Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 21-22/2023
Hezbollah's Destructive Role in Lebanon: A Threat to Peace and StabilityظElias Bejjani/October 19/2023
US, France, Germany, UK Urge De-Escalation along Lebanon’s Southern Border
Lebanon activates plan to counter Gaza conflict spillover
Gallant says Hezbollah paying 'heavy price' for its attacks
Israel confirms soldier killed in Hezbollah attack
Macron says France sent messages to Hezbollah to avoid Lebanon escalation
Biden and aides advise Israel to avoid widening war with Hezbollah strike
Thousands displaced from southern Lebanese border towns
Israeli soldiers rally, locals flee as northern border heats up
Lebanon in 2023: A different reality from 2006, preparing hospitals for emergency response
US notice: Israel cautioned over provoking Lebanon, creating regional war
War risks: MEA adapts to decreased flights
Hezbollah's weapons: Precision-guided missiles shape border clashes
Israeli preparations and responses: Hezbollah's border operations impact amid escalations
US State Department: Blinken called the Prime Minister yesterday and expressed growing concern about “escalating tensions” on the southern border
Tenenti: Head of the UNIFIL mission visits its area of ​​operations to assess the current situation
More than 50 Arab & Lebanese figures, including Presidents Gemayel, Sleiman, Siniora, Jumblatt, address a message to the “Cairo Peace Summit” to...

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 21-22/2023
Cairo Summit: Arab leaders reject forced displacement of Palestinians
Sisi suggests roadmap for ending war, creating Palestinian state
Iran-backed groups in Iraq warn US forces to leave or face more attacks
First of 20 aid trucks enter besieged Gaza from Egypt
Israel's ground invasion of Gaza will be way more deadly than the 'absolute hell' US Marines experienced in Fallujah, Iraq, geopolitical expert says
Blinken says US pushing hard for other Hamas-held captives' freedom
The Israeli army announces the “intensification” of its strikes on the Gaza Strip
Russia seeks new UN Security Council meeting on Gaza war
Qatari Foreign Ministry's spokesperson: The ongoing discussions might lead to the release of more hostages very soon
Al Arabiya: Turkey's Erdogan discussed Gaza with Hamas leader: Turkish presidency
Syrians try to bomb Israeli embassy in Cyprus/Four persons were arrested in connection with the attack.
Israel ‘would struggle with a two-front war drawing in US and Iran’
Inside Hamas’ hostage handbook: ‘They were expecting to kill people’
Canada pledges $50M in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza Strip
US tells Sunak to ban Iran’s terrorist forces
Hamas militants ate family's lunch as they tortured and mutilated parents and 2 young children, says an Israeli emergency responder.
5 major risks looming over Israel’s ground offensive
It’s Cold War II, and the enemies of freedom are lining up to forge a new world order
Israel tells citizens to leave Egypt, Jordan, avoid travel to Muslim nations

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 21-22/2023
Iran: Behind Hamas' Planned Genocide/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/ Gatestone Institute./October 21, 2023
Today in History: A Christian Warlord Defeats Thousands of Jihadists/Raymond Ibrahim/October 21, 2023
Hamas have already shown who they are. They must be defeated/Rishi Sunak/The Telegraph/October 21, 2023
What happens when terrorists are rewarded for taking hostages/Jonathan S. Tobin/JNS/October 21/2023
Is The Writing On The Wall For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?/Marita Vlachou/HuffPost/October 21, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 21-22/2023
Hezbollah's Destructive Role in Lebanon: A Threat to Peace and Stability
Elias Bejjani/October 19/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/123338/elias-bejjani-hezbollahs-destructive-role-in-lebanon-a-threat-to-peace-and-stability/
Lebanon has long been a nation beset by political strife, sectarian tensions, and a fragile balance of power. But amidst these complexities, one entity stands out as a particularly destructive force: Hezbollah. This Shiite militant group, with its dual identity as both a political party and a paramilitary organization, continues to sow the seeds of discord and violence within the country, threatening the very essence of Lebanon's existence.
Hezbollah, which was founded in the early 1980s with Iranian and Syrian support, has since evolved into a powerful and well-armed military force. Its actions, both inside and outside Lebanon, have earned it the label of a terrorist organization by a number of countries, including the United States and many in the European Union. But the true cost of Hezbollah's actions is not merely measured in the formal designations it carries; it is measured in the pain and suffering inflicted on the Lebanese people and the erosion of the nation's sovereignty.
One of the most pressing concerns regarding Hezbollah is its military wing's activities. The group has been responsible for numerous acts of terrorism, including bombings, kidnappings, and rocket attacks. Its military actions, often serving as proxies for foreign powers, have dragged Lebanon into regional conflicts and compromised the security of its own citizens. The scars of the 2006 Lebanon War still remain, a testament to the havoc Hezbollah can wreak on the country.
Moreover, Hezbollah's close alignment with Iran has turned Lebanon into a battleground for regional rivalries. This alignment has little to do with the interests of the Lebanese people but instead serves the objectives of the Iranian regime. As a result, Lebanon is not only a victim of its own political divisions but also a pawn in the larger regional chessboard, where Hezbollah's strings are pulled by foreign powers.
The intertwining of Hezbollah's military might with its political influence has created a dangerous dynamic within Lebanon. It wields significant power within the government, often hindering the functioning of state institutions and using its clout to shape policy in ways that are inconsistent with the best interests of the nation. This polarizing effect has stalled progress and deepened divisions within the already fragmented political landscape of Lebanon.
Furthermore, Hezbollah has cleverly employed social services, including schools, hospitals, and charities, as tools to consolidate its influence and recruitment. While these services may appear to benefit the local population, they serve to maintain its grip on power and deepen its influence, further complicating the challenges facing Lebanon.
It is evident that Hezbollah's destructive role in Lebanon poses a grave threat to the nation's peace, stability, and progress. The Lebanese people deserve better. They deserve a nation free from the shackles of regional conflicts and terrorist activities. They deserve a government that acts in their best interests, rather than one influenced by a paramilitary organization with foreign ties.
Addressing the Hezbollah problem is a complex task that necessitates international cooperation, commitment, and the recognition of Lebanon's sovereignty. It is time for the world to recognize the destructive force Hezbollah represents, not just for Lebanon but for regional stability. A stable and prosperous Lebanon requires a concerted effort to mitigate Hezbollah's influence and allow the country to chart its own course towards peace and prosperity.

US, France, Germany, UK Urge De-Escalation along Lebanon’s Southern Border
Beirut: Asharq Al Awsat/21 October 2023
Contacts have intensified between Lebanon and international powers to de-escalate the tensions along the Lebanese-Israeli border. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held telephone talks with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to discuss the situation in Lebanon and the region, the PM’s office said on Friday. Earlier on Friday, Mikati had received German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Beirut. The FM underlined the need to “avoid any miscalculations and keep Lebanon away from the conflict” in Gaza as much as possible. For his part, Mikati said: “We are exerting all our efforts to restore calm in the South.”He called for pressure to be applied on Israel to “stop its aggression against Lebanon and reach a ceasefire in Gaza.”Baerbock met her Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib. They agreed that the two-state solution would pave the way to tackling the root causes of the conflict in Gaza. “We are banking on Germany’s influence in Europe and the world and its experience in suffering the calamities of war to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to be delivered” to the enclave, Bou Habib added. He also warned that the dangerous consequences of the conflict will not only impact the Middle East, but Europe in specific and the entire world. The minister made the same warning before several ambassadors to Lebanon, including the envoys of Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Canada. He urged their countries to intervene to pressure Israel to stop its escalation, while warning of the rising hate speech and incitement to violence that would spread to the West. Meanwhile, caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Sleep received a telephone call from his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu for talks on the developments in southern Lebanon and Gaza. Lecornu stressed that France was carrying out contacts with the international community to discuss the developments in Gaza. He stressed “the need for Lebanon to steer clear of the repercussions of the situation in the Palestinian territories.”Lebanon is a priority for France, he declared. He also highlighted the role of the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) in the south and the need to avoid escalation along the Lebanese-Israeli border. For his part, Sleem pointed to the “ongoing Israeli violations against civilians and civilian, health and religious infrastructure in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.” He said close coordination was ongoing between the Lebanese army and UNIFIL. The situation in the South was discussed between Army Commander Joseph Aoun and a US Congressional delegation. They tackled the overall situation in Lebanon and its military and the challenges it is facing. Aoun also held talks with Air Marshal Sampson, UK Defense Senior Advisor to the Middle East and North Africa, who was in Lebanon for a two-day visit. Sampson underscored the UK’s stance that Lebanon must not be dragged into a regional conflict. He stressed that the Lebanese army was leading efforts to protect Lebanon’s security and stability, and this is a priority for the UK. He also met with Mikati during his visit and contacted UNIFIL commander Aroldo Lazaro, expressing the UK’s support to the peacekeeping force and its significant role in preserving calm and stability.

Lebanon activates plan to counter Gaza conflict spillover
TRT.world//October 21, 2023
Israel announces plans to evacuate northern city of Kiryat Shmona, after days of clashes with Hezbollah fighters along the border with Lebanon. Lebanon has approved a comprehensive plan to counter possible repercussions on its infrastructure and public facilities from an escalation of tensions on its border with Israel. Separately, Israeli authorities announced plans to evacuate the northern city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday, after days of clashes with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon. "A short while ago, the Northern Command informed the mayor of the city of the decision. The plan will be managed by the local authority, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Defence," the Israeli military said in a statement. Exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army has caused deaths and injuries on both sides. Reuters journalist Issam Abdullah was killed by Israeli bombings and six journalists associated with international news agencies were injured earlier this month. The Lebanese plan was approved during a Cabinet session chaired by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday, according to a statement issued by the Prime Ministry. Mikati said in his speech during the session that he held a meeting with the National Disaster and Crisis Management Authority to formulate the practical steps required to confront what might happen. "We have agreed on a series of steps, based on which we will take appropriate decisions," he added, without providing further details.

Gallant says Hezbollah paying 'heavy price' for its attacks
Naharnet/October 21, 2023
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Saturday that Hezbollah "has decided to participate in the fighting" that is raging between Israel and the Gaza-based Hamas movement. “Hezbollah has decided to participate in the fighting, and we are exacting a heavy price for this,” said Gallant during a visit to the border with Lebanon, referring to the deadly cross-border exchanges with the Iran-backed group that have been ongoing since the day that followed Hamas' Oct. 7 massive attack on Israel. At least 22 people have been killed in south Lebanon in the hostilities. Most of them have been Hezbollah and Palestinian combatants, but at least four civilians, including a Reuters journalist, have also been killed. At least three Israeli troops and a civilian have been killed in Israel. Hezbollah last fought a major conflict with Israel in 2006. That war left more than 1,200 dead in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers.

Israel confirms soldier killed in Hezbollah attack
Agence France Presse/October 21, 2023
One Israeli soldier was killed Friday in clashes with Hezbollah on Lebanon's border, Israeli radio said, as the Israeli army announced it hit Hezbollah targets with airstrikes after rocket and anti-tank missile fire. Israel on Friday ordered the 25,000 residents of the northern town of Kiryat Shmona to evacuate. Hezbollah for its part said that it attacked Israeli troops and inflicted casualties in response to a deadly attack on journalists and civilians a day earlier. Since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, at least 22 people have been killed in south Lebanon. Most of them have been combatants, but at least four civilians, including a Reuters journalist, have been killed. At least three Israeli troops and a civilian have been killed in Israel. Hezbollah last fought a major conflict with Israel in 2006. That war left more than 1,200 dead in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers.

Macron says France sent messages to Hezbollah to avoid Lebanon escalation
Agence France Presse/October 21, 2023
French President Emmanuel Macron said France had been in direct contact with Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah to avoid a flare-up on Lebanon's southern border with Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza. "We sent messages to Hezbollah very directly through our ambassador and our services," Macron told a group of reporters, adding that despite rocket fire on the border there has been "no escalation" but "we remain very cautious."

Biden and aides advise Israel to avoid widening war with Hezbollah strike
Naharnet/October 21, 2023
U.S. officials acted after they learned that the Israeli defense minister and other military officials supported a pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah, the New York Times has reported. Biden met with Netanyahu and his war cabinet on Wednesday. Biden and his top aides have been urging Israeli leaders against carrying out any major strike against Hezbollah that could draw it into the Israel-Hamas war, American and Israeli officials say. U.S. officials are concerned that some of the more hawkish members of Israel’s war cabinet have wanted to take on Hezbollah even as Israel began a long conflict against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks. "The Americans are conveying to the Israelis the difficulties of battling both Hamas in the south and a much more powerful Hezbollah force in the north," the New York Times said. "U.S. officials believe Israel would struggle in a two-front war and that such a conflict could draw in both the United States and Iran, the militia’s (Hezbollah's) main supporter," the newspaper added. American officials have advised Israeli counterparts in meetings this week to take care that their actions in the north against Hezbollah and in the south in Gaza do not give Hezbollah an easy pretext to enter the war. "Those sensitive talks took place during Mr. Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday and during Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s long negotiations in Israel earlier this week," the New York Times said. One of the biggest champions of a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah has been Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, who has argued Israel’s main military effort should be focused on Hezbollah since it poses a greater threat than Hamas, the officials said. "Gallant told Mr. Blinken in a small meeting on Monday that he had advocated the previous week to launch a pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah, but was overruled by other officials," said a person familiar with the discussion. Biden met on Wednesday with the Israeli war cabinet, where Gallant was present, and underscored the dangers of a two-front war by asking tough questions about the many consequences for Israel of a full-scale conflict with Hezbollah, officials said. Biden also raised the specters of the disastrous decisions by American officials to invade Iraq and to wage a long, open-ended war in Afghanistan. Netanyahu has refrained from backing a major attack on Hezbollah, despite the encouragement of Gallant and senior military generals, U.S. and Israeli officials said. The Israeli military has meanwhile not reacted with overwhelming force to the ongoing low-level rocket fire from Hezbollah.

