaza will continue under this nightmare," he told RTÉ. Mr Shaheen said he had been contacted by staff from the Irish government who confirmed that his family was included on the list of international citizens who would be allowed to cross from Gaza to Egypt. "It is dangerous but we can move, we have to do it," he said. Mr Shaheen said life in Gaza had been turned upside down since Israel began bombing the territory in early October. "It is a hell to be honest – hard to find food, hard to find water, hard to find bread. It’s hard for everyone to be in such circumstances," Mr Shaheen said.
'Make sure they will be safe'
Another Irish-Palestinian father of two, who grew up in Belfast, has called for the Irish government to put his children on the evacuation list. Khalid El-Estal lost his wife, mother, brother, uncle and two cousins following an explosion in Gaza last month.
His children - four-year-old Ali and one-year-old Sara - were buried in the rubble but survived the bombing. "I am begging them to put my children's names on the next list and to make sure they will be safe when they reach the border crossing," he told RTÉ.
Mr El-Estal was born in Belfast and attended primary school in the Botanic area while his father worked as a lecturer at Queen's University. He was eight years old when his family relocated to Gaza and he later met his wife, Ashwak Jendia, at university.
Mr El-Estal’s brother-in-law, who has an Irish visa, would accompany the children on the journey from Gaza to Ireland if they are allowed to leave.

France issues arrest warrants for Syrian president, 3 generals alleging involvement in war crimes
PARIS (AP)/Wed, November 15, 2023
French judicial authorities on Wednesday issued international arrest warrants for Syrian President Bashar Assad, his brother and two army generals alleging their involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity including in the chemical attack in 2013 on rebel-held Damascus suburbs, lawyers for Syrian victims said. In addition to President Assad, the arrest warrants were issued for his brother, Maher Assad, the commander of the 4th Armored Division, and two Syrian army generals, Ghassan Abbas and Bassam al-Hassan. Jeanne Sulzer and Clemence Witt, lawyers at the Paris Bar who represent the plaintiffs, and NGOs behind the complaint, hailed the decision Wednesday. “It marks a crucial milestone in the battle against impunity,” Sulzer told The Associated Press on the phone. “It signifies a positive evolution in case law recognizing the grave nature of the crimes committed.”The Paris prosecutor’s office has not publicly commented on the arrest warrants that remain secret under French law amid ongoing investigation. “Legally speaking, this is a procedural act as the investigation into the 2013 attacks in Eastern Ghouta and Douma continues,” Sulzer said. The four individuals named in the arrest warrants “can be arrested and brought to France for questioning by the investigative judges,” she said. More than 1,000 people were killed and thousands were injured in the August 2013 attacks on Douma and Eastern Ghouta.The investigation into the two chemical weapons attacks has been conducted under universal jurisdiction in France by investigative judges of the Specialized Unit for Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes of the Paris Judicial Court. The investigation was opened in March 2021 in response to a criminal complaint by the survivors, and filed by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).
Mazen Darwish, the SCM’s director, said the issuing of arrest warrants is “a new victory for the victims, their families and survivors” of the 2013 attacks. Assad’s government was widely deemed by the international community to be responsible for the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack in the then-opposition-held Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta. The Syrian government and its allies have denied their responsibility and claimed the Ghouta attack was carried out by opposition forces trying to push for foreign military intervention. The United States threatened military retaliation in the aftermath of the attack, with then-President Barack Obama saying Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be Washington’s “red line.” However, the U.S. public and Congress were wary of a new war, as invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq had turned into quagmires. In the end, Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Syria to give up its chemical weapons stockpile. Syria says it eliminated its chemical arsenal under the 2013 agreement. However, watchdog groups have continued to allege chemical attacks by Syrian government forces since then.

IAEA: Iran's exclusion of inspectors "seriously affected" activities
AFP/November 15, 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) affirmed that Iran's decision in September to restrict the entry of several of its inspectors had a "direct and serious impact" on its ability to monitor Tehran's nuclear program. The "unprecedented" decision targeting specific nationalities was deemed "extremist and unjustified" by the United Nations agency, as stated in a confidential report obtained by AFP on Wednesday, a week before its Board of Governors meeting in Vienna. According to diplomatic sources, the decision affects eight experts, notably French and German nationals. The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, received a response from Tehran on Wednesday, in which Iran defended its "right" to withdraw the accreditation of inspectors while simultaneously indicating that it is "exploring possibilities" to reconsider its decision. The UN organization expressed renewed regret for Iran's lack of cooperation in other matters. For months, the agency has condemned the disruption of many surveillance cameras and the absence of explanations regarding the traces of uranium discovered at undisclosed sites in Turquz Abad and Karaj. Furthermore, Iran has significantly increased its stockpile of enriched uranium in recent months, continuing its nuclear escalation despite its denial of seeking nuclear weapons development, as stated in another report.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 15-16/2023
Middle East crisis the catalyst for change in the UK
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/November 15, 2023
It is not an exaggeration to say that, far away from the Israel-Gaza border, this five-week-old conflict has claimed its first political victim. Suella Braverman, the UK interior minister who tried but failed to stop public demonstrations in support of a ceasefire in Gaza — using Armistice Day and Remembrance Day as an excuse — has been sacked. Braverman claimed that the demonstrations were “hate marches” and that they could spiral out of control to ruin the annual remembrance of those who have fallen while fighting for freedom in the First World War and subsequent conflicts.
The surprise ministerial reshuffle announced by Rishi Sunak on Monday followed growing criticism of Braverman’s inciteful rhetoric from opposition lawmakers and even members of her own Conservative Party. This enabled Sunak to remove her and other ministers he felt were not performing to bring in allies that could better serve his vision. His hand was apparently forced when the ever-controversial Braverman defied him last week in publishing an unauthorized newspaper article accusing police of “double standards” at protests, suggesting they were tough on right-wing demonstrators but easy on pro-Palestinian marchers.To be fair, both the prime minister and his interior minister were of the mind that Armistice Day and Remembrance Day should be celebrated without any interference from marches. They both thought the protests could spoil the remembrance events if violence erupted, but the police did not see the need to prevent them from going ahead.
The turn of events was used by Sunak as a pretext to get rid of some troublemakers in his government
The opposition Labour Party went even further and suggested that Braverman’s comments inflamed tensions between a pro-Palestinian demonstration and a far-right counterprotest in London on Saturday, when in reality both events should have been seen as occasions to reject wars and conflict.
This turn of events was used by Sunak as a pretext to get rid of some troublemakers in his government and reaffirm his grip on the party, even though he had to turn to old hands such as former Prime Minister David Cameron, who has been made foreign secretary. Sunak’s act was seen by some as a bid to bring some sunshine back into public life, sidelining the ultra-right of the Conservatives and consolidating his leadership to better fulfill his promises to the country, as set out a year ago. But the reshuffle has been described as a “back to the future” moment that reflects how desperate the state of the Conservative Party has become after 13 years in power that have been plagued by austerity, the miscalculation of Brexit and, above all, disrepute in Britain’s political life through infighting, lies and instances of corruption.
