English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 02/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the
lccc Site
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2024/english.august02.24.htm
News Bulletin Achieves
Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Click On
The Below Link To Join Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FPF0N7lE5S484LNaSm0MjW
اضغط
على الرابط في
أعلى للإنضمام
لكروب
Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
Elias Bejjani/Click
on the below link to subscribe to my youtube channel
الياس
بجاني/اضغط
على الرابط في
أسفل للإشتراك في
موقعي ع اليوتيوب
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOOSioLh1GE3C1hp63Camw
Bible Quotations For today
Such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth
talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded
Letter to the Romans 16/17-20/:"I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye
on those who cause dissensions and offences, in opposition to the teaching that
you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but
their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of
the simple-minded. For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice
over you, I want you to be wise in what is good, and guileless in what is evil.
The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with you."
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 01-02/2024
Hezbollah says fired ‘dozens’ of rockets at
north Israel
Fears mount in Lebanon of a wider war as Hezbollah vows retaliation
Hezbollah leader says war with Israel has entered 'new phase' after killings of
top militant figures
Five civilians killed in strike on Tyre's Shamaa
Report: Israel warns Hezbollah any attack on civilians leads to war
UK foreign and defense secretaries meet Lebanese leaders amid regional tensions
Israeli assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon to occur in three phases, Saudi reporter
predicts
War of attrition: U.S. can deter Hezbollah by showing support for Israel/David
Daoud/The Washington Times/August 01/2024
Who's who in Iran's 'axis of resistance'
I will present an indictment letter to the Attorney General of the Republic
against Hassan Nasrallah and his various accomplices/Roger Bejjani/Face
Book/August 01/2024
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on August 01-02/2024
Israel PM says in ‘very high level of defensive and offensive’ preparation
IDF confirms it killed Mohammed Deif in Khan Yunis attack
Iran, allies ready Israel response as funerals held for militant leaders
US deploys 12 warships to Mideast as regional tensions soar
Thousands attend funeral for assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
Eliminating Haniyeh in Qatar would have been good, eliminating him in Tehran was
better - analysis
IDF confirms killing Al Jazeera journalist, says he was Hamas operative
300 days in hell: It's time to bring the hostages home - editorial
'Gaza's Bin Laden': Politicians react to IDF confirmation of Deif's killing
Blinken calls on 'all parties' in Middle East to 'stop escalatory actions'
Mediators say Haniyeh killing harms deal, Israel wants hostage release
Palestinian homes were destroyed ‘for revenge,’ says Israeli soldier who served
in Gaza
Turkey blocks NATO-Israel cooperation over Gaza war, sources say
US and Russia complete biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, freeing
Gershkovich and Whelan
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources on August 01-02/2024
Dissecting the Haniyeh, Shukr assassinations and their impact/Keren Setton/The
Media Line/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Israel’s strike on Hamas Leader Haniyeh signals defiance to Iran/Dan Diker/Jerusalem
Post/August 01/2024
After the assassinations: Does Iran retaliate? Can Hamas fight on? And what
about the hostages?/Ron Kampeas/JTA//Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Seven winners and six losers in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s
political leader/Philssa Cramer/JTA/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Pinpoint assassinations: Israel’s message to Hezbollah, Lebanon, Hamas, and
Iran/Herb Keinon/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
The Horror of an Iranian Nuclear Weapon/Nils A. Haug/ Gatestone Institute/August
1, 2024
Today in History: Outnumbered Christian Knights Defeat Hordes of Sadistic
Muslims/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/August 01/2024
Bomb Smuggled Into Iran Guesthouse Months Ago Killed Hamas Leader/Ronen
Bergman/The New York Times/ August 1, 2024
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on August 01-02/2024
Hezbollah says fired ‘dozens’ of rockets at
north Israel
AFP/August 01, 2024
BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it launched rockets at northern Israel Thursday “in
response” to a deadly Israeli strike in south Lebanon — the group’s first attack
after Israel killed a top commander earlier this week. The Iran-backed group
said in a statement that it “launched dozens of Katyusha rockets... in response
to the Israeli enemy’s attack on... (the southern village of Shama) that killed
a number of civilians.” The Israeli military said that shortly after the rocket
fire, the air force “struck the Hezbollah launcher from which the projectiles
were launched.”Earlier Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry said four Syrians
were killed in an Israeli strike on the south, where Hezbollah and Israel have
exchanged near-daily fire since the Gaza war began in October. “The health
ministry announces... four Syrian nationals were martyred” in an “Israeli
strike” on the southern village of Shama, it said in a statement.
The ministry said the toll might rise once DNA tests had been carried out.The
strike also wounded five Lebanese nationals, it added. Emergency services told
AFP that the dead were farmer workers and part of the same family. Plumes of
smoke billowed from the site of the strike, which heavily damaged two nearby
buildings and burnt a vehicle to a crisp, a photographer contributing to AFP
reported. The attack was Hezbollah’s first since an Israeli air strike killed
its top commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday evening, with leader Hassan Nasrallah
saying operations would resume on Friday morning.
Nasrallah warned his group was bound to respond to the killing of Shukr. His
death was followed hours later Wednesday, by the killing of Hezbollah ally
Hamas’s chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas have
blamed on Israel. Israel has declined to comment on his killing.
The violence since October has killed at least 542 people on the Lebanese side,
most of them fighters but also including 114 civilians, according to an AFP
tally. At least 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed on the Israeli
side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to army figures.
Fears mount in Lebanon of a wider war as Hezbollah vows
retaliation
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/August 01, 2024
BEIRUT: Security measures in Lebanon increased on Thursday following the
assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday morning.
This, in turn, came after the assassination of senior Hezbollah military
commander Fouad Shukr on Tuesday night in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah asked those in southern towns not to film security events and to
disconnect fixed surveillance cameras from the internet, which it claimed was
“infiltrated by Israel.”Caution prevailed on the southern front, interrupted by
Israeli raids and shelling on border towns. In an effort to contain any
deterioration in security, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defense
Secretary John Healey arrived in Beirut for talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih
Berri, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib.
Lammy called on “all parties to respect and implement Resolution 1701 and all
its provisions and stipulations.”Healy commended “the partnership between the
Lebanese and British armies” and called for “addressing all conflicts through
dialogue and diplomatic means, as the violence will have dire consequences for
everyone.”
Berri informed the British delegation “that Lebanon does not want war but is
ready to defend itself, and Israeli arrogance is dragging the region toward
unpredictable dangers.”Mikati said Lebanon appreciated the message of support
from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, conveyed by the two secretaries of
state. He stressed that “Israel has violated Lebanese sovereignty and attacked
our land, in violation of international laws, and it assaults civilians
blatantly every day” and added: “The solution can only be political by
implementing international resolutions, including UN Resolution 1701.”
He called on Britain and the international community to “put pressure on Israel
to stop its aggression.”Mikati’s appeal came as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
filed a complaint with the UN Security Council and the UN secretary-general
through its permanent mission in New York.
The ministry called on Security Council members “to condemn the Israeli
cyberattacks on Lebanon, which pose a serious threat to civil aviation services
and endanger the security and safety of communication networks, devices,
applications, and electronic data in vital Lebanese facilities.”
The ministry’s actions are based on a report from the Lebanese Ministry of
Telecommunications, which revealed: “The source of GPS jamming is in northern
Israel and caused a decline in the accuracy of positioning in Lebanon, affecting
transport and communication services. “Repeated warnings from the Network Time
Protocol server were reported, showing the frequent loss of GPS signals and a
decline in the quality of service and user experience for mobile network
operators.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also requested its permanent
mission in Geneva to file a complaint with the International Telecommunication
Union, calling for necessary technical measures to stop such attacks and assist
Lebanon in ensuring proper functioning of its communication networks.
Also on Thursday, Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Alaa Moussa discussed the
latest developments with Berri. The envoy affirmed Egypt’s rejection of any
aggression against Lebanon and highlighted Egypt’s support. Moussa stressed the
importance of calm as expansion of the conflict would result in dire
consequences for both Lebanon and the entire region. He said: “We have already
warned that the Israeli aggression against Gaza will expand the cycle of
violence circle and confrontations on many and multiple fronts, which actually
happened in the past days.”
The ambassador conveyed a message from Egypt that warned “resorting to political
assassinations and the consequences resulting of this approach that will lead us
into a vicious circle.” Moussa added the international community must assume
their responsibilities through the UN Security Council by issuing a binding
resolution to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, achieving de-escalation on all fronts
and especially in south Lebanon. The body of Hezbollah’s Fouad Shukr was found
under the debris of a residential building in Haret Hreik, along with a second
body that was identified as Iranian adviser Milad Bedi. The bodies of Hanaa
Bashire and her daughter, Dr. Salwa Zuhair Al-Bitar, who lived in the targeted
building, were also recovered. This brings the total number of Israeli airstrike
victims to eight, two of whom were children. Iranian news agencies reported that
Bedi was a “military adviser of Al-Quds Force, the overseas arm of the
Revolutionary Guards. Shortly before Shukr’s funeral, Hezbollah hung giant
portraits of him bearing the words “Fuad Al-Muqawama” — Arabic for “the heart of
resilience” — on roads to the south. The Lebanese people held their breath on
Thursday amid fears of retaliation from Hezbollah and Iran. Private institutions
in Beirut shortened working hours for employees to 4 p.m., an hour before
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s speech at Shukr’s funeral procession.
Nasrallah warned the group was bound to respond to the killing and said the
deaths of both Shukr and the Hamas leader “crossed red lines.”
Hezbollah leader says war with Israel has entered 'new
phase' after killings of top militant figures
The Associated Press/Abby Sewell And Kareem Chehayeb/ August 1, 2024
Hezbollah’s leader warned Thursday that the conflict with Israel has entered a
“new phase,” as he addressed mourners at the funeral of a commander from the
group who was killed by an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut. Meanwhile in
Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader prayed over the body of Hamas’ political leader,
who was killed in a presumed Israeli assassination. The back-to-back killings
have increased fears of an escalation into a wider war, leaving the region
waiting to see how Iran and ally Hezbollah will respond. Iran has vowed
retaliation against Israel for the strike that killed Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh on
Wednesday in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Israel has not claimed
responsibility for Haniyeh’s assassination, but comments by Israeli military
spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stopped short of an outright denial. “There
was no additional airstrike, not a missile and not an Israeli drone, in the
entire Middle East that night,” he said Thursday, fueling speculation that
Israel could have used other means to kill Haniyeh. Israel did confirm it
carried out the strike Tuesday in Beirut that killed Hezbollah commander Fouad
Shukur, along with an Iranian military adviser and at least five civilians.
Israel said Shukur was behind a rocket attack days earlier that hit a soccer
field in the Israeli-held Golan Heights, killing 12 children. Hezbollah denied
being behind that strike, a denial that Nasrallah reiterated.
In a speech via video link to mourners gathered with Shukur’s coffin at an
auditorium in a Beirut suburb, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said, “We …
have entered a new phase that is different from the previous period.”“Do they
expect that Hajj Ismail Haniyeh will be killed in Iran and Iran will remain
silent?” he said of the Israelis. Addressing Israelis who celebrated the two
killings, he said, “Laugh a bit and you will cry a lot.”But as he often does,
Nasrallah kept his comments vague, vowing a “very well-studied retaliation”
without saying what form it would take. He said only that Israel “will have to
wait for the anger of the region’s honorable people.”“The enemy and the one who
is behind the enemy” — an apparent reference to Israel's chief ally, the United
States — “will have to wait for our coming response,” he said. International
officials have been scrambling to avert a cycle of retaliation before it spirals
into a greater war. Since the Gaza war began in October, Hezbollah and Israel
have traded fire almost daily across the border in exchanges that have caused
deaths and the evacuation of tens of thousands from their homes. But they have
also stayed within limits. Several times, strikes that appeared to cross red
lines raised fears of an acceleration into full-fledged war, but outside
diplomacy reined in the two sides. Hezbollah faces strong pressure not to draw
Lebanon into a repeat of the militant group's 2006 war with Israel, which
wreaked heavy death and destruction in the country. Israel and Iran risked
plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus
in April. Iran retaliated, and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of
strikes on each other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing
that cycle before it spun out of control. In Beirut's southern suburbs, the
biggest Shiite district in the capital, hundreds of black-clad mourners packed
the auditorium, many of them holding Hezbollah flags or photos of Shukur. An
escort of red-capped fighters carried Shukur’s coffin, also draped in a
Hezbollah flag, down the aisle to the backing of a military band. In his speech,
Nasrallah praised Shukur as a veteran commander and denied that Hezbollah
carried out the deadly strike on the soccer field in the mainly Druze town of
Majdal Shams in the Golan. “We have the courage to take responsibility for where
we strike, even if it’s a mistake. If we made a mistake, we would admit and
apologize,” he said, adding, "The enemy made itself the judge, jury, and
executioner without any evidence.”
An unusual relative calm prevailed Thursday on the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hezbollah claimed no rocket launches into Israel during the day. The Lebanese
state news agency said a strike hit the house of a Syrian family in a southern
Lebanese town, killing at least four people and wounding several others.
Afterward, Hezbollah announced it had launched a barrage of rockets into Israel
in retaliation. Nasrallah said Hezbollah's fighters would return to regular
military operations Friday, ending the period of mourning for Shukur, but that
the renewed strikes would be unrelated to the retaliation for his killing.
Earlier Thursday in Tehran, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed
over Haniyeh’s coffin in a ceremony at Tehran University, with the new
president, Masoud Pezeshkian, next to him. State television later showed the
coffin placed in a truck and moved on the street toward Azadi Square in Tehran
and people throwing flowers at it.
Haniyeh’s remains are to be transferred to Qatar for burial Friday. Haniyeh came
to Tehran to attend the inauguration of Pezeshkian. Associated Press photos
showed the Hamas leader seated alongside leaders from the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad militant group and Hezbollah, and Iranian media showed him and Pezeshkian
hugging. Haniyeh had met earlier with Khamenei. Hours later, he was killed in a
strike that hit a residence Haniyeh uses in Tehran. Iranian authorities said the
attack is under investigation but haven’t provided details. Israel had pledged
to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on
southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. On Thursday, Israel said it had
confirmed that the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in a
July 13 airstrike in Gaza. Hamas, which earlier said Deif survived the blast,
did not immediately comment.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “all parties” in the Middle East
must avoid escalatory actions that could plunge the region into further
conflict. Speaking Thursday in the Mongolian capital of Ulaaanbataar, Blinken
appealed for countries to “make the right choices in the days ahead” and said a
cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was the only way to begin to break
the current cycle of violence and suffering. Blinken did not mention Israel,
Iran or Hamas by name in his comments.