Thousands displaced from southern Lebanese border towns
Associated Press/October 21, 2023
More than 4,200 people have been displaced from villages in south Lebanon by clashes on the border with Israel, and local officials said Friday that they are ill-prepared for the much larger exodus that would ensue if the limited conflict escalates to an all-out war.
Some 1,500 of the displaced are staying in three schools in the coastal city of Tyre, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the border. At one of the schools, children ran through the courtyard and women hung out clothes to dry on chairs on Friday. Mortada Mhanna, head of the disaster management unit of the municipalities in the Tyre area, said hundreds of newly displaced people are arriving each day. Some move on to stay with relatives or rent apartments, but others have no place to go besides the makeshift shelter, while Lebanon's cash-strapped government has few resources to offer. "We can make the decision to open a new school (as a shelter), but if the resources are not secured, we'll have a problem," Mhanna said. He appealed to international organizations to "give us enough supplies that if the situation evolves, we can at least give people a mattress to sleep on and a blanket."Lebanon's Hezbollah and allied Palestinian groups in Lebanon have launched daily missile strikes on northern Israel since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, while Israel has responded by shelling border areas in south Lebanon. To date, the clashes have killed at least 22 people in Lebanon, four of them civilians.
Sporadic skirmishes continued Friday while a number of airlines canceled flights to Beirut. Countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Germany have warned their citizens to leave Lebanon. For many of the displaced, the current tensions bring back memories of the brutal one-month war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, during which Israeli bombing leveled large swaths of the villages in south Lebanon and in Beirut's southern suburbs. The tactic of overwhelming force to strike civilian infrastructure as a measure of military deterrence was dubbed the "Dahiyeh Doctrine," named after the area south of the capital that was targeted. Should another full-blown war erupt between Hezbollah and Israel, "even the city of Tyre will no longer be safe ... because all of the south was subject to bombing" in 2006, Mhanna said. Among the school's temporary residents is Mustafa Tahini, whose house in the border town of Aita al Shaab was destroyed in 2006, along with most of the village. Back then, aid flowed into Lebanon from Qatar and other countries for reconstruction, but this time, Tahini said, "God knows if someone will come to help us." "I am not a political analyst. I hope things will calm down, but the things you see in the news aren't reassuring," said Tahini, whose wife and children are staying with relatives in Beirut while he remains closer to home. Still, he said, he is mentally prepared for another war. "We've been through it before." Nasmieh Srour, 62, from the town of Dhayra has been staying in the school with her husband and two daughters for a week, along with many of the village's residents. Like Tahini, she was displaced in 2006; she is also stoic about the prospects of a wider conflict. "Maybe it will get bigger, maybe it will calm down - there's no way to know," Srour said. Edouard Beigbeder, the representative in Lebanon of UNICEF, the U.N. agency for children, said that education will be one of the main casualties if the displacement becomes protracted. Already 52 of the 300 schools in south Lebanon are closed due to the hostilities, leaving more than 8,000 children out of education in addition to those enrolled in the schools that are now being used as shelters, he said. A wider conflict would also threaten key infrastructure including electric supplies and, by extension, water supplies. "In any escalation, it is the most vulnerable and the children who are in a dire situation," Beigbeder said.

Israeli soldiers rally, locals flee as northern border heats up
Agence France Presse/October 21, 2023
Soldiers are everywhere and the last residents are hurriedly packing in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona where Israel fears Lebanon's Hezbollah could open up a second front in its war with Hamas. As smoke rises from the nearby wooded hills following the latest cross-border exchanges, soldiers in fatigues can be seen eating sandwiches on cafe terraces, buying bandages in pharmacies or emerging in groups from the bus station. In an extremely rare measure, Israeli authorities on Friday announced the evacuation of this town by the Lebanese border which is home to some 25,000 residents, many of whom have already left. Hamas militants stormed into Israel from Gaza on October 7, beginning an attack that has reportedly killed at least 1,400 people in Israeli including civilians and soldiers. Since then, more than 4,100 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. All the while, there have been increasing exchanges of fire along Israel's northern border between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed ally of Hamas. And Hamas' armed wing has also claimed some of the cross-border strikes. "We're waiting to find out where they want us to go," 16-year-old Lianne Abutbul told AFP as her family weighed up whether to evacuate.
'Ready to fight' -
In Shlomi, another border town to the west, 7,000 of its 9,000 residents have left in the past 10 days, said Yossef Luchy who heads the town council. "Here the last house is 150 meters (500 feet) from the border (area), so we had an evacuation plan and the people who were worried left," said Luchy, former head of the northern district of Israel's homefront command. On Monday, Israel's defense ministry ordered the evacuation of 28 villages and kibbutzes situated within two kilometers (about a mile) of the Blue Line, the border demarcated by the U.N. following Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Residents of other villages have also left, AFP journalists found. The Israel Democracy Institute estimates that at least 300,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in Israel since the start of the war. "Here, those who stayed are mostly former army personnel, and we are constantly preparing. We keep an eye on the shelters, we train," said Luchy. Of the 360,000 reservists called up by Israel, many have been deployed to the increasingly tense 120-kilometer (75 miles) border. One of them, who requested anonymity, told AFP that he was "ready to fight" because "the Jews have no other country."An attack on Israeli military positions near the border killed two people on Tuesday, the army said, and in southern Lebanon, at least 22 people have died in exchanges of fire. Most of the dead in Lebanon were fighters, but four were civilians, one of whom was Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, who died in a strike that wounded six other journalists, including two from AFP.
- 'It's really scary' -
The few remaining inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona admit to having mixed feelings about staying, and are afraid when they hear sirens warning of a rocket attack. Abutbul said when Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted rockets on Wednesday, "debris fell two blocks from my house, in a school playground.""It could have killed children, it's really scary," said the teenager, whose two brothers are currently in the army. Yaacov Kozikaro, 72, has lived near the border since 1961 and experienced two previous wars with Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, memorials of which are scattered across Israel's northern landscape. "This is neither the first nor the last war," he says with a laugh, saying he has no plans to leave, despite Israel's "bad neighbors."

Lebanon in 2023: A different reality from 2006, preparing hospitals for emergency response
LBCI/October 21, 2023
In 2023, Lebanon faces a starkly different reality from the days of the July 2006 war. The economic collapse has had a detrimental impact on hospital operations, further exacerbating the strain on the healthcare sector. The Health Ministry has been working diligently since the outbreak of the Gaza war to bridge gaps and formulate a response plan in case of aggression against Lebanon. The country boasts a total of 160 hospitals, which can be classified into two categories:
- 130 private hospitals
-30 out of 34 government hospitals remain operational, with the bulk of reliance placed on university hospitals during emergencies.
The Ministry's response plan divides the regions into three categories based on their level of risk:
-High-risk areas: Southern Lebanon, northern Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
-Moderate-risk areas: Administrative Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and northern Metn.
- Low-risk areas: The North.
This plan encompasses details such as the number of hospitals in each region and their capacity to respond to emergencies, including factors like available beds, medicine and medical supplies, medical staff, and the readiness of emergency rooms.
In coordination with the Lebanese Red Cross and Civil Defense, the Health Ministry is working on data collection regarding emergency response and relief teams to address the gaps in its resources—an ongoing task. Lebanon in 2023 is vastly different from Lebanon in 2006. While the response plan aims to assess the needs of hospitals and the medical sector, a crucial question remains: Where will the funding come from?

US notice: Israel cautioned over provoking Lebanon, creating regional war
LBCI/October 21, 2023
Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, chose to focus his attention on the northern border, specifically near the Chebaa Farms, to increase his warnings against Hezbollah. This comes after disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the timing of a potential war with Lebanon. Gallant regarded the recent escalation in rocket launches by Hezbollah, particularly anti-tank missiles, as an announcement of the party's readiness for war. He sought to garner support from the military on the northern front, emphasizing that Israel is facing a war that had been imposed on it. He called for complete defensive and offensive preparedness to confront the enemy on the battlefield. Gallant's border visit and confrontational rhetoric contrast with recent American efforts to prevent further divisions between him and Netanyahu over the northern front. American officials, whose identities remain undisclosed by Israel, cautioned against any reckless moves by Israel that could lead to a war with Lebanon, potentially serving as the spark for a regional war. On the southern front, the Israeli military continues to wait for orders to commence ground operations. There are concerns about the extensive tunnel network in Gaza, and Israeli officials have admitted to intelligence weaknesses. These factors foreshadow a protracted and challenging war, not only in Gaza but one that could also have severe consequences for the Israeli military and Israel.

War risks: MEA adapts to decreased flights
LBCI/October 21, 2023
The Middle East Airlines (MEA) A321 neo aircraft is about to take off for Dubai, marking one of its last journeys in the foreseeable future. Following this flight, it will continue to Doha and stay there until further notice. Like several other MEA planes, this A321 Neo is among the 14 aircraft out of 22 owned by MEA that relocated from Lebanon to foreign destinations. This decision was made after the insurance company reduced war insurance on the aircraft by a staggering 80 percent, citing the heightened war risks in Lebanon. On Saturday, 10 of the 14 planes set off to various destinations: four to Cyprus, two to Doha, one to Oman, one to Kuwait, one to Paris, and one to London, with a subsequent journey to Larnaca. MEA had previously transported another four planes to Turkey, all of which are of the newer and larger models: -Four of them are A321 neo aircraft, capable of carrying 160 passengers each. - One is an A330 aircraft that can accommodate up to 244 passengers. As of midnight on Saturday, the number of flights will decrease, with an interesting drop from 32 Saturday flights to 23 on Sunday. The reduction in the number of aircraft will not lead to canceling any Lebanese airline routes. MEA has initiated a plan to reschedule flights. Flight rescheduling has required the involvement of all company departments. For instance, the call center has transformed into a busy hub to respond to inquiries and booking changes from passengers. The commercial department has been actively working on flight rescheduling for the upcoming days. It is worth noting that MEA's aircraft do not just carry passengers but are also used for cargo shipments. This raises the question of how this situation will impact cargo transportation.

Hezbollah's weapons: Precision-guided missiles shape border clashes
LBCI/October 21, 2023
Since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hezbollah's rocket operations against Israeli targets along the Lebanese-Israeli border share a common element: precision-guided missiles. Videos by Hezbollah showcase direct guided missiles like the Kornet, effectively hitting infantry, locations, or tanks. These precision-guided missiles have defined the clash dynamics between Hezbollah and the occupying forces. They are fired from one border contact point to another, assuming that the shooter and their group are at the closest possible point to the Israeli target, often within very few kilometers. This approach ensures direct visual confirmation of the target, resulting in impeccable accuracy, as field sources have confirmed no misses so far. The highly advanced teams situated right on the frontlines of the border, far from residential areas, have only minutes to retreat from the missile launch point before facing a swift counter-response. This is why Hezbollah typically launches these missiles from open areas, as seen in the videos. The strategy of using precision-guided missiles from the closest possible point to the Israeli border contact explains why most Israeli responses often focus on the outskirts of towns, valleys, and some green spaces with no clear borders. The exceptions have been incidents in Chebaa and Dhayra. Until now, these direct, precision-guided missiles have controlled the daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah has not yet resorted to using medium or long-range missiles launched from deep within Lebanese territory. The proof of this is the Israeli Iron Dome system's admission that it has not been deployed to counter such missiles except in accidental cases. On the other hand, the shorter-range rockets have not been employed by Hezbollah. Instead, they have been launched by the Al-Qassam Brigades, affiliated with the Hamas movement. In the past two weeks, the Israeli army has recently uncovered and dismantled 45 medium-range rocket launch platforms, some of them prepared for launching.