If the reshuffle has revealed anything, it is that the country desperately needs a general election and a new mandate to bring some decency back into public life. People need to believe again that their future is in safe hands and that the country could turn a new page after the Conservative Party’s many years of internal and nationwide attrition. Israel’s war on Gaza has surely been the catalyst that allowed this latest government reshuffle, but it remains doubtful that this will be enough to improve the chances of Sunak and his party at the next general election, as the polls are predicting a battering that could send the Conservatives back into the wilderness. If the reshuffle has revealed anything, it is that the country desperately needs a general election
Many lawmakers will have breathed a sigh of relief at seeing Braverman go, as they feared she was determined to remodel the Conservative Party as a “Trumpist,” populist “nasty party,” with a hard-line view on immigration, the homeless and policing. Many also believed that she had a plan to focus her attention on preparing for a possible bid for the leadership of the party if the Conservatives lose the election that is expected next year, especially as the opposition Labour Party has consistently recorded a 20-point lead in the polls.
Sunak’s lack of experience at handling international crises on the scale of the Ukraine war or the Israel-Gaza conflict has been obvious, as he has failed to bring any constructive narrative to the table at a time that calls for level-headedness in a highly volatile region like the Middle East. Domestically, he tried to relaunch himself only a month ago as the face of change at his annual party conference, only to make a U-turn and cancel parts of the only large rail infrastructure project Britain has been promised for decades, to provide a fast train link between the south and north of England.
Many in the UK are sympathetic with Sunak and his efforts to stabilize the ship of government, despite the conflictive nature at the top of the Conservative Party, since his authority was clearly questioned when his home secretary attacked the police in her unsanctioned newspaper article. But the reshuffle can only be read as an act of desperation. The only true offer of change he can make is to call a general election soon, as that might offer a real chance for the nation to be put on a long-term recovery track after the wasted years of Conservative government, even if such a conclusion is reached on the back of yet another crisis in the Middle East.
*Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.

France charts an independent course on Gaza
Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab News/November 15, 2023
Although France still considers Hamas a terrorist organization and has strongly condemned its Oct. 7 attacks, French President Emmanuel Macron has spearheaded efforts to stop the war in Gaza, improve humanitarian conditions and address the underlying Palestine-Israel conflict. France broke ranks with the US at the UN Security Council by supporting drafts, which the US eventually vetoed, calling on Israel to protect civilians and abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law. On Oct. 27, it voted in favor of the UN General Assembly Resolution on Gaza, which the US and a handful of European countries voted against, while most other European countries abstained. Then, on Nov. 9, Macron hosted the International Humanitarian Conference for the Civilian Population in Gaza, which represented the clearest sign of France’s determination to lead on these issues. About 80 countries and organizations gathered, at short notice, at the Elysee Palace, including heads of states and governments and leaders of international organizations. They included UN organizations that have lost staff in the war; scores have been killed in Israel’s indiscriminate attacks, more than in any previous conflict. They were, in the words of one speaker, “the thin line between tragedy and safety, between slaughter and humanity.”
At the start of the conference, the organizers apparently wanted to avoid discussing political issues for fear that they would be divisive. As such, they presented a purely humanitarian agenda, focusing on four key points: Ensuring adherence to international humanitarian law; protecting civilians and humanitarian workers; responding better to health, water, food and energy needs; and mobilizing more funds to match those growing needs. France broke ranks with the US at the UN Security Council by supporting drafts calling on Israel to protect civilians.
As delegates listened to compelling testimonies from relief groups, they were horrified by Israel’s war tactics. Led by Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, they demanded an immediate ceasefire and an end to the siege and collective punishment of Gazans. Egeland, a former state secretary in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and later a UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said it is an “affront to humanity and humanitarian law to wage war around, from and on hospitals in Gaza.” He added: “Surely now there must be a universal call for a full ceasefire and release of the hostages. History will judge the parties and the bystanders.”
Martin Griffiths, the current UN top relief official, was equally forceful, saying that “the situation is insupportable. To allow it to continue would be a travesty.”
Then, speaker after speaker condemned Israel’s actions, which have clearly breached international norms. They called on world leaders to push for an immediate and sustained ceasefire, better humanitarian access and compliance with the rules of war. Speakers from the US and the handful of countries that had expressed support for Israel in the past joined in, decrying the massive loss of life and the need for more effective aid delivery for the beleaguered civilian population.
Mobilizing funds was not the primary goal of the conference because the problem in Gaza is more of access than lack of funds, although more is needed. The most urgent concern is that Gazans’ access to aid is limited by Israel’s tight siege and relentless bombardment, making it difficult for relief supplies to reach the civilian population. In addition, Israel has completely stopped supplies of fuel, which is essential to the operation of hospitals and water treatment facilities. Nevertheless, despite the fact that there was no pressure to announce financial pledges, about $1 billion in aid was announced during the conference.
While calling for the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid and better access, most delegates also suggested that negotiations would be a better approach to getting hostages and civilian detainees released, as well as discussing the future of governance in Gaza. Many also called for reenergizing the peace process toward a two-state solution along the 1967 lines as the only sure way to guide the region back to a path of peace and reconciliation. Some expressed concern that Israel’s rogue behavior, if not checked, will undermine respect for the rule of international law
Those speaking at the summit also called for concerted efforts to stop the Gaza war from spreading further to the West Bank. UN representatives reported that more than 150 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, both by settlers and by Israel’s security forces. Many families and a number of communities have been uprooted and made homeless by settler violence, often in concert with the army.
Some expressed concern that Israel’s rogue behavior, if not checked, will undermine respect for the rule of international law. It could also spread to the wider region and the rest of the world and cause youth radicalization, as happened in the past. For example, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the bloody siege of Beirut in the summer of 1982 begat Hezbollah. Macron expressed concern about such radicalization happening in France itself. After the conference, Macron made his new position clearer. He told the BBC that “the clear conclusion” of all governments and agencies present at the summit was that “there is no other solution than first a humanitarian pause, going to a ceasefire.” He added: “De facto — today, civilians are bombed — de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”
The Paris conference was a clear diplomatic success for the French presidency. It succeeded in articulating five key principles in addressing the Gaza war.
First, more pressure is needed to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and basic human dignity. This means that civilians must be protected and their essential needs met, wherever they are in Gaza. UN representatives stressed that they cannot be part of Israel’s pushing of hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians in Gaza into so-called safe zones. Second, humanitarian relief supplies, including fuel, should be permitted into Gaza safely, without impediment, reliably and at scale. Third, an immediate ceasefire should be the main objective and priority. Fourth, this conflict should not be allowed to spread into the West Bank or the wider region. Fifth, multilateral and diplomatic efforts must be maximized to arrest this vicious cycle of violence by reenergizing the peace process toward a two-state solution in a fair and comprehensive solution along well-known international parameters.
*Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the Gulf Cooperation Council assistant secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation. The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily represent the GCC. X: @abuhamad1

The tango in Gaza and its destructive repercussions
Eyad Abu Shakra/ Asharq Al-Awsat/November 15/2023
It has been around a month and a half since the Oct. 7 operation in the Gaza Envelope; skepticism is increasing and the risks are accumulating. Setting to one side the bravado shown by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who have talked about changing maps and claimed that what preceded Oct. 7 will not resemble what follows, as well as the puffery of some Hamas leaders regarding what happened, let us go over some of the facts. Based on the dangerous strategic dimensions of this war and the explicit and unprecedented Western positions on it, I believe that any sensible analyst has come to feel that what we are seeing has exceeded the bounds of “legitimate self-defense,” a “surgical operation to rescue hostages,” revenge for Oct. 7 or even the elimination of an “ISIS-like group,” using another term for the terror group Daesh.
As per international law, the right to self-defense does not allow for the deliberate targeting of residential buildings with missiles or forcing hundreds of thousands of people to choose between being forcibly displaced and dying under the rubble of homes, hospitals, schools, mosques or churches. And it certainly does not justify bombing the areas where these civilians were ordered to flee in the south of the Gaza Strip. Moreover, hostage rescue operations are supposed to be aimed at ensuring the safety of the hostages. Instead, we are hearing Israeli officials brazenly and haughtily talk about sacrificing them.
As for Hamas, I believe anyone with minimal familiarity realizes the following. One, it is a political movement whose leadership clearly has a Muslim Brotherhood background. It has openly engaged in both political and military action. It is not a murky and mysterious group like Daesh, which appears and disappears when needed. We cannot expect an individual or a group to expect to live in safety if their close neighbor is deprived of it
Two, over the years, Israel has assassinated several Hamas founders and leaders who had tried to engage in political action and move away from the targeting of civilians, most notably Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Ismail Abu Shanab and Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Rantisi, while it has exiled or imprisoned others.
Three, Israel, like the US, recognizes that there are several wings within Hamas. The Oct. 7 operation very clearly attests to this fact, as the leadership of Hamas and its Lebanese-Iranian ally Hezbollah have said that the plans were a closely guarded secret and that it was carried out without the majority of the movement’s leaders having advance knowledge of it.  Four, regarding Hezbollah, several Western capitals have for years stressed the need to distinguish between the party’s political and military wings. The same applies to Hamas, especially since several of its leaders reside in countries that are friendly to the West. For all these reasons, the claim that Hamas — regardless of one’s political stance on the movement and what happened on Oct. 7 — is a copy of Daesh is totally baseless. To believe it is to buy into obvious incitement by Israel’s ruling Likud party.
Nevertheless, the Hamas leadership does bear some responsibility. It can be blamed for failing to make a proper assessment of its surroundings, succumbing to its ideological and organizational contradictions and being unable to define its priorities as an organization ready for genuine political engagement.
The claim, for instance, that the organization is keen on preserving the Palestinian national identity and the unity of the Palestinian struggle becomes untenable when it contributes to splitting the ranks of the Palestinians and effectively separates the Gaza Strip from the West Bank.
It is very bizarre that Hamas, a group that sprung from the Muslim Brotherhood, is standing against the Syrian popular uprising and supporting the oppressors of the Syrian people after Iran and Western capitals sought to “demonize” this uprising by linking it to the Brotherhood.
Furthermore, from a purely sectarian standpoint, how can some wings of Hamas explain their stance on the Iranian leadership after all of the sectarian policies we have seen from the latter and its displacement and marginalization of Sunni communities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen?
Going back to the Israeli side of the disequilibrium, I believe one of the most dangerous repercussions of Oct. 7 might be the deeply harmful stances of actors who are supposedly capable of distinguishing between the insidious incitement to violence and the morally acceptable limits of diversity of opinion and political disagreement.  The gravest and most hideous failing of many Western democracies, though not all of them, was in this regard. Making matters more painful, this did not suddenly emerge as a reaction to the Oct. 7 operation.
Yes, the positions and statements we hear today from Western politicians, both senior and junior, and read in the media and on social media, do not seem to have arisen in the spur of the moment or come out of momentary shock. More and more, they are beginning to seem like part of a strategic course that began in December 1991 with the UN’s repeal of a previous General Assembly resolution (No. 3379) that asserted that Zionism is “a form of racism.” We have now almost reached a point where any criticism or opposition to the extremist right-wing and settler government in Israel is considered a form of antisemitism.  To my knowledge, this is unprecedented in Western democracies. Never before have leaders raced to appease the most extreme Israeli governments and engage in McCarthyistic restrictions on criticism of a bloody campaign that has killed more than 11,000 innocent civilians to date, branding it either as “support for terrorism” or “antisemitism.” In Middle Eastern popular culture, it is widely recognized that “one is well so long as his neighbor is well,” while our thinkers and writers have taught us that “those who go unpunished become insolent.” Last but not least, we learned from the West itself that “it takes two to tango.”  My point here is that we cannot expect an individual or a group to expect to live in safety if their close neighbor is deprived of it. How can one side of a conflict be deterred from committing injustice and tyranny when it enjoys unlimited external support?
How can peace or coexistence arise if the stronger side in a conflict insists on refusing to acknowledge the existence of the other side and pursues the physical, demographic and geographic erasure of the other side to back its claim?

‘All they want to do is murder Jews’: The Israeli peace activists slaughtered by Hamas
Nicole Lampert/The Telegraph/November 15, 2023
There used to be a saying among those Israelis who lived in the communities next to the border with Gaza, commonly said with a shrug as missiles flew overhead: “We live in paradise 95 per cent of the time. The other 5 per cent is hell.”The paradise was all too clear for them: loving communities where those living next door felt more like family than neighbours; gorgeous scenery overlooking the arid majesty of the Negev desert; a still quietness that would only be pierced by the laughter of children playing. People walked around barefoot, didn’t lock their doors, shared almost everything. They would eat together, party together, share cars. People cared about each other and also about the greater good. “We used to sometimes say it was like living in a country club,” says travel agent Irit Lahav, who has lived her whole life on Kibbutz Nir Oz, which until last month counted 400 people in a community just a mile from the fence with the Gaza Strip. “We had the pool, the football field, everyone would ride around on bicycles. Everyone knew each other,” she added. The other 5 per cent represented the danger of where their paradise was situated. In particular, the rocket attacks that would sometimes go on for weeks. The attacks were launched from such close range that there would be just 15 seconds to run to a bomb shelter. Residents of Nir Oz could see Gaza – and even hear the imams’ call to prayer. And when the rockets fell silent they also saw the retaliatory attacks from a Right-wing Israeli government most of them felt precious little love for.For many of the kibbutz-dwellers were Left-wing campaigners and activists devoted to a peaceful settlement with their Palestinian neighbours. When Israel struck back, many felt a pain inside, knowing that people they cared about in Gaza might be hurt; all too aware that their communities shared a bond of pain as well as a love of the land.
