Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 12-13/2024
Israeli soldier killed near border with Lebanon
Southern Front: Israeli Warplanes Breach Sound Barrier, LAF Vehicle Targeted
Israeli warplanes break sound barrier over Kesrouane and North Lebanon
Israeli soldier killed in cross-border fire with Hezbollah
Lebanese Army under Israeli fire in al-Ghajar
Berri says he refused to isolate the LF but Geagea responded with 'ingratitude'
Berri's bloc slams 'campaigns' against him, says some 'fear dialogue''
PSP, FPM and Moderation Bloc advise opposition to talk to Berri
Public Transport Buses Attacked Day After Their Launch
New Lebanese Complaint Against Israel to the UNSC
LF: Is Calling for Open Consecutive Sessions Now Abnormal?
British Embassy celebrates record UK-Lebanon trade figures
USAID Unveils “Discoveries Around Annaya” Tourism Route in Lebanon
The Taif Agreement… Lebanon’s Lifebuoy
EDL: What is Happening to Lebanon’s Fuel

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 12-13/2024
President Biden announces Israel, Hamas have agreed to cease-fire 'framework'
Netanyahu reverses on key Israeli concession in ceasefire talks
Israel will send cease-fire negotiators to Cairo for more talks, Netanyahu says
Egypt-Israel negotiations: Netanyahu's conditions on Gaza, Egypt border and prisoner exchange
Biden admits disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right govt
Israeli military retreats from northern Gaza, leaving dozens of Palestinians killed and razing neighborhoods to the ground
Gaza talks explore alternative to Israeli troops on Gaza-Egypt border: sources
UN chief says no alternative to UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA
Israeli strike kills 4 aid workers in Gaza ‘safe zone,’ UK-based group says
Israel’s security cabinet extends military service: report
ICJ to deliver opinion on Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories on July 19
More than half a million children in Gaza missing out on vital education amid Israeli-Hamas war: UNRWA
UN court to give view on consequences of Israel occupation
60 bodies found after Israeli operation in Gaza City
Rescuers say they find dozens of bodies after Israelis scale back Gaza City fight with Hamas
A rapprochement between Syria and Turkey is on the table. Here's what it might mean for the region
The Kremlin Is Angry at Biden’s Remarks About Putin at NATO Summit
Biden faces more pressure from Democrats to abandon re-election bid
NATO Summit: Biden stumbles in speech, overshadows aid announcement for Ukraine

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on July 12-13/2024
'Palestine': Just The Latest Pretext for Bringing Down Western Civilization/Robert Williams/Gatestone Institute/July 12, 2024
Many in Lebanon fear they will be caught in Hezbollah-Israel crossfire/Nabih Bulos/Los Angeles Times/July 12, 2024
Why the Iranian Navy keeps losing warships in accidents, after its Sahand frigate capsized and sank/Paul Iddon/Business Insider/July 12, 2024
Question: “Does the Bible teach that the earth is flat?”/GotQuestions.org?/July 12, 2024
A victorious defeat for the far right in France/Mustapha Tossa/Arab News/July 12/2024
France’s right-wing tilt will further alienate it from North Africa/Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/July 12/2024
Richard the Lionheart: An Exemplar of ‘Bravery, Cunning, Steadfastness, and Endurance’/Raymond Ibrahim/LifeSiteNews/July 12/2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 12-13/2024
Israeli soldier killed near border with Lebanon
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/July 12, 2024
BEIRUT: The Israeli army said on Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat with Hezbollah near the border with Lebanon on Thursday. “St.-Sgt.-Maj. Valeri Chefonov, 33, from Netanya, who served in the 9308 Battalion, 228th Alon Brigade, was killed during the fighting in the north,” the army’s statement read. Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire for nearly nine months in hostilities that have played out in parallel to the conflict in Gaza, raising fears of an all-out war between the adversaries. The head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said that Israel was at a stage “where it is unable to wage war on Lebanon, and this is data we know from what we sense and observe in the enemy’s performance, and we are ready for all options.”He reiterated his party’s position that “when the negotiations end with a cessation of aggression and a cessation of the war on the Gaza Strip, we will accept what its people and resistance fighters accept, and we will immediately start a ceasefire on our front.”Coinciding with the continued escalation of aggression between Israel and Hezbollah, Gen. Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, visited the front and met with “senior leaders,” according to the Iranian Tasnim agency. The agency reported on Friday that Qaani stressed that Iran “supports the steadfastness of the people of the Gaza Strip and their resistance as a permanent policy.”It did not disclose details about the date and place of the meeting, nor of the people Qaani met. Also on Friday, several young men near Tyre intercepted a patrol belonging to the UN’s Interim Force in Lebanon, blocking it in with their cars. The patrol had reportedly entered a residential neighborhood without being escorted by a Lebanese Army vehicle. The incident took place on the eve of the presentation of UNIFIL command’s report on the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, in preparation for the UN Security Council meeting at the end of this month, and a month before the renewal of the UNIFIL mandate in southern Lebanon for another year is due. UNIFIL Command contacted the Lebanese Army to resolve the issue. According to security reports, the patrol “got lost and the consequences of the incident were quickly dealt with.”
UNIFIL patrols have gone astray more than once in recent months, as a result of Israel’s jamming of internet networks — also experienced at Beirut airport and port and several other areas of Lebanon. But Hezbollah supporters claim that the patrols are deliberately entering residential neighborhoods. One previous interception in 2022 turned into a bloody confrontation in the Al-Aqbiya area, which resulted in the death of an Irish soldier. The military court is still trying five people accused of the attack, which wounded three other soldiers. One of the detainees was released a few months ago on bail. In another development, a Lebanese army Humvee was targeted by Israeli machine gun fire from the village of Ghajar near Wazzani on Friday, but no one on board was hit. Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it had targeted “the espionage equipment at the center for military collection and reconnaissance crews in the Israeli Metula site with guided missiles, which led to its destruction.”The party also targeted “a group of Israeli soldiers while they were carrying out fortification work in the vicinity of the Hanita site with missile weapons.” Israeli shelling of border villages ignited fires in the forests of Blida, Mhaibib, and Aainata, reaching Aitaroun, and Israeli warplanes renewed their violation of Lebanese airspace, breaking the sound barrier twice over Matn and Keserwan in Mount Lebanon, while Israeli reconnaissance planes continued flying over the villages of Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts. Also on Friday, the German Embassy in Lebanon reiterated its request for its citizens “present in Lebanon, despite the travel warning issued and the urgent request to leave Lebanese territory, to register on the Federal Foreign Office’s crisis preparedness list ELEFAND.” The embassy’s warning coincided with the continued military tension between Hezbollah and the Israeli army on Lebanon’s southern border.

Southern Front: Israeli Warplanes Breach Sound Barrier, LAF Vehicle Targeted
This Is BeirutJuly 12/2024 
Israeli warplanes breached the sound barrier twice over Metn and Keserwan on Friday morning. A loud sonic explosion was heard across several Lebanese regions. This is Beirut’s correspondent reported that a Lebanese Army (LAF) vehicle was targeted with Humvee machine guns from the town of Ghajar. The vehicle was directly hit with bullets. However, no casualties have been reported among LAF personnel. During the night and into the dawn on Friday, the Israeli military also released illuminating flares above the bordering villages adjacent to the Blue Line. Heavy machine gun fire was directed towards the forests near the towns of Ramya and Aita al-Shaab in the central sector, while reconnaissance aircraft continued to fly over the villages of Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts. Last night, fires broke in the forests surrounding Hebbariyeh and Rachaya al-Foukhar in the Arkoub region, Hasbaya district, due to Israeli bombing. Residents worked on putting out the fire after it reached many neighboring houses. For its part, Hezbollah announced shelling and directly hitting “spy equipment” in the military reconnaissance center of the Metula settlement with guided missiles. The pro-Iranian group also announced “targeting with rockets a group of Israeli soldiers who were carrying out fortification and construction works” in the vicinity of the Hanita site. Earlier, Israeli media had revealed that “two anti-armor missiles, which were fired from Lebanon, knocked out the power supply in Metula, Galilee.” Israeli media also indicated that “sirens sounded in the northern settlement of Ademit.”The Israeli army also announced the death of a 33-year-old Israeli sergeant who was killed by a drone attack from Lebanon, according to Haaretz.

Israeli warplanes break sound barrier over Kesrouane and North Lebanon
LBCIJuly 12/2024
Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over the Kesrouane region and northern Lebanon on Friday.

Israeli soldier killed in cross-border fire with Hezbollah
Associated PressJuly 12/2024
Israel’s military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat in northern Israel as the country’s army and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continue to trade cross-border fire. 33-year-old Israeli reservist Master sergeant Valeri Chefonov was killed in northern Israel Thursday in an explosive drone attack from Lebanon. The family and friends of Chefonov attended his funeral at the military cemetery in Netanya on Friday. Hezbollah launched Thursday an array of suicide drones on an artillery base in Israel's Kabri in response to attacks on Lebanese civilians and villages.
Hezbollah and Israel have been trading near daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last year. In Lebanon, the cross-border violence since October has killed nearly 500 people, mostly fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, at least 30 people have been killed, the majority of them soldiers, according to the Israeli authorities.

Lebanese Army under Israeli fire in al-Ghajar
NaharnetJuly 12/2024
Hezbollah targeted Friday surveillance equipment in Metula and Israeli soldiers in Hanita in northern Israel. The Israeli army meanwhile fired at Lebanese Army soldiers in al-Ghajar, but no casualties were reported. The National News Agency reported that warplanes broke the sound barrier in northern Lebanon over Keserwan, Jbeil, Tripoli, al-Koura and al-Matn. The Israeli army had fired overnight into dawn flare bombs at southern villages along the border, and heavy-caliber machineguns at Ramia and Aita al-Shaab. In Lebanon, the cross-border violence since October has killed nearly 500 people, mostly fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, at least 29 people have been killed, the majority of them soldiers, according to the authorities.

Berri says he refused to isolate the LF but Geagea responded with 'ingratitude'
NaharnetJuly 12/2024 
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was quoted by his visitors as dubbing Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea "ungrateful."Ad-Diyar newspaper reported Friday that Berri told his visitors that he had refused a dialogue without the LF's attendance. Berri said he had rejected a proposal by the Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil that suggested that dialogue and elections be held even if boycotted by some MPs. "I rejected that without thinking twice, because it is impossible for me to accept the isolation of any Lebanese component, especially the Lebanese Forces party, which constitutes the largest Christian bloc in parliament," Berri was quoted as saying. "It is strange that my stance was met with incomprehensible ingratitude," he added. In a bid to break the presidential impasse, opposition lawmakers started an initiative Tuesday, announcing two suggestions to facilitate the election of a president, including consultations in parliament that would not be chaired by Berri. Amal MP Qassem Hashem said the shortest way to elect a president is Berri's initiative and that "anything else would be a waste of time." Geagea later accused Hezbollah and Amal of rejecting dialogue. They "have been calling for dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. Their lying and hypocrisy have become evident to all Lebanese,” he said. "The mask has fallen."

Berri's bloc slams 'campaigns' against him, says some 'fear dialogue'
NaharnetJuly 12/2024
Speaker Nabih Berri’s Development and Liberation bloc on Friday said it condemns “any insults, unjust accusations or disdain for the presidential posts and their powers and roles.”“The unjust accusation campaigns against the parliament speaker and his role and jurisdiction are certainly deplorable and their objectives are exposed,” the bloc said after a meeting in Ain el-Tineh under Berri. “At the core of its existence and unique spiritual and political structure Lebanon is a country of dialogue and daily rapprochement among its various religious and political components, so why do some fear the reason behind Lebanon’s existence, which is dialogue?” the bloc added. “Why is dialogue or consultation being depicted as if it is a scarecrow and an infringement on the system and the constitution?” the bloc wondered. It added that “the nature of complications and balances in parliament and the current deadlock necessitate that there be serious consultations and dialogue … for several days leading to a consensus over one, two or three candidates.”The opposition lawmakers had on Tuesday announced two suggestions aimed at facilitating the election of a new president and ending the country’s long-running presidential vacuum, an initiative that was dismissed by Berri and his camp. “MPs would meet in parliament and hold consultations, without an official invitation, institutionalization or any specific framework, out of keenness on respecting the rules related to the election of presidents stipulated by the Lebanese constitution,” the opposition proposed. “Consultations would not exceed a period of 48 hours, after which MPs would go -- regardless of the consultations’ outcome -- to an open-ended electoral session with successive rounds until a president is elected, as per the constitution,” the opposition added. Another suggestion would be for Speaker Nabih Berri to “call for a presidential election session under his chairmanship,” the opposition said. “Should no election take place in the first round, the session would remain open and MPs and blocs would hold consultations outside parliament’s hall for a period not exceeding 48 hours, after which they would return to the hall for voting in successive rounds not exceeding four rounds daily … until the election of a president,” the opposition added. “All parties would commit to attending the rounds and securing quorum,” it said.