Israeli preparations and responses: Hezbollah's border operations impact amid escalations
LBCI/October 21, 2023
The war in Lebanon, ongoing since October 7, is intensifying along the frontlines of the border region, which has evolved into a contact line extending deep into both Lebanese and Israeli territories, covering a distance of two to five kilometers on either side.
Hezbollah has recorded the following military actions: Israeli casualties: Many Israeli soldiers have been killed and wounded, surpassing the total casualties in clashes with Hezbollah since the conclusion of the July 2006 war. While the Israeli army has not officially disclosed the number of casualties, Israeli media statistics indicate six fatalities. Attack on Israeli border sites: Hezbollah has launched attacks on over 20 central Israeli border locations. Disruption of Israeli surveillance: Hezbollah has targeted a crucial part of Israel's surveillance and technical intelligence capabilities along the northern border, primarily the Jall el Aalam facility in the western sector. This facility's reach extends to Alexandria in Egypt and Tartus and Latakia in Syria. Consequently, Israelis have intensified the use of reconnaissance aircraft. Iron Dome weakened: Approximately a quarter of the Israeli Iron Dome's capability to intercept rockets and drones has been stationed near the Lebanese border. Israeli military mobilization: Israel has been on high alert along the entire border with Lebanon. The Northern Brigade, initially deployed in northern Israel, has redirected its forces to the occupied Chebaa Farms since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood, bringing in three military divisions. The exact number of Israeli troops deployed in the north has not been officially disclosed due to military secrecy, but it is estimated to be in the tens of thousands. Evacuation of border settlements: The Israeli military has evacuated 28 border settlements with an estimated population of around 10,000 settlers. Over 300 soldiers belonging to the three divisions brought into the north have been deployed in each settlement, bringing the total military presence in these settlements to over 8,000 soldiers. The evacuation operation has expanded to include the Qiryat Shemona settlement, located approximately 10 kilometers from the Lebanese border. Hezbollah's martyrs: In response, Hezbollah has also suffered casualties, with 13 martyrs. Hezbollah considers the ongoing confrontations a full-scale war and a war of attrition against the Israeli occupation. The numbers of Hezbollah fighters in the area and the location of their deployments are kept secret, leaving Israelis in a state of uncertainty. Civilian impact: Residents of border villages subject to Israeli attacks have been forced to evacuate, with casualties and injuries reported in some areas. School activities have come to a halt, and the daily lives of these residents, particularly in their agricultural fields, have become precarious.

US State Department: Blinken called the Prime Minister yesterday and expressed growing concern about “escalating tensions” on the southern border
NNA/October 21, 2023
The US State Department announced today that Secretary Anthony Blinken contacted Prime Minister Najib Mikati yesterday, expressing “growing concerns about the escalating tensions on Lebanon’s southern border.”Ministry spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that Blinken also affirmed “the United States’ support for the Lebanese people.”

Tenenti: Head of the UNIFIL mission visits its area of ​​operations to assess the current situation
NNA/October 21, 2023
UNIFIL spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti, said in a statement, that “the Head of the UNIFIL Mission and Commander-in-Chief, Major General Aroldo Lazzaro, is visiting the UNIFIL area of ​​operations to assess the current situation, and to speak with peacekeepers, to learn about their concerns.”He added: "UNIFIL continues to be fully committed to its mission of restoring stability in southern Lebanon and is making every effort to prevent an escalation of hostilities."

More than 50 Arab & Lebanese figures, including Presidents Gemayel, Sleiman, Siniora, Jumblatt, address a message to the “Cairo Peace Summit” to...
NNA/October 21, 2023 
A group of Arab and Lebanese figures addressed a message to the Cairo Peace Summit, which was held today in the Egyptian capital, asking them to “take a unified position rejecting the aggression and supporting the investment of the moral, material and economic standing of the Arab countries and friendly countries in strengthening efforts to confront, deter and stop this unjust aggression, and in imposing Israel's commitment and implementation of the relevant international resolutions, and immediately starting to bring food and medical aid into Gaza, ending Israel’s inhumane siege, and establishing an Arab and international fund for the reconstruction of Gaza and the areas that were destroyed.”More than 50 Arab and Lebanese personalities signed the letter, including, from Lebanon, former Presidents Michel Sleiman and Amin Gemayel, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and former Progressive Socialist Party Chief, Walid Jumblatt; while the prominent Arab signatories included Iyad Allawi, Taher Al-Masry, Ali Abu Al-Ragheb, Al-Akhdar Al-Ibrahimi, Amr Moussa, Nabil Fahmy, Muhammad Al-Saqr, and Ali Nasser Mohamad. The letter called for endeavoring to organize an international conference linked to a time limit to declare an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and implementing what was approved by the Arab Summit in Beirut in 2002, which is based on land for peace and the two-state solution. It also urged the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and the international community, to mobilize international public opinion to stop the aggression, maintain international peace and security, respect the principles and provisions of international humanitarian law as stated in the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the protection of civilians in times of war, and to put a final end to the policy of double standards, and demonstrate a clear commitment to achieving freedom, sovereignty, and independence.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 21-22/2023
Cairo Summit: Arab leaders reject forced displacement of Palestinians
Ece Goksedef - BBC News/October 21, 2023
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said he rejects the forced displacement of Palestinians into the Sinai peninsula as the first aid convoy entered Gaza after two weeks of war. Speaking at a summit in Cairo, Mr Sisi said the only solution was an independent state for Palestinians. The summit began as 20 trucks carrying aid crossed the Rafah border. However humanitarian organisations have warned it will not be enough to address the need. About 500 trucks a day had been entering Gaza before the war started. Some 1.2 million people living in the territory already relied on food aid, the UN says.
The UN will be responsible for distributing the aid, with much of it likely to be sent to UN schools where thousands have been sheltering and hospitals. One of the trucks was loaded with coffins, a BBC reporter watching the trucks enter Gaza reports. Afterwards US President Joe Biden expressed his "deep personal appreciation" to Egypt, Israel and the UN for allowing the aid to get through. "We will continue to work with all parties to keep the Rafah crossing in operation to enable the continued movement of aid that is imperative to the welfare of the people of Gaza," his statement said. Israel's military said the aid was for southern Gaza only and repeated calls for residents in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes. They should move south of Wadi Gaza in the centre of the territory, it said.
It has vowed to wipe the Hamas "off the face of the earth". However in his speech at the Cairo-hosted "Summit for Peace", Mr Sisi said his country would not allow Palestinians to be displaced across the Rafah crossing into Egypt. His comments were backed by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud. Mahmoud Abbas, who is head of the Palestinian Authority which has control over areas of the occupied West Bank but not the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, also said Palestinians could not be forced to leave.
"We will never accept relocation, we will remain on our land whatever the challenges," he said.The summit broke up without a joint statement. No Israeli or senior US officials were present, and differences between Arab and European countries were stark.
According to Arab diplomats quoted by AFP on condition of anonymity, European delegates demanded "a clear condemnation placing responsibility for the escalation on Hamas" but Arab leaders refused. At the end, Egypt released a statement approved by Arab delegations, criticising world leaders for seeking to "manage the conflict and not end it permanently". Egypt and other Arab states have previously said an influx of Palestinian refugees fleeing the war would be unacceptable because it would amount to the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. Israel Gaza war:
Meanwhile King Abdullah of Jordan denounced what he called "global silence about Israel's attacks on Gaza". "The message the Arab world is hearing is that Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones," he said. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the leaders in the summit that he had spoken to the Israeli government about its duty to respect international law and to preserve civilian lives in Gaza."Despite the incredibly difficult circumstances, I have called for discipline and professionalism and restraint from the Israeli military," he added.
Mr Cleverly added that the international community needed to work to prevent the situation in Gaza provoking a regional conflict. During his address to the summit, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in the war, demanding global "action to end this godawful nightmare". The Palestinians need "a continuous delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale that is needed", he said. Israel began retaliatory air strikes on Gaza after an attack by Hamas's military wing on Israel on 7 October killed 1,400 people, many in their homes in kibbutzes near Gaza and at a music festival that was happening nearby. Israel says more than 300 soldiers were also killed in the attack and Hamas took more than 200 hostages into Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that more than 4,300 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes, more than half of them women and children.

Sisi suggests roadmap for ending war, creating Palestinian state
Associated Press/October 21, 2023
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday suggested a "roadmap" to end the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas."I have invited you today to discuss... a roadmap... that would begin by guaranteeing the complete, secure, fast and sustainable flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza's residents, followed by immediate negotiations over pacification and a ceasefire," al-Sisi said at the opening of a summit in Cairo with the leaders of regional countries and senior Western officials. The roadmap also calls for "swift negotiations to revive the peace process, reach a two-state solution and establish an independent Palestinian state," al-Sisi added. Al-Sisi also said the conflict would never be resolved “at the expense of Egypt,” referring to fears Israel may try to push Gaza’s population into the Sinai Peninsula. “We are facing an unprecedented crisis that requires full attention to avert expanding the conflict,” he added. King Abdullah II of Jordan told the summit that Israel's air campaign and siege of Gaza was “a war crime” and slammed the international community's response. “Anywhere else, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water, electricity, and basic necessities would be condemned,” he said. Apparently, he added, “human rights have boundaries. They stop at borders, they stop at races, they stop at religions.”

Iran-backed groups in Iraq warn US forces to leave or face more attacks
Associated Press/October 21, 2023
A group of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq said U.S. forces “must leave immediately” or their bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region will continue to come under attack. Militant groups have launched rocket and drone attacks in recent days against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, most of which were claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. The group has said the attacks are retaliation for Washington’s support of Israel and a warning not to intervene in the Israel-Hamas war. “These are only warning messages to them, and serious work has not yet begun,” the militias said in a statement. The statement concluded by saying that if Israel launches a ground invasion into Gaza, “watch the border with Jordan carefully.” It did not elaborate.

First of 20 aid trucks enter besieged Gaza from Egypt
Agence France Presse/October 21, 2023
The first of 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, said AFP correspondents on both sides. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said he was "confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies... to the people of Gaza" and warned that "this first convoy must not be the last." The border crossing was closed again after the passage of the trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent which is responsible for delivering the aid, including food and medical supplies from various U.N. agencies. It was the first such delivery since the war broke out more than two weeks ago between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant movement which rules the Palestinian enclave of 2.4 million people. Rafah is the only route into Gaza that is not controlled by Israel, which agreed to allow the aid in from Egypt following a request from its top ally the United States. Israel has been bombing Gaza since Hamas' bloody surprise attack of October 7 and has also declared a total siege, cutting off most water as well as food, electricity, fuel and other supplies. Hamas militants stormed into Israel from Gaza and reportedly killed at least 1,400 people who include civilians and soldiers. Since then, more than 4,100 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the aid passage as "an important first step that will alleviate the suffering of innocent people."
- 'A lifeline' -
Cargo planes and trucks have been bringing humanitarian aid to the Egyptian side of Rafah for days, but so far none had been delivered to Gaza. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday visited the Egyptian side of the crossing to oversee preparations for the aid delivery. "These trucks are not just trucks, they are a lifeline," he said. "They are the difference between life and death for so many people in Gaza." The U.N. chief said it must be "a sustained effort" with not just one convoy crossing but for many "to be authorized in a meaningful number to have enough trucks to provide support to Gaza's people.""It is essential to have fuel on the other side... to be able to distribute humanitarian aid for the population in Gaza," Guterres said, warning against the use of aid deliveries as "bargaining chips."Israel worries that any fuel brought into Gaza could be used by Hamas to manufacture weapons and explosives. The U.N. World Food Program said the convoy included three trucks carrying 60 metric tons of emergency food, including canned tuna, wheat flour, pasta, canned beans and canned tomato paste. The U.N. World Health Organization said it had sent supplies including trauma medicines for the stabilization of injured patients, basic essential medicines and drugs for the treatment of chronic diseases. U.S. President Joe Biden had pushed for the trucks to be allowed to pass, during a solidarity visit to Israel on Wednesday. He has said the first 20 trucks will be a test of a system for distributing aid without allowing Hamas to benefit, with U.N. agencies set to distribute it on the Gaza side of the border. Biden warned that, if Hamas "doesn't let it get through or just confiscates it, then it's going to end."

Israel's ground invasion of Gaza will be way more deadly than the 'absolute hell' US Marines experienced in Fallujah, Iraq, geopolitical expert says
Alia Shoaib/Business Insider/October 21, 2023
Israel has indicated it will soon begin a ground offensive into Gaza.
A geopolitical expert who embedded with US Marines in Fallujah said it will be "absolute hell."He said that Gaza's dense population and Hamas' vast underground tunnels will pose challenges. Israel's anticipated ground invasion of Gaza will be far more destructive and difficult than the "absolute hell" that US Marines experienced in Fallujah in Iraq, a geopolitical expert said. "I see this as just absolute hell and magnified by many times,"journalist and author Robert D. Kaplan, who embedded with the Marines in Fallujah in April 2004, told the podcast Hub Dialogues. "Based on what I experienced in Fallujah is that because you're dealing with hardened, as we know, well-trained and disciplined adversaries, this can't be anything but a mess." Kaplan was discussing what became known as the First Battle of Fallujah, code-named Operation Vigilant Resolve, an assault on the central Iraqi city and a hotbed of the insurgency, launched following the death and mutilation of four US contractors before their burned corpses were hung over a bridge crossing. The event broadcast globally caused great anger in the US.Troops of the 1st Marine Division attempted to capture the city. After three weeks of fighting, 27 US servicemen lay dead, and an estimated 600 Iraqi civilians and 200 insurgents were killed.
Kaplan noted that any ground invasion of Gaza will also likely to result in huge civilian casualties. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with over two million people living in a strip spanning 140 square miles.
"Keep in mind that Fallujah at the time was far less densely populated than Gaza is now. It had no underground tunnels or anything like that," he said. "It was nothing like apartment houses right next to each other which you have in Gaza City. I don't see how it can be done."He said the Marines' adversaries in Fallujah were more familiar with the urban terrain, and fire would often come from multiple directions. While the Marines only targeted young men with guns in Fallujah, there was no way to avoid hitting civilians, he said, which will likely be the same in Gaza. Hamas has the added advantage of a well-developed tunnel network under the strip, which they use to smuggle weapons and move around undetected. He said that his experience in Fallujah was one of "absolute hell," despite it being on paper "far less daunting than what the Israelis face."
He said an offensive in Gaza would be far more complex despite massive advancements in war technology and Israel having more air cover than the Marines did. Kaplan said that Israeli forces must find "the sweet spot between the restoration of deterrence and all-out Stalingrad-style warfare." He said that what could be more manageable would be to avoid an all-out Russian-style invasion. Instead, several units could enter Gaza with targeted objectives rather than trying to take the whole city. Indeed, in the Second Battle of Fallujah in November of 2004, US-led forces used more sophisticated tactics. The city was occupied after intense fighting, and two-thirds of its 300,000 population had fled.
Israeli officials have signaled that they are prepared to imminently begin a ground offensive into northern Gaza to root out Hamas militants following a deadly attack by the group on October 7. The Hamas attacks killed at least 1,400 Israelis, and subsequent Israeli air strikes have killed more than 3,000 Palestinians, per Reuters. Hamas also took over 200 hostages to Gaza, and it is unclear where they are being held.
Residents of northern Gaza have been fleeing south after the Israel Defense Forces gave an evacuation order, resulting in one million people being internally displaced, per UN estimates. Israel has called up some 360,000 reservists following the Hamas attacks, and officials have indicated that the offensive will begin soon and will be "long and intense."

