Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 22-23/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video: In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
Elias Bejjani/Video & Text/In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,/
The Maronite Diocese of Antelias: The Patriarchate is the only reference concerned with certifying the results of the comprehensive national initiative
Karam: Al-Rahi will place the national document in the hands of the parties, and whoever obstructs it contributes to obstructing state institutions
With an onslaught march and artillery shells, Hezbollah responds to Israel’s attacks
An Israeli raid targets the town of Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon
Israel, Hezbollah Return to Escalation after Days of Limited Clashes
Lebanon to complain to UN, saying Israel disrupts navigation systems
Hezbollah targets Metula with suicide drone
Bkirki Christian meeting: FPM rejects 'instant' disarming of Hezbollah
Arrest warrants issued for 2 Lebanese in connection with targeted Arouri killing
Report: UAE to release Lebanese detainees before Eid
Paris says actively engaged with parties to prevent Lebanon-Israel escalation
EU commissioner to Cyprus: EU migrant deal with Lebanon is possible
Qatar invites Hezbollah to Doha: Decision awaited
Schools signal over 50% fee hikes in 2024-2025
PM Mikati's diplomatic efforts against Israeli aggression and local commitments in Tripoli
Lebanon's healthcare: Will hospitals adhere to the new tariffs?
IDF: Hezbollah Stores Weapons in Lebanese Civilian Areas
Senior Hezbollah security official makes rare visit to UAE to discuss detained Lebanese
Hezbollah seeks release of detainees held on security charges in UAE, move could alleviate tensions

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 22-23/2024
Gunmen kill 40 in attack at concert near Moscow, over 100 injured
Daesh claims responsibility for attack at Moscow concert hall, at least 40 dead
Russia says United States must share any information it has on attack near
UN Security Council fails to pass US draft resolution on Gaza after Russia, China veto
UN Security Council rejects US-proposed Gaza resolution
Israel Says Spy Chief Going to Doha For Gaza Talks
Israel Says It Will Invade Rafah No Matter What the US Says
Israeli military says troops captured hundreds of fighters in Gaza hospital
Fasting and funerals: Violence darkens West Bank Ramadan
Russia and China veto US resolution calling for immediate cease-fire in Gaza
Israeli military says opening new aid routes into Gaza
France to work on new UN Gaza ceasefire resolution, Macron says
Blinken pushes for more aid for Gaza in talks with Israel’s Netanyahu
Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Jewish Convert in West Bank, Says Spokesman
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Israel announces large West Bank land seizure
US Says Yemen's Houthis Attacked Ships at Least 50 Times
Biden to Host Iraqi PM Sudani on April 15, White House Says
UN Seeks $4B for Aid in Syria as Civilians Face Growing Humanitarian Crisis
Attack on Nigerien forces kills 23 soldiers and underscores continued conflict with militants
Kremlin: Russia in a ‘state of war’ in Ukraine
Russia says 40 killed and more than 100 wounded in attack on Moscow concert hall
Drones have ushered in a brutal new phase of Syria's civil war

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on March 22-23/2024
Jew-Hate and 'Inquisitions' in Canada/Robert Williams/Gatestone Institute./March 22, 2024
From Scarcity to Sustainability: The GCC's Journey Towards Water Security
Safaa El Tayeb El-Kogali/World Bank’s Country Director for the (GCC) countries/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 22/2024
Gaza: Razzia as Political Warfare/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 22/2024
Iran’s ‘Word’ Is Worthless: Islam Permits Strategic Lying/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/March 22/2024
Yes, blame Biden for Afghan fiasco … but learn the lessons too/LUKE COFFEY/Arab News/March 22, 2024
Economic interests driving Turkiye’s security policy/Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/March 22, 2024
Microorganisms are the cornerstone of all marine life in the Red Sea/EMAN SABBAGH/Arab News/March 22, 2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 22-23/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video: In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWGDmKjGqqg&t=29s
Elias Bejjani/March 20/2024

Elias Bejjani/Video & Text/In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/128040/128040/
Elias Bejjani/March 20/2024
The people of Lebanon wander in darkness, Amidst the absence of humane values and principles, their souls dancing in the winds of despair,And their consciences drowning in an ocean of betrayal.
In this era of destitution and loss, many of the sycophants and opportunists, along with the majority of politicians, lawmakers, ministers, and the merchants of resistance, have become mere tools,
In the hands of the vile merchants of Iran, spreading hypocrisy, chaos, narcissism, and the culture of lawlessness and barbarity everywhere.
They are nothing but slaves to the enemies of Lebanon and humanity, selling their nation and its people for profit, denying truth and embracing treachery, shattering every hope of a dignified life for the Lebanese,
under the guise of a state governed by law and institutions.
They willingly surrender to oppression and oppressors, cheerfully pledging allegiance to crime and bloodshed, amidst turmoil and chaos, they sway, Between the values of the nation and the whims of tyrants.
They are mere instruments of corruption, spreading turmoil, anarchy and injustice on earth, discarding morality into the abyss of oblivion, for the sake of power and wealth, selling their consciences, and devouring ethics and principles.
In the face of this bitter, saddening, and tragic reality, we stand with every free and sovereign individual, guardians of identity, history, existence, and dignity, shouting loudly for freedom and justice,
Holding high the banners of truth, honesty, and justice.
We, along with all those who reject the Persian occupation, and condemn terrorism, jihadism, and satanic hypocrisy, of resistance, defiance, and futile wars, shall not surrender to oppression, corruption, or occupiers, and we shall remain steadfast like lions in the face of storms, until we rebuild our beloved homeland. Lebanon, the land of cedars, is a sanctuary of saints, a temple erected for the divine, therefore, every free, sovereign, independent Lebanese citizen, is a guardian of this temple, charged with protecting it,
and fighting its enemies relentlessly.