Among them was Vivian Silver, 74, one of the country’s most famous peace activists, who had long fostered cultural and economic links with Gazans through her group, Creating Peace. Until this week, she was one of many people declared missing after Hamas’s Oct 7 attacks, thought to have been snatched from her home near Gaza in Kibbutz Be’eri. But now DNA tests on human remains have finally proved that she was killed that day. After the attacks, and before he learnt of her death, her son Yonatan continued to insist: “If we had listened to people like my mother before, we might not [be] at this point.”After the news of Silver’s death broke, the writer Anat Saragusti called her: “A woman of infinite, deep, ongoing compassion, humanity and dedication to Arab-Jewish partnership and peace. Yes. Peace.” Silver was just one of several peace activists who were slaughtered. Hayim Katsman, 32, who worked with Palestinians in the West Bank, was killed in his home in Kibbutz Holit, a mile from Gaza. Yocheved Lifshitz, who gave lifts to sick Palestinians from Gaza to medical centres in Israel, was taken captive by Hamas and released in late October; her husband, Oded, also involved in peace work, remains captive.
It is the grimmest of ironies that while many on the global Left seem to blame Jews for their own slaughter, crying “outrage” and “occupation”, a great many of the people murdered on Oct 7 were those Jews who were fighting hardest for a two-state solution and peace – and who thought they knew their neighbours across the border.
“I feel betrayed,” says Ms Lahav, 57. Her small kibbutz Nir Oz was one of the worst hit. Between a quarter and a half of its residents are either dead or missing. Ms Lahav was one of several peace activists within her community – her mother was best friends with Mrs Lifshitz, who stunned the world when she shook the hand of her Hamas captor as she was released. The two families were next door neighbours. Almost every week she would go with others to the Gaza border to pick up the ill and transport them to hospitals in Israel. “If you are going to live in a kibbutz, it means you trust and respect others, whether they look like you or not,” says Ms Lahav. “Everyone is equal and we saw the Palestinians as our siblings. “With others I volunteered to drive six Palestinians at a time to Israeli hospitals; people with cancer or for kidney dialysis. I speak a bit of Arabic, they’d know a few Hebrew words, we’d use some English; these were very sick people but we’d communicate. “Occasionally I’d wonder what was happening with all the money that the European Union was sending to them – billions. I’d wonder why they were still so poor when they had so much money being sent. I couldn’t understand it – why didn’t they use the money to build hotels over the beautiful be
Hamas terrorists, but it was an entire nation that just wanted to kill us’
She had a rude awakening on Oct 7 when she was shaken from sleep at 6.30am by the missile alarm. She then spent 12 hours in her safe room, fashioning a lock out of an oar and a vacuum cleaner, which – incredibly – held steady as terrorists tried to force their way in during what she describes as the longest eight minutes of her life. She and her daughter Lotus, 22, had whispered their goodbyes to each other. But, although they survived, by the time they were liberated by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), both Nir Oz and their entire worldview were changed irrevocably. Over those 12 hours, Ms Lahav could only listen to her neighbours being slaughtered, their pain being lived out on the kibbutz WhatsApp group as they screamed for help. And the constant, unremitting sound of guns. “I realised that this was not just a small group of terrorists but hundreds and hundreds who came to our kibbutz,” she says. “There were teenagers, there were women; it felt like a nation had come over to kill us. And they had an endless supply of money to accumulate all these weapons, which they did not stop firing.”After Hamas broke into Israel by breaching the border in at least six places, they knew exactly where they were heading. Detailed maps of the kibbutzim were found on at least one dead combatant. They had 22 targets, up to 10 miles from Gaza, but the ones they attacked hardest were those closest to the border – most within one or two miles. After the murder, there was pillage. “When we finally left our safe room, we saw they had stolen my daughter’s phone and wallet and destroyed our house,” says Ms Lahav. “My first thought was: ‘Those poor people who are desperate enough to do that.’ And then my second thought was: ‘Even if I was so poor, I was starving, would I kill and torture people and then steal from them too? No!’ It made me realise that it wasn’t just Hamas terrorists, but it was an entire nation that just wanted to kill us.”
There is an adage in Israel that the more times a community is attacked by terrorists, the more Right-wing they become. The kibbutzim and the moshavs – small farming communities – on the border with Gaza were always exceptions to that rule. During the last election, when the Left-wing parties Labor and Meretz polled around just 8 per cent nationally, in Be’eri they won 52 per cent of the vote, in Nir Oz 25 per cent. The kibbutzim are the last vestiges of the original idealistic Zionist dreams. Created mainly by young socialists who left Europe in the 1920s and 1930s in the hope of a life where they could cultivate the land and be free from anti-Semitism, the countryside they lie on in the south has always been uncontested because, up until their arrival in the 1940s, it was more desert than anything else. The communities started off in farming. Gradually they branched out into industry too – Be’eri, founded in 1946, houses a huge printing factory, while Nir Oz, founded in 1957, makes paint that is sold around the world. It may be no surprise that two of the hardest-hit kibbutzim were also two of the wealthiest. But despite their capitalist success, in Nir Oz they still share all their earnings, while Be’eri was due to start a new model of part-private earnings and part-shared just a few days after the Oct 7 massacre destroyed almost the entire thing.
Out of Kibbutz Kfar Aza’s 800 people, it is believed 17 have been abducted and a further 100 are either dead or missing -
During the history of the region, relations with the neighbours have been sometimes friendly, sometimes fraught. From 1948 to 1967 Gaza was under Egyptian control. After the Six-Day War in June 1967, when Israel won the land from Egypt, it was under military occupation but the borders were open – people from Gaza worked both in the border communities and further north, up in Tel Aviv. Israelis would head the other way, going to the beach in Gaza and making friends there. It felt like a home from home for the Israelis who were refugees from Arab countries and could converse freely with their neighbours.
Relations changed with the First Intifada, or uprising, which started in 1987 amid growing anger over the occupation. Strikes and boycotts turned into acts of terrorism and violence. A fence was built that, as the problems between Israel and Palestine grew worse, became ever more fortified. During the second Intifada in the early years of this century – when those who wanted peace on both sides saw the promise of the 1993 Oslo Accords slip away – there were multiple acts of terrorism or attempted terrorism. In 2005, Israeli completely withdrew from Gaza, and then Hamas, which has never made any secret of its genocidal intentions, was voted in by more than half of the local population the following year. Even though there have been several minor conflicts since, relations have always continued between the people of Gaza and their closest Israeli neighbours. This year, even under the Right-wing Netanyahu government, 18,000 workers from Gaza were allowed to cross the border and work in mostly menial jobs in Israel, escaping the chronic unemployment back home.
Israelis – on both the Right and the Left – thought that Hamas could be contained.
Avidor Schwartzman, 37, a media consultant, moved with his wife Karen and baby daughter to the kibbutz Kfar Aza just three months ago. His parents-in-law, Cindy and Igal Flash, were both peaceniks who had met on the kibbutz, which was founded in 1951 by Jews who had been forced out of Egypt and Syria. “We wanted to give our daughter a kibbutz education; teach her about loving the land, loving the people – there are so many good values that you find in the kibbutzim,” he says of the kibbutz, which has both a farm and a factory making plastic compounds. “And it was beautiful. It felt like we all had no worries.” Even the frequent rocket attacks didn’t stop him; the idea of peace was so deceptive. “I think we all felt secure because we had the [anti-rocket defence system] Iron Dome, we have safe rooms, we have a really good responding team in the kibbutz. We never expected a horde of thousands who would come to murder, rape and pillage,” Ms Schwartzman says.