Five civilians killed in strike on Tyre's Shamaa
Naharnet/August 01/2024
A Syrian family of five were killed Thursday in an Israeli strike on their house
in the southern village of Shamaa in the Tyre district. A mother and her four
children were killed as Israeli warplanes targeted their house, local media
reports said. Several others were injured in the strike. Warplanes had earlier
Thursday raided the southern border town of kfarkila, with no casualties
reported. The strike was carried out while Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah was addressing mourners at the funeral of a commander from the group
who was killed by an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut. An unusual relative
calm had prevailed in the past two days on the Lebanon-Israel border. On
Wednesday and Thursday, Hezbollah claimed no rocket launches into Israel. Since
the Gaza war began in October, Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost
daily across the border.
Report: Israel warns Hezbollah any attack on civilians
leads to war
Naharnet/August 01/2024
Israel has communicated a “stern warning” to Hezbollah through Western and
regional intermediaries following the recent assassination of top commander
Fouad Shukur that any massive attack on Israeli civilians will lead to war,
Israeli sources told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. “Israel intends to target
fighters rather than combat-supporting infrastructure and urges Hezbollah to
adopt a similar focus,” the sources added. U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken has meanwhile asked Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh
Mohammed bin Abdurrahman Al-Thani to relay messages to Iran and Hezbollah, a
source told CNN. Blinken spoke to the premier on Wednesday. “The messages were a
call for pacifying the escalation and refraining from responding to the killing
of Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh,”
the source added, noting that the Qatari PM agreed to convey the messages.
UK foreign and defense secretaries meet Lebanese leaders
amid regional tensions
Naharnet/August 01/2024
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defense Secretary John Healey
arrived Thursday in Beirut following a trip to Qatar. They met with Speaker
Nabih Berri and caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib following their
arrival before heading to the Grand Serail for talks with caretaker Prime
Minister Najib Mikati. Mikati told the British officials that “the solution can
only be political, through the implementation of international resolutions,
including Resolution 1701,” calling on the UK and the international community to
“press Israel to halt its aggression,” his office said.
Lammy for his part called on all parties to respect Resolution 1701 and
implement it with all its stipulations, as the British defense secretary lauded
the partnership between the Lebanese and British armies and called for resolving
all conflicts through dialogue and diplomatic means, Mikati’s office said.
“Violence will have dire consequences for everyone,” the office quoted Healey as
saying. Berri meanwhile told the British visitors that “Lebanon does not want
war but at the same time is ready to defend itself.”He added that Resolution
1701 can be implemented through “a permanent cessation of the aggression against
the Gaza Strip or through a several-week truce.” The British delegation for its
part told Berri that the UK sees a need to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and
Lebanon, expressing grave concern over the latest escalation and warning that
any miscalculation might lead to an expansion of the war in the region, Berri’s
office said. Britain says Lammy and Healey have traveled to the region to call
for an end to the conflict in Gaza and de-escalation in the wider region.
"Escalation and destabilization are in no one’s interests. It is absolutely
vital that we engage closely with partners like Qatar, who play a key role in
mediating the conflict in Gaza, so that we can bring this devastating war to an
end," Lammy said in a statement while in Doha. For his part, Healey stated:
"De-escalation must be our primary focus as this region stands at a crossroads.
The loss of innocent life in recent weeks and months is unbearable. This has to
end.""All sides must step back from conflict and step-up diplomacy," he said,
adding that they will work with partners like Qatar for a renewed push for
peace. Tension have peaked between Hezbollah and Israel following a rare
airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs that killed the group’s most senior
military commander Fouad Shukur, an Iranian military adviser and five Lebanese
civilians. The strike also wounded dozens of people.Hour later, Palestinian
group Hamas announced that its leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli
airstrike in Iran’s capital Tehran, prompting Iran’s leaders to threaten
revenge.
Israeli assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon to occur in
three phases, Saudi reporter predicts
Rikki Zagelbaum/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
According to a Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath, the Israeli attack on Lebanon is
planned to occur in three separate phases, targeting Hezbollah leaders and
infrastructure. The Israeli attack on Lebanon will be carried out in three
distinct stages, a source from Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath reported on Tuesday.
Mahmoud Shukar, a reporter at Al-Hadath, stated in an interview on the Saudi
channel that the first wave of the Israeli attack will target the usual
Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, “located deep within the area, around 20 to
30 km away.” He referred to these sites as “old military bases,” adding that
they will be targeted with “different weapons compared to the past." The second
wave, according to Shukar, will target the coastal road, specifically the routes
from Tyre to Sidon and up to the outskirts of Beirut, “where Hezbollah targets
such as warehouses and infrastructure may be located," he said. Lebanon-Syria
border to be targetted. The third wave of attacks, Shukar continued, will target
the area around the Lebanon-Syria border, specifically focusing on regions like
Baalbek, a city about 67 km northeast of Beirut. This phase will reportedly
extend deeper into Lebanon to strike key Hezbollah targets, including military
and logistical support systems, he said. Shukar made these predictions on the
same day that the IDF conducted a precision strike on a Hezbollah target in
Beirut, which killed Hezbollah's most senior military commander and the head of
its Strategic Unit, Fuad Shukr. Shukr was the Hezbollah commander responsible
for the rocket attack three days earlier, which killed twelve children and
teenagers in the northern Golan town of Majdal Shams. “As for Hezbollah, there
are no visible actions or movements on the ground,” Shukar concluded. “No one
knows what Hezbollah is planning.
War of attrition: U.S. can deter Hezbollah by showing
support for Israel
David Daoud/The Washington Times/August 01/2024
If Israel and Lebanon had been teetering on the brink of war for nearly a year,
Hezbollah’s strike in Majdal Shams on Saturday, which killed 12 Israeli
children, could tip matters over the edge.
The tit-for-tat that erupted nine months ago quickly became a war of attrition
that has decimated both sides of the border, displacing tens of thousands of
Israelis and Lebanese. This conflict has always been one mistake away from
erupting into a full conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah that promises to
be even bloodier than the war in the Gaza Strip.
On Oct. 8, Hezbollah unilaterally ignited the border between the two countries
to support its allied terrorist groups in Gaza. Its objectives, laid out in a
Nov. 3 speech by its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, were clear: to divide
Israel’s attention and forces along two fronts and increase the cost the
Israelis would bear to prosecute their war in Gaza. Hezbollah’s ultimate purpose
was to force Israel into a premature cease-fire so “the Palestinian resistance
in Gaza, in particular Hamas, will emerge victorious,” to fight the Israelis
again in the future. Enter the diplomats. French and American envoys have spent
months shuttling back and forth to Beirut and Jerusalem to avert this conflict —
they’ve brought to bear every carrot, every bit of leverage they have in Lebanon
to get the Lebanese to save themselves and restrain Hezbollah, or at least
cajole the group into backing down by halting its attacks or withdrawing from
the border with Israel. To no avail. The group answers to higher powers in Iran
and will not disarm or withdraw from the region, and is stubbornly sticking to
its promise to continue attacking Israel until the latter halts its campaign in
Gaza. In desperation, then, the emissaries of Washington and Paris have been
trying to merely restore quiet to the Blue Line — the de facto boundary between
Israel and Lebanon — by any means possible.
But quiet has become a sacrosanct end, not merely a means to gradually degrade
Hezbollah. Since taking office, the Biden administration has wanted to reorient
U.S. foreign policy to other fronts — namely, supporting Ukraine and confronting
China. It has also become imperative to silence the emerging discord over Gaza
that threatens to tear the Democratic Party asunder in a critical election year.
The cease-fire proposals are therefore focused on ending the fighting between
Israel and Hezbollah for now. They center on some mixture of distancing
Hezbollah a handful of kilometers from the Blue Line coupled with the unreliable
guarantee that the Lebanese military and the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon
will prevent them from returning — despite the failure of these forces to
restrain the group in any way for decades. To give Lebanon incentive to accept
of these deals, as if the ultimate decision were Beirut’s, these Western powers
have reportedly offered sweeteners: to help Lebanon overcome its presidential
impasse, provide the financially crippled country with economic assistance, or
to resolve its outstanding border disputes with Israel — on the assumption that
doing so will deprive Hezbollah of continued justification to attack the Jewish
state.
At best, this would achieve a cosmetic resolution to the conflict raging on
Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah’s enmity toward Israel and its designs to
destroy it would remain — and a cease-fire, without more, would give Hezbollah
breathing room to resume its rearmament and preparations, to attack Israel at a
more advantageous time later. That time will come because the group’s enmity
toward Israel is unconditional and uncompromising. Hezbollah believes the Jewish
state has been built upon stolen Arab land that is sacred to Islam and must
therefore be destroyed. Yet the group opposes not just Israel, but Judaism
itself, which it considers the true source of the problem.
Proposals to calm the northern border leave Israel to choose from a series of
bad options. The first is to bow to the pressure arrayed against it — from the
U.S. administration and the international community, a growing domestic
constituency opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership
and the grind of a 10-month war. At best, this would restore a deceptive, Oct.
6-style quiet to the north and allow the 80,000 Israelis displaced from the
region to return to their homes in the shadow of Hezbollah’s ominous presence.
But it would enable Hezbollah to claim victory and erase any semblance of
Israeli deterrence: The group would say that it not only endured a 10-month
Israeli onslaught, but that it also accomplished something unprecedented — for
itself or any other Arab force — of creating a de facto no-man’s-land in Israel
and forcing the Jewish state to seek the group’s permission for Israeli citizens
to return home.
This would damage Israeli morale while giving a Hezbollah a much-needed
popularity boost at home. Demonstrating Israeli frailty would also help justify
the group’s demand of its own base that it continue enduring the pain necessary
to liberate the Palestinians from the river to the sea.
The alternative option for Israel would be to go to war against Hezbollah,
despite being battered by the Oct. 7 massacre and subsequent war in Gaza,
bruised by international opprobrium and growing isolation, and without the
guaranteed but vital support of its most critical ally, the United States. War
could eliminate the spreading threat to Israel’s security before it becomes
existential. It could also prove far more painful than the war in Gaza, in light
of Hezbollah’s arsenal of 200,000 rockets, missiles and drones whose quality is
far superior to that of anything in Hamas’ hands.
But there is a third option, one that could avert a war: for the United States
to demonstrably back Israel’s right to defend itself, including through a
campaign in Lebanon, while holding Beirut’s — and not Jerusalem’s — feet to the
fire. Washington’s message to Hezbollah should be that, if its provocations
continue, it stands to suffer irreversible and inescapable consequences. This
restoration of U.S.-backed Israeli deterrence could keep the group in check
indefinitely.
*David Daoud is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
focusing on Israel, Hezbollah and Lebanon. Follow him on X @DavidADaoud.
Who's who in Iran's 'axis of resistance'
Agence France Presse/August 01, 2024
The Iran-aligned "axis of resistance" against Israel and its allies have lost
two major figures in less than 24 hours in attacks either blamed on or claimed
by Israel. Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed on Wednesday in
Tehran in a strike the group blamed on Israel, hours after top Hezbollah
commander Fouad Shukur perished in an Israeli strike on southern Beirut. Here
are the main members of the "axis of resistance" which has supported Hamas since
the Palestinian group launched the October 7 attack on Israel, sparking fears of
a regional conflict.
Iran
Middle East powerhouse Iran is officially committed to the destruction of what
it calls the "Zionist entity". It backs armed groups across the region who have
attacked Israel since the Gaza war erupted.In April, Iran made its first ever
direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles after a
deadly strike on its Damascus consular annex blamed on Israel. Days later,
explosions rocked Iran's central Isfahan province, with U.S. officials saying
that Israel carried out a retaliatory strike. Israel has declined to comment on
Haniyeh's killing, but Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened a
"harsh punishment".
Hezbollah
Lebanon's Hezbollah, the most powerful "axis of resistance" group, has traded
near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since the start of the Gaza war. The
killing Tuesday of Shukur, who Israel says was responsible for a weekend strike
on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children, has raised fears
of a fierce response. Hezbollah, or "Party of God" in Arabic, was founded during
the 1975-1990 Lebanon civil war after Israel's 1982 invasion of Beirut. Created
at the initiative of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the group fought Israeli
troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000. It is the only faction to have
retained its weapons after the end of the civil war, and is considered to have a
bigger arsenal than the army. Hezbollah has expanded the size and quality of its
arsenal since it last fought an all-out war with Israel in 2006.Hezbollah chief
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly said his group's advanced weaponry can
strike deep into Israel.
Hamas
Hamas, which emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood movement, was created in 1987
after the first Palestinian uprising known as the intifada, and has ruled the
Gaza Strip since 2007. For decades, targeted assassinations have killed Hamas
political figures and military commanders, pushing its leadership abroad, in
Syria, Lebanon, Qatar and Turkey. In recent years, the group improved its
relations with Iran and gradually became a key "axis of resistance" member. The
latest Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. Israel has
vowed to crush Hamas, and on Thursday announced it had killed the group's
military chief in a July 13 air strike in Gaza. Hamas has yet to confirm this.
Iraq 'resistance' groups
Several Iraqi Shiite Muslim groups are also aligned with Iran and hostile to the
United States, which still maintains troops in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion of the country. They are demanding the departure of roughly 2,500
American troops deployed in Iraq as part of a U.S.-led anti-jihadists coalition.
In the first few months of the Gaza war, these groups which have formed a loose
alliance known as the Islamic Resistance of Iraq have targeted U.S. forces in
the country in support of the Palestinians, before suspending their attacks in
late January. The alliance has also claimed to have targeted Israel with drones
and rockets. The alliance's main groups are Kataeb Hezbollah, Al-Nujaba and the
Sayyed al-Shuhada Brigades. These groups are also affiliated with Hashed al-Shaabi,
mainly former paramilitaries now integrated into Iraq's armed forces.
Yemen's Houthis
In the wake of the Gaza war, the Houthis have launched numerous attacks against
commercial shipping in the Gulf they say is linked to Israel, triggering
retaliatory strikes by the United States and its allies.They have also claimed
targeting Israel, sometimes in joint operations with Iraqi groups. On July 20,
Israel struck Yemen's Houthi-controlled Hodeida port, its first attack on the
Arabian Peninsula's poorest country, a day after a Houthi drone attack killed a
civilian in Tel Aviv. Originating in northern Yemen, the Houthis were founded in
the 1990s to fight the alleged marginalization of their minority Zaidi
community, a branch of Shiite Islam, in the majority Sunni country. In 2014, the
movement seized control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of Yemen,
prompting Saudi Arabia the following year to form a multi-national coalition in
support of Yemen's internationally recognized government.
I will present an indictment letter to the Attorney
General of the Republic against Hassan Nasrallah and his various accomplices
Roger Bejjani/Face Book/August 01/2024
I will present an indictment letter to the Attorney General of the Republic
against Hassan Nasrallah and his various accomplices for (1) working for the
benefit of a foreign country, (2) endangering the lives of Lebanese throughout
the country, (3) endangering the Lebanese economy, of the country's
infrastructure, Lebanese investments and freedom of travel, (4) violation of
United Nations Security Council resolution # 1701 and the Armistice Agreement of
1949, in blatant contradiction of the Lebanese constitution and various
ministerial statements.
