Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 05-06/2024
ISIS (Daech) and Hezbollah are two ٍsides of the mullahs-Assad axis coin, and they are most likely behind the attack on the American embassy in Lebanon/Elias Bejjani/June 05, 2024
US Embassy Shooting: Five People Arrested
Gunman Detained After Opening Fire Outside U.S. Embassy in Lebanon
Gunman shot, wounded after attempted assault on U.S. Embassy in Beirut
Rights group accuses Israel of hitting residential buildings with white phosphorous in Lebanon
Despite efforts to keep hostilities in check, officials on both sides are sounding warnings
Lebanon’s Hezbollah is proving to be a serious problem for Israel

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 05-06/2024
Famine possibly gripping north Gaza despite new aid efforts: report
Israel phasing out use of desert detention camp after CNN investigation detailing abuses
Israel begins new push in central Gaza
Mass graves and body bags: al-Shifa hospital after Israel withdrew its forces
Israeli nationalist march through Palestinian area of Jerusalem is set to proceed despite tensions
UN agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience highest level of starvation by mid-July
Israel court approves temporary ban on Al Jazeera, citing national security
In a West Bank refugee camp, Israel's raids fuel the militancy it tries to stamp out
Emirati leader meets with Taliban official facing $10 million US bounty over attacks
Erdogan turns up the heat on Israel as his party’s popularity wanes
Iran Censure at Nuclear Watchdog Signals Deeper Diplomatic Rift
Jordan makes biggest drugs bust in years at Saudi border

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 05-06/2024
ISIS (Daech) and Hezbollah are two ٍsides of the mullahs-Assad axis coin, and they are most likely behind the attack on the American embassy in Lebanon
Elias Bejjani/June 05, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/130443/130443/
There is no doubt that the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Awkar (Lebanon) that took place today is a diabolical act that is condemned and denounced. In this realm, it is necessary to identify and prosecute the aggressors, those behind them, and those who armed and facilitated their arrival at the Awkar embassy locations with weapons. Presumably, Hezbollah and ISIS are most likely the ones who carried out the attack on the American embassy in Awkar today.
In reality, ISIS is an intelligence construct devised by the Iranian and Syrian rulers (the axis of resistance), tailored to their needs of terrorism, and as a terrorist tool for the Iranian expansion schemes. Furthermore, there is no independent organization called ISIS; it is an Assad-Mullah tool, much like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Based on previous and similar terrorist attacks, the Iranian-Syrian axis of evil could be the one who orchestrated today’s attack on the American embassy.
It is crucial to highlight that the US administration (Biden-Obama) bears responsibility for this incident because it protects, cajoles, finances, and advocates for the mullahs’ regime, and at the same time flatters Hezbollah, and condones its occupation of Lebanon.
The author, Elias Bejjani, is a Lebanese expatriate activist
Author’s Email: Phoenicia@hotmail.com
Author’s Website: http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com

Background
U.S. Embassy Beirut
X site/June 05/2024
At 8:34 a.m. local time, small arms fire was reported in the vicinity of the entrance to the U.S. Embassy. Thanks to the quick reaction of the LAF, ISF, and our Embassy security team, our facility and our team are safe. Investigations are underway and we are in close contact with host country law enforcement.

US Embassy Shooting: Five People Arrested
This Is Beirut/June 05/2024
The Lebanese army, backed by state security, arrested five people suspected of involvement in the gunfire shooting that targeted the US embassy in Awkar earlier Wednesday.
One Lebanese and four Syrians were arrested in Majdal Anjar and Souayri, in the Bekaa region, during searches carried out following the attack in the two villages, according to a statement from the Lebanese army.
Among the suspects, Qatada Farraj, the brother of the assailant, Qays Farraj, and a Syrian cleric who is believed to have indoctrinated him. Explosive devices and bomb-making materials were found at the home of Qatada Farraj.
According to the Lebanese army, the shooter is of Syrian nationality, Qayss Farraj, and he is registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
In a publication on X, the army reported that “the soldiers deployed in the area responded to the shots fired, wounding the gunman, who was arrested and transferred to hospital.”
A judicial source quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP), said the attacker claimed to have acted “in support of the people of Gaza.”
Three other people were also arrested by the security forces, according to the local Al Jadeed TV channel, which reported that they are all affiliated with the jihadist group Islamic State (Daech).
The National News Agency said State Security in the Bekaa region succeeded in arresting the shooter’s brother in coordination with the intelligence directorate. “On the advice of the public prosecutor at the Bekaa Court of Appeal, Judge Mounif Barakat, the detainee was handed over to the competent authorities and the investigation began,” the agency said. Following the attack, the Lebanese army carried out searches in Majdel Anjar and Souayra in the Bekaa.
In turn, the US embassy announced it will be closed to the public for the rest of Wednesday, in a security alert issued early this afternoon. It plans to open “as usual” on Thursday, according to a statement.
In this context, U.S. citizens residing in Lebanon have been advised to follow the alerts on Travel.State.Gov and to closely monitor the news for the latest developments that may affect homeland security. Under the Travel.State.Gov guide to Lebanon, U.S. citizens are requested to avoid traveling to the border areas between Lebanon and Israel, and between Lebanon and Syria, as well as to refugee camps. They are also advised to “avoid demonstrations and exercise caution if in the vicinity of large gatherings or protests”, reads the embassy website. Earlier in the morning, the US embassy said that “small arms fire was reported near the entrance to the US embassy at 8:34am”. “Thanks to the rapid response of the Lebanese Army, the Internal Security Forces and the embassy security team, our facilities and staff are safe,” read a statement on X.
“Investigations are underway and we are in close contact with the host country’s law enforcement agencies,” the text said.

Gunman Detained After Opening Fire Outside U.S. Embassy in Lebanon
Dan Ladden-Hall/The Daily Beast/ June 5, 2024
A gunman was detained after opening fire outside the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese army said. The military said in a statement that the embassy had been “exposed to gunfire” by a Syrian national who was wounded by troops who responded to the incident. The army added that the gunman had been arrested and taken to a hospital for treatment. Israel Strikes Deep Inside Lebanon After Hezbollah Takes Out Drone. The embassy, which is located in a secured area north of Beirut, said “small arms fire” was reported “in the vicinity” of its entrance at 8:34 a.m. local time. It did not report any casualties among its staff and praised the quick reaction of its security team and Lebanese troops. Images published in Lebanese media show the attacker covered in blood and wearing a black vest bearing the words “Islamic State” in Arabic along with the English letters “I” and “S,” according to the Associated Press, though a motive for the attack has not yet been confirmed. Local reports also suggested that a gunfight involving at least one assailant went on for almost half an hour, and a video circulating on social media appears to show a gunman in a parking lot near the embassy’s entrance firing what looked like an assault rifle, according to the AP. A Lebanese security source separately told Reuters that soldiers wounded the gunman in the stomach. Shots were fired near the American embassy in September, though no injuries were reported in connection with that incident. Last year, CNN reported that the sprawling embassy complex located about eight miles from the center of Beirut was causing controversy given its size and “opulence” in the impoverished country. The incident came 40 years after the 1983 bombing of the former U.S. embassy site in the Lebanese capital which left 63 people dead—an attack that American officials blamed on Hezbollah. The militant group is currently involved in fighting with Israeli forces along Lebanon’s southern border, displacing tens of thousands of people in both Lebanon and Israel.

