Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 15-16/2023
Elias Bejjani/Summary of the war situation in Gaza
The martyrs of October 13, 1990 and the betrayal of merchant and Iscariot leaders/Elias Bejjani/October 14/2023
Israel has 'no interest in war' on Lebanon front, its defense minister says
Hezbollah attacks Israeli posts in response to killing of journalist, civilians
Hamas confirms 3 fighters killed infiltrating Israel from Lebanon
Israel says one killed in fire from Lebanon as Hezbollah claims strikes
Hezbollah: The resistance attacked five Israeli positions along the borderline with machine guns
Israeli army: Our aircraft targeted Hezbollah's military infrastructure in south Lebanon
Hezbollah says cross-border 'skirmishes' only a 'warning'
Rocket hits UNIFIL headquarters in south Lebanon
Germany issues travel warning for Israel, Lebanon
Lebanon to file UN complaint over Israel's attack on journalists
The long history of the occupied territories of Chebaa Farms and Kfarchouba Hills
Tenenti: We urge everyone to cease fire and allow us as peacekeepers to find solutions
Jumblatt after meeting Berri: We hope that Lebanon stays out of this circle, but there is continuous aggression from Israel
PSP stands in solidarity with Joyce Akiki: Media professionals are a symbol of confrontation to expose the occupation crimes, attacking them is...
Gisele Khoury passes away on Sunday, leaving behind an unforgettable mark as a committed, sovereign, professional journalist
US State Department expresses condolences for the passing of journalist Giselle Khoury
“It is natural for some of us to work to support Palestine, yet it is incomprehensible to open our country to unsecured arenas,” underlines Bassil
Aoun, Bassil visit Deir al-Qalaa - Beit Mery to mark the October 13th commemoration
Shea visits Ibrahim to discuss developments
Hassan Nasrallah is one man capable of igniting a wider war in the Middle East
Hamas Official To Lebanese Daily: Iran Has Transferred Long-Range Missiles To Several Locations For Targeting Israel If Necessary
Hezbollah Miscalculations and the Gaza War/Hanin Ghaddar/The Washington Institute/October 15/2023
Gaza and the Beirut exit scenario/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/October 15/2023

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 15-16/2023
Pope Francis calls for humanitarian corridors to help those under siege in Gaza
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejects the killing of civilians, calls for the release of prisoners from both sides, and considers that Hamas’ actions do not represent the Palestinian people
The Israeli army confirms that Hamas is holding 155 hostages
One million Gazans displaced as Israel readies for ground attack
The death toll in the Gaza Strip from Israeli bombing rises to 2,670
The UN confirms that Gaza is witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe
Blinken is sure that aid will cross from Egypt to Gaza
Iran warns 'no one can guarantee' control of situation if Israel invades Gaza
US says fears prospect of Iran becoming 'directly engaged' in Israel-Hamas war
Israel's No.1 Hamas kill target is Yahya Sinwar, the 'Butcher from Khan Younis'
It's a trap, warns UK spy chief, as Israel prepares for months of brutal urban warfare against Hamas in bombed-out Gaza
Egypt's leader criticizes Israel's Gaza operation as the top US diplomat extends his Mideast mission
Blinken to extend Middle East tour, return to Israel on Monday
5th Canadian killed in Israel, government confirms
Egypt pushing to break impasse over Gaza aid, calls bombardment 'collective punishment'
Gaza hospitals are overwhelmed with patients and desperately low on supplies as invasion looms
Rishi Sunak urged to sanction Qatar, where Hamas leaders live in five-star luxury
Israel-Hamas war: The tiny gulf state of Qatar may end up playing an outsized role in negotiations
Egypt ‘considers deal to accept 100,000 displaced Palestinians in exchange for US debt relief’
Qatar Enables Hamas' War Against Israel

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 15-16/2023
Shattered Illusions on the Gaza Border/Jonathan Spyer/The Australian/October 11, 2023
Should We Help the Palestinians in Gaza?/Alain Destexhe/Gatestone Institute/October 15, 2023
What Comes After the Astonishing Hamas Attack and the Collapse in Israel? Who Controls the Initiative? And Who Is Afraid of Slipping?/Raghida Dergham/The National/October 15, 2023
Why the Iran Deal Matters/Lee Smith/The Tablet/October 15/2023
Middle East analysts dispute accusations that Netanyahu 'propped Hamas up'/Rebecca Rommen/Business Insider/October 15, 2023
America’s Betrayal of Israel ...A decade of perverse U.S. policy sets the stage for mass murder/Liel Leibovitz /The Tablet/October 15/2023
Israel, Hamas, and the ‘Laws of War/Robert Goldman/The Conversation/October 15, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 14-15/2023
Elias Bejjani/Summary of the war situation in Gaza
LCCC/October 15, 2023
The bloody and destructive war continues in the Gaza Strip, while Israel is determined to completely uproot the Hamas organization and kill or arrest its leaders. Therefore, its ground entry into the Strip has become imminent. Meanwhile, the deaths numbered in the hundreds, the wounded in the thousands, and the destruction devastating. On the other hand, it is becoming clear day after day that Iran and its terrorist proxies, in particular the Hezbollah, are carrying out Iran’s orders, which does not care about Palestine or the Palestinians, but rather its own interests. Here lies the disaster, as the decision on war and peace in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen is in its hands of Iran and not in the hands of the leaders of these countries.

The martyrs of October 13, 1990 and the betrayal of merchant and Iscariot leaders
Elias Bejjani/October 14/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/112651/elias-bejjani-in-remembrance-of-the-october-13-1990-massacre/
For our fallen heroes who gave themselves in sacrifice at the altar of Lebanon on October 13/1990, we pray and make the pledge of living with our heads high, so that Lebanon remains the homeland of dignity and pride, the message of truth, the cradle of civility and giving, and the crucible of culture and civilizations. There is no shed of doubt, as we learn from our deeply rooted history, that the Patriotic and faithful Lebanese who has God by his side, whose weapon is the truth, and whose faith is like the rock, shall never be vanquished.
On October 13, 1990, the Barbarian Syrian Army, jointly with evil local armed mercenaries savagely attacked and occupied the Lebanese presidential palace, savagely invaded the last remaining free regions of Lebanon, killed and mutilated hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and innocent citizens in cold blooded murder, kidnapped tens of soldiers, officers, clergymen, politicians and citizens, and erected a subservient and puppet regime fully controlled by its security intelligence headquarters in Damascus.
It is worth mentioning that in year 2005 the Syrian Army was forced to withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the UNSC Resolution 1559, but sadly since that date, the Iranian proxy, the terrorist Hezbollah armed militia has been occupying Lebanon, and by force controlling fully it governing decision making process.
The terrorist Hezbollah, by crime, wars, terrorism, impoverishment, dismantling all government and private institutions is hindering the Lebanese people from reclaiming their independence, freedom, sovereignty, and turning Lebanon into an Iranian battle field for Iranian evil schemes and wars.. The Terrorist Hezbollah Militia is the Syrian-Iranian spearhead of the axis of evil.
We must never forget that on October 13/1990 the Lebanese presidential Palace in Baabda and all the free regions were desecrated by the horde of Syrian Baathist gangs, Mafiosi, militias, and other corrupt mercenaries of Tamerlane invaders vintage.
The soldiers of our valiant army were tortured and butchered in the cities and villages of Bsous, Aley, Kahale, and other bastions of resistance. Lebanese most precious of possessions, their freedom, was raped in broad daylight, while the free world, and all the Arab countries at that time watched in silence.
Remembering the Massacre won’t pass without wiping the tears of sorrow and pain for those beloved ones, who left this world, and others who emigrated to its far-flung corners. Lifetime of hard work of many citizens was wiped out overnight, villages and towns were destroyed, factories closed, fields made lay fallow and dry and children lost their innocence.
Yet we, the patriotic and faithful Lebanese are a tough and hopeful people, and no matter the sacrifices and the pain, we are today even more determined with our strong faith to redeem our freedom, and bring to justice all those who accepted to be the dirty tools of the conspiracy that has been destroying, humiliating, and tormenting our country since 1976.
Meanwhile the lessons of October 13/1990, are many and they are all glorious. The free of our people, civilians and military, ordinary citizens and leaders, all stood tall and strong in turning back the aggression of the barbarians at the gate. They resisted valiantly and courageously, writing with their own blood long epics that will not be soon forgotten by their children and grandchildren, and other students of history. They refused to sign on an agreement of surrender and oppression, and spoke up against the shame of capitulation.
Today on the commemoration of the Syrian invasion to Lebanon’s free regions, we shall pray for the souls of all those Lebanese comrades who fell in the battles of confrontation, for all our citizens who are still arbitrarily detained in Syria’s notorious jails, for the safe and dignified return of our refugees from Israel, for the return of peace to the homeland, and for the repentance of Lebanon’s leaders and politicians who for personal gains have turned against their own people, negated their declared convictions, downtrodden their freedom and liberation slogans, sided with the Axis of evil (Syria, Iran) and forged an alliance with Hezbollah whose ultimate aim is to replicate the Iranian Mullahs’ regime in Lebanon.
But in spite of the Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon in year 2005, old and new Syrian-made Lebanese puppets continue to trade demagogy and spread incitement, profiting from people’s economic needs and the absence of the state’s law and order. Thanks to the Iranian petro dollars, their consciences are numbed, and their bank accounts and pockets inflated. Sadly, among those is General Michele Aoun who after his return from exile to Lebanon in 2005 has bizarrely transformed from a staunched patriotic Lebanese leader and advocate for freedom and peace, into a Syrian-Iranian allay, and a loud mouthpiece for their axis of evil schemes and conspiracies.
General Aoun like the rest of the pro-Syrian-Iranian Lebanese politicians and leaders care only for his position, family members, personal interests, and greed.
In the eyes of the patriotic Lebanese, Aoun and the rest of those conscienceless creatures are nothing but robots and dirty instruments bent on Lebanon’s destabilization, blocking the return of peace and order to the country, aborting the mission of the international forces, and the UN security council (UNSC) resolutions, in particular resolutions 1559 and 1701.
They are hired by the axis of evil nations and organizations to keep our homeland, the land of the Holy Cedars, an arena and a backyard for “The Wars of the Others”, a base for chaos and a breeding culture for hatred, terrorism, hostility and fundamentalism.
Our martyrs, the living and dead alike, must be rolling in anger in their graves and in the Syrian Baath dungeons, as they witness these leaders today, especially General Michele Aoun, upon whom they laid their hope, fall into the gutter of cheap politics.
General Aoun reversed all his theses and slogans and joined the same powers that invaded the free Lebanon region on October 13, 1990. He selectively had forgotten who he is, and who his people are, and negated everything he advocated and lobbied for.
In this year’s commemoration, we proudly hail and remember the passing and disappearance of hundreds of our people, civilian, military, and religious personnel who gladly sacrificed themselves on Lebanon’s altar in defense of freedom, dignity and identity … We raise our prayers for the rest of their souls, and for the safe return of all our prisoners held arbitrarily in the dungeons of the Syrian Baath.
We ask for consolation to all their families, hoping that their grand sacrifices were not in vain, now that prominent leaders and politicians of that era changed sides and joined the killers after the liberation of the country. Those Pharisees were in positions of responsibility to safeguard the nation and its dignity, and were entrusted to defend the identity, the homeland and the beliefs.
What truly saddens us is the continuing suffering of our refugees in Israel since 2000, despite all the recent developments. This is due to the stark servitude of those Lebanese Leaders and politicians on whom we held our hopes for a courageous resolution to this humane problem. Instead, they shed their responsibilities and voided the cause from its humane content, and furthermore, in order to satisfy their alliances with fundamentalists and radicals, they betrayed their own people and the cause of Lebanon by agreeing to label our heroic southern refugees as criminals.
Our refugees in Israel are the ultimate Lebanese patriots who did no wrong, but who simply suffered for 30 years trying to defend their land, their homes, their children and their dignity against Syria and the hordes of Islamic fundamentalists, outlaw Palestinian militias, and even renegade battalions of the Lebanese Army itself that seceded from the government to fight alongside the outlaw organizations and militias against Lebanon, the Lebanese State and the Lebanese people.
God Bless the Souls Of Our Martyrs
Long Live Lebanon

Israel has 'no interest in war' on Lebanon front, its defense minister says
Agence France Presse/October 15, 2023
Israel is not interested in having a war on its northern frontier with Lebanon, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said as tensions mount on the Lebanese-Israeli border."We have no interest in a war in the north, we don't want to escalate the situation," Gallant said in a video released by his office, as he visited troops in the country's south."If Hezbollah chooses the path of war, it will pay a very heavy price... But if it restrains itself, we'll respect the situation and keep things the way they are, despite them being in a process of shooting from both sides," he added.

Hezbollah attacks Israeli posts in response to killing of journalist, civilians
Associated Press/October 15, 2023
Hezbollah staged an attack on Sunday morning against Israeli military posts on Lebanon's border, drawing Israeli retaliatory fire. Hezbollah said it shelled Israeli military positions in the northern Israeli border settlement of Shtula. The group said in a statement the attack was in retaliation for Israeli shelling that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah on Friday and two Lebanese civilians on Saturday. Israel responded by targeting the outskirts of the town of Ait el-Shaab, the Israeli military said. Lebanese media reports said the shelling lightly wounded a Lebanese citizen. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said a 40-year-old man was killed in the attack from Lebanon, without elaborating or giving his nationality. As Israel wages its war against Hamas over last week’s unprecedented attack by the Gaza Strip militant group, there’s been concern that Hezbollah could enter the war as well as Israel moves toward launching a ground offensive in Gaza.

Hamas confirms 3 fighters killed infiltrating Israel from Lebanon
Associated Press/October 15, 2023
Hamas claimed responsibility Sunday for two infiltrations from Lebanon to Israel that killed three of its fighters, as war rages between the Gaza-based militants and Israel. The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, said its members were "able... to blow up the border fence and... go forth inside occupied Palestine," clashing with "the enemy," whose planes targeted the fighters, killing three on Saturday. Israeli forces on Saturday had said they killed several "terrorists" trying to cross from Lebanon. In their statement, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades also claimed responsibility for an incident on Friday at the border when the group "advanced to go forth into occupied Palestine and was able to clash with the Zionist enemy army and withdraw peacefully," on Friday. Two Lebanese security sources had said on Friday that Israel shelled the southern Lebanon border region, after a blast occurred on the border fence, according to the Israeli army. One of the security sources said the shelling followed an infiltration attempt from the Lebanese side of the border, while the Israeli army said it was responding to a blast that caused "light damage" to the border barrier.

Israel says one killed in fire from Lebanon as Hezbollah claims strikes
Agence France Presse/October 15, 2023
Hezbollah and Israel exchanged deadly cross-border fire Sunday, with the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based group claiming responsibility for strikes that Israel said killed a civilian.
The exchanges -- and a rocket that hit a U.N. peacekeeping base -- further raised tensions on Israel's northern border, as it targets Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip to the south. The Israeli army closed the border area to civilians as tit-for-tat fire with Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions in Lebanon intensified. More than 10 people have been killed in Lebanon and at least two in Israel since last Sunday. "The IDF (Israeli army) responded with fire and destroyed Hezbollah positions and the source of the fire," an Israeli army spokesman said. "In addition, there was fire at an Israeli military position. There were no casualties. The IDF responded with fire to the source of fire there too," he added. A military spokesperson told AFP that, "we have a dead civilian and a number of people wounded in the attack" by an anti-tank missile in Shtula. "In accordance with the situational assessment and the recent shooting incident in northern Israel, the area up to four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the northern border with Lebanon has been closed," the army said in another statement. Hezbollah on Sunday morning said it had targeted an Israeli position in the Shtula area with guided missiles. In a separate statement, the group said one of its fighters had died Sunday. A spokesperson told AFP the fighter died after sustaining injuries in south Lebanon prior to Sunday, and that Israel was responsible. Hezbollah said the strikes were retaliation for separate "Israeli aggressions" that killed two civilians and struck journalists, killing a Reuters videographer and wounding others -- including two from AFP. Lebanon's army blamed an Israeli rocket which hit a car belonging to the journalists. Israel's army said it was "looking into" who launched the strike. Two Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli shelling of a southern village on Saturday, its mayor told AFP. Hezbollah said one of its fighters was also killed by Israeli fire. Separately, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said its headquarters was struck by a rocket in the southern town of Naqoura. "Our headquarters in Naqoura was hit with a rocket and we are working to verify from where. Our peacekeepers were not in shelters at the time. Fortunately, no one was hurt," UNIFIL said in a statement. "We remind all the parties involved that attacks against civilians or U.N. personnel are violations of international law that may amount to war crimes," it added. Earlier Sunday Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility for two infiltrations from Lebanon to Israel in which three of its fighters were killed. On Monday, Hezbollah said Israeli strikes had killed three of its members, after Palestinian militants tried to infiltrate into Israel from Lebanon.

Hezbollah: The resistance attacked five Israeli positions along the borderline with machine guns
LBC/October 15, 2023
The Hezbollah resistance forces attacked five Israeli positions along the borderline using machine guns.

Israeli army: Our aircraft targeted Hezbollah's military infrastructure in south Lebanon
LBCI/October 15, 2023
The Israeli army announced that its aircraft carried out precision strikes, targeting Hezbollah's military infrastructure in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah says cross-border 'skirmishes' only a 'warning'
Associated Press/October 15, 2023
Cross-border clashes between armed factions in Lebanon and Israel intensified Sunday, with Hezbollah firing rockets and Israeli forces responding with shelling. The Israeli army also reported a shooting at one of its border posts. The fighting has killed at least one person on the Israeli side and wounded several on both sides of the border. Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza's Hamas rulers and an archenemy of Israel, said in a statement that it had fired rockets towards an Israeli military position in the northern border town Shtula in retaliation for Israeli shelling that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah on Friday and two Lebanese civilians on Saturday. However, a Hezbollah spokeswoman, Rana Sahili, said Sunday's increase in the intensity of the exchanges doesn't indicate Hezbollah has decided to fully enter into the Hamas-Israel war. The fighting on the border is “only skirmishes” and represents a “warning,” she said. Israeli army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that regardless who was shooting at Israel from across the northern border, “the country of Lebanon is responsible and will continue to be responsible for the fire that comes from its territory.”The Israeli military has said the incident that killed the Reuters videographer was “under review.”After Hezbollah fired at several locations along the border Friday, including with an anti-tank missile that hit the Israeli-built security fence, Israeli soldiers “suspected a terrorist infiltration into Israeli territory, and in response, used tank and artillery fire to prevent the infiltration,” a military statement said. “A number of hours later, a report was received that during the incident, journalists were injured in the area,” the statement said.