I wonder how the Law Order didn't file such a complaint. So where is the truffle
of parliament? Better against the other?
Should we wait for a cataclysm before we react?
In the absence of a government worthy of this name, maybe the Judiciary will
move. It's naive but highly symbolic!
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 01-02/2024
Israel PM says in ‘very high level of defensive and offensive’
preparation
AFP/August 01, 2024
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel was
prepared for any “aggression” against it following threats of retaliation for
the killings of top Hamas and Hezbollah figures. “Israel is at a very high level
of preparation for any scenario, both defensive and offensive. We will make any
act of aggression against us pay a very high price,” Netanyahu said in a
statement. “Those who attack us, we will attack in return.” His comments came as
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday that the Lebanese armed group
was bound to respond to Israel’s killing of its top military commander, Fuad
Shukr, in a strike on Tuesday in a Beirut suburb. On Wednesday, Hamas chief
Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a strike in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas have
blamed on Israel. Israel has declined to comment on his killing. “You do not
know what red lines you crossed,” Nasrallah said addressing Israel during a
speech broadcast at Shukr’s funeral. “The enemy, and those who are behind the
enemy, must await our inevitable response.”
IDF confirms it killed Mohammed Deif in Khan Yunis
attack
Yonah Jeremy Bob/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
The military said that only in recent hours it had received additional
intelligence to confirm Deif's death to a complete certainty. The IDF on
Thursday confirmed 100% that its July 13 airstrike targeting Hamas military
leader Mohammed Deif succeeded in killing him.
The military said that only in recent hours it had received additional
intelligence to confirm Deif's death to a complete certainty, taking into
account that the defense establishment had been confident for the last two weeks
that its air strike had killed him. Pressed, the IDF would not only not reveal
what the new confirmatory information was, but would also not share what
category of information it was. In such cases in the past, the information is
often a very sensitive human spy or a very sensitive electronic spying element
which the defense establishment feels would be lost if even a hint of who or
what it was comes out. IDF sources indicated that some members of Hamas and
Hezbollah have known for some time that Deif was dead, but that others may not
have known because portions of Hamas are currently cut off from the broader
Hamas operational network.
The IDF's July announcement
Already on July 21, the military had revealed that Deif was to a 100% certainty
in the room with Hamas Khan Yunis Brigade Commander Rafah Salame, when the bombs
which were dropped and killed Salame struck. The fact that Salame was in fact
killed and the size of the bombs had already made it a practical certainty that
Deif was also killed, though IDF sources until Thursday had cautioned that in
one of the prior failed attempted assassinations of Deif, he was in the room
which was hit, but happened to be in a tiny part of the room which was just
shielded enough by the surrounding objects and setting to survive. As part of
the assassination, the air force had kept a series of five different pairs of
aircraft and drones rotating through the role of hovering and passing by the
residence where Deif was expected to visit Salame, such that the moment the war
cabinet approved an operation, the air force would be able to open fire in
practically no time at all. This is different from the standard situation where
aircraft only take off to strike a target after approval is given which creates
a certain amount of gap time when a target might escape. Air force units were in
the sky for more than a day and a half, waiting for the word to attack, though
Israeli intelligence had been following Salame at the location for weeks.
Iran, allies ready Israel response as funerals held for
militant leaders
Reuters/August 01, 2024
TEHRAN: Iran and its regional allies vowed retaliation on Thursday for the
deaths of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, raising regional tensions as mourners
filled Tehran’s city center calling for revenge. A public funeral was held for
Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital where he was
killed early Wednesday in an attack which Israel has not commented on. Haniyeh’s
body was then flown to Qatar, where he had resided and where he is to be laid to
rest on Friday, when his group called for a “day of furious rage” in the
Palestinian territories and across the region. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah,
addressing the funeral of the Lebanese group’s top military commander, said
Israel and “those who are behind it must await our inevitable response” to Fuad
Shukr’s and Haniyeh’s killings within hours of each other. “You do not know what
red lines you crossed,” Nasrallah said, addressing Israel, a day after Shukr was
killed in a strike in south Beirut. Israel, which said Shukr’s assassination was
a response to deadly rocket fire last week on the annexed Golan Heights, warned
its adversaries on Thursday they would “pay a very high price” for any
“aggression.”“Israel is at a very high level of preparation for any scenario,
both defensive and offensive,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a
statement.“Those who attack us, we will attack in return.”
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Iranian officials met in Tehran on
Wednesday with representatives of the so-called “axis of resistance,” a loose
alliance of Tehran-backed groups hostile to Israel, to discuss their next steps.
“Two scenarios were discussed: a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies
or a staggered response from each party,” said the source who had been briefed
on the meeting, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The leader of
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels vowed a “military response” to Israel’s “major
escalation.” Analysts told AFP that the retaliation would be measured to avoid a
wider conflagration. Iran and the groups it backs “will more than likely try to
avert a war, while also strongly deterring Israel from continuing with this new
policy, this targeted shock and awe,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah researcher and
lecturer at Britain’s Cardiff University.
In Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh
having earlier threatened “harsh punishment” for his killing. Crowds, including
women shrouded in black, carried posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags in a
procession and ceremony that began at Tehran University, an AFP correspondent
reported. Senior Iranian officials, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and
Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami, attended the ceremony, state
television images showed. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced the day before
that Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn strike Wednesday on their
accommodation in Tehran. The New York Times however reported, citing anonymous
sources including two Iranian officials, that the blast was caused by an
explosive device planted several months ago. When asked about the report,
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters “there was no other
Israeli aerial attack... in all the Middle East” on the night of Shukr’s
killing.Qatar-based Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian’s
swearing-in on Tuesday.Pezeshkian said Iran “will continue to support with
firmer determination the axis of resistance,” the official IRNA news agency
said. Qatar-based network Al Jazeera reported that the plane carrying Haniyeh’s
body had landed in Doha, where the Palestinian leader is to be buried following
prayers at the Qatari capital’s largest mosque. Hamas called in a statement for
a day of protests on Friday.
“Let roaring anger marches start from every mosque,” it said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Haniyeh a “martyr” and announced a
national day of mourning on Friday “in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.”
Pakistan too announced a national day of mourning. The international community
has called for calm and a focus on securing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip —
which Haniyeh had accused Israel of obstructing.United Nations chief Antonio
Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a “dangerous
escalation.” In a phone call, the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt blamed
Israel for rising tensions and called for “de-escalation,” Jordan’s official
Petra news agency reported. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated
appeals for an end to fighting and said achieving peace “starts with a
ceasefire.” But the prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh’s
killing had thrown the whole Gaza war mediation process into doubt.
“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the
other side?” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on social media site
X. US President Joe Biden will speak to Netanyahu later on Thursday, the White
House said. The killings are the latest of several major incidents that have
inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war which has drawn in Iran-backed
militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Beyond Gaza, clashes
continued on Thursday with Lebanese authorities reporting four Syrians killed in
an Israeli strike, followed by Hezbollah announcing a barrage of “dozens” of
rockets at Israel. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its
October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians,
according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Militants also
seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39
the military says are dead. Concern over the fate of those still held has grown
among Israelis, who demonstrated demanding a deal to free them in Tel Aviv on
Thursday, marking the war’s 300th day. Israel’s retaliatory campaign against
Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run
territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and
militant deaths.
US deploys 12 warships to Mideast as regional tensions
soar
Naharnet/August 01, 2024
The U.S. has deployed at least 12 warships to the Middle East, including the
aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, amphibious assault teams and over 4,000
Marines and sailors, in response to escalating tensions in the region following
the assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah
military chief Fouad Shukur, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing a
Pentagon official. According to the report, destroyers have been positioned in
both the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean. The U.S. has redirected its
warships from the Red Sea, where it combats Houthi missile and drone attacks
from Yemen to protect commercial ships and support Israel.
Thousands attend funeral for assassinated Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh
Euronews/Thu, August 1, 2024
Hundreds of thousands of people attended a funeral procession and service for
top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Thursday.The procession was held in
the streets of the Iranian capital, where Haniyeh's coffin was carried through
the city in an ornate vehicle. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
led funeral prayers at Tehran University while Iran's new President, Masoud
Pezeshkian, stood next to him. After the funeral services in Tehran, Haniyeh's
remains were expected to be transferred to Qatar for burial, where he lived in
exile for years. Iranians follow a truck, center, carrying the coffins of Hamas
leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard who were killed in an assassination
blamed on Israel on Wednesday, Iranians follow a truck, center, carrying the
coffins of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard who were killed in an
assassination blamed on Israel on Wednesday, - Haniyeh travelled to Tehran to
attend the inauguration of the country's new president, Pezeshkian. He was
killed in an airstrike that struck a residence he used in the city. Iranian
authorities said the attack is under investigation but have not released further
details.The strike came just hours after Israel targeted a top commander of
Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Israel had pledged to
kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s October 7 attack on
southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Fears of wider war in the Middle East
The assassination was potentially explosive amid the region’s volatile,
intertwined conflicts because of its target, its timing, and the decision to
carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel
into direct confrontation if Iran retaliates. The US and other nations scrambled
to prevent a wider, deadlier conflict. In a statement on his official website,
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said revenge was “our duty” and
that Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear
guest in our home.”Bitter regional rivals, Israel and Iran, risked plunging into
war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April. Iran
retaliated, and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each
other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle
before it spun out of control.
What we know so far about apparent Israeli attack on Iran
Haniyeh’s killing is, however, prompting fears that Hamas may pull out of
negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in
Gaza, which US mediators had said were making progress. Before Haniyeh's
assassination, Israel carried out a rare strike on Tuesday evening in the
Lebanese capital that it said killed a top Hezbollah commander allegedly behind
the rocket strike. Hezbollah, which denied any role in the Golan strike,
confirmed the death of Fouad Shukur on Wednesday, saying he was in the building
that was hit.
The strike also killed three women and two children, according to the Lebanese
Health Ministry.
Eliminating Haniyeh in Qatar would have been good,
eliminating him in Tehran was better - analysis
Amir Bohbot/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
If only the security establishment had wanted to, senior Hamas officials could
have been eliminated or attacked in the heart of Beirut.
Following the assassination of the head of Hamas's political bureau, Ismail
Haniyeh, sources in the security establishment explained that the choice to
carry out the assassination in the heart of Tehran was precisely because Haniyeh
was under Iranian security responsibility, which placed Iran at the heart of the
world's focus as a host, director, and supplier of terrorism. If they had wanted
to, they could have eliminated Haniyeh in Qatar but chose to do so in Tehran for
two reasons: first, to take out the chief of Hamas, but mainly to place Iran at
the center of the dilemma of the future and to what intensity will it raise the
height of the flames in the Middle East and how will it respond. According to
security sources, it has been a while since Iran felt that it might lose its
"proxies" in the Middle East. As you can see, Israel did not hesitate to attack
Yemen and Beirut as well, and according to foreign publications, also in Iraq
and other destinations. The successful and precise countermeasures proved that
Israel, unlike Iran and its affiliates, does not harm uninvolved civilians but
strikes its enemies with great precision. Accordingly, senior Iranian officials
understand the process that is developing throughout the Middle East and are
beginning to fear for their own fate as well. Therefore, there are sources in
the security system who think that the real story is not a targeted
counterattack in the heart of Beirut but what happened in Tehran. Ending the
war. Accordingly, sources in the security establishment estimated that Hezbollah
wants Hamas to end the war with Israel and reach a deal for the release of the
hostages. Wednesday's targeted countermeasures proved that even in the event of
a cease-fire with Hamas, Israel will not rush to reach a cease-fire with
Hezbollah at any cost and will insist on the conditions that suit it. Security
officials told Walla, "The next few days will be very tense, and to that end,
continuous situation assessments are underway. In the event that there is a
change in the frontline command, the citizens will be notified. The IDF
maintains a level of vigilance and alertness in front of all the arenas."
At the same time, criticism is heard in the security establishment for the
apparent delay in carrying out the elimination in Lebanon. Security officials
ask why only now was a decision made to eliminate a senior Hezbollah official in
the heart of Beirut? Why did they wait for the massacre of 12 Israeli children?
Senior officials could have been eliminated or attacked in the heart of Beirut
long before if they only wanted to
IDF confirms killing Al Jazeera journalist, says he was
Hamas operative
Reuters/August 1, 2024
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that it had
killed Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul in an airstrike in Gaza, saying he
was a Hamas operative who had taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on
Israel.Al-Jazeera dismissed what it said were "baseless allegations" which it
said were an attempt to justify the deliberate killing of its journalists. "The
network condemns the accusations against its correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul,
without providing any proof, documentation or video," it said in a statement,
adding that it reserved the right to take legal action against those
responsible.
The Qatari broadcaster said on Wednesday that Al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy El
Rify were both killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City while on an assignment
to film near the house of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas chief killed in Iran earlier
on the same day. The Israeli military said Al-Ghoul was a member of the elite
Nukhba unit who took part in the Oct. 7 attack and instructed Hamas operatives
on how to record operations, and it said he was involved in recording and
publicizing attacks on Israeli troops. "His activities in the field were a vital
part of Hamas' military activity," it said in a statement. Al-Jazeera said
Al-Ghoul had worked for the network since November 2023 and his only profession
was as a journalist. It said he had been arrested and detained at Al-Shifa
Hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip when it was taken by Israeli
forces in March before being released, which it said "debunks and refutes their
false claim of his affiliation with any organization." The Israeli government
has banned Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel, accusing it of posing a threat
to national security. Al Jazeera, which has been heavily critical of Israel's
campaign in Gaza, has denied inciting violence. The Hamas-run Gaza government
media office said the deaths of the two Al-Jazeera crew raised to 165 the number
of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7.
.
300 days in hell: It's time to bring the hostages home -
editorial
Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
After 300 days, Israel's military strikes Hamas leaders, yet hostage
negotiations remain stalled. Will recent successes lead to a breakthrough deal?
Following the horrific events of October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and his government vowed to hunt down and eliminate everyone in Hamas’s
leadership responsible for the brutal massacre. Three hundred days later, it
seems Israel is finally carrying out that promise. After months of fighting,
several top figures in Hamas’s military and political wings have been killed:
Saleh al-Arouri, Marwan Issa, Mohammed Deif (supposedly), and now Ismail Haniyeh,
whose death in Tehran, attributed to Israel by foreign reports, came hours after
senior Hezbollah official Fuad Shukr was killed in Beirut. This was no simple
feat. Haniyeh has been a pillar of Hamas since 1997 and has led the
organization’s political bureau since 2017. For years, he has been at the center
of every terrorist attack, atrocity, and statement made by Hamas. In many ways,
he was the face of Hamas, and his prominence was rivaled only by Yahya Sinwar,
the Hamas leader in Gaza. Now, the head of Hamas is gone; another name was
crossed off the list of Israel’s targets. However, while progress has been made
on targeted killings of top terrorist organization leaders 300 days into the
war, efforts to come to a deal to free the hostages from captivity in Gaza have
been far more stagnant.