Gunman shot, wounded after attempted assault on U.S. Embassy in Beirut
Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY/Wed, June 5, 2024
A Syrian national was shot, wounded and captured outside the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Wednesday following a 30-minute gun fight during which the assailant sought to attack the diplomatic compound. The incident was first reported by Lebanese media. The alleged shooter's motives were not immediately clear. Nor was it clear whether other alleged attackers took part in the attempted siege. Photos published online and in social media appeared to show the alleged attacker who was captured wearing a black vest with the words "Islamic State" written on it in Arabic and the English initials "I" and "S."
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut said in a social media post that "our facility and our team are safe."Lebanese army forces turn back motorists as they close a road near the US Embassy in Beirut on June 5, 2024, after a Syrian man was arrested following a shooting near the embassy.Lebanese army forces turn back motorists as they close a road near the US Embassy in Beirut on June 5, 2024, after a Syrian man was arrested following a shooting near the embassy. The attempted attack, which saw Lebanon's army come to the embassy's defense, took place amid heightened tensions in Lebanon because of the war between Israel and Hamas. Months of near-daily tit-for-tat shelling and fighting between the Lebanon-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group and Israeli troops has displaced thousands of people along the border. The U.S. diplomatic mission is located in a suburb north of Beirut.
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut has been targeted by multiple attacks over the years. A 1983 suicide truck bombing killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. That attack was claimed by the Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. In years past, American diplomatic missions have also been attacked in Kenya, Tanzania and elsewhere. A 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other U.S. diplomats.
Intense forest fires broke out in northern Israel on Tuesday following a surge of rocket and drone strikes fired from Lebanon. The fires prompted evacuations in Israel's northern city of Kiryat Shmona. "Yesterday the ground burned here and I am pleased that you have extinguished it, but ground also burned in Lebanon. We are prepared for very intense action in the north," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday during a visit to Kiryat Shmona. Israel has been warning for months that it may eventually open a second formal front against Hezbollah in Lebanon connected to, but separate from, its war in Gaza with Hamas.

Rights group accuses Israel of hitting residential buildings with white phosphorous in Lebanon
Kareem Chehayeb/The Associated Press/June 5, 2024
A global human rights group accused Israel of using white phosphorus incendiary shells on residential buildings in at least five towns and villages in conflict-hit southern Lebanon, possibly harming civilians and violating international law, in a report published Wednesday. Human Rights Watch said in its report that there was no evidence of burn injuries due to white phosphorus in Lebanon, but that researchers had “heard accounts indicating possible respiratory damage.”Human rights advocates say it's a crime under international law to fire the controversial munitions into populated areas. The white-hot chemical substance can set buildings on fire and burn human flesh down to the bone. Survivors are at risk of infections and organ or respiratory failure, even if their burns are small. The Israeli military told The Associated Press that it upholds international law regarding munitions and the use of white phosphorus, using the chemical only as a smokescreen, not to target civilians. “IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) procedures require that such shells are not used in densely populated areas, subject to certain exceptions,” the statement added. The HRW report includes interviews with eight residents in conflict-hit southern Lebanon, and the group says it has verified and geolocated images from almost 47 photos and videos that show white phosphorus shells landing on residential buildings in five Lebanese border towns and villages. The Lebanese Health Ministry says at least 173 people have required medical care after exposure to white phosphorus. The researchers found that the controversial incendiaries were used in residential areas in Kfar Kila, Mays al-Jabal, Boustan, Markaba, and Aita al-Shaab, towns that are among the hardest-hit in eight months of fighting. The New York-based rights group alongside Amnesty International also accused Israel of using white phosphorus in residential areas in October 2023, less than a month after clashes began between the Israeli military and the powerful Hezbollah group along the southern Lebanon-Israel border, a day after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7. In its report, HRW called on the Lebanese government to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute “grave international crimes” within Lebanon since October 2023. “Israel’s recent use of white phosphorus in Lebanon should motivate other countries to take immediate action toward this goal,” said HRW Lebanon Researcher Ramzi Kaiss. More 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including more than 70 civilians and noncombatants. In Israel, 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed since October. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border.

