Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 19-20/2024
Hochstein to Lebanon: Washington Cannot Prevent Israel’s Decision to Expand the War
Amos Hochstein's Diplomatic Mission in Beirut: A Focus on De-escalation Amid Tensions
Hezbollah's Hudhud Drone Mission: Implications and Strategic Messaging
Cypriot President responds to Nasrallah: Cyprus is part of the solution, not the problem
Lebanese Government and UNHCR Clash Over Syrian Refugee Data
IDF green-lights ‘operational plans’ for Lebanon
Israel warns of prospect of ‘all-out war’ after Hezbollah publishes video of military, civilian sites
Military escalation in southern Lebanon after US envoy’s visit
Hezbollah chief says nowhere in Israel will be spared in case of full-blown war
The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group warns archenemy Israel against wider war
Head of Lebanon's Hezbollah threatens Israel, Cyprus in televised address
Southern Lebanon: Hezbollah Death Toll Rises to Four
Hodhod Footage: What Is Hezbollah’s Objective?
Lebanon: When Will the Conflict in the South End?
For Israel and Lebanon, the Most Dangerous Period Looms
Concerning the Situation in Lebanon… ‘It’s Demography, Stupid’/Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al-Awsat/June 19/2024

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 19-20/2024
Canada lists Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terror group
White House cancels US-Israel meeting in anger at Netanyahu’s latest accusations: report
Israeli army in urgent need of troops amid rising casualties in Gaza
Europe must host Gaza children, Greek foreign minister says
Nine Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on citizens waiting for aid in Gaza: medical sources
Israel may have violated laws of war in Gaza, UN rights office says
Israeli strike on Syria kills army officer: state media
Ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthis in fatal assault sinks in Red Sea in second-such sinking
US military says it killed a senior ISIS official in Syria airstrike
Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrives in Vietnam for state visit

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on June 19-20/2024
Jihadists Brutalize Non-Muslim Women, Feminists in West Remain Silent/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/June 19, 2024
Will France choose fantasy politics or reality?/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/June 19, 2024
Today in History: Crusaders Triumph Over the Muslim Persecutors of Christians/Raymond Ibrahim/LifeSiteNews/June 19, 1097
From the Sea to the River... Who Reaps the Benefit?/Khalid Al-Bari/Asharq Al-Awsat/June 19/2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 19-20/2024
Hochstein to Lebanon: Washington Cannot Prevent Israel’s Decision to Expand the War
Bassam Abou Zeid/This Is Beirut/June 19/2024
The visit of United States presidential envoy Amos Hochstein did not achieve success on two fronts: The first is linked to the ceasefire at the Lebanese-Israeli border. Hochstein was informed once more that a ceasefire at this border is contingent on a ceasefire in Gaza. The second is about de-escalation at the border. Hochstein did not receive any guarantees on the matter. Hezbollah links the level of escalation to the requirements of the battle and the needs of the field. Sources indicated that despite this, Hochstein attempted to gauge the opinion of Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berry on the possibility of launching an independent political process in southern Lebanon to implement Resolution 1701, should efforts to reach a ceasefire with Hamas fail. However, Berry responded that the focus should currently be on stopping the fire in Gaza, and once the plan for the south post-ceasefire is ready, work on its implementation should begin immediately. The information revealed that this diplomatic discussion was not the primary focus of the visit. The American envoy informed the Lebanese officials he met with that Israel is determined to change the prevailing situation at its northern border, either through force or diplomacy. Israel will not accept a return to the pre-October 8th status quo, where settlements are threatened again. Hochstein advised adopting a diplomatic solution because Israel’s alternative option is military action. He emphasized that the US would not be able to prevent Israel from expanding the war if its political and military leadership decided to do so.
A Lebanese official privy to Hochstein’s discussions mentioned that the Americans seem to rely on the balance of terror between Israel and Hezbollah to maintain the current situation in southern Lebanon. However, the American envoy is convinced that Tel Aviv seeks to conclude the battle in Rafah as quickly as possible. This would allow Israel to transfer forces from there to the northern front, with some of these forces already integrated into the Northern Command’s plans and scenarios for any wide-scale war with Hezbollah.

Amos Hochstein's Diplomatic Mission in Beirut: A Focus on De-escalation Amid Tensions
LBCI/June 19/2024
Amos Hochstein's visit to Beirut continues to dominate discussions. According to reliable sources, his primary objective during this visit is not merely to cease hostilities on the southern front, which hinges on the cessation of hostilities in Gaza. Rather, his focus lies on promoting de-escalation and maintaining the current rules of engagement to prevent escalation into a full-scale war. Hezbollah's response to Hochstein was clear: Israel must be deterred from committing large-scale bombings. Hezbollah added that it is not working to start a full-scale war and remains in a support and backing role for Gaza. According to Israeli media, Hochstein left Beirut and headed back to Israel, although there has been no official US confirmation. Some observers believe he carries a message from Lebanon to Israel. The Israeli site Walla reported that Hochstein's return is linked to delivering a stern message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for accusing the United States of delaying arms transfers to Israel. Regardless of the reasons for Hochstein's return to Israel, if true, what concerns Lebanon is whether there will be a war. However, it is clear that US-Israeli relations are not in a good state. “When Secretary Blinken ( U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken) was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation, I said I deeply appreciated the support the U.S. has given Israel from the beginning of the war. But I also said something else, I said it's inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel. Israel, America's closest ally, fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies.

Hezbollah's Hudhud Drone Mission: Implications and Strategic Messaging
LBCI/June 19/2024
Some may wonder why there is such a fuss over the Hudhud drone mission, given that this is not the first time Hezbollah's drones have breached Israeli airspace, and considering that the airspace of all countries is exposed to the world through various applications. What is noteworthy about the Hudhud operation is that it is recent, taking place just a few days ago, and was executed smoothly and for long hours. During this time, it filmed various sensitive sites, starting from the Lebanese border up to the port of Haifa, and identified several locations by name as if Hezbollah knew them precisely. What was published as a result is only the first episode of what was filmed, with more to be revealed later. The timing of the subsequent releases will be politically significant, just as the first video was released concurrently with Amos Hochstein's talks in Lebanon. Additionally, it is reported that the Hudhud did not fly over the occupied territories alone but as part of a squadron of Hudhud drones, some of which are still flying over the occupied territories. More importantly, the filming was not limited to Haifa and its port but extended beyond Haifa, and this will be disclosed soon. The outcome of what has happened so far is that Hezbollah now possesses documented information about sensitive sites and a potential target bank, which includes military targets such as the military industries complex and the Haifa military base, civilian targets such as the densely populated Krayot area, and strategic targets such as the port of Haifa and its facilities. Hezbollah's message is clear: they are ready for any attack or war, operating on the principle of military for military, civilian for civilian, and strategic for strategic. The message to the Americans and Israelis is that there will be no cessation of the southern war without stopping the war in Gaza, and instead of putting pressure on Lebanon, the US administration should pressure Israel to stop the war there.

Cypriot President responds to Nasrallah: Cyprus is part of the solution, not the problem
LBCI/June 19/2024
After Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened Cyprus in a speech on Wednesday, the country's President Nikos Christodoulides responded to his threats, saying: “Cyprus remains uninvolved in any military conflicts and positions itself as part of the solution rather than the problem.”In his speech, Nasrallah warned the Cypriot government, saying that it should be "cautious" because allowing Israelis access to its airports and bases would make it a participant in the war, confirming that the resistance "would respond accordingly."Speaking to reporters, Christodoulides stressed his country's role as a humanitarian mediator, “which is recognized globally and particularly in the Arab world.”“Our humanitarian corridor is a testament to our commitment to peace and stability,” he said, according to Cyprus Mail, stating that Cyprus is part of the solution, rather than being the problem. Regarding possible communications with Hezbollah or Lebanon's government, President Christodoulides confirmed that his country is open to diplomatic channels with both the governments of Lebanon and Iran. He denounced Nasrallah's statement, affirming that “such statements are not pleasant, but they do not reflect reality. Cyprus is not participating in any military engagements."Christodoulides reassured that the government would handle consultations with foreign leaders on this matter through diplomatic channels.

Lebanese Government and UNHCR Clash Over Syrian Refugee Data
LBCI/June 19/2024
Once again, the Lebanese government has failed to compel the UNHCR to hand over the complete data for 1,486,000 Syrian refugees whose names were provided to the Lebanese side as registered with the commission. A heated discussion took place during a meeting held at the Grand Serail, in which the Lebanese representatives, including Caretaker Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Acting Director General of General Security, were not convinced by the UNHCR's reasons and excuses for not providing detailed data. The deadline given to the commission for submitting this data was the end of May, which has already passed without fulfillment. According to available information, the Lebanese side has given the UNHCR a few more days to provide the data. General Elias Baysari stated that if this does not happen, Lebanon will proceed to collect the data itself through what he termed as Plan B. This involves establishing a Lebanese center to gather this data in collaboration with General Security, municipalities, and all relevant official security and other entities involved with the refugees. Lebanon seeks not only the names of the refugees but also their phone numbers, dates of entry into Lebanon, the routes through which they entered, the regions they came from, the professions they practice, and, if possible, their political affiliations. This is to classify the refugees and determine who has genuine and solid reasons to stay in Lebanon or resettle in a third country, and who is in Lebanon solely for economic and living reasons. Observers pointed out that the UNHCR's fear of the data leaking to the Syrian regime is unfounded, as the Syrian authorities already know, for example, who has evaded military service without needing data from Lebanon. UNHCR stated that its approach involves supporting Lebanon in upholding international commitments to data protection and compliance with international refugee laws. It also expressed commitment to continuing dialogue with the Lebanese government regarding the data issue, with further meetings planned to discuss the request for additional data within the framework of adhering to international data protection standards.

IDF green-lights ‘operational plans’ for Lebanon
Israel Today Staff/June 19/2024
The plans were “authorized and validated” by Northern Command head Maj. Gen. Uri Gordin and IDF Operations Directorate head Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk. The Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command has approved operational plans for a war against the Hezbollah terrorist group in Southern Lebanon, the army announced on Tuesday. The plans were “authorized and validated” by Northern Command head Maj. Gen. Uri Gordin and Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, who leads the military’s Operations Directorate, the IDF said. As part of a situational assessment held at the Northern Command base in Safed, the two commanders also took several decisions “on the continuation of increasing the readiness of troops in the field.”Iran-backed Hezbollah has attacked northern Israel nearly every day since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, killing more than 20 people and causing widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain internally displaced due to the ongoing violence. Since Oct. 8, Hezbollah has fired more than 5,000 rockets, anti-tank missiles and suicide drones at Israeli border communities. The Iran-backed terrorist group ramped up its attacks last week. On Thursday, it claimed to have launched some 150 rockets and 30 drones in its “largest and most comprehensive attack” since the start of the war. Two people sustained light wounds, and the attacks caused widespread destruction. Following a two-day lull in hostilities earlier this week, Hezbollah resumed its attacks on Tuesday afternoon, launching three “suspicious aerial targets” toward towns in the Upper Galilee, the IDF said. Also on Tuesday, Hezbollah published video captured by a surveillance UAV of the Haifa Port, one of Israel’s most important commercial shipping gateways. According to local media, the incident took place last week, and the IDF made the decision not to intercept the drone as it did not pose a threat, and due to the fear that interception fragments could hurt civilians. Also on Tuesday, US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein spoke in Beirut following talks with government officials, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a powerful ally of Hezbollah.“The conflict along the Blue Line [the de facto border] between Israel and Hezbollah has gone on for long enough,” Hochstein said after the meeting with Berri. “Innocent people are dying, property is damaged, families are shattered and the Lebanese economy continues to decline. The country is suffering for no good reason. It’s in everyone’s interest to resolve it quickly and diplomatically,” he added. During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem the previous day, Hochstein rejected Jerusalem’s earlier demand that any diplomatic deal to end the conflict in the north be based on the implementation of UN Security Resolution 1701—which was adopted to end the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and calls for a demilitarized zone from the Blue Line to the Litani River some 18 miles to the north. Instead, he said it should include a range of options, including moving Hezbollah six miles from the border. He stressed that the United States was concerned about further escalation and called for calm on both sides. The intensifying aggression is driving the Middle East towards a wider escalation that could have catastrophic consequences for Lebanon and the region, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari warned on Sunday. According to Hagari, because of Lebanon’s refusal to comply with Resolution 1701, the IDF will take “the necessary measures to protect its civilians until security along our northern border with Lebanon is restored.”
The Oct. 7 massacre “cannot—will not—happen again on any one of Israel’s borders. Israel has a duty to defend the people of Israel. We will fulfill that duty at all costs,” concluded the military spokesman.
With reporting by JNS.