300 days, and still no deal
For 300 days, 115 people have remained trapped in the Gaza Strip. For 300 days,
their families and loved ones have been crying out for Israel to bring them
home. And with no progress being made in negotiations through Qatari and
Egyptian mediators, their fates remain uncertain.In the early days of the war,
the shared trauma of October 7 and the desire to see the hostages returned home
were what brought the Israeli public together, creating a sense of unity
following the heightened social divisions of the judicial reform crisis. But as
the war progressed, that unity has ebbed and faded, and tensions and divisions
once again characterize this country’s fractured society. There is still no
hostage deal in sight. Hamas may be to blame for that, but until the captives
return home and this war comes to an end, these divisions are only going to get
worse. One argument commonly cited by Israeli lawmakers and former IDF officials
in recent months is that military pressure is essential to securing the
hostages’ freedom. Some circles have met this claim with skepticism, citing a
need for increased diplomatic efforts. Others even claim that Netanyahu is
intentionally creating obstacles to achieve a deal so his coalition will stay
intact.
Whether the need for increased military pressure is correct is up for debate.
But one thing is clear: Israel has certainly proven its military capabilities
once again. Israel’s hunting down of the figures it blames for the events of
October 7 is proof enough of that. Sure, Sinwar remains alive and well for now,
but the rest of Hamas’s leadership has been decimated. Speaking to 103FM radio,
Iranian-Israeli journalist Babak Itzhaki of Iran International explained that
the killing of Haniyeh in what was essentially his own bedroom restored Israel’s
dignity and deterrence in the eyes of the Iranians.
This is also true of Hezbollah, which Israel has battered heavily over the past
300 days. In particular, the killing of Shukr, whom Israel blames for last
week’s deadly Majdal Shams attack, sends a powerful and threatening message:
those who commit terror attacks against Israel will not get away with it, no
matter where they are. That is certainly significant military pressure and
deterrence, so now, it’s time for Israel to put those cards on the negotiating
table. Israel has proven it can back up its threats, but the hostages are still
stuck in Gaza, and killing Haniyeh hasn’t changed that. If Jerusalem has truly
restored its deterrence in the eyes of its enemies, it’s time to use that to
hammer out a deal.
However, it can only be done with unity.
Before October 7, the debate over judicial reform tore Israeli society apart. It
made the country seem weak, as well as neglectful of its borders. Only a unified
domestic front can truly match the deterrence of military pressure to restore
Israel’s strength in the eyes of the world.
Let’s put our grievances aside. It’s time to bring the hostages home and end
their 300-day nightmare.
'Gaza's Bin Laden': Politicians react to IDF confirmation of Deif's killing
Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant shared a post on X, formerly Twitter, depicting
him marking an X on a photo of Hamas's military commander. Israeli
politicians were quick to react to the IDF's confirmation on Thursday that it
had killed Mohammed Deif in the July 13 strike in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant shared a post on X, formerly Twitter, depicting
him marking an X on a photo of Hamas's military commander. 'The Osama Bin
Laden of Gaza' "Mohammed Deif, the ‘Osama Bin Laden of Gaza,’ was eliminated on
13.07.24. This is a significant milestone in the process of dismantling Hamas as
a military and governing authority in Gaza and in the achievement of the goals
of this war," Gallant wrote. "The operation was conducted precisely and
professionally by the IDF and ISA. This operation reflects the fact that Hamas
is disintegrating and that Hamas terrorists may either surrender or they will be
eliminated," he added. "Israel’s defense establishment will pursue Hamas
terrorists - both the planners and the perpetrators of the 07.10 massacre. We
will not rest until this mission is accomplished," Gallant concluded. Opposition
head Yair Lapid also commented on the announcement, writing on X, "I
Congratulate the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the security
forces, for the successful elimination of Mohammed Deif. An unprecedentedly
important military achievement. "The military achievements should be translated
into strategic political achievements, and everything should be done to return
the hostages home. now," he further noted. Yisrael Beytenu's head, Avigdor
Liberman, also shared a post in X, writing, "I congratulate and support the
security forces for the successful operation that led to the killing of the
mass-murderer Mohammed Deif.
"The courage, professionalism, and determination demonstrated by the fighters
are evidence of our ability to face any threat," Liberman noted. "There is
no place in the world for those despicable terrorists who massacred, raped, and
kidnapped Jews on October 7, and we must make sure that none of them die a
natural death," Liberman concluded.
Blinken calls on 'all parties' in Middle East to 'stop
escalatory actions'
Agence France Presse/August 01/2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged "all parties" in the
Middle East to stop "escalatory actions" and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, after
Hamas's political leader was killed in a strike that Iran blamed on
Israel.Achieving peace "starts with a ceasefire, and to get there, it also first
requires all parties to talk (and) to stop taking any escalatory actions",
Blinken told reporters in Mongolia.
Mediators say Haniyeh killing harms deal, Israel wants
hostage release
Tovah Lazaroff//Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Qatar and Egypt warn that Israel's actions endanger the hostage release deal
following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Qatar and Egypt have
warned that the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh harms the
possibility of finalizing a deal to free the remaining 115 hostages, while
Israel has insisted that it is determined to secure their release through an
agreement. “Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in
Gaza, while talks continue, leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one
party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Qatari Prime Minister
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani wrote on X. “Peace needs serious
partners [and] a global stance against the disregard for human life.” Israel has
not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing but is widely presumed to have
been responsible. Haniyeh, who typically resides in Qatar, was killed just hours
after Israel’s targeted killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, who was
responsible for the rocket strike in the Golan Heights on Saturday that killed
12 children. White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby
said the US was still pursuing a deal and had a team in the region working on
that agreement. “We still believe the details can be hashed out,” Kirby said.
These negotiations have been complicated and remain complicated, he explained.
Events in the region over the last 48 hours “certainly don’t make it less
complicated,” Kirby stated. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said a “dangerous Israeli
escalation policy” over the past two days had undermined efforts to broker an
end to the fighting in Gaza. “The coincidence of this regional escalation with
the lack of progress in the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza increases the
complexity of the situation and indicates the absence of Israeli political will
to calm it down,” the statement said. “It undercuts the strenuous efforts made
by Egypt and its partners to stop the war in the Gaza Strip and put an end to
the human suffering of the Palestinian people,” it added. Qatar and Egypt, with
the help of the United States, have been the main mediators for a hostage and
ceasefire deal, based on a framework unveiled by US President Joe Biden on May
31.An Israeli negotiating team was in Rome on Sunday for talks held by CIA
Director William Burns. There was no sign of progress at those talks, where
Israel delivered its clarifications on to the May 31 deal. Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant stressed the importance of continuing to work towards reaching a deal
during a phone call with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on Wednesday.
Gallant's statement
“During the discussion, the minister also highlighted that, especially during
these times, the State of Israel is working to achieve a framework for the
release of hostages,” a statement by Gallant’s office said. Government spokesman
David Mencer told reporters in an online briefing that Israel remained committed
to the negotiations. “These talks are ongoing and Israel is committed to the
success of these talks,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he
believed that Israelis’ strong military responses, including the assassination
of Shukr, had helped make it more possible to achieve a deal. Israel’s security
cabinet met on Sunday in the aftermath of Haniyeh’s killing. Haniyeh had not
been directly involved in the day-to-day Gaza ceasefire negotiations and was not
leading the talks, but had been viewed as more moderate when compared with Gaza
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. The senior Hamas figure who has been central
throughout ceasefire and hostage release negotiations is Khalil Al-Hayya, an
official briefed on the talks told Reuters previously. US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken clarified that the US was not involved in Haniyeh’s killing
during an interview he gave to Channel News Asia. He later spoke with the Qatari
prime minister about the importance of continuing with a deal. Blinken
“emphasized the importance of continuing to work to reach a ceasefire to the
conflict in Gaza that would secure the release of hostages, alleviate the
suffering of the Palestinian people, and unlock the possibility of broader
stability. He reiterated that the United States would continue to work to ensure
an agreement is reached,” the State Department said in a readout of the meeting.
Al Than discussed in a phone call with acting Iranian Foreign Minister Bagheri
Kani the repercussions of Haniyeh’s assassination, Qatar’s state news agency
reported on Wednesday. Reuters contributed to this report.
Palestinian homes were destroyed ‘for revenge,’ says
Israeli soldier who served in Gaza
Ami Kaufman and Bianna Golodryga, CNN/August 1, 2024
Yuval Green, a 26-year-old former paratrooper, is one of a handful of soldiers
who have served in Israel’s war against Hamas and are now publicly criticizing
the way it is being prosecuted. Green described the behavior and alleged
misdeeds of his reservist peers while serving in the Palestinian enclave, and
the day he decided to tell his commanders he could no longer be part of his
unit. Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza on October 7 after Hamas
attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed, and more than 250
others abducted in the assault, according to Israeli authorities. Israeli
military action in the strip has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and injured
over 90,000, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. As of early July, nearly 2
million people had been displaced in Gaza – almost the entire population,
according to figures from the United Nations. Green, who served as a medic in
his unit, told CNN that prior to October 7 – when he was recruited for reserve
duty – he had intended to leave the army, objecting to its conduct in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank. He had planned to tell his comrades on October 8,
but after Hamas attacked, he felt duty-bound to support them as they were
mobilized for the war.
“When the 7th of October struck, it was difficult for me at this time to tell
them that I’m not willing to come with them,” Green said. “So I decided to join
my friends … I didn’t know what would be the right thing to do.”
Atmosphere of ‘demonizing Gazans’
Green told CNN that he served in the Gaza perimeter in November last year before
being sent into the strip on December 2, spending 51 days in the city of Khan
Younis, in the south. He said that the anger felt by Israelis after October 7
and calls for revenge were expressed openly in his unit, as they waited to be
sent into Gaza, and called it the “demonizing” of Palestinians. “In the days
before we entered Khan Younis … there was this atmosphere that was kind of
growing of demonizing the Gazans,” he said, adding that he heard people
“speaking about killing, ruining all of Gaza. Wiping it out became something
that people (were discussing), as if it was some kind of a legitimate idea.”IDF
rules of engagement in Gaza have been under great scrutiny. Green claims that
IDF commanders on the ground seemed to acquiesce to soldiers’ desires to have
fewer restrictions on their conduct than in previous incursions.
“I felt like my commanders were trying to kind of go with the soldiers and try
to say things that they thought … (were) what the soldiers wanted to hear. You
know, saying things like, ‘We’re not going to have any boundaries in Gaza this
time.’”Green said he did not serve during earlier cycles of violence in Gaza but
took part in guard duty on the Gaza perimeter and in the West Bank, as well as
training.
‘We don’t care enough’ about Palestinian lives
The war in Gaza has caused widespread material destruction to homes,
infrastructure, hospitals and schools. Green says he witnessed the “unnecessary”
destruction of Palestinian homes. “We’ve seen a lot of destruction that was not
necessarily related to military reasons. Everything tends to (get) really mix
up, you know – people are destroying houses because they believe that they
should (get) revenge (for) what happened on (October 7) and it mixes up with the
reasons to destroy houses for military reasons,” Green said, adding he witnessed
“chaos … I could tell you 100% that we’ve destroyed houses at least for reasons
that … we don’t care enough about the lives of Palestinians.”Describing the
extent of the damage in Gaza, he said, “You can’t imagine it. Cities that are
completely ruined.”
Accusations of looting
Green told CNN that one of the things that bothered him most was witnessing what
he alleged was the looting of Palestinian homes by soldiers in his own unit.
“You’re seeing looting by your peers all the time. That was something (that) was
very difficult for me to see. I mean, people were taking ‘souvenirs’ (from) the
Palestinians’ houses, which I think directly relates to the demonization we’ve
seen before the entrance to Khan Younis,” he said. “People were taking, you
know, necklaces and doing graffiti on the walls and … leaving behind damage to
the houses that was just completely unnecessary.”When asked if he thinks this
behavior was condoned by IDF commanders, Green said that officially, they
disapproved of such conduct – but were unable to stop it. “The superior
commanders of the IDF, I think they do believe that this shouldn’t happen –
looting or graffiti,” Green said. “But I don’t think (the IDF) has the resources
to stop it, and I think, you know, it all comes down to the soldiers (in) the
field. You can’t stop any soldier from doing things.”While witnessing the
alleged looting, Green said he confronted his peers, which resulted in “a lot of
arguments,” but he was unable to sway his superiors to act: “Some of them agreed
with me, some of them didn’t – or some of them, you know, were in between.” “But
all of them weren’t able to control our actions.”
The decision to leave
In the end, one specific moment pushed Green to make the tough decision to leave
his unit: when a commander allegedly ordered the burning of a Palestinian home
they were stationed in. “At some point, my commander told my platoon to burn
down the house we’re staying at,” Green recounted. “And I went to him, I
approached him and I asked him, ‘Why are we doing that?’ And he gave me a few
reasons, and I think those reasons were just not strong enough.”“They were, you
know, military type of reasons, but they (were mixed up with) the revenge type
of reasons. Now, I think this is just what’s going on in Gaza. Israel is doing
things because it needs to fulfil a type of military purpose, but it all mixes
up with our need for – or the Israeli need for – revenge.”“I said, ‘I’m not
willing to participate in that. I’m not destroying a house that belonged to a
few families that would become homeless because of that – and I’m leaving.’ And
I just (left) with the next car that went out.”Green said he decided to speak
out publicly to put pressure on the Israeli government to accept a ceasefire and
hostage deal. The Israeli government said this week that it was Hamas leadership
that was preventing an agreement. “I think there are concrete deals on the table
right now, that Hamas is agreeing to, that make sense. I mean, those deals say
that all the hostages would be freed – and Israel is not accepting the ending of
the war. And this is crazy,” Green said. Green added that Israel’s alleged
refusal to accept a deal was causing the deaths of hostages. “I’ve seen it from
within,” he said. “I mean, we said nothing before we entered Gaza about the
hostages. We could have killed them, you know, any moment, and it’s something
that has happened. We know about more than 10 hostages that were killed directly
from Israeli bombings or, you know, the three hostages that were killed,”
referring to an incident of friendly fire by the IDF in December, in which
soldiers fatally shot three hostages. The possibility that hostages have been
killed during Israeli bombardments is a sensitive one in Israel. There have been
occasions when officials have announced that hostages were believed to have been
killed while in captivity, but at no point have any such announcements been
attributed to Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli army has not responded to CNN’s
request for comment on Green’s claims. “We have to tell our government to stop
the war. This is the only right solution to save the lives of Palestinians that
are dying every day and going through a living hell the past few months, saving
the lives of soldiers, Israeli soldiers, that are now present in Gaza and dying
every day, and obviously the lives of hostages.”
Facing criticism at home
In June, Green cosigned a letter with 40 other reservists refusing to serve in
the southern Gaza city of Rafah. He is one of only three soldiers who have come
out publicly, and his family and friends have voiced concern over his decisions.