Rocket hits UNIFIL headquarters in south Lebanon
Associated Press/October 15, 2023
A rocket hit the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon in the coastal town of Naqoura as clashes between Hezbollah and its allies and the Israeli military escalated Sunday. The U.N. mission said no one was hurt even though the peacekeepers were not in shelters. It did not specify where the rocket came from but expressed disappointment saying that despite the mission's efforts to get the sides "to de-escalate the situation,” the violence continues. Some local Lebanese media said the rocket was fired from positions of Palestinian Hamas militants in southern Lebanon, intending to reach Israel but that it fell short. The Associated Press could not confirm the source of the rocket. The U.N. peacekeepers have been patrolling the Lebanon-Israel border as tensions flare. Hezbollah, a key ally of Hamas, has vowed to retaliate against Israel should they launch a ground offensive into the blockaded Gaza Strip.The U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 1978 and expanded its role after a monthlong in 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah that ended in a stalemate.

Germany issues travel warning for Israel, Lebanon
Agence France Presse/October 15, 2023
The German government on Sunday urged its nationals not to travel to Israel, the Palestinian territories or Lebanon because of "an escalation of violence" following the Hamas-Israel war. The travel warning is at the highest level given by the German government. "Due to the escalation of violence in the region in connection with the massive terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, we warn against traveling to the countries and areas mentioned," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "A travel warning is usually only issued if there is a risk to life and limb," the ministry added in a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter. Germany had already issued a travel warning for the Gaza Strip and certain areas of Lebanon. In its statement, the foreign ministry said it would continue to "do its utmost" to support citizens seeking to leave Israel or the Palestinian territories. In addition to commercial flight options and two German air force planes bringing back citizens from Israel on Sunday, the German government said its military stood ready to do more. "If necessary, further air force flights can be arranged. In the event of a deterioration of the situation, the Bundeswehr is also ready for a military evacuation operation."Commercial travel out of Lebanon was still possible, the statement added. German citizens in the affected areas are urgently advised to register with the electronic crisis list ELEFAND to be kept up to date on exit travel possibilities, the ministry said.

Lebanon to file UN complaint over Israel's attack on journalists
Associated Press/October 15, 2023
A Reuters videographer killed in Israeli shelling of southern Lebanon was laid to rest in his hometown Saturday in a funeral procession attended by hundreds of people. Draped in a Lebanese flag, Issam Abdallah’s body was carried on a stretcher through the streets of the southern town of Khiam, from his family’s home to the local cemetery. Dozens of journalists and Lebanese lawmakers attended the funeral. Abdallah was killed Friday evening near the village of Alma al-Shaab in south Lebanon when an Israeli shell landed on a gathering of international journalists covering exchange of fire along the border between Israeli troops and members of Hezbollah. The Lebanese Army said in a statement Saturday that Israeli troops fired a shell the day before hitting a civilian car used by journalists killing Abdallah and wounding others. The army said that other areas in south Lebanon at the time were targeted by an Israeli helicopter gunship and artillery, including the outskirts of the villages of Marwahin, Kfarshouba, Aita al-Shaab and Adaisseh. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry asked the Lebanese mission to the United Nations to file a complaint against Israel over Friday’s shelling, calling it a “flagrant violation and a crime against freedom of opinion and press.” The statement was carried by the state-run National News Agency. The Israeli army said in a statement Saturday that it responded with tank and artillery fire after a missile was fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah. The incident is under review, the army said. An Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, told The Associated Press in Jerusalem earlier Saturday, “We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist and we are looking into it.”Hecht did not confirm that the journalists had been hit by Israeli shells, but called the incident “tragic,” adding that “we’re very sorry for his death.”
Reuters said in a statement that two of its journalists, Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, were wounded in the same shelling, while Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV said its cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, were wounded as well.
France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, said two of its journalists were also wounded. They were identified as photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins. AFP reported Saturday that Assi was in need of blood transfusions at the American University Medical Center in Beirut where she was hospitalized. The Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing sporadic acts of violence since Saturday's surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on southern Israel. Journalists from various countries have been flocking to Lebanon to monitor the situation. The international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said Saturday that Abdallah, 37, was the seventh journalist to be killed covering the Israel-Hamas war in a week, including six killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza that has followed the deadly Oct. 7 offensive by Hamas. The organization said that Abdallah and the others with him were “clearly identifiable” as journalists “according to several sources.”Abdallah had worked for Reuters in Beirut for 16 years and had covered other conflicts, including the war in Ukraine. A week before his death, he had posted a tribute to Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist with the Al Jazeera satellite channel who was killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank, on his social media accounts.

The long history of the occupied territories of Chebaa Farms and Kfarchouba Hills
LBCI/October 15, 2023
In the southern region of Lebanon, within the area known as the Arkoub, lies Chebaa, a town in the Hasbaya-Marjaayoun district. With every renewal of clashes with the Israeli army, its residents pay the price for the attacks on civilians, primarily because numerous military sites surround this town. These sites are scattered across the Chebaa Farms and the Kfarschouba Hills, marred by territorial disputes. Among the military positions targeted by the Hezbollah group during the attack on Saturday, five sites were particularly significant: Zebdine, Ramtha, Al-Sammaqa, Al-Radar site, and Rwaisat al-Alam. This attack was in retaliation to Israel's shelling of various Hezbollah positions. What exactly are the Chebaa Farms and the Kfarchouba Hills? These regions are between the towns of Chebaa, Kfarchouba, the Halta Farm, the outskirts of Al-Mari, and Wadi Al Assal. They form the border between Lebanon and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Israel occupied these areas in 1967 when it seized the Syrian Golan Heights and declined to withdraw from it in 2000 when it withdrew from the south, arguing that they were Syrian lands. However, the residents of Chebaa have consistently affirmed that the demarcation had been completed with Syria since 1933: Mohammad Hamdan, Head of the Arkoub Inhabitants' Authority, said, "Chebaa Farms comprise 14 small villages; we call them farms. In 1978, Israel erected barbed wire around them, excluding Chebaa's residents, who had their livelihoods within. This area spans vast territories, nearly 200 square kilometers. Israel occupied these farms, but we assert that this land is Lebanese. The area lies between Lebanon and Syria and has been marked on maps as Lebanese since 1933." In summary, from 1933 to this day, numerous maps confirm the Lebanese ownership of Chebaa Farms. Nevertheless, a lack of official delineation with Syria, a matter postponed before Israel's withdrawal, still lingers.

Tenenti: We urge everyone to cease fire and allow us as peacekeepers to find solutions
NNA/Tyre/October 15, 2023
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said, "This day witnessed an intense exchange of fire in several areas along the Blue Line between Lebanese territory and Israel." He added: "There were shells falling on both sides of the Blue Line, and our headquarter in Naqoura was hit by a missile, and we are working to verify its source. UNIFIL peacekeepers were not in the shelters at the time, and fortunately, no one was hurt."“We continue to work actively with the authorities on both sides of the Blue Line to calm the situation... Unfortunately, despite our efforts, the military escalation continues,” Tenenti went on. “We urge all parties concerned to cease fire and allow us, as peacekeepers, to help find solutions, as no one wants to see more people injured or killed,” he asserted. Tenenti concluded: "We remind all concerned parties that attacks against civilians or United Nations personnel are violations of international law that may amount to war crimes."

Jumblatt after meeting Berri: We hope that Lebanon stays out of this circle, but there is continuous aggression from Israel
LBCI/October 15, 2023
In a meeting held at the second presidential palace in Ain el-Tineh, Lebanon, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri convened with former Progressive Socialist Party leader former MP Walid Jumblatt. The gathering also included Taymour Jumblatt, head of the Democratic Gathering Bloc, and former minister Ghazi Aridi. The discussions primarily revolved around the current general situation and the latest political and security updates within Lebanon and the region. The meeting took place against ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip. After the meeting, former MP Walid Jumblatt commented on the developments, stating, "I discussed ongoing developments with President Berri. We hope, of course, that Lebanon stays out of this circle. Our fundamental policy has been non-aggression. However, we notice continuous aggression from Israel."Jumblatt continued, "What is happening is terrible; some people forget the core issue, the fundamental project that theoretically has been accepted by almost all Arabs and the world – the two-state solution." He also mentioned that he would share a tweet from former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who, despite his sympathy toward Israel, brings up the fundamental issue of Gaza being under attack since 2006, up until the war in 2021. Jumblatt highlighted the importance of listening to de Villepin and his efforts to realign the discourse amid the worldwide intense media and political climate.

PSP stands in solidarity with Joyce Akiki: Media professionals are a symbol of confrontation to expose the occupation crimes, attacking them is...
NNA/October 15, 2023
The Progressive Socialist Party’s Information Commission issued a statement this afternoon, in which it indicated that "amidst the current circumstances that impose the highest levels of national solidarity, it is absolutely unacceptable to attack the media which has a duty to report facts and events accurately and honestly."The statement added, "Media professionals are a symbol of confrontation to expose the crimes of the Israeli occupation, so doubting and attacking them is unacceptable, whatever their orientations.”

Gisele Khoury passes away on Sunday, leaving behind an unforgettable mark as a committed, sovereign, professional journalist
NNA/October 15, 2023
At dawn today, journalist Giselle Khoury, wife of martyr journalist Samir Kassir, died at the American University Hospital in Beirut, after a battle with cancer. Throughout her professional career, Khoury presented a number of cultural and political talk shows on several prominent TV Network Channels and was selected by the New York Times in 2005 as one of the best media professionals in the world working in the field of news and visual political programs. Khoury married journalist Samir Kassir, who was assassinated in 2005 in Beirut. After his assassination, she established the Samir Kassir Foundation, from which emerged the “SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom” in 2008, an observatory for press freedom. On her passing, several political and media figures in Lebanon eulogized the late Khoury, praising her lifetime achievements in the field of journalism and the media, in which she left an unforgettable mark that reflected her strong sense of professionalism, ethics, sovereign and liberal character, dedication to truth and the causes she advocated, and her commitment to media as a humanitarian message.

US State Department expresses condolences for the passing of journalist Giselle Khoury
LBCI/October 15, 2023
The US State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs posted on X to express their condolences following the news of the passing of journalist Giselle Khoury.
“We are saddened to learn of the passing of prominent journalist Giselle Khoury. Our sincere condolences to her friends and family,” the post said.'

“It is natural for some of us to work to support Palestine, yet it is incomprehensible to open our country to unsecured arenas,” underlines Bassil
NNA/October 15, 2023
Metn - Free Patriotic Movement Chief, MP Gebran Bassil, confirmed in a speech he delivered today following a Mass service dedicated to the October 13th commemoration held in the Church of Saint Elias - Antelias, that “October 13, 1990 is a date deeply engraved in our memories and conscience, and has shaped our political personality to the point that we consider ourselves the sons of October 13, the sons of a school that perceived the end as a beginning, so that the end of military resistance became the beginning of political resistance...”“We are the sons of a school that transformed the failure of a people’s will in the face of an international deal, into a national consciousness that established the priority of national sovereignty and expressed it in 2005 in the face of guardianship, and in 2006 in the face of occupation,” Bassil went on, adding, “A school led by a general who believed that there is no homeland without sovereignty, and when liberation was accomplished, he moved to the battle for liberation, out of his conviction that there is no state without a citizen free from clientelism, dependency, and corruption.”Touching on the recent developments in occupied Palestine, Bassil said: “As we commemorate our martyrs on October 13, the Palestinian people are resisting in October the criminality that Israel has practiced against them since the year 1948, when it caused them a real catastrophe that made them battle ever since with everything they possessed, even stones, until weapons were available to them, turning the scales and reversing the catastrophe against those who caused it...."He added, "We are concerned, morally and existentially, with advocating for the truth on our borders. The Palestinian people have a right to their land, and to have their own state to which they can return, so that they do not remain displaced refugees, and their right is above all to have their human dignity respected."Bassil continued to stress that "there is no peace without Shebaa and the Golan, without the return of Palestinian refugees, without the return of displaced Syrians, without a free, independent Palestinian state with full rights, and without Jerusalem open to all people and all religions...”He emphasized that Lebanon cannot but be a supporter of Palestine, yet it also has the right to be its own advocate, confirming that “it is natural for some of us to work to support Palestine, but it is incomprehensible to open our country to unsecured arenas.”Referring to the Syrian displacement crisis prevailing in Lebanon, Bassil stressed that “the massive displacement that our country is witnessing exceeds all capacity to absorb it by geography, resources, or demographics, and no country in the world accepts it, as it exceeds every record number in proportion to its size and population density...This random, organized displacement violates all international conventions and laws, and it also contradicts all Lebanese laws.”Addressing the FPM youth, he continued: “I say to the youth of the Free Patriotic Movement that God has willed that you live the battle against corruption and confronting displacement, just as we lived the battle to restore freedom, sovereignty and independence...”Highlighting the connection between the economy and freedom, sovereignty and independence, Bassil questioned “how Lebanon’s economy can survive without reforms, regional developmental decentralization, expanded financial administration, and without a trust fund that preserves state property and facilities, secures resources and job opportunities, and achieves proper and effective services?”
“This is a struggle that we must bear, with or without a presidency, before or after it,” he asserted.

Aoun, Bassil visit Deir al-Qalaa - Beit Mery to mark the October 13th commemoration
NNA /October 15, 2023
Former President, General Michel Aoun, and Free Patriotic Movement Chief, MP Gebran Bassil, visited today the Al-Qalaa Monastery in Beit Mery, where they laid floral wreaths in memory of Fathers Sleiman Abi Khalil and Albert Cherfan, who fell as martyrs on October 13. They were received by the Monastery Head, Father Bchara Elia, and Fathers Charbel Abu Aboud and Boutros Azar, where they attended a Mass service at the Monastery's Church in tribute to the souls of the martyrs of October 13, after which Aoun and Bassil signed the Monastery’s register. Aoun and Bassil were accompanied during their visit by former Minister Pierre Raffoul, Mrs. Nadia Al-Shami, Mrs. Chantal Aoun Bassil, and Mrs. Mireille Aoun Hashem and Mrs. Claudine Aoun, in addition to the Vice President of the Movement for Administrative Affairs, Ghassan Khoury.

Shea visits Ibrahim to discuss developments
NNA /October 15, 2023
Major General Abbas Ibrahim received in his office in Beirut US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea. Talks during the meeting reportedly focused on the escalation of military developments on the Lebanese-Palestinian border, as well as the military actions between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Hassan Nasrallah is one man capable of igniting a wider war in the Middle East
Abbie Cheeseman/The Telegraph/October 15, 2023
One man stands at the precipice of whether the conflict between Israel and Hamas could ignite a wider war this week: long-time Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In the 31 years since he became leader of the group after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Abbas Musawi, Hizbollah has grown from an Iranian proxy force into a major regional power. Designated a terrorist organisation by Britain, the US and EU, Hizbollah is now the most potent military and political force in Lebanon. Ever since its birth, Hizbollah has had Israel as its main enemy. If it enters the war, it will turn the situation – and the region – on its head.
Hailed as a national hero for his role in ending the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Nasrallah was once likened in the country to revolutionary leaders like Che Guevara. Born in a Beirut suburb in 1960, Nasrallah was 15 when civil war broke out in Lebanon, forcing the family, including his nine siblings, to flee the capital for their ancestral home in Bazouriye, a southern village. By 1982, with the civil war underway, he organised for five years an armed resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, before travelling to Iran for further study. He would only return once his mentor Abbas al-Musawi had come to power in Hizbollah, replacing him as leader when he was killed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in 1992. Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hizbollah built up support among the long under-represented Shia Muslims in Lebanon, offering welfare services like interest-free loans and food deliveries during Ramadan. Meanwhile, its attacks on the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon forced the Israeli army out of the country in 2000, following 15 years of occupation. When the Israelis withdrew, Nasrallah’s popularity in the Arab world shot through the roof. In 2006, Hizbollah would clash again with Israel after sending gunmen across the border in a lethal raid. That war ended with more than 1,000 Lebanese and 165 Israelis dead, and a UN-brokered agreement for Israel to lift its naval blockade of Lebanon. Such was Nasrallah’s renown at the height of the conflict that a little-known Palestinian five-piece, then plying their trade on the wedding circuit, were inspired to write a song about him.‘The Hawk of Lebanon’, by Northern Band, was an immediate hit with Palestinians, prompting an Israeli police crackdown that saw tapes and CDs of the track during checkpoint searches.
Containing escalation
Since 2006, both Israel and Hizbollah have tried to contain any escalation with a set of unspoken rules of engagement, where messages of discontent are exchanged through tit-for-tat firing over the disputed territory of the Shebaa farms. Analysts and western diplomats fear, however, that an invasion of Gaza by Israeli troops could force Nasrallah’s hand. Not seen in the public since 2014, the 63 year-old has been unusually absent from Lebanese TV screens and has not spoken since the conflict broke out last week. He has at his disposal an army of war-hardened troops that is estimated to be in the tens of thousands. They have propped up the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad for years, fought in Iraq, and are believed to have been involved in the training of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. But for much of Lebanon, grappling with one of the worst economic crises in modern history – as well as an unprecedented double political vacuum (there is no president or a fully empowered cabinet) – being dragged into a regional war would mean devastation. Hizbollah is unlikely to want to risk the gains that it has made domestically over the years lightly – and will not want to risk losing further support as the Lebanese hit out at the political elite for the protracted crisis.