Despite efforts to keep hostilities in check, officials on both sides are sounding warnings
Dov Lieber, Adam Chamseddine and Carrie Keller-Lynn, WSJ
Israel and Hezbollah are moving closer to a full-scale war after months of escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group, adding pressure on Israel’s government to secure its northern border.
Hezbollah opened a battle front with Israel on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’s deadly raid inside Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says its attacks are in support of the Palestinians, and it won’t stop until Israel halts its war in Gaza. Reluctant to open a second front, Israel initially responded to Hezbollah with tit-for-tat attacks, trying to calibrate their actions to avoid sparking a full-scale conflict.
But in recent weeks, both sides say there has been a sharp rise in hostilities. Hezbollah has increased its drone and rocket attacks, hitting important Israeli military installations. Israel, too, has stepped up attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites deep into southern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and senior military officials in the group.Without a cease-fire in Gaza and subsequent deal with Hezbollah that meets Israel’s requirements, Israeli officials say an offensive is inevitable. Benny Gantz, a minister in Israel’s war cabinet, said Israel would return residents to northern Israel by Sept. 1—when schools restart—either “through a deal or through an escalation.”Wildfires sparked by Hezbollah drone and rocket attacks raged through northern Israel beginning on Sunday. The blaze largely was contained by Tuesday morning and caused few injuries. But the images spurred demands in Israel that after eight months of low-intensity warfare with Hezbollah, which has left more than 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes, the government needs to go on the offensive. “They are burning here, we need to burn all of Hezbollah’s strongholds and destroy them. War!” said Israel’s far right national-security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir during a visit Tuesday to Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli city affected by the blaze, largely depopulated because of the war and under constant bombardment from Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The U.S. and France have been working on creating the outlines of a diplomatic solution, shuttling between Israel and Lebanon for months.
The talks aim to move Hezbollah’s forces more than 6 miles north of Israel, and the influx of either the Lebanese military or other international troops into the area could remove the militants, say diplomats briefed on the talks. Israel and Lebanon also would negotiate pre-existing border disputes.
Lebanese officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Pulling back forces would keep Hezbollah out of antitank-missile range of Israeli communities and prevent the threat that it could carry out its long-held threat to invade and conquer northern Israel. Many Israelis from northern Israel say that a cease-fire isn’t enough to bring them back to their homes.
Giora Zaltz, head of the Israeli regional district bordering with Lebanon, said the main two threats his constituents fear are a Hamas-style invasion by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces and shoulder-launched missiles that Israel can’t easily intercept. Alleviating their fears requires pushing Hezbollah forces and armaments several miles into Lebanese territory, which Zaltz says requires either an enforceable diplomatic solution or military action. Without this, he said, citizens won’t return to their homes. “The border will move farther and farther south.”
Hezbollah, which also is a powerful political party in Lebanon, says it won’t agree to any diplomatic deal with Israel until the war in Gaza is halted. Despite a fresh push from President Biden for a ceasefire in Gaza, there are significant challenges left for getting there, and Israel says it will keep fighting in Gaza at some level until the end of the year. Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said the main message behind Hezbollah’s operations is that it is ready for a fullscale war with Israel and will fight without rules or limits.
“We have called for a cease-fire in Gaza and we don’t intend to widen the war, but if [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu decides to expand the war, it won’t be a walk in the park,” he said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah is proving to be a serious problem for Israel
Zainab Younes, PhD Candidate in the Division of Social Sciences, London South Bank University/The ConversationظWed, June 5, 2024
Hezbollah intensified its attacks in northern Israel on June 2, firing barrages of rockets over the border that set off massive wildfires. This came two days after the Lebanese armed group revealed that it had downed one of Israel’s most advanced drones – the most recent of several successful air defence operations.
The events of October 7 had already marked the collapse of Israel’s national security doctrine. Three of the four components – deterrence, early warning and defence – had failed completely. The conflict with Hezbollah, which Israel has been fighting alongside its war on Gaza, continues to damage these beyond repair.
Hezbollah, which is part of the broader Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” with the Houthi movement in Yemen and other groups in Syria and Iraq, has demonstrated its developing military, intelligence and media capabilities since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The group has gradually introduced new missiles to the conflict that are more precise and destructive. And it has also demonstrated its ability to identify weaknesses in Israel’s air defence systems, generate targets and execute complex operations almost daily.
On June 3, for example, Hezbollah announced that it had launched a squadron of drones towards the headquarters of the Israeli military’s Galilee formation (the division responsible for the front with Lebanon) for the first time. Most of Hezbollah’s drones are successfully penetrating Israeli air space because they are flown at low altitudes to avoid detection.
The recent increase in violence across the border is, at least in part, a consequence of Iran’s attack on Israel in April. The attack, although widely claimed a failure, was ultimately a strategic move that looks to be bearing strategic fruit for Hezbollah.
It marked a change in Tehran’s calculus and showed that Israel cannot protect itself from retaliation, nor can it deter attacks, without the help of its Arab and western allies.
It is also safe to say that Israel no longer enjoys unfettered air superiority and freedom of action over Lebanon. On May 14, Hezbollah downed an Israeli surveillance balloon, and attacked its launch base and the controller used to operate it.
The group has also downed several of Israel’s most reliable and advanced drones. On June 1, for example, it downed a Hermes 900 drone worth around US$10 million (£7.8 million), for the second time.
Waging a psychological war
The growing threat posed by Hezbollah has instilled a feeling of anxiety and pessimisim among Israelis. This is giving Israel’s deeply polarised society more reason to question the conduct of the country’s political and military leadership.
Hezbollah has inflicted serious damage on settlements in northern Israel, many of which are now abandoned. The mayor of Metulla on the Lebanese border has said he is “sure that 30% to 40%” of the town’s settlers will “never return”.
Other mayors along the conflict line in the Galilee region, where over 96,000 Israelis remain displaced, have threatened to announce “unilateral separation from the State of Israel”. Their fury is directed primarily at Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for abandoning the evacuees.
The government had promised displaced people a plan to restore the north and accommodate their return. But on May 22 it rejected the plan’s approval and postponed voting on it. Netanyahu has refused to specify a time when the evacuees would be able to return, saying he is “not going to tell Hezbollah what we are going to do”.
The failure to fulfil these promises has only lessened the already waning faith and confidence of Israelis in their government and its management of the war in Gaza. Netanyahu has made countless threats against Hezbollah over the course of the war. But they have failed to deter the group from launching attacks on Israel.
According to Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea, frontline generals in Israel have eventually come to adopt the position that deescalation in Lebanon will only be possible if the war in Gaza stops. This is the same stance that Hezbollah has held since the start of the war.
In an article on Ynet, a major Israeli news website, Barnea claimed that the intense situation on the Lebanese border is motivating Israel’s military to support a deal that enables the release of hostages held by Hamas, as it would “allow for prospects of an agreement in the north”.
A group of Israeli hostages sat in a line holding cardboard signs calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
Demonstrators block the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, Israel, after the Israeli army announced the deaths of four Israeli hostages on June 3, 2024. Erik Marmor/Flash90
The military’s new stance looks to be a way of disentangling itself and the government from the complex situation the conflict with Hezbollah has caused. It seems that the army is neither able to continue adapting to the escalating pressure on the battlefield, nor is it willing to launch a large-scale war with Hezbollah given its dangerous repercussions.
This new reality has widened the consensus among the Israeli security establishment that the mandate of the Israeli delegation to the ceasefire-hostage talks should be expanded. And on May 23 the war cabinet voted to lengthen the “leash” of Israel’s negotiation team, a move that Netanyahu had previously been against.
Israel now faces its biggest existential threat from Hezbollah, which is constantly learning, gaining experience from the battlefield and developing by the day.
*Zainab Younes is a PhD candidate. Her program is funded by a post-graduate doctoral loan from SFE. The views expressed do not reflect those of SFE, nor those of the UK government.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 05-06/2024
Famine possibly gripping north Gaza despite new aid efforts: report
Euronews/June 5, 2024
Experts have warned famine is possibly under way in northern Gaza, despite recent aid efforts. "It is possible, if not likely,” the independent group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said about famine in Gaza.
The Israeli military, which is responsible for the allowing humanitarian assistance into Gaza, did not immediately comment on their report. Fighting between Israel and Hamas, alongside restrictions on international access, have hampered efforts to collect data in the area that could allow a formal declaration of famine, however.
Concerns about deadly hunger have soared in recent months. They spiked after the head of the World Food Program (WFP) last month said northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine”, following nearly seven months of devastating war.
WFP director Cindy McCain warned mass starvation was "moving its way south", where the vast majority of Gaza's population has fled the fighting.Human Rights Watch in December alleged Israel was using starvation as a "weapon of war", calling this a "war crime". Israel has denied such allegations. FILE - Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip pass through the inspection area at the Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Israel, Thursday, March 14, 2024.
FILE - Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip pass through the inspection area at the Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Israel, Thursday, March 14, 2024. - Ohad Zwigenberg/Copyright 2024 The AP All rights reserved
Famine is said to exist in an area when three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.
That's according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a collection of UN agencies, governments and other bodies that have previously warned of imminent famine in northern Gaza. Tuesday’s report by FEWS NET is the first technical assessment by an international organisation saying famine is possibly stalking northern Gaza.But the data must be there for a formal declaration of famine. Such a declaration could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court as well as at the International Court of Justice, where Israel faces allegations of genocide. Famine concerns will grow - unless war ends
The report cautioned that data collection would likely be impeded as long as the war continued. It said people — including children — are dying of hunger-related causes across the Palestinian enclave.These conditions will likely persist until at least July, if there isn’t a fundamental change in how food aid is distributed, it added. The report also cautioned that current efforts to increase aid into Gaza are insufficient, and called on Israel's government to act urgently. The UN and international aid agencies for months have said not enough food or other humanitarian supplies are entering Gaza, and Israel faces mounting pressure from top ally the US and others to let in more aid. Israel has repeatedly denied there is famine underway in Gaza and rejected allegations it has used hunger as a weapon in its war against the militant Hamas group.

Israel phasing out use of desert detention camp after CNN investigation detailing abuses
Abeer Salman, Tamara Qiblawi, Allegra Goodwin and Barbara Arvanitidis, CNN/June 5, 2024
Israel has transferred hundreds of Palestinian detainees out of the shadowy detention facility of Sde Teiman in Israel’s Negev desert, a state attorney told Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday during a first-ever hearing about the facility where prisoners from Gaza have allegedly been held under conditions of extreme abuse. State attorney Aner Helman told the court that 700 inmates had been moved to Ofer military facility in the occupied West Bank, with another 500 set to be transferred in the weeks to come. Around 200 detainees will remain in Sde Teiman, said Helman, who added that the state would provide an update on their status within three days. The hearing comes in response to a petition by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and other human rights groups, which drew heavily on CNN reporting about the makeshift prison to make a case for it to be shut down.
During a tense exchange, one of the Supreme Court justices, Judge Barak Erez, pressed the state’s legal team on the legality of the way the facility was being run. “The question is whether or not the Israeli law for the imprisonment of unlawful combatants applies or not. That you did not answer,” said Erez.
Avi Segal, an attorney representing the right-wing, Israeli legal organization Shurat HaDin which had asked to join the procedure, said the hearing was based on “newspaper rumors.”“The court should be worried about setting up a hearing, and even asking for a response to petitions based on newspaper rumors,” said Segal. CNN’s investigation, in which Israeli whistleblowers as well as Palestinian former detainees and eyewitnesses described horrific conditions at the facility, including continuous blindfolding and handcuffing, sparked an international outcry.
The White House called the allegations detailed in CNN’s report “deeply concerning” and said it was reaching out to Israeli officials for answers. Germany’s Foreign Office condemned the reported practices and said it was campaigning for the International Committee of the Red Cross to access the camp and other prisons. In the wake of CNN’s investigation, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Unlawful Combatants, Alice Jill Edwards, called for Israel to investigate allegations of torture and mistreatment of detained Palestinians. Last week, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the military launched a probe into the allegations of mistreatment at Sde Teiman, as well as at Anatot and Ofer, two other military detention camps for Palestinians from Gaza. The committee tasked with examining the conditions of Palestinian detainees from Gaza is set to submit its recommendations to Halevi this month. “They cannot keep holding people there, not even for a short while, not even only 200, and not even one week,” ACRI’s attorney Roni Pelli told CNN after the hearing. On May 10, CNN released an investigation into Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert which has doubled as a detention center for Palestinians detained over the course of Israel’s war in Gaza which was launched after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Three Israeli whistleblowers told CNN that Palestinian detainees at the facility were constantly blindfolded and held under extreme physical restraint. Doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from continuous handcuffing, one whistleblower said. The account tallied with details of a letter authored by a doctor working at Sde Teiman published by Ha’aretz in April.
According to the accounts, the camp some 18 miles from the Gaza frontier is split into two parts: enclosures holding scores of detainees from Gaza, and a field hospital where wounded detainees are blindfolded, strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws. In a May 20 response to a petition led by the rights group Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), the Israeli government said it is set to “reduce the number of inmates held in military facilities in general and the facility of Sde Teiman in particular, with the intention that this facility will be used as a reception, interrogation and initial sorting facility, for keeping prisoners for short periods only.”Responding to CNN’s request for comment on all the allegations made in its May 10 report, the Israeli military, known as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a statement: “The IDF ensures proper conduct towards the detainees in custody. Any allegation of misconduct by IDF soldiers is examined and dealt with accordingly. In appropriate cases, MPCID (Military Police Criminal Investigation’s Division) investigations are opened when there is suspicion of misconduct justifying such action.”“Detainees are handcuffed based on their risk level and health status. Incidents of unlawful handcuffing are not known to the authorities.” The IDF did not directly deny accounts of people being stripped of their clothing or held in diapers. Instead, the Israeli military said that the detainees are given back their clothing once the IDF has determined that they pose no security risk.
CNN’s Ami Kaufman contributed to this report.