Blinken says US pushing hard for other Hamas-held captives' freedom
Associated Press/October 21, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he welcomes the release of two U.S. hostages held by Hamas and shared in the families’ relief but noted there are many more captives, including children and elderly people. Speaking to reporters, Blinken said he and President Joe Biden had been able to speak with the families of some of the hostages during their trips to the Middle East. “It’s impossible to adequately put into words the agony that they’re feeling,” Blinken said. “No family anywhere should have to experience this torture.” Of the remaining hostages, he added: “The entire United States government will work every minute of every day to secure their release and bring their loved ones home.”Blinken also thanked the Qataris for their work in securing the hostages’ release.

The Israeli army announces the “intensification” of its strikes on the Gaza Strip
AFP/October 21, 2023
On Saturday evening, the Israeli army declared its intention to intensify its strikes on Gaza in preparation for the next phase of its offensive against the region, currently under the control of the Palestinian group Hamas.Israeli army spokesperson General Daniel Hagari stated, "We must enter the next phase of the war under the best possible conditions. Starting today, we will increase the intensity of our strikes and reduce the (level of) threat."

Russia seeks new UN Security Council meeting on Gaza war
AFP/October 21, 2023
Russia intends to request another meeting of the United Nations Security Council regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war between Israel and Hamas, as announced by the Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations on Saturday. A meeting concerning the war was held on Monday at Russia's request, but Moscow's proposed resolution, which called for a ceasefire, was rejected due to opposition from four council members, including the US, which criticized the text for not mentioning Hamas. The Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, stated, "We will definitely convene a new meeting of the Security Council. As our experience has shown, no one else dares to do so."It was not specified when Russia, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, would request the meeting. Polyanskiy added, "As for the resolution, I do not know how quickly we will move to the next stage of attempting to pass a resolution." The Russian diplomat made these statements in an interview with the Russian Soloviev Live TV channel. Russia has repeatedly called for talks to end the war, which threatens to strain its relations with Israel. President Vladimir Putin spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of Iran and Arab states earlier this week, with the hope of initiating peace negotiations.

Qatari Foreign Ministry's spokesperson: The ongoing discussions might lead to the release of more hostages very soon
LBCI/October 21, 2023
Qatar, currently mediating in the crisis involving hostages held by Hamas, indicated that the ongoing discussions might lead to the release of more hostages very soon, according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry's spokesperson during an interview with the German newspaper " Welt am Sonntag " on Saturday. Majid Al-Ansari said, "I cannot promise that it will happen today, tomorrow, or the day after, but we are on a path that will very soon lead to the release of hostages, especially civilians."Qatar's mediation efforts led to the release of two American hostages by Hamas on Friday. The hostages had been abducted during Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7. Doha has announced that it is discussing the issue with both Israelis and Hamas. Al-Ansari further stated, "We are currently working to reach an agreement that will result in the release of all civilian hostages first."The Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson emphasized that the release of the two American citizens "reassures us, as well as our partners, that the efforts made in recent days are effective and should continue."

Al Arabiya: Turkey's Erdogan discussed Gaza with Hamas leader: Turkish presidency
LBCI/October 21, 2023
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed Gaza in a phone call with the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on Saturday. Erdogan told Haniyeh about Ankara’s efforts for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, and possible treatment of the wounded in Turkey.

Syrians try to bomb Israeli embassy in Cyprus/Four persons were arrested in connection with the attack.
JNS/October 21, 2023
Cypriot police were on high alert early on Saturday after an improvised explosive device was thrown 30 meters away from Israel’s embassy in Nicosia. The “homemade bomb” exploded around 1:30 a.m. local time. Following the blast, two people walking near the Israeli mission were detained, as were two others in a car. Police found two knives and a hammer inside the vehicle. The four arrested are all Syrian nationals between the ages of 17 and 21. Security at the embassy has been reinforced. Israel’s Foreign Ministry is moving to evacuate diplomats from several countries in the Middle East amid threats to their safety due to the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In Egypt, a campaign to expel Israeli Ambassador Amira Oron went viral on social media, Maariv reported. According to Ynet, the Israeli diplomatic team in Cairo has since been recalled to Jerusalem. On Thursday, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that the embassy in Jordan was evacuated at the beginning of the war at the order of Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. The Israeli embassy in Manama, Bahrain, was also evacuated after being inaugurated by Cohen just over a month ago. Following calls for mass protest against Israel in Rabat and Casablanca, Israeli Ambassador to Morocco David Govrin returned to Israel with his staff, Kan said. Earlier this week, dozens of demonstrators attempted to storm the Israeli embassy compound in the Jordanian capital of Amman, AFP reported. The rioters breached a security barrier and tried to advance towards the embassy, but security forces fired tear gas to disperse them, the wire service added. Crowds also tried to set the Israeli diplomatic mission on fire. Meanwhile, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on “all humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented brutality in Gaza,” thousands attempted to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul. Hamas terrorists killed at least 1,400 Israelis and wounded more than 4,500 in a massive offensive launched from Gaza on Oct. 7, which included the firing of thousands of rockets at Israel and the infiltration of the Jewish state by terrorist forces. Protesters also gathered this week at the Israeli mission in The Hague in the Netherlands. Local media reported hundreds of Muslims chanted slogans including “Israel murderer” and “Allahu Akbar” while trampling on Israeli flags. Protests also took place outside the diplomatic mission in Athens, while the Israeli and American embassies in Argentina were evacuated in response to bomb threats made by email.

Israel ‘would struggle with a two-front war drawing in US and Iran’
Abbie Cheeseman/The Telegraph/October 21, 2023
US officials reportedly believe Israel would struggle in a two-front war and that both Washington and Tehran could be drawn in. Israel has exchanged fire on its northern border with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group, and sent reinforcements to prevent a ground incursion. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, favoured a pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah before going in to Gaza, according to The New York Times. Those fears have “receded for now”, according to the unnamed US officials, but the idea had been taken seriously by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. The officials said that the US warned Israel against a massive strike on Hezbollah across the Lebanese border, when the idea was most keenly pushed in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas assault on Oct 7. US aircraft carriers were put on standby amid fears of an escalation in the Middle East after Hamas attack. One of the plans reportedly put on the table by Israeli officials was to use the pretence of a ground invasion of Gaza as cover for a bigger assault to the north, but Mr Netanyahu reportedly “held off” the proposal. Two possibilities still raise anxieties among officials, according to the report. “An Israeli overreaction to Hezbollah rocket attacks, and harsh Israeli tactics in an expected ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza that would compel Hezbollah to enter the war,” it read. US diplomats have also used shuttle diplomacy with a variety of Arab allies, asking them to seek to restrain Hezbollah through what influence they may have with the terrorist group.
‘Tough questions’ about full-on war
Joe Biden, the US president, reportedly asked “tough questions” about a full-on war with Hezbollah as well as Hamas, when he joined Israel’s war cabinet last week. He referenced the disastrous US decisions that led to long, open-ended wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. CIA intelligence assesses that Israel’s army may not be able to match the combined forces of Hamas and Hezbollah. According to the newspaper, the army has been left weaker by mass protests against Mr Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms. The tit-for-tat exchanges across the Lebanese border have so far abided by the long-standing rules of the conflict, where neither side escalates dramatically despite occasional rocket-fire. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.

Inside Hamas’ hostage handbook: ‘They were expecting to kill people’
CNN/October 21, 2023
Hamas’ ‘hostage-taking handbook’ recovered by the Israeli army detailed plans for the 10/7 attack, according to Atlantic Staff Writer Graeme Wood, who has read it. Wood told CNN’s Michael Smerconish, “There are times when…terrorists in the field are more violent than they expected to be. But this manual says it in black and white…they were expecting to kill people.”

US military equipment pours into Israel, 45 cargo planes loaded with armaments sent to IDF
Rebecca Rommen/Business Insider/October 21, 2023
Israel has received its 45th cargo plane as arms continue to enter the country.
The shipment reportedly included military supplies, medical equipment, and military ambulances. Another shipment on Thursday also delivered armored vehicles to the Israel Defense Forces. The Israeli Ministry of Defense confirmed that a 45th cargo plane had arrived in Israel on social media as armaments and military vehicles continue to pour into the country. A post on X, formerly known as Twitter, showed a video and images of the cargo, which arrived in Israel on Friday. The shipment delivered "around 1,000 tons of armaments" — including military supplies, medical equipment, and military ambulances — to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as it prepares for its ground offensive in Gaza following the Hamas militant group's attacks on October 7. Another cargo plane carrying a shipment of armored vehicles for the IDF, sent by the US, arrived on Thursday. The shipments come as part of a joint effort between the IDF and Israel Ministry of Defense. The delivery was coordinated by the US Procurement Mission and the Israel Ministry of Defense's Directorate of Production and Procurement. Israel's Director General of the Ministry of Defense has authorized procurement orders both international and domestically worth around NIS 400 million, which is around $100 million, the Jewish Press reported. On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said he would ask for billions of dollars in wartime aid for Ukraine and Israel. He announced an urgent funding request to be put before Congress on Friday. It was expected Biden would ask for $105bn, with $14bn earmarked for Israel. No package details have been made public by the White House, per BBC News. In a speech at the White House, he said Hamas and Russia both wanted to "annihilate a neighbouring democracy."

Canada pledges $50M in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza Strip
Chris Stoodley/Yahoo News Canada/October 21, 2023
Canada is pledging $50 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and neighbouring areas, amid the on-going Israel-Hamas war. The announcement was made Saturday, as Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen arrived in Cairo, Egypt for a two-day visit, in what's being dubbed the "Cairo Peace Summit." "It is critical that Palestinian civilians in Gaza who need life-saving assistance receive it as soon as possible," Joly says in a statement. "Canada will continue to work with its trusted and experienced humanitarian partners to make sure this funding reaches those who are suffering." The funding will go towards providing food, water, medical assistance protection services and other life-saving assistance to civilians in the area, while ensuring no money "goes into the hands of Hamas," according to the news release. The announcement comes after Canada already pledged an initial $10 million in humanitarian aid on Oct. 12, money aimed to "address urgent needs" stemming from the war. A portion of that funding went to support the Canadian Red Cross, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Magen David Adom.
Global Affairs Canada notes the new $50 million pledge aims to "address the acute needs Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and neighbouring areas."
Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen says
Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen says "the humanitarian needs of civilians are more urgent than ever," while announcing Canada's $50 million pledge to help Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and neighbouring areas. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang) (The Canadian Press)
On Saturday, the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened, allowing 20 trucks — while more than 200 trucks have waited at the border for days — to bring a bit of desperately-needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.
The 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. Meanwhile, hospitals say they're running low on medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators. The Hamas-run Health Ministry says five hospitals have stopped functioning due to fuel shortages and bombing damage. Earlier this week, at least 500 people were killed following an explosion at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in the middle of Gaza City, which was sheltering thousands of residents who fled their homes in northern Gaza amid on-going Israeli airstrikes. Canadians have put pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to issue a response to the blast, especially after Israel and the U.S. held Hamas accountable based on their intelligence. More than 30 MPs — 23 of them Liberals — have also written a letter to Trudeau, calling on him to advocate for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