Israel warns of prospect of ‘all-out war’ after Hezbollah publishes video of military, civilian sites
Mostafa Salem, Paul P. Murphy, Ben Wedeman, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Oren /Liebermann, Michael Rios and Tamar Michaelis, CNN/June 19, 2024
Hezbollah releases video showing Israeli military and civilian locationsScroll back up to restore default view. Israel warned Hezbollah on Tuesday of the prospect of “all-out war” after the Lebanese militant group published a 9-minute video, purportedly taken by a drone, showing Israeli military and civilian locations in several Israeli cities. “We are getting very close to the moment of deciding to change the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X. “In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed, and Lebanon severely beaten,” he added. Parts of the Hezbollah footage, filmed in the daytime, claimed to show Krayot, a cluster of “highly populated” residential cities north of the Israeli city of Haifa and 28 km (17 miles) south of the Lebanese border, along with malls and high rises. Other parts claimed to show a military complex near Haifa belonging to Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael – including Iron Dome batteries, missile storage sites and radar sites – and military boats, ships and oil storage depots in the port of Haifa. The publication of the video follows months of intensifying cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, and the ensuing military campaign by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. In his response, Katz also underlined the global repercussions of any potential attack on Haifa. “(Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan) Nasrallah is bragging today that he photographed the ports of Haifa, which are operated by huge international companies from China and India, and threatening to damage them,” he said. The US and its allies have for months warned Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East, against escalating the conflict in Israel. Tensions have nevertheless been rising in recent weeks. CNN analysis has geolocated the video to a number of locations around Haifa. Those locations include a number of sensitive areas, including at least two military installations: a base in northern Haifa and the port of Haifa. The drone also flew over the oil tanks that sit north of Haifa, the Haifa airport and several residential areas. CNN also analyzed the shadows in the videos, which indicate the drone mission over Haifa lasted multiple hours, or took place over multiple days. The analysis shows parts of the video have been sped up. Weapons expert Wim Zwijnenburg, project leader for humanitarian disarmament at the Dutch peace organization PAX, told CNN that a drone visible in the footage appears to be “an Iranian-origin model of a Qasaf-2k, possibly manufactured locally.”
‘Psychological terror’
The mayor of Haifa, Yona Yahav, has described the video as “psychological terror” and demanded a protection plan for his city, criticizing IDF commanders for not having visited Haifa since the October 7 Hamas attack. “I demand that the government present a plan for the massive defense of Haifa and find a military solution to eliminate the threat posed from the north,” Yahav told Israeli radio station Reshet Bet. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the video. Hezbollah has claimed the video was the “first episode,” suggesting more videos would surface from deep inside Israeli territory. A Hezbollah lawmaker in the Lebanese parliament who referenced the video in a social media post has also suggested more is to come. “This is what the party [Hezbollah] announced and you saw, but what is hidden is greater and greater and greater! Haifa and beyond, beyond, and beyond Haifa,” Ibrahim Mousawi said in the post. His message appears to be a reference to a phrase coined by Nasrallah during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when he said the militant group would fire rockets at Haifa “and beyond Haifa”.
Israeli military increasing readiness
Israel has been preparing for the possibility that diplomatic efforts to reduce hostilities with Hezbollah could fail. The release of the footage comes as Israel’s military says it has “approved and validated” operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon and made decisions on increasing the readiness of troops in the field. The plans were approved by the commanding officer of the Northern Command and the head of the Operations Directorate during a joint situational assessment to prepare for the continuation of combat, the IDF said in a statement. The approval of the operational plans does not mean a war between Israel and Hezbollah is imminent – but it does signal that Israel intends to be ready for such a scenario. Hezbollah has fired more than 5,000 rockets, missiles and drones at northern Israel since October 7, claiming that its attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Hezbollah has said in the past that it will only stop firing on Israel if Israel stops the war in Gaza. For its part, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Lebanon and evacuated approximately 60,000 residents from the northern border. More than 90,000 Lebanese have also fled their homes in the area. The US has sought a diplomatic off-ramp to avoid a wider war that could spread to the region, sending special envoy Amos Hochstein to Israel and Lebanon this week to try to ease tensions.

Military escalation in southern Lebanon after US envoy’s visit
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/June 19, 2024
BEIRUT: Hostilities flared between Hezbollah and the Israeli army in southern Lebanon on Wednesday following a visit by US envoy Amos Hochstein to Beirut and Tel Aviv. Opinions varied on the outcome of Hochstein’s visit, which aimed to reduce tensions between Hezbollah and Israel on Lebanon’s southern border. A political observer noted an “unsettling atmosphere” amid the visit — Hochstein’s trip coincided with Hezbollah’s release of aerial drone footage captured inside Israel, showing military bases and the Haifa port. The footage, released by the group on Tuesday, alarmed and angered Israeli military observers. Media reports on Wednesday from Beirut said that Hochstein reassured caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the atmosphere was “positive” regarding US President Joe Biden’s initiative for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hochstein said that the situation was “under control.”
BACKGROUND
Wednesday’s clash came a day after the Israeli military said it had approved operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon. Hezbollah has said that any ceasefire on Lebanon’s southern border will only be reached following a truce in the Gaza Strip. A Paris meeting earlier this month between President Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron focused on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Several Hezbollah members and civilians were killed and injured in fresh violence as Hochstein left the region. Hezbollah said on Wednesday it fired dozens of Katyusha rockets and artillery rounds at a barracks in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, in retaliation for the Israeli attacks on Yarun and Khiam. The group said it targeted the headquarters of the 769th Eastern Brigade — affiliated with the 91st Division — at the Kiryat Shmona barracks with rockets and artillery shells. Israeli media reported that about 20 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward Kiryat Shmona. Haaretz quoted the Israeli army as saying that about 10 rockets were fired toward the town, causing damage to infrastructure and property. Sirens and Israel’s Iron Dome air defense was activated in Israeli settlements near the Lebanese border. Since Wednesday morning, southern Lebanon has faced Israeli attacks, injuring civilians residing near targeted sites. Army artillery shelled the outskirts of the border towns of Taybeh and Hula. The city of Khiam was targeted with heavy shells, causing significant damage to a healthcare center belonging to the Amel Association International. Israeli aerial and artillery attacks targeted the outskirts of the towns of Aita Al-Shaab, Shebaa, Odaisseh, Rachaya Al-Foukhar, Tallouseh, Bani Haiyyan and Mays Al-Jabal. The head of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, MP Fadi Alame, counted “more than 5,000 Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the southern front opened over eight months ago, resulting in the death of more than 400 people and over 15,000 injuries.”The MP added that Israel had used “internationally banned phosphorous bombs, affecting more than 12,000 hectares of land, while more than 75 schools were damaged.”Israeli aerial and artillery attacks reached the outskirts of Aita Al-Shaab, Chebaa, Odaisseh, Rachaya Al-Fakhar, Tallouseh, Bani Haiyyan and Mays Al-Jabal. Israeli jets raided Yaroun in Bint Jbeil, killing three people. Hezbollah mourned the deaths of Hassan Mohammed Ali Saab, 54, from Yaroun in southern Lebanon; Jihad Ahmad Hayek, 25, from the south of the village of Adshit; and Hassan Al-Mujtaba Youssef Ahmad, 27, from Rchaf. An Israeli military drone targeted a car in Wazzani, but the driver escaped by jumping out of the vehicle upon seeing the drone. The coastal area between Borgholiyeh and Chabriha in Tyre was also targeted. In response to the raid on Borgholiyeh, Hezbollah carried out “an aerial attack with a fleet of attack drones targeting gatherings and positions of Israeli soldiers inside the Metula settlement, causing confirmed hits.”According to an Israeli army investigation reported on by Israel’s Ynet, one of the three Hezbollah surveillance drones that infiltrated Israeli airspace was shot down. Also on Wednesday, Hezbollah commemorated the death of a senior field commander, Taleb Sami Abdallah, in Beirut’s southern suburb. He was killed by Israel a week ago.

Hezbollah chief says nowhere in Israel will be spared in case of full-blown war
AFP/June 19, 2024
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday warned “no place” in Israel would be spared in case of full-blown war against the Lebanese group, and threatened Cyprus if it opened its airports to Israel. “The enemy knows well that we have prepared ourselves for the worst... and that no place... will be spared our rockets,” Nasrallah said in a televised address. Israel must expect “us on land, by sea and by air,” he said. “The enemy really fears that the resistance will penetrate Galilee” in northern Israel, he said, adding that this was possible “in the context of a war that could be imposed on Lebanon.”Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese movement allied with Hamas, have traded near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel which triggered war in the Gaza Strip. The exchanges between the foes, which last went to war in 2006, have escalated in recent weeks, and the Israeli military said Tuesday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated.” Earlier, Foreign Minister Israel Katz had warned of Hezbollah’s destruction in a “total war.”Nasrallah said his Iran-backed group had been informed that Israel could use airports and bases in Cyprus if Hezbollah struck Israeli airports. Cyprus, a European Union member, has good relations with Israel and Lebanon, and lies close to the coast of both countries. “Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Nasrallah threatened. Britain has also retained sovereign control over two base areas in its former colony Cyprus under the terms of the treaties that granted the island independence in 1960. Nasrallah’s statements came a day after US envoy Amos Hochstein — who in 2022 brokered a maritime border deal between Israel and Lebanon — called for “urgent” de-escalation during a visit to Lebanon. He also met with senior officials in Israel on his regional tour. “Everything the enemy says and that the mediators convey, including with threats of war on Lebanon... this doesn’t scare us,” Nasrallah said. On Tuesday, Hezbollah released a more than nine-minute video showing aerial footage purportedly taken by the movement over northern Israel, including what it said were sensitive military, defense and energy facilities and infrastructure in the city and port of Haifa. Nasrallah said the footage was taken by a drone that “flew for long hours” over the Haifa port. He also warned that his group had only used “a part of” its weapons since October. “We have obtained new weapons,” Nasrallah said, without elaborating. “We have developed some of our weapons... and we are keeping others for the days that will come,” he said. “Years ago we talked about 100,000 fighters... today, we have greatly exceeded” that number, Nasrallah added. “The resistance has more (manpower) than it needs... even in the worst circumstances,” he said. Hezbollah on Wednesday claimed several attacks on Israeli troops and positions in northern Israel, and announced the death of four of its fighters. The cross-border violence has killed at least 478 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north.