“Obviously it’s something very controversial in Israel, but I was willing to
sacrifice, you know, my privacy and (to come) out with a topic as controversial
as that, because I believe that right now, it’s a matter of life and death.
“When people are criticizing me for that, and I’ve heard people … that said they
were worried that I might get hurt in that process – that always felt very weird
because, you know, I went inside Gaza. I literally have risked my life. But
people are now more afraid that I might get hurt, you know, by just coming out
with words,” he added. “It’s part of the problem with our situation right
now.”Reflecting on the violence committed by Hamas, he also urged Palestinians
not to support Hamas or call for an intifada: “They don’t understand that those
calling for violence are damaging the Palestinian cause, and have been killing
Palestinians for years now … I support Palestine too, but don’t confuse between
supporting Palestine and supporting the violence of Hamas.”
CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on Green’s allegations.
Responding to Green’s allegations, the IDF stated: “The actions of the IDF and
its operational activity in particular are subject to Israeli law and
international law, which is reflected, among other things, in the rules of
engagement among other military orders … IDF commanders are guided by values of
the IDF and lead the soldiers on the battlefield in a professional manner.
When events that defer from the expected conduct occur, they are handled by the
commanders as required. “In some cases, IDF forces are required to act to remove
a threat posed to them from buildings located in the territory of the Gaza
Strip. The destruction of buildings is done with the appropriate means. Actions
done otherwise, and not as a result of operational needs, are contrary to the
army’s orders and the IDF’s values and are examined. Taking property that is
not in accordance with the army’s orders is prohibited by law and is not in line
with the values of the IDF. Incidents in which forces acted not in accordance
with the orders and the law are examined and will continue to be examined,
including as part of investigations by the MPCID (Military Police Criminal
Investigation Division). As a general rule, when details concerning concrete
events are given, they are reviewed and dealt with accordingly.”
Turkey blocks NATO-Israel cooperation over Gaza war,
sources say
Tuvan Gumrukcu/Reuters/Thu, August 1, 2024
Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of
the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner
until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said.
Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered close relations with
the military alliance and some of its members, notably its biggest ally the
United States.Prior to Israel's offensive in Gaza - prompted by Palestinian
militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 rampage - NATO member Turkey had been working to
mend its long-strained ties with Israel. Since then, Ankara has been fiercely
critical of Israel's operation in Gaza, which it says amounts to a genocide, and
has halted all bilateral trade. It has also slammed many Western allies for
their support of Israel. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said
Turkey had vetoed all NATO engagement with Israel since October, including joint
meetings and exercises, viewing Israel's "massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza as a
violation of NATO's founding principles. A U.N. inquiry in June found that both
Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war.
It said Israel's actions constituted crimes against humanity because of the
immense civilian losses. Israel rejects this and says its operation in Gaza,
which has killed nearly 40,000 people, aims to eradicate Hamas. The sources said
Turkey would maintain this block and not allow Israel to continue or advance its
interaction with NATO until there was an end to the conflict, as it believes
Israel's actions in Gaza violate international law and universal human rights.
After a NATO summit in Washington in July, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said
it was not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli
administration. Earlier this week, Israel's foreign minister urged the alliance
to expel Turkey after Erdogan appeared to threaten to enter Israel, as it had
Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.
US and Russia complete biggest prisoner swap in
post-Soviet history, freeing Gershkovich and Whelan
The Associated Press/August 01/2024
The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in
post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan
Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including
Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at
their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point
explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but
after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that
required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of
a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected
spies, political prisoners and others.
President Joe Biden trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of
swaps with Russia, as a diplomatic feat while welcoming families of the
returning Americans to the White House. But the deal, like others before it,
reflected an innate imbalance: The U.S. and allies gave up Russians charged or
convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists,
dissidents and others imprisoned by the country's highly politicized legal
system on charges seen by the West as trumped-up. “Deals like this one come with
tough calls,” Biden said, He added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me
than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”Under the deal, Russia released
Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and
convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. government
vehemently denied. His family said in a statement released by the newspaper that
“we can't wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up
close." The paper's editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyous day.”
“While we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as loud as we
could be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were
raised when his was silent. We can finally say, in unison, ‘Welcome home,
Evan,’” she wrote in a letter posted online.
Also released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since
2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen
convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military,
accusations her family and employer have rejected. The dissidents released
included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving
25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, as well as
multiple associates of Navalny. Freed Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a
veteran human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military,
and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine. The Russian side
got Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life
in prison for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier,
apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services. Throughout the
negotiations, Moscow had been persistent in pressing for his release, with Putin
himself raising it. At the time of Navalny's death, officials were discussing a
possible exchange involving Krasikov. But with that prospect erased, senior U.S.
officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a fresh push
to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. In the end, a handful of the prisoners
Russia released were either German nationals or dual German-Russian nationals.
Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as
three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S., including Roman Seleznev,
a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim
Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing
American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway
returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy; Poland sent
back a man it detained on espionage charges.
“Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,”
Biden said. All told, six countries released at least one prisoner and a seventh
— Turkey — participated by hosting the location for the swap, in Ankara.
Biden placed securing the release of Americans held wrongfully overseas at the
top of his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In
an Oval Office address discussing his decision to drop his bid for a second
term, Biden said, “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans
being unjustly detained all around the world.” At one point Thursday, he grabbed
the hand of Whelan's sister, Elizabeth, and said she’d practically been living
at the White House as the administration tried to free Paul. He then motioned
for Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam, to come closer and took her hand, telling the
room it was her 13th birthday. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with
him. She wiped tears from her eyes. The Biden administration has now brought
home more than 70 Americans detained in other countries as part of deals that
have required the U.S. to give up a broad array of convicted criminals,
including for drug and weapons offenses. The swaps, though celebrated with
fanfare, have spurred criticism that they incentivize future hostage-taking and
give adversaries leverage over the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. government's
top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, has sought to defend the deals by saying
the number of wrongfully detained Americans has actually gone down even as swaps
have increased. Tucker, the Journal's editor-in-chief, acknowledged the debate,
writing in a letter: “We know the U.S. government is keenly aware, as are we,
that the only way to prevent a quickening cycle of arresting innocent people as
pawns in cynical geopolitical games is to remove the incentive for Russia and
other nations that pursue the same detestable practice."Though she called for a
change to the dynamic, “for now,” she wrote, “we are celebrating the return of
Evan.”
Thursday’s swap of 24 prisoners surpassed a deal involving 14 people that was
struck in 2010. In that exchange, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the
U.S. as sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians, including Sergei Skripal,
a double agent working with British intelligence. He and his daughter in 2018
were nearly killed in Britain by nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.
Speculation had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence
of unusual developments, including a startingly quick trial for Gershkovich,
which Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a
maximum-security prison.
In a trial that concluded in two days in secrecy in the same week as
Gershkovich’s, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false
information about the Russian military that her family, employer and U.S.
officials rejected. Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in
Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with
Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations. Gershkovich was arrested
March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of
Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was
gathering secret information for the U.S. The son of Soviet emigres who settled
in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper
before being hired by the Journal in 2022. Gershkovich was designated as
wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after
traveling to Russia for a wedding. Whelan, who was serving a 16-year prison
sentence, had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia,
including the April 2022 swap by Moscow of imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed
for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking
conspiracy. That December, the U.S. released notorious arms trafficker Viktor
Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who’d been jailed on drug
charges. “Paul Whelan is free. Our family is grateful to the United States
government for making Paul’s freedom a reality,” his family said in a statement.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from
miscellaneous sources on August 01-02/2024
Dissecting the Haniyeh, Shukr assassinations and their impact - analysis
Keren Setton/The Media Line/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
The sequence of two high-profile attacks against Israeli enemies has heightened
the stakes in ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts, signaling possible escalations
in military actions across the region. In a dramatic turn of events, Hamas
political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran early Wednesday in
what is widely believed to be an Israeli operation.
For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org
The assassination came hours after a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, was
targeted in Beirut. For this, Israel took responsibility, saying Shukr was
behind the weekend rocket attack on the Israeli-Druze village of Majdal Shams in
which 12 children were killed. The Lebanese-based and Iranian-backed terrorist
group has yet to confirm his death. The region now holds its breath as the dust
settles on the two operations as their ramifications become clear. Israel
promised to hunt down all of Hamas’ leaders after the Gaza-based terrorist
organization carried out the deadliest attack ever perpetrated on Israeli soil
on October 7 of last year. Hamas’ attack single-day attack killed approximately
1200 Israelis and wounded thousands of others. The organization also took about
250 people hostage. 115 Israelis still remain in Hamas captivity, their fate
unknown. In response to the attack, Israel launched a massive war against
Hamas in Gaza. According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, over 38,000
Palestinians have been killed as a result, and almost 90,000 injured. Over 300
Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israel began its ground operation in the
Gaza Strip.
Haniyeh's demise
The demise of Haniyeh comes at a critical time in which Hamas and Israel have
been negotiating a ceasefire agreement. Mediation by the US, Qatar, and Egypt is
also meant to bring to the gradual release of at least part of the Israeli
hostages. The impact of the assassination is unclear. Hamas’ leadership is
divided between the political wing that Haniyeh led and the military wing led by
Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to have been holed up in a tunnel somewhere in the
underground of Gaza since October 7. Israeli media reported that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his cabinet ministers not to interview on either
event, but two did rejoice on social media as the news of Haniyeh’s
assassination broke out. “Careful what you wish for,” was what Minister of
Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli posted on his X account
together with a video snippet of Haniyeh nodding in approval as others chant
“Death to Israel!” just hours before.
Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu also posted on his X account.
“This is the right way to clean the world from this filth. No more imaginary
"peace"/surrender agreements, no more mercy for these mortals,” he wrote.
“Haniyeh’s death makes the world a little bit better.”Israelis were jubilant in
the morning. The images of Haniyeh in a celebratory prayer in the early hours of
October 7 were etched in their minds as a sign of Hamas’ cruelty. Various media
reports said Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed by a missile fired
into an apartment building in which they were staying in Tehran. “Once again,
Israel has demonstrated remarkable intelligence and operational capabilities,”
Professor Chuck Freilich, a senior researcher at the Institute for National
Security Studies (INSS), told The Media Line. “There is also an important
psychological effect on the Israeli public, which is in the doldrums and really
needs some reinforcement.”
Haniyeh, who has been living in Qatar in recent years, and other members of
Hamas were in Tehran for the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new president,
Masoud Pezeshkian. Hamas is funded and backed by Iran, as is Hezbollah. Also
present at the ceremony were representatives of other members of Iran’s
so-called “Axis of Resistance,” such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the
Yemen-based Houthi rebels. Participants chanted, “Death to Israel, Death to
America!”.
Israel has been facing all of these enemies and more since the war began,
creating a complex strategic situation and bringing to question the effect of
targeted killings as part of its campaign. “It does not improve the overall
strategic outlook for Israel,” Freilich continued. “Israel cannot kill every
single Palestinian or Hezbollah leader. While it does somewhat disrupt
operations, in the end, it makes Israel’s situation a little bit worse.”
According to Freilich, Hezbollah may have been able to contain Israel’s
retaliation for the Majdal Shams incident. However, the additional assassination
of Haniyeh just hours later put the organization and its main backer, Iran,
under pressure to retaliate. The Israeli Home Front Command said there
were currently no changes to the guidelines given to civilians, who were
encouraged to continue their daily routine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the operation in Beirut and
in Tehran if carried out by Israeli forces. Netanyahu and the army have
been the target of much criticism since the war broke out. Both are seen as
responsible for the blunder that allowed Hamas to carry out the attack, which
stunned Israel. There has also been mistrust between the political and defense
echelon as Netanyahu and his allies have laid blame on the army for its
ill-preparedness and lack of warning.
“Such an operation is an expression of the political echelon in the Israeli
army,” said Col. (res.) Dr. Hanan Shai, an expert in military and diplomatic
strategy at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy,
told The Media Line. “Also, credit must be given to the political echelon who
made the brave decision to approve the operation. Should it have failed, the
blame would be put on Netanyahu and not on the army.”
Despite being elated by the latest successes, there is still much work to be
done towards the goals that Netanyahu set – eliminating Hamas and releasing all
of the Israeli hostages. The departure of Haniyeh from the political stage may
not have much impact. He is not believed to have played an important role in
Hamas’ military strategy. Media reports have also alluded to major differences
between him and Sinwar regarding negotiations with Israel on the release of the
hostages. Sinwar is considered to be a more hardline figure than the late
Haniyeh.
“How does this help achieve Israel’s objectives? Does it bring the war to an
earlier close, does it bring the hostages home, and does it reduce the chances
of a multiple-front war?” Freilich asked. “Israel has killed umpteen Palestinian
leaders and Hezbollah leaders over the years. It hasn’t helped.”
“It doesn’t change anything and, at best, results in a temporary disruption,” he
added. “It demonstrates the government's inability to form a strategy and a real
substantive response.”
The Israeli government has been criticized both domestically and by the US for
lacking a strategy that will end the war in Gaza while bringing about a
different reality than the one that existed before October 7. As the war drags
on, soon entering its tenth month, Netanyahu has been accused of deliberately
elongating it in order to avoid the public backlash expected in the polls the
day after the war is over. “It certainly helps Netanyahu politically. It plays
to his base and strengthens people’s sense of pride and confidence in the army,”
said Freilich. “The politics here may actually be the primary reason for the
nature of these actions.”
Israel’s goal of obliterating Hamas has been criticized by many as far-reaching.
“Hamas is an idea that cannot be eradicated,” said Shai. “Israel’s premise
should be that it needs to eliminate its military capabilities and that it
cannot get rid of the idea. These capabilities will likely be renewed, but then
Israel needs to be prepared to thwart them immediately and not like what
happened previously when Hamas was allowed to strengthen.”The Netanyahu
government has insisted that military pressure is the main way to get Hamas to
agree to a deal. The assassination could be seen as part of that pressure.
“It is counterproductive military pressure,” said Freilich. “Haniyeh wasn’t a
military figure, so it doesn’t achieve anything militarily. It will unite
Palestinians, even those who want to see a deal. It does not encourage Sinwar to
reach a deal and only causes them to harden their position.”
It is difficult to estimate the effect of the latest move by Israel. Haniyeh’s
removal from the stage could either further entrench Hamas or put more pressure
on it. Meanwhile, the war shows no signs of ending. Israeli ground forces are
still in the Gaza Strip. A statement released by the military on Wednesday said
the air force struck “dozens of terror targets in the Gaza Strip, including
terror infrastructure sites, terrorists, underground terror tunnel shafts,
military posts, and structures.” “Netanyahu was the first one to say that Israel
has all the time in the world in its war on Hamas,” Shai said. “This was a grave
mistake. Israel’s security is based on the premise that it cannot afford lengthy
wars.” The war has taken a toll on Israel, its society, its economy, and its
international standing. The Jewish state is under increasing pressure to stop,
including arms embargos by several countries and accusations of genocide and war
crimes in international courts. Haniyeh was in charge of Hamas’
international relations and played a major role in fundraising for the
organization, which enabled it to grow into almost an army along Israel’s
southern border.