Hamas Official To Lebanese Daily: Iran Has Transferred Long-Range Missiles To Several Locations For Targeting Israel If Necessary
MEMRI/October 15, 2023
Against the backdrop of the possibility that the Hamas-Israel war will spread to additional fronts, on October 13, 2023 a Hamas official told the Lebanese Al-Jumhuriya daily that at the same time as the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, Iran had transferred long-range missiles to "several locations" for the purpose of targeting Israel if necessary. He did not give details about where the missiles were now located.
The official assessed that an Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip would lead to an escalation in the war and to additional resistance axis elements, including Hizbullah, joining it. He said that Hizbullah was on alert and that its elite Radwan Unit is ready to invade Israeli towns in northern Israel as soon as Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah gives the order.[1]
Earlier, on October 2, the Kuwaiti journal Al-Jaridah reported that advanced Iranian weapons had been delivered to Hizbullah, and that during the visit to Syria and Lebanon by IRGC Qods Force commander General Esmail Qaani in September, Russia and Iran had agreed that Hizbullah should transfer a large amount of its older weaponry to Arab tribes in eastern Syria that are fighting against the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as well as to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine. In exchange, Russia would assist in the transfer of advanced Iranian weapons to Hizbullah via Syrian territory.[2]
In addition, over the past several days Syrian opposition websites have reported that Hizbullah and other Iran-backed militias in southern Syria near the Israeli border have been reinforcing their positions with fighters equipped with Iranian weapons, including missiles.[3]
[1] Al-Jumhuriyah (Lebanon), October 13, 2023.
[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10821, Kuwaiti Daily: Hizbullah Will Transfer Its Outdated Weapons To The Arab Tribes In Eastern Syria And To Russia, And Russia Will Facilitate The Transfer Of Advanced Iranian Weapons To Hizbullah Via Syria, October 3, 2023.
[3] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10859: Reports On Reinforcement Of Hizbullah Forces And Iranian Militias In Southern Syria In Advance Of Possible Expansion Of The Israel-Hamas Fighting, October 12, 2023.

Hezbollah Miscalculations and the Gaza War
Hanin Ghaddar/The Washington Institute/October 15/2023
The group might be content with its existing political gains from the conflict, but Washington should still try to shift its calculus given the grave risks of a wider war.
Since the Gaza war broke out, Hezbollah has been walking a fine line between limited responses and full involvement. The group seems to be pushing the limits a little further every day, signaling its readiness for war without breaking the tacit rules that it set with Israel after the 2006 Lebanon war. Yet this risky balancing act could collapse at any point, whether by miscalculation or a deliberate decision to shift strategies.
Thus far, Hezbollah has engaged in several clashes along the border with Israel either directly or via cells from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a Hamas force that has been permitted to operate in south Lebanon for some time now. The scope of these clashes has been carefully calibrated to stay within certain limits while still holding the threat of multifront escalation over Israel’s head. Indeed, Hezbollah has not yet joined the war from a logistical standpoint: its units have refrained from launching missiles at Israeli infrastructure and civilians, its special forces have not infiltrated Israel, and its target set is still limited to military elements in the north. At the same time, however, the group has made sure to maintain an elevated threat level by conducting some type of significant operation every day since the Hamas attack.
The goal of Hezbollah’s current strategy seems clear: reap the benefits of the Hamas-Israel war without losing the military presence it has steadily built up in Lebanon since 2006. Although the group believes that opening another front could temporarily overwhelm Israel per the “united front” strategy designed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), it also seems to realize that this approach would fail to defeat Israel in the long term—more likely, it would wind up destroying Hezbollah’s arsenal and weakening its forces. A full-scale war that ends without clear victory would also leave the organization with insufficient funding to restock its military or push a “victory” narrative to its core constituency in Lebanon; the leadership might not even be able to rebuild their strongholds in Beirut and the south.
In short, the costs of wider escalation could trump any gains. Inside Lebanon, every party and sect would blame Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into another war, with serious repercussions on the group’s domestic political strategy, on-hand cash flow, and future economic prospects. Even its close allies have stated their opposition to entering the war.
Similarly, Hezbollah’s patron in Iran has already gained much of what it seemingly sought from the Hamas attack and may stand pat—at least for now. The U.S.-backed Israeli-Saudi normalization process is frozen, weaknesses have been exposed in Israel’s intelligence and military strength, and one of Tehran’s proxies has made good on the regime’s longstanding threat: to cause serious harm inside Israel in retaliation for suspected Israeli operations inside Iran. The attack has also reenergized the regime’s resistance narrative throughout the region.
In Tehran’s view, more Palestinian casualties is a small price to pay for achieving these gains and increasing the leverage of its main military proxy, Hezbollah. The dilemma, of course, is that playing this card—i.e., opening a full-scale Hezbollah front—would leave Iran with no more high cards on the table. Yet Tehran does not share Hezbollah’s domestic Lebanese concerns and thus will not be limited by that factor. And if Hezbollah is ordered to join the war, it will not argue with Iran.
Currently, Hezbollah media are sending two main messages: that the United States has been tricked into entering the conflict, and that American warnings will not derail Hezbollah. Yet the group has not called up its reserves or evacuated the southern suburbs of Beirut, despite asking residents in frontier towns to leave—a sign that it wants to keep any hostilities limited to the border for now. Moreover, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been completely absent from the scene since the Hamas attack, which usually means the group has not yet decided how deeply to intervene in a given crisis. In 2006, Nasrallah was the first to announce the war and continuously commented on its progress.
As Hezbollah and Iran deliberate their next steps, showing strength and determination is vital. The only way to restrain them from escalating is to shift their thinking from confidence to fear, which requires demonstrating the seriousness of U.S. and Israeli military threats. Hezbollah needs to understand that it has already miscalculated the situation, and that its military assets can no longer be used to strengthen Iranian interests in the region.
In addition to heightening its border activity, Hezbollah has warned that it will join Hamas if Israel conducts a major Gaza incursion. Should that pledge prove sincere, the opening of a second front may be a question of when, not if. Even if an Israeli incursion does not trigger a Hezbollah war, other factors could lead to the same outcome, including the group’s current risky tactics, a fatal miscalculation or targeting error, or a shift in Iran’s strategy. The conflict might also explode to the regional level in other, unforeseen ways, potentially leading Hezbollah to believe it has no choice but to intervene.
In light of these risks, diplomatic messaging is insufficient—the group will not give credence to U.S. and Israeli warnings unless they are accompanied by visible military steps. The U.S. Navy has already deployed two aircraft carrier groups to the vicinity, but allies should consider displaying an even stronger presence near the borders and coasts of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, in addition to conducting military overflights near the Golan Heights and other potential ignition points.Likewise, Iran and the IRGC need to be made aware of the risks to their own political and military infrastructure if Hezbollah intervenes. The decision is in Tehran’s hands—before the regime makes up its mind, Washington should make clear what will happen if it continues using Arab proxies to target Israelis and Americans.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and author of its recent study “Cash Cabal: How Hezbollah Profits from Lebanon's Financial Crisis.”
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hezbollah-miscalculations-and-gaza-war

Gaza and the Beirut exit scenario
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/October 15/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/123198/123198/
Hamas is not an exceptional organization in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If boasting about operations were the case, other Palestinian organizations have preceded it with operations that were no less significant. The difference was that the means of photography in those times were limited and the media outlets were closed.
The “Fatah Revolutionary Council” group, known by the name of its leader “Abu Nidal,” killed about 2,000 people in 20 countries, hijacked aircraft and ships, and assassinated politicians. “The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine," another leftist group, whose leader was George Habash, carried out massive operations, including kidnapping oil ministers at an OPEC meeting in Vienna and taking them on a plane that ended up in Algeria. In another operation, it blew up three airliners at once at Amman airport.
“Abu Nidal” and the PFLP disappeared in Syria and Iraq, while the Fatah movement has persisted, and has established itself on Palestinian land. Its movement and armed activity are part of a national political project.
Hamas may not survive the major attacks of Oct. 7. I imagine that the movement’s leadership was aware of this when it adopted the attack project, and that is because the conflict is usually governed by the balance of losses. In the past, Hamas did not lack volunteers trained for combat; yet the individuals involved in the operation could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Balance was part of the calculations of the conflict that both parties had to bear and live with. Similarly, Israel, despite numerous minor skirmishes, rarely attacks Hezbollah, perhaps only once every decade, when Israel sees that its human and military capabilities have grown to what it considers a threat.
Armed militias do not settle the stages of conflict, and no matter how much their echoes reverberate in the world, they are quickly forgotten. The Palestinian Authority, when it was the “Palestine Liberation Organization,” led by “Fatah,” lived in exile and managed Palestinian affairs politically, militarily and socially. After being exiled from Beirut, it returned through the Madrid Conference, then was transformed into a legitimate authority through the Oslo Accords, and on its promised land, the West Bank. Today, it may be the hope for the Palestinian who wants both to improve his or her difficult daily living situation, and to establish an independent Palestinian state.
The Israelis still refuse, claiming that the PA is incapable of assuming its responsibilities, and that its leadership — i.e. Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues — has grown old, and is not as competent as the organization’s previous leadership.
On the other hand, we can say that Israel is now devoid of historical leaders such as Yitzhak Rabin. Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister, is viewed by many Israelis as being corrupt and opportunistic, and that he has not been a partner in peace in any of the previous efforts. Indeed, in order to save himself from prison, he is engaged in a struggle with his rivals and colleagues in the party.
Hamas will not liberate Palestine with its gliders, and Netanyahu will not extinguish the Palestinians’ determination to establish their state.
The region is currently facing an extremely dangerous crisis that could grow and expand. In addition to Gaza, the destruction may extend to the West Bank; a war might break out in Lebanon, and the fires might spread further geographically, and for a longer indefinite period.
I see a resemblance between this war and the Beirut war of 1982, when Ariel Sharon invaded after an attempt to assassinate the Israeli ambassador in London. The irony is that the perpetrator was from the “Abu Nidal” group, and Damascus was accused of involvement. However, it was the PLO that paid the price; the Israelis forced it to leave for Tunisia, Sudan and Yemen. In practice, “Fatah” as an armed struggle movement came to an end.
Israel’s operations and statements indicate that it intends to get rid of the Hamas organization and most of its militants, including expelling them from the Gaza Strip through Egypt.
In the north, Hezbollah is unlikely to get involved in the war because that would mean the Israeli army would return to southern Lebanon. It is aware that destroying its capabilities would weaken it in Syria, which has become more important to it militarily and politically, and that it might lose its complete dominance over Lebanon itself.
We return to the question: Why did Hamas carry out this massive attack, or as some call it, the “Israeli 9/11”? Is it a mass suicide or a way to resolve the power balance dilemma? After its attacks, Al-Qaeda members shifted from an organization ruling the state of Afghanistan to living in caves, and ended up with Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan, and his children in Iran. But Al-Qaeda differs from Hamas in that its project was the Caliphate, a historical fantasy that has no place in the modern era, while the Palestinian project is real and holds great hope.
Nevertheless, we now face an opportunity, and as Winston Churchill said at the UN following the devastation of the Second World War: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Hamas has chosen this path, and Israel has decided to change the reality in Gaza by force and put an end to Hamas. Neither party will settle the conflict the way it wants. Hamas will not liberate Palestine with its gliders, and Netanyahu will not extinguish the Palestinians’ determination to establish their state.
• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a Saudi journalist and intellectual. He is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 15-16/2023
Pope Francis calls for humanitarian corridors to help those under siege in Gaza
Reuters/October 15/2023
Pope Francis on Sunday called for humanitarian corridors to help those under siege in Gaza and again appealed for the release of hostages held by the militant Islamist group Hamas. "I forcefully ask that children, the sick, the elderly and women, and all civilians do not become the victims of the conflict," he said at his weekly address to thousands of people in St. Peter's square. "May humanitarian rights be respected, above all in Gaza, where it is urgent and necessary to guarantee humanitarian corridors to help the entire population," he said. Francis spoke as Israel was readying its troops for a ground assault in retaliation for unprecedented attacks it suffered when fighters rampaged through its towns shooting men, women and children and seizing hostages. "So many have already died. Please, no more spilling of innocent blood either in the Holy Land or in Ukraine or anywhere else. Enough! Wars are always a defeat, always" he said.
Some 1,300 people were killed in the unexpected onslaught, while Gaza authorities said more than 2,300 people had died, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded as Israel responds with intense bombardment to the aggression. Francis called for prayers to counter "the diabolical force of hate, terrorism and war" and urged believers around the world to join Catholics in the Holy Land in a day of fasting and prayer for peace on Tuesday. On Friday the Vatican offered to mediate in the conflict. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's Secretary of State, said the attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens was "inhuman". Referring to the Israeli response and the widely expected ground assault, Parolin said "it is the right of those who are attacked to defend themselves, but even legitimate defence must respect the parameter of proportionality."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejects the killing of civilians, calls for the release of prisoners from both sides, and considers that Hamas’ actions do not represent the Palestinian people
Ramallah - Al-Quds Al-Arabi / October 15, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/123223/123223/
The Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas affirmed his rejection of the killing of civilians on both sides and called for the release of civilians, prisoners and detainees on both sides. He said that “the policies and actions of Hamas do not represent the Palestinian people.” He also described in a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the organization The Palestine Liberation Organization is “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” Abbas discussed, with the President of the Republic of Venezuela, the latest developments in the difficult situation in Palestine. During the call, Abbas stressed the necessity of “stopping the Israeli aggression against our people immediately, protecting them, allowing urgent humanitarian corridors to be opened to the Gaza Strip, providing medical supplies, and delivering water, electricity, and fuel to the citizens there.” He renewed “the complete rejection of the displacement of our people from the Gaza Strip, because that would be tantamount to a second catastrophe for our people.” He affirmed his rejection of the killing of civilians on both sides and the call for the release of civilians, prisoners and detainees on both sides. He reaffirmed the rejection of violence, commitment to international legitimacy and signed agreements, peaceful popular resistance and political action as a path to achieving our national goals. He stressed the necessity of seeking a political solution that ends the occupation. He also stressed that the policies and actions of “Hamas” “It does not represent the Palestinian people, and the policies, programs and decisions of the Palestine Liberation Organization are what represent the Palestinian people as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

The Israeli army confirms that Hamas is holding 155 hostages
AFP/October 15, 2023
On Sunday, the Israeli army confirmed that Hamas has been holding 155 hostages since its surprise attack on Israel. The army has been in contact with their families to inform them of the situation, updating the previous tally from earlier that morning, which reported 126 hostages held by the movement that controls the Gaza Strip.Israeli military spokesman Daniel Haggai stated during a conference, "We are making immense efforts to liberate the hostages," emphasizing that they have been in contact with the families of "155 hostages."

One million Gazans displaced as Israel readies for ground attack
Agence France Presse/October 15, 2023
More than one million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip in the last week, the U.N. said Sunday, after sustained Israeli bombardment and warnings about a ground attack targeting Hamas commanders. Israel declared war on the Palestinian group last Sunday, a day after waves of fighters broke through the heavily fortified border and reportedly killed hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians. Seven days of relentless Israeli bombing targeting Gaza have flattened neighborhoods and left at least 2,670 people dead in the Gaza Strip, the majority ordinary Palestinians. As Israel seeks to avenge the worst attack in its history, the Arab League and African Union warned the invasion could lead to "a genocide of unprecedented proportions."It also faced a grave warning about the wider security implications of putting boots on the ground in the densely populated enclave. "No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts" if Israel sends its soldiers into Gaza, said Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. "Those who are interested in preventing the scope of war and crisis from expanding need to prevent the current barbaric attacks... against citizens and civilians in Gaza," he added. Iran is Israel's number one enemy and as well as funding Hamas also backs Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north, where cross-border fire has intensified in the last week, prompting Israel to shut the area to civilians. The U.N. peacekeeping mission UNIFIL on Sunday said its base was hit by a rocket but no one was hurt. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel had "no interest in a war in the north, we don't want to escalate the situation.""If Hezbollah chooses the path of war, it will pay a heavy price... but if it restrains itself, we'll respect the situation," he said.
Escalation risk
The United States, which has given unequivocal backing to Israel, is concerned about violence spreading, and has sent two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean as a deterrent. In Washington, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said they feared the prospect of Iran becoming "directly engaged," after it praised the Hamas attack but insisted it was not involved. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has in recent days toured Middle Eastern capitals in a frantic round of diplomacy to try to avert a wider crisis in the volatile region. On Sunday, he pointed to "determination in every country I went to make sure that this doesn't spread," as he left Egypt. Blinken has appealed to China to use its influence in the region to ease tensions. But on Sunday Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Israel's response had "gone beyond the scope of self-defense." He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his emergency government to "cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza."
Evacuations
Israel has massed thousands of troops and heavy weaponry in the desert south of the country, waiting for the green light to go in to northern Gaza. The army has told 1.1 million Palestinians in the north of the Gaza Strip -- nearly half of its 2.4-million population -- to head south to safety. But there were still Israeli air strikes in the south, including in Rafah, where one resident said a doctor's house was targeted. "All the family was wiped out," said Khamis Abu Hilal. On the other side of the border, Israelis were moving to safer areas, boarding buses as ground-shaking booms were heard from nearby Gaza, and sirens wailed warning of incoming rocket fire. Military spokesmen Lieutenant Richard Hecht and Daniel Hagari said any ground offensive would be triggered by a "political decision."Netanyahu visited frontline troops on Saturday, telling them "more is coming" but without specifying when any ground operation would start. Hecht singled out Yahya Sinwar, the chief of Hamas in Gaza blamed for the October 7 attacks, calling him "a dead man walking." Aid agencies, including the U.N. and ICRC, as well as foreign governments have repeatedly criticized Israel's request for Gazans to leave their homes.
The U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees said on Sunday that some one million Palestinians had already been displaced in the first week of the conflict. "The number is likely to be higher as people continue to leave their homes," UNRWA director of communications Juliette Touma told AFP. UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini later described the situation as "unprecedented human catastrophe." Palestinians carrying whatever belongings they can, in bags and suitcases, or packed onto three-wheeled motorbikes, battered cars, vans and even donkey carts have become a common sight in recent days. They have had to find shelter wherever they can in the increasingly crowded south of the Gaza Strip, including in the streets and U.N.-run schools. Israel had cut off water, fuel and food supplies to Gaza for the duration of the conflict. Local hospitals are becoming overwhelmed with increasing numbers of dead and injured. Health officials on Sunday said some 9,600 people had been injured. Israeli energy minister Israel Katz on Sunday said water supplies to southern Gaza had been switched back on. "This will push the civilian population to the southern Strip," he said. But power outages threatens to cripple life-support systems, from sea water desalination plants to food refrigeration and hospital incubators. In Rome, Pope Francis called for humanitarian corridors in Gaza and urged that "children, the sick, the elderly, women and all civilians should not fall victim to the conflict."
"There have already been so many deaths, please let's not shed any more innocent blood," he said, castigating "the diabolical force of hatred, terrorism and war."Gazans are effectively trapped, with Israeli-controlled crossings closed and Egypt also having shut the Rafah border in the south. Convoys of humanitarian aid are stacked up on the Egyptian side, witnesses told AFP.
Hostages
The mood in Israel has swung between collective grief, fury and a strong desire to punish Hamas, which Netanyahu has likened to the Islamic State group. There are also deep fears about the safety of 155 hostages taken to the Gaza Strip. "We must bring them back home alive," said a tearful Yrat Zailer, the aunt of children aged nine months and four years who were abducted with their mother. Israel pushed on with its evacuation of southern towns close to Gaza that were targeted in the Hamas attacks. Packed buses were taking families to hotels in Jerusalem and the Red Sea resort city Eilat. Planeloads of Israelis have returned from around the world to join the latest of the many wars in Israel's 75-year history.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip from Israeli bombing rises to 2,670
AFP/October 15, 2023
The Palestinian Health Ministry, affiliated with the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, updated its official figures on Sunday, revealing a surge in the death toll as a result of Israeli airstrikes to 2,670 individuals since the beginning of the offensive on October 7.
The Health Ministry issued a concise statement declaring, "The death toll has reached 2,670 citizens, with an additional 9,600 sustaining various injuries due to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip."