The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group warns archenemy Israel against wider war
Kareem Chehayeb And Abby Sewell/BEIRUT (AP) /June 19, 2024
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that could help it target more critical positions deeper inside Israel in case of an all-out war, the militant group's leader warned on Wednesday. Hassan Nasrallah’s comments came as the monthslong cross-border conflict simmering between Hezbollah and Israel appears to be reaching a boiling point and a day after a top U.S. envoy met Lebanese officials in his latest attempt to ease tensions. "We now have new weapons. But I won’t say what they are," he said in a televised address commemorating a top Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon last week. “When the decision is made, they will be seen on the front lines.”Hezbollah has used locally made explosive drones for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last Octobe r, as well as surface-to-air missiles against Israeli jets. Nasrallah said in 2021 that Hezbollah has 100,000 fighters but now he claimed the number is much higher, without elaborating. He also said he has rejected offers from allied countries and militias in the region that could add tens of thousands to his ranks. A nearly 10-minute-long video allegedly filmed by a Hezbollah surveillance drone and released Tuesday shows parts of Haifa — a city far from the Israel-Lebanon border. Nasrallah in his speech Wednesday said Hezbollah has much more footage — an apparent threat it could reach sites deep in Israel. Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, visited Israeli air-defense soldiers near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday, saying Israel was aware of Hezbollah's capabilities demonstrated in the video and has solutions for these threats. “The enemy only knows a small part of our capabilities and will see them at the needed time,” he said. Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has been exchanging strikes with Israel almost daily since the war in Gaza erupted on Oct. 7, with the aim to pull Israeli forces away from the embattled Gaza Strip. Hezbollah's attacks escalated after Israel expanded its offensive last month into the southern Gaza city of Rafah and spiked further last week after an Israeli strike killed high-ranking Hezbollah commander Taleb Sami Abdullah, the most senior militant killed so far during the Israel-Hamas war. Also Tuesday, the Israeli army said it has “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon, although the decision to actually launch such an operation would have to come from the country's political leadership. The warnings by both sides followed a visit by President Joe Biden's senior adviser Amos Hochstein, who this week met with officials in Lebanon and Israel in his latest attempt to deescalate tensions. Hochstein told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that it was a “very serious situation” and that a diplomatic solution to prevent a larger war was “urgent.” Nasrallah said a wider war with Lebanon would have regional implications and that Hezbollah would attack any other country in the region backing Israel, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training exercises. Only a cease-fire in Gaza would halt the Lebanon-Israel border fighting or the attacks on Western and Israel-linked targets from Yemen's Houthi rebels and Iraqi militias allied with Hezbollah.
Israel views Hezbollah as its most direct threat, and the two fought a 34-day war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Hebollah's military capabilities have significantly grown since then, and the United States and Israel estimate the group, along with other Lebanese militant factions, has about 150,000 missiles and rockets. Hezbollah also has been working on precision-guided missiles. Hezbollah said at least four of its fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday as Hochstein returned to Israel for a new round of meetings there. Lebanese state media reported the strikes along the border and near the coastal city of Tyre, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) away. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah launches damaged several vehicles in northern Israel. Kamel Mohanna, the head of the Amel Association, an NGO providing health services in different areas of Lebanon, said the association health center in the town of Khiam was hit and damaged by the Israeli shelling. Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah and other militants, but also over 80 civilians and non-combatants. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed by strikes launched from Lebanon.

Head of Lebanon's Hezbollah threatens Israel, Cyprus in televised address
Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily/BEIRUT (Reuters)/June 19, 2024
The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Wednesday that nowhere in Israel would be safe if a full-fledged war breaks out between the two foes, and he also threatened Cyprus and other parts of the Mediterannean. Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel for more than eight months in parallel with the Gaza War. On Tuesday, the Iran-backed group published what it said was drone footage of sensitive military sites deep in Israeli territory. In a televised address on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said "there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones" in Israel in the event of a broader war. The group also had "a bank of targets" that it could target in precision strikes, he said. Israel "knows that what also awaits it in the Mediterranean is very big...In the face of a battle of this magnitude, it knows that it must now wait for us on land, in the air, and at sea," Nasrallah added.
The group first showed it could hit a vessel at sea by striking an Israeli warship in the Mediterranean during their 2006 war. Reports by media and analysts have for years indicated that Hezbollah acquired Russian-made anti-ship Yakhont missiles in Syria, after its forces deployed there more than a decade ago to help President Bashar al-Assad fight the country's civil war. Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus for the first time, accusing it of allowing Israel to use its airports and bases for military exercises. "The Cypriot government must be warned that opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war and the resistance (Hezbollah) will deal with it as part of the war," Nasrallah said. There was no immediate comment from authorities in Cyprus. Cyprus is not known to offer any land or base facilities to the Israeli military, but has in the past allowed Israel to use its vast airspace - its flight information region (FIR) - to occasionally conduct air drills, but never during conflict. Sovereign British military bases have been used by the United Kingdom for operations in Syria and more recently, Yemen. The Cyprus government has no say in the matter. There are two British bases in Cyprus, which was a colony until 1960. Nasrallah said his group would fight with "no rules" and "no ceilings" in the event of a broader war. He was speaking at a memorial event for a commander killed in an Israeli strike last week - the most senior Hezbollah figure to be killed so far in the current conflict with Israel. Hezbollah unleashed its largest volleys of drones and rockets at Israel in retaliation. U.N. officials expressed concern at the escalation, and U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein traveled to Israel and Lebanon to urge both sides not to move into a full-scale conflict.

Southern Lebanon: Hezbollah Death Toll Rises to Four
This Is Beirut/June 19/2024
Hezbollah announced the deaths of its fighters: Hassan Muhammad Ali Saab, Jihad Ahmad Hayek, Hassan al-Mujtaba Yousef Ahmad and Wahbi Mohammed Ibrahim, raising the death toll to four for the day. The pro-Iranian party claimed responsibility for targeting the headquarters of the 769th Eastern Brigade (of the 91st Division) in the Kiryat Shmona barracks with dozens of Katyusha rockets and artillery shells. It also disclosed that it had targeted the Metula, Jal al-Alam and the Raheb sites. Two rockets fired from Israel targeted the town square of Mays al-Jabal. The Israeli artillery bombarded with heavy weapons Tallet al-Awida towards Taybeh and the town of Hula, causing a fire to break out in the Qaaqour region. In the afternoon, the village of Aita al-Shaab endured sporadic artillery shelling from Israeli army positions. The Israeli Air Force resumed its attacks on Borgholieh, north of Tyre, raiding the area between Borgholieh and the coastline. Furthermore, the Israeli army announced the bombing of “Hezbollah military targets in the areas of Tyre and Khiam in southern Lebanon.” The “Khiam Health Care Center of the Amel International Foundation” in Khiam released a statement revealing that the center had sustained serious material damage from Israeli shelling. Additionally, Israeli phosphorus shelling was directed at Kfar Kila and the outskirts of Odaisseh. Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adrai affirmed on X that the army targeted Hezbollah infrastructure. He elaborated, “Last night, several Hezbollah operatives were observed entering a military building in the Yaroun area, which serves as a weapons depot. Our aircraft promptly attacked the building. Simultaneously, we targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in the Baraachit area.”

Hodhod Footage: What Is Hezbollah’s Objective?
Natasha Metni Torbey/This Is Beirut/June 19/2024
The Iranian-made drone (developed by Shahid Sattari University of Aeronautical Sciences and Technologies) that flew over several areas of Israeli territory, and allegedly enabled Hezbollah to release a ten-minute video on Tuesday, raises several questions about the process and the messages being conveyed.
How was the drone able to take high-resolution images of “sensitive” sites at a relatively low altitude? Were these images taken solely by the drone? What message did Hezbollah intend to send? How would Israel react? Named Hodhod 3 after the hoopoe bird, which became Israel’s emblem in 2008, the drone used by Hezbollah for transmitting “very important scenes” to “watch and analyze,” as recommended by the pro-Iranian group, had a three-way mission.According to retired General Khalil Helou, the first objective is to “brandish a threat against Tel Aviv, boost the morale of Hezbollah’s supporters and fighters, and send a clear message to the American envoy, Amos Hochstein.” During his mission in Israel and Lebanon on Monday and Tuesday, Hochstein conveyed Israel’s war threats against the country to Lebanese political leaders during his brief visit to Beirut.
The Hodhod 3
Measuring approximately 3.3 meters in length, the Hodhod 3 has a wingspan of about 5 meters and weighs 90 kg. As a wheeled drone, it requires a 150-meter runway for both takeoff and landing. Its speed ranges between 70 and 120 km/h, and its range is estimated at 100 km, meaning that once this distance is covered, the drone risks falling if it does not land “in time.”Launched from Lebanon, the Hodhod likely took off from the south of Tyre and the north of Naqoura, flying over the sea at a very low altitude before reaching Haifa, located approximately 30 km from Lebanon. According to General Helou, the calculation is simple: “With 30 km for the outward journey, 30 km for the return, we are at 60 km, to which 40 km of overflight of the areas in question should be added, for a total of 100 km, this figure being indicative of its range.”With stealth and silent flight capabilities (emitting no noise or thermal signature), it is impossible to detect or intercept this drone via a ground-based radar. Only an aircraft flying at a higher altitude than the drone’s flight path can detect its presence.
A bank of military and civilian targets
The areas (military, civilian and strategic) shown in the video released by Hezbollah are numerous. They include the cities of Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, Safed, Karmiel, Afula, Haifa and its port, with Israeli warships. “The most astonishing thing,” explains Jean-Sébastien Guillaume, founder of Celtic Intelligence, “is the overflight of the military-industrial complex belonging to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which includes numerous factories, warehouses and test fields where components of Israeli defense systems such as the Iron Dome and David’s Sling are manufactured and assembled.”
Additionally, according to Guillaume, the video shows Iron Dome and David’s Sling platforms, part of the test tunnel, rocket motor storage, air defense missile components manufacturing facilities, control and guidance systems factories, the company’s administrative buildings, and missile test radars. The video also shows, still according to Guillaume, a detailed view of Krayot, a suburb north of Haifa, comprising six cities with a population of 260,000 Israelis. “Hezbollah published a complete high-definition view of this urban agglomeration, with a real-time tour of the various districts and neighborhoods, including official Israeli residences and commercial complexes,” he noted.
A compilation of images?
However, these images are not new. This is what both General Helou and Guillaume agree on. According to them, they are “easily compilable from satellite images.” Nevertheless, with the Hodhod, such shots are easy to take, as the drone is equipped with high-resolution cameras for taking 16 Megapixel and HD photos. However, it is very likely a “collection of photos from several flights carried out over several months, as well as from Iranian or even Palestinian intelligence and Iranian satellites,” added both the retired general and Guillaume. It is worth noting in this context that Iran has several surveillance satellites over the Middle East: Nour-1, launched in April 2020; Nour-2, put into orbit in March 2022; and Nour-3, placed 450 km above the Earth in September 2023.Three other satellites were launched in 2024, providing images of quality comparable to those released by Hezbollah on Tuesday.
Hezbollah’s message vs. Israel’s reaction
On the Israeli side, increased vigilance and aggressiveness can be expected to prevent any strike against Haifa, as the release of such images of sensitive military zones and infrastructure could be perceived as a violation of Israel’s sovereignty and national security. “Even if this information is accessible in some way, the fact that it was disclosed by Hezbollah is perceived as a provocation and would support Israeli government propaganda in its media campaign if the government decided to attack Lebanon,” noted Guillaume. From a military standpoint, “when we have this kind of intelligence, we do not reveal it to avoid informing about the next attack targets,” explained General Helou. According to Guillaume, this drone affair hides deeper issues. “Beyond the accusations and counter-accusations, it seems that Hezbollah’s real goal is to maintain and push its presence south of the Litani River,” he said. “By releasing these surveillance images (whether from satellite or drone, the method is not the main issue as Hezbollah has already carried out such maneuvers in the past), the pro-Iranian group seeks to raise the stakes and justify its refusal to withdraw north of the Litani.”
Israel, on the other hand, could fully exploit this incident to sway public opinion against Hezbollah and legitimize the continuation of the military conflict. Both sides seem primarily engaged in a power struggle to preserve their respective positions on the domestic political front.