Israel begins new push in central Gaza
Brad Dress/The Hill/June 5, 2024
Israeli forces began a new push into the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah Wednesday, including targeted activity at a refugee camp, after receiving new intelligence of militant activity in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) moved into Bureij and the eastern part of Deir el-Balah after airstrikes on what it said were military compounds, weapons storage facilities and underground infrastructure, the military said on Telegram. The IDF noted it has taken out several fighters already, but that fighting is continuing in the central Gaza area. The Palestine Red Crescent Society accused Israel of targeting several homes in the Al-Ja’frawi area east of Deir al-Balah, killing six and injuring another eight. Israeli troops are also continuing operations in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians sheltering there were forced to flee after initial military activity began late last month. The fighting indicates that Israel is continuing to face resistance from Hamas after fighting the Palestinian militant group for nearly eight months and now across the entire Gaza Strip. Several times already, Israeli forces have had to return to hospitals, facilities and sections in northern Gaza that had been previously cleared.
The operations also show Israel remains committed to dismantling Hamas, even with international pressure growing to end the war, where more than 36,000 people have died, per local health officials. Israel also sparked widespread outrage after a late May Israeli strike on a refugee camp in Rafah killed at least 45 people, mostly women and children, after a fire broke out. Israel also controls all of the humanitarian aid crossings into Gaza, including the one in Rafah, and maintain control over Gaza after Israeli forces last month seized the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land between the coastal territory and Egypt.
But Israeli officials say it must continue fighting to defeat Hamas after Palestinian fighters invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 and taking another roughly 250 hostage — with around 130 hostages still in Gaza. It’s not clear how many hostages are left alive, though some estimates have put it around 80. President Biden last week announced a deal that would see the return of hostages and create a lasting cease-fire as long as negotiations continue, but it’s not clear if both Israel and Hamas will finalize the agreement.