Out of a kibbutz of 800 people it is believed 17 have been abducted and a further 100 are either dead or missing, including his wife’s parents – normally the type to be on the front line demonstrating against any war. Their house was taken over by terrorists; it took a week for their bodies to be confirmed from DNA fragments. “The terrorists didn’t care who they killed – even the people that cared about them the most,” he says. Many of the residents from the communities – and in the country as a whole – are now debating whether they were naive to think that Hamas could be controlled and that Palestinians could be their friends. Debby Sharon, 59, a British Israeli who was born in London but moved to Israel when she was five and lives on the Moshav Yamit – the moshavs are more like enclosed villages than the more communal kibbutzim – says: “We were deluded as a people, as a country.” Recalling how, in the past few years there have been riots at the border fence – which the IDF now believes was done deliberately to weaken it so it could be breached – she says: “Why were we so free-spirited? Why did we let them get so close? We didn’t respect our own security.”
Debby Sharon: ‘I think now we understand; it doesn’t matter what we do, what land we give back. They don’t care.’Ms Sharon: ‘I think now we understand; it doesn’t matter what we do, what land we give back. They don’t care.’ The moshav was attacked twice over an 18-hour period by terrorists who knew enough about the community to attempt to get into the back, less-secure gate, but local volunteers with guns were able to repel them – with only two from the 620-strong community dying. Both Ms Sharon and her husband, Doody, who spent 15 hours in their safe room with two of their children, their son-in-law and three grandsons, know and have helped Gazans. Ms Sharon, a mother of four, is a solicitor who helped Gazans frustrated by Hamas’s poor treatment of mental illness, get psychiatric help in Israel. Her husband is a manager on the farm in Be’eri Kibbutz, which employed many Gazans.
“My husband loved his workers and I think he still does,” she says. “There were times when the border was closed down, and he would be on the phone to them, making sure they were OK. When three of them were found by the IDF hiding near Be’eri, the police phoned and asked about them. My husband knows them really well but he can’t swear they are good people. He thinks they had nothing to do with it, but he doesn’t know. What we do know is that the terrorists knew exactly who and what they were targeting. And that is the thing – or one of the things – that makes me sick.
“I think one of the biggest wounds that we are carrying is that they killed people whose whole purpose was to work things out between both sides and make peace. I think now we understand; it doesn’t matter what we do, what land we give back. They don’t care. All they want to do is murder Jews.”
Ms Sharon thinks back to a few years ago when she was among thousands from the border region who went up to a hill overlooking Gaza known as Black Arrow and flew kites to signal their desire for peace. “I feel like I was a kid – I was so stupid,” she says. “The signs were all there that we were the only ones who wanted peace.” And so now there is war. “What did they think was going to happen after they murdered and kidnapped all those people? There can’t be peace now; it has shattered everyone’s beliefs.”

Secularism vs. Theocracies: Bangladesh - and the West - Under Threat
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute./November 15, 2023
Bangladesh's first constitution, adopted in 1972, the year after the war for independence, created the legal foundation for secular governance. Secularism was declared one of the fundamental principles of the state, and the use of religion for political ends was prohibited.
"The rise of violent extremism and militancy not only in Bangladesh, but also in the South Asia region and the worldwide phenomenon of religious extremism is one of the greatest contemporary threats to global security that can lead to violence and terrorism, and which can permeate all sovereign borders." — European Bangladesh Forum, Voice of European Bangladeshis.
It is thus critical to neutralize such radical Islamist forces, as Israel is now doing to Hamas, for both ideological and security-related reasons.
The 1971 Bengali genocide is an urgent reminder of the depths to which political ideologies can lead, and why, if one wants to preserve freedom in the West, it is essential to confront them.
As Bangladesh, a nation that is majority Muslim, prepares for January elections, its secular government has come under increasing pressure from Islamists. Pictured: Border Guard Bangladesh personnel stand guard during a nationwide strike called by Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in Dhaka on October 29, 2023. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images)
As Bangladesh, a nation that is majority Muslim, prepares for January elections, its secular government has come under increasing pressure from Islamists.
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), and their allies are holding rallies regarding a single demand: the resignation of the secular government. They insist that the prime minister step aside for an "impartial caretaker administration" to oversee January's polls.
Bangladesh has witnessed in recent years the alarming rise of Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist political movement whose ideology mirrors that of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
Both Jamaat and the Muslim Brotherhood advocate for implementing strict Islamic law in their respective countries, Bangladesh and Egypt. They share a common goal of transforming their nations into Islamic states governed by Sharia law, which traditionally includes the severe persecution of religious minorities and women.
The roots of Jamaat-e-Islami can be traced back to Muslim theologian Abul Ala al-Maududi and his vision of an Islamic state governed by strict Sharia law. For Maududi, the universal character of jihad is unambiguous:
"It must be evident to you from this discussion that the objective of the Islamic 'Jihād' is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single state or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution. Although in the initial stages it is incumbent upon members of the party of Islam to carry out a revolution in the State system of the countries to which they belong, but their ultimate objective is no other than to affect a world revolution."
According to the South Asia Democratic Forum,
"Many leaders of Jihadist organizations replicated this text, with variations, throughout history. Most notably, the Muslim Brotherhood network and its splinter factions – such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS – and, within Shia Islam, the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran faithfully transposed Maududi principles on Jihad. While the profound influence of his doctrines on Hassan Al-Banna, Syed Qutub and other fanatic Sunni leaders and organisations is well known, their effect on Shia Islam and the events that led to the Islamic Revolution and the constitution of an Islamic State in Iran are less well-known."
Islamist politics and violence in Bangladesh also have a long history that predates its 1971 independence from Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami is Bangladesh's largest Islamist movement. They have steadily grown in Bangladesh, while wielding significant political influence, so that now, the threat of jihad and Islamism is once again targeting the secular government of Bangladesh.
In June 2023, Jamaat held a rally in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. News footage show hundreds of thousands of supporters participating. This was the first rally held by the movement in over a decade.
Their core agenda, a strict Islamic rule, has garnered a considerable following. A report in the Daily Star cited a police intelligence source which claimed that the Jamaat's permanent membership has increased threefold in the past 15 years: from 23,863 to 73,046 out of Bangladesh's total population of roughly 174 million.
Although their presence might seem small, the movement, because it is so aggressive, has a massive potential for the radicalization of large sections of Bangladeshi society, potentially further destabilizing the country.
Only Muslims can become members of the party, which stipulates that that a woman cannot be head of the state. Bangladesh's current prime minister, Hasina Wazed, happens to be a woman, and a member of the ruling secular center-left Awami League party.
The rise of Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist groups in Bangladesh has led to the suppression of dissenting voices and freedom of speech. Jamaat uses Islamist education to promote their political aspirations as well as their religious and social goals.