Hamas has threatened to retaliate the assassination. Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also vowed to exact a price on Israel in a statement
Wednesday
Israel’s strike on Hamas Leader Haniyeh signals defiance
to Iran - opinion
Dan Diker/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
The elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh marks a pivotal shift in Israel's
anti-terror strategy, sending a strong message to Iran and its proxies.
The elimination of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of the Hamas political bureau
(2017-2024) and former Palestinian prime minister in Gaza (2006-2014), was a
long time in coming and sends several important messages from Israel to Iran and
its terror proxy network.
Israel is widely assumed to be behind the action although it did not accept
direct responsibility. The targeted killing would represent an important Rubicon
that Israel has apparently now passed, from fear and containment to
assertiveness and a policy of “no tolerance” for those trying to kill Israelis
and destroy Israel. Haniyeh’s elimination conveyed a particularly strong message
to Iran. It insulted the Iranians, revealed their weakness, and broadcast that
Iranian leaders or their proxy officials could be targeted and eliminated by
Israel anywhere, at the place and time of Israel’s choosing. Haniyeh’s
elimination may come to some as a surprise. Following the July 27 mass murder of
12 children in Israel’s Druze community of Majdal Shams and the subsequent
elimination of the senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr (also known as Hajj
Mohsin), the world’s attention was primarily focused on how the Hezbollah-Israel
war might evolve. However, it appeared to be, in sports terms, a “head fake.”
Haniyeh was deeply involved for years in the planning of the October 7 Hamas
atrocities. He had made frequent trips to Iran to meet and strategize with his
counterparts in the Islamic Republic’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the
external terror organization under the command of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei. The elimination of Haniyeh is particularly important since it occurred
in Iran, and especially because he was the guest of the incoming president
Masoud Pezeshkian. The message is a strong one to the IRGC and the Iranian
leadership that Israel can reach, target, and neutralize them with its advanced
intelligence network and operational capabilities. The targeted killing of
Haniyeh was also an important “psyop” – psychological operation action by Israel
– because it sent a resonant message to the Iranian terror network and its
proxies across the Middle East beginning with Hamas, extending to Hezbollah, the
Houthis in Yemen, as well as the Iraqi forces under the Iranian regime’s
control, and beyond – that Israel is capable of reaching any terrorist leader
when it decides to reach them. TAKING OUT Haniyeh was also important since it
was directed against a senior Hamas leader and not specifically at Hezbollah,
which may reduce Iran’s justification for launching a major attack. Haniyeh’s
bloody past extended many years since the 2006 parliamentary and presidential
elections in which he defeated Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas by a landslide.
That election was then ignored by the US-backed Palestinian Authority because
Hamas did not abide by the three conditions that the Oslo peace accords had
determined for the Oslo-sanctioned election of a Palestinian leadership.
Haniyeh's reign of terror
Needless to say, the Hamas government that Haniyeh led in Gaza, until he was
replaced in 2016 by Yahya Sinwar, had militarized Hamas’s operational
capabilities extraordinarily since the early 2000s, with the assistance of Iran.
Under Haniyeh’s leadership, Hamas prosecuted several terror wars, including in
2008-2009, the attacks of 2011-2012, 2014-2015, and the well-known Guardian of
the Walls counterterror operation, following Hamas’s onslaught in 2021,
triggering substantial violence within Israel. The operation to assassinate
Haniyeh was a fitting reversal of his successful psychological warfare against
Israel. His psychological operations and political warfare in 2014, including
speaking in front of thousands of Gazans, using as a backdrop photos of Nelson
Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi to issue a psyop message to the
world that Hamas was merely a resistance fighter organization defending its own
people as opposed to a radical Islamic terror group being mobilized and operated
by the Iranian regime. Even though he was a Sunni leader of Hamas, Haniyeh had
become a well-known representative of the Iranian Shi’ite regime. Mobilized and
directed by Tehran, Hamas had used “hybrid warfare” – traditional terror actions
combined with popular mobilization of the public. It was Haniyeh who presided
over Hamas when he directed and motivated thousands of Gazan boys and girls to
try to storm the fence in 2018 in what was called the “Great March of Return,”
another psychological operation.
It has been reported recently that Haniyeh had made his operational headquarters
in Doha, Qatar, and had been behind some of the intensive Qatari-sponsored
efforts to implement a ceasefire, positioning himself in Western media as a
peacemaker. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Haniyeh’s interest was in
saving the Hamas regime, keeping it in the cockpit, and also “blowing up” the
negotiations between Israel and Hamas by intensifying Hamas’s demands.
Haniyeh’s elimination comes many months following Israeli reactive policy toward
Hezbollah and Iran’s direct attacks on April 14. Israel took responsibility for
the Beirut attack on Shukr. If it is also behind the attack in Tehran, this
action would prove that Israel crossed a fear-Rubicon, and speaks and acts
according to the political culture of the Middle East by eliminating any
terrorist leader or operative who attempts to harm Israel or its people.
*The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs.
After the assassinations: Does Iran retaliate? Can Hamas
fight on? And what about the hostages?
Ron Kampeas/JTA//Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Crushing Hamas in Gaza may allow Israel to focus on Lebanon, where Hezbollah has
been firing missiles into Israel since shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
When Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief, was killed in a targeted strike in
Iran, it sent shockwaves through the region and across Israel, which is
suspected of carrying out the assassination.
The strike comes just a day after Israel killed Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s top
military commander, in Beirut. Shukr’s killing was in retaliation for a deadly
Hezbollah missile attack on Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Golan Heights,
in which 12 children and youths were killed.
The details of Haniyeh’s assassination — and its fallout — are still not known.
But here, scholars and analysts give their immediate views on what might happen
next, how Iran might respond and how this affects efforts to free the Israeli
hostages still held by Hamas.
Israel has slogged through nearly 10 months of war in Gaza, but the strikes on
Shukr and Haniyeh reestablish Israeli deterrence, giving Israel the upper hand
it enjoyed in the region for decades before Oct. 7, said Shira Efron, the senior
director of policy research for the Israel Policy Forum, which has historically
advocated for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“Hopefully, it helps restore some of Israel’s deterrence, which was gravely
affected and undermined Oct. 7,” said Efron, who lives in Israel. “It
demonstrates not just to Hamas but to the whole Iran-led Axis of Evil that no
one is invulnerable, and that no place is out of Israel’s long reach.” The
aforementioned “axis” is thought to consist of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis,
a Yemeni terror group that has shot projectiles at Israel and is also funded by
Iran. Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, a Washington think tank that advocates for a more aggressive US
policy toward Iran, said the assassination in Tehran likely marks an end of the
road for Hamas. He noted that Haniyeh was only the latest victim in a series of
successful Israeli assassinations targeting the terror group’s leaders in Gaza
and beyond. He added that Israel has also conquered the strip of territory
between Egypt and Gaza, which was crucial to Hamas’ supply lines.“Hamas’ senior
ranks have been hollowed out by the Israelis,” he said. “And add to that that
somewhere around 20,000 of Hamas’ 30,000 fighters are either killed or injured.
As you start to look at all of these data points, it begins to consolidate a
picture that Hamas is in trouble and is not likely to come out of this in one
piece.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, delivering an address to the nation
Wednesday night, did not acknowledge responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing, but
said his strategy of focusing on wiping out Hamas — instead of focusing on
inking a deal to release hostages still held by Hamas — was vindicated.
“For months, there has been no week in which they have not told us – at home and
abroad – to end the war. ‘End the war’ because we have exhausted what can be
achieved and it is impossible to win in any case,” he said. “If we gave in to
this pressure – we would not have eliminated senior Hamas leaders and thousands
of terrorists.”Crushing Hamas in Gaza allows Israel to focus on Lebanon, where
Hezbollah has been firing missiles into Israel since shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7
attack, said Schanzer.
“We might be looking at a pivot that Israel is going to be able to make if it
wants to head north to fight that battle,” he said. “It probably can, with Hamas
being in the position that it’s in.”
Lebanon is where an escalation might occur, said Harel Chorev, a senior
researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at
Tel Aviv University. Will Nasrallah let Shukr's assassination go unpunished?
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has no vested interest in escalation
because it could destroy the military and civilian infrastructure Hezbollah has
built up over decades, Chorev said. But he added that Nasrallah won’t be able to
let the assassination of Shukr, his military chief, go unpunished.
“This might drag the whole area into war because of miscalculation, because of
overreacting or whatever, into an escalation that both sides currently don’t
want,” Chorev said.
Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, which has close relationships with Israeli officials, said Hamas,
depleted in Gaza, would likely intensify attacks on Israel from Lebanon. He
added that the group could contemplate attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets
outside of Israel, a strategy it has until now mostly avoided.
“Only once, maybe twice before depending on how you counted, has Hamas ever come
close to carrying out an external operation,” Levitt, who has a background in US
intelligence, said in a virtual press conference with reporters. “And I could
see them now saying, ‘OK, these guys have gone too far.”
One country that’s expected to respond is Iran, which already exchanged fire
with Israel earlier this year.
“Following this bitter, tragic event which has taken place within the borders of
the Islamic Republic, it is our duty to take revenge,” tweeted Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and author of “Inside The
Middle East: Entering a New Era,” said Iran would likely retaliate through
proxies. “There is already likely a discussion going on between Iran and
Hezbollah on the scope of such a strike, which would likely target a significant
Israeli military installation rather than civilian communities or civil
infrastructure, with advanced weaponry and or tactics,” he wrote in an email.
Chorev said he expected Iran to avoid a direct attack, which would likely draw
in the United States and put its nuclear weapons program at risk.
“I don’t see them jeopardizing all their interests, their nuclear
infrastructure, because it’s always on the table,” he said. The United States
led an international coalition in backing up Israel in repelling a massive
number of missiles Iran launched at Israel in April.
Michael Koplow, the Israel Policy Forum’s chief policy officer, said targeting
Haniyeh made sense — except it likely doomed any imminent release of the
hostages.
“If you have the opportunity to get rid of the leader of Hamas, you take it,
even with the heightened risk of doing it in Tehran,” he said. “The mistake here
isn’t killing Haniyeh, but having missed [past] opportunities for a hostage
deal, which now becomes even more unlikely.”
Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who was an adviser
to the Palestinian peace negotiating team from 1999 to 2001, said Hamas would
pull out of negotiating a ceasefire for hostages deal now, but would likely
return to talks.
“Hamas will have no choice right now but to step away from the hostage talks in
the short term, that my view will be only performative at the end of the day,”
he said on the virtual press conference. He said Haniyeh was the chief
negotiator, but the man calling the shots is Yahyeh Sinwar, the Hamas military
chief who remains alive and hidden in Gaza.
“The calculation of Sinwar, who is the one that matters, has not really changed,
and once things die out, they will find a quiet way to go back,” he said.
The Biden administration would not comment on the Haniyeh assassination, but the
National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, made clear on Wednesday that
violence in the Middle East did not make the administration’s efforts to achieve
a ceasefire for hostage exchange any easier.
“When you have events, dramatic events, violent events, caused by whatever
actors, it certainly doesn’t make the task of achieving that outcome any
easier,” he said.
Seven winners and six losers in the assassination of
Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader
Philssa Cramer/JTA/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
The killing of Haniyeh, which is widely attributed to Israel, shifts the
dynamics of the Israel-Hamas war and the hostage negotiations - who stands to
win, and who to lose?
The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ top leader, in Iran early Wednesday
would appear to be an unvarnished win for Israel, which has been locked in war
with Hamas since the Palestinian terror group invaded on Oct. 7.
But the killing, widely attributed to Israel even though the government has not
claimed responsibility, is more complicated than that. Different groups within
Israel stand to benefit more and less as a result, while the repercussions
beyond Israel are even more widely varying.
Here’s our back-of-the-envelope analysis of who wins and who loses with
Haniyeh’s death. (What did we leave out? Email us with your ideas).
Here are 7 people, places and ideas that stand to benefit from Haniyeh’s death
Israel: After Oct. 7, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas’ leaders, wherever they
are, as part of its larger goals of eliminating Hamas and returning the
hostages. Ten months later, the pathway to many of those core objectives still
feels tortuous or impassable: Israel continues to fight a grueling war in Gaza
with a mounting death toll, no clear endpoint and little by way of a “day after”
plan. Hostage negotiations, meanwhile, have gone on for months as the number of
killed captives has risen. Killing Hamas’ senior officials — and particularly
Haniyeh, the highest-ranking among those to be killed — provides a rare,
unambiguous “mission accomplished” moment for the state. Video has circulated of
Haniyeh celebrating Oct. 7 as he watched footage of his Hamas foot soldiers
attacking, terrorizing and killing Israelis. Knowing he’s dead, likely at
Israel’s hands, Is something many Israelis are celebrating, even as they remain
concerned about the assassination’s fallout.
The particular circumstances of Haniyeh’s death, in a pinpoint strike within
Iran, is a particular boon to confidence in Israel’s military and intelligence
apparatus that was shaken by Hamas’ success on Oct. 7.
Benjamin Netanyahu: As his many critics and even some of his supporters would
argue, Israel’s prime minister does not always have the same interests as the
state he leads. Netanyahu has faced steep criticism for allowing Oct. 7 to
happen, for empowering far-right ministers in his quest to maintain a political
coalition, and for derailing hostage-for-ceasefire talks. Polling showed his
popularity rising in recent weeks, and Haniyeh’s death on his watch seems likely
to shore up his approval.
Netanyahu, in televised remarks Wednesday night, did not acknowledge an Israeli
role in Haniyeh’s death, but speaking generally and referring to other recent
killings of high-profile figures, he said he had been vindicated. “For months
there hasn’t been a week where I wasn’t told, at home and abroad, to end the
war. ‘End the war because we have achieved all we can, this can’t go on
forever,’” he said. “I did not give into these voices then, and I won’t give in
to them today.”
Pro-Israel activists: Those who have taken on advocating for Israel abroad and
on social media have seen the task get harder as the Gaza war has ground on. But
compared to, say, Israel’s invasion of Rafah a few months ago in the face of
international condemnation, Haniyeh’s assassination is relatively uncomplicated
to defend. Media coverage of Haniyeh’s record, which includes overseeing attacks
on civilians and enriching himself at the cost of the Palestinian people, is
also renewing attention on Hamas’ role as the instigator of the current war and
as a major factor in the suffering of Gaza Palestinians.
Israel’s right-wing extremists: On Tuesday morning, Israel was reeling from an
incident where right-wing extremists broke into army bases in defense of
soldiers charged with abusing Palestinian prisoners. The incident exposed
divides between the government and the military, while the abuse scandal raised
moral alarm bells. Now, while coverage of that incident is continuing in Israel,
and is sure to be raised again, it has been overshadowed by Haniyeh’s
assassination.