The Maronite Diocese of Antelias: The Patriarchate is the only reference concerned with certifying the results of the comprehensive national initiative
NNA/March 22, 2024
The media office of the pastor of the Maronite Diocese of Antelias issued the following statement:
“Lebanon is going through a fateful historical moment that requires all Lebanese to rally around the founding values of the State of Greater Lebanon in its civilizing role, which are freedom, justice, coexistence, and complete sovereignty, all of this by implementing the constitution, completing the contract of constitutional institutions and implementing reforms, in a way that protects the identity of the homeland of the mission.” Hence, His Beatitude, Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, assigned Bishop Antoine Bou Najm to launch a consultative process for a comprehensive national rescue initiative that confirms the constants that the Lebanese believe in, regardless of their components, while diagnosing the shortcomings and proposing a road map for solutions. Under the auspices of our Father, His Beatitude the Patriarch, the consultation began with the Christian political forces as a first stage, after which the dialogue would expand to include all spiritual leaders, Lebanese political authorities, and living societal forces as a second stage. Hence, it is important for us to emphasize the following:
The initiative that is being circulated in the media and in public opinion is a comprehensive national initiative par excellence, far from any sectarian or narrow political approach. The initiative referred to above began more than a year ago, and is being followed up by a working team specialized in the constitution, law, and public policies. It is far from any bias towards any political team, but rather intersects in its principles with all the good will that works to save Lebanon. We regret all the leaks, most of which were far from the spirit and content of the initiative, and we hope that all parties currently involved in it, and those invited to participate in it in the future, will adhere to the Charter of Silent and Quiet Action, which will lead to the national initiative achieving its desired conclusions. As much as we care about freedom of the media, we call on all means to approach the initiative with wisdom that rises to the level of historical responsibility, out of concern for its primary goal, which is the salvation of Lebanon. In conclusion, we are interested in emphasizing that the Maronite Patriarchate is the only authority concerned with approving the attempts and results of this comprehensive national initiative, at the moment and in the form that it deems appropriate, in commitment to the National Charter and the general good of the Lebanese people, and to preserve the Lebanese cause in the process of building a state of free, sovereign, just and independent citizenship.

Karam: Al-Rahi will place the national document in the hands of the parties, and whoever obstructs it contributes to obstructing state institutions
NNA/March 22, 2024
Representative Fadi Karam, in an interview with “Voice of All Lebanon,” expressed “the positivity of the meeting in Bkerke that was held between the Christian parties yesterday,” noting that “the parties are moving toward understanding,” revealing that “the paper that the participants are preparing is national.” He said: “Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara al-Rai will place the national document in the hands of all Lebanese parties, and the party that obstructs it contributes to obstructing state institutions.” He believed that "participants must be principled and patriotic in the interest of the country and not at the expense of understandings and settlements." Regarding the issue of illegal weapons and the election of a president of the republic, he pointed out that “these points are essential, in addition to other points detailed within the document.”

With an onslaught march and artillery shells, Hezbollah responds to Israel’s attacks
Al Kalema On Line/March 22/2024
The “Islamic Resistance” issued a series of statements regarding the operations it carried out, “in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance.”
- At 16:45 on Friday, 03/22/2024, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance targeted the Ruwaisat Al-Alam site in the occupied Lebanese hills of Kafr Shuba with appropriate weapons and achieved direct hits.
- At 16:10 on Friday, 03/22/202, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance targeted a deployment of enemy soldiers in the vicinity of the Jal al-Alam site with artillery weapons, killing and wounding its members.
- The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance attacked at 1:40 pm on Friday, 03/22/202, the Metulla site with an assault march and directly hit a tank inside it.
- At 14:35 on Friday, 03/22/202, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance targeted a deployment of enemy soldiers in the vicinity of the Zarait barracks with artillery shells and directly hit it.
Enemy attacks
Al-Manar reported that enemy warplanes launched an air strike with missiles targeting the town of Aita al-Shaab, and also launched two raids on the towns of Taybah and Khiam.
In turn, the National News Agency reported that Israeli artillery shelling targeted the town of Kafr Kila, Wadi Al-Asafir, in the town of Al-Khiam, the outskirts of the town of Al-Adisa, Tallet Al-Hamamas, and the outskirts of the town of Hula.
The Israeli enemy carried out a sweep operation with machine guns towards Kafr Kila.
Earlier, an enemy Merkava tank in Metulla targeted a house in the city of Khiam with two shells, and Tallet Al-Hamams and the eastern outskirts of the town of Al-Adissa were subjected to enemy bombardment.
At approximately one o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy warplanes carried out an air attack, launching a raid targeting a house in the town of Aita al-Shaab with two air-to-surface missiles, completely destroying it.
An Israeli artillery bombardment was recorded at dawn on the town of Aita al-Shaab and Wadi al-Saluki, amid intense drone flights in the airspace of the Nabatieh region at a low level, as well as over Hasbaya and Arqoub.
A video of the massive destruction in Blida went viral.

An Israeli raid targets the town of Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon
Beirut: “Asharq Al-Awsat”/March 22, 2024
A representative of the National News Agency reported that Israeli warplanes carried out, at around one o'clock in the afternoon, Beirut time, a raid targeting a house in the town of Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon with two air-to-surface missiles, completely destroying it. Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, after the Hamas attack on southern Israel, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire and bombing, especially along the border between the two countries.

Israel, Hezbollah Return to Escalation after Days of Limited Clashes
Beirut: Asharq Al Awsat/22 March 2024
Hezbollah and the Israeli army resumed border clashes, hours after an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed a member of the Amal Movement. This ended days of smaller clashes that were limited to sporadic attacks by the party and usual Israeli responses. The pace of military operations has escalated since Wednesday night, following Israeli strikes deep inside Lebanon that led to the killing of an Amal member in the town of Qantara, 7 kilometers away from the nearest border point. Hezbollah said in successive statements that it had carried out four military operations, three of which targeted gatherings of Israeli soldiers, and were concentrated in the eastern sector. The party announced on Thursday that it had “targeted a military intelligence force in Metula, killing and wounding its members, adding that the Al-Malikiyah site was also hit with artillery shells. The Israeli army, in turn, said it attacked a party position in the town of Al-Dhahira, but Lebanese media reported that the raid targeted an uninhabited house, which led to its destruction and damage to the electricity network.Civil defense teams rushed a number of citizens from the town to hospitals in Tyre after they suffered from suffocation. Israel intensified the aerial bombardment, launching two missile raids targeting the town of Aita al-Shaab, and a third hitting the town of Yaroun. Two other raids destroyed homes in the town of Mays al-Jabal. At around 10 pm on Wednesday, Israeli warplanes raided Aita al-Shaab and Marwahin, causing severe damage to property and crops, and attacked the outskirts of the town of Yarin. Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli raids “caused air pollution, during and after the bombing, which led to skin rashes, shortness of breath and suffocation.”