US tells Sunak to ban Iran’s terrorist forces
Edward Malnick/The Telegraph/October 21, 2023
The US is calling on Britain to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists in the wake of Tehran’s “complicity” in Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel. Joe Biden’s administration is publicly urging its allies to “designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation” over the Iranian state security body’s link to terror across the globe. A Whitehall source said some senior US officials had been privately encouraging their UK counterparts to proscribe the body, which has been banned in the US since 2019.
Matthew Miller, the US State Department’s official spokesman, said: “We absolutely think that other countries should designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
“It’s a position that we’ve made clear a number of times. They finance terrorist activities, they have around the world for some time, and we think that other countries should take that step of designating them.” The public remarks, at a briefing in Washington DC, will add to growing pressure within Britain to proscribe the IRGC, after several Tory MPs publicly called on Mr Sunak to act last week.On Thursday, Robin Simcox, the Government’s counter-extremism tsar, said it was “unsustainable” for membership of the group and support for it to remain legal.
Revolutionary Guards
The US believes the Revolutionary Guards are behind many global attacks - AFP
Liam Fox, the former defence secretary who has long campaigned for the group to be proscribed, said: “The view from the American government can not be clearer, that they expect their allies to act and act swiftly to proscribe the IRGC.”Dr Fox, who chairs the UK Abraham Accords Group, added: “Britain must not be seen as a laggard if we’re to maintain our influence in the region.” The IRGC was founded as an ideological custodian of Iran’s 1979 revolution but has since morphed into a major military, political and economic force in the country.Senior members of Hamas told the Wall Street Journal that IRGC officers had worked with the group since August to devise the Oct 7 attack. Ali Fadavi, the IRGC’s deputy commander, said: “The resistance front’s shocks against the Zionist regimes will continue until this ‘cancerous tumour’ is eradicated from the world map.”Speaking at a briefing for US journalists on Oct 10, Mr Miller declined to discuss “specific conversations” with European allies in relation to Iran. But a Whitehall source said that some American officials had directly encouraged UK counterparts to proscribe the IRGC, while being “respectful of our sovereignty”.
It come as Rishi Sunak warns that Israel also now faces the threat of the “heavily armed, Iranian-backed force of Hezbollah” on its northern border, following the Oct 7 attack which is believed to have been partly motivated by Iran and Hamas’s desire to wreck a looming rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Writing in The Telegraph following meetings with the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Palestinian Authority, the Prime Minister states: “This pogrom was motivated by an evil hatred. But it was also prompted by a fear that a new dawn might be breaking in the Middle East, one that would leave old hatreds behind and offer hope of better, more secure, more prosperous lives across the region. On this trip, I was determined to keep that hope of a better future alive.”
Also writing for the Telegraph, Eli Cohen, Israel’s foreign minister, states: “The fanatical Iranian Ayatollah regime sustains Hamas militarily, financially, and politically. The Iranian regime is fostering war, trying to ignite an additional front from Lebanon through its other proxy, Hezbollah. “They all strive to the annihilation of Israel, which would enable Iran to take over the entire Middle East and to spread its militant Islamist revolution further towards the Mediterranean, Europe and worldwide.”On Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched in London in support of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. A separate rally by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist Islamist group, featured calls for “Muslim armies” of neighbouring Arab states to invade Israel. The State Department’s call came after a cross-party group of members of congress, including the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to Mr Sunak in May stating that “designating the IRGC will send the clear message to Iran that acts of terrorism against us, our partners, and innocent citizens must not, and will not be tolerated”.
Sanctions in place
Suella Braverman, who as Home Secretary is responsible for proscribing terror groups, is understood to have been making the case for formally designating the IRGC as one. Such a move would make membership of or support for the group illegal, joining organisations such as Hamas, Islamic State and al-Qaeda. However, James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, has said that “many of the things that people want” from proscription were “actually being achieved by our sanctions regime” that is already in place. The Foreign Secretary’s spokesman said: “The US policy to publicly support designation is not new. However, this is a sovereign decision and whilst it always remains open as an option it is not currently the Government’s position. The IRGC are not only sanctioned in their entirety – a number of individuals within this group are further sanctioned themselves.”
Mr Miller’s public call for America’s allies to proscribe the IRGC contrasts with an earlier statement, in February, in which the State Department simply said it was “up to each country to determine what action in regards to the IRGC is applicable under their legal authorities and in their best interests”.
However, a source close to the Foreign Secretary said the Whitehall source’s description of private conversations with US counterparts “was not a characterisation we recognise”.
Mr Miller said that “Iran likely knew that Hamas was planning operations against Israel, but without the precise timing or scope of what occurred”. Last week, Alicia Kearns, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, and the former cabinet ministers Dr Fox, Sir Simon Clarke and David Jones, were among those who publicly urged Mr Sunak to proscribe the IRGC. Mr Sunak replied: “I agree that Iran both poses an unacceptable threat to Israel and has a destabilising influence throughout the region. That is why we have sanctioned more than 350 Iranian individuals, including the entirety of the IRGC.
“The new National Security Act 2023 also gives us the powers that we need to keep us safe here at home... we will continue to work closely with our allies in finding the best possible way to contain Iran’s pernicious activities.”
The US Embassy in London declined to comment.

Hamas militants ate family's lunch as they tortured and mutilated parents and 2 young children, says an Israeli emergency responder.
Alia Shoaib/ Business Insider/October 21, 2023
An Israeli emergency responder said he found a young family of four mutilated in their home.
The victims of the atrocity included two children aged six and seven.
This story includes video testimony describing graphic scenes that some may find distressing.
An Israeli emergency responder said that they recovered the mutilated bodies of a family killed during the Hamas terror attacks that had been bound together and brutally tortured
Yossi Landau, the head of Zaka, Israel's volunteer emergency response organization as the head of operations for the country's southern region, described the sadistic scene he found after entering a home at Kibbutz Be'eri.
Landau said he saw a father, mother, and two children, aged six and seven, on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs.
"The bodies were tortured," before describing various acts of shocking mutilation. He said he believes the family members would have been forced to watch the horrors being inflicted on their loved ones.
"Fingers being... Fingers being," he said while fighting back tears. "All this happened, and by the end they all had a bullet." Alia Shoaib.  An Israeli emergency responder said he found a young family of four mutilated in their home. The victims of the atrocity included two children aged six and seven. This story includes video testimony describing graphic scenes that some may find distressing. An Israeli emergency responder said that they recovered the mutilated bodies of a family killed during the Hamas terror attacks that had been bound together and brutally tortured. Yossi Landau, the head of Zaka, Israel's volunteer emergency response organization as the head of operations for the country's southern region, described the sadistic scene he found after entering a home at Kibbutz Be'eri. Landau said he saw a father, mother, and two children, aged six and seven, on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs. "The bodies were tortured," before describing various acts of shocking mutilation. He said he believes the family members would have been forced to watch the horrors being inflicted on their loved ones.
"Fingers being... Fingers being," he said while fighting back tears. "All this happened, and by the end they all had a bullet."Landau said the militants then ate a meal that the family had prepared for a Jewish holiday. "They ate this meal while torturing these children," he said. In an interview with CNN, Landau described the terrible scene he witnessed at Kibbutz Be'eri – an epicenter of the October 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel, where more than 100 men, women, and children were killed. Landau said other atrocities he witnessed included a naked and bound teenage girl who had been beheaded, 20 people who had been burned alive, and a mutilated pregnant mother. The gruesome task of identifying Israel's dead and the circumstances they were killed has fallen to military forensic teams at an army base in central Israel. They have uncovered evidence of torture and rape among the victims of last week's Hamas terrorist attacks on communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. The unprecedented Hamas attacks on October 7, dubbed "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" by Hamas' military leadership, killed at least 1,400 Israelis, per Reuters. Hamas is also believed to have taken over 200 Israeli and foreign hostages to Gaza. In retaliation, Israel has carried out waves of air strikes that have killed more than 3,000 Palestinians and are believed to be planning an imminent ground invasion of Gaza.

5 major risks looming over Israel’s ground offensive
Brad Dress/The Hill/October 21, 2023
Israel faces immense risks as it prepares for a massive ground invasion of Gaza.
A sweeping operation from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into the coastal enclave will almost certainly intensify the humanitarian crisis there, along with civilian casualties. It also risks costing the lives of Israel’s soldiers, turning global and domestic sentiment against Israel — as well as opening a second front in the war. But Israeli leaders have pledged to conduct the operation, known as Operation Swords of Iron, to destroy the Palestinian militant group Hamas for a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,400 people. “Our maneuvers are going to take the war into their territory,” Israel’s Southern Command officer, Yaron Finkelman, told soldiers this week. “We’re going to defeat them in their own territory.”
Increasing civilian deaths
Any ground operation could be long, bloody and involve house-to-house urban fighting, posing an immense risk to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Air strikes alone have already killed more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians — more than 1,500 of whom were children, according to Hamas officials. And more than one million people who have been forced to flee their homes have nowhere to go, trapped in southern Gaza without a corridor out. David Cortright, professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame’s global affairs school, said fighting in Gaza carries an immense risk for Israel’s standing, suggesting they should instead “convene an international tribunal to bring to justice” those responsible in Hamas for attacking Israel, while seeking a political solution with the Palestinian people. “It is understandable that Israelis are outraged and vengeful after the heinous terrorist attacks of Hamas, but the continued siege of Gaza will only cause more death and destruction and will widen the war, and could end up benefiting Hamas,” Cortright said in an emailed statement. “Already, public sympathy and attention around the world are shifting from the innocent Israelis who were butchered by Hamas gunmen to the children of Gaza who are dying under Israeli bombs,” he added. “It is a trap that Israel must avoid.”In the 2014 Gaza War, Israeli infantry battalions fought in a northern neighborhood of Gaza City, a battle that killed more than 1,600 innocent bystanders and wounded more than 10,000 in a little more than a month — with Israel eventually retreating with no significant strategic victories. The upcoming military operation is threatening to be even more deadly, with Israel’s leaders vowing to eliminate Hamas outright. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack in Israel.
Netanyahu, however, said in a meeting with President Biden this week that Israel “seeks to minimize civilian casualties.”“Israel will do everything it can to keep civilians out of harm’s way,” he pledged.
Cost to the Israeli military
In 2014, Israel lost 66 soldiers in the fighting with Hamas.
Troops struggled at the time to battle in urban jungles, tunnels and booby traps across Gaza, getting picked off by mines, ambushes and snipers. That was a conflict of just a few weeks, and Israeli forces only entered parts of the territory held by Hamas. This time, Israel is promising a full-fledged operation to destroy Hamas, calling up a record 360,000 reservists to report for duty. The larger operation will likely require significantly more time and resources, risking more lives. Hamas also has an extensive underground tunnel network, an advantage that can be used to attack Israeli troops. Alp Sevimlisoy, a millennium fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Israeli forces must designate “small success parameters” district-by-district if they want to overcome the many traps and obstacles within Gaza. “Stage one has to be gaining district by district control until they at least attain 75 to 80 percent of geographical control,” he said, predicting that could take a few months. “In terms of stage two — administering — they need to make sure that they’ve eliminated the entire top brass of Hamas,” Sevimlisoy added.
Waning public support
The Israeli public is enraged over the deaths of nearly 1,400 people at the hands of Hamas, and the roughly 200 hostages taken by the group, driving widespread support for efforts to defeat the militants in Gaza. But if the Israeli military suffers severe losses in a prolonged conflict with no end in sight, that could change. A poll by Israeli daily newspaper Maariv published Friday found 65 percent of citizens support a ground invasion, while 21 percent are opposed. Bilal Saab, an associate fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at Chatham House, also cautioned that U.S. support could change over time.
Saab said Israel “is more than capable of destroying Hamas.”“But an offensive will not take place in isolation: the military must account for the opinion of its allies, the threats of its enemies and wavering public opinion at home,” he wrote in an analysis. “All are significant, and highly unpredictable. “
Israel has also already fought four wars with Hamas, with every attempt to wipe out the group failing. But Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said in a video message that by the end of this conflict, Hamas will not hold the ability to “threaten or kill Israeli civilians” anymore.
Opening a second front
Since the deadly Hamas attacks, Israel has been trading daily fire with Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon on the northern border.
The exchange of attacks on the Lebanon-Israel border has been the deadliest in years and likely would have sparked an all-out war already if Israeli forces were not focused on Hamas. Hezbollah leaders have recently met with Iran, which backs their military as well as Hamas, as the fighting takes place. And Iranian officials have repeatedly warned they may have to take action if the attacks on Gaza continue. Tehran considers Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people an act of genocide. “Time is running out and if the warmongers think that they can remove the resistance and Hamas from Gaza, they are mistaken,” said Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, according to state-run media. Imad Harb, director of research and analysis at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., told the Hill he was skeptical of Hezbollah invading Israel during a period of economic unrest in Lebanon, but it also depended on Iran’s wishes and how the operation in Gaza unfolds. “If Hamas is defeated,” he said, “it’s a threat against [Hezbollah] because Hamas is no longer there.”
Weaker relations with the Arab world
The Arab world has already erupted in anger over the crisis in Gaza and has stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people amid an intense Israeli bombing campaign on the coastal strip. Arab anger was only amplified after a deadly explosion near a hospital in Gaza City this week killed hundreds of people, though U.S. officials say the evidence points to a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. But a prolonged campaign in Gaza presents a major risk of sparking more anger in the Middle East and North Africa, which has long sympathized with the Palestinian cause. And that could set back diplomatic efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as further isolating Israel in the region. Harb, of the Arab Center, said Israel has already lost political support among the Arab population and was risking a groundswell of anger by invading Gaza. “It’s definitely going to be very bloody for Hamas and for the population,” he said. “The people around the Arab world are going to be pressuring their governments.”