The UN confirms that Gaza is witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe
AFP/October 15, 2023
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced on Sunday that Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have revealed an "unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe." UNRWA's Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, told reporters, "Not a single drop of water, not one grain of wheat, or a liter of fuel has been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip over the past eight days."He emphasized the unveiling of an "unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe" in the coastal enclave. Lazzarini also called for a conference to "sound the alarm because, as of today, my UNRWA colleagues in Gaza are no longer able to provide humanitarian aid." He stated, "In reality, Gaza is being strangled," highlighting the absence of humanitarian consideration in the conflict. "If we look at the issue of water, we all know that water is life, and water is running out in Gaza, and life is running out of Gaza."Israel's Minister of Energy, Israel Katz, announced the resumption of water supply to southern Gaza after a week of suspension to encourage residents to evacuate the northern areas, where the Israeli airstrikes are intensifying. Minister Katz stated, "The decision to resume supplying water to southern Gaza has been approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden." According to Katz, "This move will push civilian populations to the south of the Strip." Earlier on Sunday, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that Israeli officials had informed him of the resumption of water supply to southern Gaza. Sullivan told the American news network CNN, "I have been in contact with my Israeli counterparts, who told me that they have resumed water supply to southern Gaza."

Blinken is sure that aid will cross from Egypt to Gaza
AFP/October 15, 2023
In a visit to Cairo on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed confidence that humanitarian assistance would reach the Gaza Strip. Egypt, on the other hand, strongly emphasized its opposition to the "displacement" of Palestinians from Gaza. Blinken also announced the appointment of veteran American diplomat and Middle East expert David Satterfield as an envoy for delivering aid to Gaza. He added, "Satterfield will be on the ground in Israel starting tomorrow to coordinate the transfer of aid."Regarding the Rafah Crossing, the sole passageway not controlled by Israel connecting Gaza to the outside world, Blinken said, "We are working with the United Nations, Egypt, and Israel to establish a mechanism for delivering aid to those in need." As the first aid convoys await the opening of the crossing, which was struck by Israeli forces three times last week, in Sinai, Egypt. The United States had announced an agreement to evacuate its citizens from Gaza on Saturday through the Rafah Crossing, but Egypt has kept the crossing closed, stating that it cannot be used "exclusively" for the transit of foreigners. Egyptian media, close to the authorities, cited unnamed sources, affirming that no one would cross the border until aid was allowed into Gaza. The Minister also emphasized that the Arab allies of the United States are "determined not to expand the conflict with Israel" following his tour of six Arab nations.

Iran warns 'no one can guarantee' control of situation if Israel invades Gaza
Agence France Presse/October 15, 2023
Iran on Sunday warned that any Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip could expand the scope of the conflict elsewhere in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held talks with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, as Israeli troops massed on the border with Gaza. "No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts," he said, according to an Iranian foreign ministry statement. "Those who are interested in preventing the scope of war and crisis from expanding, need to prevent the current barbaric attacks... against citizens and civilians in Gaza," he added. Amir-Abdollahian also criticized the United States, which has given its unequivocal backing to Israel since the October 7 attacks by Hamas fighters that left 1,400 people reportedly dead in Israel. Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have since killed more than 2,300 people. In Washington, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the United States feared an escalation of war, and the prospect of Iran -- Israel's long-time foe and supporter of Hamas -- becoming "directly engaged." Iran's top diplomat was in Qatar on Sunday as part of a regional tour that also included stops in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Israel has stationed troops and tanks on its U.N.-patrolled northern border with Lebanon and closed a four kilometer (2.5 mile) wide zone to civilians after deadly exchanges of cross-border fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah. Western countries that support Israel have warned against a regional spillover of the conflict. The United States has deployed a second aircraft carrier to the region in an effort to "deter hostile actions against Israel," Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said. Hamas took more than 120 hostages in last weekend's attack. Sunday's Iranian foreign ministry statement said Amir-Abdollahian had met high-ranking Hamas officials in Beirut and Doha who described "the issue of civilian prisoners as a priority" and would "take the necessary measures."But there was no further detail on what those would be. Amir-Abdollahian also met in Beirut with Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. "All of the Security Council meetings have been to discuss diplomatic efforts to release hostages, secure humanitarian access and prevent a spillover of the conflict to the wider region. This includes the Special Coordinator, Tor Wennesland's recent meetings in Lebanon," Dujarric said.

US says fears prospect of Iran becoming 'directly engaged' in Israel-Hamas war
Agence France Presse/October 15, 2023
The United States said Sunday it fears an escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas and the prospect of Iran getting directly involved. Speaking on CBS, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan cited the possibility of a new battle front on the Israel-Lebanon border and added, "We can't rule out that Iran would choose to get directly engaged some way. We have to prepare for every possible contingency." Iran is a long-time backer of the militant group Hamas and of Hezbollah in Lebanon, providing them funding and weapons. "That is a risk and that's a risk that we have been mindful of since the start," Sullivan said of the prospect of Iran getting involved in the war, which was triggered by the Hamas attack on southern Israel from Gaza last weekend. "It's why the president moves so rapidly and decisively to get an aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean, to get aircraft into the Gulf, because he sent a very clear message to any state or any actor that would seek to exploit this situation," Sullivan added. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the deployment of the second aircraft carrier on Saturday "to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas's attack." In the eastern Mediterranean the carrier USS Eisenhower and its accompanying ships will join the USS Gerald R. Ford, which was dispatched after the Hamas attack on October 7. John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, also said that the United States is concerned about a new front in the war opening on the Israeli border with Lebanon. "We don't want to see another terrorist group like Hezbollah widening this and opening fronts to distract against the fight against Hamas," Kirby said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for several rocket attacks on northern Israel since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted. "Of course Iran is broadly complicit and this has helped Hamas function and be able to conduct the terrorist attack they have conducted," Kirby said. But he reiterated the U.S. position that it has no intelligence pointing to specific Iranian participation in the Hamas attack.

Israel's No.1 Hamas kill target is Yahya Sinwar, the 'Butcher from Khan Younis'
Rebecca Rommen/Business Insider/October 15, 2023
Dramatic combat videos show brutal fight between Israel and HamasScroll back up to restore default view. Israeli is focused on hunting down a Hamas leader whom they blame for the October 7 attacks. Yahya Sinwar was nicknamed "the Butcher from Khan Younis" for killing Palestinian collaborators. Israeli media has dubbed Sinwar the "new face of evil."A military spokesman said the Israel Defense Forces are particularly intent on killing Yahya Sinwar, a top Hamas official, The New York Times reports. Sinwar is the current leader of Hamas, having taken over from Ismail Haniyeh in 2017, per The Guardian. As Gaza's de facto ruler, Sinwar is the highest-ranking Hamas official in Gaza. He is Hamas' most powerful leader after Haniyeh, who lives in exile in Qatar, The Telegraph reported. The Hamas government and its offices are based in Gaza City, which is currently under siege by Israeli forces.
Israel holds Sinwar accountable for the terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, which killed over 1,300 Israelis and foreign nationals. Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza in 1962, according to The Jewish Virtual Library. He pursued Arabic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza. In the 1980s, Sinwar's job was to kill Gazans who collaborated with Israel, per The Economist. In 2015, the US Department of State designated Sinwar a terrorist. "We will take down the border, and we will tear their hearts from their bodies," Sinwar reportedly said in 2018, as quoted by the IDF.
On October 7, under Sinwar's leadership, hundreds of Hamas fighters breached the fences surrounding Gaza, after drones knocked out hi-tech observation towers and a huge rocket barrage was unleashed on Israel. They poured into southern Israel's surrounding kibbutzes and towns and massacred 1,300 people in coordinated terrorist attacks. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid dubbed him the "new face of evil.""That man is in our sights," said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a military spokesman, per The New York Times. "He's a dead man walking, and we will get to that man," he said. "He built his career on murdering Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. That's how he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis," said Col. Hecht, per LBC News. He is considered to be a key figure connecting Hamas's politburo with the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, per The European Council on Foreign Relations. Israel has arrested Sinwar multiple times, and he has spent 24 years in prison, per the European Council of Foreign Relations. He was released during a prisoner exchange with Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011. A 2022 security analysis determined that the Palestinian Authority's weakness and Israel's inaction on undermining Hamas' control strengthened Sinwar and Hamas' leadership. Hamas was able to connect various fronts against Israel, per The Institute for National Security Studies of Tel-Aviv University. The analysis predicted that the temporary calm amid Sinwar and Hamas' increased power would exact a "heavy toll from Israel in longer, strategic terms."The IDF said destroying Gaza's leadership was its ultimate goal as it prepares to launch a ground invasion of the besieged city, The New York Times reports. Tens of thousands of Hamas militants are believed to have entrenched themselves in an elaborate network of underground tunnels. The invasion's goal will be "the rout of Hamas and the elimination of its leaders after the slaughter they perpetrated," said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF's chief spokesman, per The Times. "Yahya Sinwar is the commander of the campaign, and he is a dead man," Hagari said in a press conference, per The Times of Israel. The IDF said Thursday that it was prepping more than 350,000 reservists for a possible ground war in Gaza, although a decision to invade the 140-square-mile strip has not yet been made.

It's a trap, warns UK spy chief, as Israel prepares for months of brutal urban warfare against Hamas in bombed-out Gaza
Nathan Rennolds/Business Insider/October 15, 2023
300,000 Israeli reserve troops headed to possible land war in GazaScroll back up to restore default view.
Israel's ground invasion of Gaza could plunge the country into months of brutal urban warfare. It may be Israel's largest ground offensive since its 2006 invasion of Lebanon. Israel said that the goal was to take out Hamas' military and political leadership.Israel's expected invasion may plunge it into months of brutal urban warfare on the streets of Gaza and in its maze of tunnels, The New York Times reported, but a former UK intelligence chief warned that it's a trap. Israel has long avoided an invasion of this scale — which could be the largest since its 2006 invasion of Lebanon, per the Times — as it was reluctant to fight in the densely populated, narrow Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers have been given additional urban environment training in recent days to help them fight in the ruins of Gaza, the NYT reported. They will face a highly motivated enemy fighting on its home turf, using exploding roadside bombs and booby-trapping buildings. Hamas will also aim to exploit its extensive network of tunnels in northern Gaza to ambush Israeli forces from behind, a Hamas officer, speaking anonymously, told the NYT. But following Hamas' wave of surprise terrorist attacks on October 7, in which at least 1,300 people in Israel died, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have responded with a barrage of airstrikes. They are now gearing up to send a mass force into Gaza itself. The IDF aims to take out the military and political leadership of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and recover up to 150 hostages taken by the group during last week's attacks. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the IDF said on Saturday that it had "eliminated" Ali Qadi, who it said led the attacks on October 7. Some military and political leaders are talking of an 18-monthlong operation of door-to-door arrest operations by the IDF, said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli diplomat and government security advisor, told the NYT. 'You shouldn't do what your enemy wants you to do'. In an emergency cabinet meeting at a military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel was now readying itself to "demolish Hamas" in Gaza.
"Hamas thought we would be demolished. It is we who will demolish Hamas," the Israeli prime minister said, Reuters reported. He added that it sent "a clear message to the nation, the enemy, and the world."But Alex Younger, the head of the UK's MI6 foreign intelligence service from 2014 to 2020, told the BBC's "The Today Podcast" that Hamas had likely intended to lure Israel into a costly ground offensive, as Insider previously reported. "You shouldn't do what your enemy wants you to do," Younger said. "And it's really obvious now that Hamas are essentially laying a trap for Israel."
The group "will be well pleased if Israel commits itself to an open-ended, full-scale ground invasion of Gaza because of the scale and intensity of conflict that that would entail, and the loss of innocent life that would inevitably follow and the radicalization that would engender, and the extent to which will put Israel's allies and partners in the region in an impossible position," he added.

Egypt's leader criticizes Israel's Gaza operation as the top US diplomat extends his Mideast mission
CAIRO (AP)/October 15, 2023
Egypt's president criticized Israel’s military operation in Gaza in a stern pushback Sunday to the United States as America's top diplomat extended his frenetic travels across the Mideast trying to prevent the war with Hamas from igniting a broader regional conflict. With an Israeli ground offensive looming, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed in some of his strongest language to date that Washington would stand with Israel “today, tomorrow and every day” in a partnership of shared democratic values, but that Israel must take “every possible precaution to avoid harming civilian.” He leveled no direct public criticism of Israel or its bombing campaign that has killed civilians in Gaza.From Cairo, where President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi conveyed his criticism, Blinken went to Jordan and planned to return to Israel on Monday, carrying to Israeli leaders the feedback he received in a rush of meetings with leaders throughout the Arab world. His second visit to Israel in recent days will come amid heightening fears that a looming Israeli move into Gaza could spark a wider war with devastating humanitarian consequences, a growing concern for the Biden administration. Egypt’s state-run media said el-Sissi told Blinken that Israel’s Gaza operation has exceeded “the right of self-defense” and turned into “a collective punishment." Blinken told reporters before leaving Egypt that “Israel has the right, indeed it has the obligation to defend itself against these attacks from Hamas and to try to do what it can to make sure that this never happens again." Mindful of the potential human cost in Gaza, Blinken said "the way that Israel does this matters. It needs to do it in a way that affirms the shared values that we have for human life and human dignity, taking every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.’’Earlier Sunday, the envoy met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, talks that built upon earlier sessions with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Blinken said that what he heard in every meeting with Arab leaders “was a determination of shared view that we have to do everything possible to make sure this doesn’t spread other places, a shared view to safeguard innocent lives, a shared view to get assistance to Palestinians in Gaza who need it and we’re working very much on that.”
The White House announcement the appointment of David Satterfield, a former ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey, to lead U.S. efforts to get humanitarian assistance to “vulnerable people through the Middle East.” Satterfield was expected to arrive in Israel on Monday.
From Washington, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said the U.S. was not “making requests or demands of Israel with respect to its military operations.” Jake Sullivan, making the rounds of the Sunday TV news shows, said the administration was “simply stating our basic principles – the principles upon which this country is based and all democracies, including Israel, are based. It’s what makes us different from the terrorists, that in fact we respect civilian life.”
He said the U.S. was not “not interfering in their military planning or trying to give them instructions or requests specific.” Sullivan said the U.S. is conveying the message in public and in private that “all military operations should be conducted consistent with law of war, that civilians should be protected, that civilians should have a real opportunity to get to safety” and have access to food, water, medicine and shelter. Those remarks marked a shift in the U.S. administration's comments in recent days as officials have heard concerns from Arab leaders about the consequences of what a humanitarian catastrophe resulting from an Israeli ground offensive would do not only to Palestinians but also in inflaming public opinions in Arab nations and potentially destabilizing relatively friendly countries. Sullivan also said the U.S. has been unable so far to get American citizens out of Gaza through Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza.
“It has been difficult to execute that operation to facilitate their passage out. … It’s a high priority,” acknowledging that “I’m not aware of anyone else being able to get out at this time.” The crossing was closed because of airstrikes early in the war. There are an estimated 500 Americans living in Gaza, but that number is imprecise, officials have said.
U.S. officials have said the Arab reaction to Blinken’s message has been generally positive — acknowledging Israel has a right to respond to the Hamas attacks but expressing deep concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and unable to stay silent about the Palestinian civilian casualties that result. The Arab leaders have also said the current situation cannot be resolved without an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that gives the Palestinians an independent state. Blinken made clear in Egypt that the U.S. will not waver in supporting Israel, saying, "We will stand with it today, tomorrow and every day and we’re doing that in word and also in deed.’’In his roughly hourlong meeting with Prince Mohammed at the de facto Saudi leader’s private farm outside Riyadh, Blinken “highlighted the United States’ unwavering focus on halting terrorist attacks by Hamas, securing the release of all hostages, and preventing the conflict from spreading,” the State Department said. “The two affirmed their shared commitment to protecting civilians and to advancing stability across the Middle East and beyond,” according to a department statement. The Saudi description of the meeting focused primarily on Palestinian civilians, echoing the sentiments that the other Arab leaders with whom Blinken has met. It said Saudi Arabia would object to the targeting of “civilians in any way or disrupt(ing) infrastructure and vital interests that affect their daily lives.”The prince “stressed the need to work to discuss ways to stop the military operations that claimed the lives of innocent people,“ the Saudi Press Agency said in a report about the meeting.