Lebanon: When Will the Conflict in the South End?
Rami Rayess/This Is Beirut/June 19/2024
The connection between the southern Lebanese front and the Gaza war occurred the day after the events of October 7, 2023, when Hezbollah initiated a surprise attack on Israel, indicating a linkage between the two fronts which – it soon became apparent – would be irreversible. The war in the South was described as the “support front” for Gaza, which has been under continuous Israeli bombardment for more than eight months, except for a brief truce that lasted only a few days. Practically, what is happening in southern Lebanon and the northern occupied Palestinian territories is a full-fledged war, and it cannot be classified as anything less than that, regardless of whether it is “regulated” within certain rules of engagement or does not exceed specific geographical boundaries. That being said, it has not yet been called the “expanded war,” which would be a real disaster for Lebanon, subjecting it to all forms of bombardments that would not spare any city, village, infrastructure, bridge or facility. Thus, if escalation on the southern front is considered a taste of things to come, it is certain that the expanded war will be no walk in the park for either side. Lebanon will pay a high price and suffer enormous losses on various levels, and Hezbollah’s offensive capabilities will not spare the other side, especially with the party’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah declaring early on after the outbreak of the war that any expansion of the conflict would be met with “no military limits” responses.
Whatever the case may be, the connection between the Gaza and Lebanon fronts has become entrenched, and hoping for its disengagement seems like negotiating outside the available contexts and far from the ceilings set directly or indirectly between the two warring parties, prolonging the war and making it unlikely to end without getting out of the quagmire Israel has sunk into in Gaza, despite all the systematic destruction it has inflicted on the strip, rendering it uninhabitable. The idea proposed by Washington for Hezbollah to withdraw 8 km away from the southern Lebanese border seems impractical without a parallel Israeli action. It has become clear – Hezbollah repeated it incessantly – that the pro-Iranian militia is not ready to offer gifts to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to save him from his predicament. If the continuation of the war linkage has become almost certain after long months of fighting, the equally significant challenge lies in the simultaneous cessation of fire on both fronts when the war ends, based on the premise that every conflict has an end at a certain political moment. The main question revolves around the Israeli stance after the end of the Gaza war and its willingness to automatically extinguish the southern Lebanon front at that point. It is no secret that the political disputes within Israel are very intense, ranging from right-wing to more extreme right-wing proposals. This ongoing bickering may lead Netanyahu to launch a war on Lebanon to break his internal isolation and escape the predicaments that will haunt him regardless after the Gaza war ends.In Lebanon, as much as it is necessary to maintain the climate of public freedoms that allows various parties to express their differing, even contradictory views at times, the current political reality requires a level of dissociation suitable to the significant dangers and major challenges facing Lebanon, which are unprecedented at all levels.

For Israel and Lebanon, the Most Dangerous Period Looms
David Hale/This Is Beirut/June 19/2024
There is conventional wisdom held in some quarters that the risk of a full-blown war between Hezbollah and Israel will begin to recede if and when the conflict between Israel and Hamas reaches a ceasefire or end state. If only it were so simple. It is true that Hezbollah leaders assert they will continue the fight they joined on October 8, 2023, so long as the war in Gaza continues. That hints at a corollary: they may want to stop once Hamas stops. Even with the recent escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, it is also true that neither side seems interested for now in an uncontrolled war. Israel hardly wants war on two fronts, beyond what it is already dealing with. Iran’s interests are less transparently communicated to the world, but a full-scale campaign against Israel by Hezbollah would jeopardize weaponry in south Lebanon that is of great value to Tehran — valuable as a reserve deterrent against kinetic attacks on its own nuclear facilities. As for the stage after the Gaza conflict, the uncertainty is less about Iran and more about Israel. Even after the war with Hamas ends, the situation in Gaza will be a major security, political, and diplomatic challenge for Israel. Nonetheless, Israelis will not tolerate for much longer the status quo in the north. For most Israelis, October 7 discredited previous national security strategies that entailed de facto coexistence on their borders with groups committed to their extermination. Israeli rhetoric focuses on how to turn the tables, restore deterrence, and guarantee Israelis they will “never again” live in the shadow of violence. Prime Minister Netanyahu warned on June 12 of the potential for “very strong action” and said, “One way or the other, we will restore security in the north.” He may be trying to avoid being outflanked by his right-wing cabinet colleagues, such as Finance Minister Smotrich who demands a ground invasion. The debate in Israel on what to do to restore security on their northern border is serious, albeit with a flavor of deja vu. Memories of the 2006 war must inject some reality about the consequences of a full-blown war with Hezbollah, as well as an appreciation that both sides have developed a level of firepower that would make war even more lethal and damaging than the one in 2006. But the absence of viable alternatives to address Israel’s security predicament in Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s gratuitous joining Hamas’ war, keeps military options very much alive in Israel.
This is where America has a necessary role in avoiding an expanded war, if possible. The starting point for successful diplomacy lies not in new formulas, but with a return to the unfulfilled commitments made at the end of the 2006 war, adopted in UN Security Council Resolution 1701. While it had the ingredients for restoring stability, it lacked enforcement mechanisms or a willingness by Hezbollah and its Iranian masters to submit to it. Moreover, the main sponsor of 1701 — the United States — seemed to lose interest once a ceasefire was achieved. Getting back on the path of implementing 1701 is key, with an initial withdrawal of Hezbollah to the Litani River. Of course, that won’t happen in a vacuum.
The strategic foe is in Tehran, not Bir Hassan. Recent reports of direct, diplomatic engagement between American and Iranian officials may be pointers in the right direction, depending on what is being said. Only when Iranian leaders — not just their expendable Arab proxies — feel the pain will there be any hope of a genuine reassessment in Tehran that influences the behavior of Hezbollah. Sanctions enforcement, interdiction of weapons exports, and military pressure on Iranian assets stationed outside Iran are key. If such pressure does shift Iran’s strategic calculus, UNSCR 1701 provides the framework for a gradual improvement of security for both Israelis and Lebanese living alongside that border. If no pressure is applied to Iran, no amount of creative diplomacy or new formulas by American, French, or Arab diplomats will make a difference. Success will require time, persistence, and a focus on the source of the problem.
We should learn from the past. One lesson is to know that short-term fixes are just that — short-term. Papered-over differences have a way of resurfacing with a vengeance. A return to the pre-October 7 status quo in south Lebanon simply guarantees another future war and condemns innocent Lebanese and Israeli citizens to lives in the daily shadow of conflict. And in any case, the current Israeli mood will not support a return to such a policy of complacency. A second lesson is that America has an indispensable diplomatic role to play, but it requires pressure and persistence. It can demonstrate that achieving security and stability through diplomacy is a viable alternative to expanded war — but only in the context of restored deterrence against Iran and its proxies. So long as Israel, America, and others focus in Lebanon only on the proxy and not the sponsor of conflict — that is, only on Hezbollah and not Iran — these cycles of violence will never end.

Concerning the Situation in Lebanon… ‘It’s Demography, Stupid’
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al-Awsat/June 19/2024
In general, it is easy to use a "demographic bomb" to destroy fragile entities like Lebanon. Despite having been around for over 100 years now, the country lacks a national consensus and coherent identity to this day. Lebanon has no ceilings or walls to protect it from regional storms and upheaval.
Even worse, the keys to resolving Lebanon's political crises are in the hands of regional powers - none more than two "theocracies" whose rulers premise the legitimacy of their rule, dominance, occupations, and decisions of war and peace... on the commands of the divine! Thus, there is nothing easier than for these big theocrats to exploit the open field of small "sectarians", to do everything from exchanging messages to drawing maps and furthering regional strategies. Today, with the Israeli war and settlement machine close to finishing much of its plan to destroy Gaza and displace its people, and as it aggravates tensions in the West Bank, the leaders of the Israeli "war authority" are upping the ante of their threats to Lebanon.
For their part, Iran’s leaders have responded to Israel’s escalation in their own unique and usual manner. In this confrontation, Iran is empowered by its firm certainty that the United States, the global power backing and pushing Israel, does not consider itself to be in a "state of war" with Iran. Instead, as we have seen, the US has tasked negotiators and generals with managing the "belligerent bargaining" over the territory of others. Meanwhile, it seems that the Lebanese have not learned any of the lessons of the past. They remain hostage to their tribalistic mindset and wishful thinking that has been proven misguided dozens of times. Indeed, the Lebanese have never understood "causality" in politics, constantly confusing the "cause" with the "effect."
More than that, a large segment of the Lebanese political system remains easy prey to those seeking to stir their sectarian instincts and deliberately undermine the collective Lebanese memory, especially concerning two interrelated sectarian questions: first, the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and second, the ongoing failure to elect a president of the republic. Regarding the Syrian refugees - or "displaced persons" - some Lebanese media outlets and politicians have launched a vicious campaign against them that rivals the racism we have seen in Europe. However, those behind the campaign have not held the parties responsible for making them refugees or causing the "displacement."
No one in the Christian community, specifically, from among the Christian political forces (who were officially in power at the time) has been held accountable for supporting Hezbollah's war in Syria against the Syrians to advance Iran's project to dominate the Middle East!
We have not heard any of the Lebanese - Christian or otherwise - opposed to the presence of Syrians speak out against the Syrian regime... which, after having contributed to their displacement, does not want refugees and the "displaced" to return. Instead, these "rejectionists" have rushed to condemn international organizations providing the refugees with relief and aid. Regarding the ongoing failure to elect a president (which the constitution stipulates must be a Maronite Christian), which has created an ongoing "presidential vacuum" that began on October 30, 2022, the loud outcry suggests that electing a president alone would fix things. Consequently, whoever eventually becomes president will be seen as someone who wields a magic wand that can overcome all obstacles, bring hearts together, protect the country, and save the people.
Indeed, seeing the "presidential vacuum" dominate evening news has become like watching a frivolous and tedious comedy series. However, this series quickly gives way to the latest rounds of "belligerent bargaining" between Israel and Hezbollah, which is exacerbating the displacement crisis - which affects Lebanese people fleeing border regions this time - and threatens to change the demography of the regions where the displaced are fleeing. Israeli leaders, who know exactly what they are doing with their scorched-earth tactics intended to displace the residents of southern Lebanon, are not at all oblivious to the potential for stirring sectarian strife. Conversely, the Iranian project has proven that it is a "reference" whose capacity for developing and executing displacement and settlement plans cannot be underestimated. In finding irrefutable evidence of this fact, one could even overlook Hezbollah's dominance over Lebanon since 2008 and what the Houthis have been doing in Yemen since their coup. A glance at "Iraq post-2003," "Syria post-2011," and the Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank after October 7, 2023, is enough.
These two regional theocratic players, Israel and Iran, are moving forward and achieving their priorities. There is no real conflict of interest between them, nor is there any global power - not in Washington or Europe - deterring them from stirring chaos, dismantling countries, and shedding rivers of blood.
The demographic game is often deadly, especially when all efforts are combined to implement it and the wise refrain from confronting it. It can bring down borders, bring societies to collapse, and turn nations into a forgotten memory!

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 19-20/2024
Canada lists Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terror group
Sarah Ritchie/OTTAWA/The Canadian Press/June 19, 2024
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc says Canada has listed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity, following months of mounting political pressure to do so. "The Iranian regime has consistently displayed disregard for human rights, both inside and outside of Iran, as well as a willingness to destabilize the international rules-based order," LeBlanc said at a press conference on Wednesday. Members of Parliament voted unanimously in May in favour of a non-binding motion calling on the government to list the IRGC, a branch of Iran's Armed Forces, as a terrorist entity. That was not the first time the Commons voted in favour of listing the group: the Opposition Tories pointed out Wednesday that a Conservative motion also passed in 2018, and called the delay unacceptable. "As a result of that delay, the IRGC has been able to grow stronger as a result of Trudeau's inaction," said foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and deputy leader Melissa Lantsman in a statement. "They have been allowed to fundraise, recruit and operate in Canada while terrorizing countless Iranian Canadians who fled to Canada to escape the IRGC in the first place." The Liberals have said in the past that listing the group as a terrorist entity could affect a number of people who had no choice but to be drafted into the organization. When asked what changed to bring about Wednesday's listing, LeBlanc said such decisions are not made "because of comments on Twitter or question period.""It's made based on the advice of our security services, it's made based on foreign policy considerations," he said. "It's a deliberative process, it's a threshold that has to be met under the Criminal Code of Canada." Entities are reviewed by security agencies on a monthly basis, he added. Iran shot down a Ukrainian Airlines plane in early 2020, killing all on board, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents. The families of those who died have been calling for the government to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly denied that Canada was under pressure from the U.S. to make the listing, but said she has had numerous conversations with her American counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "Over the past weeks, I've been in close contact with all our G7 partners, also partners in the region, to make sure that we would be able to get their feedback, advise them and to make sure that ultimately ... this would be an important step," she said. She also said the decision means there is a heightened risk for Canadians that they could be arbitrarily detained in Iran. "My message is clear: for those who are in Iran right now, it's time to come back home, and for those who are planning to go to Iran, don't go," Joly said, adding that Canada cut diplomatic ties with Iran years ago and cannot provide consular assistance in the country. The listing means it is now a Criminal Code offence to support the IRGC. Justice Minister Arif Virani said there is an elevated criminal intent requirement to any prosecutions under that provision.
"People would need to be sending money that they would be knowing where it is going, and intending that it be used for the support of the terrorist activity in question," he said. He said a similar threshold applies for people who were conscripted into the IRGC and are no longer members. The federal government had previously barred tens of thousands of prominent Iranian government officials from entering Canada, including top IRGC members. Canada had also already listed the Quds Force, a branch of the IRGC, as a terrorist entity. LeBlanc said Wednesday that current and former senior Iranian government officials who are in Canada may be investigated and removed from the country. The IRGC now joins Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban and other groups as listed terrorist entities. Canada recently sanctioned Iran's defence minister and the country's most senior military body after the IRGC launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel in April. That came after an airstrike, which was widely attributed to Israel, destroyed Iran's embassy in Syria. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2024.