It’s Cold War II, and the enemies of freedom are lining up to forge a new world order
Daniel Hannan/The Telegraph/.October 21, 2023
The visual contrast was brutal. In Beijing, autocrats swaggered through those vast marble halls that dictators love to build. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were surrounded by sundry lesser despots – leaders from Egypt and Ethiopia, Myanmar and Mozambique, Turkmenistan and the Taliban – united chiefly by their enthusiasm for the coming overthrow of the Western order. Equally worrying, the presence of democratically-elected Viktor Orbán of Hungary – a disaffected Nato and EU member – shaking hands and smiling for the cameras. At almost exactly the same moment as China’s global summit of its friends and partners, US President Joe Biden was taking querulously to the airwaves to warn his countrymen against retreat. “American leadership is what holds the world together,” he intoned, with his customary expression of elderly bafflement. “American alliances are what keep us, America, safe.” Strong words and true, but undermined by the way he kept blinking in confusion at the autocue, a dotard president seeming to symbolise a nation past its prime. How vertiginously it has come upon us, this sense that we are losing. Only a month ago, Putin, who had recently been able to summon European leaders to his outsized Moscow table, was reduced to fawning over Kim Jong-un. But that was before the horrors in Israel and Gaza. Now, all of a sudden, it is not Russia scrabbling to put together a coalition, but Nato. Western leaders know that years of work with poorer countries have been undone. “We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South,” declared a senior diplomat. Previously well-disposed countries rage at what they see as Western hypocrisy. Despite the vastly different circumstances, when Israel felt compelled to cut electricity supplies to Gaza, commentators in the developing world circulated a speech by Ursula von der Leyen in which the president of the European Commission described Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as “acts of pure terror” and “war crimes”. In the West, we regard both Israel and Ukraine as pluralist states under attack from fascistic neighbours. “When we look at Putin’s thugs in Adviika, or jihadi thugs in Gaza, we are looking at different heads of the same hydra” says Boris Johnson. “Their objectives are really the same – to destroy liberal democracy”.
That, though, is not how it looks to leaders of the Global South, many of whom got a dose of Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonialism in their youth. To them, there is nothing special about free societies. Liberal democracy spread, as they see it, not because it was more appealing, but because white men imposed it on distant lands. If Western countries are finally losing ground – economically, diplomatically, demographically – so much the better.
Hence the grotesque coalition that the Russians and Chinese are assembling. Its members have next to nothing in common. Some are Marxists, some Islamists, but all resent what they see as Western, liberal arrogance, and exult in the belief that a reckoning is nigh.
Wars proliferate at precisely such times. When the dominant powers have their hands full, revanchists seize their chance. Think, for example, of how Italy joined two world wars (one on each side) because it spotted opportunities in the chaos.
Now think of all the groups across Asia and Africa which have so far been held in check by the awareness that there is a policeman on the beat. If Putin manages to hang on to conquered territory in Ukraine, it will be seen as a definitive defeat for the West, a Suez-level reversal, inciting not only a Chinese grab for Taiwan, but a series of unrelated conflicts. Already, we can see what happens when the policeman is distracted. Turkey, a Nato ally, is picking fights with Europe while flirting with autocratic neighbours. India, until last year the great hope of the democratic world, treats with amused contempt the accusation that it ordered the assassination of a Canadian citizen, while Canada’s allies, desperate for Indian support against Putin, play the episode down.
The war in Gaza leaves the West further overstretched, to the giddy delight of Russian state media. One Moscow newspaper calls it “a gift from heaven”, reporting that ammunition destined for Ukraine was being diverted to Israel. Another likens the Israeli response to the Nazi siege of Leningrad. For 18 months, Israeli politicians chose not to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now they see how Putin repays them. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the Hamas attack is that, according to British, American and Israeli intelligence sources, Iran was blindsided by it. On one level, that might not make much difference. Tsarist Russia was blindsided by Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914, but still felt it had to join the war. Nonetheless, it is a reminder that Iran’s unpopular regime is aware of its limitations.
The West, after all, still enjoys a massive military advantage. The Nato allies, alongside Ukraine and Taiwan, Japan, Australia and South Korea, are collectively far stronger than the illiberal regimes gathering under the Sino-Russian aegis. Only three per cent of the enormous US defence budget is being spent on supporting Ukraine. Indeed, in purely martial terms, Russia’s alienation of Israel, with its advanced drones and cyberwar capabilities, more than makes up for the Western alienation of some Arab states. (I stress “some”: the Gulf monarchies are privately being more helpful than we might suppose from their rhetoric.) No, the real issue is one of self-belief. Suez marked the end of British prestige, even though our Armed Forces were vastly superior to Egypt’s, because we lacked domestic will and international support.
Today we see precisely the same absence of confidence. We see it, on the one hand, in Donald Trump’s petulant isolationism, which Putin believes to be his route to victory. And we see it, on the other, in the readiness of Leftists to make excuses for almost any movement that proclaims itself anti-Western.
I have observed before that anti-colonial feeling is stronger today around the world than it was when colonialism was a recent memory. Its growth owes a great deal to the way identity politics has spread from the US to the rest of the world, encouraging others to reimagine history as a morality play in which white men are the baddies. The tendency is not wholly new. Salman Rushdie, as a Left-wing writer, initially supported the 1979 Iranian revolution on anti-colonialist grounds. Of course, it counted for nothing in the eyes of the ayatollahs.
Forty-five years on, this readiness to indulge anti-Western illiberalism has spilled out of campuses and become the default attitude of a generation. Look at the youthful crowds who marched after Hamas’s abominations. Secularists cheering theocrats, anti-racists backing anti-Semites, feminists overlooking the murders of mothers and babies, supporters of mass immigration to their own countries outraged that Jewish refugees had found a haven in Palestine. Victimhood has become the supreme virtue, the moral get-out clause that justifies every crime. Frame your struggle as resistance to Western imperialism and you can get away with all manner of atrocities. The tragedy is that Western Leftists are getting what they claim to want – namely the end of a unipolar world. Trust me, they won’t like it when it happens.

Israel tells citizens to leave Egypt, Jordan, avoid travel to Muslim nations
JNS/October 21/2023
Israel has evacuated diplomats from several countries in the region.
Israel called on its citizens on Saturday to immediately leave Egypt and Jordan, two Arab countries with which it has peace treaties, over concerns Jews could be attacked there due to the conflict with the Hamas terrorist group. “Given the ongoing war, we are witnessing a significant increase in anti-Israel protests in the past few days in countries around the world, and in particular Arab countries in the Middle East,” Israeli’s National Security Council and Foreign Ministry said in a joint statement. “Hostility and violence have been displayed against Jewish and Israeli symbols. The rhetoric of global jihad has become more extreme, which is calling to harm Israelis and Jews around the world,” it added. The travel alerts for Egypt (including Sinai) and Jordan were raised to Level 4 (high threat level), recommending Israelis to not visit these countries and for those already there to depart.The travel alert for Morocco was raised to Level 3 with the recommendation to avoid any non-essential travel to the North African country.
The NSC also reiterated its call for Israelis to:
• Avoid travel to any Middle Eastern or Arab countries, including Türkiye, Egypt (including Sinai), Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
• Avoid travel to Muslim countries for which travel alerts have been issued, including Malaysia, Bangladesh and Indonesia, as well as Muslim countries with no travel alert, such as the Maldives.
The Foreign Ministry has evacuated diplomats from several countries in the region over fears for their safety. Hamas terrorists killed at least 1,400 Israelis and wounded more than 4,500 in a massive offensive launched from Gaza on Oct. 7, which included the firing of thousands of rockets at Israel and the infiltration of the Jewish state by terrorist forces.
Two Israeli tourists and their local guide were shot dead in Egypt on Oct. 8.
Five days later, an Israeli embassy official was attacked in Beijing.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 21-22/2023
Iran: Behind Hamas' Planned Genocide
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/ Gatestone Institute./October 21, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/123384/123384/
In 1930s, Britain pursued a policy of appeasing Hitler and Nazi Germany in the hope of avoiding a war. To the contrary, as we know, by empowering the Nazis to invade and attempt to take over other nations, this policy of appeasement led to World War ll.
[T]he Obama administration imagined, it seems, that enabling the expansionist, revolutionary regime of Iran, which is designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism, to possess nuclear weapons, would somehow magically transform it into peaceful, collegial member of the family of nations. President Barack Obama appeased the ruling mullahs of Iran by lifting sanctions and inventing the 2015 "nuclear deal."
What was actually the result? The international community witnessed even more rockets launched by Yemen's Houthis at civilian targets, the deployment of Lebanese Hezbollah soldiers in Syria, and increasing attacks by the Iranian-funded Hamas on Israel and the United States. With billions of dollars of revenue pouring into the pockets of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran did not change its behavior for the better. Instead, Iran became even more empowered and emboldened... as well as to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. Iran became, in fact, according to the US State Department, "the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism."
At the peak of these appeasement policies towards the mullahs, Iran was emboldened to publicly harass the US Navy, detain US sailors, imprison American citizens, and threaten to assassinate former US officials on US soil for a $1 million bounty. Khamenei also repeatedly vowed "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" and to "raze the Zionist regime in less than 8 minutes."
Iran's radical regime, whose mission is to "Export the Revolution" and bring Islamist rule to the rest of the world via its military and terror groups, will not alter its aims through policies of appeasement.
The Biden administration and the European Union have pursued this dangerous policy -- not just of appeasement, but also of financing terrorists; of supporting a regime that chants "Death to America," "Death to Israel"; that plots to push the US out of the Middle East; that is committed to uprooting and replacing Israel; that has zealously been targeting American citizens and American assets, and that is one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, as well as a leading violator of human rights. It is high time to put Iran's regime out of business.
Iran's radical regime, whose mission is to "Export the Revolution" and bring Islamist rule to the rest of the world via its military and terror groups, will not alter its aims through policies of appeasement.
In 1930s, Britain pursued a policy of appeasing Hitler and Nazi Germany in the hope of avoiding a war. To the contrary, as we know, by empowering the Nazis to invade and attempt to take over other nations, this policy of appeasement led to World War ll.
Unfortunately, the European Union and the Biden administration have long been pursuing policies of appeasement with Hamas's paymaster, the Iranian regime. This policy has only emboldened and empowered Iran's ruling mullahs and their terrorist proxies, such as Hamas, to an extent that that on October 7, they launched one of the most barbaric attacks of our generation against Israel and Jews. Iran is now threatening to join the war against Israel, and may well be hoping that this is the moment they have effectively been planning since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
History, as we know, has repeatedly shown that appeasing terrorists only empowers them. Even in recent history, the Obama administration imagined, it seems, that enabling the expansionist, revolutionary regime of Iran, which is designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism, to possess nuclear weapons, would somehow magically transform it into peaceful, collegial member of the family of nations.
President Barack Obama appeased the ruling mullahs of Iran by lifting sanctions and inventing the 2015 "nuclear deal." He claimed he was "confident" that it would "meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies." Outlined in the nuclear deal's preamble is that all parties "anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security."
What was actually the result? The international community witnessed even more rockets launched by Yemen's Houthis at civilian targets, the deployment of Lebanese Hezbollah soldiers in Syria, and increasing attacks by the Iranian-funded Hamas on Israel and the United States. With billions of dollars of revenue pouring into the pockets of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran did not change its behavior for the better. Instead, Iran became even more empowered and emboldened to pursue its revolutionary ideals of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, as well as to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. Iran became, in fact, according to the US State Department, "the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism."
At the peak of these appeasement policies towards the mullahs, Iran was emboldened to publicly harass the US Navy, detain US sailors, imprison American citizens, and threaten to assassinate former US officials on US soil for a $1 million bounty. Khamenei also repeatedly vowed "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" and to "raze the Zionist regime in less than 8 minutes."
The Biden administration, however has looked the other way Iran violated sanction after sanction, enabling it enabling it to build a war chest for its own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its terrorist proxies abroad -- including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis (who attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE from Yemen) -- of close to "$60 billion."
Sadly, in spite of sanctions, some of Iran's major trading partners are, in fact, member states of the European Union. According to Iran's state-controlled Mehr News Agency:
"Iran and the European Union's 27 member states traded €4.36 billion worth of goods during the first 10 months of 2022, registering a 14.28% rise compared with last year's corresponding period... Germany was the top trading partner of Iran in the EU region during the period, as the two countries exchanged over €1.6 billion worth of goods, 15.44% more than in a similar period of the year before. Italy came next with €555.39 million worth of trade with Iran to register an 11.14% year-on-year rise.... the Netherlands with €351.94 million (down 10.76%) and Spain with €296.06 million (up 13.12%) were Iran's other major European trade partners."
So, Germany, which preaches about human rights, has actually increased its trade with Iran.
Iran's radical regime, whose mission is to "Export the Revolution" and bring Islamist rule to the rest of the world via its military and terror groups, will not alter its aims through policies of appeasement.
The Biden administration and the European Union have pursued this dangerous policy -- not just of appeasement, but also of financing terrorists; of supporting a regime that chants "Death to America," "Death to Israel"; that plots to push the US out of the Middle East; that is committed to uprooting and replacing Israel; that has zealously been targeting American citizens and American assets, and that is one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, as well as a leading violator of human rights. It is high time to put Iran's regime out of business.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
*Picture Enclosed: A senior Hamas delegation, headed by military leader Saleh Arouri, meets with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 22, 2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20069/iran-hamas-planned-genocide