Mass graves and body bags: al-Shifa hospital after Israel withdrew its forces
Yolande Knell - Middle East Correspondent and Rushdi Abu Alouf - Gaza Correspondent BBC/Wed, June 5, 2024
Palestinians inspect damages at Al Shifa Hospital
Israeli forces pulled out of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital in April [Reuters]
After Israeli forces pulled out of Gaza City’s vast al-Shifa hospital complex on 1 April, following their second raid there, stunned Palestinians who pored over the burnt-out ruins said it reeked of death. During the past eight months of war, hospitals have come under repeated attack, with Israel claiming they are used as bases by Hamas; something the group denies. But events at al-Shifa – once the biggest and best equipped medical facility in the Gaza Strip – have arguably been the most dramatic. The two-week surprise raid, launched after Israel said Hamas had regrouped at the site, was described by the Israeli government as "precise and surgical". Its spokesman, Avi Hyman, asserted that it had set "the gold standard of urban warfare". He said: “We took out over 200 terrorists. We apprehended over 900 terrorists with not a single civilian casualty.”
With decaying bodies sticking out of the sand piled up by combat bulldozers in the courtyards of al-Shifa, the claim that there had been no civilian casualties was immediately questioned. In recent weeks, four mass graves have been uncovered at the site, with Palestinian search teams saying that several hundred bodies have been found.
We have worked with a journalist in Gaza to follow developments.
Palestinian forensic and civil defence recover bodies at the grounds of Al-Shifa hospital
Palestinian search teams say they have recovered hundreds of bodies [Getty Images]
“We’ve extracted martyrs, many of whom are decomposed and completely unidentifiable,” a Palestinian Civil Defence worker, Rami Dababesh told us grimly on 8 May as he stood by a line of white plastic body bags at al-Shifa, wearing a face mask and full protective gear. “We’ve found corpses of women, children and individuals without heads as well as torn body parts,” he added.
The Civil Defence lacks forensic equipment and expertise, but its teams have been using photos and videos to document the remains. A director, Dr Mohamed Mughir, told us there were suspicious finds; describing how “signs of field executions, binding marks, gunshot wounds to the head and torture marks on the limbs were observed on the bodies of some martyrs". The UN Security Council has expressed “deep concern” at the discovery of mass graves at both al-Shifa and Nasser hospital in southern Gaza. Along with the US and the European Union, it has called for an independent investigation into possible war crimes.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says that during its raids of the Gaza hospitals, its soldiers exhumed bodies that Palestinians had buried earlier as part of its search for the remains of some 250 hostages captured during the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October. It maintains bodies were examined respectfully and those not belonging to Israeli captives were returned to their place. However, at least some of the corpses found recently at al-Shifa were those of patients who died during Israel’s latest military action. A paramedic involved in the search said some had IV catheters still attached.
On 15 April, the BBC met two men whose dead mothers were last seen being treated at the hospital. Their bodies had just been recovered from a mass grave.
“I came running here when they told me of the grave,” said Mohammed al-Khatib, who had spent days searching for his mother, Khawla. “By the grace of almighty God her body was found.”Walid Fteima said his elderly mother, Lina Abu Leila, was being treated for malnutrition and severe dehydration when she died. Her body was decomposed, and he could only identify her from injuries she had from an Israeli bombing last year. “[She] had a toe amputated on each foot,” he explained.
After it began its operation at the hospital early on 18 March, the IDF ordered thousands of civilians sheltering there and living in the vicinity to leave and head south. However, it said the hospital could continue to function. By the end of two weeks, only some 140 patients and medics reportedly remained.
Dr Rik Peeperkorn
The WHO's Dr Rik Peeperkorn said those left behind at the hospital ended up in facilities that were "completely unfit for treatment" [BBC]
The local WHO representative, Dr Rik Peeperkorn, says this group endured “horrific conditions”. After being repeatedly moved around the complex, he says, they “actually ended up in the human resources building which was completely unfit for treatment". Ultimately, he says, 20 patients died. Several surviving patients – all wounded in previous Israeli strikes – told us they were given only tiny quantities of food such as canned tuna. They said there were severe shortages of drinking water and medication. “The bombing surrounded us 24/7,” said Mohamed al-Nadeem who is half paralysed. “I am sick and unable to move. I was sleeping on the floor without blankets.” “There were no dressings or painkillers,” said Rafif Doghmush, 15, whose foot has been amputated.
The IDF has told journalists that no staff or patients died as a “direct result” of its action, but that some may have died of “natural causes". During its raid, it said it helped patients by moving them out of harm’s way and that medical supplies and devices as well as food, water, and a generator were brought to the hospital. Grainy drone footage shared by the IDF after it launched its raid on 18 March showed Palestinian gunmen apparently shooting at soldiers from inside al-Shifa hospital. Later, the gunmen were said to have barricaded themselves in wards and corridors, opening fire and throwing explosives.
Three Israeli soldiers were confirmed to have been killed during the two-week long operation. The IDF briefed journalists that its action at the hospital was taken based on “concrete intelligence” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had taken over parts of the site, suggesting their operatives had been using it to access basic supplies as well as power and the internet.
While Hamas denied using al-Shifa as a base, its officials did not deny the presence of some members inside the complex, indicating that they may have been among displaced people sheltering there. Israel has said that “over 200 terrorists” were killed in and around al-Shifa, as well as the hundreds detained, but has only given some names.
These include Faiq al-Mabhouh, described as head of operations in Hamas’ internal security service. The Hamas-run government’s media office said he was a police commander who had been co-ordinating aid deliveries to northern Gaza.
Others killed were identified as a senior Hamas commander, Raed Thabet, said to have been head of recruitment and supply acquisition, and Mahmoud Zakzouk, said to have been deputy commander of the Hamas rocket unit in Gaza City. Two other Hamas operatives were named as Fadi Dweik and Zakaria Najib, said to have been involved in organising attacks in the occupied West Bank. In April, the IDF also released footage which it said was from the interrogation of Tarek Abu Shaluf, spokesman for the political wing of Islamic Jihad. It said he had been captured at al-Shifa.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not routinely confirm the names of low-level fighters killed by Israeli military action, making it very difficult to estimate how many were killed at the hospital and in the vicinity. It is likely that a number were among the dead found in mass graves. A picture shows the destruction in the dialysis unit at Gaza's devastated Al-Shifa hospital
There have repeatedly been conflicting narratives about what has happened in and around al-Shifa [Getty Images]
Despite the Israeli claim that there was “not a single civilian casualty” from its raid, we have been given strong testimony that there were Palestinian civilians killed by heavy Israeli bombardment and intense shooting in the surrounding neighbourhood.
The Palestinian Civil Defence told us that hundreds of Palestinians were still reported to be missing following the raid in March.
There have repeatedly been conflicting narratives about what has happened in and around al-Shifa. During its first controversial raid there, the Israeli military raised expectations that Israeli hostages might be found at the site. It also released a graphic depicting a vast underground tunnel network that it suggested was underneath the hospital, serving as a major Hamas command and control centre.
While the IDF said it retrieved the bodies of two Israeli hostages near to the hospital, it did not announce that it had found any within the complex. Security camera footage that was recovered did show that at least two foreign captives were taken there on 7 October.
The IDF showed what it said was a fortified 55-metre tunnel on the hospital grounds. This fell short of its initial claims about the extent of hidden tunnels, although later reporting suggested the passage – which was blown up – had actually been longer and was most likely connected to a wider network under Gaza City.
When it returned to the site in March, the IDF suggested its key discoveries were of a different nature, releasing pictures of cash, weapons, and ammunition it said it had found there along with Hamas documents.
Weapons that the Israeli army claims were found in al-Shifa hospital
The IDF says its forces discovered weapons and ammunition at the site [IDF]
Al-Shifa has been at the heart of a debate about whether Hamas uses medical sites as a cover. Israel has consistently claimed that the group hides its fighters and infrastructure behind the sick and wounded, which it suggests has rendered hospitals legitimate military targets. Hamas denies misusing civilian sites and accuses Israel of violating international humanitarian law by targeting hospitals. In April, when the UN called for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves in Gaza, its spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that more journalists needed to be able to work safely in the territory to report on the facts. During the war, Israel and Egypt have denied free access to foreign media. Mr Dujarric also said: “It’s important that all forensic evidence be well preserved.” So far, that is proving to be a challenge. International forensic specialists have been unable to reach Gaza to investigate what happened at al-Shifa. That has left much of the focus locally on registering and identifying the dead where possible, and giving them proper burials. The disturbance of the mass grave sites, experts say, will ultimately make it much harder to uncover the truth about them.
Meanwhile, although al-Shifa has been largely destroyed, there have been recent efforts to restart very limited medical services on site. These gained momentum as Israel targeted other health facilities which it said were being used by Hamas, particularly Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. In late May, in a hastily repaired room of the kidney dialysis unit at al-Shifa, the journalist working with us met four patients as they sat connected to steadily beeping machines. After so many deaths at the hospital, it is once again providing some life-saving treatment.

Israeli nationalist march through Palestinian area of Jerusalem is set to proceed despite tensions
Julia Frankel/JERUSALEM (AP)/June 5, 2024
Thousands of mostly ultranationalist Israelis are expected to take part in an annual march through a dense Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday in an event that often sees racist chants and brawls.
Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been mostly calm throughout the Israel-Hamas war, but the march could ignite widespread tensions, as it did three years ago, when it helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.
The current war began with Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel responded with a massive offensive that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, displaced most of the territory's population and caused widespread destruction. The United States has thrown its weight behind a phased cease-fire and hostage release outlined by President Joe Biden last week. But Israel says it won't end the war without destroying Hamas, while the militant group is demanding a lasting cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
The annual march commemorates “Jerusalem Day,” which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital, but its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, see the march as a provocation.
In past years, police have forcibly cleared Palestinians from the parade route, and large crowds of mostly ultranationalist youth have chanted “Death to Arabs,” “May your village burn” and other offensive slogans. The police say they are deploying 3,000 security personnel to ensure calm. At the insistence of Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the march will follow its traditional route, entering the Muslim Quarter through Damascus Gate and ending at the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray. As buses bringing young Jewish men in for the march thronged around the Old City’s centuries-old walls, Palestinian shopkeepers closed down in the Muslim Quarter in preparation. Before the march kicked off, crowds of young Israelis moved through the Damascus Gate, a central gathering place for Palestinians in the heart of historic Jerusalem. Just inside, dozens surrounded and threw plastic bottles at a journalist wearing a vest with the word PRESS emblazoned on it. They scuffled with police officers who tried to contain them. At the same place, police officers also arrested several Palestinian men, leading them away with their hands bound behind their backs. The police stressed that the march would not enter the sprawling Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. The hilltop on which it stands is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the Jewish temples in antiquity. Perceived encroachments on the site have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades. Counterprotests were planned throughout the day. An Israeli group, Tag Meir, sent volunteers through the emptying city streets ahead of the march to distribute flowers to Christian and Muslim residents of the Old City.

UN agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience highest level of starvation by mid-July
Samy Magdy/CAIRO (AP)/ June 5, 2024
United Nations agencies warned Wednesday that over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.
The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system in the nearly eight-month Israel-Hamas war.
It says the situation remains dire in northern Gaza, which has been surrounded and largely isolated by Israeli troops for months. Israel recently opened land crossings in the north but they are only able to facilitate truck loads in the dozens each day for hundreds of thousands of people. Israel's incursion into Rafah has meanwhile severely disrupted aid operations in the south. Egypt has refused to open its Rafah crossing with Gaza since Israeli forces seized the Gaza side of it nearly a month ago, instead diverting aid to Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing nearby. The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter through Kerem Shalom in recent weeks, but the U.N. says it is often unable to retrieve the aid because of the security situation. It says distribution within Gaza is also severely hampered by ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order, and other Israeli restrictions.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world authority on determining the extent of hunger crises, said in March that around 677,000 people in Gaza were experiencing Phase 5 hunger, the highest level and the equivalent of famine.
The two U.N. agencies said in their report Wednesday that that figure could climb to more than 1 million — or nearly half of Gaza's total population of 2.3 million — by the middle of next month. “In the absence of a cessation of hostilities and increased access, the impact on mortality and the lives of the Palestinians now, and in future generations, will increase markedly with every day, even if famine is avoided in the near term,” it said.
On Tuesday, a separate group of experts said it’s possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war, and restrictions on humanitarian access, have impeded the data collection to prove it. “It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, said about famine in Gaza. Last month, the head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said northern Gaza had already entered “full-blown famine,” but experts at the U.N. agency later said she was expressing a personal opinion.
An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: Twenty percent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications. The war began when Hamas and other militants stormed across the border into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Most of Gaza's population have fled their homes, often multiple times, and the offensive has caused widespread destruction.