White House cancels US-Israel meeting in anger at Netanyahu’s latest accusations: report
ARAB NEWS/June 19, 2024
LONDON: The White House canceled a meeting with Israel regarding Iran after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the US of withholding weapons on Tuesday, according to an Axios report. In a video released on Tuesday, Netanyahu claimed he had told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that it was “inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunition to Israel.”He implied the holdup was slowing Israel’s offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. President Joe Biden’s top advisers, angered by Netanyahu’s public statement, made a public statement of their own by canceling the US-Israel meeting scheduled for Thursday, Axios reported. “This decision makes it clear that there are consequences for pulling such stunts,” a US official told the news outlet. Another said the meeting had been postponed, not scrapped altogether. Biden has delayed delivering certain heavy bombs to Israel since May over concerns about civilian deaths in Gaza. However, Blinken said on Tuesday that the 2,000-pound bombs are the only ammunitions under review. He told reporters that “everything else is moving as it normally would.”

Israeli army in urgent need of troops amid rising casualties in Gaza
Sébastian SEIBTIsraelian army, AFP/June 19, 2024
The head of the Israel Defence Forces said the army is facing troop shortages amid rising casualties in the war against Hamas in Gaza. Yet enlisting more troops is difficult due to rising public opposition to the war and an open conflict between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his defence minister. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) is facing increasing challenges as the war against Hamas enters its ninth month. On Monday, Israel lost eight soldiers in an explosion in Rafah, in what Israeli media called the “deadliest incident for IDF” in six months. The number might seem small in the context of the war in Gaza, but the number is far too high for Israeli public opinion. A week before the explosion, Hamas claimed to have killed an unspecified number of Israeli soldiers after its fighters detonated a booby-trapped house in Rafah. The losses underscored Israel’s army chief Herzi Halevi’s warning in recent days about shortages in the military, saying it would prevent Israel from waging the war against Hamas with the same intensity.

Europe must host Gaza children, Greek foreign minister says
REUTERS/June 19, 2024
ATHENS: Europe has a duty to host children hurt and traumatized by war in Gaza for as long as the conflict continues, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said. Gerapetritis is seeking partners in what he hopes would be a project to temporarily bring the children to the EU. He said he discussed the idea with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa this week. “We need to face this tragedy very clearly,” Gerapetritis said. “Europe should be open to injured people from (Gaza) but also to children who are now facing famine or other sorts of dangers.”
FASTFACT
Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis believes Greece’s historical ties with the Arab world give it credibility to act as a peace broker. Greece was elected as a member of the UN Security Council for 2025-2026 earlier this month. Gerapetritis believes Greece’s historical ties with the Arab world give it credibility to act as a peace broker. The 56-year old, who has held the post for a year, did not say how many people could be hosted by Greece or the EU but said the issue was under discussion with Palestinian authorities. Gerapetritis stressed that the initiative was not linked to regular migration, which has become politically sensitive in Europe and strongly opposed by a resurgent right. “This is an obvious call for humanitarian assistance. We’re not talking here about economic migrants or other types of irregular migration,” he said, days after far-right parties surged in European parliamentary elections. Greece condemned the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel but has called for a halt to Israel’s ground and air assault on Gaza that Palestinian authorities say has killed more than 35,000 people and flattened whole cities. The World Health Organization says many in Gaza face famine-like conditions, and more than 8,000 children under five years old are suffering from acute malnutrition. In addition, the psychological impact of the war on children is “tremendous,” said Gerapetritis. Gerapetritis said he talked to Palestinian and Israeli prime ministers this week about ways to seal peace and reconstruct Gaza.
“We shouldn’t wait ... for the war to stop to start discussing it,” he said. “It is going to be a giant project, and we have to develop it as early as possible,” he said. A Gaza ceasefire would also help reduce attacks on ships by Houthis in the Red Sea, which has affected Greece’s shipping sector. “I am relatively optimistic that alongside the ceasefire that we’re hoping to achieve very shortly, the situation also in the Red Sea will become much better,” Gerapetritis said.

Nine Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on citizens waiting for aid in Gaza: medical sources
REUTERS/June 19, 2024
GAZA: Nine Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a group of citizens and merchants in the southern Gaza Strip as they waited for convoys of aid trucks carrying goods through the Kerem Shalom crossing, medical sources told Reuters on Wednesday. Eight people were also killed on Wednesday when Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and drones advanced deeper into the western part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, according to residents and Palestinian medics. Residents said the tanks moved into five neighborhoods after midnight. Heavy shelling and gunfire hit the tents of displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, further to the west of the coastal enclave, they said. Some eight months into the war, there has been no sign of let up in the fighting as efforts by international mediators, backed by the United States, have so far failed to persuade Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.

Israel may have violated laws of war in Gaza, UN rights office says
REUTERS/June 19, 2024
GENEVA: Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated the laws of war and failed to distinguish between civilians and fighters in the Gaza conflict, the UN human rights office said on Wednesday. Separately, the head of a UN inquiry accused the Israeli military of carrying out an “extermination” of Palestinians. In a report on six deadly Israeli attacks, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said Israeli forces “may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.”“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimize to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said. Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva characterised the analysis as “factually, legally, and methodologically flawed.” “Since the OHCHR has, at best, a partial factual picture, any attempt to reach legal conclusions is inherently flawed,” it said.In a separate meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the head of a UN Commission of Inquiry, Navi Pillay, said perpetrators of abuses in the conflict must be brought to account. She repeated findings from a report published last week that both Hamas militants and Israel have committed war crimes but said that Israel alone was responsible for the most serious abuses under international law known as “crimes against humanity.”She said the scale of Palestinian civilian losses amounted to “extermination.”“We found that the immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of an intentional strategy to cause maximum damage,” Pillay, a former UN rights chief and South African judge, told the meeting. Israel, which does not typically cooperate with the inquiry and alleges an anti-Israel bias, chose the mother of a hostage to speak on its behalf and criticized the report on the grounds that it did not give due attention to hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. “We can do better for them. The hostages need us,” Meirav Gonen, the mother of 23-year-old hostage Romi Gonen, said in a tearful appeal.
Heavy weaponry
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 37,400 people in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory, according to health authorities there. Israel launched its assault after Hamas fighters stormed across the border into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies. The UN rights office report details six incidents that took place between Oct. 7 and Dec. 2, in which it was able to assess the kinds of weapons, the means and the methods used in these attacks. “We felt that it was important to get this report out now, especially because in the case of some of these attacks, some eight months have passed, and we are yet to see credible and transparent investigations,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office. She added that in the absence of transparent investigations, there would be “a need for international action in this regard.” Pillay also condemned Israel’s military methods in Gaza, saying the use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas “constitutes an intentional and direct attack on the civilian population.”Commissioner Chris Sidoti later told reporters that its findings, which are being shared with the International Criminal Court, showed that Israel was “one of the most criminal armies in the world.”He said the inquiry, which aims to investigate the treatment of hostages, as well as that of thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, had so far been hindered by Israel.
“Far from having cooperation, what we have encountered is obstruction,” he said.

Israeli strike on Syria kills army officer: state media
AFP/June 19, 2024
DAMASCUS: A Syrian army officer was killed Wednesday in an Israeli air strike in the country’s south, the official SANA news agency reported, citing a military source. “The Israeli enemy carried out an aggression using drones against two military positions of our armed forces in the provinces of Quneitra and Daraa,” the agency said, adding the attack resulted in the death of the officer and material damage.
Ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthis in fatal assault sinks in Red Sea in second-such sinking
The sinking of the Tutor in the Red Sea marks what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign targeting shipping through the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The attack comes despite a monthslong US-led campaign in the region that has seen the Navy face its most-intense maritime fighting since World War II, with near-daily attacks targeting commercial vessels and warship. The Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned-and-operated Tutor sank in the Red Sea, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in a warning to sailors in the region. “Military authorities report maritime debris and oil sighted in the last reported location,” the UKMTO said. “The vessel is believed to have sunk.”The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the sinking. The US military as well did not immediately acknowledge the sinking and did not respond to requests for comment. The Tutor came under attack about a week ago by a bomb-carrying Houthi drone boat in the Red Sea. John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said Monday that the attack killed “a crew member who hailed from the Philippines.” The Philippines has yet to acknowledge the death, but the man who had been aboard the Tutor has been missing for over a week in the Red Sea, which faces intense summertime heat. The use of a boat loaded with explosives raised the specter of 2000’s USS Cole attack, a suicide assault by Al-Qaeda on the warship when it was at port in Aden, killing 17 on board. The Cole is now part of a US Navy operation led by the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea to try and halt the Houthi attacks, though the militia continues its assaults. The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, killing four sailors. They’ve seized one vessel and sunk two since November, according to the US Maritime Administration. A US-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the militia says. In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar carried a load of fertilizer sank in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a Houthi attack. The Houthis have maintained their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK. However, many of the ships they’ve attacked have little or no connection to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The war in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians there, while hundreds of others have been killed in Israeli operations in the West Bank. It began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. A recent report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency acknowledged container shipping through Red Sea has declined by 90 percent since December over the attacks. As much as 15 percent of the world’s maritime traffic flows through that corridor.

Ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthis in fatal assault sinks in Red Sea in second-such sinking
DUBAI: /Arab News
A bulk carrier sank days after an attack by Yemen’s Houthis believed to have killed one mariner on board, authorities said early Wednesday, the second-such ship to be sunk in the militia’s campaign. The sinking of the Tutor in the Red Sea marks what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign targeting shipping through the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The attack comes despite a monthslong US-led campaign in the region that has seen the Navy face its most-intense maritime fighting since World War II, with near-daily attacks targeting commercial vessels and warship. The Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned-and-operated Tutor sank in the Red Sea, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in a warning to sailors in the region. “Military authorities report maritime debris and oil sighted in the last reported location,” the UKMTO said. “The vessel is believed to have sunk.”The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the sinking. The US military as well did not immediately acknowledge the sinking and did not respond to requests for comment.
The Tutor came under attack about a week ago by a bomb-carrying Houthi drone boat in the Red Sea. John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said Monday that the attack killed “a crew member who hailed from the Philippines.” The Philippines has yet to acknowledge the death, but the man who had been aboard the Tutor has been missing for over a week in the Red Sea, which faces intense summertime heat.
The use of a boat loaded with explosives raised the specter of 2000’s USS Cole attack, a suicide assault by Al-Qaeda on the warship when it was at port in Aden, killing 17 on board. The Cole is now part of a US Navy operation led by the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea to try and halt the Houthi attacks, though the militia continues its assaults. The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, killing four sailors. They’ve seized one vessel and sunk two since November, according to the US Maritime Administration. A US-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the militia says. In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar carried a load of fertilizer sank in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a Houthi attack. The Houthis have maintained their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK. However, many of the ships they’ve attacked have little or no connection to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The war in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians there, while hundreds of others have been killed in Israeli operations in the West Bank. It began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. A recent report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency acknowledged container shipping through Red Sea has declined by 90 percent since December over the attacks. As much as 15 percent of the world’s maritime traffic flows through that corridor.