Lebanon to complain to UN, saying Israel disrupts navigation systems
CAIRO (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
Lebanon will file an urgent complaint with the U.N. Security Council over what it called Israel's violation of its sovereignty by disrupting its navigation systems, the foreign ministry said on Friday. In a statement, the foreign ministry said Israel was affecting the safety of civil aviation in the airspace of Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport. "Lebanon also holds Israel internationally responsible for the consequences of any accident or disaster caused by Israel's deliberate policy of jamming air and ground navigation systems, and deliberately disrupting signal receiving and transmitting devices," the statement read. Lebanon did not provide specific details regarding the nature of Israel's actions disrupting its navigation systems. "Lebanon enables and allows Hezbollah to attack Israeli civilians from its territory," an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson said. "Lebanon is the last country to discuss sovereignty while it is harboring a terrorist organization that has displaced tens of thousands of citizens." The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in hostilities since war broke out in Gaza five months ago, trading fire across the border. It has marked the worst conflict between the heavily armed adversaries since a 2006 war, fueling fears of an even bigger confrontation. The border violence has forced tens of thousands on both sides to flee and raised fears the conflict in Gaza could spiral into the rest of the region.

Hezbollah targets Metula with suicide drone
Naharnet/March 22, 2024
The Israeli army and Hezbollah exchanged fire Friday, as tensions seemed to de-escalate along the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah fired artillery shells at Israeli troops near the Zar'it barracks and targeted with a suicide drone a tank in the Metula post. The group had carried out Thursday nine attacks on northern Israel. Israeli warplanes meanwhile struck the southern border town of Aita al-Shaab while Israeli tanks and artillery shelled a house in al-Khiam, the Hamames hill and the outskirts of al-Odaisseh and Kfarkela. Tensions had relatively de-escalated in the past few days during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan as international mediators pushed for a truce in Gaza. At least 322 people have been killed in Lebanon, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 56 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border exchanges, the military says.

Bkirki Christian meeting: FPM rejects 'instant' disarming of Hezbollah
Naharnet/March 22, 2024
The Bkirki Christian meeting on Thursday witnessed harmony among the conferees over pluralism, freedom, democracy and the importance of partnership between Muslims and Christians in public sector jobs, a media report said. The parties, however, showed differences when the issue of “sovereignty and arms” was discussed, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday. “Some voiced reservations when the defense strategy idea was discussed, arguing that the army, definitely, should be in charge of protecting sovereignty,” the daily added. “When the discussions tackled distancing Lebanon from conflicts and reaching its positive neutrality, the Free Patriotic Movement agreed to linking that to the presence of a strong army, in line with the Swiss model. It also did not voice reservations over the exclusivity of arms in the hands of the Lebanese Army, but it rejected demanding an instant handover of Hezbollah’s arms, arguing that this process should happen gradually and according to a specific program,” Nidaa al-Watan said. Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is meanwhile expected to call for another meeting, likely after Easter, to resume the discussions and approve a unified paper that “addresses all Christian and national concerns,” the newspaper added.

Arrest warrants issued for 2 Lebanese in connection with targeted Arouri killing
Associated Press/March 22, 2024
Judicial officials in Lebanon said an investigative judge has issued arrest warrants for two people on suspicion of giving information to Israel including the digital mapping of a Beirut southern suburb street where a top official with the Palestinian Hamas group was killed in January.
The officials said Thursday that Fadi Sawwan, the investigative judge at the military tribunal, issued the arrest warrants earlier this week for the two Lebanese citizens weeks after they were detained while using sophisticated digital mapping equipment. The Israeli military did not immediately return requests for comment. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the two men had earlier mapped streets in different parts of Lebanon including Beirut’s southern suburbs that are home to the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group. They said the men said they thought they were sending the information to a U.S.-based company that does virtual tourism business. The two officials said among the streets that they mapped was the one where the deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh Arouri, was killed along with six other militants in a January strike that hit an apartment. They said the street was mapped nearly two weeks before Arouri was killed. The officials said the two are in custody and were charged with spying for a foreign country and obtaining information that should remain secret because of national security. The officials said the two could get a sentence of up to life in prison.

Report: UAE to release Lebanese detainees before Eid
Naharnet/March 22, 2024
The head of Hezbollah’s Coordination and Liaison Committee, Wafiq Safa, returned Thursday to Beirut from the UAE after he held talks there related to the repatriation of a number of Lebanese detainees. “Safa’s return alone to Beirut does not mean that he has failed in his mission, seeing as the issue is related to official procedures that must be carried out in order to release the prisoners,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday. “The UAE is expected to issue a governmental decree on Ramadan 24 (in two weeks from now) that will grant these Lebanese a general amnesty that will be implemented within two days so that these released detainees can be in Beirut during Eid al-Fitr,” the daily added. The Lebanese nationals had been detained over alleged links to Hezbollah. The United Arab Emirates, like other Arab gulf countries, considers Hezbollah a “terrorist” organization and over the years has detained and deported dozens of Lebanese citizens over alleged links to the group. Lebanese media outlets reported that Safa's visit followed mediation by Syrian President Bashar Assad with officials in the UAE. After years of backing the Syrian opposition, the UAE restored relations with Damascus in 2018 and earlier this year the first ambassador for the emirates took office in Damascus.

Paris says actively engaged with parties to prevent Lebanon-Israel escalation
Naharnet/March 22, 2024
The French Foreign Ministry has announced its commitment to preventing escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, stating that it is “actively engaged on all fronts to achieve this goal.”In an interview with Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel, Christophe Lemoine, deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, emphasized France’s efforts “to prevent regional escalation, particularly along the Lebanese-Israeli border.” Lemoine added that Paris was also “pleased” with the Lebanese authorities’ “positive” response to its recent paper that is aimed at easing tensions along the border. At least 323 people have been killed in Lebanon since the beginning of fighting on October 8, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 56 civilians. In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border exchanges, the Israeli army says. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border and Israel has warned that it might launch an operation against Hezbollah to secure its residents’ return.