Secular bloggers, activists, publishers, university lecturers, members of minority communities and foreign nationals in Bangladesh are systematically targeted by Islamist extremists. Ananta Bijoy Das, a blogger on the secularist platform Mukto-Mona, was murdered in 2015. Mukto-Mona was once moderated by US citizen Avijit Roy, who was himself hacked to death in February 2015. The same year, publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was stabbed to death. Islamists published a list of 84 secular writers whom they have accused of blasphemy and demanded that they be punished, which has often meant murdered (here, here and here).
The Islamization of present-day Bangladesh (the historic Bengal) took place after the 14th century Muslim invasion and takeover. Before then, Bengal was majority-Buddhist and Hindu. The Buddhists and Hindus were swamped by the flood of Muslim conquerors and the massive forced conversions to Islam prior to the 18th century.
In 1947, the Indian subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Present-day Bangladesh became East Pakistan, and within a couple of years, because of linguistic and cultural differences as well as the economic disparity between West and East Pakistan, a movement for autonomy for East Pakistan began. Pakistan was predominantly an Islamic, Urdu-speaking region; meanwhile East Pakistan was a Hindu and Islamic, Bangla-speaking region. In the 1970 elections, even though the Awami League emerged as the largest party in Pakistan's Parliament, the country's ruling military junta prevented it from forming a government. Pakistan's military then responded to Bengali efforts for autonomy or independence by initiating a genocide, at the center of which was Jamaat-e-Islami and its collaboration with the Pakistani Army.
On March 25, 1971, the Pakistan military began a 10-month campaign of genocide against the ethnic Bengali and Hindu communities in East Pakistan, Approximately three million people were killed and at least 200,000 women were raped by Pakistani forces. By November 1971, ten million Bengalis (the majority of whom were Hindu) had fled to India. India then intervened militarily in what came to be called the Bangladesh Liberation War, and after a 13-day India-Pakistan war, Pakistan surrendered, and the genocide came to a halt.
Jamaat-e-Islami's involvement in the genocide can be traced back to their unwavering loyalty to the Islamic government of Pakistan. The party, rooted in Islamist ideology and a vision of a united Muslim state, found common cause with Pakistan's military junta in suppressing the Bengali nationalist movement, which sought autonomy and independence.
Jamaat's leaders and members actively collaborated with the Pakistani Army in identifying and targeting Bengali nationalists, intellectuals, and anyone perceived as a threat to their vision of a "united Pakistan," by perpetrating mass murder, torture and other barbaric acts.
In 2009, the Bangladeshi government set up a domestic court called the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) to put on trial people who participated in the atrocities committed during the 1971 genocide. Several Jamaat-e-Islami leaders were found by the ICT to have actively supported the Pakistan military in carrying out genocidal crimes against Bengalis. The ICT convicted Jamaat leaders and gave them life sentences or death penalties.
Many Jamaat activists went into hiding locally while others moved to Europe, Malaysia, the United States, Canada and Australia.
The clash between secular and Islamist forces of Bangladesh has largely shaped the country's political history. Bangladesh's first constitution, adopted in 1972, the year after the war for independence, created the legal foundation for secular governance. Secularism was declared one of the fundamental principles of the state, and the use of religion for political ends was prohibited.
Jamaat-e-Islami, therefore, lost its platform to operate as a political party in Bangladesh. By 2013, the group was again banned from taking part in any further political party when Bangladesh's High Court declared that the registration of Jamaat-e-Islami was illegal, thus banning it from contesting the general election.
Professor Ali Riaz, Chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University, notes:
"Although Bangladesh was founded in 1971 on the basis of secularist principles, in the past four decades Islam has emerged as a political ideology and the Islamists as formidable political force. A series of constitutional amendments have allowed Islamist parties to be a part of the political landscape and made Islam the state religion.... Despite reinstating secularism as a state principle, the fifteenth amendment of the Constitution has reaffirmed the influence of Islamism.
"The BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party), a right-of-center party, and the JI (Jamaat-i-Islami), the largest Islamist party in Bangladesh, ruled the country between 2001 and 2006. The rise of the JI [Jamaat] to power in 2001 was a historic moment in the sense that the party opposed the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 and insisted on establishing an Islamic state. The reign of the BNP-JI combine was marked by the heightened role of... Islam in politics and social life, and the rise of clandestine Islamist militant groups, with tacit support from the state machinery. The AL [the currently ruling Awami League] criticized the BNP-JI alliance for taking the country in a direction contrary to the secularist spirit of the war of independence which cost millions of lives."
Islamists have for decades been violently targeting the religious minorities in Bangladesh. The number of Hindus, for instance, has continued to dwindle due to persecution and oppression by Islamists. The Hindu community has faced large-scale brutal attacks, including murder, rape, land-theft and the destruction of Hindu temples by Islamist fanatics in 1991-1992 and 2001-2002.
When UK MP Bob Blackman, the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Hindus, participated in a debate at the House of Commons on September 8, 2016, he observed:
"Islamic radicalization has been on the rise in Bangladesh and has caused a mass migration of Bangladeshi minority communities, including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, who believe their lives are in danger if they do not convert to Islam. It is a huge challenge that the Government of Bangladesh are battling every day, as the unfortunate incidents of persecution continue to be on the rise. The UN special rapporteur attributes the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the country to the growing influence of ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam stemming from the Gulf region."
The European Bangladesh Forum submitted a report to The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) regarding protecting minority communities and secular activists of Bangladesh:
"The rise of violent extremism and militancy not only in Bangladesh, but also in the South Asia region and the worldwide phenomenon of religious extremism is one of the greatest contemporary threats to global security that can lead to violence and terrorism, and which can permeate all sovereign borders.
"In recent years, Bangladesh too has been subjected to increased threats from these dangers. Jamaat-e-Islami and other religion-based fundamentalist groups are responsible for radicalizing youth both in Bangladesh and abroad. Different countries from the Middle East are also involved in financing these radical elements and organizations to destroy secularism."
The report also notes how the 2001-2006 Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government's coalition with the Jamaat have empowered jihadist terrorism:
"During the tenure of BNP-Jamaat-e-Islam led coalition government in 2001-2006 there was a mushroom growth of terrorism in Bangladesh. At least 125 Islamic militant outfits that we know are more or less active were linked with Jamaat.
"During that period, there was unprecedented persecution of religious minorities, mostly the Hindus. In order to convert Bangladesh into a monolithic Muslim country BNP-Jamaat-e-Islam alliance forced more than quarter million hapless Hindus to leave Bangladesh and take shelter in neighbouring India."
In 2017, the South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) issued a report entitled "Facing Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh: A global threat in need of a global response," which said that Jamaat-e-Islami is the "visible face of radical Islam in Bangladesh":
"The rise of JeI is connected – directly, through individual members, or indirectly, through its affiliates – with the rise of violence and terrorism in Bangladesh, including its cross-border components. The organization cultivates an anti-democratic notion of 'demos' and its rhetoric indicates that the only people that belong to the 'demos' of Bangladesh are those who fit their fanatic definition of a Muslim. JeI tries to replace parliamentary democracy with a theocratic Islamic state.