US military says it killed a senior ISIS official in Syria airstrike
Haley Britzky, CNN/Wed, June 19, 2024
A senior ISIS official was killed in a US airstrike on Sunday in Syria, the US military said Wednesday in a post on X. “On June 16, US Central Command conducted an airstrike in Syria, killing Usamah Jamal Muhammad Ibrahim al-Janabi, a senior ISIS official and facilitator,” the post from US Central Command said. “His death will disrupt ISIS’s ability to resource and conduct terror attacks.”CENTCOM added that there was “no indication” any civilians were harmed in the strike, which had not been previously announced. The US military has continued going after ISIS officials in Africa and the Middle East. Nearly three weeks ago, an airstrike in a remote area near Dhaardaar in Somalia was assessed to have killed three ISIS militants, according to US Africa Command. Between January and March 2024, CENTCOM and its partners killed seven ISIS operatives in Syria and detained 27 more. In Iraq during the same time period, 11 operatives were killed and 36 people were detained. “We are committed to the enduring defeat of ISIS because of the threat they pose both regionally and globally,” CENTCOM commander Gen. Erik Kurilla said in April. “We continue to focus our efforts on specifically targeting those members of ISIS who are seeking to conduct external operations outside of Iraq and Syria and those ISIS members attempting to break out ISIS members in detention in an attempt to reconstitute their forces.”

Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrives in Vietnam for state visit
AFP/June 19, 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Vietnam on Thursday morning for a state visit set to deepen ties between Moscow and Hanoi, Russian news agencies reported.
Travelling from a closely followed trip to North Korea, Putin touched down in the southeast Asian country with a large delegation of senior Russian ministers and business figures.

Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on June 19-20/2024
Jihadists Brutalize Non-Muslim Women, Feminists in West Remain Silent
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/June 19, 2024
Today, June 19, the United Nations will observe the annual International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Yet, it took the UN five months to document and condemn Hamas' sexual crimes on October 7.
These crimes are reminiscent of the crimes ISIS (Islamic State) committed against Christians and Yazidis during and after their violent takeover of large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Sexual assault as a military tactic has commonly been used by Islamic terrorists since the seventh century, worldwide.
More than 2,600 abducted Yazidi women and children are to this day still waiting to be rescued from the hands of ISIS terrorists.
Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria were sold in slave markets "for as little as a pack of cigarettes," the UN envoy on sexual violence, Zainab Bangura, said.
"Since October 7th, the media has suppressed your [Israelis'] story, even going so far as to claim it never happened while others justified it as warranted resistance to Israeli oppression. Someone please tell me where children bound and shot to death with their guts cut out constitutes a warranted resistance... We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people are not offended.... The media is actively suppressing the events of October 7th to rewrite history according to their chosen narrative.... It all boils down to likes, views, and revenue for them." — Steve Maman, founder of The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq.
"[On October 7], humiliation, mutilation and murder took place during those rapes. Woman raped in front of their loved ones and then shot. Knives inserted into their private parts. Scalped heads. Nails inserted into woman's private areas. Indescribable pain must have taken place before death.... Attacking innocent people and subjecting hostages to torture is not an act of freedom fighting.... The global response to victims of radical Islam has consistently been one of silence, allowing such atrocities to continue unchecked, perpetuating a cycle of violence." — Steve Maman.
Regarding the large numbers of Israeli women who were brutally raped by Hamas terrorists and their supporters, many of those women's organizations have engaged in total denial, refusing to believe Israeli women and all the evidence in front of their eyes.... What their silence and denials have actually done is only to cover up and further the crimes of Hamas and other terrorist groups. In April 2024, the NGO CyberWell released a report on the widespread online denial of Hamas's October 7 sexual violence.... The Women's Alliance for Security Leadership, for instance, still has not issued a statement.
Many feminist and human-rights groups — such as Amnesty International and the National Organization for Women— have said little about the sexual crimes Gazans committed against Israelis. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (also known as UN-Women) waited until December 1, nearly two months after the October 7 massacre, to make a superficial statement of condemnation.
Among others, UN-Women released a statement on October 13 equating the Hamas brutalities with Israel's self-defense. Likewise, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) neglected to explicitly condemn Hamas's atrocities. And the international #MeToo movement completely failed to mention Hamas — or the Israeli victims.
When it comes to abused and raped Israeli women, those women's rights and human rights organizations have chosen to be on the side of rapists and murderers and to enable jihadist terrorism.
Sexual assault as a military tactic has commonly been used by Islamic terrorists since the seventh century, worldwide. Regarding the large numbers of Israeli women who were brutally raped by Hamas terrorists and their supporters on October 7, many women's organizations have engaged in total denial. Pictured: Naama Levy, an Israeli woman abducted and taken to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, when she was 19 years old. She is still being held hostage by Hamas.. They massacred more than 1,200 people; burned families alive, tortured and raped women, children and men, and abducted roughly 250 hostages, including babies and children.
Since the October attack, however, Israeli women have faced public doubts and questions about the brutality and sexual violence they experienced at the hands of Gaza's Muslim men.
Despite the silence, and sometimes even outright denial, by many women's organizations around the world, Hamas' sexual crimes are well-documented. The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel published a report in February entitled "Silent Cry – Sexual Crimes in the October 7 War".
Hundreds of Israeli and non-Israeli women, the association reported, experienced the most gruesome sexual assaults, including rapes, gang rapes mutilations and dismemberments, often followed by murder at the hands of Hamas terrorists. Many of these assaults occurred in the presence of the victims' friends, partners or family members, and included facial disfigurement, mutilation, burning and decapitation. The mutilation of the sexual organs of both men and women was also commonplace.
The report not only provides testimonies about the sexual abuse, torture and murder inflicted upon Israeli men, women and children by Hamas during the October 7 invasion, but also details that similar crimes still being committed now against the hostages still held in Gaza.
The New York Times also published a report on December 28, based on 150 interviews of witnesses and first responders, video footage, and photographic evidence.
Today, June 19, the United Nations will observe the annual International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Yet, it took the UN five months to document and condemn Hamas' sexual crimes on October 7.
On March 4, the UN finally released a 23-page report finding evidence that Hamas had indeed committed widespread sexual crimes. Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict (and Under-Secretary-General of the UN), led a two-week investigation in Israel from January 29 to February 14. During this visit, her team reviewed more than 5,000 photos and 50 hours of audio and video footage. The team also interviewed more than 30 survivors and eyewitnesses.
According to the UN report:
"Interviews with stakeholders and material reviewed by the mission team describe an indiscriminate campaign to kill, inflict suffering and abduct the maximum number possible of men, women, and children – soldiers and civilians alike – in the minimum possible amount of time. People were shot, often at close range; burnt alive in their homes as they tried to hide in their safe rooms; gunned down or killed by grenades in bomb shelters where they sought refuge; and hunted down at the Nova music festival site as well as in the fields and roads adjacent to the Nova music festival ground. Other violations included sexual violence, abduction of hostages and corpses, the public display of captives, both dead and alive, the mutilation of corpses, including decapitation, and the looting and destruction of civilian property...
"[T]he mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing....
"Based on the totality of information gathered, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations."
These crimes are reminiscent of the crimes ISIS (Islamic State) committed against Christians and Yazidis during and after their violent takeover of large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Sexual assault as a military tactic has commonly been used by Islamic terrorists since the seventh century, worldwide.
Ten years ago, ISIS attacked Yazidis and Christians in Iraq and Syria, committing massacres and forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims. In June 2014, ISIS seized control of the Iraqi city of Mosul. On 29 June 2014, ISIS proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in areas it controlled in Iraq and Syria.
The brutal ISIS occupation in Mosul and the wider area was accompanied by the mass killings, summary executions, disappearances, kidnappings, torture, and widespread home demolitions of thousands of the residents, as strict sharia law was implemented. ISIS terrorists killed, kidnapped, and threatened large number of people belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians, Turkmen, Shabaks, and Yazidis.
In 2021, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the University of Minnesota published a report entitled "Mass Violence and Genocide by the Islamic State/Daesh in Iraq and Syria." According to the report:
"After ISIS captured Mosul in June of 2014, Christians were given the option to either convert, pay taxes (jizya), leave, or be killed. ISIS marked Christian homes with the Arabic letter 'N' to mean Nasrani, or Christian, which quickly became a global symbol of solidarity with persecuted Christians. A few months later, in August of 2014, ISIS took control of all Assyrian towns in the Nineveh Plains, resulting in a second wave of mass displacement.
"Today, one of the biggest challenges facing Christians in Iraq is the question of return. While the Nineveh Plain has since been liberated from ISIS, many Christians are hesitant and fearful of returning, citing renewed tensions between various ethno-religious groups."
Just as Hamas kidnapped Israeli and non-Israeli people, ISIS also kidnapped Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria.
In February 2015, an ISIS attack overran some 35 villages of Assyrian Christians who lived in a series of farming communities on the banks of Syria's Khabur River. Former US diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez noted in 2016:
"... 232 of these Assyrians, 51 of them children and 84 women, were kidnapped. Most of them remain in captivity with one account claiming that ISIS demanded $22 million (or roughly $100,000 per person) for their release. Those who were not kidnapped have been terrorized and dispossessed."
A 2019 report by UNICEF and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, entitled "Children Born of Rape & Children Born to ISIS Fathers," documents ISIS's rapes and sexual slavery against women of religious minorities:
"Women belonging to religious minorities encountered serious violations, including abduction, deprivation of liberty, cruel treatment and forced conversion into another religion, but the most dangerous of such violations was sexual slavery, which targeted women from Yazidi religion in particular.
"In July 2014, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) announced 11 cases of rape against Christian women committed by ISIS. Other reports indicated that nearly 300 Christian and Shiite Muslim women (mostly Turkmens) have been detained by ISIS. An academic study conducted at the University of Baghdad, which covered a sample of 200 survivors who were detained by ISIS, showed 169 women in the sample were raped, including 39 Christian women and 39 Muslim women (from the Shiite Turkmens)."
One of the Christian women kidnapped by ISIS is Carolyn, an ethnic Assyrian from the village of Tel Jazera in eastern Syria. Knox Thames, who served in a special envoy role for religious minorities at the U.S. Department of State during the Obama and Trump administrations, reported in 2022 on Carolyn's ordeal:
"She has suffered unimaginable horrors as an ISIS 'wife' since being taken at the age of 15.... Carolyn's parents shared how she cried in terror as she was dragged from her home in April 2015. While kidnapped, Carolyn's whereabouts are known, but she is currently beyond rescue.
"Asked by her family and advocates to raise her case, Carolyn's parents told me through an interpreter, 'We have heard from many sources that she has been in Al-Hol Camp since 2017.' Al-Hol is a lawless displacement camp in the barren moonscape of eastern Syria. It is a holding cell for upwards of 60,000 individuals, many suspected ISIS family members or other sympathizers.
"The camp conditions are reportedly harsh, and crime is rampant.
"Major international powers have chosen to ignore this problem... The family knows of Carolyn being bought and sold at least four times. Reports indicate she arrived at Al-Hol in April 2019. She now has two children from these men, a young boy and girl. Escapees from Al-Hol report that Carolyn is very close to her children and will not leave without them...
"'She is our beloved daughter, and we know that she is an innocent girl because she was forced to go,' they told me. 'We will welcome her home at any time with her children. We live for that day to hug her and her children in our arms.'"
Approximately two months after ISIS seized Mosul, they invaded Sinjar, the Yazidi homeland in Iraq. Like Assyrians, Yazidis are an indigenous, persecuted non-Muslim minority in the Middle East. Yazidis say they were exposed to a wave of 74 genocidal attacks at the hands of Muslims. The last one, started in 2014 has had ongoing, devastating consequences that are still experienced by the victims.
During its occupation of Sinjar, ISIS terrorists murdered thousands of Yazidis either by execution or through the deliberate dehydration and starvation.
Thousands more Yazidi children and women were kidnapped, raped and turned into sex slaves. There are still over 80 Yazidi mass graves in Sinjar waiting to be unearthed. More than 2,600 abducted Yazidi women and children are to this day still waiting to be rescued from the hands of ISIS terrorists. More than 180,000 Yazidis remain homeless, trying to survive in displacement camps in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Yazidi girls and women were brutalized by ISIS terrorists. Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria were sold in slave markets "for as little as a pack of cigarettes," the UN envoy on sexual violence, Zainab Bangura, said.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in 2015:
They kidnap and abduct women when they take areas, so they have – I don't want to call it a fresh supply – but they have new girls," Bangura said. Girls were sold for "as little as a pack of cigarettes," or for several hundred dollars, up to $1,000.
After attacking a village, ISIS separated women from men and executed all boys and men aged over 14. The women and mothers were then separated. Girls were stripped naked, tested for virginity, and examined for breast size and prettiness. The youngest, and those considered the prettiest, virgins fetched higher prices and were sent to Raqqa, ISIS' stronghold.
Under ISIS' hierarchy, sheikhs got first choice, followed by emirs and then fighters. They often took three or four girls each and kept them for a month or so, until they grew tired of the girl. Then she went back to the market. At slave auctions, buyers haggled fiercely, driving down prices by disparaging girls as flat-chested or unattractive.
"We heard about one girl who was traded 22 times, and another – who had escaped – told us that the sheikh who had captured her wrote his name on the back of her hand to show that she was his 'property,'" Bangura said.
The treatment of Yazidi women, in particular, was marked by contempt and savagery, Bangura said.
"They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, and other acts of extreme brutality," she said. "We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act."
In an interview with the Gatestone Institute, Pari Ibrahim, executive director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, said:
"There has been no comprehensive effort to help us identify and bring back the more than 2600 Yezidis who remain unaccounted for ten years after the Yezidi Genocide by ISIS began. We know that many of the missing may be dead already, but some are alive. They are in Al Hol Camp, in other parts of Syria, and in parts of Turkey. But the international community has given up on them. But we from the Yezidi community cannot give up on them.
"We know many are located in certain parts of Turkey. That is because, sadly, Turkey has made itself a somewhat safe haven for ISIS members. It is probably the only place, outside of certain areas in Syria and Iraq, where ISIS members can be found. We also know that some survivors are in various locations in Syria and in Al Hol Camp. But we do not have current information on how many are alive and how many have already been killed, and this information requires a lot of effort and hard work. Unfortunately, the rest of the world has done little to help. I believe Yezidi civil society, including my organization and other organizations, could make some progress on this topic if stakeholders around the world could help us. I do think some people care, and there are some individuals who have helped efforts, including some in Iraq and Syria, but most of the time the world has just ignored the missing Yezidis."
While much of the world has abandoned the Yazidi and Christian victims of ISIS, some organizations and individuals have stood by their side. One is Steve Maman, a Moroccan-born Jew and founder of The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI Foundation).
Due to his efforts to help rescue Yazidis and Christians from ISIS captivity, Maman became known as the "Jewish Schindler". Maman has documented and helped 25,000 Yazidi and Christian victims of ISIS. This included freeing 140 Yazidi captives in Iraq despite great challenges and obstacles.
Maman -- one of the participants of a panel of international speakers and experts who met for 'The Global Women's Coalition Against Gender-Based Violence as a Weapon of War", which was held on May 20 at Israel's Knesset (Parliament) in Jerusalem -- said in his speech:
"Since October 7th, the media has suppressed your [Israelis'] story, even going so far as to claim it never happened while others justified it as warranted resistance to Israeli oppression. Someone please tell me where children bound and shot to death with their guts cut out constitutes a warranted resistance. The integrity of facts and truth has been compromised, while the moral compass has veered off course. We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people are not offended. There's a deliberate and discernible pattern at play here.
"The media is actively suppressing the events of October 7th to rewrite history according to their chosen narrative. The problem lies in the fact that the plight of a deceased Jew doesn't capture the attention of the masses like sensationalized stories do. It all boils down to likes, views, and revenue for them.
"[On October 7], humiliation, mutilation and murder took place during those rapes. Woman raped in front of their loved ones and then shot. Knives inserted into their private parts. Scalped heads. Nails inserted into woman's private areas. Indescribable pain must have taken place before death. And much more. I've seen the actual photos and videos. Attacking innocent people and subjecting hostages to torture is not an act of freedom fighting. Nor does it constitute a war worthy of collaboration from those who suppress the truth about such inhumane violence.
"Hamas's objective was to cause immense pain and suffering in pursuit of their Jihad, allowing the horrors to be etched into our collective memory and history. Their success ensures that this event will be recounted for generations to come. The global response to victims of radical Islam has consistently been one of silence, allowing such atrocities to continue unchecked, perpetuating a cycle of violence."
The panelists at the conference, organized by Knesset Member Shelly Tal Meron, heard testimonies from family members of hostages who shared stories of sexual violence. The Jerusalem Post reported:
Sasha Ariev, whose younger sister Karina has been held hostage in Gaza, spoke of the terror of not knowing her sister's condition and the knowledge of ongoing sexual violence in Hamas captivity: "We have no information about Karina's current health, but we are aware that sexual violence, including rape, is occurring in captivity. I ask all of you, from around the world, to unite in declaring that the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war is unacceptable and that Hamas must release all the hostages - women, men, and children - immediately.
Simona Steinbrecher, the mother of Doron, 30, who was also present at the conference, told the panel that her daughter "requires daily medication, which she is likely not receiving". She said that returned hostages have spoken of the lack of privacy, even when using the shower and toilet, and are under surveillance 24/7.
Mandy Damari, whose 27-year-old daughter Emily remains in captivity as well, spoke of her fears for Emily's psychological state:
"I wonder what thoughts are going through Emily's mind under the total control of her terrorist guards, knowing that it could happen any second if they wished to do anything to her. What sort of psychological or physical threat of real sexual torture and terror is happening to her? I know enough to realize that what she is going through now will never be erased from her memory."
Shari Mendes, who was part of a forensics team that examined the bodies of women killed on October 7, said it was "clear these women died in agony."
"There were times that they were shot in the head and there was no blood that came out, so they were probably shot after they were dead. It seemed like there was an intentional obliteration of these women's faces; to erase their faces so their parents or loved ones could not see these people."
In an article in the Jerusalem Post, Mendes spoke of her anger that Israeli women were not afforded the same empathy, anger and global concern as other women, saying that "outrage [was evident in] all previous instances of sexual violence around the world." Mendes wrote:
"We Israeli women have been stunned by the silence of most of our sisters [around the world]. The majority of women's rights groups have yet to condemn the violence perpetrated against our mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins, grandmothers, and neighbors on October 7. In this case only, in the recent history of modern sisterhood, we Israel women have been deserted - we are alone. Though I marched for women's rights, the majority of the silent women of the world now can't seem to see me or our pain. Some even go so far as to deny that sexual violence even happened here at all. It is difficult to understand the level of hate that must be necessary to abdicate sisterhood. Especially at a time when we Israeli women (of all religions, by the way) need it most."
Despite these horrors experienced by Jewish, Christian and Yazidi women at the hands of jihadists from ISIS, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, most women's rights organizations in the West have remained apathetic and silent. Sadly, none of them has taken to the streets as the voice of those non-Muslim women and children who were and are raped, tormented and held as hostages by Muslim men.
Regarding the large numbers of Israeli women who were brutally raped by Hamas terrorists and their supporters, many of those women's organizations have engaged in total denial, refusing to believe Israeli women and all the evidence in front of their eyes. In the case of other organizations, it took months to issue a simple statement condemning rapes and sexual assaults against Israelis.
True women's rights advocates would not discriminate against victims based on their religion or ethnicity, and would have documented those cases of mass rape and sexual torture. Sadly, the opposite has occurred.
Thanks to those organizations' total silence or apathy in condemning the rapes, anti-Israel propagandists fabricated a pro-Hamas narrative and easily misled much of the public to ignore or deny that Israel's war against Hamas rapists and murderers is required to rescue more than 250 hostages.
The hatred of Israel by these groups has made them indifferent to the sufferings of women who happen to be Jews. What their silence and denials have actually done is only to cover up and further the crimes of Hamas and other terrorist groups. In April 2024, the NGO CyberWell released a report on the widespread online denial of Hamas's October 7 sexual violence. As documentation regarding sexual assaults against Israelis continued to pour in after October 7, writes Professor Stacy Keltner, international organizations remained uncannily quiet. The Women's Alliance for Security Leadership, for instance, still has not issued a statement.
Many feminist and human-rights groups — such as Amnesty International and the National Organization for Women — have said little about the sexual crimes Gazans committed against Israelis. United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (also known as UN-Women) waited until December 1, nearly two months after the October 7 massacre, to make a superficial statement of condemnation.
Among others, UN-Women released a statement on October 13 equating the Hamas brutalities with Israel's self-defense. Likewise, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) neglected to explicitly condemn Hamas's atrocities. And the international #MeToo movement completely failed to mention Hamas — or the Israeli victims. For other organizations that have stayed quiet or said very little on the rape of Israelis by Palestinian terrorists, please see this report.
When it comes to abused and raped Israeli women, those women's rights and human rights organizations have chosen to be on the side of rapists and murderers and to enable jihadist terrorism.
**Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 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.