EU commissioner to Cyprus: EU migrant deal with Lebanon is possible
LBCI/March 22, 2024
EU commissioner Margaritis Schinas said on Friday that the European Union could strike a deal with Lebanon to stem arrivals of migrants, as Cyprus complained it was being inundated by a surge in arrivals from the Middle East. The EU has entered agreements with several countries to help them deal with increased migration burdens, and, ultimately, prevent a spillover into the 27 member states of the bloc. Rights groups have sharply criticized the pacts. Schinas, the European Commission's vice president for promoting the European way of life, said a deal with Lebanon could be brokered along the lines of one the EU signed with Egypt on March 17. Considerable preparation was required, he said. "We had worked with Egypt for quite some time, but I consider that it's absolutely realistic to move in a corresponding manner with Lebanon," he said during a visit to Cyprus. Cyprus, the EU's easternmost state, lies just 100 miles (160 km) from Syria and Lebanon, and arrivals of asylum seekers have been rising in recent months. Lebanon is in economic crisis and also hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. "Our country ... is facing asphyxiating pressure because of the large number of Syrians arriving in Cyprus," Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said after meeting Schinas. Nicosia wants the bloc to consider declaring parts of war-ravaged Syria safe, which would allow authorities to repatriate people arriving from there. UN data shows about 34,000 people have entered the EU through irregular channels so far this year, mostly across the Mediterranean.

Qatar invites Hezbollah to Doha: Decision awaited
LBCI/March 22, 2024
"Al-Joumhouria" learned that Qatar has invited Hezbollah's representatives to visit Doha. However, it has been revealed that Hezbollah has yet to decide whether to accept the invitation.

Schools signal over 50% fee hikes in 2024-2025
LBCI/March 22, 2024
According to Al-Akhbar, schools are using the improvement of salaries, the law supporting the Compensation Fund in the Parliament (requiring schools to pay 8 percent of salaries in dollars to the Fund), and increasing the cost of living for administrative staff to "herald" parents of increases exceeding 50 percent in the upcoming academic year 2024 – 2025. However, this comes before preparing the budget and knowing the expected number of students this year. Some schools have started contacting parents regarding the new tuition fees.

PM Mikati's diplomatic efforts against Israeli aggression and local commitments in Tripoli
LBCI/March 22, 2024
Prime Minister Najib Mikati reiterated from Tripoli "that the government continues its diplomatic efforts internationally and within the Arab world to stop the Israeli aggression against Lebanon." He noted, "The results of these contacts appear positive so far, without overlooking a fundamental issue: that no positive stance or guarantee can be relied upon from the Israeli enemy."Speaking to his visitors in Tripoli today, he said, "Since the first day of the Israeli aggression, the government has formed an emergency committee to monitor the situation in the South and for the Southerners, and it continues its work to provide necessary assistance to the displaced from their villages, depending on the available resources.''He added, ''In parallel, it is pursuing the necessary steps to address the repercussions of the Israeli aggression diplomatically and internationally, primarily through the United Nations and its organizations."Mikati emphasized, "The Israeli aggression and the destruction of homes and facilities in the South continue, and it is impossible under these circumstances to take any steps to assess or determine the damage or its cost.''He continued, ''Everything being circulated in this context is untrue, especially since everyone is aware of the limited capabilities of the state, which can barely provide basic needs and is striving hard to secure the minimum required support for the displaced from the villages in the South."Additionally, he said, ''Regarding the controversy surrounding the issue of recruiting customs officers for the Customs Administration, he said, "This issue dates back to the days of the previous government, which approved the appointment of successful customs officers in the competition held to recruit customs officers for the Customs Administration, according to their success ranking in the competition and in a manner that takes into account the requirements of national consensus and coexistence. ''
Mikati further stated, ''This led to the exclusion of about two hundred successful customs officers from the Islamic sect, and they were replaced by Christian customs officers who ranked lower in the competition.'' ''Nine excluded individuals filed an appeal before the State Shura Council, which accepted their appeal and annulled the Cabinet's decision to exclude them. When the Ministry of Finance presented the matter to the Cabinet, the Cabinet decided to implement the State Shura Council's decision,'' he continued. He noted, ''Due to the disagreement within the Supreme Customs Council over implementing the appointment decision after one of the members refused to implement the Cabinet's decision, the matter was raised according to the procedures to the Cabinet to resolve the dispute."He further stated, "Because I am keen on addressing this issue out of concern for everyone, for national unity, and to avoid any dispute at any level within the Cabinet, especially since the issue has sectarian implications, I requested further examination while emphasizing the previous Cabinet's decision.''In addition, he remarked, ''I do not allow the disagreement that occurred in the Supreme Customs Council to be transferred to the ministers' level. Nor do I allow any party or political faction to exploit this issue in populist language in pursuit of gains and scoring points.''The Prime Minister spent Friday in Tripoli, where he held a series of meetings to discuss the city's affairs and demands. He also dedicated part of his activities to following up on the social, health, and medical aid provided by the "Azm and Saade Association." He inspected the Azm Social Health Center in Bab el-Ramel, emphasizing that despite the numerous national crises, he must be focused on following up on Tripoli's affairs and the concerns of its people. He reiterated that "Azm and Saade Association" continues to stand by the people of Tripoli at all times and under all circumstances, according to the available capabilities.

Lebanon's healthcare: Will hospitals adhere to the new tariffs?
LBCI/March 22, 2024
Patients undergoing treatment at the expense of the Health Ministry in Lebanon are facing some burdens. Beyond their illnesses, they constantly hear demands to pay discrepancies exceeding the ministry's allocated funds. The issue stems from hospitals setting their pricing, which is calculated on a daily basis for bed occupancy. Regardless of this rate, the Health Ministry only reimburses $4 daily per bed. Any difference between the hospital's rate and what the ministry pays is the patient's responsibility. Today, the process is expected to change after an agreement between the involved parties. The daily bed rate now stands at $50, with the ministry covering $40 and citizens paying the remaining $10. However, will hospitals adhere to this tariff? The increase not only affects the daily bed rate but also extends to surgical procedures. For instance, the fee for intensive care has risen from approximately $30 (LBP 2,625,000) to $210 (LBP 18,750,000), while the cost of a Caesarean section has surged from about $110 (LBP 9,975,000) to $1060 (LBP 94,450,000). The ministry covers 80% of these fees in government hospitals and 65% in private ones.