Israel court approves temporary ban on Al Jazeera, citing national security
JERUSALEM (Reuters) / June 5, 2024
An Israeli court on Wednesday upheld a 35-day ban on Al Jazeera operations in Israel imposed by the government on national security grounds and a minister said he hoped to extend the ban for another 45 days when it runs out on Saturday. Israeli authorities raided a Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera as its office on May 5 and said they were shutting the operation down for the duration of the Gaza war, accusing the broadcaster of encouraging hostilities against Israel.
Al Jazeera rejected the accusations as a "dangerous and ridiculous lie" that put its journalists at risk. Wednesday's court ruling retroactively approved a 35-day ban until June 8. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Shai Yaniv said he had been provided with evidence, which he did not specify, of a long-standing and close relationship between the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Qatari-backed broadcaster Al Jazeera, accusing the channel of promoting Hamas goals. "Freedom of expression has an special importance during time of war. However, when there is significant harm to state security, the latter consideration comes first," he wrote. Al Jazeera, which has criticised Israel's military operations in Gaza, from where it has reported throughout the war, told the court it did not incite violence or terrorism and that the ban was disproportionate, according to court documents.
Regarding the allegation of ties with Hamas, it said its journalists had a wide range of confidential sources on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. The channel has accused Israel of deliberately killing several of its journalists in Gaza. Israel says it does not target journalists. Israeli satellite and cable television providers suspended Al Jazeera broadcasts following the government's May 5 instruction. The communications minister said on Wednesday it aimed to extend the ban for a further 45 days. The United Nations human rights office and the United States have criticised the shutdown of Al Jazeera's Israel operation. Qatar, where several Hamas political leaders are based, is trying to mediate a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could halt the Gaza war.

In a West Bank refugee camp, Israel's raids fuel the militancy it tries to stamp out
NUR SHAMS REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP)/, June 5, 2024
An Israeli army raid in April set off a near three-day gunbattle with Palestinian militants. By the time it was over, homes had been blasted to rubble and many residents had fled.
The raid wasn't in Gaza, where Israel is at war with Hamas, but more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank — a territory that has been under Israeli military rule for over a half-century.
The persistence of Palestinian militancy in the West Bank, and its surge since the war in Gaza began, shows the limits of Israel’s military might as the decades-old conflict grinds on with little prospect of a political settlement.
Israeli leaders portray the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Hamas’ last bastion, suggesting that a long-elusive victory in the war ignited by the militants' Oct. 7 attack may be at hand. They have vowed to maintain open-ended security control over Gaza and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In the West Bank, that approach has been met with waves of armed struggle over the years. The battered streets of Nur Shams are testament to a low-level but stubborn insurgency and offer a vivid illustration of what Gaza might be like after the war.
A THREE-DAY RAID
Nur Shams, in the northern West Bank, is one of several urban refugee camps that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became the new state.
The impoverished camps, scattered across the Middle East, have long been bastions for Palestinian militants. Residents of Nur Shams are used to army raids but say the Apr. 18 operation was unlike anything they had ever seen.
Gunfire and airstrikes rang out late that evening. Over the following three days, Israeli troops advanced deep into the camp, raiding homes, demolishing buildings and digging up roads and sewage pipes with armored bulldozers.
“You feel that these forces come here to train in the camp before they go to Gaza the next day,” said Qasim Nimr, a prisoner rights advocate who sheltered in his home during the raid. His nephew and his neighbor were among 14 Palestinians killed in the raid, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Nehayah al-Jundi, a community activist who runs a center for disabled children, said over 60 homes in the camp have been destroyed by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, as well as one of the few recreational centers in the deprived area. She said 72 families have had to relocate.
The Israeli army said in a statement the raid targeted militants. Armed groups active in the camp said 10 of the slain Palestinian men where militants.
A military official, who was not authorized to brief media and so spoke on condition of anonymity, said the demolition of homes and roads was to root out land mines and underground weapons caches. The Palestinian Health Ministry says over 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests, though the dead also include innocent bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers.
The military official said the army has stepped up operations because of a rise in attacks on Israelis, adding that it can operate with a freer hand now that it no longer has to worry as much about retaliatory strikes from Hamas in Gaza.
A HOMETOWN HERO
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group operating in Nur Shams, initially announced that its leader in the camp, known as Abu Shujaa, had been killed. But then the wiry-framed commander made a surprise appearance at the funeral for the other militants. In a video published on social media, he is seen being hoisted into the air by a cheering crowd as nearby militants offload rounds of celebratory gunfire.Leading militants are reticent to appear in public, but signs of their presence are everywhere. A large black Islamic Jihad flag billows at the entrance to the camp, and the streets are lined with posters depicting slain fighters seen as martyrs to the Palestinian struggle. Young men and also children carrying walkie-talkies patrol the alleys beneath black plastic canopies hung to conceal their movements from Israeli aircraft. Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three territories for a future state. The last serious peace talks broke down more than 15 years ago, and Israel's government is opposed to a Palestinian state, partly because it fears that Hamas would end up ruling it.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority administers parts of the occupied West Bank, including the camps. It cooperates with Israel on security matters but rarely confronts the militants directly, which would be seen by many Palestinians as collaborating with the occupation. Al-Jundi said Palestinian security forces have not operated in the camp since the war in Gaza began in October. Israel has ruled out any role for the Palestinian Authority in postwar Gaza, accusing it of supporting militancy, even as the authority has become deeply unpopular among Palestinians for the security assistance it has provided to Israel.
Any local Palestinians whom Israel tries to recruit to govern Gaza are likely to face a similar dilemma.
‘THE CHILDREN ARE OBSESSED’
The refugee camps have always been among the poorest Palestinian communities, and in the West Bank their plight has worsened since the start of the war.
Israel has stopped transferring tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and suspended permits that had allowed tens of thousands of Palestinians to work in Israel. The World Bank estimates some 292,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have lost their jobs since the war began. That has potentially created an army of recruits for militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are funded by Iran and other patrons, and pay their fighters. Palestinians say the appeal goes beyond financial gain and is rooted in longstanding grievances: the generational dispossession of the refugees, decades of seemingly open-ended military rule, the growth of Jewish settlements and diminishing hopes for an independent state. Samer Jaber, the father of Abu Shujaa, the Islamic Jihad commander, says his son has become a local celebrity, with children gathering around him whenever he makes a rare public appearance. “The children are obsessed,” he said.
One of those killed in the raid was Jihad Jaber, Abu Shujaa’s 15-year-old cousin. Jihad’s father, Niyaz, said he tried to steer his son away from the militants, building him an apartment in the nearby city of Tulkarem and even buying him a BMW.
It was no use, said Niyaz, who had made money years earlier working in construction in Israel. “He rejected everything.”He said Jihad Jaber was close to his cousin and incensed by repeated violent raids on the camp. Soon after the April raid began, Jihad handed his father a will and said he was going to join a group of young men fighting Israeli troops, Niyaz said. Hours later, he was shot dead in an alley near his uncle's home. “He was exactly 15 years old,” Niyaz said. “It was his birthday.”