PSP, FPM and Moderation Bloc advise opposition to talk to Berri
NaharnetJuly 12/2024 
The MPs of the Progressive Socialist Party, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Moderation Bloc have advised the opposition to communicate with Speaker Nabih Berri regarding the presidential election crisis, following its latest botched initiative, a media report said. The PSP delegation that met with the opposition “stressed the need to halt the trade of accusations that would deepen the rift between the parties, recommending communication with Berri to produce a settlement leading to the election of a president,” Asharq al-Awsat newspaper has reported.
“This is what the Free Patriotic Movement, Moderation and New Lebanon blocs have also recommended, although they have dealt positively with the (opposition’s) initiative,” the daily said. The PSP believes that a presidential settlement would be “impossible without Berri,” the newspaper added. The opposition lawmakers had on Tuesday announced two suggestions aimed at facilitating the election of a new president and ending the country’s long-running presidential vacuum, an initiative that was dismissed by Berri and his camp. “MPs would meet in parliament and hold consultations, without an official invitation, institutionalization or any specific framework, out of keenness on respecting the rules related to the election of presidents stipulated by the Lebanese constitution,” the opposition proposed. “Consultations would not exceed a period of 48 hours, after which MPs would go -- regardless of the consultations’ outcome -- to an open-ended electoral session with successive rounds until a president is elected, as per the constitution,” the opposition added. Another suggestion would be for Speaker Nabih Berri to “call for a presidential election session under his chairmanship,” the opposition said. “Should no election take place in the first round, the session would remain open and MPs and blocs would hold consultations outside parliament’s hall for a period not exceeding 48 hours, after which they would return to the hall for voting in successive rounds not exceeding four rounds daily … until the election of a president,” the opposition added. “All parties would commit to attending the rounds and securing quorum,” it said.

Public Transport Buses Attacked Day After Their Launch
This Is BeirutJuly 12/2024 
The new public transport buses were vandalized between Dora and Karantina just one day after their inauguration on July 10. The incident caused swift responses from government officials and condemnation from consumer protection groups. The Caretaker Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Bassam Mawlawi, directed the General Directorate of Internal Security Forces on Friday to investigate the attack. He emphasized the need for “immediate actions to address the assault on passengers and threats to drivers.”Meanwhile, Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamiye expressed outrage over the incident. In a statement on X, he highlighted the significance of the buses in enhancing public transport infrastructure and criticized the perpetrators, stating, “What happened in Dora is unacceptable. Citizens should be able to travel safely under state protection without fear.”Hamiye had recently launched a comprehensive plan to introduce 96 new public transport buses in Beirut, aiming to expand services nationwide by September. These buses, operated through a partnership model with the private sector, are equipped with advanced safety features, including cameras and GPS tracking. Only eight buses are currently operational. “This initiative represents a concrete partnership between the public and private sectors,” affirmed Hamiye. “The state supervises while the private sector operates the buses, ensuring efficient service delivery to the public.”

New Lebanese Complaint Against Israel to the UNSC
This Is BeirutJuly 12/2024
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants submitted a complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on July 3 to address Israel’s attacks on the agricultural sector, farmers, and livestock breeders in border villages. In a statement issued on Friday, the Ministry said the complaint included “official statistics on the number of fires caused by Israel’s use of white phosphorus, amounting to 683 fires. In addition, the total area of completely burned lands “exceeded 2,100 acres of land from October 8 until mid-March of this year, while the area of damaged forest and agricultural lands reached 6,000 acres.”The Ministry also noted that “Israel’s aggression was a flagrant violation of Article 55 of Additional Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions (1949), which states that the natural environment shall be protected from widespread, long-term, and severe damage during hostilities.”Furthermore, it called on the UNSC to “condemn Israel for its direct, deliberate, and repeated targeting of civilians and the natural environment in Lebanon, and urged it to ensure that Israel does not go unpunished for these crimes, as failure to condemn it would give it a free hand to continue its unrestraint aggression.”

LF: Is Calling for Open Consecutive Sessions Now Abnormal?
This Is BeirutJuly 12/2024 
The Media Office of the Lebanese Forces Party questioned, “Has it become abnormal to insist on electing a president by calling for open consecutive sessions? Is disrupting the presidential elections and setting unconstitutional conditions the right thing to do? Certainly not.”The Lebanese Forces statement is a response to the meeting held by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Sunday. Berri’s Development and Liberation bloc stated the need for “serious consultation and dialogue under the dome of the parliament and the roof of the constitution leading to a consensus on one, two, or three candidates — a dialogue for the election of the President of the Republic of Lebanon.”On the presidential election, the bloc insisted on its readiness to “welcome any Arab or international efforts to assist Lebanon in electing a president.”The LF refuted that “the only path to presidential elections is the constitution. Those who claim that the road to the presidency passes through Ain al-Tineh bypass the constitution and perpetuate the vacancy.” “The insistence on a dialogue confirms their intent to amend the constitution and establish new norms contrary to constitutional texts,” concluded the LF.

British Embassy celebrates record UK-Lebanon trade figures
NaharnetJuly 12/2024 
British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell hosted Thursday a Business and Trade reception to celebrate record-breaking bilateral trade figures between the UK and Lebanon. In 2023, bilateral trade figures between the UK and Lebanon passed the £1bn mark for the first time ever, reaching a record high of £1.1 billion, an increase on over 45% on 2022. Export brands increased to £160 million. The top five goods exported by the UK to Lebanon throughout 2023 were mechanical power generators, cars, beverages, dairy products, and medicinal and pharmaceutical products. Services accounted for over £600m. The reception was attended by caretaker Minister of Public Health Firas Abiad and a wide range of Lebanese businesspeople and entrepreneurs investing in Lebanon and the UK. The British Trade Commissioner for the Middle East and Pakistan at the UK Department for Business and Trade, Oliver Christian, delivered a recorded video message to the guests. During the reception, Ambassador Cowell said: "Given the many local and regional challenges, it is great to be able to celebrate these record-breaking figures which are testament to the strength of the UK/Lebanon partnership. They demonstrate the opportunities our businesses are finding in both countries. We are very keen to see more UK brands come to Lebanon. We are also supporting Lebanese investments in the UK across various sectors."Below is Trade Commissioner Oliver Christian’s video message: “We’re here to celebrate the strength of our UK-Lebanon relationship, evidenced by our bilateral trade figures which reached a record high in 2023. This achievement is remarkable in and of itself, but even more so in the context of the challenges that face Lebanon today. British brands are widening their footprint in the Lebanese market. Just last month The Entertainer Toy Shop opened its first branch in Lebanon. Baylis and Harding are now present in the market, and we expect more brands like E L and N café to follow later this summer. We’ve seen great success on our investment side as well, with brilliant Lebanese brands like Swiss Butter, Meat the Fish and Nada Ghazal Jewellery now establishing in the UK. I hope to visit soon to hear directly from you about the incredible country which has so much to offer.”

USAID Unveils “Discoveries Around Annaya” Tourism Route in Lebanon
This Is BeirutJuly 12/2024 
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched “Discoveries Around Annaya” on Friday, a tourism route that connects 28 cultural and religious sites in Annaya, Jbeil. The program is part of the Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods (PSL) initiative, which seeks to attract tourists as a means of improving local economies.“This route is one of many USAID interventions to support local tourism and bring visitors and economic opportunities back to Lebanon’s rural tourist regions,” remarked USAID Lebanon’s Mission Director Julie Southfield as she unveiled the route during her speech. “We remain committed to strengthening Lebanon’s tourism infrastructure, services, and workforce to attract both local and international tourists in the future,” she added. Bishop Michel Aoun highlighted the project’s significance amid Lebanon’s challenges, stating, “The promotion of rural tourism is crucial, especially given the government’s lack of focus on rural development.”The PSL project by USAID aims at improving socio-economic conditions for approximately 126,000 residents and creating 1,500 jobs in tourism and related sectors. “Tourism infrastructure and services need to be improved to develop Lebanon into a top-tier holiday destination,” added Southfield.According to the executive director of the René Moawad Foundation, MP Michel Moawad, these projects are aimed at “empowering local communities by improving the competitiveness of tourism services and economic opportunities within the area.”
The route features quick response codes that give historical information at each site, along with a training session for local service providers to enhance quality service delivery.

The Taif Agreement… Lebanon’s Lifebuoy
This is Beirut/July 12/2024
The recent visit of the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reflected, in one of its aspects, the insistence of the Vatican, Washington, Paris, and Western and Arab capitals on “adhering to the Taif Agreement and the Constitution as a way out of the presidential deadlock.”Informed sources revealed that Parolin underlined in his encounters with Christian groups that “Taif is the lifebuoy to which they must adhere to, and that it is the only basis for a solution to the Lebanese crisis.”“Stick to Taif as it is. Do not try to look for amendments or reconsider the political system and structure, such as federalism, etc., before Taif is fully implemented and a president is elected according to the constitutional text.”Amending the Taif agreement aims at preventing the election of a president, maintaining the vacancy and the disruption of the constitution, and enduring the crisis. Amendments to the Taif Agreement can be discussed later, when circumstances permit, not now, because this might have adverse repercussions on Lebanon as a message and model of coexistence, and a space for dialogue of religions and civilizations. For the Vatican and the West, the primary task of parliamentarians is to elect a president. “You must apply the constitution, which provides for the mechanism that is endorsed by the Lebanese for electing a president,” Parolin has reportedly told Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, given his primary role in facilitating the process by calling for an electoral session without conditions. The 1989 Taif Agreement put an end to Lebanon’s 15-year-long civil war by dividing powers equally between Christians and Muslims.

EDL: What is Happening to Lebanon’s Fuel
Christiane Tager/This is Beirut/July 12/2024
The Lebanese are now accustomed to seeing the threat of a total blackout reemerge occasionally, often accompanied by the threat of the shutdown of vital public facilities. This situation was narrowly avoided on Thursday thanks to the intervention of the Iraqi Prime Minister, who authorized the unloading of fuel before Lebanon paid the amounts due. ‘Normal’ rationing should be restored within twenty-four hours. Every so often, and especially in the summer when energy consumption peaks, the infamous threat of a total blackout resurfaces. This situation was narrowly avoided on Thursday, following an intervention by the Iraqi Prime Minister, who authorized the unloading of fuel before Lebanon paid the amounts due. But what is really happening? What is certain is that the Lebanese still do not have electricity through the public provider and are forced to resort to generators or solar energy systems.
In fact, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad al-Soudani authorized the supply of fuel to Lebanon on Thursday before the funds were disbursed by the Banque du Liban to avoid a total blackout. Thus, diesel was delivered to the Zahrani and Deir Ammar power plants. This decision followed several contacts made to resolve the fuel payment crisis and spare Lebanon total darkness. Contacted by This Is Beirut, the management of Électricité du Liban (EDL) confirmed that they received the green light for the ships to be unloaded, specifying that Deir Ammar will be the first plant to be supplied. The unloading process takes at least twenty-four hours. Additionally, the state of the sea must be considered; if the waves are too strong or the sea too rough, the cargo cannot unload the diesel. Since July 6, EDL had been forced to shut down a production unit at the Zahrani plant and completely stop the Deir Ammar plant to preserve its stock. These measures allowed for approximately four additional days of power, until Thursday. These units will be put back into service once the cargo is unloaded, thus restoring the supply. It should be noted that EDL announced on Monday the implementation of preventive measures until the receipt of the second part of the diesel shipment allocated for June 2024, to avoid a blackout. In a statement, the public provider explained that it had to resort to preventive measures to prolong the energy production period for citizens as much as possible and maintain continuous electrical supply, twenty-four hours a day, for vital facilities such as the airport, the port, water pumps, and sewage systems.
Back-and-forth between the Ministry of Energy and the Banque du Liban
For the public provider, the delay in delivery is due to a delay in the disbursement of funds by the Banque du Liban (BDL) to EDL, preventing it from paying for the necessary diesel. The Ministry of Energy accused the BDL, which in turn shifted the blame back to the Ministry of Energy, claiming that there were no funds available for EDL. Thus, the first vice-governor of the Banque du Liban, Wassim Mansouri, assures that “EDL, like the Ministry of Energy, could obtain all the funds from the Central Bank, but neither has the necessary funds to buy Iraqi oil.” In an interview with the television channel Al-Jadeed, Mansouri raised another issue: the contract with the Iraqi side for the import of crude oil ended a long time ago. He believes that what is being done today, borrowing from Iraq to import crude oil, has no legal basis. He reminded that no minister can borrow without a law issued by Parliament. He also added that the budget for the 2024 fiscal year does not include an amount allocated for the Iraqi oil requested by the minister of energy. For his part, the outgoing Minister of Energy, Walid Fayad, assured This Is Beirut that “the contract with Iraq is financed in services and not in cash, and is carried out through monthly transfers via the public treasury account under the Ministry of Finance (and not EDL) to the Iraqis’ account at the BDL. However, the financial institution has not made these transfers since the beginning of the year because it is associated with the execution of the contract, which needs to be covered by a law passed by Parliament. The bill was sent by the Council of Ministers to Parliament on January 17, 2023, but has not yet been approved.” Fayad also clarified that the EDL account currently has 80 million dollars, noting that any delay in collecting electricity bills is due to the fact that “the acting governor has not yet set the exchange rate on which the bills should be based. Therefore, EDL has not been able to issue these bills and the corresponding money has not been collected.”
In the same context, it should be noted that electricity production in Lebanon currently relies on the Zahrani and Deir Ammar plants, while the Jiyeh and Zouk plants require maintenance work. Zahrani and Deir Ammar receive monthly diesel supplied to EDL by the Ministry of Energy under the exchange agreement concluded between Iraq and Lebanon on July 23, 2021. This agreement, which came into effect in September 2021, stipulates that Iraq will supply fuel to Lebanese power plants under advantageous conditions, with a quantity set at 100,000 tons per month. However, due to the high sulfur content of Iraqi fuel, which cannot be directly used in Lebanese plants, Lebanon buys a compatible type of fuel from other suppliers selected by tender. In exchange, these suppliers receive the Iraqi fuel.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 12-13/2024
President Biden announces Israel, Hamas have agreed to cease-fire 'framework'
Joe Fisher/(UPI)/July 12, 2024
Israel and Hamas have agreed to the framework of a plan to establish a cease-fire and the release hostages, President Joe Biden said Friday. Biden tweeted that both sides have agreed to the comprehensive terms that the president presented about six weeks ago. The agreement would establish a cease-fire and accommodate the release of hostages. "Six weeks ago I laid out a comprehensive framework for how to achieve a cease-fire and bring the hostages home," Biden wrote on X. "There is still work to do and these are complex issues, but that framework is now agreed to by both Israel and Hamas. My team is making progress and I'm determined to get this done."The deal was revised about two weeks ago, laying out a three-stage plan for a permanent cease-fire, complete withdrawal by the Israeli Defense Forces from Gaza and the release of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. Hamas officials are seeking written guarantees that Israel will not resume attacks on Gaza after the first group of hostages are released, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he was committed to the framework deal, though he alleged that Hamas has made demands that could derail the agreement. While the framework of an agreement has been agreed to there is no clear indication of when a cease-fire may take place or when the first group of hostages will be released. The Gaza Health Ministry reported Thursday that 38,345 Palestinians have been killed and 88,295 have been injured since Oct. 7.