IDF: Hezbollah Stores Weapons in Lebanese Civilian Areas
FDD/March 22/2024
Hezbollah is storing weapons, including explosives, in Lebanese civilian areas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on March 20. The Israeli military released footage of an explosion from an IDF strike in a Lebanese village. “As can be seen in the documentation, the size of the attacks, the number of secondary explosions and the duration of the fire at the property constitute further proof of Hezbollah’s method of operation in which it stores explosives and dangerous chemical substances in civilian villages,” the IDF stated.
Hezbollah has carried out thousands of attacks against Israel since it chose to support Hamas in the wake of the October 7 massacre. Hezbollah embeds itself throughout civilian areas of southern Lebanon, building tunnels and storing weapons in villages. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded on March 19 in a Hezbollah rocket attack on northern Israel. The IDF carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah operatives spotted near the border.
Expert Analysis
“Hezbollah continues to fire rockets at communities in northern Israel. The Iranian-backed terrorist group exploits civilian areas in southern Lebanon to fire its rockets and carry out its threats. The group is also destabilizing Lebanon and Syria by deploying its terrorists in Beirut and by infiltrating them into Syria. Hezbollah must be deterred from further threats to Israel and the region.” — Seth J. Frantzman, FDD Adjunct Fellow
“The IDF has been warning for years that Hezbollah is hiding rockets inside the homes of Lebanese citizens. Mirroring tactics employed by Gaza terrorist groups, Hezbollah is leveraging the civilian population of Lebanon as a shield to protect its military assets from Israeli attacks.” — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal
Hezbollah Uses Ambulances to Move Terrorists
Hezbollah is using ambulances to move terrorists around southern Lebanon, IDF Arabic Spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee said on March 19. Adraee further said: “Analysis of the ambulance’s activity pattern indicates abnormal behavior, operating between sites associated with Hezbollah even when they’re not under attack, with no apparent need for evacuating casualties and prolonged stays after attacks. It’s estimated that these ambulances are utilized by Hezbollah and Amal to shuttle terrorists between locations under IDF surveillance, as well as for transporting weaponry or equipment for terrorist activities.”
Hezbollah Deploys Armed Men in Beirut
Hezbollah deployed a “large and unprecedented” number of armed men in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya, Lebanon’s An-Nahar newspaper reported. The neighborhood is a major center of Hezbollah activity. The “terror group members are masked and are checking the identities of individuals walking on the streets,” The Times of Israel reported, citing An-Nahar. “In addition to being dominated by Hezbollah, the neighborhood was home to Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, killed in a January strike widely attributed to Israel.”

Senior Hezbollah security official makes rare visit to UAE to discuss detained Lebanese
AP/March 22, 2024
BEIRUT: A senior official with Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group made a rare visit to the United Arab Emirates to discuss the cases of a dozen Lebanese citizens detained in the oil-rich nation over alleged links to the Lebanese group, Hezbollah said Thursday. The United Arab Emirates, like other Arab gulf countries, considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization and over the years has detained and deported dozens of Lebanese citizens over alleged links to the group. A Hezbollah statement said Wafik Safa, the head of the group’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, visited the UAE where he met officials involved in the cases of Lebanese detained there. It did not give further details, but said there were hopes of reaching a good outcome. The UAE gave no official comment on the visit.Lebanese media outlets reported that Safa’s visit followed mediation by Syrian President Bashar Assad with officials in the UAE. After years of backing the Syrian opposition, the UAE restored relations with Damascus in 2018 and earlier this year the first ambassador for the emirates took office in Damascus. Hassan Alayan, who heads a committee of Lebanese deported from the UAE, told The Associated Press that there are 12 Lebanese citizens held in the UAE, including three who have not been charged. He said the others are three who were sentenced to life in prison, four who are serving 15-year sentences and two who were sentenced to 10 years in jail. Alayan, who was deported from the UAE in 2009 with his wife and four children after he had lived there for 27 years, charges against Lebanese in the UAE have ranged from being Hezbollah members to being drug smugglers and money launderers for the Iran-backed group. “All these charges are fabricated,” Alayan said. In May of last year, the UAE released 10 Lebanese citizens who were arrested there about two months earlier. The release came after the death earlier in May of a Lebanese man who was detained in the UAE on unknown charges. Following charges against some Lebanese in the UAE in 2019, Amnesty International said in a statement at the time that the trial of the men “failed to meet international fair trial standards,” as the evidence included confessions that were “extracted under duress, and the defendants were detained incommunicado for months and denied access to lawyers during interrogation and investigation.”