"Despite recent electoral and political setbacks, JeI is already so deeply entrenched into the institutional system of governance and public sphere that it can continue to function – even without being in power – and build-up its fanatic Islamist network.
"It risks turning Bangladesh into a major hub of terrorist activities. JeI's connection to Western based Jihadist organizations – namely in the UK – shows that it is not just a regional phenomenon, but also an important international player.
The report further notes how the former BNP- Jamaat-e-Islami coalition government empowered jihadists:
"Jihadist groups assumed a high profile during the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islam alliance government. The BNP Jamaat-e-Islam government downplayed the existence of Islamist violence in the country and organizations – in particular those under the direct control of Jamaat – silenced reports of such violence and undermined the work of law enforcement agencies. BNP-Jamaat-e-Islam government support for jihadist violence also took the form of material and financial support and there was a veritable surge of foreign Jihadist NGOs registered in Bangladesh. Financial support to these organizations is well-documented."
Regarding attacks on the religious minorities in Bangladesh, the SADF report says:
"Members of Jamaat and Islami Chatra Shibir are conducting 'large-scale orchestrated attacks on the homes, businesses, and places of worship of minorities, as well as engaging in the abductions and forced conversions of Hindu girls'. The violence also targets Christians and Buddhists. The Takfiri ideology of Jamaat founder Maududi explicitly permits and encourages the use of 'extreme violence' to stigmatise (and subsequently eliminate) people, states, and religious-cultural elements which are blacklisted as un-Islamic."
Human Rights Watch in its "World Report 2015: Bangladesh" stated:
"Supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami party threw petrol bombs to enforce strikes and economic blockades. Before and after the election [the 2014 elections], attackers also vandalized homes and shops owned by members of Bangladesh's Hindu and Christian communities."
The erosion of secularism, suppression of dissent, and its destructive impacts on women's rights, religious minorities and foreign policy make it imperative for the Bangladeshi government and the international community to monitor and contain the rising Islamist threat in the country.
Jamaat has a stained legacy of militancy and genocide in Bangladesh. They pose a security threat not only to Bangladesh, but also to the entire region. Once radical Islamists take over a region or gain substantial political power, violence, terrorism, instability, and systematic human rights abuses (particularly against women and minorities) become the norm. It is thus critical to neutralize such radical Islamist forces, as Israel is now doing to Hamas, for both ideological and security-related reasons.
The 1971 Bengali genocide is an urgent reminder of the depths to which political ideologies can lead, and why, if one wants to preserve freedom in the West, it is essential to confront them.
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, a research fellow for the Philos Project, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Israel’s (and the West’s) Islamic Ribat Problem
Raymond Ibrahim/November 15/2023
“A Palestinian man,” to quote from a recent report, “handed out sweets following the death of his sons and daughters and shouted: ‘There is no God but Allah’ and ‘Allahu Akbar!’”
While such behavior is, by now, somewhat banal, he did make an important, if cryptic (to the West), statement:
We, our sons and daughters are dead. And we [also] want to die now. We want to die now. No uprooting. Do you [Israel] want to attack Al-Shifaa [Hospital]? Attack! … We are carrying out Ribat [i.e., religious conflict over land claimed to be Islamic] from today and forever. This is our land.
The supplied definition in brackets for the Arabic word ribat is incorrect; ribats are not “religious conflicts over land claimed to be Islamic.” Rather, ribats are formed wherever the jihad is forcibly stopped. There, the jihadists create a base to continue waging war on the infidel frontier. Such strongholds were historically referred to as ribat, from an Arabic word (رباط) etymologically rooted to the idea of a “tight fastening” or “joining.”
According to Koran 3:200, “O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain fastened [رابطوا verb form of ribat] and fear Allah that you may be successful.” In short, ribats historically referred to chains of jihadist fortresses erected along and dedicated to raiding the borders of non-Muslims.
The word ribat lives on, though few recognize it. For example, Rabat, the capital of Morocco, is so named because it was originally a ribat, whence centuries of Barbary/pirate raids on the Christian Mediterranean were launched. Similarly, Almoravids—the name of an important eleventh century North African based jihadist group—is simply a transliteration of the Arabic al-murabitun, which means they who fight along the ribat. In 1086 these “Almoravids” invaded Spain and crushed the Castilians at the battle of Sagrajas. Afterward they erected a mountain consisting of 2,400 Christian heads to triumphant cries of “Allahu Akbar.”
Historically, the quintessential ribat existed along the Muslim/Christian border in Anatolia (modern day Turkey)—ironically, not very far from the current ribat against Israel referenced at the start of this article. With the coming and military successes of the Ottoman Turks, the Anatolian ribat continued edging westward, until it finally consumed Constantinople, the last bastion of the Eastern Roman Empire, and most of the Balkans, reaching Vienna twice (in 1529 and 1683).
Another important frontier formed along the Duero River in Spain, separating the Christian north from the Islamic south. For centuries, it too became “a territory where one fights for the faith and a permanent place of the ribat,” to quote historian, Joseph O’Callaghan . As in other borders where Muslims abutted against non-Muslims, a scorched no-man’s land policy prevailed in the ribat of Spain. Ibn Hudayl of Granada (d.812) once explained the logic:
It is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his beasts of burden—if it is not possible for the Muslims to take possession of them—as well as to cut down his trees, to raze his cities, in a word, to do everything that might ruin and discourage him, provided that the imam deems these measures appropriate, suited to hastening the Islamization of that enemy or to weakening him. Indeed, all this contributes to a military triumph over him or to forcing him to capitulate.
Needless to say, such “ribatist” thinking clearly defines Hamas’s approach to the state of Israel.
After explaining how the Muslims intentionally devastated the Duero region of Spain—they later named it “the Great Desert”—French historian Louis Bertrand wrote the following (although dealing with the Medieval Christians of Spain, note, again, how very applicable this description is to the ribat confronting Israel, particularly the italicized sections):
To keep the [northern] Christians in their place it did not suffice to surround them with a zone of famine and destruction. It was necessary also to go and sow terror and massacre among them…. If one bears in mind that this brigandage was almost continual, and that this fury of destruction and extermination was regarded as a work of piety—it was a holy war [jihad] against infidels—it is not surprising that whole regions of Spain should have been made irremediably sterile. This was one of the capital causes of the deforestation from which the Peninsula still suffers. With what savage satisfaction and in what pious accents do the Arab annalists tell us of those at least bi-annual raids [across the ribat]. A typical phrase for praising the devotion of a Caliph is this: “he penetrated into Christian territory, where he wrought devastation, devoted himself to pillage, and took prisoners”…. At the same time as they were devastated, whole regions were depopulated. . . . The prolonged presence of the Musulmans, therefore, was a calamity for this unhappy country of Spain. By their system of continual raids they kept her for centuries in a condition of brigandage and devastation.