Netanyahu reverses on key Israeli concession in ceasefire talks
Jeremy Diamond, CNN/Ronen Zvulun/Reuters/Fri, July 12, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reneged on a key Israeli concession in ceasefire negotiations, demanding that armed men be barred from returning to northern Gaza during an eventual ceasefire, an Israeli source familiar with the talks told CNN. Israel had previously agreed to allow Palestinians fully unrestricted access to northern Gaza during an eventual ceasefire, but the Israeli Prime Minister told his negotiating team this week to demand that armed men be barred from northern Gaza as part of any ceasefire and hostage deal, the source said. The new demand could potentially upend progress in hostage negotiations and raises further questions about Netanyahu’s commitment to Israel’s own proposal for a deal that has become the basis for detailed negotiations. Last week, a US official told CNN that a framework agreement was “in place” and an Israeli official said that Netanyahu had authorized his negotiators to enter into detailed negotiations, signaling a potential breakthrough. Talks resumed in the Qatari capital Doha last Friday. Over the weekend, Hamas agreed to compromise on a major sticking point for Israel, that the Jewish state commit to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza before signing an agreement. But a statement by the Israeli prime minister’s office on Sunday cast doubt on whether the deal would progress, laying out several “principles” Israel is not prepared to abandon, including resumed fighting in Gaza “until all of objectives of the war have been achieved.”Israel launched its war on Gaza nine months ago, in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The war has left swathes of the enclave unrecognizable, displaced almost the entire population and killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry there. Israel had said it wouldn’t end the war until all hostages are freed and Hamas is eliminated. CNN has reached out to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office for comment.

Israel will send cease-fire negotiators to Cairo for more talks, Netanyahu says
Associated Press/July 12, 2024
Israel will send a delegation to Cairo for further talks with mediators on a proposed deal with Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday. Israel has been pressing ahead with a fresh offensive across the north, south and center of the Gaza Strip in recent days, which could be aimed at increasing pressure on Gaza’s Hamas militant group during cease-fire negotiations. Palestinians returned to breathtaking scenes of destruction in the Gaza City district of Shijaiyah after Israeli troops withdrew following a two-week offensive there. Civil defense workers said that so far they had found the bodies of 60 people in the rubble. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crammed into squalid tent camps in central and southern Gaza. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine. The top United Nations court has ordered Israel to take steps to protect Palestinians as it examines genocide allegations against Israeli leaders. Israel denies the charge.

Egypt-Israel negotiations: Netanyahu's conditions on Gaza, Egypt border and prisoner exchange
LBCI/July 12, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown both Israelis and mediators into a state of uncertainty regarding the prisoner exchange deal. During an officer graduation ceremony for new military officers, Netanyahu announced his rejection of any deal that would end the war without achieving its primary objectives, namely the destruction of Hamas and maintaining Israel's control over the Gaza-Egypt border. Netanyahu's remarks came as the Israeli negotiating team was en route to Cairo to discuss critical issues related to the Philadelphi Route and the Rafah crossing. While some viewed these statements as a reflection of Netanyahu's policy against the deal due to pressure from his government, others saw it as a negotiation tactic with yet unclear intentions. Either way, this stance has tempered Israeli optimism. The Israeli delegation returned from Egypt on Friday, maintaining cautious optimism after initial understandings were reached concerning the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Route. The Egyptians did not oppose installing Israeli monitoring systems and sensors along the route. Discussions in Cairo also included a project to build a steel wall, 20 to 30 meters deep, to prevent the infiltration of fighters or the smuggling of weapons between Egypt and Gaza. According to Israeli officials, a pipe extending from the sea to the barrier will be used to periodically pump water to destroy tunnels and prevent new ones from being dug. The wall will feature sensitive electronic equipment, including cameras and sound detectors to identify any breach attempts. Simultaneously, talks in Cairo led to an agreement on deploying international forces alongside Egyptians to ensure border security. While these understandings might accelerate the deal, they did not alleviate the concerns of the hostages' families. With Netanyahu's statement, protests intensified, blaming him for hindering a near agreement that represents the last chance to bring back those hostages still alive. The internal escalation coincided with a similar one in northern Israel, especially after a young man was killed by a drone strike launched by Hezbollah. Residents in the north attacked the government and its leader, comparing the current northern front situation to the Second Lebanon War, which broke out 18 years ago and lasted 35 days. According to an Israeli report, Hezbollah has closed the gap with Israel in terms of offensive and defensive military capabilities. However, the Israeli army has shown an inability not only to end the war that has entered its tenth month but also to face the threat posed by Hezbollah.

Biden admits disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right govt
Associated Press/July 12, 2024
President Joe Biden acknowledged disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israel’s hard-right government, but pointed to increased hopes now of a cease-fire to end the Israel-Hamas war devastating the lives of Gaza’s people. Biden looked back Thursday over the course of his efforts in Israel’s war against Hamas during a much-watched press conference at the site of the just ended NATO summit. He called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government the most conservative Israeli administration he had experienced, and said he had urged Israeli leaders not to follow the example that the U.S. set against al-Qaida and other extremist militant groups. “’Don’t think that’s what you should be doing, doubling-down,”’ he recounted telling them. He said he had been “disappointed” his order for the U.S. military to build a pier to bring aid by sea to Gaza, along with some other efforts, “have not succeeded as well.”But Biden said Israel and Hamas had now both agreed to the broad terms of a deal to pause fighting and free hostages, and said that made prospects brighter now. Mediators were helping work on gaps in agreement, he said.

Israeli military retreats from northern Gaza, leaving dozens of Palestinians killed and razing neighborhoods to the ground
Kareem Khadder, Mohammad Al Sawalhi, Eyad Kourdi, Ibrahim Dahman, Tim Lister and Sana Noor Haq, CNN/July 12, 2024
At least 50 Palestinians were found killed on Friday, local authorities said, after the Israeli military pulled back from several areas in central and northern Gaza, leaving entire neighborhoods razed and residents reeling from a spate of heavy attacks.
Emergency crews recovered 50 to 60 bodies in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in the west of Gaza City, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. Many more were trapped under the debris, spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told CNN. Further east in the city, Israeli bombardment destroyed vital infrastructure in the Shujaya neighborhood, said Asem Al-Nabih, a media officer at the Gaza Municipality. Footage obtained by CNN showed rescue staff in Tal al-Hawa wading through blown out buildings, and clambering over slabs of fallen concrete piled on top of old mattresses. The limbs of dead Palestinians could be seen peeking out from under the rubble, as workers attempted to retrieve those buried by the devastation. “There is unprecedented destruction of infrastructure and vital facilities in the Shujaya… and Tal al-Hawa areas,” Al-Nabih told CNN. “The municipality is trying to deliver water to displaced citizens with great difficulty.” More than nine months of fighting in Gaza has turned swathes of the territory into rubble-filled wasteland. The Israeli military offensive following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has triggered a sprawling humanitarian crisis, crushed the health system and depleted food and water supplies. The UN warned Tuesday of widespread famine across the strip, and relief workers say Israeli aid restrictions mean they are unable to support Palestinians trying to survive the war. Human rights agencies reiterated calls for a ceasefire, as negotiations between Israel and Hamas this week hit yet another roadblock. Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities. Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed 38,345 Palestinians and injured another 88,295 people, according to the Ministry of Health there.
‘We want a total ceasefire’
Palestinian residents surveyed the desolate landscape in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood on Friday, as the sound of Israeli drones buzzed overhead. CNN footage from the aftermath showed multiple-story blocks sliced in half. Children sat under the sun with despondent expressions on their faces. In one scene, the words “Gaza, I promise we will rebuild it,” could be seen scrawled onto the wall of a damaged building. “I don’t know what crime civilians did to deserve this,” one resident, Tareq Ghanem, told CNN on Friday. “People are dying in the streets. The bodies are strewn in the streets for 4 to 5 (days), maybe a week, and no civil defense can evacuate them. Where is the international law?”Another Palestinian, Umm Ihab Arafat, said she and her family had been displaced at least four times since the war erupted. The mother told CNN she was desperate to return home for the wellbeing of her children. “We want a total ceasefire,” she said. “We don’t want to be displaced from one place to another. The fear is in the eyes of the young ones.” A CNN stringer in the area reported Friday there had been a partial withdrawal from several locations – including Tal Al-Hawa, Al-Rimal and the vicinity of the UNRWA headquarters on Al-Sina’a Street. Further south, in the coastal tent city of Al-Mawasi, two people were killed and five other Palestinians wounded by an airstrike on an aid warehouse, according to the Civil Defense. CNN has provided the Israeli military with the coordinates of the strike and sought comment.
On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed troops in central Gaza “located a weapons production workshop” and “funds used for terrorist activity,” adding that “terrorists who posed a threat to the troops in the area were eliminated.” The IDF also said that it had attacked the site of rocket launches in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, and had continued assaults in Rafah, southern Gaza. CNN cannot verify the IDF statements. Also in central Gaza, a CNN stringer reported that four Palestinians, including two children, had been killed by an Israeli airstrike in the New Nuseirat camp early Friday. CNN has asked the IDF about its operations in central Gaza. Almost the whole population – 1.9 million people – have been displaced, according to the UN. Earlier this week, several Palestinians told CNN they were terrified to leave areas in the north under Israeli evacuation orders amid heavy shelling, citing no promise of safety or accommodation. The UN warned that Israeli evacuation orders for people to leave Gaza City on Wednesday “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families,” adding that many have already been displaced multiple times.
Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed reporting.

Gaza talks explore alternative to Israeli troops on Gaza-Egypt border: sources
Ahmed Mohamed Hassan and Maayan Lubell/CAIRO (Reuters)/Fri, July 12, 2024 - Israeli and Egyptian ceasefire negotiators are in talks about an electronic surveillance system along the border between Gaza and Egypt that could allow Israel to pull back its troops from the area if a ceasefire is agreed, according to two Egyptian sources and a third source familiar with the matter. The question of whether Israeli forces stay on the border is one of the issues blocking a potential ceasefire deal because both Palestinian militant group Hamas and Egypt, a mediator in the talks, are opposed to Israel keeping its forces there. Israel is worried that if its troops leave the border zone, referred to by Israel as the Philadelphi corridor, Hamas' armed wing could smuggle in weapons and supplies from Egypt into Gaza via tunnels that would allow it to re-arm and again threaten Israel. A surveillance system, if the parties to the negotiations agree on the details, could therefore smooth the path to agreeing a ceasefire - though numerous other stumbling blocks remain. Discussions around a surveillance system on the border have been reported before, but Reuters is reporting for the first time that Israel is engaging in the discussions as part of the current round of talks, with a view to pulling back forces from the border area. The source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the discussions are about "basically sensors that would be built on the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi (corridor).""The idea is obviously to detect tunnels, to detect any other ways that they'd be trying to smuggle weapons or people into Gaza. Obviously this would be a significant element in a hostage agreement." Asked if this would be significant for a ceasefire deal because it would mean Israeli soldiers would not have to be on the Philadelphi corridor, the source said: "Correct." After Reuters published this article, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying it was "absolute fake news" that Israel is discussing withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor.
"The prime minister insists that Israel remain on the Philadelphi corridor. He has instructed the negotiating teams accordingly, made this clear to U.S. representatives this week, and updated the Security Cabinet to this effect last night," the statement said. The statement from Netanyahu's office appeared to diverge from remarks made on Tuesday by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant said, according to his office: "A solution is required that will stop smuggling attempts and will cut off potential supply for Hamas, and will enable the withdrawal of IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) troops from the corridor, as part of a framework for the release of hostages."The two Egyptian security sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israeli negotiators had spoken about a high-tech surveillance system. Egypt was not opposed to that, if it was supported and paid for by the United States, according to the two Egyptian sources. They said though Egypt would not agree to anything that would change border arrangements between Israel and Egypt set out in a prior peace treaty. At a military event on Thursday, Netanyahu said he could only agree to a deal that preserved Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border, but he did not spell out if that meant having troops physically present there. Talks are underway in Qatar and Egypt on a deal, backed by Washington, that would allow a pause in the fighting in Gaza, now in its 10th month, and the release of hostages held by Hamas. Israel started its assault on the Gaza Strip last October after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, its forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to medical authorities in Gaza. Israeli officials have said during the war that Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt's Sinai region to smuggle arms. Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling. Israel's advance into southern Gaza's Rafah area in early May led to the closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza and a sharp reduction in the amount of international aid entering the Palestinian territory. Egypt says it wants aid deliveries to Gaza to resume, but that a Palestinian presence should be restored at the Rafah crossing for it to reopen.