Will France choose fantasy politics or reality?
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/June 19, 2024
Most people in Europe are still digesting the results of this month’s European Parliament elections, which rang alarm bells nationally and within the bloc’s institutions. They are now bracing for the impact of the extreme right and populist parties, which won almost a quarter of the parliament’s seats, on the future working of the union.
French President Emmanuel Macron decided to surprise everyone and call for a general election, which will be sandwiched by the Euro 2024 football championship, which kicked off in Germany last week, people departing for their annual summer holidays and the Paris Olympics, which is due to start at the end of July. This all amounts to a less than perfect setting to ensure a large turnout.
Macron’s gamble, though a simple one, could backfire on his presidency — and the nation — as France could be ruled by a far-right government come July 8. The president is presenting people with a simple choice: either back his centrist, pro-business, pro-European, pro-Ukraine status quo politics or vote for the National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, who tables an ultranationalist, populist, anti-EU, Moscow-friendly agenda.
Macron’s kamikaze decision could still be vindicated if the electorate manages to see clearly what is at stake. Traditionally, the forces of France’s right, left and center have managed to keep the rise of the far right at bay, aided by an electoral system that splits elections into two phases. The first is free for all to run. The candidates who achieve the highest percentage of votes in the first phase usually go to a second round of voting to determine the winner of each seat. Up until recently, when the electorate was faced with a far-right candidate being among the top-two performers, deals were struck locally and nationally to vote tactically to keep them out. This helped to keep Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, and later his daughter and their far-right movement far away from government. However, Macron worked to reconfigure the French political landscape ahead of his 2017 election, splitting it between conservatives and progressives and replacing the traditional right-left split. Fast forward to June 2024 and it is the National Rally that has the wind in its sails. Early polls suggest the party of Le Pen could win up to 265 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, nearly treble its current tally. And the story could get even grimmer, since the election is likely to be fought three ways: between the National Rally and its allies on the extreme right, the quickly-formed alliance of the forces of the left, and Macron’s centrist Renaissance party. The president’s potential alliance with The Republicans is in tatters after its leader unilaterally called for his center-right party to ally itself with Le Pen and the far right.
Early indications point to a lack of urgency to mount a united front to deny Le Pen and National Rally a majority. Macron’s kamikaze decision could still be vindicated if the electorate manages to see clearly what is at stake socially, politically and economically as a result of the far-right’s fantastical, uncosted reforms. But in an electoral space — in France and elsewhere — that is dominated by Tik-Tok, fake news, trolls and alternate realities catering to every voter’s whim, Macron’s gamble could end up pushing voters into the arms of the political populists, as they seek to escape the often more complex and less appealing hard realities. A lesser evil would be a parliament controlled by the leftist national alliance, setting the stage for a difficult coexistence between a center-right president and a left-leaning government and legislature.
Le Pen indicated this week that her National Rally “roadmap will be the series of proposals we have made in the past to the French people, and which appear essential to us, on purchasing power, security and immigration.” Her party’s 2022 presidential pledges were clearer. She promised to expel more migrants, stop their family reunifications in France, give French nationals priority for jobs, benefits and social housing, and expel immigrants who are unemployed for more than a year. She also pledged to privatize the media, grant police officers protection from prosecution in cases where they are accused of violence, reduce the retirement age, axe inheritance tax for many, exempt under-30s from income tax and offer zero-interest €100,000 ($107,000) loans to boost home ownership.
Many have routinely picked holes in the uncosted plans of Le Pen’s party. And some consider certain policies to be unconstitutional, such as the annulling of taxation for those under 30, while others believe that most of her proposals are incompatible with competitiveness. As France this week starts a fortnight of frenetic election campaigning, early indications point to a lack of urgency to mount a united front to deny Le Pen and National Rally a majority in the next French parliament, as the left has opted to quickly form its own alliance.
The fear for France is that the far right will not succeed at governing like it does with campaigning, which is maybe plausible. But anyone watching Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old face of the National Rally and likely leader of its government, addressing his party’s supporters after its European Parliament elections success could not have failed to notice his composure and confidence as he spoke to a sea of cheering youths, who celebrated as he underscored his party’s commitment to close French borders.
The new poster boy of the French far right seems to have captured the hearts and minds of not only the old xenophobes, but also the new generation — and that is the danger for France and Europe. Bardella’s attributes as a young white politician calling for a “France first” vision clearly echoes with a younger population that feels disillusioned and underserved.
Whether his party will collapse the economy or fail in its endeavor to rule France is secondary. For the time being, a section of French people of all ages, like their counterparts in many other countries, are gripped by leaders like Bardella, who project a modern image, turbocharged by the communication of messages with skillfully curated content that appeals to them. And in an age where the digital realm is king, who cares whether what Bardella says is even realistic and could translate into sound policies?
But this seems enough for his 1 million or more followers to propagate and forward his messages on Tik-Tok to create waves that convey vibes or feelings that resonate among them. But these are unlikely to fill the empty stomachs of the needy, provide adequate care for the sick in hospitals or stop immigration.
**Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.