Hezbollah seeks release of detainees held on security charges in UAE, move could alleviate tensions
The Arab Weekly/March 22/2024
A senior official from the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah has made a landmark trip to the United Arab Emirates to bring about the release of more than a dozen Lebanese nationals detained there, sources close to Hezbollah told Reuters. Sources in Abu Dhabi said the visit has no other purpose than to discuss the issue of the detainees. But analysts said it could pave the way for the improvement of relations between Arab Gulf nations and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group. A source close to Hezbollah, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Wafiq Safa’s visit as a “new page” in ties between the UAE and Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist group by the United States and its Gulf Arab allies. Safa travelled to the UAE on Tuesday, the sources said. He runs Hezbollah’s liaison and coordination unit, responsible for coordinating with Lebanese security agencies, and is under sanctions by the United States. The Lebanese detainees, several of whom were serving life sentences, had originally been arrested on charges including providing support and finance for Hezbollah. Sources told Reuters the detainees are likely to be released in the coming days and could accompany Safa back to Lebanon.
One of the sources close to Hezbollah said the visit may help alleviate “some of the regional tensions”. But he did not elaborate. UAE foreign policy moves in recent years have included restoring ties with Assad, having once backed the rebels seeking to topple him, and normalising ties with Israel in 2020. The UAE began re-engaging Tehran in 2019, while Saudi Arabia re-established ties with Iran last year. The tensions between Hezbollah and the UAE reflected frosty relations between Hezbollah and Arab Gulf states. These have had an adverse effect of Gulf tourism and investment in cash-strapped Lebanon.
The militant Lebanese party is generally seen as a destabilising force and a component of Iran’s network of proxies in parts of the region including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, declared Hezbollah a terrorist group in 2016. The GCC imposed sanctions on Hezbollah in 2013. At a high point in regional tensions in 2019 following a drone attack on Saudi oil installations, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the UAE and Saudi Arabia that they should halt the conflict in Yemen to protect themselves. The UAE led Arab moves to re-establish ties with Assad in recent years. Syria’s membership in the Arab League was restored last year, after a more than decade-long suspension. The UAE last year released ten Lebanese nationals who had been detained there for two months, according to Lebanon’s foreign ministry.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 22-23/2024
Gunmen kill 40 in attack at concert near Moscow, over 100 injured
MOSCOW (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
At least 40 people were killed and over 100 hurt when gunmen in camouflage clothing opened fire with automatic weapons on people at a concert in the Crocus City Hall near Moscow on Friday, Russia's FSB security service said. In one of the worst such attacks in Russia in years, at least five gunmen were shown in unverified videos firing repeatedly at screaming civilians cowering in the concert hall as Soviet-era rock group "Picnic" was about to perform. The 6,200-seat concert hall in a suburb west of Moscow, which is near a shopping mall also called Crocus City, was sold out for the performance. Other video footage showed the men shooting people below what looked like an entrance sign to Crocus City Hall. People lying motionless in pools of blood outside the hall were also visible. "Suddenly there were bangs behind us - shots. A burst of firing - I do not know what," one witness, who asked not to be identified by name, told Reuters. "A stampede began. Everyone ran to the escalator," the witness said. "Everyone was screaming; everyone was running."Flames leapt into the sky, and plumes of black smoke rose above the venue as hundreds of blue lights from emergency vehicles flashed in the night, Reuters pictures and video showed. Helicopters sought to douse the flames and evacuated around 100 people from the basement, Russian media reported. The roof of the venue was collapsing, state news agency RIA said. Russian media reported a second blast at the venue, and there were reports that some of the gunmen had barricaded themselves in the building. It was not immediately clear who the attackers were. No group had yet claimed responsibility. Russia's foreign ministry said it was a "bloody terrorist attack".
ATTACK WARNING
Two weeks ago, the U.S. embassy in Russia warned that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow. The embassy issued its warning several hours after the FSB said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by a cell of the militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic State. President Vladimir Putin, who was on Sunday re-elected for a new six-year term, sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 and has repeatedly warned that various powers - including countries in the West - are seeking to sow chaos inside Russia. Putin is receiving regular updates about the incident, the Kremlin said. "Vladimir Putin was informed about the beginning of the shooting in the first minutes of what happened in Crocus City Hall," the Kremlin said. "The president constantly receives information about what is happening and about the measures being taken through all relevant services. The head of state gave all the necessary instructions," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
SECURITY TIGHTENED
After the attack, Russia tightened security at airports, transportation stations and across the capital - a vast urban area of over 21 million people. "A terrible tragedy occurred in the shopping centre Crocus City today," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. "I am sorry for the loved ones of the victims."The White House said that images of the shooting were hard to watch while Germany's foreign ministry called the images "horrific.""...Our thoughts obviously are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack," White House spokesman John Kirby said. Germany foreign ministry said on X, "The background must be clarified quickly. Our deepest condolences go out to the families of the victims." "The entire world community is obliged to condemn this monstrous crime," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. "All efforts are being thrown at saving people."Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that Kyiv "had absolutely nothing to do with these events" in a video message posted on Telegram while Kirby said there was "no indication at this time that Ukraine, or Ukrainians were involved in the shooting." Zakharova questioned how the U.S. knew this and said Washington should immediately pass any information it had to Moscow, or stop making such statements. "On what basis do officials in Washington draw any conclusions in the midst of a tragedy about someone's innocence?" Zakharova said.

Daesh claims responsibility for attack at Moscow concert hall, at least 40 dead
AGENCIES/March 22, 2024
MOSCOW: Daesh has claimed responsibility for a gun attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday, which Russian authorities said killed at least 40 people. Daesh fighters “attacked a large gathering... on the outskirts of the Russian capital Moscow,” the group said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
The Daesh statement said the attackers had “retreated to their bases safely.” Russia’s National Guard said it was on the scene and looking for the perpetrators. Gunmen opened fire at a rock concert leaving dead and wounded before a major fire spread through the theater, Moscow’s mayor and Russian news agencies reported. Attackers dressed in camouflaged outfits entered the building, opened fire and threw a grenade or incendiary bomb, according to a journalist for the RIA Novosti news agency who was at the scene. Russia’s foreign ministry called the incident a “terrorist attack” that had to be condemned. Fire quickly spread through the Crocus City Hall, north of the Russian capital, where the theater can hold several thousand people and has staged several concerts by top international artists, according to the reports. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed there were deaths in what he called a “terrible tragedy” at the concert by Russian rock band Piknik. Automatic gunfire was used on the audience, the RIA Novosti journalist reported. “People who were in the hall were led on the ground to protect themselves from the shooting for 15 or 20 minutes,” the journalist was quoted as saying. People started crawling out when it was safe, the journalist reported, adding that security forces were at the scene. About 100 people escaped through the theater basement while others were sheltering on the the roof, the emergency services ministry said on its Telegram channel. Telegram news channels Baza and Mash, which are close to security forces, showed video images of flames and black smoke pouring from the concert hall. Other images showed two men walking through the hall with at least one person left on the ground near the entrance. Spectators were also seen hiding behind seats or trying to escape. Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it had been a “terrorist attack.” “The whole international community must condemn this odious crime,” she said on Telegram. Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Friday condemning the attack. The US presidency called the attack “terrible” but said there was no immediate indication of any link to the war in Ukraine. “I offer my condolences to the families of the dead,” said Moscow’s mayor as a major security operation was launched around the theater and nearby shopping mall. Sobyanin said he had canceled all public events in Moscow for the weekend. TASS news agency said that SOBR and special police forces and the OMON anti-riot squad had been sent to the Crocus hall. It added that all the members of the rock band had been evacuated safely. Orthodox church leader Patriarch Kirill was “praying for peace for the souls of the dead,” said his spokesman Vladimir Legoyda.