UN chief says no alternative to UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA
REUTERS/July 12, 2024
NEW YORK: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres declared on Friday that there is no alternative to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA and 118 countries backed the relief organization as indispensable, amid stepped up efforts by Israel to dismantle it. The UN Relief and Works Agency provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Since war erupted nine months ago between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, UN officials have stressed UNRWA is the backbone of aid operations. “My appeal to everyone is this: Protect UNRWA, protect UNRWA staff, and protect UNRWA’s mandate — including through funding,” Guterres told an UNRWA pledging conference in New York on Friday. “Let me be clear: there is no alternative to UNRWA.”Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long-called for UNRWA to be dismantled, accusing it of anti-Israeli incitement, and Israel’s parliament is currently considering designating UNRWA as a terrorist organization. Several countries halted their funding to UNRWA following accusations by Israel that some of the agency’s staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Most donors have since resumed their funding, while the UN is conducting an internal investigation. UNRWA has been hit hard during the conflict in Gaza — 195 staff have been killed. “UNRWA is also being targeted in other ways,” Guterres said. “Staff have been the subject of increasingly violent protests and virulent misinformation and disinformation campaigns.”“Some have been detained by Israeli security forces, and subsequently reported mistreatment and even torture,” he said, adding that in the West Bank the presence and movements of UNRWA staff have also been severely restricted by Israel. The Israeli military has said it acts according to Israeli and international law and those it arrests get access to food, water, medication and proper clothing. Israel accuses UNRWA of complicity with Hamas, saying the militant Islamist group was embedded within the UN agency’s infrastructure. UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war. Jordan’s UN Ambassador Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud said on Friday ahead of the pledging event that 118 countries had signed on to a joint statement supporting UNRWA and its work. The statement underlined “that UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza, and recognizing that no organization can replace or substitute UNRWA’s capacity.”

Israeli strike kills 4 aid workers in Gaza ‘safe zone,’ UK-based group says
AP/July 12, 2024
GAZA: A UK-based aid group said one of its employees in Gaza was killed Friday in an Israeli strike that hit its warehouse located inside an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone. The strike also killed three staffers from other aid groups using the warehouse, the Al-Khair foundation said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment on Friday’s strike. The warehouse was located in Muwasi, an area on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast that is part of a “humanitarian safe zone” where Israeli has told Palestinians to take refuge. After a two-week Israeli offensive in northern Gaza, dozens of bodies were collected throughout Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood and brought to Al-Ahli Hospital on Friday morning. Civil defense workers said they were still recovering dead and wounded from destroyed streets and buildings. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crammed into squalid tent camps in central and southern Gaza. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine. The top United Nations court has ordered Israel to take steps to protect Palestinians as it examines genocide allegations against Israeli leaders. Israel denies the charge.

Israel’s security cabinet extends military service: report
REUTERS/July 12, 2024
JERUSALEM: The Israeli government’s security cabinet has approved a plan to extend compulsory military service for men to 36 months from the current 32 months, Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported on Friday. The 36-month rule will stay in force for the next eight years, Ynet reported, after a meeting of the security cabinet that took place late on Thursday. The measure is likely to be submitted to a vote in a meeting of the full cabinet on Sunday, it said. Israel’s military commanders have said they need to boost manpower so they can sustain the war with the Hamas militant group in Gaza and a confrontation with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia. In a separate initiative, Israel is planning to send draft notices to thousands of ultra-Orthodox seminary students who were previously exempt from military service.

ICJ to deliver opinion on Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories on July 19
Reuters/July 12, 2024
The International Court of Justice will deliver its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories on July 19, the ICJ said on Friday. A record 52 countries presented arguments at what is also known as the World Court about the legal ramifications of Israel's actions in the territories in February after the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ in 2022 for an advisory, non-binding, opinion. While Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, the ICJ ruling next week could add political pressure over its devastating nine-month-old war against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.The UN-affiliated ICJ is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between nations and it gives advisory opinions on international legal issues.

More than half a million children in Gaza missing out on vital education amid Israeli-Hamas war: UNRWA
ARAB NEWS/July 12, 2024
LONDON: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees warned on Friday that the Gaza Strip was on the verge of “losing an entire generation of children” due to the ongoing Israeli aggression, now in its 10th month.
The organization said that more than 600,000 children had been unable to attend school this year because of the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war raging in the enclave.  UNRWA added it would be extremely difficult for children to recover the education they have missed out on since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli retaliation. It also noted that two-thirds of its schools in Gaza had been destroyed, while the rest had been converted into shelters for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. Statistics from the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health assert that approximately 16,000 children have died in Israeli bombings or from illness, famine and malnutrition since the start of the Israeli aggression. A letter penned by three experts published in the Lancet medical journal earlier this week said the number of children who might have died in the conflict could be much higher, with thousands of children believed to be trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

UN court to give view on consequences of Israel occupation
AFP/July 12, 2024
THE HAGUE: The UN's top court will next week hand down its view on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967, a case in which some 52 countries made submissions. Any opinion delivered by the International Court of Justice would be non-binding, but it will come amid mounting international legal pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza sparked by the brutal October 7 Hamas attacks. "A public sitting will take place at the Peace Palace in The Hague (on July 19) ... during which Judge Nawaf Salam... will read out the Advisory Opinion," the ICJ said on Friday. The ICJ held a week-long session in February to hear submissions from countries following a request from the United Nations late last year. The UN has asked the ICJ to hand down an "advisory opinion" on the "legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem". Most speakers during the hearings have demanded that Israel end its occupation, which came after a six-day Arab-Israeli war in 1967. But the United States said Israel should not be legally obliged to withdraw without taking its "very real security needs" into account. Speakers also warned a prolonged occupation posed an "extreme danger" to stability in the Middle East and beyond. Israel did not take part in the oral hearings. It submitted a written contribution, in which it described the questions the court had been asked as "prejudicial" and "tendentious". The case before the court is separate from one brought by South Africa against Israel for alleged genocide during its current offensive in Gaza. South Africa has gone to the ICJ several times arguing that the dire humanitarian situation means the court should issue further fresh emergency measures. In an initial ruling on January 26, the ICJ ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent acts of genocide during its military operation in Gaza. It also called for the unconditional release of hostages taken by Palestinian militant group Hamas during its October 7 assault that sparked the war.

60 bodies found after Israeli operation in Gaza City
AFP/July 12, 2024
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Around 60 bodies were found under the rubble of a Gaza City neighborhood, officials in the Hamas-run territory said Thursday, after Israel’s military declared an end to its operation there. The upsurge in fighting, bombardment and displacement in the eastern district of Shujaiya came as talks were held in mediator Qatar toward a truce and hostage release deal. US President Joe Biden told reporters that his administration was “making progress” toward a ceasefire agreement as he called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war. His statement came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of key Gaza territory along the border with Egypt — a condition that conflicts with Hamas’s position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire. Gaza’s civil defense agency said around 60 bodies had been found under the rubble in Shujaiya, after some of Gaza City’s heaviest combat in months. Hamas said Israel’s operation there had left “more than 300 residential units and more than 100 business destroyed.”Mohammed Nairi, a Shujaiya resident, said he and others returning to the neighborhood had seen “immense destruction that defies description. All the houses were demolished.”Israel’s military said on Wednesday it had completed its mission in Shujaiya after two weeks, but bombardments and fighting continued to shake Gaza City. Witnesses said tanks and troops had moved on to other parts of the city.
An AFP correspondent reported air strikes on the Sabra neighborhood while militants engaged in heavy clashes with Israeli forces in Tel Al-Hawa. Hamas reported 45 air strikes in the Gaza City area, as well as in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where Netanyahu had said the intense phase of the war was nearing its conclusion. Netanyahu’s office confirmed that its negotiating team, led by Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea, had returned to Israel following talks with mediators in Doha on Thursday. Speaking after the team’s return, Netanyahu said Israel needed control of the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border with Egypt to stop weapons reaching Hamas. He added that Israel must also be allowed to keep on fighting until its war aims of destroying Hamas and bringing home all hostages are achieved.
In Washington, Biden acknowledged “difficult, complex issues” remain between Israel and Hamas, but that progress was being made in reaching a ceasefire deal. “There’s a lot of things in retrospect I wish I had been able to convince the Israelis to do, but the bottom line is we have a chance now. It’s time to end this war,” he said after a NATO summit. The Washington Post had reported on Wednesday that both Israel and Hamas had “signalled their acceptance of an ‘interim governance’ plan” in which neither would rule the territory and a US-trained force of Palestinian Authority supporters would provide security. The Pentagon has also announced it will soon permanently end its problem-plagued effort to deliver aid to Gaza by sea from Cyprus using a temporary pier that had been repeatedly damaged by weather conditions. The UN’s health agency meanwhile said that only five trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed into Gaza last week.
“More than 34 of our trucks are waiting at the Al Arish crossing, and 850 pallets of medical supplies are awaiting collection. A further 40 trucks are waiting at Ismailiya in Egypt,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday on social media platform X. Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s health ministry. The Israeli army dropped leaflets on Wednesday warning “everyone in Gaza City” that it would “remain a dangerous combat zone.” The leaflets urged residents to flee, and set out designated escape routes from the area where the UN humanitarian office said up to 350,000 people had been sheltering. The UN said the latest evacuations “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times,” and who face “critical levels of need.” Hamas official Hossam Badran said that Israel was “hoping that the resistance will relinquish its legitimate demands” in truce negotiations. But “the continuation of massacres compels us to adhere to our demands,” he said. Israel’s military said operations were also continuing in the Rafah area where “dozens” of militants were killed over the past day. The military said it responded with air and ground strikes after five rockets were fired from the area toward Israel on Thursday. The military separately acknowledged Thursday it had “failed” to protect Kibbutz Beeri, where more than 100 people died during Hamas’s October 7 attacks.A summary of the inquiry, made public after being presented to kibbutz residents, said there had been a “lack of coordination” in the military response.

Rescuers say they find dozens of bodies after Israelis scale back Gaza City fight with Hamas
Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dawoud Abu Alkas/CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters)/Fri, July 12, 2024
Israeli forces pulled back from parts of Gaza City overnight, after a fierce, week-long offensive that met with Hamas resistance, leaving dozens of dead and wrecked homes and roads in the Palestinian enclave's biggest urban area, rescuers said. The offensive, 10 months into Israel's campaign to eliminate Hamas militants, took place as U.S.-backed mediators sought to finalise a peace deal that would free remaining hostages taken by the militants in their cross-border rampage on Oct. 7. The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams had collected around 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces over the past week from the area of Tel Al-Hawa and the edges of the Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City. While tanks withdrew from some areas, Israeli snipers and tanks continued to control some high ground, residents and rescue teams said, warning residents against trying to return. "There are bodies scattered in the streets, dismembered bodies, there are bodies of entire families, there are also bodies inside a home of an entire family that was completely burned," Gaza Strip Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said on Friday in comments carried by media in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israel's military said it had found drones and other weaponry in what is called a Hamas combat complex inside the former UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City and had evacuated civilians from the area before attacking. "The troops engaged in close-quarters combat with terrorist cells that had fortified themselves inside the UNRWA compound," it said, adding that it had also found an important Hamas tunnel nearby and weapons production under a university building. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire, killing and wounding many. There has been no Israeli army comment on those claims. Home to more than a quarter of Gaza's residents before the war, Gaza City was largely razed to the ground in late 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to homes in the ruins before Israel once again ordered them out.
Dozens of residents returned again on Friday to check the damage after civil emergency teams put out fires in the early hours. Reuters footage showed wrecked roads and buildings, including the former UNWRA headquarters. Bodies wrapped in white shrouds and bearing the names of the dead women and men lay on the floor at Al-Ahli Hospital.
AID WORKERS KILLED
Musa Al-Dahdouh recalled heavy aerial and tank fire and said Israeli forces had detained and interrogated his two sons and their wives and children before allowing them to leave. "My mother is in a wheelchair, my wife as well, as she has metal in her arms and legs. My grandson is paralyzed in the legs, his father had to carry him on his back," he said. In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza, Hamas media said four people working for the Al-Khair Foundation, a Muslim NGO based in Britain and Turkey, were killed in an air strike at an aid distribution centre. Arab mediators, backed by the United States, are trying to reach a ceasefire deal that would free Israelis held hostage by Hamas in return for many Palestinians jailed by Israel. On Friday, a senior Hamas official blamed Israel for a failure to build on momentum created when the Islamist faction dropped a key demand in the U.S.-drafted ceasefire offer a week ago to clear the way for a deal. "Israel hasn't given a clear stance over Hamas proposal," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters, accusing Israel of "stalling and wasting time." There was no immediate comment from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he remained committed to the Gaza ceasefire framework and accused Hamas of making demands that contradicted it, without saying what those demands were. Two Egyptian sources said on Thursday that talks had made progress but security arrangements and ceasefire guarantees were still being worked on. Part of the discussion concerned an electronic surveillance system along the border between Gaza and Egypt that could allow Israel to pull back its troops from the area, according to two Egyptian sources and a third source familiar with the matter. Israel dismissed the report as "absolute fake news" saying that Netanyahu insists that Israel remains in the area. Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say.