This historic expostulation on the nature and role of the ribat is important for two reasons. First, it makes clear what Israel is dealing with: a committed jihadist force that defines itself as serving no other purpose than the total annihilation of Israel—that sees itself as serving no other purpose than to “kill and be killed” as the Koran (9:111) advocates.
Secondly, it is a reminder that the so-called Muslim enclaves and “no-go” zones that proliferate throughout the West function as embryonic ribats: ghettoes of radicalization and jihadist activities targeting their immediate infidel neighbors—that is, their European host societies.
One crucial difference between history’s ribats and their modern day counterparts must not be passed over in silence. Ribats traditionally formed wherever Muslims could not, by force, go any further, thereby becoming frontier zones whence the jihad resumed. Conversely, today’s quasi-ribats—aka “enclaves,” “no-go zones,” etc.—are not located on the borders of non-Muslim regions but rather right smack in the middle of European nations. Moreover, those entering in and turning these Western regions into Islamic enclaves did not do so by force of arms but rather because they were welcomed in with open arms.
Put differently, if Israel “inherited” a ribat problem, the West created its own.

Can the world order survive Israel’s war on Gaza?
Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/November 15, 2023
What will our region and indeed the world look like once Israel concludes its war in Gaza? The statistics coming out of the beleaguered, narrow strip of land that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians — 70 percent of whom are refugees from previous wars — are staggering. In the first 36 days of the Israeli onslaught, under the guise of self-defense, more than 11,000 people were killed, with thousands more missing under the rubble, and 24,000 were injured. Some 4,500 children have been killed, 40 percent of homes and towers have been destroyed or damaged and 30,000 tons of explosives have been dumped on what has become an unlivable wasteland. At least 50 journalists are dead — compared to the 63 who were killed in the entire 20 years of war in Vietnam. The list of unimaginable atrocities goes on and on. More than 1 million Gazans have been displaced. There is no water, food, medicine or fuel and no safe zone. This is truly a Palestinian holocaust.
Israel has rebuffed calls for a ceasefire and has failed to deliver humanitarian pauses to allow sufficient aid to reach Gaza. According to Israeli officials, international pressure on the country to stop the war will increase over the next two to three weeks. Tens of millions of people around the world have come out to call for an end to the war. Western officials refuse to listen.
In the eyes of many, this is no longer a war to destroy militant group Hamas, but a war of extermination. The appeals of UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and other nongovernmental organizations have been trashed. Israel is not only bent on revenge for the atrocities of Oct. 7, but it also wants to implement a game-changing strategy that aims at bringing down the very foundations of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The goal is to go back to the 1948 Nakba and start again from there.
In the eyes of many, this is no longer a war to destroy militant group Hamas, but a war of extermination
The far-right partners of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk publicly about the need to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, forcibly transfer its inhabitants and make way for new Jewish settlements. They also say that what is happening in Gaza is a prototype of what will happen in the West Bank. Israeli analysts say Netanyahu is too weak to rein in his radical coalition partners. The religious Zionism movement is blackmailing Netanyahu as he tries to salvage his political career and establish his legacy.
Arab leaders have been explicit about the war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated by the invading Israeli army. They have also bluntly pointed to the double standards the West uses when applying international law. The US has hindered attempts by the UN Security Council to adopt a ceasefire resolution; not that Israel, with its dismal track record at the UN, would honor it anyway.
So, in reality, no one knows how the Gaza war will end. But it will at some point. Then, the international community will get a true look at what the Israeli war machine has done. The dead will be in the tens of thousands and the number of maimed and injured will be appalling. The level of destruction will resemble the post-Second World War German and Japanese cities. The humanitarian catastrophe will become a global nightmare for many years to come.
Netanyahu and his partners are using the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as a blank check to carry out a war of annihilation. There is no proportionality, restraint or adherence to international humanitarian law and the rules of war. For Israel’s political establishment, all Gazans are complicit, including civilians. When Netanyahu resorts to uttering Talmudic verses that can only be interpreted as calls for genocide, one gets a sense of what his soldiers are doing. When US politicians say that this is a religious war, one can only feel a mixture of disgust and fear about what Israel and its fanatical supporters are willing to allow to happen to hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
And we have seen more than our stomachs can take. So, the question arises: What will the day after look like? The war on Gaza has tested the 30-plus-year-old “new world order” that George H.W. Bush announced following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then, the US emerged as the world’s sole superpower and it promised something different from the years of the Cold War.
But under its rule, the world has suffered. The US launched two wars against Arab Muslim countries — mostly under false pretenses. It killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and made the Middle East less secure and more polarized. Its policies unleashed sectarian and ethnic wars, emboldened extremists and left the region deeply scarred and divided. Its legacy in the region can only be described as toxic.
The region and the world cannot continue with business as usual following the war on Gaza and its egregious outcome
The miasma of despair has hounded the Palestinians for decades. The US allowed Netanyahu to pursue his destructive scheme of killing the last remaining hope: the two-state solution. The impunity given to Netanyahu has become a curse not only for the Palestinians but for Israelis as well.
The region and the world cannot continue with business as usual following the war on Gaza and its egregious outcome. The West says that, once the war is over, it will push for a two-state solution and a state for the Palestinians. This is a false and vacuous mea culpa and those who say this are either disingenuous or naive, or both. The Israeli political clique is vehemently and ideologically against such a proposal. The two-state option is long gone.
The rules-based order — the one preached by the West for so long — is in dire trouble. How can the West talk about human rights and international law when calls for impartial investigations into what Israel has done in Gaza are not being heeded? Will the US and its allies allow the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against Israelis and others who are suspected of committing war crimes or have supported and facilitated such crimes, whether politically or materially?
Will the Western world allow the testimonies of tens of thousands of Gazans to be heard in an international tribunal? Will a bereaved Palestinian child, who lost his or her entire family in Israeli raids, be allowed to testify in the US Congress?
The answer is probably, and in most cases emphatically, no. And thus the current multipolar world order will cease to exist.
A multipolar world is needed to salvage an impotent UN and the entire post-Second World War legal and humanitarian infrastructure. This means the Global South must have a say in how the world is run. It also means that Russia and China must become active participants in the new world order. But most importantly, it means that countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Iran, will have to contribute to the safety and stability of the region.
It is sad that both China and Russia have contented themselves with paying lip service to the Palestinian ordeal when they could have done much more. We are yet to see Russian and Chinese relief convoys being sent to help Gazans. Both countries are missing a rare opportunity to confront the Western pro-Israel narrative and the West’s bias in favor of Israel by supporting Arab and Muslim positions, as stated at Saturday’s summit in Riyadh, as well as appealing to millions in the West who are anti-war and anti-genocide.
The war on Gaza has become a rallying call against everything that is unjust; from globalism to the corrupt and Zionist-dominated Western political elite. Such popular momentum should not be ignored or sidelined. It should evolve into a mass call for a new world order, in which the law and culpability are implemented for all.
The alternative looks frightening: a world where no one adheres to the law because of the Israeli precedent and long-time impunity. Such a scenario must never be allowed to happen.
*Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator in Amman. X: @plato010