Blinken to extend Middle East tour, return to Israel on Monday
CAIRO (Reuters)/October 15, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to Israel on Monday, a senior State Department official said, extending his Middle East shuttle diplomacy by a day as Israel prepares for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and the United States works to stop the conflict from spreading. Israel has vowed to annihilate the militant group Hamas in retaliation for a rampage by its fighters in Israeli towns eight days ago in which its militants shot men, women and children and seized hostages in the worst attack on civilians in the country's history. The top U.S. diplomat arrived in Israel on Thursday and has since visited six Arab countries. He is currently in Egypt and is expected to meet with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.Washington has grown increasingly worried about the fighting spreading across the region and has warned Iran to stay out of it. Blinken has sought the cooperation of Arab allies, as well as China, a country with influence on Tehran, to contain the conflict. But late on Saturday, Iran warned of "far-reaching consequences" if Israel's bombardment was not stopped. Before departing for Cairo, Blinken held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, one of the most powerful leaders of the region, a meeting the top U.S. diplomat described as "very productive." In the meeting, the Saudi crown prince stressed the need to find ways to stop the conflict, and respect international law, including by lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza, Saudi state news agency SPA reported.
"(The crown prince stressed the need to find) a peace path to ensure that the Palestinian people obtain their legitimate rights and achieve just and lasting peace," SPA said. A U.S. official said the meeting lasted for just under an hour and took place at the crown prince's private farm residence. "The Secretary highlighted the United States' unwavering focus on halting terrorist attacks by Hamas, securing the release of all hostages, and preventing the conflict from spreading," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. "The two affirmed their shared commitment to protecting civilians and to advancing stability across the Middle East and beyond," Miller added. Blinken on Saturday met Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan in Riyadh. Before their meeting, Blinken said protecting civilians on both sides of the conflict was vital. "And we're working together to do exactly that, in particular working on establishing safe areas in Gaza, working on establishing corridors so that humanitarian assistance can reach people who need it."(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by William Mallard, David Evans, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Bill Berkrot)

5th Canadian killed in Israel, government confirms
Yahoo News Canada/Chris Stoodley/October 15, 2023
Global Affairs Canada is confirming five Canadians have died in Israel, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Canadian organization offers aid amidst Gaza conflictScroll back up to restore default view. A fifth Canadian has died in Israel, according to the government on Sunday, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Global Affairs Canada's assistant deputy minister for consular security and emergency management Julie Sunday made the announcement on Oct. 15, raising the previously reported death toll from four on Saturday. "It has always been a possibility that missing persons would be confirmed deceased. ... It is an extremely tragic outcome," Sunday said during a briefing in Ottawa. "Our thoughts are with the families in all of these cases. "We are very focused on addressing the cases of the three missing persons, who we continue to try to locate and bring back to safety in Canada."The government is still working to get up to 300 Canadians and their relatives out of the Gaza Strip, ahead of Israel's expected ground invasion. Sunday said that another 250 Canadians may be able to leave the West Bank territory by bus next week, in a new deal following Saturday's cancellation of a plan to help people flee through a border crossing into Egypt. The deal between Canada, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority would allow dozens of Canadians trapped in the West Bank to escape by bus from Jordan. For Canadians in Israel, military flights out of Tel Aviv are still underway.On Saturday, the family of 22-year-old Canadian-Israeli Shir Georgy, who went missing after attending a music festival in Israel, confirmed she had died. That made her the fourth Canadian to have been killed amid the Israel-Hamas war. Since the conflict began on Oct. 7, the other Canadians who have died include Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33, Ben Mizrachi, 22 and Alexandre Look, 33.
"We're extremely concerned about the situation in Gaza," Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Saturday at a news conference from Jordan. "Gaza is one of the worst places on Earth to be right now." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared that Canada is "deeply concerned by the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip" in a statement released on Saturday. "We are working closely with allies and partners in the region to do everything we can to support affected Canadian citizens, including assistance departing from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel as quickly and safely as possible," Trudeau added in his statement.

Egypt pushing to break impasse over Gaza aid, calls bombardment 'collective punishment'
CAIRO (Reuters)/October 15, 2023
Egypt said on Sunday it had stepped up diplomatic efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and its president told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel's bombardment of the territory was disproportional. "The reaction went beyond the right to self-defence, turning into collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza," President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said of Israel's retaliatory strikes for Hamas militants' attacks a week ago. Aid from several countries has been building up in Egypt's Sinai peninsula due to a failure to reach a deal enabling its safe delivery to Gaza along with evacuations of some foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. Israeli bombardments on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, the main crossing out of Gaza not controlled by Israel, have disrupted operations there. There is alarm in Egypt over the prospect that residents in Gaza could be displaced by Israel's siege and bombardment. Like other Arab states, it has said Palestinians should stay on their lands and that it is working to secure delivery of aid. A statement from Sisi's office, issued after a meeting of the national security council, said Egypt rejected any plan to displace Palestinians "to the detriment of other countries" and that Egypt's own security was a red line. Sisi also proposed a summit to discuss the crisis, according to the statement. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNN on Saturday that the Rafah crossing was open but the roads leading to it in Gaza were "inoperable" due to Israeli bombardment. He said that if foreign nationals were able to cross the border Egypt would facilitate their departure to their home countries. The United States has been part of the diplomatic push to facilitate aid and evacuations through Rafah, and told its citizens in Gaza on Saturday they could move closer to the crossing in case it opened. Eight planes laden with aid from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Tunisia, and the World Health Organization have landed in Sinai's Al Arish airport in recent days and a convoy of more than 100 trucks is waiting in the city awaiting permission to enter Gaza, according to the Egyptian Red Crescent.

Gaza hospitals are overwhelmed with patients and desperately low on supplies as invasion looms
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP)/October 15, 2023
Medics in Gaza warned Sunday that thousands could die as hospitals packed with wounded people ran desperately low on fuel and basic supplies. Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave struggled to find food, water and safety ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive in the war sparked by Hamas' deadly attack. Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of U.S. warships in the region, positioned themselves along Gaza’s border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group. A week of blistering airstrikes have demolished entire neighborhoods but failed to stem militant rocket fire into Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,450 Palestinians have been killed and 9,200 wounded since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted over six weeks. That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.
More than 1,400 Israelis were killed, the vast majority of them civilians, in Hamas' Oct. 7 assault. An estimated 150 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza. It's also the deadliest war for Israel since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.
The U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken would return to Israel on Monday after completing a frantic six-country tour through Arab nations aimed at preventing the fighting from igniting a broader regional conflict. Fighting along Israel's border with Lebanon, which flared since the start of the latest Gaza war, intensified Sunday with Hezbollah militants firing rockets and an anti-tank missile, and Israel responding with airstrikes and shelling. The Israeli military also reported shooting at one of its border posts. The fighting killed at least one person on the Israeli side and wounded several on both sides of the border. A spokeswoman for Hezbollah, Rana Sahili, said the increased fighting represents a “warning” and does not mean Hezbollah has decided to enter the war. With the situation in Gaza growing increasingly desperate, the U.S. named David Satterfield, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey with years of experience in Mideast diplomacy, to be special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement Sunday that Satterfield will focus on getting humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
Hospitals in Gaza are expected to run out of generator fuel within two days, endangering the lives of thousands of patients, according to the U.N. Gaza’s sole power plant shut down for lack of fuel after Israel completely sealed off the 40-kilometer (25-mile) long territory following the Hamas attack.
In Nasser Hospital, in the southern town of Khan Younis, intensive care rooms are packed with wounded patients, most of them children under the age of 3. Hundreds of people with severe blast injuries have come to the hospital, where fuel is expected to run out by Monday, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel, a consultant at the critical care complex.
There are 35 patients in the ICU who require ventilators and another 60 on dialysis. If fuel runs out, “it means the whole health system will be shut down,” he said, as children moaned in pain in the background. “All these patients are in danger of death if the electricity is cut off." Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of pediatrics at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said the facility did not evacuate despite Israeli orders. There are seven newborns in the ICU hooked up to ventilators, he said. Evacuating “would mean death for them and other patients under our care.”
Patients keep arriving with severed limbs, severe burns and other life-threatening injuries, he said. Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the territory's largest, said it would bury 100 bodies in a mass grave as an emergency measure after its morgue overflowed. Tens of thousands of people seeking safety have gathered in the hospital compound. Gaza was already in a humanitarian crisis due to a growing shortage of water and medical supplies caused by the Israeli siege. With some bakeries closing, residents said they were unable to buy bread. Israel has also cut off water, forcing many to rely on brackish wells.
Sullivan told CNN that Israeli officials told him they had turned the water back on in southern Gaza. Israel’s minister of energy and water, Israel Katz, said in a statement that water had been restored at one “specific point” in Gaza, but did not give further details. Aid workers in Gaza said they had not yet seen evidence the water was back.
Israel has ordered more than 1 million Palestinians — almost half the territory’s population — to move south. The military says it is trying to clear away civilians ahead of a major campaign against Hamas in the north, where it says the militants have extensive networks of tunnels, bunkers and rocket launchers.
Hamas urged people to stay in their homes, and the Israeli military released photos it said showed a Hamas roadblock preventing traffic from moving south. The U.N. and aid groups say the mass exodus within Gaza, along with Israel’s complete siege, will cause untold human suffering. The World Health Organization said the evacuation “could be tantamount to a death sentence” for the more than 2,000 patients in northern hospitals. About 500,000 people, nearly one quarter of Gaza’s population, were taking refuge in United Nations schools and other facilities across the territory, where water supplies were dwindling, said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the U.N.’s refugee agency. “Gaza is running dry,” she said. The military said Sunday that it would not target a specific route south for several hours, again urging Palestinians to leave the north en masse. The military offered two corridors and a longer window the day before. It says hundreds of thousands have already fled south. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says an estimated 1 million people have been displaced in Gaza in a single week.
The U.S. has been trying to broker a deal to reopen Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza to allow Americans and other foreigners to leave and humanitarian aid amassed on the Egyptian side to be brought in. The crossing, which was closed because of airstrikes early in the war, has yet to reopen. Israel has said the siege will only be lifted when the captives are returned. Hundreds of relatives of those captured by Hamas gathered outside the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv late Saturday, demanding their release. “This is my cry out to the world: Please help bring my family, my wife and three kids,” said Avihai Brodtz of Kfar Azza. Many expressed anger toward the government, saying they still have no information about their loved ones. Hamas rocket attacks on Israel continued Sunday, spurring a broader evacuation from the southern Israeli city of Sderot. The city of about 34,000 people sits about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from Gaza and has been a frequent rocket target. “The kids are traumatized, they can’t sleep at night,” Yossi Edri told Channel 13 before boarding a bus. The military said Sunday an airstrike in southern Gaza had killed a Hamas commander blamed for the killings at Nirim, one of several communities Hamas had attacked in southern Israel. Israel said it struck over 100 military targets overnight, including command centers and rocket launchers. Israel has called up some 360,000 military reserves and massed troops and tanks along the border with Gaza. Israeli officials gave no timetable for a ground invasion.

Rishi Sunak urged to sanction Qatar, where Hamas leaders live in five-star luxury
Edward Malnick/The Telegraph/October 15/2023
Rishi Sunak is facing calls to impose sanctions on Qatar for continuing to host the Hamas leaders who directed the attack on Israel. Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador to the UN, said that “much of the Qatari wealth is sitting in London” and called for assets linked to the Qatari state and royal family to be frozen “until the Qataris turn over the worst of the worst terror leaders in the world”. Mr Wallace, who now runs the US-based Counter Extremism Project, also called for the UK’s diplomatic ties with Doha to be suspended if the regime fails to apprehend Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, and hand him over to American or Israeli authorities. Bob Blackman, the joint secretary of the Conservatives’ 1922 Committee and vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, said: “I agree with him.” Along with Frances Townsend, who was a counter-terrorism adviser to George W Bush, Mr Wallace has insisted that Haniyeh should be targeted in Doha in a similar manner to the US assassination of Osama bin Laden if he is permitted to continue directing Hamas with impunity from Qatar.
Architects of terror
For years, Hamas’s architects of terror have been running the bloodthirsty unit while living in five-star luxury in Qatar, which has said it holds Israel responsible for last weekend’s massacre. Footage last week showed Haniyeh, 61, smiling and praying from the comfort of his air-conditioned Doha office to celebrate the slaughter of Israelis. In the video, Haniyeh and 12 of his henchmen are seen dressed in freshly pressed suits as they watch the horror unfold on a widescreen TV. The group then congregates behind Haniyeh to kneel down in prayer on a plush, grey carpet. Qatar denies supporting Hamas and says the group is simply part of the reality on the ground. Doha is viewed within Whitehall as an ally of the UK, meaning that it is likely there would be resistance to calls for sanctions or downgrading diplomatic relations. A source who has discussed the issue with Qatari officials said that Doha privately insisted it was hosting the Hamas leadership on its soil only to avoid them relocating to Iran and further expanding Tehran’s influence across the Middle East. A 2019 report by the US Congressional Research Service said: “US officials have told Members of Congress that Qatar’s leverage over Hamas can be helpful to reducing conflict between Hamas and Israel and that Qatar has pledged that none of its assistance to the Palestinians goes to Hamas.” In 2017, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, now the prime minister of Qatar, said that “Hamas’ presence [in Doha] is coordinated with the US and the countries in the region, and it’s part of our effort to mediate between the Palestinian factions to reach reconciliation.”Mr Wallace, who has called on the US government to take similar action, said: “The Qataris should be ostracised and their role should forever change in the world, given what happened. But right now there are innocents [held hostage in Gaza] and the leaders of the massacre that directed the taking of those innocents are in Qatar.
‘Outsize role’
“The UK has an outsize role with the Qataris. Much of the Qatari wealth is sitting in London. It should be frozen … No asset should be allowed to be accessed, no funds repatriated to the Qataris. Any asset in London should be frozen until the Qataris turn over the worst of the worst terror leaders, which they host. “Hopefully, if they do that we can use those leaders to convince their compatriots in the Gaza Strip to free hostages. How can the British authorities allow the Qataris to act with impunity from a business or diplomatic perspective in London under these circumstances?
“The Qatar authorities should arrest each and every Hamas member and turn them over to US and Israeli authorities. Do you think that we would have allowed Bin Laden to sit in a luxury office tower in Doha? Would we have let the Isis leadership sit in luxury in a condominium in Doha? The answer is no.”While Israel prepares for a ground invasion and drops thousands of bombs across the region, Hamas has told people in northern Gaza to stay at home. But those responsible for what will likely result in the death of thousands of civilians are living in opulence and safety. Several Hamas leaders moved to Qatar after falling out with their previous host, Syria, when Palestinian refugees participated in the 2011 uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime. Also in last week’s video from Doha was Khaled Meshaal, Hamas’s former leader and now serving as second-in-command.
‘Enduring relationship’
Meshaal called for a day of jihad on Friday, saying: “Head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world.”He fled to Qatar in 2012 and he has been pictured working out in an upmarket gym and gorging on food. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The UK and its allies have an enduring relationship with Qatar. Without Qatar’s engagement in highly sensitive issues such as the Israel Occupied Palestinian Territories conflict and on wider regional stability, there would not be the opportunity to bring about solutions to this type of tragic conflict.” Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs and London embassy were contacted for comment.

Israel-Hamas war: The tiny gulf state of Qatar may end up playing an outsized role in negotiations
Sky News/October 15, 2023
Hamas's barbaric attack on southern Israel and the coming ground offensive in Gaza has upended relations in other strategically vital parts of the Middle East - the oil rich kingdoms of the Gulf. But it's the tiny Gulf state of Qatar that may end up playing an outsized role in negotiating a way out of this latest bloody quagmire. Over the years, Qatar has hosted political offices for various groups the West regards as terrorist organisations: including Hamas, the Afghan Taliban, and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. It's also home to the former head of Hamas's political bureau in exile, Khaled Meshaal. On Friday, Mr Meshaal called for the Muslim world to protest in support of Palestinians, singling out those countries with large populations of Palestinian refugees. "Tribes of Jordan, sons of Jordan... This is a moment of truth and the borders are closed to you, you all know your responsibilities," Mr Meshaal said.
On the same day, US secretary of state Antony Blinken stopped in Qatar's capital Doha as part of his Middle East diplomatic offensive to shore up support for Israel and issue a note of caution regarding Israel's bombardment of Gaza. While there, he met with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani. "Israel has both the right and even the obligation to defend its people... At the same time, the way Israel does this matters," Mr Blinken said. "And, to that end, I've discussed with the Israelis - urged the Israelis - to use every possible precaution to avoid harm to civilians."
Qatar's tightrope
In Western capitals, Hamas's terror attack on Israel is justification for the war now unleashed on Gaza. Publicly, Qatar's close connections with Hamas do not sit easily with the West. At the same time, the desert kingdom is a useful conduit for Western countries to do backdoor deals with non-state actors. It talks to the groups that other governments won't sit down with. Qatar is also home to the largest US military base in the Middle East. Its ambitious foreign policy plays all sides and gives this small nation a seat at the table on the world's most important geopolitical issues. The Israel-Hamas war is no exception.
Still, it's complicated. Qatar has supported Hamas. In 2012, Qatar's previous emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, became the first Arab leader in years to visit the besieged Gaza Strip, travelling there with his wife Sheikha Mozah. The visit conferred legitimacy on the ironclad rule of Hamas over Gazans and demonstrated the Gulf state's growing influence in the region. The emir entered through Egypt's Rafah border crossing to crowds of cheering Palestinians and brought millions of dollars in aid. Like other Muslim-majority countries, the sympathy of Qataris will lie with the people of Gaza. Exerting its influence. Now Qatar will be under pressure from the US to exert its influence on Hamas to release Israeli hostages. This is one area where the Gulf kingdom has form. In 2017, during the height of the Syrian civil war, Qatar negotiated a complicated deal to release hostages in Iraq, some of whom were members of Qatar's ruling al Thani family, reportedly in exchange for tens of millions of dollars paid to an Iraqi militia. Two years later Qatar facilitated the release of two Western hostages taken by the Taliban in Afghanistan. On Friday, Qatar's prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani, said: "Qatar's diplomatic priorities are to achieve an immediate ceasefire, protect civilians, ensure the release of prisoners, and work towards limiting the expansion of violence and the cycle of conflict in the region, which will inevitably result in serious consequences."Qatar's foreign ministry confirmed it is involved in negotiating the release of Israeli hostages. But without a break in the bombing, any deal will be impossible to realise.