A rapprochement between Syria and Turkey is on the table. Here's what it might mean for the region
Abby Sewell And Suzan Fraser/ANKARA (AP)/July 12, 2024
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Assad have recently signaled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade.
Erdogan has said that he hopes to arrange a meeting with Assad soon for the first time since the countries broke off relations in 2011 as mass anti-government protests and a brutal crackdown by security forces in Syria spiraled into a still-ongoing civil war.
Speaking at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday, Erdogan said he had called on Assad two weeks ago to either come to Turkey for the meeting or to hold it in a third country, and that he had assigned Turkey’s foreign minister to follow up.
Turkey backed Syrian insurgent groups seeking to overthrow Assad and still maintains forces in the opposition-held northwest, a sore point for Damascus.
This is not the first time that there have been attempts to normalize relations between the two countries, but previous attempts failed to gain traction.
Here’s a look at what might happen this time around:
What happened at their last talks
Russia, which is one of the strongest backers of Assad's government but also has close ties with Turkey, has been pushing for a return to diplomatic relations.
In December 2022, the Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministers held talks in Moscow, the first ministerial level meeting between rivals Turkey and Syria since 2011. Russia also brokered meetings between Syrian and Turkish officials last year.
However, the talks fizzled, and Syrian officials publicly continued to blast Turkey's presence in northwest Syria. Assad said in an interview with Sky News Arabia last August that the objective of Erdogan's overtures was “to legitimize the Turkish occupation in Syria.”
What's different now
Russia appears to once again be promoting the talks, but this time around, Iraq — which shares a border with both Turkey and Syria — has also offered to mediate, as it previously did between regional arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Aron Lund, a fellow with the Century International think tank, said Iraq may have taken the initiative as a way to deflect pressure from Turkey to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and has bases in northern Iraq. By pushing rapprochement with Syria, Baghdad may be trying to “create some form of positive engagement with the Turks, kick the can down the road, and deflect the threat of an intervention," Lund said.
The geopolitical situation in the region has also changed with the war in Gaza and fears of a wider regional conflict. Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, an analyst on Turkey and director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, said that both countries may be feeling insecure and seeking new alliances in the face of the war's potential regional ripple effects.
What Turkey and Syria want
From Erdogan’s side, Unluhisarcikli said, the attempt to engage is likely driven in part by the increasing anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey. Erdogan is likely hoping for a deal that could pave the way for the return of many of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in his country. From the Syrian side, a return to relations with Turkey would be another step toward ending Assad’s political isolation in the region after more than a decade as a pariah due to his government's brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011 and alleged war crimes afterward. And despite their differences over Turkey's presence in northwest Syria, Damascus and Ankara both have an interest in curtailing the autonomy of Kurdish groups in northeast Syria. Turkey may be concerned that the security situation in northeast Syria could deteriorate in the event that the U.S. withdraws troops it currently has stationed there as part of a coalition against the Islamic State militant group, Unluhisarcikli said. That could require Turkey to "cooperate or at least coordinate with Syria, to manage the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal,” he said. Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian researcher and visiting professor at the European University Institute in Florence, said the two governments likely hope for modest “economic gains” in a rapprochement. While trade never completely stopped, it currently goes through intermediaries, he said, while restoring diplomatic relations would allow official commerce to resume and make trade more fluid.
The prospects for an agreement
Analysts agreed that the talks are unlikely to bring about the full Turkish withdrawal from northwest Syria that Damascus has called for or any other major shift in conditions on the ground in the near term. Although the two countries' interests “actually overlap to a large degree,” Lund said, “there are also major disagreements" and “a lot of bad blood and bitterness” that could impede even “lower-level dealmaking.” Both Erdogan and Assad may also want to wait for the outcome of U.S. elections, which could determine the future American footprint in the region, before making a major deal, he said. In the long run, Lund said, “The logic of the situation dictates Turkish-Syrian collaboration in some form. ... They’re neighbors. They’re stuck with each other and the current stalemate does them no good.”Unluhisarcikli agreed that a “grand bargain” is unlikely to come out of the present talks, but the increased dialogue could lead to “some confidence building measures,” he said. Daher said the most probable outcome of the talks is some “security agreements” between the two sides, but not a full Turkish withdrawal from Syria in the short term, particularly since the Syrian government army is too weak to control northwest Syria by itself. “On its own, it’s not able to take back the whole of the northwest — it needs to deal with Turkey,” he said. How people in Turkey and Syria view a potential agreement. In Turkey and in government-controlled Syria, many view the prospects of a rapprochement positively. In northwest Syria, on the other hand, protests have broken out against the prospect of a normalization of relations between Ankara — which had previously positioned itself as a protector of the Syrian opposition — and Damascus. Kurds in Syria have also viewed the potential rapprochement with apprehension. The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria said in a statement that the prospective reconciliation would be a “conspiracy against the Syrian people" and a “clear legitimization of the Turkish occupation” of previously Kurdish-majority areas that were seized by Turkish-backed forces.

The Kremlin Is Angry at Biden’s Remarks About Putin at NATO Summit
Yves Herman/The Daily Beast/July 12, 2024
The Kremlin has said that it finds U.S. President Joe Biden’s comments at the NATO Summit to be “unacceptable” and that the world paid attention to the errors that Biden makes. At the NATO Summit on Thursday, Biden drew gasps from the crowd as he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin,” to which Zelensky reacted by smiling and shaking his head. When Zelensky took the microphone, he said, “I’m better” than Putin. Biden responded, “You’re a hell of a lot better.” Biden also called his own Vice President Kamala Harris, “Vice President Donald Trump,” at a time when he had to prove to the world that he was fit to serve another four years in office. Biden has repeatedly voiced his disdain for the war in Ukraine and called for a united approach to supporting Ukrainians. He has called Putin a bully and warned that if he is not stopped and if he wins Ukraine, the war will only continue.
However, during the three-day summit, Biden also referred to Putin as a “murderous madman” regarding his brutal, nearly two-and-a-half-year-long war in Ukraine. “We continue to consider it absolutely unacceptable and impermissible behavior for a head of state to make such disrespectful remarks about other heads of state,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, referring to remarks Biden made on Putin, without going further into detail. “This is unacceptable to us, and we don’t think it in any way makes an American head of state look good. This is something that we pay direct attention to and something that is absolutely unacceptable to us,” he added. Peskov said in regards to the Biden turmoil and the upcoming U.S. election that it was “an internal U.S. topic,” despite there being constant reports that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and rumors that the country might be working to ensure that former president Donald Trump secures another term in office.The NATO Summit was held in the U.S. this week as members pledged their unwavering support for Ukraine as it fights against Russia’s war of attrition. Russia is making gains on the frontlines of Ukraine, as the country faces a shortage of manpower and weapons at a crucial point in the war. However, the purpose of the NATO Summit, which saw the 32 members agree to a minimum baseline funding of $43 billion to Ukraine over the next year, appeared to be overshadowed by calls for Biden to pull out of the presidential race. Zelensky has not made comments on yesterday’s mix-up, but in regards to the latest aid package for Ukraine, Zelensky wrote on the social media platform X on Friday, “We are doing everything to make Russian terror lose. And not only our country needs it, but everyone needs it, every partner, all nations. And I thank everyone who supports Ukraine. Thank you for the important decisions that help defend lives.”

Biden faces more pressure from Democrats to abandon re-election bid
REUTERS/July 12, 2024
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden faced more calls from fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid on Friday, following a news conference in which he delivered nuanced responses but occasionally stumbled over his words. It was unclear whether Biden’s performance would convince doubters in his party that he is their best bet to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election and serve another four-year term in the White House. At least 17 congressional Democrats so far have called for him to drop out and allow the party to pick another standard-bearer, including some who announced their positions after the news conference on Thursday night. Democrats are worried that Biden’s low public approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Trump win the White House. But Biden made clear that he did not plan to step aside. “If I show up at the convention and everybody says they want someone else, that’s the democratic process,” Biden said, before shifting to the stage whisper he often uses for emphasis to add, “It’s not gonna happen.”Biden perhaps did not reassure those who were spooked by his poor presidential debate performance against Trump on June 27. At one point, he referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump.” That came just hours after he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room. Biden occasionally garbled his responses at the news conference, yet he also delivered detailed assessments of global issues, including Ukraine’s war with Russia and the Israel-Gaza conflict, that served as a reminder of his decades of experience on the world stage. Some Democrats were not reassured. “We must put forward the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden,” said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who called on the president to end his campaign after the news conference. But one influential party figure, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, reiterated his support on Friday morning. “I am all in. I’m riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes,” he said on NBC’s “Today” program. A senior campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity called the performance the “worst of all worlds. Not good. But not bad enough to make him change his mind ... It’ll give some enough cover to back him publicly, only to say he’s not up for it privately.”Fundraiser Dmitri Melhorn said other donors told him they saw a strong performance from the president. “This is the person who can beat Trump. The mistakes are baked in and the upside is strong,” he told Reuters. Biden will hold a rally on Friday in Detroit, where his campaign says he will focus on the “dangers” of Trump’s agenda. The Michigan city is also headquarters of the United Auto Workers labor union, whose leaders endorsed Biden but now are assessing their options, three sources told Reuters. With most US voters firmly divided into ideological camps, opinion polls show the race remains close. An NBC/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50 percent to 48 percent, a slight increase from his position before the debate. Biden fared slightly worse than Trump when third-party candidates were included in the questioning. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Biden and Trump tied at 40 percent each. But some nonpartisan analysts have warned that Biden is losing ground in the handful of competitive states that will determine the outcome of the election.