Russia says United States must share any information it has on attack near
MOSCOW (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
Russia said on Friday that if the United States knew for sure that Ukraine was not involved in a mass shooting incident at a concert hall near Moscow Washington should share any information it had. White House spokesperson John Kirby said earlier on Friday that there was "no indication at this time that Ukraine, Ukrainians were involved"."The White House said it sees no signs that Ukraine or Ukrainians are involved in the terrorist attack in Moscow," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. "On what basis do officials in Washington draw any conclusions in the midst of a tragedy about someone's innocence?" She said that if Washington had information, it should be shared and that if Washington had no information, it should not be talking in such a way.

UN Security Council fails to pass US draft resolution on Gaza after Russia, China veto
REUTERS/March 22, 2024
NEW YORK: Russia and China on Friday vetoed a US-led draft resolution at the Security Council on Gaza, with Moscow accusing Washington of a “hypocritical spectacle” that does not pressure Israel. The US, Israel’s main ally which has vetoed previous ceasefire calls, put forward the resolution which for the first time would have supported “the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire” and condemned the October 7 attack by Hamas. Russia and China exercised their vetoes, Algeria also voted against and Guyana abstained. The other 11 Security Council members voted in favor, including permanent members France and Britain. Russia’s ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, said that the US was doing nothing to rein in Israel, mocking Washington for speaking of a ceasefire after “Gaza has been virtually wiped off the face of the Earth.”“We have observed a typical hypocritical spectacle,” he said. “The American product is exceedingly politicized, with the sole purpose being to play to voters and throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a ceasefire in Gaza,” he said. The resolution will “ensure the impunity of Israel, whose crimes are not even assessed in the draft.”The draft links a potential ceasefire to ongoing talks, led by Qatar with support from the US and Egypt, to halt the war in return for Hamas releasing hostages. The US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called the Russian and Chinese vetoes “not just cynical” but also “petty.” “Russia and China simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States,” she said. “Let’s be honest — for all the fiery rhetoric, we all know that Russia and China are not doing anything diplomatically to advance a lasting peace or to meaningfully contribute to the humanitarian response effort,” she said.

UN Security Council rejects US-proposed Gaza resolution
Brad Dress/The Hill/March 22, 2024
The United Nations Security Council on Friday rejected a U.S.-backed resolution that called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and a release of all hostages held by Hamas, after Russia and China voted against the proposal.
The final vote on the resolution was 11 in favor, three votes against and one abstention. The resolution was a major shift for the U.S., which had previously blocked any calls for a cease-fire. But the proposal tied a cease-fire and humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza to the need for the release of all hostages. Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya voiced concerns with the resolution, saying it would prevent action that would secure an actual and unconditional cease-fire. “We will no longer tolerate pointless resolutions which do not contain a call for a cease-fire, which lead us to nowhere,” he said. “This would free the hands of Israel, and it would result in all of Gaza, its entire population, having to face destruction, devastation or expulsion.” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution would put pressure on Hamas to accept ongoing negotiations to secure a temporary cease-fire and hostage release. “Every day without a deal means more needless suffering. This resolution will move us closer to securing that deal, and help us alleviate that suffering,” she said. “This is a strong resolution — it’s the byproduct of exhaustive, inclusive negotiations. It reflects the consensus of this council.
“And it does more than just call for a cease-fire,” she added. “It helps to make that cease-fire possible. It would be a historic mistake for the council to not adopt this text.”After the vote, Thomas-Greenfield slammed Russia and China for voting against the resolution, accusing them both of being “petty.” “Russia and China simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States, because it would rather see us fail than to see this council succeed,” she said, “even after inclusive consultations over weeks and weeks, even after negotiations and edits produced the draft that received overwhelming council support.”The U.S. has vetoed three previous resolutions before the Security Council that called for a cease-fire without any conditions, such as the release of hostages. Israel is waging a war against Hamas in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. Another roughly 250 people were kidnapped, with 100 believed to still be alive in Gaza. More than 31,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the ensuing war, and the U.N. is warning of a famine in the territory’s north, which has been wrecked by the war. Israel has becoming increasingly isolated internationally over the war, and tensions are also flaring between its government — led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and Democrats in Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that negotiations to secure a cease-fire are “getting closer” but noted there was still a bridge to cross. Hamas wants to see a permanent cease-fire and an end to the war, but Israel is vowing to fight on until the Palestinian militant group is destroyed. China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said the “overwhelming consensus” of the Security Council is for an unconditional cease-fire. He also raised concerns about the resolution allowing Israel to move into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltered. Israel has accused Hamas of hiding battalions there. Algeria, which proposed the last unconditional cease-fire the U.S. vetoed, also voted against the latest resolution Friday. Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama said there was an “urgency” for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, arguing the U.S. resolution “does not convey a clear message of peace.”“We echo the demands of millions of people,” he said. “The draft resolution falls short of our expectations.”

Israel Says Spy Chief Going to Doha For Gaza Talks
Asharq Al Awsat/22 March 2024
The head of Israel's spy agency is to return to Doha Friday to meet with his US and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar's prime minister for ongoing Gaza truce talks, Israel said. Barnea was in Doha Monday but flew back home after talks were restarted following failed efforts to secure a truce before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began last week. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved an Israeli delegation led by Mossad head David Barnea to go to Qatar" on Friday, the Israeli premier's office said. Technical teams had remained behind after Barnea's departure to review details of a potential deal after the principal negotiators discussed the main issues, AFP reported. Barnea is to meet CIA director William Burns, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, Netanyahu's office said.