Emirati leader meets with Taliban official facing $10 million US bounty over attacks
Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press/June 5, 2024
The leader of the United Arab Emirates met Tuesday with an official in the Taliban government still wanted by the United States on an up-to $10 million bounty over his involvement in an attack that killed an American citizen and other assaults. The meeting highlights the growing divide internationally on how to deal with the Taliban, who seized control of Afghanistan in 2021 and since have barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and otherwise restricted women's role in public life. While the West still doesn't recognize the Taliban as Kabul's government, nations in the Mideast and elsewhere have reached out to them. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, met Sirajuddin Haqqani at the Qasr Al Shati palace in the Emirati capital, the state-run WAM news agency reported. It published an image of Sheikh Mohammed shaking hands with Haqqani, the Taliban's interior minister who also heads the Haqqani network, a powerful network within the group blamed for some of the bloodiest attacks against Afghanistan's former Western-backed government.
“The two sides discussed strengthening the bonds of cooperation between the two countries and ways to enhance ties to serve mutual interests and contribute to regional stability,” WAM said. “The discussions focused on economic and development fields, as well as support for reconstruction and development in Afghanistan.”For their part, the Taliban described the two men as discussed “matter of mutual interests,” without elaborating. It added that the Taliban's spy chief, Abdul Haq Wasiq, also took part in the meeting. Wasiq had been held for years at the U.S. military's prison at Guantanamo Bay and released in 2014 in a swap that saw U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured after leaving his post in 2009, released. Haqqani, believed to be in his 50s, has been on the U.S. radar even after the Taliban takeover. In 2022, a U.S. drone strike in Kabul killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who had called for striking the United States for years after taking over from Osama bin Laden. The house in which al-Zawahri was killed was a home for Haqqani, according to U.S. officials. While the Taliban argued the strike violated the terms of the 2020 Doha Agreement that put in motion the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the accord also included a promise by the Taliban not harbor al-Qaida members or others seeking to attack America. The Haqqani network grew into one of the deadliest arms of the Taliban after the U.S.-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. The group employed roadside bombs, suicide bombings and other attacks, including on the Indian and U.S. embassies, the Afghan presidency and other major targets. They also have been linked to extortion, kidnapping and other criminal activity.
Haqqani himself specifically acknowledged planning a January 2008 attack against the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed six people, including U.S. citizen Thor David Hesla.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment over Haqqani's visit. The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi is about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the palace where the meeting took place. The U.S. long has been a security guarantor for the UAE, a federation of seven hereditarily ruled sheikhdoms also home to Dubai, and has thousands of troops working out Al Dhafra Air Base and other locations in the country.
Since the Taliban takeover, China is the most-prominent country to accept a diplomat from the group. Other countries have accepted de facto Taliban representatives, like Qatar, which has been a key mediator between the U.S. and the group. American envoys have met multiple times with the Taliban as well.
The UAE, which hosted a Taliban diplomatic mission during the Taliban's first rule in Afghanistan, has been trying to solidify ties to the group even as it sent troops to back the Western coalition that fought for decades in the country. The low-cost UAE-based carriers Air Arabia and FlyDubai have begun flying into Kabul International Airport again, while an Emirati company won a security contract for airfields in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the international community led by the United Nations has tried to provide aid to Afghanistan, as millions struggle to have enough to eat, natural disasters kill those in rural areas and the country's economy has drastically contracted.

Erdogan turns up the heat on Israel as his party’s popularity wanes
Scott McLean and Yusuf Gezer, CNN/June 5, 2024
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.
Since the war in Gaza began, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been one of Israel’s harshest and most vocal critics – routinely branding it a terror state, comparing its prime minister to Hitler and heaping praise on Hamas.
The Palestinian militant group is considered a terror group by most members of NATO, but not Turkey. Some Western critics might accuse Erdogan of going too far in supporting Hamas, but recent events suggest he has not yet appeased his domestic political base.
After Erdogan’s ruling party was handed a humbling defeat in local elections in March, he promised to think hard about what went wrong. Beyond the sputtering Turkish economy – many pundits blamed the electoral setback on his stance on Israel and its war in Gaza.
Political challengers, like the smaller, ultra-conservative New Welfare party, managed to siphon off votes from the president’s ruling AK Party by taking a tougher stance against Israel and demanding concrete actions beyond the fiery rhetoric Erdogan is known for.
“We do not see (the government) doing anything other than speaking and condemning. There are no sanctions, no concrete steps taken, trade with Israel still continues,” said New Welfare’s leader Fatih Erbakan in March.
The president may have believed that strong rhetoric against Israel was enough, Seda Demiralp, a political scientist at Isik University, told CNN after the election. “Erdogan really underestimated New Welfare and how much New Welfare could mobilize conservative voters.”
Correcting course
After the election, Erdogan wasted little time correcting course, swiftly moving to match words with actions. In a matter of days, some trade with Israel was cut off. Three weeks later, all trade was cut off. Some $7 billion worth of annual trade – mostly Turkish exports – is now on pause until the war is over.
That wasn’t all. Last month, Turkey announced its intention to join the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Already warm ties with Hamas were made even warmer when Erdogan hosted the group’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul on April 20, and posed with him for pictures.
Erdogan has compared Hamas to the “Kuvayi Milliye,” the nationalist militias that fought against foreign occupation during the Turkish War of Independence after World War I.
“Believe me, if it were 100 years ago, they would also call Kuvayi Milliye a terrorist organization, a rebel, a joke, a traitor,” Erdogan said in a speech to party lawmakers in May, according to state broadcaster TRT. “This nation has always stood by the oppressed.” The gap between how Turkey and its NATO allies view Hamas was on full, awkward display when Erdogan hosted Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis last month in Ankara. “I don’t see Hamas as a terrorist organization,” Erdogan declared. “On the contrary, Hamas is an organization of resistance, whose territories have been occupied since 1947 and which has been defending its territories after the occupation… If you call them a ‘terrorist organization,’ it will upset us.”“We can agree to disagree on this topic,” Mitsotakis replied. Erdogan went on to claim that “over 1,000 Hamas members are now under treatment in our hospitals in Turkey.”A Turkish official with knowledge of the situation has since told CNN the president misspoke. “He meant 1,000 Gazans are under treatment, who aren’t Hamas members,” the official said. Since the war began, the Turkish Ministry of Health has made several medical airlifts of injured Gazans and their family members to hospitals in Turkey.
For Erdogan, ‘Hamas is Palestine’
Experts say the comment made by Erdogan in the presence of the Greek leader may have in fact been intended for an audience closer to home.
“Western leaders right now are very aware that Erdogan is basically talking for his domestic audience and for the Muslim neighborhood,” said Evren Balta, an international relations professor at Ozyegin University in Istanbul.
Domestically, she said, the president has managed to link Hamas and the Palestinians to the point that “when you are criticizing Hamas publicly, it is as if you’re criticizing the Palestinian cause.”That, coupled with the strong affinity the Turkish public has with Palestinians, has led politicians of all stripes to tread carefully on the issue, particularly some secular and nationalist opposition parties.
“For Erdogan, Hamas is Palestine. For the opposition, Hamas is not Palestine, but they are having difficulties framing the political discourse,” Balta said.
At a political rally ahead of the March local elections, Ozgur Ozel, leader of the secular CHP party established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, highlighted his party’s longstanding support for the Palestinian cause and sought to counter claims that he regards Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“I have not called Hamas a terrorist organization, but I have condemned its terrorist attacks,” he said. “I also condemned Israel’s state terrorism.”
He then went on to taunt the president. “Now come on, Erdogan. If you are on Palestine’s side, stop the trade that your relatives, children, supporters and friends do with Israel every day.”After the elections, Istanbul’s CHP mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – widely touted as a future presidential contender – took fierce criticism from political rivals and in the Turkish press for branding Hamas as a terrorist organization in an interview with CNN in April. This was despite his harsh condemnation of Israel and its “brutal oppression” of Palestinians.
‘No influence’ on NATO
Turkey’s NATO allies in the West have been quick to condemn Hamas, but they’ve been largely silent on Ankara’s cozy relations with the group.
“I think there is a degree of discomfort,” about the relationship, said Fabrice Pothier, a former NATO policy chief, who now leads the Rasmussen Global political consultancy. “It is not benign, that there is one major ally that is far away from the others, but I think NATO manages – up to a point – to compartmentalize between the bilateral positions or issues of allies, and the NATO collective positions and issues.”
A case in point, in October, NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg told the German Press Agency that Turkey-Hamas relations are not a problem because “in some ways it has no influence on what we do or don’t do because we don’t play a role in this particular conflict.”
Hamas members can freely come and go from Turkey and have a regular presence in the country. In fact, in December, Erdogan’s chief foreign policy and security adviser, Akif Cagatay Kilic told CNN that Hamas’ political leader Haniyeh “might have been” in Turkey on October 7, the day the militant group led an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. But he claimed that historically, Turkey’s relationship with Hamas hasn’t merely been tolerated by Israel, but has even been encouraged.
He said former Turkish leaders “have been asked – even by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu – to engage with Hamas.” Turkey’s aim is to bring peace to the region, he said. “We’re doing whatever it takes to achieve that.”
‘Inflation of mediators’
Although it isn’t officially a mediator in the Gaza conflict, there are indications that Ankara is involved on some level. In April, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Hamas was willing to dissolve its military wing if a Palestinian state was created within the 1967 borders. This was later confirmed by an Istanbul-based Hamas member, marking the first time the group has offered to lay down its arms. Fidan also helped relay messages between Washington and Tehran ahead of Iran’s barrage of missiles fired at Israel in April, and there is some indication that Ankara may be playing a similar conduit role between Washington and Hamas. “We have been in touch with both the US and Hamas. We have been advising and encouraging both sides for an immediate and permanent ceasefire,” a Turkish official told CNN – pointing to calls that Fidan held with both Haniyeh and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the same day in mid-May.
With Qatar mulling a possible exit from its mediation role, Balta says Turkey could potentially help fill the gap, despite its Hamas ties increasing distrust with Israel and the West. But, she says, the West would much prefer to deal with Turkey than with, say, Iran, which could become a future refuge for Hamas leaders if the group is forced to leave Qatar, where its political office is based. “Western governments know how to deal with Turkey… so when it comes to Middle Eastern conflicts, who else is going to be a reliable partner? Really, there are not many other reliable partners,” she said.
For now, Turkey isn’t interested in playing a formal role in trying to bring an end to the war in Gaza. “We do not want to create an inflation of mediators,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry source told CNN in April. Despite some discomfort with Turkey’s close ties to Hamas, Western states, Pothier believes, figure it’s better just to tolerate it. “I think the West is finding it useful to have countries who can be between us and Hamas,” he said.