NATO Summit: Biden stumbles in speech, overshadows aid announcement for Ukraine
LBCI/July 12, 2024
The NATO summit held in Washington to commemorate the alliance's 75th anniversary was marked by significant developments that heightened tensions with Russia. The United States announced plans to deploy long-range missiles, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, in Germany. These missiles, known for their precision and range exceeding 2,000 kilometers, will bolster NATO's defensive capabilities and serve as a strong deterrent against potential Russian threats. In addition to the cruise missiles, discussions were held regarding deploying the Patriot air defense system in Germany, although no decision was reached. The Patriot system is designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles and hostile aircraft, providing effective protection against aerial attacks. The Kremlin responded by stating that these moves have rekindled the characteristics of the Cold War and direct confrontation. As part of the increased confrontation with Russia, Washington and its allies have provided Ukraine with a new aid package worth $225 million, which includes weapons and equipment for the military.  The aid package comprises a Patriot missile battery, NASAMS advanced air defense system munitions, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, HIMARS rocket artillery system munitions, TOW missiles, Javelin, and AT-4 anti-tank systems, among other items. However, President Joe Biden's verbal gaffes nearly overshadowed the aid announcement, causing embarrassment and mockery. However, the decisions made at the NATO summit, including the deployment of Tomahawk missiles in Germany, underscore the alliance's commitment to strengthening its defenses against Russia, a move Moscow views as a direct threat to its security and even its existence, according to Kremlin statements. This significantly increases the risk of escalation in the region.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on July 12-13/2024
'Palestine': Just The Latest Pretext for Bringing Down Western Civilization
Robert Williams/Gatestone Institute/July 12, 2024
The university encampments, it turns out, were planned as early as November 2023, belying any claims that the student protests occurred organically and spontaneously.
The mainstream media, the authors say, is complicit because it fails to vet the activists and financiers behind the pro-Hamas ecosystem, preferring instead to portray the protests as if they are spontaneous occurrences.
"The protesters are being generously funded and expertly coached by the same anti-U.S., anti-capitalist, anti-West puppet-masters who sprang Black Lives Matter on us a decade ago... It's all part of a giant web, a revolutionary ecosystem, that spans the globe from Havana to Shanghai and coordinates and sustains these often-violent, always-threatening protests." — Mike Gonzales, Heritage Foundation, June 27, 2024.
At the May 2024 "People's Conference for Palestine" in Detroit, featuring US Rep. Rashida Tlaib, among many others, the People's Forum's executive director Manolo De Los Santos, to great applause, called for the complete destruction of the United States.
The People's Forum, it seems, is closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
One protester said: "The actual conversation is getting rid of this country, getting rid of America, getting rid of the West. This is what this [the protest] is for. Everyone here understands that at some level we need to get rid of America completely."
"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution," a writer in the 1960s radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) publication, New Left Notes, wrote.
The Communist protesters evidently do not want to just "Free Palestine" by "genociding" the Jews; they want to get rid of everyone that stands in the way of their revolution, which is why fighting this "revolutionary ecosystem" is not only about antisemitism and the Jews but an issue for everyone who wants to preserve Western civilization.
Several of the tax-exempt groups inside this revolutionary ecosystem... apparently have links to terrorist organizations, about which the US Treasury Department, while targeting allegedly "conservative organizations," seems to have done exactly nothing.
[US Rep. Jim] Banks, in his letter to the IRS, pointed out that tax-exempt organizations that incite civil unrest do not qualify for exemption.
In the past year, the Black Lives Matter agenda seems to have been replaced with an agenda that is "pro" the terrorist group Hamas as the newest, most efficient way to seek the destruction of the USA and by extension, the West.
In the past year, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) agenda seems to have been replaced with an agenda that is "pro" the terrorist group Hamas as the newest, most efficient way to seek the destruction of the United States and by extension, the West.
In a new report, "How the Revolutionary Eco System Sustains Pro-Palestinian Protesters and the BLM Movement," published on June 25, Mike Gonzalez and Mary Mobley of the Heritage Foundation concluded:
"The infrastructure of organizations sustaining the anti-Israel protests today is virtually identical to the one that has supported the Black Lives Matter organizations since their birth in the middle 2010s.... It is deceptively powerful, already having altered America in profound ways. Today, this ecosystem—which consists of activist organizations, fiscal sponsors, donors, and radical media groups—is being tapped by the anti-Israel protesters, but they aim to do much more than destroy Israel. Their goal is to dismantle Western democracies, values, and culture, and their primary target is the United States. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that regimes such as communist China, Cuba, and Venezuela are increasingly part of this ecosystem."
In a separate article, describing the report, Gonzalez wrote:
"Well-known examples of the activist groups we examine are American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP); the Palestinian Youth Movement; Codepink; The People's Forum; and the Act Now to Stop War & End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition...
"Among the fiscal sponsors... are the Alliance for Global Justice; the Tides Foundation; the Westchester Peace Action Committee (WESPAC); the Common Counsel Foundation; Thousand Currents, etc. The donors are also well-known: George Soros's Open Society foundations: the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Grassroots International, etc.
"The radical media groups we examine are somewhat less well known: BT Media; Common Dreams; the Grayzone; and Tricontinental."
The authors contend that the pro-Hamas ecosystem, if left to cause the havoc it continues to unleash, could cause the kind of fundamental damage to the US that the BLM movement has been allowed to do since its establishment in 2013, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training and principles in virtually all areas of life, defunding police, the acceptance by major cultural institutions, including schools, the false claim that the US is "systemically racist" and is ruled by "a regime of white supremacy."
Pro-Hamas protesters have managed to put pressure on President Joe Biden to take measures against Israel and have orchestrated Jew-hatred to explode in the US, especially on university campuses and in K-12 schools. The mainstream media, the authors say, is complicit because it fails to vet the activists and financiers behind the pro-Hamas ecosystem, preferring instead to portray the protests as if they are spontaneous occurrences.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The university encampments, it turns out, were planned as early as November 2023, belying any claims that the student protests occurred organically and spontaneously. America's universities, in addition, appear to be deeply infiltrated by the "guards" of this revolutionary ecosystem, eager to make American students cadres in the Islamist-Sino-Russo-Communist revolution that they would apparently like to see ending democracy, economic opportunity, the free-market system, freedom of speech, individual rights, equal justice under the law, the separation of powers, checks and balances, and everything else that the US represents.
Gonzales writes:
"The protesters are being generously funded and expertly coached by the same anti-U.S., anti-capitalist, anti-West puppet-masters who sprang Black Lives Matter on us a decade ago.
"It's all part of a giant web, a revolutionary ecosystem, that spans the globe from Havana to Shanghai and coordinates and sustains these often-violent, always-threatening protests."
They evidently do not hide their goals in any way. At the May 2024 "People's Conference for Palestine" in Detroit, featuring US Rep. Rashida Tlaib, among many others, the People's Forum's executive director Manolo De Los Santos, to great applause, called for the complete destruction of the United States:
"We have to bring down this empire with one million cuts, and those one million cuts have to come from every sector of struggle in this room."
The People's Forum, it seems, is closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
Osama Abuirshaid, executive director of American Muslims For Palestine, openly told students in April, at the George Washington University Encampment, what his organization is plotting:
"Now, we know what America stands for. We know what these elite colleges stand for. They are only structures in an imperial project. Israel is only another structure in an imperial project. Zionism is no less evil than white supremacy or any sort of supremacy... we are going to change this country forever... You don't need to be a Palestinian, or Arab, or a Muslim to stand with justice and to stand with the Palestinians...We will take back these colleges as we will take back America, as we will take back Palestine, as we will take back our humanity."
While Islamists and Communist revolutionaries seem to share only one thing in common – their hatred of the US and Western civilization – protesters have made no secret that their actions are only nominally about Palestine. One protester said:
"The actual conversation is getting rid of this country, getting rid of America, getting rid of the West. This is what this [the protest] is for. Everyone here understands that at some level we need to get rid of America completely."
He was then asked where Americans should go if the protesters get rid of the US. "Decolonization," he said.
"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution," a writer in the 1960s radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) publication New Left Notes wrote.
The Communist protesters evidently do not want to just "Free Palestine" by "genociding" the Jews; they want to get rid of everyone that stands in the way of their revolution, which is why fighting this "revolutionary ecosystem" is not only about antisemitism and the Jews but an issue for everyone who wants to preserve Western civilization.
Several of the tax-exempt groups inside this revolutionary ecosystem, as mentioned by the Heritage Foundation and others, apparently have links to terrorist organizations, about which the US Treasury Department, while targeting allegedly "conservative organizations," seems to have done exactly nothing.
US Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote a June 27 letter to the IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, asking, among other things, for the IRS to examine the tax-exempt status of these groups. Banks wrote:
"[T]he Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) has retained its tax-exempt status despite funding Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a cutout for the designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
"Samidoun held a 'Resistance 101' virtual training at Columbia University in March 2024 and then helped set up an encampment on its campus. Though the IRS hasn't imposed any legal or financial consequences on the AFGJ yet, PayPal and other payment platforms have banned the group due to its illegal connections to the PFLP. A similar organization, the Westchester People's Action Coalition (WESPAC), sponsored far-left anti-Zionist organization Within Our Lifetime until at least 2022. Within Our Lifetime openly supports Hamas, PFLP, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and has organized disruptive protests that shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, in violation of local ordinances."
On July 4, Within our Lifetime, among other pro-Hamas activist groups, sponsored protests to "flood the 4th of July with Palestinian flags for Gaza" in yet another act to teach young people to subvert American traditions. American and Israeli flags were burned, in the style of Iranian mullahs. In Washington Square Park in New York City, young people, decked out in keffiyehs and facemasks, were photographed setting fire to an American flag.
Banks, in his letter to the IRS, pointed out that tax-exempt organizations that incite civil unrest do not qualify for exemption:
"The IRS has previously ruled that organizations that incite civil unrest and violate local ordinances do not qualify as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3). WESPAC also sponsors Grassroots Global Justice, an alliance of over 60 U.S. groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement, which sent a delegation to Cuba in violation of U.S. sanctions. Grassroot Global Justice has organized anti-Israel protests, including an illegal protest at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in December 2023 resulting in 50 arrests.
"Additionally, WESPAC is the principal sponsor for National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) and Al-Awda. NSJP is the largest organizer of anti-Israel campus protests, and was founded by Hatem Al Bazian, a former fundraiser for a pro-Palestinian organization that had its assets frozen for aiding Hamas, a designated FTO."
The issue of tax-exemption should have been dealt with ages ago. The time for sending polite letters is over, as anti-American, pro-terrorist organizations and networks, enabled by a corrupt or uncaring political class and media, use race, lawfare, Gaza and "Palestine" to achieve their authoritarian nirvana.
**Robert Williams is a researcher based in the United States.
© 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.

Many in Lebanon fear they will be caught in Hezbollah-Israel crossfire
Nabih Bulos/Los Angeles Times/July 12, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/07/131773/
From her balcony on the edge of this Lebanese border village, Greta Nakhleh-Allam, 33, can see Israel in almost every direction.
And every morning, as the shelling between the Israeli army and Hezbollah militants starts anew, she wonders whether the clashes will end or turn into an all-consuming conflagration.
"I'm tired of this war, tired of the life we're living," said Nakhleh-Allam, watching her 11-year-old son Jacob chase the family dog, Bella.
"We thought it would last a week. Then we thought a month. Christmas passed. New Year passed. Easter passed. And we're still waiting for the fighting to end. And now they say it will get bigger."
That question — will the fighting end or escalate? — is being asked across Lebanon these days, but perhaps nowhere with more urgency than Rmeish. This village of about 11,000 people, the largest of the dozen Christian areas scattered across the Hezbollah-dominated south, finds itself on the front line of a fight that few here see as theirs.
"It's not our cause. It's not our business to do this for [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar," said Said Allam, a 42-year-old onetime soldier and now supermarket owner. Sinwar is believed to be the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and sparked a ferocious counteroffensive in Gaza that health authorities there say has claimed more than 38,000 lives.
The day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted, Hezbollah — a Shiite Islamist paramilitary group and political party that is part of an alliance with Hamas — fired missiles into Israel in a "solidarity campaign." Israel retaliated, and Allam watched half his neighbors join the more than 90,000 Lebanese displaced by the violence; in Israel's north, roughly 60,000 have been evacuated.
Economic life in Rmeish ground to a halt. Most tobacco farmers couldn't reach their fields, losing not only their crops — the main source of income here — but also the chance to plant for next season. Summer engagements and weddings, bringing in an annual $2 million in business for restaurants, were canceled or relocated. And the Lebanese expatriates who would crowd the village during vacations and holidays have mostly stayed away.
"I've invested half a million dollars in this store and I'm just watching it lose money," Allam said, pointing to a row of well-stocked shelves.
As if addressing Hezbollah, he added: "You want Jerusalem? Go get it, but not like this, because you've destroyed everyone along with you."
Allam's frustration — shared by many here — cuts to the core of the schism over Hezbollah and, in broader ways, Lebanese society's support for the Palestinian cause.
Hezbollah has a long history of clashes with Israel. Its support for Gazans has won it praise among Lebanon's Sunnis and the wider Arab world, where people contrast the group's activism with the inaction of their own governments.
But many Lebanese also remember the late 1960s, when Palestinian factions turned the south into what some called "Fatahland" — a reference to Fatah, the largest of them — and used it as a staging ground for attacks against Israel.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in a bid to rout Palestinian fighters and create a buffer zone — a campaign that metastasized into an occupation that prompted the rise of an Iran-backed Shiite Islamist group that came to be Hezbollah. After the Israelis withdrew in 2000, Hezbollah — by then not only a guerrilla force, but also a well-organized political and social party — kept its weapons, arguing that "Islamic resistance" was the only deterrent against future Israeli assaults.
The two sides faced off again in 2006, in a devastating war that killed around 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and saw wide swaths of Lebanon obliterated by bombs before it ended in a stalemate. Rmeish suffered damage, though nowhere near as much as Shiite villages loyal to Hezbollah. Instead, it became a sanctuary for about 30,000 fleeing the violence.
The war's end brought relative peace. Until nine months ago, the two sides had kept a wary but cordial distance, with only an occasional tit-for-tat shelling.
If a wider war were to erupt, Israeli officials have vowed to inflict greater destruction than in 2006. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently threatened to “turn Beirut into Gaza.”
But Israeli military planners acknowledge that Hezbollah — with more than 100,000 fighters and advanced weaponry — would be a far tougher foe than Hamas, one that could strike deep into Israel. And Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said any Israeli offensive would spur combat with "no restraint and no rules and no ceilings."
Nevertheless, Hezbollah has to take Lebanon's other communities into consideration, said Michael Young, a Lebanon expert with the Carnegie Middle East Center.
"Everyone knows a war is the worst option, and yet Hezbollah has embarked the country on this conflict," he said. "Hezbollah is aware that if the situation spun out of control, their position would be damaged. They want to avoid this."
Among residents displaced from the now-emptied Shiite villages in the south, support remains strong — at least outwardly.
"We, the people of the south, it's our sons, sisters and loved ones who are getting killed, to protect our country," said Balqis Dawood, a 50-year-old homemaker from Kfar Kila, one of the towns hardest hit by Israeli barrages.
A huge crowd surrounds a coffin draped with a yellow-and-green flag, topped with a wreath
At the funeral of a senior Hezbollah leader assassinated by Israel this month, Dawood was defiant, saying that though her house had been destroyed and her family displaced, they would return and rebuild. To those among her compatriots who questioned Hezbollah's fight, she said: "We're the people of the resistance. Those who don't like it should leave Lebanon."
Standing nearby was Ali, 33, who works at a protein supplements company and serves as a reservist with Hezbollah. Dressed in fatigues and a crimson beret, he said he would fight in the south if called.
"If someone comes into your home and invades it, do you do nothing?" he said. "The Israelis have said after Gaza they're coming here. So we're going to stop them."
There has been talk in Israeli political circles of reoccupying southern Lebanon as a buffer zone against Hezbollah, a situation that would certainly see Rmeish fall under Israeli control.
It wouldn't be the first time. During Israel's occupation, southern Lebanese villages such as Rmeish became part of an Israeli-backed mini-state. Fighting age males were obliged to join the South Lebanon Army — many did so willingly — and ran security operations alongside Israeli troops, including the imprisonment and torture of their compatriots.
Others forged economic ties: About 4,000 Lebanese crossed the border every day to work in farms and industrial areas in the Galilee and Tel Aviv.
"All the fancy houses you see in Rmeish were built with that money," said Najib al-Amil, the 72-year-old priest of Rmeish's Maronite Church.
"If you shouted in Hebrew in the street, three quarters of the people here would answer you back," said one grocer, who didn't give his name to avoid harassment.
Few would welcome another occupation.
"I know Israel has designs on the area, but I can't stop them with a rifle," Al-Amil said, a note of exasperation in his voice. "Escalate or stop, either war or no war. But now there's no war and no peace. It cannot stay like this."
Young, of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said that reoccupying to create a buffer zone ignores the long-range arsenal Hezbollah has at its disposal, rendering moot any security cushion the Israeli army can realistically carve out in Lebanon.
"There will be no stability in northern Israel unless there's stability in southern Lebanon," Young said. "The best thing that the Israelis can hope for is a negotiated settlement or a return to the status quo."
So far Rmeish has remained removed from the fighting, even as Hezbollah uses forests and grasslands on the village outskirts to wage attacks on Israel. In March, when armed men came to set up a mobile rocket launcher in the village, residents rang church bells to scare them off; Hezbollah denied it was involved but agreed with village leaders to keep Rmeish out of its operational area.
That has provided some solace to residents, though less so as the months drag on and hostilities escalate.
The carcasses of goats lying on the ground in a hilly landscape
An Israeli airstrike that hit a house also killed hundreds of goats in the Toura mountain region in southern Lebanon, on July 8, 2024. The strikes come amid heightened tensions between Lebanon's Hezbollah group and the Israeli military along the nations' border. (Mohammad Zaatari / Associated Press)
"If it stays like this, it's fine, so long as we're not displaced," said Allam, the supermarket owner. Still, he had taken precautions: He was sending his two sons, 21 and 18, to Munich, Germany, to find work.
"I wanted them to stay here and build something together in this village, which we all love. But everything is telling me there's no future," he said.
Allam said he sees his presence in Rmeish as a matter of preserving Christianity in the area. He would be staying no matter what, he said, pointing to bullet wounds in his shoulder and stomach he sustained during his army service in 2007.
"These should have killed me, so now every day is a new life," he said. "Whatever happens, I won't go."