Egypt ‘considers deal to accept 100,000 displaced Palestinians in exchange for US debt relief’
Edmund Bower/The Telegraph/October 15, 2023
Egypt is reportedly considering a deal to host up to 100,000 Palestinians displaced from the Gaza Strip in exchange for US debt relief.
Cairo was said to be on the verge of allowing Palestinians entry via the currently shuttered Rafah border crossing in return for the financial aid, Egyptian media reported, citing 21 government and diplomatic sources. In return for hosting the Palestinians, Egypt was expected to obtain financial support and debt relief from the US as the north African nation struggles with a severe economic crisis and soaring inflation, the report said. Egypt has not officially commented on the report or denied any such deal may be in the works. It came as Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, travelled to Cairo on Sunday as part of an emergency diplomatic tour of the region amid fears the war could spiral into a wider conflict, drawing in Iran. He met with Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, with whom he was expected to discuss the fate of up to 600 US citizens who have been unable to leave Gaza since Israel began pounding the enclave with air and artillery strikes in response to the Hamas attack last weekend. Cairo suspects as many as 300,000 Palestinians could seek asylum in the country’s Sinai peninsula as a result of the shelling and an anticipated ground offensive by Israel in the coastal enclave. “We cannot allow all 300,000 to enter,” an unnamed security source said. “We will have to allow some in … but no more than 100,000 should be allowed.”Israel’s government has told 1.1 million civilians in Gaza’s north to move south ahead of the expected ground offensive aimed at decimating Hamas, which killed more than 1,300 Israelis during its multi-pronged attack. Amir Avivi, the former deputy commander of the Gaza Division of Israel’s military, on Friday called on Cairo to open the Rafah crossing and allow Palestinians to enter Egypt in order to prevent casualties. “Keeping them inside Gaza … will endanger them. It is a warzone and it is very hard to defend civilians in this area. They need to move south, out to the Sinai peninsula,” he told the BBC.
Domestic pushback
But there was domestic pushback to the plan to allow Palestinians in from the Gaza Strip, with opposition MP Mustafa Bakri warning on Saturday that Egypt would “fight any efforts to try and resettle Palestinians in the Sinai”.Ahmed Salem, the executive director of the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, said the peninsula is unsuitable for asylum seekers. “If refugees come from Gaza, I don’t know where they could be hosted”, he said. “There are no shelters in Rafah City, no hospitals, no health centres. There is no water or electricity”. For the past 10 years, the Egyptian military has been fighting an Islamist insurgency in northern Sinai. As part of the campaign, authorities have evicted between 100,000 and 150,000 people from the region, as fighting there destroyed houses, farms, and infrastructure. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip in its entirety, has ruled out any deal for the evacuation of Palestinians into Egypt. “There will be no migration from Gaza to Egypt,” Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s Doha-based leader, said on Saturday. Meanwhile, Western efforts to have the Rafah border crossing to allow for their own nationals to leave Gaza are yet to bear fruit. The US State Department reported on Saturday that it had reached a deal with Egypt for the border to be opened for US citizens between 12pm and 5pm.
Lack of assurances
But the crossing, which has been closed since Tuesday, remained shut. Egyptian media reported that Cairo had blocked its reopening over a lack of assurances that aid shipments would be allowed to pass into the Gaza Strip safely. Israeli bombardments on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, the main crossing out of Gaza not controlled by Israel, have disrupted operations there. James Cleverly said yesterday that the UK had also been unsuccessful in efforts to have the crossing opened to help British nationals leave the enclave. The Foreign Secretary said he was working with Israel, Egypt and “other leading political voices in the region” to open the border, adding it was also key to providing “humanitarian support for the people of Gaza”.Aid from several countries has been building up in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula due to a failure to reach a deal enabling its safe delivery to Gaza.

Qatar Enables Hamas' War Against Israel
MEMRI/October 15, 2023
The Qatar-Hamas alliance goes back years. Qatar has financed Hamas' military buildup and harbored its leaders, who live in Doha to this day. Qatar is also enabling Hamas' current war against Israel, launched with a large-scale surprise attack on October 7, 2023 in which over 1,300 Israelis were killed, over 100 were abducted, including women, children, infants and elderly people, and thousands were wounded. (See MEMRI reports: A Statement By The President And Founder Of MEMRI On The Hamas Einsatzgruppen Attack; Netanyahu And Qatar Would Share Responsibility For An Imminent Regional War). Hamas' leaders are managing this war from Doha and conveying their messages via Qatar's Al-Jazeera television channel, while the Qatari media expresses unreserved support for Hamas and its terrorist actions.
As stated, the heads of the Hamas terror organization live in Doha and operate there without hindrance. In fact, on October 7, 2023, the day of the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel, the Hamas leadership held a meeting in Doha. Videos from this meeting circulated on social media on the morning of the attack show Hamas leaders watching footage of it on Al-Jazeera and holding a "prayer of gratitude." Among the leaders seen in the video are the head of Hamas' political bureau, Isma'il Haniya; Haniya's media advisor Taher Al-Nounou; Haniya's deputy and Hamas' leader in the West Bank Saleh Al-'Arouri; Hamas' leader abroad, Khaled Mash'al, and Khalil Al-Haya, Hamas' chief of relations with the Arab and Islamic world and the movement's deputy leader in Gaza. In the video Haniya is heard saying: "Let us prostrate [in prayer]. These images were... See the guys with a new jeep. Look. Look. The Israeli jeep... Let's do it. This is a prostration of gratitude for this victory. Allah, please bestow your support and glory on our people and nation. Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar! Allah be praised."
On October 14 Hamas' leaders made another public appearance in Doha when they met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was visiting the country. The meeting was attended by Haniya, Al-Haya, Mash'al's deputy Moussa Abu Marzouq and Zaher Jabarin, Hamas' chief of prisoner affairs. The editor of the Saudi daily Independent Arabiya, 'Adwan Al-Ahmari, noted in an October 9 interview with France24 that Hamas' leaders are not in Gaza but are living in luxury hotels in Doha and operating from there in the service of Iran and its leader Khamenei.[1]
Qatar Aired Hamas' Declarations Of War
Qatar's Al-Jazeera channel serves as a mouthpiece for Hamas' messaging. For example, on the day of Hamas' recent wide-scale attack, it aired the statement in which Hamas' military chief Muhammad Deif declared the start Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (Hamas' name for the attack) and called on Palestinians to kill Israelis. It also aired a statement by Isma'il Haniya, who likewise urged the Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as Israeli Arabs and all Palestinians abroad, to join the fray.
Qatari Media Expresses Unreserved Support For Hamas' Attack, Holds Israel Responsible For It
The Qatari media has expressed complete support for Hamas' deadly attack on Israel and glee at the latter's plight. The editor of the Qatari daily Al-Sharq, Jaber Al-Harmi, described the attack as a "heroic operation" that has changed the rules of the game and ushered in "a new phase in the military confrontation" ahead of "the complete liberation of Palestinian soil." Palestinian journalist Samir Al-Barghouti, who, in his column in the Qatari daily Al-Watan often praises terror against Israel,[2] likened the Hamas attack to the Prophet Muhammad's attack on the Jews of Khaybar in the year 628.[3]
An Al-Jazeera report about the attack featured footage of slain Israeli soldiers, showed Israeli soldiers and civilians being captured, and rejoiced that Hamas had "destroyed Israel's iron image."
Qatar's Years-Long Support For Hamas
It should be noted that Qatar extends unreserved political and economic support to Hamas, and its media, including Al-Jazeera, have for years been inciting terror and violence, including against Israel and Israeli civilians.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 15-16/2023
Shattered Illusions on the Gaza Border
Jonathan Spyer/The Australian/October 11, 2023
In a stretch of scrubland near Kibbutz Zikim, on the Gaza border earlier this week, we came across a platoon of tanks, hastily deployed amid the ongoing chaos and combat on the border. 'This is our generation's Yom Kippur,' one of the tank crewmen told us, standing on the hull of his vehicle. 'We haven't even begun to understand the implications of this.' We chatted for a few minutes more. Then the platoon received word that they were needed closer to Zikim and the tanks pulled out, their tracks raising the dust.
'Yom Kippur' in this context isn't a reference to the yearly Jewish Day of Atonement. Rather, it's Israeli shorthand for the massive intelligence and conceptual failure which led to Israel being taken by surprise by the armies of Egypt and Syria on that day 50 years ago, in 1973. The current Hamas assault on Israel from Gaza came exactly 50 years and a day after those events.
The young tank crewman was right to draw the comparison. Just as 50 years ago, Israel's failure to anticipate and be ready for the attack came from reliance on a faulty conception and mistaken analysis of preceding events.
In 1973, complacent Israeli leaders believed that the Arab states wouldn't dare to attack Israel again after their defeat in the Six Day War of 1967. This time around, Israeli governments over the last decade and a half have operated under the idea that the Hamas rulers of Gaza could be corrupted and incentivized by the wielding of power. This never openly stated idea has underlain Israeli policy toward the Gaza Strip since the Islamists seized control there in 2007. It was at the root of the complacency that led to the events of the last days.
Hamas has never been coy regarding its intentions toward the Jewish state. Its founding charter states that "The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it...Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.'
Israeli governments over the last decade and a half have operated under the idea that the Hamas rulers of Gaza could be corrupted and incentivized by the wielding of power.
Nevertheless, for a decade and a half, Hamas concentrated on building its strength and capabilities. Periodically, it launched rocket attacks on Israel. The range and capabilities of its rocket array steadily increased. But many Israeli planners noted a pattern in which Hamas appeared to focus on seeking to build its strength in the West Bank, which is administered by the rival Palestinian Authority, while keeping its Gaza fiefdom mainly quiet. Israel faces major challenges further afield. The Iranian bid for regional domination and its commitment to the destruction of Israel was and remains the paramount threat. The Hizballah movement, which controls Lebanon, appeared as the most worrying local client of this project. Hamas in Gaza, too, is a client of Iran. But it appeared the least powerful and potent member of Teheran's alliance. Its leaders had demonstrably developed a liking for the trappings of power. Some among them had bought villas in Qatar and seemed content to maintain the status quo that had enabled their enrichment. Israel grew similarly complacent regarding Gaza. A financial arrangement worked out via Qatar enabled donations from the Gulf emirate to Gaza to keep it economically afloat. Israel would permit Gazan workers to leave for employment in Israel, in numbers adjusted to reflect the security situation and Hamas's conduct. So Gaza seemed contained. Israel, with pressing threats and opportunities elsewhere, was content for it to remain so.
This was the conception that underlay the catastrophe that Israel experienced on October 7, 2023. This conception now lies in ruins, smashed to pieces.
At the root of the failed conception was a misinterpretation of the nature of the enemy. Hamas is an ideological movement, of unextinguished zeal. Israel treated it as though it had abandoned its core outlook, was deterred, and was therefore ready, de facto, to more or less live and let live. Neglect and then disaster duly followed. In 2023, costly illusions have once again been cruelly shattered. Israeli society and its institutions now face the test of an effective response. Hamas's will and direction derive from its outlook. It is one of the many movements of Islamic revival which together enjoy the public support of masses of people across the Arab world. Still, its military capacities are not home grown. Rather, it forms an element in the alliance of Islamist and anti-western movements and regimes led by Iran. Iranian know how and tactical assistance produced the considerable capacities witnessed in recent days. The combination of this will and this capacity produced the events of October 7th. As to what will happen now, a major Israeli operation on the ground in Gaza appears inevitable. The goal of any such operation cannot be to merely punish the Hamas authorities there, given the magnitude of what has just taken place. Rather, the objective must be the removal of this movement from power, and its replacement by a new arrangement to be finalized at the war's end. In 1973, reality prevailed over illusory conceptions – and Israel then prevailed over its enemies in the subsequent fighting. In 2023, costly illusions have once again been cruelly shattered. Israeli society and its institutions now face the test of an effective response.
*Jonathan Spyer is director of research at the Middle East Forum and director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. He is author of Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars (2018).