Today in History: A Christian Warlord Defeats Thousands of Jihadists
Raymond Ibrahim/October 21, 2023 
Today in history, on October 21, 1094, a small force of Christian knights destroyed a massive Muslim horde in Spain, where the Jihad and Reconquista had been raging for years. Around 1085, the Almoravids, a North African group committed to jihadist teaching and led by the Emir Yusuf bin Tashfin, began pouring into Spain to aid their Islamic counterparts, the Moors, who had suffered several significant defeats to the Christians in recent years.
In 1086, the Muslims and Christians clashed at Sagrajas. The Christians were annihilated; their king barely managed to escape with a dagger stuck protruding from his thigh. Afterwards, in a typical gesture of Islamic supremacy, Yusuf had some 2,400 Christian heads decapitated and assembled into a pyramid, atop which the muezzin called the faithful to prayers.
Following the disaster at Sagrajas, one by one, Muslim kingdoms that had been liberated during the Reconquista—even a few Christian strongholds—fell back under Islamic control.
When, however, the Muslims overran Valencia in 1093, its lord, Roderick (or Rodrigo) Díaz of Vivar—better known to posterity as “the Cid”—returned and laid siege to Valencia for nearly 19-months, finally reconquering it.
As a result, the pride and prestige of the glorious jihadist victor of Sagrajas, who had subsequently unified virtually all of Muslim Spain under his authority, was shaken to its core: “He has forcibly invaded my territory and he attributes all his success to Jesus Christ!” blurted Yusuf, who, on hearing of the fall of Valencia, “was powerfully moved to anger and bitterness.”
He was, accordingly, “determined to recover the city at all costs,” writes the contemporary Muslim, Ibn Bassam, before adding that “the news of the fall of Valencia filled every Moor in Spain with grief and humiliation.”
A showdown was inevitable: “Islam and the Occident were now each represented by an outstanding personality,” writes historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal: “Yusuf the Saharan and the Castilian Cid stood face-to-face in the struggle between the two civilizations.”
The emir responded by sending the supreme Almoravid general of Spain, his nephew, Muhammad, “with an infinite number of barbarians and Moabites [Almoravids] and Ishmaelites [Moors] drawn from all over Hispania to besiege Valencia and to bring Roderick to him captive and in chains,” wrote one contemporary. Reportedly consisting of some 50,000 fighters, the Almoravids dwarfed the Cid’s Valencian garrison of 4,000 men. By late 1094, “the infidel hordes” had arrived and “pitched their tents and encamped” at Cuarte, three miles from Valencia.
The final showdown between the Cid and his African adversaries had come and is recorded in both song and chronicle. According to the Historia Roderici,
This Moabite army lay about Valencia for 10 days and as many nights, and remained inactive. Every day indeed they used to go around the city, shrieking and shouting with a motley clamor of voices and filling the air with their bellowing [references to the takbir, i.e., spasmodic cries of “Allahu Akbar”]. They often used to fire arrows… But Roderick … comforted and strengthened his men in a manly fashion, and constantly prayed devoutly to the Lord Jesus Christ that he would send divine aid to his people.
The sources emphasize the ominous beat of the African drums, the thundering roll of which seemed to rend the earth asunder. It filled the hearts of all—especially those unacquainted with its booming sounds, such as Roderick’s wife and daughters, who were then holed up with him in Valencia—with dread and consternation.
With every day that the Cid remained in a defensive posture, the Muslims became more emboldened and encroached closer to his city’s walls. Before long they had surrounded Valencia’s gates in very tight formations—precisely what the Cid was waiting for.
And so, on October 21, 1094 , when “the enemy were as usual going around outside the city yelling and shouting and scrimmaging, confident in the belief that they would capture it,” Roderick Díaz, “trusting with his whole mind in God and his mercy, courageously made a sortie from the city,” whereupon “a major encounter ensued.”Thus, at the height of Muslim confidence, heavily armored knights astride even heavier steeds of war burst out of one of the gates, taking the jihadists by complete surprise. Before they could effectively retaliate, another Christian sortie burst out from another gate. Though unclear which, the Cid led one of these two forces which now crisscrossed each other in a medieval style blitzkrieg, causing mass confusion and carnage among the densely packed Muslims. After a “multitude” of Almoravids “fell to the sword,” the panicked Africans “turned their backs in flight,” the Historia concludes, many of them falling and drowning in the Jucar river.
The battle of Cuarte was a shattering blow to the hitherto undefeated Almoravids: though outnumbered by twelve-to-one, the Spanish knights had defeated and driven off 50,000 jihadists. Christians all throughout Western Europe wildly celebrated.
Historian James Fitzhenry summarizes the Cid’s strategy:
The maneuver Rodrigo used that day has come to be known as “la tornada,” or, the tornado. Once the Christian knights had charged through the enemy lines in one direction, they turned and passed through again in a different direction. Whole units were disrupted, broken apart and irreversibly separated. The Africans were packed so tightly together, and their shouts and screams and the clash of steel so loud, that few commands could be heard over the din of battle. Besides, the attack was so swift that there was no tactic that could be successfully employed to neutralize it.
After the battle, and now “sated with slaughter,” the twelfth century Poem of the Cid resumes the narrative: “the Cid returned to his wife and daughters, his helmet gone, the hood of his coat of mail thrown back and the linen under-cap pushed over his brow. His sword was dripping with blood, which had run up the blade to the hilt and along his arm up to the elbow.”
With the other arm he hurled a mutilated drum at their feet, crying “Thus are Moors vanquished!” In terror and awe, they fell to the ground before him—“We are thy servants!”
*For the full story of the Cid—as well as several other Christian heroes who stood against Islamic jihad—see Raymond Ibrahim’s Defenders of the West, from which the above account was excerpted.

Hamas have already shown who they are. They must be defeated
Rishi Sunak/The Telegraph/October 21, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/123398/123398/
There are meetings in this job that I know will stay with me for the rest of my life. I had one of these on Thursday in Jerusalem when I sat down with the families of British victims of the 7 October attacks. Until that day their loved ones had been living normal, happy lives in Israel. But now they are listed among the murdered and the missing.
The families are bearing their worries with dignity and bravery. But looking into their eyes, you could see the agony they were going through. As a father, a son and a husband I can only begin to contemplate their pain: a pain shared by too many other Jewish families.
After that meeting, I contemplated what could possibly motivate people to do to a family what Hamas has done to these families. This pogrom was motivated by an evil hatred. But it was also prompted by a fear that a new dawn might be breaking in the Middle East, one that would leave old hatreds behind and offer hope of better, more secure, more prosperous lives across the region. On this trip, I was determined to keep that hope of a better future alive. The first thing we must do is support the families of British victims and to get the hostages back. If Hamas had a single ounce of humanity, they would release all the hostages immediately. But Hamas have already shown who they are. They must be defeated. Mr Sunak meets families in Israel whose loved ones were taken hostage by Hamas. Mr Sunak met with families in Israel whose loved ones were taken hostage by Hamas - Simon Walker/No 10 Downing Street
We support, absolutely, Israel’s right to defend itself against this murderous enemy. More than a right, it has a duty to its citizens to restore the country’s security and bring the hostages home. That is what I told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog when I met them this week – being clear this must be done in line with international humanitarian law and taking every possible step to avoid harming civilians.
Palestinian people in Gaza are suffering terribly at the moment, with the casualty numbers climbing constantly. They are the victims of Hamas too, who use the innocent as human shields. The terrorists murder Israeli children, then run and hide behind Palestinian children.
Too many lives have already been lost following Hamas’s horrific act of terror. The loss of every innocent life diminishes us all – regardless of faith or nationality. And now we face an acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Leaders in the region and across the world must come together and find routes back to peace and stability and that better future which Hamas is trying to prevent. That’s why in recent days I travelled to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – to fast-track humanitarian support to Gaza and bring leaders together to prevent regional escalation. I have kept in close contact with the King of Jordan, and the Foreign Secretary has echoed these messages in his visits to Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. It was also important for me to meet President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr Sunak met with Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem
Mr Sunak met with Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem - Simon Walker/No 10 Downing Street
Despite the bleak outlook and high emotion, I came away from those discussions more convinced than ever that we have to reaffirm our clear support for a two-state solution. There is room for politics and diplomacy even at this darkest hour.
Good progress has been made to open up humanitarian access to Gaza and let in aid – food, water, medicine – that is so urgently required. I have committed £10 million of extra support to help civilians in Gaza. The reopening of the Rafah crossing into Gaza is highly welcome and a testament to the power of diplomacy, with the US, Israel and Egypt brokering an agreement to ensure vital aid reaches the Palestinian people.
We need to see a stream of trucks rolling through that crossing to bring aid to the civilian population. We also need to see all water supplies to Gaza restored where physically possible. All sides should commit to the sanctity of UN installations, hospitals and shelters. We’re working intensively with international partners to ensure that British nationals currently trapped in Gaza are also able to leave through this crossing while aid enters.
Tensions are also high on Israel’s northern border, where they face the heavily armed, Iranian-backed force of Hezbollah, as well as in the West Bank where the situation is highly combustible. We have deployed the RAF and the Royal Navy to monitor any emerging threats to regional security. We need effective deterrence, as well as diplomacy to deescalate the situation. When things are so delicate, we all have a responsibility – from politicians to news media to social media – to take additional care in the language we use and to operate on the basis of facts alone so that we don’t risk aggravating tensions.
This a moment for care and caution – but also for moral clarity. It is a moment for humanity to win out against the scourge of terrorism and break the cycle of tragedy. Ultimate defeat for the terrorists will come when we bring about the better future for the whole Middle East that they so fear. Britain stands together to reject terror and hate and prejudice – at home and abroad. We stand with our Jewish and Muslim communities during this difficult time. And although it will be hard, we will strain every sinew to support a return to peace and stability in the Middle East. My aim is a safe and secure Israel, a prosperous Palestinian state and a Middle East where countries recognise, trade and cooperate with each other. Even in this darkest hour, I believe that goal is within reach and I will continue to work with our friends and allies in the region towards that. We will not let Hamas win.