The Biden administration: President Joe Biden has seen his outspoken support for
Israel tested during the war in Gaza, as he has pressed for limiting civilian
casualties while still providing arms to Israel and defending the prosecution of
the war. For months, critics of the administration have seen the Biden
administration as complicit in Gaza’s mounting death toll. Haniyeh’s
assassination, by contrast, puts administration officials in a relatively
comfortable position: Israel achieved a key objective in a war Biden is backing
without civilian casualties. U.S. officials say they are working to prevent a
broader war but stand by Israel’s right to defend itself.
Qatar: Haniyeh lived in Qatar, traveling with relative ease to Iran and other
places that are friendly to Hamas. Oct. 7 made his residence politically
problematic for the gulf state, which seeks a relationship with the West and
does not enjoy its reputation as a sponsor of terror. Under pressure from the
United States, Qatar reportedly threatened Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders there
with exile if they did not seek an end to the Israel-Hamas war. Haniyeh’s death
removes some of that pressure for Qatar, where Haniyeh is reportedly to be
buried on Friday.
Yahya Sinwar: Sinwar, who heads Hamas’ military wing, sparred with Haniyeh over
Hamas’ direction and tactics, with Haniyeh gaining a reputation as somewhat more
moderate and willing to make short-term concessions. Now, Haniyeh is dead and
Sinwar is alive, with one fewer obstacle to pursuing his own vision for violent
Palestinian resistance.
And here are six people, places and ideas that stand to lose out
Israeli hostages and a deal to release them: As recently as a few days ago, U.S.
and Israeli officials indicated that they were close to a deal that could see
Israeli hostages in Gaza released in exchange for a cessation of hostilities.
Haniyeh was negotiating on Hamas’ side; his death seems likely to undercut
continuing talks around the more than 100 Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza,
of whom dozens are thought to be alive. “How is David safer now?” one hostage
family member asked on social media, even as she called Haniyeh “a monster of
terror.” But some hostage families praised the killing, saying they hoped it
would increase pressure on Hamas to make concessions. U.S. and Israeli officials
say they do not want to abandon the negotiations, though John Kirby, Biden’s
National Security Council spokesman, said, “Reports coming out of the region
certainly don’t make it less complicated.”
Israelis in the north and south: Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been
evacuated from their homes since Oct. 7, with tensions simmering on two borders.
Even so, dozens of Israelis have died from rocket strikes, including a dozen
children and teens this week in Majdal Shams, in the Golan Heights. With
hostilities renewed, and reprisals seen as likely, safety in these regions
continues to be compromised.
Travelers to and from Israel: Several major airlines had only recently resumed
regular flights to and from Israel after pausing them following Oct. 7. Now,
several of them are suspending the routes again, citing safety concerns about
rising tensions.
Iran: Haniyeh’s murder in the center of Tehran, hours after participating in
public political ceremonies and reportedly in a building that was hosting Iran’s
honored guests, is undeniably humiliating for Israel’s most powerful nemesis. In
April, Iran launched hundreds of rockets at Israel; almost all were shot down,
and relatively little damage resulted. (One girl was severely wounded by
shrapnel.) Now, on a day that was supposed to mark the strength of its
government, the country has been shown to have major security vulnerabilities —
including a possible undetected Israeli presence.
Hamas: This goes without saying. Haniyeh effectively ran the organization; now
it’s without a top leader. Israel killed Haniyeh’s top deputy in Beirut in
January and he has not been replaced. The group is reportedly planning to meet
in the coming days to appoint new leadership, but it’s clear that the war has
weakened Hamas’ elite ranks and that the conditions are ripe for infighting
about how to proceed.
Yahya Sinwar: Being the last leader standing has its downsides. Sinwar has long
been a marked man for his role in Oct. 7 and in planning Hamas attacks
previously. Now, without Haniyeh occupying Israeli attention, he stands alone at
the top of Israel’s hit list.
Pinpoint assassinations: Israel’s message to Hezbollah,
Lebanon, Hamas, and Iran - analysis
Herb Keinon/Jerusalem Post/August 01/2024
Israel’s recent operations in Beirut and Tehran highlight its renewed
intelligence and deterrence capabilities post-October 7.
The question Saturday night after the Majdal Shams massacre was not whether
Israel would respond but rather how and against whom.
Would the target be Hezbollah, which fired the rocket that killed 12 children
and youths; would it be Lebanon, which houses Hezbollah and allows it to fire on
Israel whenever it wants; or would it be Iran, which is Hezbollah’s patron,
sponsor, and paymaster?
The answer came late Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning in the form of
two pinpoint assassinations. The first hit was on Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s chief
of staff, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Then, a few hours later, Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh was killed when a missile crashed into the apartment where he was
sleeping in Tehran.While Israel took responsibility for the killing of Shukr, it
officially stayed mum regarding the killing of Haniyeh, though Iran blamed
Israel and vowed revenge.
In other words, in two blows, Israel—if indeed it was responsible for the
assassination of Haniyeh—struck at Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran, and, as an added
bonus, Hamas. It struck at Hezbollah by killing Shukr, one of the organization’s
most dominant figures. By killing him in Beirut, Israel signaled to Lebanon that
nothing is out of bounds, and as easily as it can hit an apartment in the city’s
southern suburbs, it can strike at Lebanon’s infrastructure.
By striking Haniyeh in Tehran, Israel signaled that it has no compunctions about
hitting at the proverbial head of the “resistance camp” octopus and not only its
tentacles (proxies). And by killing Haniyeh, Israel struck yet another blow
against Hamas.
By doing this all together, in two precision blows just hours apart, Israel also
took large strides toward restoring public faith—as well as the enemy’s
understanding—of its capabilities, both operational and intelligence.
A new meaning to the word deterrence
BEFORE OCTOBER 7, this might have been called deterrence, and the twin attacks
witnessed in some seven hours might have been seen as an effort to restore
deterrence. October 7, however, gave a new meaning to the word deterrence.
Hamas’s brazen and barbaric attack showed that it was not deterred by Israel’s
might, even though it was well aware of that might and equally well aware that
Israel would hammer it in return—which it is doing. But that was not a
disincentive, rather an incentive.
Hamas expected to get pounded but believed that this would further its long-term
strategic goals: it would trigger a wider regional war, which to a certain
degree it has, and as a result of civilian casualties and suffering in Gaza,
which it invited, would weaken Israel by turning world opinion against it.
Hamas was not deterred by Israel’s might, not because it did not appreciate that
might or because it did not understand that Israel would deploy it, but rather
because its calculation of what constitutes victory and its cost-benefit
evaluation is different from ours. As a violent non-state actor, it is far more
willing than rational state actors to accept high levels of sacrifice.
When an organization disregards the safety of its civilians and the destruction
of its territory, traditional deterrence based on overwhelming military power
becomes ineffective.
This is similar to al-Qaeda’s calculation when attacking the US on 9/11. Did
al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden not know that the US would respond with
overwhelming force? Of course they knew, but that is what they wanted, in the
hopes it would lead to a wider war between Islam and the West. American superior
power was not a deterrence because al-Qaeda’s calculations were different from
what Westerners expected.
IT IS DIFFICULT to say, therefore, whether the attacks in Beirut and Tehran
helped restore Israel’s deterrence because the ideological extremists in control
of Hamas and Hezbollah, and also Iran—even though it is a state actor and state
actors generally take into consideration potential damage to infrastructure,
economy, and the civilian population—may be immune to deterrence in the
traditional sense.
Iranian leader Ali Khamenei and the ayatollahs ruling Iran, like the heads of
Hamas and Hezbollah, may be so blinded by an ideological and theological hatred
of Israel as to be willing to bring destruction upon themselves – as long as
Israel suffers in the process.
What the attacks in Beirut and Tehran did restore, however, is appreciation of
Israel’s capabilities.
On October 7, Israel was let down tremendously by its intelligence apparatus,
raising questions about its vaunted intelligence agencies and whether it was not
over-reliant on technological wizardry.
Since October 7, the intelligence has proven itself on numerous occasions, such
as pinpoint assassinations carried out in Beirut in January when Israel killed
Hamas’s Saleh al-Arouri and in Damascus in April when it killed Mohammed Reza
Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The back-to-back
pinpoint operations in Beirut and Tehran this week —knowing exactly where the
targets were and hitting them without causing massive collateral damage—are
exceptional. It has to be sobering for Israel’s enemies.
Hezbollah has, over the last few months, tried to wow Israel with its
intelligence capabilities by posting videos of Haifa’s port and the Ramat David
Air Base. But hitting Shukr’s apartment—knowing exactly when and where he would
be there and sending a precision-guided missile to that site—bespeaks of
intelligence brought up to another level. The twin hits—against faraway targets
in enemy lands— also reflect tremendous operational capabilities. These
capabilities were also on display two weeks ago when Israel struck the Hodeida
Port in Yemen in retaliation for a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv.
The Horror of an Iranian Nuclear Weapon
Nils A. Haug/ Gatestone Institute/August 1, 2024
Iran has hardly been shy about articulating its genocidal objectives against
Israel. Iran's newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian, in early July,
reaffirmed "Tehran's dedication to destroying Israel." This aim, he added, is
"rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic."
The question, therefore, is what exactly is to be done to prevent a nuclear
catastrophe initiated by Iran, one that could arrive at any moment?
"In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terrorism.... When he
founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, 'We will export our
revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic revolution to the
entire world'... which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran's maniacal
plans to impose radical Islam on the world?... It's America, the guardian of
Western civilization and the world's greatest power. That's why Iran sees
America as its greatest enemy... Last month.... the foreign minister of Iran's
proxy, Hezbollah... said this: 'This is not a war with Israel. Israel... is
merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America.'" — Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking before a joint session of the US Congress,
July 25 2o24.
"Is this war now with Israel?... My answer is that this is not a war with
Israel. Israel is merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America." —
Khalil Rizk, Hezbollah's head of foreign relations on Al-Manar TV, June 17,
2024.
"The greatest tragedy of the Jewish people," Nobel Peace Prize laureate Eli
Wiesel stated, "is that they listen to the promises of their friends and not the
threats of their enemies."
The leaders of Israel should take seriously the threats of their enemies and act
to protect both Israel and the Free World from potential imminent disaster.
Iran is racing ahead with its nuclear weapons program, with one primary aim in
mind: the absolute eradication of Israel. Iran has hardly been shy about
articulating its genocidal objectives against Israel. Iran's newly elected
President Masoud Pezeshkian, in early July, reaffirmed "Tehran's dedication to
destroying Israel." The primary obligation of any national leader, including
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is to protect the integrity of the
country's borders and to ensure the safety of every citizen. Netanyahu's legal,
political, and moral duty is to ensure that every citizen can live in peace, and
be free, prosperous, and independent.
These objectives of peace, prosperity, and a secure homeland are precisely what
the founders of Israel strove for and what led to so many successive defensive
wars started by Israel's antagonists.
Concerningly, at this moment, Israel again faces a genocidal assault by a
determined adversary, as Iran races ahead with its nuclear weapons program with
one primary aim in mind: the absolute eradication of Israel. "The nuclear
situation in Iran," the IDF's Deputy Chief of Staff, General Amir Baram,
informed Israel's Knesset in July, "is like a car with all the parts ready – now
they just need to be assembled."
Israel, given its lack of strategic depth, is in a vulnerable position. "The use
of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel," said former Iranian President Akbar
Rafsanjani, "will destroy everything."
That Iran desires nuclear capabilities necessary to wipe-out Israel is
unfortunately not a matter of conjecture. There are many indicators of its
intent. The "Doomsday Clock" in Tehran's "Palestine Square", for instance,
counts down toward the hour of Israel's obliteration in 2040. This April, Iran
itself let loose an indiscriminate barrage of more than 300 ballistic missiles
and attack drones upon Israel , a country smaller than the state of New Jersey.
The event possibly signaled "the end of 'Strategic Patience' and its replacement
with a policy of direct retaliation against Israel."
Since the start of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, under Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, -- when "The slogan... Death to America, and Death to Israel"
was seen and heard almost everywhere" -- Iran has hardly been shy about
articulating its genocidal objectives against Israel. Iran's newly elected
President Masoud Pezeshkian, in early July, reaffirmed "Tehran's dedication to
destroying Israel." This aim, he added, is "rooted in the fundamental policies
of the Islamic Republic."
Earlier, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was recorded as saying,
"It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map
of the region."
"Israel," he added separately, "is a hideous entity in the middle east which
will undoubtedly be annihilated."
There is little realistic hope of altering Iran's agenda. In mid-July, the US,
again in an exercise of futility, warned Iran against developing nuclear
weapons. This admonition arose after March 2024 report which indicated "Iranian
scientists were engaged in computer modelling and metallurgical research" –
actions "relevant to nuclear explosive development."
They will have missiles "in exactly one year," promised Aziz Rashed, spokesman
for Iran's proxy the Houthis, on July 13, that can "reach Europe or the Atlantic
Ocean, so America's nuclear targets will be within the range of Yemeni
missiles."
An Iranian nuclear weapon, it seems, is far closer to becoming a reality than
readily admitted. On July 19, it became evident that circumstances have
dramatically accelerated. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken disclosed on July
19 that "Iran is one or two weeks away from producing deadly nuclear fissile
material." This potential development should be a crisis not only for Israel,
but for the West.
The question, therefore, is what exactly is to be done to prevent a nuclear
catastrophe initiated by Iran, one that could arrive at any moment?
Strategically, the US should already have acted years ago to prevent Iran's
nuclear program from upending the balance of power in the region beyond, As
Netanyahu reminded the US Congress last week:
"In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terrorism.... When he
founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, 'We will export our
revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic revolution to the
entire world' ... which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran's maniacal
plans to impose radical Islam on the world? ... It's America, the guardian of
Western civilization and the world's greatest power. That's why Iran sees
America as its greatest enemy.
"Last month.... the foreign minister of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah... said this:
'This is not a war with Israel. Israel... is merely a tool. The main war, the
real war, is with America.'"
Stopping Iran remains a highly contentious issue politically. The current US
administration has for the most part seemed suicidally averse to dramatic
deterrent action – and presumably would be more so before a forthcoming
election.
Whether or not there are feasible alternatives to the US employing tactical,
precision, conventional strikes is the topic of much polemic. In a July 2024
article published by Royal United Services Institute -- the UK's oldest defence
and security "think tank" -- the headline reads, "The Limited Options for
Managing the Iranian Nuclear Question."
The outcome of the assessment is that there exists no easy diplomatic means of
preventing Iran's nuclear weapon agenda. The author, Darya Dolzikova, concedes,
"the proposed solutions are imperfect – none guarantee success." The options
therefore appear restricted to means other than talking.
Apart from military action as a last resort, the only possible way to secure the
safety of Israel is through a severe increase in, and enforcement of, economic
sanctions and an embargo against Iran's exports and imports. Such a program had
been successfully in place before the current administration came to power in
2021. The Biden administration waived the sanctions in place, thereby allowing
Iran and its proxies hold the world hostage in any way they deemed fit. Taking
full advantage of US prevarication, Iran probably believes it has free rein to
terrorise any nations it chooses, with Israel the current main target.