Why the Iranian Navy keeps losing warships in accidents, after its Sahand frigate capsized and sank
Paul Iddon/Business Insider/July 12, 2024
An Iranian Navy frigate sank two days after capsizing in port.
The latest incident suggests a lack of training and a design flaw with the Iran-built ship.
Iran's Navy is losing clout and budget to the powerful Revolutionary Guard's fleet.
In another embarrassing incident for Iran's Navy, the frigate Sahand capsized on Sunday before completely sinking on Tuesday in the shallow waters of the port of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. It was the third navy ship Iran has lost in an accident since 2018.
According to state-controlled Iranian media, the Sahand initially "lost its balance due to water leakage into the tanks" on Sunday and rolled onto its side, with only part of the hull and sonar dome appearing above water, resulting in at least one fatality and an undisclosed number of injured, but "quickly returned to a balanced state." On Tuesday, however, local media reported the vessel had completely sunk, claiming a rope that was holding it broke. The string of accidents suggests a lack of baseline training and supervision at a time its conventional navy is losing traction to its paramilitary competitor, with one expert cautioning that sabotage should not be ruled out. It also may be the Iranian-made frigate has a design flaw that makes it too tippy.
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and expert on naval operations, believes the incident was "largely the result of poor maintenance and inadequate training.""The updated design probably didn't help because it raised the center of gravity, which will reduce its stability," Clark told Business Insider.
Iran launched the 315-feet-long, 1,300-ton vessel, named after another Iranian warship sunk by US forces during a 1988 naval clash, in late 2018. At the time, Iranian media boasted it could travel for approximately five months without refueling. It also had a helicopter pad, sophisticated radar, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.
Steven Horrell, a former naval intelligence officer and senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, suspects "maintenance and training played a part" in the accident.
"If the cause was a rapid influx of water into the ballast tanks or other compartments, that says that some material condition was lax, whether the setting of valves within the transfer systems or what hatches and doors and scuttles are supposed to be secured or open," Horrell told BI. An intake of water is usually supervised because too much water piped into one ballast tank or one side of the ship can cause the hull to heel or even topple. "And then it looks like whatever crew was aboard during that pier-side maintenance was not postured to respond."
While the Sahand's hull is "certainly salvageable," the CEPA fellow anticipates "a long process" for returning it to service.
"Electronics and seawater don't mix, and for that matter mechanical parts — the whole engineering plant and propulsion train — are subject to water damage and corrosion," Horrell said. "They will be replacing systems from stem to stern."
Iran's Navy lost two other warships to accidents in recent years.
In June 2021, it lost the 680-feet-long Kharg support ship, the Iranian Navy's largest by tonnage, in a fire, injuring 33. In January 2018, the 315-feet-long Damavand frigate, described as the navy's "most important warship on the Caspian Sea," sank after it hit the breakwater at Bandar-e Anzali port during high seas, killing two crew.
The Kharg incident is distinct since a fire destroyed that ship, and also because the vessel had been built by the United Kingdom.
Clark noted the Damavand, a ship in the same indigenous class as the Sahand, "ran aground and could have capsized because of instability created by the updated design."
"This calls into question the design itself, although proper training and maintenance would likely be able to mitigate the design shortfalls," Clark said. "At the very least, I cannot imagine any other countries being interested in Moudge-class frigates."
Horrell also noted that this class of frigates is based on the older Alvand-class frigates built by the UK for pre-revolutionary Iran in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
"They are indigenously designed, but based off the import Alvand-class," Horrell said. "If you put more superstructure on a similar hull, you might be creating center of gravity problems, which would contribute to the rapid rollover Sahand experienced."
In other words, more high weight on a ship increases the risk that if the ship heels it can act as a lever that rolls the ship over, a catastrophe that renders the ship useless and endangers its crew. Horrell also stressed that the three incidents were all different.
"A fire like on Kharg is a critical concern for every Navy; Damavand ran aground in reportedly terrible weather conditions in the Caspian Sea," Horrell said. "But one probable common thread is damage control. Every sailor on board should have some basic damage control training or firefighting training; these are all-hands operations."
Consequently, he believes "better damage control" and "training, professionalism, personnel" may have saved some of these ships and prevented injuries and loss of life. Furthermore, it could also "be a small reflection of government prioritization" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy over Iran's Navy.
"Budgets are not just ships and shipbuilding," Horrell said. "Budgets are training, maintenance, and personnel."Iran has two navies: its Navy, known as the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, and the naval arm of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary organization. For decades, the IRGC Navy patrolled the Persian Gulf north of the Strait of Hormuz using speedboats and fast patrol crafts, while the IRIN, with its larger warships, generally deployed in the seas beyond the Gulf. But in recent years, the IRGCN has built larger craft, including oceangoing vessels.
"If you look at the numerous incidents of unsafe and unprofessional interactions with the US Navy or other navies, those are the IRGCN," Horrell said.
The Shahid Hassan Bagheri is one of three new missile corvettes that are the most heavily armed warships in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy's fleet.
Iran's Navy is losing clout to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, which is getting more heavily armed ships like the Shahid Hassan Bagheri missile corvette.Morteza Nikoubazl/Getty Images
Since the 1979 revolution, the ruling authorities in Iran favored the IRGC over the regular military. "The IRGCN is certainly favored in the Iranian government, partly because it is seen as more loyal to the Supreme Leader and partly because it operates businesses that provide cash to government officials," Hudson's Clark said.
"The design flaws that seem to be a contributor to the problems experienced by these ships are not directly attributable to the government's budget priorities," Clark added. "But the lack of training and maintenance that directly led to these accidents can probably be traced to the IRIN having lower precedence in budget competitions to the IRGCN."Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst and senior fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted that "on the surface," the regime tries to portray the IRGCN and IRIN as cooperating, while the reality is much more sinister.
"In effect, the IRGC is eating into the IRIN's turf and budget with all these new 'oceangoing' vessels they are commissioning, while they were supposed to limit their area of responsibility to the littorals," Nadimi told BI. "Therefore, sabotage by the IRGC in order to undermine and weaken the IRIN in at least some of those cases should not be ruled out," Nadimi said. More generally, he noted the accidents "show a major flaw" in the IRIN command and "possible flaws in indigenous warship designs and production methods." "They are losing warships at such a pace in peacetime," Nadimi said. "Who knows how quickly they will lose ships in wartime!"

Question: “Does the Bible teach that the earth is flat?”
GotQuestions.org?/July 12, 2024
Answer: In attempts to discredit the reliability of the Bible, many skeptics claim that the Bible depicts a flat earth. Further, there are more than a few Christians who believe the Bible teaches the earth is flat. Even further, there are some people who simply question the scientific consensus and the seemingly overwhelming scientific evidence and/or see some sort of conspiracy to deceive humanity that the earth is spherical when it is, in fact, flat.
Regarding the biblical evidence, references such as Revelation 7:1 are cited, which speaks of “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth.” Some also point to Psalm 75:3, which says God holds “the pillars” of the earth firm. Other passages they claim teach a flat earth are Deuteronomy 13:7; Job 28:24; Psalm 48:10; and Proverbs 30:4; all of which reference the “ends” of the earth. So, are they correct? Does the Bible teach that the earth is flat?
The truth is, the Bible does not comment on the shape of Planet Earth. It does not say that the earth is flat, and it does not say that it is spherical. Let’s take a closer look at some of the commonly cited passages that supposedly depict a flat earth:
Revelation 7:1 says, “I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth.” In writing this, the apostle John was using idiomatic language—the “four corners of the earth” refer to “every distant location.” We use the same idiom today; for example, when we speak of Olympic athletes coming from the four corners of the earth to compete in the games, we mean they are coming from all over the world.
The book of Revelation is full of non-literal descriptions and symbolic language. To press Revelation 7:1 into a hyper-literal interpretation makes no sense. John simply says that, at one point during the tribulation, God will cause all wind to stop blowing. The “four corners” encompass the cardinal directions—north, south, east, and west. All wind will cease at God’s command.
Psalm 75:3 quotes God saying, “When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm.” Other passages also refer to the earth’s “pillars,” such as 1 Samuel 2:8, but in no case should the language be taken literally. The book of Psalms and Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2 are poetry. The writers liken the founding of the earth to the constructing of a house, and their descriptions are comparative (i.e., metaphorical), not literal. The point is not that the earth is flat but that the earth belongs to God; it is His construction, and He guarantees its stability. God’s “pillars” will not move, and His “roof” will not cave in. Even when the moral order of the world seems to have crumbled and people are overcome with fear, God will not fully withdraw His sustaining power.
What about the Bible’s references to the “ends of the earth” in Deuteronomy 13:7; Job 28:24; Psalm 48:10; Proverbs 30:4; and other passages? Does a reference to the “ends” of the earth teach that the earth has an edge and is therefore flat? We’ll take Deuteronomy 13:7 as representative of all the passages: here, Moses warns the people of “the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other” (ESV).
A couple things can be said about the phrase the ends of the earth to show that it does not refer to a flat earth. First, that phrase, like the four corners of the earth, is idiomatic. We don’t expect people to take us literally when we speak of going “back to the drawing board”; neither should we force a literal interpretation on “the ends of the earth.” When biblical writers speak of the “ends of the earth” (28 times in the KJV), they are simply referring to “the farthest reaches of the inhabited world.”
Second, the phrase the ends of the earth at times refers to people, not to land. For example, Psalm 67:7 says, “May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.” In this verse, the ends of the earth references the people who inhabit remote and distant places (see also Psalm 98:3 and Isaiah 45:22). Obviously, in this context the phrase is metaphorical and cannot be used to depict the earth as having a physical edge. The same phrase, used elsewhere, should also be considered figurative.
The Bible does not teach that the earth is flat. The references to the “earth” in the Bible are often not references to planetary earth but to a portion of dry land bound by water. For example, Genesis 1:10 says, “God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas” (ESV). “Earth” is mentioned as distinct from “Seas” and cannot refer to Earth as a planet; the same Hebrew word for “Earth” is used in Deuteronomy 13:7 and the other passages listed above.
While the Bible does not teach that the earth is flat, neither does the Bible explicitly teach that the earth is spherical. Some passages do allow for a spherical earth, such as Job 26:7 and Isaiah 40:22. And Job 26:10 makes reference to God’s drawing “a circular horizon . . . at the boundary of light and darkness” (NKJV), a description suggesting two hemispheres. In any event, the Bible is far from affirming a naïve or unscientific understanding of the earth and the solar system. There is simply no basis for the charge that the Bible teaches a flat earth. Biblical passages that could be interpreted to present a flat earth are better understood symbolically.