Should We Help the Palestinians in Gaza?
Alain Destexhe/Gatestone Institute/October 15, 2023
The countries of the European Union are divided over whether to continue aid to Gaza. However, the question of whether it is possible to help the civilian population without strengthening Hamas is not part of the current debate.
Most international aid to Gaza is channeled through UNRWA, a UN agency dedicated exclusively to Palestinian refugees and their descendants... Unfortunately, UNRWA's very existence and modus operandi directly reinforce Hamas. For this international organization, though there are only a handful of surviving refugees from 1948, supposed "refugee status" is passed down from father to son, so there are now around five times as many "refugees" in Gaza as there were originally.
It appears intended as political thorn to be administered for the purpose of maligning Israel for a war that was started by five Arab armies... which they then lost. Perhaps they should have thought of that before they started the war.
Meanwhile, roughly the same number of Jewish refugees, about 650,000, were fleeing for their lives from Arab countries to Israel. The newly created Jewish state, about the size of New Jersey or two-thirds of Belgium, and with no funds, managed to absorb everyone.
Given Palestinian demographics, return to the places deserted in 1948 would mean the end of the Jewish state of Israel, and is just as utopian as the idea of the returning German refugees from 1945 to areas of pre-war Germany, Poland or the Czech Republic.
[A]id, even humanitarian aid, to dictatorial countries inevitably strengthens that power, even more so with an Islamist totalitarian power such as Hamas, which does not care about the well-being of its citizen as Western countries do.
The US and the EU, if they want to continue officially supporting an increasingly unrealistic "two-state solution", should first stop funding UNRWA, whose tasks could eventually be taken over by other organizations unrelated to refugee status.
UNRWA, which is inordinately active in education, has been criticized for helping to indoctrinate children with radical Hamas rhetoric through school textbooks and extremist teachers.... UNRWA does not have the reputation of being accountable. A recent report discloses that "UN Teachers Call To Murder Jews."The problem is therefore not, as we hear today in European circles, to avoid supporting organizations linked to Hamas. All aid benefits Hamas, which can then concentrate on war and terrorism, since it is largely exempt from the tasks normally devolved to those who control a territory.
No one will dispute that it is useful to teach Gaza's children to read and write, but it is legitimate to question whether literacy training is actually being used to indoctrinate students and ignite a terrorist drift...
Sometimes, refraining from assisting people is the least bad solution when there is no good one... [O]ne wonders why the United States and the European Union want to help in Gaza and thus help Hamas... It is also usually not clear how much aid actually gets to its intended recipients and how much ends up in Hamas's coffers.
A massacre on this scale, rewarded by the cessation of hostilities when it suits the aggressor, then having others come and clean up after them, would only consecrate their efforts. Churchill did not call for a ceasefire after the German bombings on London, nor did Roosevelt after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Israelis have dropped thousands of leaflets over northern Gaza telling the people immediately to go to southern Gaza; Hamas instantly announced that the leaflets were merely propaganda, ordered its citizens not to move, and reportedly is now blocking their passage there.
Today, "standing by Israel" means supporting this democracy's difficult war against a savage terrorist totalitarian movement, and not urging Israel to stop before its critical mission is accomplished.
The countries of the European Union are divided over whether to continue aid to Gaza. However, the question of whether it is possible to help the civilian population there without strengthening Hamas is not part of the current debate. Today, "standing by Israel" means supporting this democracy's difficult war against a savage terrorist totalitarian movement, and not urging Israel to stop before its critical mission is accomplished. Pictured: Hamas terrorists, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, parade in the Gaza Strip, July 20, 2017. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
The countries of the European Union are divided over whether to continue aid to Gaza. However, the question of whether it is possible to help the civilian population there without strengthening Hamas is not part of the current debate.
Most international aid to Gaza is channeled through UNRWA, a UN agency dedicated exclusively to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. In 2018, then US President Donald Trump stopped US funding for UNRWA, but the Biden administration resumed funding, with $222 million in 2022, and the United States is once again the leading contributor. With 44% of donations, the European Union and its member countries contribute almost half of the UNRWA budget.
Unfortunately, UNRWA's very existence and modus operandi directly reinforce Hamas. For this international organization, though there are only a handful of surviving refugees from 1948, supposed "refugee status" is passed down from father to son, so there are now around five times as many "refugees" in Gaza as there were originally.
Maintaining this denomination for 75 years for all the descendants of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and claiming that they live in "camps" when in fact they are real cities, gives international backing to the myth of a possible "return" to the lands left behind during the Nakba ("catastrophe"), the name given by Palestinians to the 1948 exodus that lies at the heart of Hamas's identity. It also perpetuates a strong disincentive for anyone to take responsibility for the problem and actually solve it. It appears intended as political thorn to be administered for the purpose of maligning Israel for a war that was started by five Arab armies -- those of Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan) Syria, Lebanon and Iraq -- which they then lost. Perhaps they should have thought of that before they started the war.
Meanwhile, roughly the same number of Jewish refugees, about 650,000, were fleeing for their lives from Arab countries to Israel. The newly created Jewish state, about the size of New Jersey or two-thirds of Belgium, and with no funds, managed to absorb everyone.
Given Palestinian demographics, return to the places deserted in 1948 would mean the end of the Jewish state of Israel, and is just as utopian as the idea of the returning German refugees from 1945 to areas of pre-war Germany, Poland or the Czech Republic.
In 2000, it was Yasser Arafat's refusal, encouraged by the Arab League, to give in on this "right of return" that led to the collapse of negotiations with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
The US and the EU, if they want to continue officially supporting an increasingly unrealistic "two-state solution", should first stop funding UNRWA, whose tasks could eventually be taken over by other organizations unrelated to refugee status.
Furthermore, aid, even humanitarian aid, to dictatorial countries inevitably strengthens that power, even more so with an Islamist totalitarian power such as Hamas, which does not care about the well-being of its citizen as Western countries do. It is impossible to bypass Hamas' structures in any area whatsoever: the supply of food, water, healthcare and education. UNRWA, which is inordinately active in education, has been criticized for helping to indoctrinate children with radical Hamas rhetoric through school textbooks and extremist teachers. UNRWA has no means of controlling what goes on in the schools that bear its name. There are very few international staff; they are apparently not present in the classrooms, and UNRWA does not have the reputation of being accountable. A recent report discloses that "UN Teachers Call To Murder Jews."
No one will dispute that it is useful to teach Gaza's children to read and write, but it is legitimate to question whether literacy training is actually being used to indoctrinate students and ignite a terrorist drift in Gaza's youths. In Gaza, the number of international staff is small, and it is local Palestinian agents who implement aid programs. In a society where social control is omnipresent, everyone is inevitably under the thumb of Hamas.
The problem is therefore not, as we hear today in European circles, to avoid supporting organizations linked to Hamas. All aid benefits Hamas, which can then concentrate on war and terrorism, since it is largely exempt from the tasks normally devolved to those who control a territory.
We also need to dispel the myth of a "civilian" population, by nature peaceful and disconnected from the "party" that has been in power in Gaza for 17 years. Hamas, whose aim is to destroy Israel and, as we saw recently, to exterminate the Jews in a genocidal fashion, came to power through the ballot box. The images from last week of the fanatical mobs in Gaza show that this is no small minority.
During the Second World War, the bombing of German or Japanese cities was not immediately followed by dropping food supplies. Since then, international conventions have fortunately sought to provide greater protection for civilians, and a moral if not legal obligation to assist populations has been imposed in Western countries.
However, in all conflicts, those providing humanitarian aid are faced with the terrible difficulty of trying to help the victims without strengthening the regimes that produce them. The International Red Cross was criticized for sending parcels to Nazi concentration camps, but it is now admitted that this was a mistake. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) withdrew from Mengistu's Marxist Ethiopia during the famine of 1985, and from the Hutu-ruled refugee camps of the Congo during the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, believing that the harmful political consequences of aid weighed more heavily than its concrete humanitarian impact.
As we saw in the former Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1995, humanitarian action can become counterproductive or even harmful when it is transformed into a humanitarian ideology and imposed as the sole policy to the detriment of the search for lasting solutions.
Sometimes, refraining from assisting people is the least bad solution when there is no good one. As they did not seek to help the populations under the control of the Islamic State, one wonders why the United States and the European Union want to help in Gaza and thus help Hamas, especially as Arab countries can do this for it and have the means to do so. It is also usually not clear how much aid actually gets to its intended recipients and how much ends up in Hamas's coffers.
Between 1948 and 1967, the Gaza Strip was ruled by Egypt. Why don't Arab countries step forward and take control of the Gaza Strip by eliminating Hamas? Everyone knows why. No Arab country is serious about taking care of this population. Yet two million people could easily be absorbed into Arab countries where their lives would be better than in what some like to call an "open-air prison."
Calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are becoming louder all over the world. Again, perhaps the friends of Palestinians should have thought of that before. Launching a war and then calling for a ceasefire, or a truce, or a right-of-return when the brutal attack does not seem to be going the way one had hoped does not seem impressively self-aware. A massacre on this scale, rewarded by the cessation of hostilities when it suits the aggressor, then having others come and clean up after them, would only consecrate their efforts. Churchill did not call for a ceasefire after the German bombings on London, nor did Roosevelt after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Hamas, which hides behind schools, hospitals and hostages, using its own citizens as human shields, sadly cannot be defeated without the people. Many of them support Hamas, just as many Germans supported the Nazis until the very end of the war, and paid a heavy price.
The Israelis have dropped thousands of leaflets over northern Gaza telling the people immediately to go to southern Gaza; Hamas instantly announced that the leaflets were merely propaganda, ordered its citizens not to move, and reportedly is now blocking their passage there.
Today, "standing by Israel" means supporting this democracy's difficult war against a savage terrorist totalitarian movement, and not urging Israel to stop before its critical mission is accomplished.
**Alain Destexhe, Medical Doctor (MD), Honorary Senator in Belgium, former secretary general of Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), former president of the International Crisis Group. Author of Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century.
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What Comes After the Astonishing Hamas Attack and the Collapse in Israel? Who Controls the Initiative? And Who Is Afraid of Slipping?
Raghida Dergham/The National/October 15, 2023
Israel will not emerge victorious in the war in Gaza, and Hamas will not surpass the psychological victory it achieved on October 7. The United States may navigate out of the crisis without becoming directly involved, perhaps through a new plan to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that involves Arab and European participation, with implicit understandings with Iran. However, this will ultimately depend on Iran's final decision regarding Hamas's call to Tehran and its allies to activate all "resistance fronts," starting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Given the rapid developments on the ground, amid Israeli confusion and Iranian ambiguity while retaining the element of surprise, this article will explore possible and likely scenarios without making definitive conclusions about what lies ahead in the unprecedented and intensifying winds that have swept over Israel.
Public opinion segments uncritically supportive of Israel in the United States and Europe will not understand Arab, Islamic and even European and American public opinion segments that contextualize Hamas' shock attack within the history of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and siege of the Gaza Strip. Both sides denounce each other without trying to understand or listen to the opposite views. Since readers of this article, both in Arabic and English, come from both camps, I just want to note the astonishment felt about what Hamas has done, even by those hostile to it and who renounce its operations against civilians. Indeed, most of the world had expected Israel, not the Palestinians, to carry out such daring operations and did not anticipate such a collapse in Israel's prestige, reputation, intelligence capabilities, and performance.
The Israeli response, led by the devastating bombardment of Gaza and the forced displacement of civilians, has eroded some of the initial sympathy felt in the West. Now, the world is divided between those who support Israel's bid to crush Hamas at any cost and those warning against the folly of this and its political and military costs, not just the exorbitant human cost.
At the time of writing, Iran is moving cautiously in the diplomatic arena to avoid slipping off the tightrope. Even six days after Hamas's operation, the Islamic Republic of Iran remained off the battlefield and advised Hezbollah to exercise prudence and refrain from engaging Israel or activating the 'united fronts' plan.
Iran's priority is its nuclear program, and Tehran does not want to jump into the fire with Israel, six months away from completing its nuclear program and building a nuclear bomb. Tehran has read the U.S. message sent from aboard the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier that the Biden administration does not want to resort to a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities yet would be forced to if Tehran miscalculated.
The White House's message was heard clearly by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who openly denied involvement in Hamas's operations. In other words, the U.S. deterrence strategy towards Iran and its proxies has succeeded, at least so far. The Biden administration has also worked to address the other side of this challenge and invested efforts in convincing Israel not to carry out a ground invasion of Gaza, worked with Egypt to secure a safe passage for civilians from Gaza, pressured Hamas through Qatar's leverage, and engaged with Arab and European leaders to formulate an alternative peace plan starting with freezing the dangerous crisis and moving towards new negotiation processes for resolving the conflict in the Middle East under U.S. sponsorship.
The U.S. anxiety over becoming involved militarily alongside its Israeli ally has been evident. The Biden administration is caught between Israeli pressure and the American pro-Israel lobby and the prospect of involving the United States in a war with Iran triggered by either an Iranian or Israeli decision. Then there is the unavoidable humanitarian catastrophe resulting from an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, for which Hamas has prepared a "defensive" plan it pledged to be even tougher and fiercer than its "offensive" plan against Israel.
The forced displacement from Gaza is part of the policy of the Israeli extremist camp, which wants to expel the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and from within Israel itself. This camp believes there is no solution to the demographic time bomb other than getting rid of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Israel had helped create Hamas to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization and provide it with a pretext for exercising extremism when needed, such as forced expulsion and displacement. From this perspective, the epic proportion of Hamas's operations may ultimately serve Israeli goals more than Palestinian aspirations.
Egypt is in a predicament as it faces Israel's efforts to displace Palestinians into its soil, aware that some in Israel advocate for the resettlement of Gazan refugees in Sinai. Yet closing the border to Palestinian civilians to thwart the Israeli strategy is not an easy option, as its humanitarian cost is high and would unfold under the world's watchful eyes. Egypt is caught between a rock and a hard place, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, like President Joe Biden, has a presidential election to worry about. Both find themselves in a quandary due to Israel's determination to crush Hamas at any cost. Angry and frustrated by its military and intelligence failures, Israel wants to carry out the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the forced expulsion of Palestinians from inside Israel if needed.
If Israel insists on completely crushing Hamas and forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza, it could draw Iran and Egypt into a confrontation. Egypt will not engage in war with Israel, but it cannot submit entirely to Israeli policy. It may rally Arab support for its stance, not least because it is concerned about the backlash from the Egyptian and Arab public if it hesitates.
Iran has chosen caution and not rushed into joining Hamas in its war against Israel. Israel could lead Iran to abandon its balancing act by luring it into engagement either through the Syrian arena, where Israeli military operations have disrupted Damascus and Aleppo airports; or through the Lebanese front, where Hezbollah is on military alert. In this case, it will become clear that Israel figured that expanding the war and involving the United States were the only ways to recover from its collapse and restore its prestige.
The United States has a heavy burden on its shoulders. The Biden administration may succeed in leveraging its military, political, and diplomatic weight if used wisely and persistently with its Israeli ally, which it has naturally committed to defending. But Israel is no longer a necessary strategic ally for the United States, and the American public is weary of getting involved in a war imposed on them. The Biden administration was working for a qualitative shift in Arab-Israeli relations. But what it missed and is paying the price for today is that this qualitative shift is impossible if it ignores the Palestinians and their rights. Hamas's achievement is that it has awakened everyone involved and managed to undermine the assumption that the Palestinian issue had been settled among Arab governments, in the Arab and Islamic streets, and on the international stage.
The implicit U.S. messages from aboard aircraft carriers, primarily directed at Iran, carry an essential subheading in their folds: Syria. In Syria, U.S. military operations, if the Biden administration is compelled to undertake them, can prove the seriousness of military options. In Syria, Iran's regional program, extending from Iran to Iraq and Syria to Lebanon on the borders with Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, can be severed. In Syria, U.S. and European military interventions can overthrow Bashar al-Assad, Iran's ally.
If the Biden administration wishes to seize the diplomatic and political initiatives, it must have the courage to compel its ally, Israel, to adopt a new approach towards the Palestinians. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken carried and heard ideas during his meetings with Arab leaders while still aiming for a significant breakthrough in Arab-Israeli relations as the Biden administration desires.
Russia is no longer a player in the Middle East; thus, the traditional competition between the United States and Russia is not relevant today. China is displeased with developments in the Palestinian-Israeli arena, as it diverted attention from its "Belt and Road" forum, for which it has long prepared, seeking global momentum. China is not currently in direct competition with the United States over mediating a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Its focus lies in the success of its initiatives, notably the Saudi-Iranian agreement, alongside its oil priorities. China can contribute to the success of a new American diplomatic effort that goes beyond freezing the conflict and maps out the new Middle East with all its poles – Arab, Iranian, and Israeli. This requires American awareness of China's potential contribution instead of seeing it as part of the rivalry with Beijing.
Europe is ready to work with the United States. Here, too, there must be an insistence that the key to the success of any new peace process is changing Israel's approach and doctrine. It must be explicitly stated to Israel that the time has come to end arrogance and greed and to accept the two-state solution.
The Palestinian Authority is now under scrutiny more than ever. If it continues in its stagnation and obsolete methods, it will miss a historic opportunity inadvertently provided by Hamas. President Mahmoud Abbas must rejuvenate himself and surround himself with young Palestinians instead of dwelling on the past and the methods of rejection and boycotting negotiations with Israel. This is an opportunity for him to tell the youth of Hamas, not just the youth of Fatah, that now is the opportune time to engage together in a new peace process with Israel, with Arab participation, and perhaps later with Iranian blessing.
The Israelis must oust their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and open an opportunity for a realistic and honest review of the miseries brought about by religious and political extremism on them and others. It is time for the Israeli people to hold themselves and their leaders accountable and to seize this bitter moment to create a pathway to justice for the Palestinians, freeing themselves from the siege mentality and living in peace with their neighbours – if they change their ways.

Why the Iran Deal Matters
Lee Smith/The Tablet/October 15/2023
It was the first in a series of hugely consequential lies that will shape our country as much as the Middle East
How did we get here?
The current state of affairs began when Joe Biden’s former boss Barack Obama legalized a terror state’s nuclear weapons program.
Despite what its publicists claimed, the purpose of the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was never to stop Iran from getting the bomb. Rather, the tens of billions of dollars that Obama paid the clerical regime, which included planeloads of cash, was to facilitate construction of the nuclear weapons program under the protective umbrella of an international agreement backed by the United States. Even a cursory glance at the agreement’s clauses restricting Iranian nuclear and other activities reveals the truth—they are called “sunset clauses” because they were designed to expire. And once they expired, Iran’s industrial-size nuclear weapons program would be entirely legal under the continuing protection of the United States.
No, no, say JCPOA advocates and defenders—the Iran deal was constructed to prevent Iran from ever getting a bomb. And at the time that Obama proposed his plan, it seemed inconceivable that the president would mislead Americans about something as serious as legalizing the nuclear weapons program of a terror state that has been killing Americans since its inception in 1979. Surely, Obama had some more conventional idea of arms control in mind. His critics must be conspiracy theorists, projecting their own pyromania onto the righteous president, probably because they were racists, or Zionists, or both. The Iranian emigres and Saudi analysts who expressed their shock at the idea of giving Iran the bomb must have their own local axes to grind.
Nearly a decade after the selling of the Iran deal, it’s much easier now for Americans to see that it was the origin point in a series of hugely consequential lies that have shaped our country at home as surely as they have shaped the lives of people in the Middle East. They lied about Obama’s successor being a Russian spy to delegitimize the government and divide the country, in the hope of removing an elected president from office. They lied about an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, to justify designating one half of the country as domestic terrorists, in order to put their political opponents in jail. They’ve lied about so many things because they’re certain that their communications infrastructure—where intelligence officers direct big tech and censor what was once America’s independent press—will shape the “information space” on their behalf, effectively controlling what we see, hear, and read. They first built their echo chamber to sell the idea that the Iran deal would stop Iran from getting a bomb; now the echo chamber is everywhere—a high-tech version of how the press is run in countries like Egypt, or Iran.
Obama wanted to give Iran the bomb in the context of a larger realignment of U.S. interests with those of the Islamic Republic. If you’ve seen any of the videos on social media of Hamas operatives dragging Jews out of their homes and shooting them, you can see what that means. Obama admired Hamas’ Iranian patron Qassem Soleimani, who ran Iran’s expeditionary unit, the Quds Force, until the Trump administration killed him. Obama told Gulf Arab U.S. allies they should get their own Quds Force, but they didn’t, which is partly why Obama downgraded relations with America’s traditional Arab allies and moved Iran into the top slot. He wanted Iran’s hard men and their terror assets to manage U.S. regional interests, so that the United States could leave the Middle East and “pivot” to Asia—though as it turned out, China and its friends in Washington had their own ideas about American dominance there.
But there was also an important domestic reason to get Iran the bomb, which was to normalize pathology. If you treat a nation-state that embodies Jew-hatred as an ally and arm it with a bomb, you are legitimizing Jew-hatred, which is perhaps the dominant form that psychopathy takes in modern global politics. To believe that Jews secretly rule the world, that the invisible hand of the “elders of Zion” tilts the world like gravity in favor of the Jews, and that mankind’s dignity can only be restored if the Jews are disempowered, or eliminated, is a pathological belief—one that is shared by billions of people around the globe, as well as by a stunning assortment of psychopaths with designs on power.
Obama rejected that characterization, acknowledging that the regime was antisemitic. But antisemitism, as he told a journalist, “doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power.”
That’s just your average high-stakes undergraduate bull session answer, in which the winning move is to rationalize Jew hatred through the backdoor: You can be an antisemite and still be rational. But then Obama went a step further, and suggested that maybe antisemitism could itself be rational. He talked about the Iranians using “antisemitic rhetoric as an organizing tool.”
The latter part of Obama’s answer was incredibly revealing. Of course, antisemites don’t see antisemitism as an “organizing tool”—meaning, as a rational device to achieve a rational end. Antisemitism is many things—a conspiracy theory, a passion—but rationality is not one of its characteristics.
The Iran deal was more than a foreign policy blunder, or a bad deal. It was the device that Obama consciously used to transform America.
The antisemites you come across on social media aren’t trying to win followers or “organize people”; they just hate Jews. They are proud of their beliefs, and eager to tell the whole world. No, the kind of person who sees antisemitism as an “organizing tool” is someone who would use it that way. In other words, Obama’s comment was revealing because he wasn’t speaking about the Iranian regime. He was talking about himself.
It’s hard to look into another’s heart to discern their true feelings about others. But we know that Obama believes antisemitism to be a useful organizing tool, because he said so himself.
The Iran deal was more than a foreign policy blunder, or a bad deal. It was the device that Obama consciously used to transform America. It unleashed the Iranians and their terror assets abroad; at home it sidelined the Jews, pushing them out of the places they had carved out for themselves in American life and relegating them to second-class status in the Democratic Party—where, in order to belong, they would now have to pledge allegiance to the idea of gifting nuclear weapons to a country that pledged to exterminate them.
In turn, the reason that Obama had to push out the Jews is because they are one of the touchstones of American exceptionalism. Like Israel, like the Jews, America is a nation built since its founding on the idea of a covenant with God. Just as Christians have no evidence that Jesus is real or that God acts in history without the historical reality of the Jews, America grounds its unique self-conception in history through Israel. Like the Jews, we are one of a kind, with a unique, God-given destiny.
Obama’s transformation of America was to remake it in his own image, by junking the idea that America is exceptional and dissolving the country’s borders with the rest of the world. America is not unique. It is as sinful as any other nation, he was effectively arguing, and possibly worse. What better way to make that point than by throwing Israel overboard, and replacing it with Iran—a country that preaches God’s retribution against America.
Now that the Israel part of Obama’s dream has been achieved, we should all be prepared for the other shoe to drop. The violence he unleashed in Israel will be coming to these shores now.
*Lee Smith is the author of The Permanent Coup: How Enemies Foreign and Domestic Targeted the American President (2020).