What happens when terrorists are rewarded for taking hostages
Jonathan S. Tobin/JNS/October 21/2023
The terrorist Gaza regime hopes that it can survive by ransoming its captives like the two dual American women they just freed. Israel and America should know this only leads to disaster.
The bargaining has begun. That’s the implication of the release of two of the estimated 200 people kidnapped by Hamas during the course of its barbaric Oct. 7 terrorist assault on Israel. These women—a mother and daughter who have dual American and Israeli citizenship—were among captives that include children and the elderly, who were dragged over the border to the Gaza Strip by terrorists during the course of an hours-long attack that left more than 1,400 murdered and more than 4,000 wounded in the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Evidence abounds of the horrific nature of their rampage in which women were raped; entire families were bludgeoned, shot and tortured; and the corpses of the dead desecrated.
By letting some people live, the killers and their Islamist commanders hoped to accomplish something more than shedding Jewish blood, and to receive, upon their return to Gaza, cheers from the same Palestinian civilians who would soon be lamenting Israel’s efforts to punish these criminals. They assumed that taking so many hostages would give them not just a valuable commodity that could be used as bargaining chips but also some degree of impunity for what they’d done.
Everything they knew about Israel and Western countries like the United States told them that Jews and Americans don’t just value human life. They will do just about anything to buy the freedom of captives, even if it means paying exorbitant ransoms in deals that strengthen and enrich terrorists. Though American presidents and Israeli premiers often boast about not negotiating with such despicable groups, everyone knows they do it all the time. That’s true whether they are supposed “hardliners” like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or veteran appeasers like President Joe Biden.
Hamas was counting on the same factors that led Netanyahu to release 1,027 terrorists in exchange for the freedom of one lone Israeli soldier—Gilad Shalit—in 2011 or Biden to pay more than $6 billion to gain the release of five American citizens being held by Iran, bringing them benefits that would ensure, at the very least, their survival in power in Gaza.
What is America’s role?
The question that hangs over the impending Israeli ground assault into Gaza aimed at ensuring that Hamas can never again inflict such pain on Israel is whether the terrorists can leverage the fate of their hostages in such a way as to prevent their complete or even partial defeat.
In every past hostage situation, the desire of the families of those held captive, as well as compassionate people everywhere that their safety and freedom be made a priority, has created intolerable pressure on governments to pay ransoms and limit their freedom of action to attempt rescues. Yet the anger generated among Israelis about the atrocities of Oct. 7 may have made a decisive victory over Hamas as well as a military imperative for Netanyahu and his government.
At the same time, the United States, whose citizens were among both the slain and those taken hostage, is playing a dual role in this crisis. It is supporting Israel’s desire to take down the Hamas regime, in addition to supplying critical arms and ammunition that will make that goal possible. It is also fending off a potential terrorist assault in Israel’s north from Iran’s Hezbollah auxiliaries steeped in Lebanon. And yet, it is hamstringing Israel’s military efforts by insisting on providing a “humanitarian corridor” for Gazans trying to flee the coastal enclave, coupled with $100 million in aid to allow the resupply of Hamas’s beleaguered forces and civilians under their control.
There is something particularly sinister about the way Hamas has dangled the two American citizens in front of the world in this manner. If their release is considered partial payment for Biden’s gestures, then it remains to be seen how much Hamas can get for the rest of the Americans and others with foreign passports.
Does the Hamas leadership think that they can win Biden’s promise to stop Israel from removing them from power if they give up the rest of their non-Israeli captives while holding on to the Israelis to bargain for the release of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails? More than that, it’s unclear as to how Israel can proceed with a counterattack into Gaza to bring the killers and their masters to justice while Biden is bargaining for the freedom of U.S. citizens whose lives are at risk in a war zone.
The Gilad Shalit precedent
Decent people everywhere must hope and pray that all the hostages—men, women, the elderly and children—are released unharmed. But this is the moment to finally come to the realization that paying ransoms to terrorist kidnappers is simply ensuring that the hostage-taking and terrorism will never end.
The Gilad Shalit episode is instructive in this respect. Shalit, a 19-year-old corporal serving in the Israel Defense Forces, was captured by Hamas terrorists in a cross-border raid in which two of his comrades serving with him in a tank were killed and others wounded. Hamas successfully hid him inside Gaza, evading Israeli attempts at rescue and ultimately holding the young man for a total of 1,934 days, all the while refusing and preventing, as it is now with its current larger haul of hostages, access to care from the Red Cross.
Over the course of his more than five years in captivity, pressure on Israel’s government from his family and their many sympathizers ratcheted up to insist on paying virtually any price for his freedom.
The same dynamic has been at work every time Americans are held hostage by hostile regimes, like that of Iran. A diverse group of American presidents—Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and, most recently, Biden—has succumbed to pressure from families of hostages, coupled with their own natural sympathy for the victims and their relatives, to do almost anything to get these prisoners back. And they all paid a dangerously high price for their freedom.
Still, Shalit’s case was one that resonated with the Israeli public in a way that is special to the Jewish state.
Shalit was seen as representative of every Israeli family’s child sent off to do their mandatory army service after high school. Families delivering their children into the hands of the government and the vaunted military are proud of their service, but they also expect that those in charge will protect them and never leave them at the mercy of the Jewish state’s cruel terrorist foes. It was in this way that his grief-stricken parents were able to generate widespread support for their cause.
Such efforts are deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition of the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, the “redemption of hostages.” Throughout two millennia of exile and powerlessness, Jews have a long and bitter history of members of their communities being taken and held for ransom by governments as well as criminals. As a result, since ancient times, freeing hostages has become a priority and even a praiseworthy endeavor.
Netanyahu was thus faced with the choice of doing something incredibly dangerous for his country’s security by giving in to Hamas’s demands or letting Shalit die in captivity or be lost, like Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was shot down in Lebanon in 1982. Arad is believed to have died at the hands of his captors in 1988, though Israel wasn’t sure of that until decades later.
Aware of the potential cost, he chose to do what was, at that moment, the popular thing by agreeing to a massive prisoner release for nearly 1,000 terrorists with blood on their hands. It is estimated that those freed were responsible for the deaths of some 569 Israeli civilians. In this case, the justified outrage of the families of the victims of those crimes was overwhelmed by the joy most Israelis felt about Shalit’s release. Polls showed that an overwhelming majority of Israelis favored the ransom deal.
While some of his right-wing critics and security experts scolded the prime minister for immensely strengthening the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza and ensuring that other Israelis would one day suffer the same fate, he paid no political price for the decision.
Netanyahu was not the first Israeli leader to make such a one-sided prisoner release. His assumption—and that of many of his political foes in the opposition, as well as the Israeli military and intelligence establishment—was that the capture of Shalit was a feat that Hamas would not be able to repeat. And few, if any, imagined that almost exactly 12 years later, Israel would be faced with a terrorist threat and hostage dilemma of the magnitude of the Oct. 7 attack.
A terrible choice
It remains to be seen if Hamas can use the hostages—not to mention the fate of Palestinian civilians around them they are also using as human shields—to ensure they emerge from this battle still in control of Gaza.
One of the most distressing aspects of the last two weeks has been the utter disdain for the hostages that has been expressed by Hamas’s foreign supporters, and the relative indifference of the international community and the corporate media to their fate. Indeed, it didn’t take long for the liberal press in the United States to essentially forget about the evidence of Hamas’s barbarism and become obsessed with the dilemma of Palestinians living in Gaza as Israel began to strike back against the terrorists lodged deep into the enclave.
But what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was to impress upon Israelis that ransoming a hostage can lead directly to something far worse. If the freedom of the 200 kidnapped Israelis now suffering who knows what torment at the hands of their barbaric captors is bought at the price of a victory for Hamas, their families will consider it worth it, and everyone should understand and sympathize with them. But as the Shalit deal should have taught the world—not to mention the way that American ransom payments have strengthened Hamas’s Iranian sponsors—such negotiations are a compact with devils that will create even more grief and suffering in the future.
This understanding shouldn’t be confused with indifference to those languishing somewhere in Gaza, but as much as we desire their safety and freedom, it cannot come at the expense of an existential threat to the Jewish state and the West. It is a terrible thing that destroying Hamas in the coming weeks and months will likely cost the lives of many Israelis and innocent Palestinian Arabs as well as the terrorists. However, it will save more lives in the long run. Nothing—not American pressure or even the tears of the families of the captives—should allow Hamas’s cruel expectation that they will be able to get away with crimes worthy of the Nazis to be proven true.
*Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

Is The Writing On The Wall For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
Marita Vlachou/HuffPost/October 21, 2023
The unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Hamas militant group and the ongoing conflict could spell the end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's time at the top of Israeli politics. The unprecedented attack Hamas waged on Israel on Oct. 7 has been deemed a massive intelligence failure for the country’s leadership and mostly the man at the top, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, 73, Israel’s longest-serving leader, who has managed to reemerge at the top in the face of setbacks, now appears to be at the center of a crisis of historic proportions that could likely lead to his downfall.
The fact that Israel was caught off guard by groups of Hamas militants who shot dead revelers at a music festival, attacked towns and communities in southern Israel and kidnapped hundreds of people stunned both the world and the country itself. Netanyahu’s government has so far received most of the blame for the security failure, polls show, but the prime minister has yet to accept any responsibility. Analysts point out that Israel’s history suggests that its political leaders rarely remain in power after presiding over crises of such magnitude. Even if Israel succeeded in its goal to crush Hamas in this war, experts say Netanyahu is likely to be deemed responsible for creating the conditions that allowed the militant group to launch its brutal attack, which has claimed the lives of thousands of Israelis.
Netanyahu’s Favorability Ratings Take A Hit
A Dialog Center poll published by The Jerusalem Post last week showed 94% of respondents said Netanyahu’s government bore at least some responsibility for the absence of security preparedness that led to the Oct. 7 massacre, while 56% of those surveyed said he should resign after the war is over.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s favorability ratings have dropped considerably, with another poll by Israeli research institutes last week showing that only 29% of respondents would now pick him as their preferred prime minister, according to Bloomberg.
Ehud Barak, who served as prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001, told Sky News Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7 was “the most severe blow Israel suffered since the day of its establishment.” Asked if Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister for over 16 years, can survive this in the long run, Barak said “he shouldn’t.”“I think that in a normal place, he would have resigned,” Barak said, noting Netanyahu’s responsibility given the attack happened on his watch. In its immediate aftermath, Martin Indyk, a Lowy distinguished fellow in U.S.-Middle East diplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as former President Barack Obama’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from July 2013 to June 2014, told Foreign Affairs the country is facing a challenge of unknown proportions. “The prime minister is facing a real problem, not only in defending the citizens but in avoiding blame for what happened,” Indyk said. “And I don’t see how he can. So he’s got to find a way to redeem himself through the conflict.”
What Could Happen If Israel Succeeds In The War
Amotz Asa-El, a research fellow at Shalom Hartman Institute, told HuffPost Netanyahu has “no options” regardless of what he may want to do to weather this crisis. “There is no way that an Israeli leader will survive this kind of debacle,” Asa-El said.
Asa-El cited the example of former Israeli leaders who had to resign over their handling of crises, including Golda Meir, who stepped down following the end of the Yom Kippur War. Israel was caught off guard by a surprise two-front attack led by Egypt and Syria in 1973 on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar to regain territory. While Israel ultimately won the war, which lasted 19 days, the event traumatized Israelis and killed 2,656 soldiers. The current conflict has so far killed over 1,400 Israelis, most of whom are civilians. The death toll could likely rise as the war continues, and Israel appears to be preparing to launch a ground offensive in Gaza. Netanyahu has also had to confront the issue of the over 200 people Hamas has taken hostage. Many Israelis have joined protests, calling out Netanyahu over the kidnappings and urging him to take action to secure the freedom of those captured. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for Israel’s Defense Forces, on Thursday said they have now notified the families of those identified as hostages but said the number may not be final. The kidnappings of hundreds, reportedly including children and older adults, have also illuminated the extent of Israel’s intelligence failure and led to the spread of a sentiment that Netanyahu is ill-equipped to remain on the job. Anshel Pfeffer, a journalist for Haaretz, wrote that the outrage previously directed at Netanyahu over a controversial judicial overhaul “has only risen” in the wake of this crisis, “and the hostages’ families are becoming the focal point for that anger.”Zehava Eshel told The Guardian that soldiers like her missing granddaughter, who was stationed near the fence that encircles the Gaza Strip, were supposed to be “the eyes of the country,” but no one listened when they said they saw “unusual movements at the border.”Netanyahu sees the writing on the wall, Mazal Mualem, a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Israel Pulse who recently wrote a biography of Netanyahu, told The New York Times and is now “focused on damage control.” Mualem said, “In my opinion, he understands that he won’t be able to continue after such a devastating failure and, therefore, he is focused on achieving military and diplomatic success during this war.”
Netanyahu Could Be Blamed For One Big Failure
Asa-El said Netanyahu’s inevitable downfall would come not just as a result of the Oct. 7 attack itself but also because he displayed poor judgment over the Hamas threat and his relentless pursuit of the politics of division. He explains that Netanyahu had effectively adopted a policy of containment towards Hamas, which turns out “was all along a very implacable enemy.” As The Economist writes, Netanyahu championed the idea that the threat of Hamas in Gaza “could be managed by erecting a high-tech border barrier, instead of by seeking a long-term solution and improving conditions in Gaza.”
They added, “That concept failed miserably on October 7th.”
Asa-El told HuffPost that Netanyahu’s attitude of “put to sleep the military establishment,” which did not recognize the scale of danger the Palestinian militant group posed to Israel, led to the attack earlier this month. Netanyahu has “repeatedly divided Israeli society for his own political needs,” Asa-El added, and Israelis will hold him accountable for that once the fighting ends. Netanyahu was indicted on corruption charges in 2019, which he has vehemently denied. The trial started in May 2020 but has since been delayed several times. If convicted, Netanyahu could face several years in prison, but a verdict isn’t expected anytime soon. His victory in the November 2022 election after allying with ultraconservative parties led to the creation of one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history. Since his return to power, Netanyahu has pushed through a controversial judicial reform that critics say will harm Israeli democracy by limiting the judicial system’s power, effectively the only system of checks and balances on the government, with thousands of people taking to the streets to protest it. Some have also pointed out that Netanyahu’s main motivation for going ahead with the reform is it could help him avoid potentially facing accountability in his corruption trial. Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, predicted protests will likely return to Israel’s streets eventually, only this time they won’t just be about Netanyahu’s threat to democracy but also about “how Mr. Security fell asleep on guard” duty. Mekelberg called Netanyahu’s decision to stack his Cabinet with people of either limited or no military experience at all following his election win “criminal neglect.” He explains that Netanyahu’s picks for crucial ministerial positions were below par for a country like Israel, where security is a priority and should be treated as such.
Shirel Hogeg, a corporate executive at Nestlé from the southern Israeli city of Ofakim, who went viral for confronting a minister over the government’s response to the crisis, echoed Mekelberg, calling out Netanyahu for giving important jobs to political allies in far-right and Orthodox Jewish political parties.
“Netanyahu, the corrupt, the very corrupt, who has been in the seat too long ― he’s given out all these titles [to cronies] to survive,” Hogeg told HuffPost. “He’s given out funds to everybody to survive. He has even given Hamas money for the past 20 years to avoid confrontation, and he never confronted them until the end.” Since Hamas’ offensive, Netanyahu created an emergency unity government to lead the war effort, which includes several centrist opposition figures, including former Defence Minister Benny Gantz. While the newly created war cabinet does not include any members of the far-right parties Netanyahu formed a coalition with; they remain a part of his government. Mekelberg told HuffPost that this is a political calculation by Netanyahu, given that he will need their support to remain in power if any opposition figures drop out of the unity government.
Netanyahu Evading Responsibility For The Hamas Attack
Mekelberg said he found it “shocking” that Netanyahu was still in power despite this colossal failure, also noting that the Israeli prime minister hasn’t accepted any degree of responsibility for the Hamas attack, even as others around him, including ministers and defense officials, have. “We have to admit honestly, painfully and with a bowed head — we, the state leadership and the security establishment, have failed in maintaining the security of our citizens,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a partner in Netanyahu’s government. Ronen Bar, who leads the country’s domestic intelligence organization, also accepted blame, given his organization did not put out a warning that could have prevented the attack. A new poll released Friday by the Maariv newspaper showed that 80% of respondents want Netanyahu to publicly accept responsibility for the Oct. 7 massacre. Mekelberg said Netanyahu likes to take credit when things go right but blames others when events take a bad turn. But the scale of this failure will not allow Netanyahu to remain in the post for long, he estimates. “Do I expect him to resign in the manner of taking responsibility and give a big speech and say, you know, ‘I had my time; I failed you, thank you,’ and disappear into the sunset? No, I don’t think so,” Mekelberg said. “Will he be pushed out in one way or another?” he asked. “I believe so.”