Today in History: Crusaders Triumph Over the Muslim Persecutors of Christians
Raymond Ibrahim/LifeSiteNews/June 19, 1097
In the years following the decisive Battle of Manzikert (1071), which saw the Seljuk Turks defeat the Eastern Roman Empire and conquer that ancient bastion of Christianity, Anatolia (modern day Turkey), mindboggling atrocities were committed. Whether an anonymous Georgian chronicler tells of how “holy churches served as stables for their horses,” the “priests were immolated during the Holy Communion itself,” the “virgins defiled, the youths circumcised, and the infants taken away,” or whether Anna Comnena, the princess at Constantinople, tells of how “cities were obliterated, lands were plundered, and the whole of Anatolia was stained with Christian blood” – the same scandalous tale of woe reached the West.
As a result, what came to be known as history’s First Crusade was launched. Paraphrasing Pope Urban II’s famous call at Clermont in 1095, Crusades historian Thomas Madden writes, “The message was clear: Christ was crucified again in the persecution of His faithful and the defilement of His sanctuaries.” Both needed rescuing; both offered an opportunity to fulfill one of Christ’s two greatest commandments: “Love God with all your heart,” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
Christians from all around Europe hearkened to the call and took the cross. By 1097, the major lords and knights had reached Constantinople, whence they were ferried into the lion’s den, Turkic-controlled Asia Minor. By May they reached Nicaea, the site of Christendom’s first ecumenical council (325), where the Nicaean Creed, which is still professed by all major Christian denominations, was articulated. Now the capital of the Seljuk sultanate and occupied by the “enemies of the cross,” the Crusaders laid siege to Nicaea on May 14, 1097.
It was long and brutal, but the Turks held their own; from their high walls, the Muslims “shouted their war-like battle-cry in the horrible tones of their language” – the contemporary chronicler, Albert of Aachen, could not decipher the shrill cries of “Allahu Akbar!” – and “fired poisoned arrows so that even those lightly wounded met a horrible death.” Moreover, in order to defend their walls from being “struck and shaken repeatedly by the battering ram, the Turks created a combustible mixture and poured it over the walls, which torched the battering ram.” Smoke and fire rose as the siege went on. On May 20, Kilij Arslan, the Seljuk sultan and supreme head of the Turks, appeared with a massive Muslim army to deliver Nicaea, his capital. A wild battle ensued. Albert continues:
Duke Godfrey and Bohemond did not curb their horses but… flew in the midst of the enemy, piercing some with lances, unsaddling others, and all the while urging on their allies, encouraging them with manly exhortations to slaughter the enemy. There was no small clash of spears there, no small rings of swords and helmets heard in this conflict of the war, no small destruction of Turks.
But it was the greater force of the Crusader army under the command of Raymond of Toulouse with aid from Robert of Flanders that gave the Muslim army its death stroke, routing them.
In this, the inaugural battle of the First Crusade:
The Arabs, Persians, and ferocious Turks soon fled; the savage people showed their backs to the Christians. It was a rout… Prodigious was the slaughter of the fleeing army… From the third until the ninth hour the destruction, or rather Arabian slaughter, of this battle raged.
This triumphant description is not so much invention and bias on the part of Guibert of Nogent as it is a reflection of the fact that this vast Muslim army was not made of professional soldiers but largely consisted of “peasants, scum herded together from everywhere.” Later Turkish armies would be more formidable.
Having slaughtered countless Muslims, the bloodstained Westerners resumed the siege of Nicaea. As a stark and material reminder to its inhabitants not to hope for deliverance from their coreligionists, the Crusaders “lobbed the severed heads of the slaughtered Turks from their throwing-machines and catapults into the city,” writes Robert the Monk. There was, of course, a reason that the Crusaders behaved so ruthlessly. Earlier, on first landing in Anatolia, they encountered a horrific sight: “Oh, how many severed heads and bones of the dead lying on the plains did we then find beyond Nicomedia near the sea!” wrote Fulcher of Chartres. “Moved to compassion by this, we shed many tears there.”They had come upon the remains of all those European peasants – men, women, and children –that were too impatient to wait for the professional knights at Constantinople and crossed into Asia alone. Soon after landing in the Nicaean inland in 1096, they “fell into the Turkish ambuscade and were miserably slaughtered,” recollected Princess Anna Comnena:
So great a multitude of Kelts and Normans died by the Ishmaelite sword that when they gathered the remains of the fallen, lying on every side, they heaped up, I will not say a mighty ridge or hill or peak, but a mountain of considerable height and depth and width, so huge was the mass of bones.
Those captured underwent another trial: “Some of the prisoners were challenged about their faith, and ordered to renounce Christ, but they proclaimed Christ with steady heart and voice, and were decapitated,” writes Guibert. The fate of those kept alive – as usual, the young and comely – was often worse:
The Turks divided up among themselves some of the captives, whose lives they had spared – or rather reserved for a more painful death – and submitted them to dismal servitude at the hands of cruel masters. Some were exposed in public, like targets, and were pierced by arrows; others were given away as gifts, while others were sold outright… [and taken to Khorasan and Antioch where] they would endure wretched slavery under the worst masters imaginable. They underwent a torture much longer than that endured by those whose heads were severed swiftly by the sword.
How the Islamic lords of Asia Minor must have laughed then! Having annihilated the indigenous Christian population of Anatolia, now European Christians were marching in for the same exact treatment.
But they were not laughing now. Along with the many Muslim heads the Crusaders had lobbed into Nicaea, another “one thousands of these heads were sent to the [Byzantine] emperor, a present which won his hearty favor” – unsurprisingly so, as these were the same men who had sacked and taken Nicaea from Emperor Alexios in 1092. He responded by sending more supplies, including much needed boats for the Crusaders to cut off Nicaea’s only supply route. These the Crusaders, “during the course of one night, by ropes placed on the shoulders and necks of men and horses,” dragged to Nicaea, “a distance of seven miles or more,” says William of Tyre. Soon thereafter, on today’s date, June 19, 1097, the now overly traumatized Turks – these longtime scourges of Eastern Christendom – surrendered Nicaea, on condition that they capitulate, not to the heavily armored newcomers from the West who had so terrorized them, but to Alexios, who had followed the Crusaders with his own army.
And so, the First Crusade began with a victory over the Muslims, just as it would conclude. But that is another story.
*This article was abstracted from the author’s book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam. Raymond Ibrahim is a Distinguished Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

From the Sea to the River... Who Reaps the Benefit?
Khalid Al-Bari/Asharq Al-Awsat/June 19/2024
I was recently surprised to watch a video dating back to June 2021 in which Yehya Sinwar calls on all Palestinians for a confrontation with Israel, with the aim to establish a state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, and secure the right of return for refugees. The conditions he had set may have become difficult to attain, but he still admits in his statement that his ultimate goal is the two-state solution, which converges in principle with the demands of the moderate countries in the region, even if the means differ.
What makes me wonder in this video is not Yehya Sinwar, the man whom Israel blames for the October 7 operation that targeted the Israelis, and who is seen as responsible for pushing his people into a rut...
What makes me wonder is a simple question: If Yehya Sinwar himself, who is currently at the top of the Israeli wanted list, is talking about the two-state solution, then who adopted the slogan, “From the River to the Sea,” in the demonstrations that swept the world, suggesting to public opinion that the Palestinians reject anything short of throwing Israel into the sea as an alternative?
To answer this question, I suspect two parties more than others, and I exclude one party that I have always made a target for my criticism.
The first suspect is the Iranian lobby, which is the main beneficiary of extinguishing any spark of hope for reaching a negotiated solution. Tehran does not hide this fact. The Supreme Leader recently spoke about how the region needed October 7 to stop attempts aimed at “normalization.” He means peace efforts between Arabs and Israel. He realizes that it radically changes the rules of the game, security-wise, economically, and in terms of balance of power, and contributes to the greater isolation of Iran and its tools. It is in Iran’s interest to spread the word “impossibility” of the solution; otherwise, the value of the commodity - through which it invades neighboring markets on the one hand, and negotiates with the United States on the other - will decline. Hamas leaders spoke about the connection between the calm on the regional fronts and the alleviation of tension in Gaza.
The statement contains a clear, complementary message that the cards for a solution are in Tehran’s hands. Then, a third matching statement was made by the Iranian side, stating that the clash with America in the Middle East is a dispute over shares and quotas.
The ideological republic sees nothing but its expansionist goal, considers lives a natural price for achieving it, while threatening peace and security. It found in Hamas leaders those who watered the tree of its dreams with the blood of Palestinians.
The second suspect is the radical left. Iran has long used this category of secular ideologues and political Shiites as a means of conveying its message outside its traditional circles. The plan succeeded in Lebanon and Iraq, and found someone to embellish its image in other places. These former communists have a mixture of jihadist-like verbal radicalism and Brotherhood-like opportunism. They are encouraged by more rhetorical radicalism but they do not engage in clashes on the ground, neither do they pay a price.
With these two suspicious parties, Gaza turned into a deck of cards that were distributed among a larger number of players, many of whom saw in the extension of the war, and the chaotic situation accompanying it, a greater benefit than stopping it and saving the blood of the Palestinians.
This puts them in a different position than the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the apparent convergence of goals. The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal at the present time is not to promote the impossibility of a peaceful solution, but rather to preserve the Hamas group and ensure its foothold in any future arrangements.
Their electronic committees have noticeably calmed down on social media, realizing that what is currently happening does not resemble any previous confrontation. The Brotherhood focuses more on boycott campaigns, on exploiting the war to undermine the efforts of the regimes they oppose, on the continuation of the student movement, and on the scenario of Hamas’ victory in preparation for its continuation on the foundations of a new myth.
In short, prolonging the war is not the goal of the “Mother of Hamas,” but rather the objective of those pretending to embrace the group.
On the afternoon of October 7, the leaders of Hamas experienced a suspicious state of confusion that was not commensurate with the group’s existential adventure. This confusion, which reached the point of disavowing some of what happened, and trying to place the blame on infiltrating civilians, suggest that they were surprised by what happened, which made them lose even the natural ability to test the scenario before presenting it.
Their attempt at repudiation is implausible. An average citizen does not go on his own to a shooting area; he has no idea of ​​its scope and extent. This is a deliberate move, prepared by a regulatory body. This behavior implies the presence of a party whose interest is to cut off the line of return and the threads of a solution, and to create a horrendous tragedy from which the region will not wake up unless it gets enough.