Middle East analysts dispute accusations that Netanyahu 'propped Hamas up'
Rebecca Rommen/Business Insider/October 15, 2023
Middle East analysts have disputed suggestions that Netanyahu helped "prop up" Hamas. Netanyahu's policy toward Hamas was "a seasonal mowing of the grass rather than scorched earth." Netanyahu's biggest blunder was failing to foresee the Hamas invasion on October 7. Middle East analysts have disputed charges that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "propped up" Palestinian militant group Hamas.  A Times of Israel opinion column by political correspondent Tal Schneider argued that Netanyahu "propped up" Hamas for years. "Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset."A columnist for Haaretz, Israel's long-established liberal newspaper, wrote that Israel sought to preserve "diplomatic paralysis" between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to avoid negotiations with the Palestinians over a two-state solution. "Netanyahu's flawed strategy turned Hamas from a minor terrorist group into an efficient, lethal army with bloodthirsty killers who mercilessly slaughtered innocent Israeli civilians," wrote Dmitry Shumsky. Laura Blumenfeld, Middle East analyst at Johns Hopkins University, argued that he didn't prop them up but didn't shut them down either. "The approach was more of a seasonal mowing of the grass rather than scorched earth," she said.
Jonathan Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum, told Insider that not taking a more active approach to shut down Hamas does not mean he was propping them up. He echoed Blumenfeld's take that Netanyahu's approach to Hamas was more passive than reported by The Times of Israel and Haaretz, saying that at worst, "Netanyahu didn't mind there being a division in Palestinian politics," but "could he have reversed it? I don't believe he could.""Netanyahu has never said he prefers Hamas, so people are extrapolating from his supposed behavior," Spyer said.
Spyer argued that Hamas' control of Gaza stems from the split in Palestinian politics, which precedes Netanyahu by two years. "Israel has been fighting five fires with one hose," Blumenfeld told Insider, referring to Israel navigating relationships with Gaza, the West Bank, Tehran, and Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon. She said that every Israeli government has had to "balance threats."
Spyer told Insider that he believes Netanyahu could not himself have brought about Palestinian reconciliation and that the Israeli government sought to coexist with Hamas.
Yohanan Plesner, a former lawmaker and head of the Jerusalem-based think tank the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Wall Street Journal that Netanyahu had propped up Hamas and pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy while simultaneously undermining the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
"It was ideology at the expense of security," Plesner told The Wall Street Journal.
Blumenfeld said that it was a mistake to "take a rational approach to an irrational ideological terrorist group," adding that "Hamas can't be bought off," referring to years of policy she summarized as "targeted assassinations paired with economic incentives and work permits."
Spyer and Blumenfeld said Netanyahu's government's biggest mistake was failing to foresee the attacks on Saturday. Spyer said Hamas had successfully "lulled" Israel into a "false sense of security" and that the failure to intercept the attacks would go down as Netanyahu's biggest blunder, not the perceived bolstering of Hamas in the years prior. Netanyahu's political future is hanging in the balance following the Hamas invasion of southern Israel, facing the blame for the massive security failure that allowed the unprecedented wave of attacks.
Almost 56% of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign, according to a new poll, which surveyed 620 Israeli Jews. An overwhelming 86% of respondents said the surprise Hamas attacks on Israel were a failure of Netanyahu's government, and 94% said the country's leadership must bear some responsibility for failing to intercept the assault.
Those calling for Netanyahu's resignation also drew 28% of people who voted for his coalition government, which includes ministers from far-right political parties.
Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing nationalist Likud party, is Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Netanyahu's leadership has been marred by controversy in recent years. He is facing charges of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in three separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He denies wrongdoing.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/why-iran-deal-matters

America’s Betrayal of Israel ...A decade of perverse U.S. policy sets the stage for mass murder
Liel Leibovitz /The Tablet/October 15/2023
I am writing this on Saturday, as news outlets report hundreds of Israeli dead, and dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers and civilians kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and taken into Gaza.
It is never a good idea to write anything as events are still rapidly unfolding, especially as neither I nor anyone else can answer the only question that ultimately matters—namely, “what happens now?” But we can answer another, much more rudimentary and no less urgent question: Who’s at fault?
There will be plenty of time to pore over how a cataclysmic disaster of this magnitude could happen, and who—from Bibi down to the IDF chief of staff, head of intelligence, et al.—failed to protect the lives of Israelis. A lot of it will have to do with people who should have known better—including former prime ministers and former and current high-level security officials—abandoning the core commitment of defending Israel and instead entertaining themselves by cosplaying some game of Demokratia, complete with donning handmaid outfits and ululating about fascism. Hysterics about your political opponents being the enemies of democracy may be fun in Kalorama; in Sderot and Ofakim, and even in Tel Aviv, there’s a price to pay for abandoning the real world and indulging in fetish play.
But the bigger mistake on the part of the Israelis is that over the past few years they have gotten the power equation that governs their lives backward: Instead of understanding themselves to be citizens of a strong but beleaguered country whose first responsibility is to protect itself, they luxuriated in the fantasy that the United States was and always would be their protector—when in fact the ruling party in America has decided that Israel is a liability.
Watch this video. That’s a Hamas drone taking down an Israeli Merkava tank. A drone operated by an organization sponsored and trained by Iran applying both Iranian tactics and, most likely, Iranian hardware to attack Israel. This happened weeks after America sent Iran $6 billion, and one week after we learned that the American government had over the past years ceded whole parts of its own intelligence units to Iranian spies.
The stage for this attack was not set in or by Israel. It was set by the United States.
For the better part of the past decade, the United States has pursued a foreign policy designed to strengthen Iran and enable it to form a strong sphere of influence in the region. This is the idea behind what Tony Badran and Michael Doran called “the realignment,” a vision of a new world order in which America partners with Iran in order to “find a more stable balance of power that would make [the Middle East] less dependent on direct U.S. interference or protection.” Those words aren’t Badran and Doran’s; they’re Robert Malley’s, Barack Obama’s lead negotiator on the Iran deal who, as Semafor reported this week, helped to infiltrate an Iranian agent of influence into some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. government—first at the State Department and now the Pentagon, where she has been serving as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Biden himself, in an op-ed in The Washington Post, spoke of “an integrated Middle East,” using the phrase no less than three times to make clear that his administration was intent on pursuing his predecessor’s commitment to seeing Iran not as a U.S. foe but as our collaborator.
And the Biden administration wasn’t just talking the talk. It was also walking the walk, from unfreezing billions in assets to make it easier for Tehran to support its proxy Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon to sending huge cash infusions used primarily to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of unvetted “security personnel.” And while the previous administration halted all aid to the Palestinians—directly because of the “pay for slay” policies that support the families of those who slaughter Israelis—the Biden administration was quick to reverse the decision.
Lots of people argued that this was simply clear-minded realpolitik after decades of disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bullshit. Here’s how you know this policy was, and is, motivated not by what’s best for America but by what would kneecap the Jewish state: Because it extended to inside Israel’s borders.
In addition to creating the external circumstances for terror, the Biden administration did everything in its power to derail Israel’s democratically elected government and prevent it from being able to see an attack like today’s coming. That the Israelis let themselves fall for this was stupidity of criminal order. But the invisible hand here was America’s. Biden himself took to CNN to call Netanyahu’s government “the most extreme” he’s ever seen, and lost no opportunity to lecture his Israeli counterpart about democratic values. The former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, took the unprecedented step of intervening in the country’s domestic affairs, announcing ominously that he “think[s] most Israelis want the United States to be in their business.” And if words weren’t enough, the administration also sent American dollars to support the anti-Netanyahu NGOs organizing the protests that brought Israel to a halt for months. Netanyahu was famously denied an invite to the White House; his key opponent, opposition leader Benny Gantz, had no such problem.
One idea floating around my inbox this afternoon is that part of Israel’s complete military collapse today was caused by a massive Iranian cyber attack that hacked its systems and prevented it from seeing what ought to have been obvious. That this could not only be true but related to the U.S. having recently given a team of Iranian agents high-level access to U.S. intelligence, which could very well have included information about Israeli systems, is not nearly as far-fetched a scenario as many would like it to be. And to the extent that we ever find out the truth about any of this, it will be because of Elon Musk, without whom we’d only have access to state-approved propaganda.
It doesn’t matter what words Biden says today. When you champion Iran; when you send it and its proxies money; when you reward Palestinian violence; when you go out of your way to portray Bibi as a dangerous fascist; when you finance and champion his opponents, contributing to further instability and unrest; when you hand over U.S. intelligence keys to Iranian agents; when you have your spokespeople declare it “disinformation” for people to connect obvious dots; when you do all of this, you know what is going to happen. You mean for it to happen.
Here today, then, is the challenge for Israel’s leadership: Can you accept that this is what’s happening? Can you imagine a future for the Jewish state decoupled from America? Because you must.
For at least a decade now, we’ve been told that part of what makes Israel so mighty and so safe is its superior technology, developed in partnership with America. Who, went this line of argument, needs to worry about missiles when we have Iron Dome and F-35 stealth fighter planes as part of a $3 billion military aid package? Who cares about guns and grenades when we’ve developed high-level cybersecurity systems that can strike at will? The war of the future, we’ve been promised, will be waged on computer terminals, in cyberspace—not in dusty border towns.
And then came a gaggle of Gazans with Kevlar vests and pickup trucks and small arms that brought Israel to its knees. “Startup nation” has been ravaged by reality. It is clear that the dream Israel’s elites have entertained for the past decade—to become part of the global set of people who make all the money and all the decisions and have all the right opinions and fashionable friends—has soured into a nightmare.
And now it’s time to wake up. Stop prattling about the “cycle of violence,” about faults on both sides, about “the occupation,” about Bibi’s cabinet appointments, or any other distraction.
Reroot yourself in what you should never have forgotten—which is that we have enemies not because of what we did or didn’t do here or there, or on this day or that one, or because our hasbara isn’t good enough or because it is too good, or any other pointless argument. It is because we have vicious enemies, and they hate us. Instead of trying pathetically to curry favor with American overlords by scrubbing Judaism from your streets, pray to HaShem to fulfill the promise made to Isaiah and deliver vengeance. Reject, with great force and wrath, the death cult that has gripped so much of American political, public, and intellectual life and that sees virtue in propping up benighted regimes in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We don’t need an integrated Middle East, because we don’t wish to integrate with the murderous mullahs and their packs of wild animals. We have our own interests, and if we’re smart—and if we wish to survive—we’ll never forget it again.
**Liel Leibovitz is Editor at Large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/americas-betrayal-of-israel

Israel, Hamas, and the ‘Laws of War’
Robert Goldman/The Conversation/October 15, 2023
The killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas and retaliatory airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip by Israel raises numerous issues under international law.
Indeed, President Joe Biden made express reference to the “laws of war” in comments he made at the White House on Oct. 10, 2023, noting that while democracies like the U.S. and Israel uphold such standards, “terrorists” such as Hamas “purposefully target civilians.” Speaking the same day, the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell condemned Hamas’ attack but also suggested that Israel was not acting in accordance with international law by cutting water, electricity and food to civilians in Gaza.
But international law and the very nature of the conflict itself—along with the status of the two sides involved—is a complex area. The Conversation turned to Robert Goldman, an expert on the laws of war at American University Washington College of Law, for guidance on some of the issues.
What are the ‘laws of war’?
The laws of war, also known as International Humanitarian Law (IHL), consist of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, their two Additional Protocols of 1977, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, as well as certain weapons conventions.
Simply put, these instruments seek to spare civilians and others who are no longer active combatants from the effects of hostilities by placing restrictions and prohibitions on the conduct of warfare. It is important to understand that modern IHL is not concerned with the reasons for, or the legality of, going to war. Rather, that is governed by the United Nations Charter and member state’s own practice. It is also important to note that violations of the laws of war are notoriously hard to prosecute and can be frustrated by lack of cooperation by the parties involved.
What is the nature of the conflict between Israel and Hamas?
The answer to this question is by no means clear.
Many humanitarian law experts would argue that Hamas and Israel are engaged in what is known as a “non-international armed conflict.” In other words, it would be classified the same way as a civil war that pits the armed forces of a state against an armed non-state actor, rather than an international conflict between two or more sovereign states.
If that were the case, the conflict would not be governed by the entirety of the laws of war, but instead by the more limited Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions along with numerous customary law rules, which derive from general practices accepted as law. Common Article 3, which applies to civilians and those no longer fighting, prohibits practices such as torture, summary execution and denial of a fair trial. But Prisoner of War status only applies to conflicts between states, so would not apply.
Egyptian President Says Israel Is Enacting ‘Collective Punishment’ on Gaza
But some international observers, including the United Nations, view Israel as, in effect, occupying Gaza—a view predicated on the fact that Israel controls Gaza’s borders and airspace and it supplies most of its electricity.
If that is the case, then the recent outbreak of hostilities between Hamas and Israel would trigger the entirety of laws of war. That said, I do not believe that Israel is an occupying power in Gaza under a strict reading of the law. This is because Israel ceased governing and pulled its forces out of Gaza in 2005. Since 2007, Hamas, after expelling the Palestinian Authority, has in effect governed Gaza.
Is the bombing of Gaza illegal under international law?
Today the rules governing the conduct of hostilities in both international and non-international armed conflicts are essentially the same. The foremost requirement in all conflicts is that combatants must always distinguish between civilians and combatants, and that attacks can only be directed at combatants and other military targets.
Protecting civilian populations caught in warfare essentially depends upon three factors:
Civilians must abstain from fighting;
The party in control of the civilian population must not place them at heightened risk of harm by using them as human shields; and The attacking force must take precautions to avoid or minimize excessive civilian casualties when attacking lawful targets.
Not only are civilians in Gaza not lawful targets, they are also protected under IHL by the rule of proportionality. This rule prohibits an attack against a military target which foreseeably could cause civilian casualties that are excessive, or disproportionate in relation to the advantage anticipated from the target’s destruction. In the case of Gaza, this rule requires that before launching an attack, the Israeli military analyze and determine the likely effect on civilians. If it appears that such an attack will cause disproportionate civilian casualties, then it must be suspended or canceled.
It’s Dangerous for the U.S. to Give Israel a Blank Check to Assault Gaza
Given Gaza’s urban density, it will be extremely difficult for the Israelis to avoid substantial civilian casualties even when using precision weapons. And this task will be nearly impossible if Hamas, as it has consistently done in the past, uses its civilians and now hostages to shield military targets. While Israel bears primary responsibility to avoid excessive civilian deaths in its bombardment of Gaza, Hamas’ ability to claim the bombardment constitutes a war crime would be weakened if it deliberately places its own people in harm’s way. And while Israel is complying with its duty to give an advanced warning of an attack in north Gaza, the problem remains: Where do 1 million people go to seek safety when borders are closed and military targets are being hit throughout Gaza?
Is Israel’s siege of Gaza illegal?
Unlike in the past, total siege warfare now is unlawful regardless of whether the warring parties are involved in international or non-international hostilities.
Blocking the entry of all food, water, medicines and cutting off electricity—as appears to be happening in Gaza—will disproportionately affect civilians, foreseeably leading to their starvation. This is a banned method of warfare under customary and conventional IHL.
No matter how horrific the actions of Hamas, IHL does not permit an aggrieved party to respond in kind. Violation of the law by one party cannot, in principle, justify or sanction actions by the other that violate established prohibitions in international humanitarian law.
What are the status and obligations of Hamas under IHL?
IHL rules apply equally to all the warring parties irrespective of the nature of the conflict. This means that Israeli and Hamas combatants have the same rights and duties.
If, however, the conflict is non-international, then Hamas will be regarded as an armed non-state actor and its combatants ineligible for Prisoner of War status upon capture. Accordingly, Israel can try them for all their hostile acts whether or not Hamas complies with the laws of war.But even if the conflict is an international one, then Hamas’s fighters would still be debarred from Prisoner of War status. They are not the armed forces of Palestine—which is recognized as a state by 138 nations and has the Palestine Authority as its government.
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Rather, Hamas combatants are an irregular armed group. To be eligible for Prisoner of War status under Article 4A(2) of the Third Geneva Convention, members of an irregular armed group must adhere to very strict standards, both collectively and individually. These include distinguishing themselves from civilians and complying with the laws of war. Manifestly Hamas has not and does not meet these standards. As such, Israel could lawfully deny them Prisoner of War status upon capture.
Israel, the U.S. and others label Hamas fighters as terrorists. Hamas’ recent acts—indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets into Israel, targeting, killing and taking civilians as hostages—are acts of terrorism in warfare and qualify as war crimes.
*Robert Goldman is a professor of law at American University