Iran Censure at Nuclear Watchdog Signals Deeper Diplomatic Rift
Jonathan Tirone/(Bloomberg)/June 5, 2024
The United Nations’ atomic watchdog is preparing to pass a resolution of censure against Iran, deepening a diplomatic rift over the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program.
European diplomats proposed the measure after International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors reported Iran hasn’t helped them resolve a probe into uranium particles, presumed to be decades old and detected at undeclared locations.
A vote is expected on Wednesday afternoon after the motion is debated, according to diplomats at the meeting. The three-page censure, drafted by France, Germany and the UK, said it was “essential and urgent” that Iran cooperates on the issue of the unexplained fissile matter. Should Iran fail to clarify suspicions, the countries will demand the IAEA produce an updated assessment about the “possible presence or use of undeclared nuclear material” for non-peaceful purposes. It will be the IAEA’s first vote of censure since November 2022 and comes at a time of elevated tension in the Middle East. April’s military confrontation between Iran and Israel also prompted two prominent Iranian politicians to warn that if threatened, Tehran would be left with no choice but to change its nuclear doctrine and start developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s Remarks on Nuclear Arms Seen Flaming Middle East Cauldron
The Persian Gulf nation has always maintained its atomic work is peaceful, but international doubts led to a 2015 agreement, limiting the program for sanctions relief.
China, Iran and Russia issued a joint statement ahead of the vote calling on Europe and the US to revive negotiations over the moribund nuclear deal that was unilaterally scuttled by former President Donald Trump in 2018.
“Both the agency and the Iranians have dug themselves into a hole,” Tariq Rauf, the IAEA’s former head of nuclear-verification policy, said. “Iran needs to provide explanations and the IAEA needs to be clear that in the 22 years since the Iran file was opened its inspectors have not reported diversion of nuclear material for weapons.”The IAEA’s current probe into Iran stems from a cache of information released by Israel in 2018. Even as US intelligence agencies continue to report there’s no evidence that Iran is developing weapons, environmental samples taken by agency investigators suggest gaps in the IAEA’s understanding of past activities. Iran continues to insist that it’s fully cooperated with the IAEA. Even after its president and foreign minister were killed in a helicopter crash last month, it only briefly delayed a planned technical meeting with investigators. “This constructive cooperation should not be undermined by short-sighted political interests,” Iran told diplomats Tuesday in a 14-page briefing and demanded the IAEA “avoid distorting the bigger picture on cooperation.”
This week’s IAEA deliberations come as the clock winds down on key provisions in the original nuclear deal that stipulate UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic will be permanently lifted in October 2025, unless France or the UK raise a broader objection and extend the shelf life of the penalties. The latest censure resolution could be used by the two countries, which are permanent members of the UN security council, to strengthen their case to do so.

Jordan makes biggest drugs bust in years at Saudi border
AMMAN (Reuters)/Suleiman Al-Khalidi/June 5, 2024
Jordan has foiled two plots to smuggle millions of captagon pills through a border post to Saudi Arabia, the biggest seizure in years of drugs bound for lucrative Gulf markets from what Jordanian security officials say are Syria-based gangs with ties to Iran. The haul was discovered hidden in a shipment of construction vehicles at the Omari crossing in Jordan's eastern desert before it was due to enter Saudi Arabia, officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Law enforcement authorities had for weeks tracked two separate operations bringing the consignment of drugs into Jordan across the northern border with Syria. Unlike in previous busts that were carried out as drugs entered Jordan, the authorities waited to make the seizure until the drugs transited through the country and were due to leave. War-ravaged Syria has become the region's main site for the mass production of the addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant known as captagon, with Jordan a key transit route to the oil-rich Gulf states, Western anti-narcotics officials say. Jordanian officials, like their Western allies, say that Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group and pro-Iranian militias who control much of southern Syria are behind a surge in the multi-billion-dollar drugs and weapons trade. Iran and Hezbollah deny the allegations. U.N. experts and U.S. and European officials say the illicit drug trade finances a proliferation of pro-Iranian militias and Syrian pro-government paramilitary forces, after more than a decade of conflict in Syria.
Since last year, Jordan's army has conducted several pre-emptive airstrikes inside Syria that Jordanian officials say targeted militias linked to the drug trade and their facilities, in a bid to stem a rise in cross-border incursions.
Jordanian officials say they were forced to take matters into their own hands following meetings with their Syrian counterparts at which they expressed frustration that Damascus was not firmly acting to stem the smuggling.
Amman says it has provided names of key drug dealers and locations of manufacturing facilities and smuggling routes to Syrian authorities. Jordan's King Abdullah called last month on Arab states to confront what the U.S. ally has called an alarming rise in incursions of drugs and weapons smugglers linked to Iranian militias operating in southern Syria. "They seek to exploit the regional tensions to target Jordan and its neighbours..They are trying to flood the region with drugs to amass profits and harm the security and stability of our countries," said a senior Jordanian official who requested anonymity.
Jordan has also received extra U.S. military aid to improve security on its 375 km (230 mile) Syrian border. Jordanian officials say Washington has poured in hundreds of millions of dollars to establish border posts since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.