A victorious defeat for the far right in France
Mustapha Tossa/Arab News/July 12/2024
This was undoubtedly one of the biggest surprises of the snap parliamentary elections in France. The far right, which was on the verge of power, was stopped dead in its tracks. All the polls were already giving the keys of the Hotel Matignon to its leader Jordan Bardella. Marine Le Pen and the National Rally leadership were already strutting confidently on TV screens, as if no force could deprive them of the achievement predicted by the polls.
But the shower was cold and the surprise was shattering. Although the National Rally doubled its number of seats, it fell far short of its dream of a majority. It fell so far behind the polls that it was relegated to third place behind the New Popular Front and Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble bloc.
How, then, can we explain this deterioration in comparison with the top position predicted by the pollsters? There are several reasons behind the National Rally’s frustration. The first, and most spectacular, is the fact that, between the two rounds, the issue of dual nationals was raised. By shining a spotlight on this issue, Bardella wanted to camouflage to his electorate the many economic renunciations he had made to polish his party’s image and please the financial circles that doubted his ability to manage the country effectively.
The question of dual nationality was equally explosive and shocking for the French public opinion, which had sensed the National Rally’s desire to create categories of French people and to nurture a state racism that was extremely prejudicial to the harmony essential to social peace. In addition to this attack on dual nationals, officially accused of being potential traitors or double agents, with the obsession to call into question the right to land, the National Rally appeared as a pyromaniac and a danger to the majority of French people. As a result, they rushed en masse to the polls to deprive the party of the victory that had been drawn with certainty by the double momentum of the European elections and the first round of the legislative elections.
The French people rushed en masse to the polls to deprive the National Rally of the victory that had been drawn with certainty
The second reason the National Rally’s charm was suddenly broken between the two rounds lies in the discovery by the French public of the profiles of many of its candidates who aspired to sit in parliament. Between their blatant ignorance of the political and economic minimum required for this ambition of national representation and their postures that bordered on the mentally debilitated, unabashed racism and antisemitism, these candidates showed the true face of the far right.
With the results being amplified by social networks, the process of de-demonization that Le Pen had followed to create a new showcase for the party had taken a turn for the worse, ending years of restraint and false pretenses. The image given by the National Rally is that of a party ill-prepared economically to manage the country, with a worrying heritage in its relations with otherness and an assumed social pyromania.
In its attempts to explain this failure, the far-right party rightly pointed out that it had doubled the number of its deputies and now has a large group in parliament, giving it a powerful political megaphone, through which it can circulate its ideas and widen the scope of its appeal. The National Rally will use this parliamentary platform to prepare for future elections, such as the 2026 municipal elections and the 2027 presidential election.
For Le Pen, who had hoped to use these legislative elections as a launch pad for her bid for the Elysee Palace, this is a major blow. Coming so close to her goal only to fail, thanks to a poor communications strategy between the two rounds and a flawed human resources management and political casting policy, is bound to have consequences. It is to be expected that this frustration at both the grassroots and leadership levels will be met with some grumbling and calls for accountability for a strategy that nurtured so many hopes, only to be shattered by the reality of French political life. It seems that the French are still not ready to entrust the keys of their destiny to the far right.
**Mustapha Tossa is a Franco-Moroccan journalist. In addition to having participated in the launch of the Arabic service of Radio France Internationale, he has notably worked for Monte Carlo Doualiya, TV5Monde and France 24.

France’s right-wing tilt will further alienate it from North Africa
Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/July 12/2024
France is in the spotlight in a year filled with significant elections globally. The European Parliament elections in France in early June resulted in a decisive victory for the Jordan Bardella-led National Rally, as the far-right party won 31 percent of the votes. The next day, French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and announced snap parliamentary elections to curb the French right-wing.
Nearly a month later, the National Rally won a notable 33 percent of the votes in the first round of legislative elections. In the second round, the party and its allies came third, securing only 142 seats, while its centrist and leftist competitors performed better. Nonetheless, given that a quarter of the electorate voted for the National Rally and the party has grown significantly from the 89 seats it won in 2022, a right-wing tilt in French politics is clear.
The National Rally will not form the government this year, but its strong performance indicates that it will have a louder voice in the legislature and may come to power in the next elections. The party has often been accused of making Islamophobic statements. Its policies on minorities, immigrants and the preservation of French identity encourage what leading academic Olivier Roy has called a growing “authoritarian secularism” in France.Macron himself has also been criticized for such policies, despite his centrist credentials. The modern history of France has been marred by tense relations between the government and ethnic and religious minorities. Its homegrown brand of secularism, or as the French would say, “laicite,” has increasingly been used to curtail the public participation of France’s significant Muslim population.
The National Rally’s strong election performance indicates that it will have a louder voice in the legislature
While France does not incorporate information on religious affiliation in its national census, it is estimated that close to 10 percent of the French population is Muslim. An overwhelming portion of this religious minority is of North African descent, with close to 3 million people having roots in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. This segment of the population has faced increasing marginalization in French society, with curbs on religious clothing and expressions of faith, stereotypes in public discourse and, most recently, a brutal crackdown by the authorities on pro-Palestinian protests in the country. Last year, in a forlorn recurrence of 2005, riots broke out in the banlieues of Paris following the death of a French teenager of North African descent in a police shooting. The uproar that followed cost the French economy more than $1 billion of material losses.
A gradual shift to the right in French politics is therefore bound to increase tensions between the government and the French North African community. The National Rally has been worryingly clear about its intention to create a more assertive national identity and citizenship, which will effectively shrink the space for religious minorities in the French social fabric. Its program includes, but is not limited to, restrictions on immigration and asylum, the eradication of Islamist networks from France, reduced external spending to fund domestic tax cuts and more immunity for security forces. The party also seeks to increase scrutiny of dual nationals in applications for sensitive government jobs.It is worth noting that the majority of immigrants in France hail from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The National Rally has often securitized these communities by alleging their links to militant activity in France. Bardella’s stated “feeling of becoming a foreigner in one’s own country … (due to) the Islamization of my neighborhood” has in turn led to a political praxis that has made French Muslims foreigners in their own country.
However, contrary to its views on North Africans within France, the National Rally has recognized the importance of economic, diplomatic and security relations between North Africa and France. It argues that French support in counterterrorism and economic development in the region can curb the number of North African migrants heading to France and, according to the party, exerting pressure on French resources.
It is unlikely that the incoming government will significantly improve French ties with North Africa
The National Rally’s views on immigration, counterterrorism and multiculturalism in the domestic sphere will, however, impact its external relations with a region that is forever entwined with France through their historical ties. Further, its advocated cuts on external spending may reduce the flow of French development aid, which is a key pillar of France’s relations with North Africa.
In France, the president is the chief architect of foreign policy and the country’s representative on the international stage. However, the inherent checks and balances in the French parliamentary system mean that parliamentarians also have a voice in shaping France’s foreign policy priorities and budgetary decisions. The anticipated pluralistic legislature implies that there will be a stronger representation of the right-wing in policy debates. While this will be offset by other parties, given that French-North Africa relations have deteriorated under Macron’s centrist leadership, it is unlikely that the incoming government will significantly improve French ties with the region.
This will come at a time when French influence in North Africa is at its lowest ebb, along with strained relations across Francophone Africa. Recent coups d’etats in the Sahel have shared a common anti-French sentiment, with ruling juntas severing military, diplomatic and cultural ties with France and removing French diplomats and troops stationed in the region.
In North Africa, there is a growing preference for English as the language of business and higher education instead of French. The region is also gaining new international partners in the West and the Global South to form an independent international position. Thus, a growing space for the National Rally’s right-wing ideals in French politics now or in the future will further weaken France’s influence and soft power in North Africa.
• Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator and an adviser to private clients between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council region.
X: @Moulay_Zaid

Richard the Lionheart: An Exemplar of ‘Bravery, Cunning, Steadfastness, and Endurance’
Raymond Ibrahim/LifeSiteNews/July 12/2024
Today in history, the important fortress city of Acre fell back to Crusader hands, and in so doing ushered in the Third Crusade—the most bloody and violent of all Crusades. And its chief architect—a man hated but also greatly respected by his Muslim adversaries—was King Richard I, the Lionheart.
Following the decisive battle of Hattin in 1187, Sultan Saladin went on to conquer Jerusalem and most other Christian kingdoms, including coastal Acre. Elated by his success, he vowed not only to eliminate all Crusaders from the Holy Land, but to invade Europe and “pursue the Franks there, so as to free the earth of anyone who does not believe in Allah, or die in the attempt.”
Before long, however, and due to its strategic location, Acre became the rallying point for the remaining Crusaders. If only they could reclaim it, they could reconsolidate their power base and spread out again, including to Jerusalem. So they laid siege to it in the summer of 1189. Famine, plague, and pestilence harried the Crusaders and countless thousands died while the Muslims continued to hold out in Acre.
The mood changed in the summer of 1191, when Philip II of France and especially King Richard I of England—whom most Crusaders looked to as the natural leader—arrived with their men.
Richard immediately ordered the construction of more war moveable towers; more ditches around Acre were filled, thereby allowing these new engines of war to encroach upon and bombard the city; and defensive trenches were dug around the Crusaders’ camp, to prevent sorties from Saladin’s marauding troops. Soon all the engines of war rained down death dealing destruction. Massive boulders—some aflame and setting anything inside Acre not built of stone ablaze—rocked the city. After the battle of Hattin, Saladin had ordered the ritual massacre of the military orders of the Knights Templars and Hospitallers. Now their brothers-in-arms made their presence felt: “the Templars’ stonethrower wreaked impressive devastation,” wrote a contemporary, “while the Hospitallers’ also never ceased hurling, to the terror of the Turks.”
In the words of Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir, after Richard’s arrival, “The damage they did to the Muslims increased greatly. The king was the outstanding man of his time for bravery, cunning, steadfastness and endurance. In him the Muslims were tried by an unparalleled disaster.”
Before long, however, Muslim spies “reported the great fatigue they [the Crusaders] endured on account of all the various tasks they had constantly to put up with since the arrival of the accursed king of England. Then the latter fell seriously ill and was on the verge of death.”
More robust than most men, even Richard had succumbed to the pestilent camp and contracted a form of scurvy which caused hair and fingernails to fall out, and in extreme cases, blindness. Even so, he continued inciting his men to war from the sickbed.
A contemporary chronicle offers a snapshot of these times:
King Richard’s stonethrowers hurled constantly by day and night…. [O]ne of them killed twelve men with a single stone. That stone was sent for Saladin to see, with messengers who said that the diabolical king of England had…[come] to punish the Saracens. Nothing could withstand their blows; everything was crushed or reduced to dust. Yet the king was confined to bed suffering from a severe fever, completely wretched because he saw the Turks insolently challenging and attacking our people with increasing frequency but he could not engage them in battle because he was ill.
This, the chronicler adds, is what truly “burned” him up—for Richard “suffered more torture from the insolent Turkish raids than from the burning fever.”
All this time Saladin had also been resorting to terror tactics, for he “enrolled 300 robbers from amongst the thieving Bedouin to infiltrate the enemy.” Baha’ al-Din explains how, after a day of exhaustive fighting, these cutthroats would slip into the Crusader camp during the thick of night. The common soldier would be rudely awoken “by a dagger which was held at his throat.” He and his belongings would then be spirited away or, if he resisted, slaughtered on the spot.
In time, Richard, though still sick, had become even more sick of his impotence. He ordered his moveable tower hauled into the ditch outside the city wall; he then “had himself carried out” on his sick bed and placed near his “most skilled crossbowmen” under the tower. The wounded warrior-king did this “to discourage the Saracens with his presence and encourage his own people to fight. There he used his crossbow, with which he was skilled, and killed many.”
Meanwhile, “the Christians’ stonethrowers kept up a constant battering of the walls, day and night.” Acre was holding on by a thread. Although the Christian chronicler praised the martial spirit of its Turkish garrison—they were “fit and ready for anything” and “certainly not inferior to our people”—by now many desperate Muslims “hurled themselves from the walls at night in a desperate attempt to escape.” On being captured, a “great many of them begged to be given the sacrament of the Christian baptism,” though, as the chronicle observes, “they asked for this more as a means of escape.”
Finally, on July 12, 1191, and considering that large sections of Acre’s walls had by now collapsed into and filled the moat, “the Franks—Allah curse them!—conquered the city of Acre,” writes Ibn al-Athir, nearly two years since the siege first began.
Now that they had re-established themselves in the Holy Land, and the Third Crusade was off to a good start, would the Crusaders, under the Lionheart’s leadership, be able to liberate Jerusalem from Islamic control? That is another, even more dramatic story.
*This article was abstracted from Raymond Ibrahim’s book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood against Islam, which features a chapter on Richard Lionheart.