The lack of political will from the Biden administration and America's evident
weakness through appeasement -– such as sending billions of dollars to Iran –-
makes it understandable that Iran pays lip service to America's professed
threats. By not following them up with concrete action, the US, in Iran's view,
must have become pathetic– as well as in the view of Russia's President Vladimir
Putin and China's President Xi Jinping. The present crisis in the Middle East is
clearly the result of a vacuum of power – the US having, in practice, abdicated
its role as the major world power by failing to deter its adversaries.
In the face of America's refusal to act with resolve on behalf of its allies,
including Ukraine, Israel's options for survival appear limited. In 2020,
Russian General Andrei Sterlin commented that "there is no way to determine if
an incoming ballistic missile is fitted with a nuclear or a conventional
warhead. The military has to see it as a nuclear attack."
Israel, the Gulf States, Europe and the US will soon be in no position to gamble
whether a ballistic missile launched from Iran is a nuclear attack or not.
Highlighting Israel's dilemma, Professor Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University
believes that "Israel might not have a choice" but to conduct a preventative
strike on "Iran's nuclear sites and Hezbollah's strategic missile stockpiles."
How, when, and if they attempt this objective is for them to decide, but time is
pressing. Additional intelligence came to light in July 2024 that Iran is --
again -- secretly ratcheting up its ballistic missile production. These missiles
could carry a nuclear warhead. Israelis have every reason to be alarmed.
Although Israel's leaders are well-aware of Iran's intentions, the US and other
Western allies cannot be relied upon to participate or contain Iran's progress
toward a nuclear weapon. They have shown that apparently they would rather deal
with the situation through ineffectual diplomatic "meetings."
At the 2024 NATO summit in July, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz
highlighted the threat posed to Ukraine and NATO members:
"The Iranian drones and missiles that attack Ukraine and threaten NATO members
are the same as those that tried to hit Israel on April 14. Iran is our common
enemy."
Farhad Rezaei similarly stressed the exigent nature of the crisis: "An Iranian
bomb could trigger a nuclear race in the Middle East and hasten US withdrawal
from the region – a strategic advantage for China" -- as well as Iran.
Yet the Biden administration evidently "has no clear Iran strategy" but on the
contrary "is willing to make deals with Iranians when it suits them," the UN
Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran clarified on July 9, 2024.
In response to an interviewer's question on June 26, 2024, concerning Iran and a
nuclear bomb, Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School,
replied:
"Israel has to act on its own. Israel has to understand that it can never again
count on the unequivocal support of the United States. It can count on some
support from the United States, but Israel has to make its own military and
political decisions."
The result? Israel, alone in many respects and forced to act unilaterally, might
need to find ways to prevent Iran from attacking it with nuclear weapons. The
stakes could not be higher for Israel -- and, as the supposed bastion of Western
democratic values, for America. "Is this war now with Israel?" asked Hezbollah's
head of foreign relations, Khalil Rizk, on Al-Manar TV June 2024. "My answer is
that this is not a war with Israel. Israel is merely a tool. The main war, the
real war, is with America."
And so, the West waits for America's and Israel's next moves, designed to
protect their people from the potential disaster promised by Iran's jihadist
regime.
Despite diplomatic failure by the US to prevent Iran's nuclear ambitions, and on
the grounds that the US will in all probability fail to act militarily to
prevent Iran's nuclear breakout, Israel on its own may be left to protect both
itself and the West.
"The greatest tragedy of the Jewish people," Nobel Peace Prize laureate Eli
Wiesel stated, "is that they listen to the promises of their friends and not the
threats of their enemies."
The leaders of Israel should take seriously the threats of their enemies and act
to protect both Israel and the Free World from potential imminent disaster.
*Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member
of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, a
faculty member at Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Academy of Philosophy
and Letters. Retired from law, his particular field of interest is political
theory interconnected with current events. He holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical
Theology. Dr. Haug is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of
Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and
Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The
American Mind, Quadrant, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars,
Anglican Mainstream, Document Danmark, Jewish News Syndicate, and others.
© 2024 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.
Today in History: Outnumbered Christian Knights Defeat Hordes of Sadistic
Muslims
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/August 01/2024
In a feat of death-defying heroism that even Hollywood fiction cannot match,
today in history witnessed a group of Christian knights, led by Richard
Lionheart, put to flight a massive horde of Muslim terrorists that moments
earlier had been sadistically torturing and murdering Christians.
Background: On July 27, 1192, Saladin, the great sultan-hero of Islam, besieged
the tiny Christian-held town of Jaffa. According to contemporary chronicles, the
Muslims numbered as many as 20,000 and “covered the face of the earth like
locusts.”
Messengers were instantly dispatched to King Richard I, who was then in Acre,
preparing to sail back to England. Before the battered and bruised men had
finished relaying their message, Richard declared, “With God as my guide, I will
set out to do what I can,” and instantly disembarked on his fleet with slightly
more than 2,000 fighters.
Carnage
Jaffa, meanwhile, was fighting for its life. According to Saladin’s court
historian, Baha’ al-Din, who was present, after one of its walls collapsed, all
the Muslims rushed into the city “and there was not an enemy heart that did not
tremble and shake.” Even so, the Christians “were more fierce and determined in
the fight and more eager for and devoted to death.”Indeed, moments before the
Muslims flooded Jaffa, when its main gate was finally battered down, bringing
down with it the aforementioned wall, a “cloud of dust and smoke went up and
darkened the sky.” Once it cleared, the Muslims saw that “spear-points had
replaced the walls and lances had blocked the breach.” Only death would release
the Crusaders of their charge to defend Jaffa.
Due to the great masses of rushing Muslims, the garrison was eventually driven
to and holed up in the citadel, even as the sackers turned their attention to
Jaffa’s civilian populace: “Alas for the pitiful slaughter of the sick!” recalls
a chronicler. “They lay weakly on couches everywhere in the houses of the city;
the Turks tortured them to death in horrible ways.”
The Berserker King Arrives
Richard’s fleets finally arrived on the evening of July 31, but did not
disembark. As Baha’ al-Din explains, the just-arrived Crusaders “saw the town
crammed with the Muslims’ banners and men and they feared that the citadel might
have already been taken. The sea prevented their hearing the shouts that came
from everywhere and the great commotion and cries of ‘There is no god but Allah’
and ‘Allahu Akbar.’”To make matters worse, “When the Turks saw the king’s
galleys and ships approaching, masses of them ran on to the shore,” writes a
chronicler, “raining down spears, javelins, darts and arrows densely so that
they would have nowhere free to land. The shore was seething, so covered with
crowds of the enemy that there was no empty space left.”Then, on the morning of
August 1, a fighting priest holed up in Jaffa took his chances: he jumped out of
the citadel’s window into the sea and swam to the fleets. On learning that,
although the “Saracens had taken the castle and were rounding up the Christians
as prisoners,” a remnant of the garrison was still holding out, Richard
exclaimed, “If it so please God … let us die here with our brothers.”
Without donning his full armor, the chroniclers say, the king “armed himself
with his hauberk, hung his shield at his neck and took a Danish axe in his
hand.” With his crossbow in the other hand — and crying “death only to those who
do not advance!” — he hurled himself into the water “and forced himself
powerfully on to dry land,” all while firing his crossbow at the wild throng
assembled along the shore and swiping incoming arrows away with his axe.
Resounding Impact
Inspired to no end by such a sight, the rest of the Crusaders followed their
king; they plunged into the water and “boldly attacked the Turks who obstinately
opposed them on the shore.” But “at the sight of the king,” whom the Muslims
dreaded from earlier encounters, none of them “dared approach him.” Rather, they
fled down the shore. One chronicle has the rest:
Brandishing his bared sword, the king followed in such hot pursuit that none of
them had time to defend themselves. They fled from his weighty blows. In the
same way the king’s comrades constantly assailed the fugitives, driving them on,
crushing, rending, beheading and tossing them about until all the Turks had been
violently expelled from the shore and left it empty…. The king fell on them with
unsheathed sword, pursued them, beheaded and slew them. They fled before him,
falling back in dense crowds to his right and left.
Once Richard, drenched in Muslim blood, became visible to Saladin’s entourage,
“a horrible howl went up,” even as Turkic arrows rained down on the Christians.
Undeterred, their berserker king continued to “cut to pieces all he met without
distinction” in his mad hunt for Saladin, prompting the sultan to dash
like a frightened hare… [H]e put spur to horse and fled before King Richard, not
wishing to be seen by him…. The king and his fellow-knights steadfastly pursued
him, continually slaying and unhorsing … for more than two miles.
It was a disorderly retreat and rout of the most ignoble kind; and it was the
most humiliating defeat the great Saladin, who died months after, ever suffered.
Indeed, due to his exploits at Jaffa and elsewhere, the name of Richard
Lionheart is the one that, in the popular Muslim consciousness, most personifies
the archetypal Crusader enemy till this very day — a testimony to the havoc he
wrought singlehandedly.
As proof, a personal anecdote is perhaps appropriate here: My parents, both of
whose first names began with an R, gave their children names that do as well.
When I was born, they had all but decided to name me Richard, but, in the last
moment, changed their mind on the off chance that our family might move back to
Egypt — in which case, as they later told me, they feared I would be heavily
discriminated against if not outright killed by some fanatic still smarting from
the Crusades. The fact that they chose to name me Raymond (also a popular
Crusader name, though they never knew it) further underscores the singular
weight the name “Richard” continues to have in the Middle East.
Bomb Smuggled Into Iran Guesthouse Months Ago Killed Hamas
Leader
Ronen Bergman/The New York Times/ August 1, 2024
Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated Wednesday by an
explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran, Iran, guesthouse where he
was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two
Iranians, and a U.S. official.
The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse,
according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and
protected by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and is part of a large compound, known
as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.
Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was
detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was
inside his room at the guesthouse. The blast also killed a bodyguard.
The explosion shook the building, shattered some windows and caused the partial
collapse of an exterior wall, according to the two Iranian officials, members of
the Revolutionary Guard briefed on the incident. Such damage was also evident in
a photograph of the building shared with The New York Times.
Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’ political office in Qatar, had stayed at the
guesthouse several times when visiting Tehran, according to the Middle Eastern
officials. All of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to share
sensitive details about the assassination.
Iranian officials and Hamas said Wednesday that Israel was responsible for the
assassination, an assessment also reached by several U.S. officials who
requested anonymity. The assassination threatened to unleash another wave of
violence in the Middle East and upend the ongoing negotiations to end the war in
the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh had been a top negotiator in the cease-fire talks.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the killing, but Israeli
intelligence officials briefed the United States and other Western governments
on the details of the operation in the immediate aftermath, according to the
five Middle Eastern officials.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States had
received no advance knowledge of the assassination plot.
In the hours after the killing, speculation immediately focused on the
possibility that Israel had killed Haniyeh with a missile strike, possibly fired
from a drone or a plane, similar to how Israel had launched a missile on a
military base in Isfahan, Iran, in April.
That missile theory raised questions about how Israel might have been able to
evade Iranian air defense systems again to execute such a brazen airstrike in
the capital.
As it turns out, the assassins were able to exploit a different kind of gap in
Iran’s defenses: a lapse in the security of a supposedly tightly guarded
compound that allowed a bomb to be planted and to remain hidden for many weeks
before it would eventually be triggered.
Such a breach, three Iranian officials said, was a catastrophic failure of
intelligence and security for Iran and a tremendous embarrassment for the
Revolutionary Guard, which uses the compound for retreats, secret meetings and
housing prominent guests such as Haniyeh.
How the bomb was stashed in the guesthouse remained unclear. The Middle Eastern
officials said the planning for the assassination took months and required
extensive surveillance of the compound. The two Iranian officials who described
the nature of the assassination said they did not know how or when the
explosives were planted in the room.
Israel decided to carry out the assassination outside Qatar, where Haniyeh and
other senior members of Hamas’ political leadership live. The Qatari government
has been mediating the negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a cease-fire
in Gaza.
The deadly blast early Wednesday shattered windows and collapsed a portion of
the wall of the compound, photographs showed and the Iranian officials said. It
appeared to do minimal damage beyond the building itself, as a missile probably
would have done.
At around 2 a.m. local time, the device exploded, according to the Middle
Eastern officials, including the Iranians. Startled building staff members, the
officials said, ran to find the source of the tremendous noise, leading them to
the room where Haniyeh was staying with a bodyguard.
The compound is staffed with a medical team which rushed to the room immediately
after the explosion. The team declared that Haniyeh had died immediately. The
team tried to revive the bodyguard, but he, too, was dead.
The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, was staying next
door, two of the Iranian officials said. His room was not badly damaged,
suggesting precise planning in the targeting of Haniyeh.
Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy commander of Hamas in Gaza who was also in Tehran,
arrived at the scene and saw his colleague’s body, according to the five Middle
Eastern officials.
Among the people immediately notified, said the three Iranian officials, was
Gen. Ismail Ghaani, the commander in chief of the Quds Force, the overseas arm
of the Revolutionary Guard, which works closely with Iranian allies in the
region, including Hamas and Hezbollah. He notified Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the middle of the night, waking him up, the officials
said.
Four hours after the blast, the Revolutionary Guard issued a statement that
Haniyeh had been killed. By 7 a.m., Khamenei had summoned the members of Iran’s
Supreme National Security Council to his compound for an emergency meeting, at
which he issued an order to strike Israel in retaliation, according to the three
Iranian officials.
Tehran had already been under heightened security because of the inauguration of
Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, with senior government officials,
military commanders and dignitaries from 86 countries gathering at parliament in
central Tehran for the ceremony.
Haniyeh had looked cheerful and triumphant Tuesday during the swearing in,
hugging the new president after he delivered his inaugural speech, and the two
men raised their hands together, making the victory sign.
In Iran, the method of assassination was the subject of rumor and dispute. The
Tasnim News Agency, the media outlet for the Revolutionary Guard, reported that
witnesses said an object like a missile had hit the window of Haniyeh’s room and
exploded.
But the two Iranian officials, the members of the guard briefed on the attack,
confirmed that the explosion had taken place inside Haniyeh’s room, and said
that an initial investigation showed that the explosives had been placed there
sometime in advance.
They described the attack’s precision and sophistication as similar in tactic to
the remote controlled artificial intelligence robot weapon that Israel used to
assassinate Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
Israeli assassination operations outside of the country are primarily carried
out by Mossad, the country’s foreign intelligence service. David Barnea, the
head of Mossad, said in January that his service was “obliged” to hunt down the
leaders of Hamas, the group behind the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
“It will take time, as it took after the massacre in Munich, but our hands will
catch them wherever they are,” Barnea said, referring to the killing of Israeli
athletes by terrorists at the 1972 Olympics.
c.2024 The New York Times Company