Israel Says It Will Invade Rafah No Matter What the US Says
Bloomberg/March 22/2024
A top Israeli official said his country’s military is ultimately going to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah and defeat Hamas “even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States.”“We are going to go in and finish this job, and anybody who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand that the existential nerve of the Jews was touched” by the Oct. 7 attack when Hamas operatives killed 1,200 and abducted 250, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said on a US podcast posted online Thursday. A close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Dermer is headed to Washington early next week to listen to concerns from the Biden administration that such an invasion would cause many more civilian casualties at a time when famine and disease are spreading in Gaza. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the region pushing for a deal between Israel and Hamas that would lead to a six-week cease-fire and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners along with a big increase in humanitarian aid to the more than 2 million Palestinians in the coastal strip. Never miss an episode. Follow the Big Take podcast on iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Read the transcript.
“We’ve been very clear — President Biden’s been very clear — that a major ground operation in Rafah would be a mistake, something we can’t support,” Blinken told reporters in Cairo Thursday evening after meeting with Arab foreign ministers. “There is no place for the many civilians who are massed in Rafah to go to get out of harm’s way, and for those that inevitably remain, it would be a humanitarian disaster.”
Blinken argued that “Hamas can be effectively dealt with without a major ground operation in Rafah, and one of the reasons that we have counterparts from the Israeli government coming to Washington next week is precisely to focus on that.”European Union leaders issued a new call Thursday for an “immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable cease-fire” in Gaza, responding to growing alarm about the risk of famine in the besieged territory. They also urged Israel not to pursue a ground operation in Rafah. For several months, EU nations had struggled to agree on language criticizing Israel’s military operations, but a growing number of countries have been demanding a stronger stance. Thursday’s statement also said that the EU would accelerate work on additional sanctions on Hamas. Israel went to war in Gaza right after the Hamas attack and has killed more than 31,000, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the US and European Union. Israel says it has killed 11,000 fighters. Dermer said the US hasn’t categorically rejected any Israeli military operation in Rafah. “They said without a credible way of moving a mass of people out of Rafah and surging humanitarian assistance to them they don’t see how this can be done effectively,” he said. “And we are saying we agree with you that we have to move the people out, we agree we have to get humanitarian assistance to them, and we believe we can do it.”
Dermer said he’s going to Washington to listen to US ideas about what to do. There have been a number of disagreements between the US and Israel over strategy during the more than five months of conflict, but they worked through them in the end, he said. “Could you have a breach over Rafah? You could. We hope we don’t.”Famine Is Imminent in Northern Gaza, UN-Backed Report Warns. In recent weeks, especially as disease and hunger have spread in Gaza without a clear plan for aid distribution, Biden and other top US Democrats have openly criticized Netanyahu and Israeli policies. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Israel to hold new elections, a step that Netanyahu rejected. Just as Netanyahu faces pressure from his right, Biden faces pressure from his left and each is fighting for political survival. No invasion of Rafah appears imminent since the Washington consultations have yet to occur. Other factors such as a potential truce and the need for Israel to finalize and implement a plan to remove civilians from harm’s way and call up the thousands of troops needed for such an operation, will also affect the time-line. Still, Dermer argued that the Hamas battalions and top leaders thought to be in Rafah — along with possibly some 100 hostages — need to be defeated so that the Islamist group can be removed from power in Gaza. Until that happens, he said, other Gazans will be afraid to step forward as leaders for a post-war enclave.

Israeli military says troops captured hundreds of fighters in Gaza hospital
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters including a number of security officials and military commanders during its extended raid into Gaza's main hospital, the military's main spokesperson said. Israeli troops entered the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the early hours of Monday morning and have been combing through the sprawling complex, which the military says is connected to a tunnel network used as a base for Palestinian fighters.It says troops have killed hundreds of fighters in the operation and also detained over 500 suspects, including 358 members of the Islamist militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the largest number captured at the same time since the beginning of the war nearly six months ago. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel's main military spokesperson, said special forces units had used "deception tactics" to surprise the fighters and had severely damaged Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Among the detainees were three senior Islamic Jihad military commanders and two Hamas officials responsible for operations in the occupied West Bank as well as other Hamas internal security officials. "Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated," Hagari told a briefing late on Thursday, during which he displayed a composite picture of what were described as detainees. On Friday, the military said some of the photographs were of militants who had not been detained but whose pictures were included through human error. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said the misidentification and the inclusion of pictures of medical staff and people outside the country showed the Israeli military was spreading false narratives to justify its assault on the hospital. Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital before the war, is now one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in the north of the territory, and had also been housing displaced civilians. Israel faced heavy criticism last November when troops first raided the hospital. The troops uncovered tunnels there, which they said had been used as command and control centres by Hamas. Hamas and medical staff deny that the hospital is used for military purposes or to shelter fighters. In recent days, Hamas spokespeople have said that the dead announced in previous Israeli statements were not fighters but patients and displaced people and have accused Israel of war crimes.

Fasting and funerals: Violence darkens West Bank Ramadan
Agence France Presse/March 22, 2024
Normally festive Ramadan nights have become rife with danger in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said hospital director Wisam Bakr, as surging violence casts a long shadow over the Muslim fasting month. His hospital in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has been on the front line of the spike in violence since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war that is still raging in the Gaza Strip. Instead of breaking the daily Ramadan fast with family and friends, "at night we try not to go outside... because the night is not safe," said Bakr. "At any hour there may be a raid" by Israeli forces, he said.
As Israel pursues its withering military campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, violence in the West Bank involving Israeli forces or settlers -- already rising before the war -- has spiked to levels unseen in two decades. Since October 7, the Jenin Government Hospital has received 44 people killed and 264 people wounded in Israeli raids, said the director Bakr. Beyond the casualties and damage the frequent military operations have caused, residents of Jenin -- a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups -- said the violence has translated into quiet streets, subdued celebrations and anxiety.
"There are no people" on the streets, said Mohammed Omar, a sweets vendor who has spent his whole life in Jenin refugee camp, one of the West Bank's most crowded and impoverished, and the site of repeated Israeli raids.
'Afraid for my children'
According to Omar, the heavy atmosphere of this year's Ramadan can be felt not just in the immediate aftermath of raids and strikes, but also on relatively quiet days. "People are staying in their homes, afraid of the bombing, and they don't have money to spend," he said. Even if they did, they would likely have some trouble getting around, as many streets have been damaged and some rendered impassable by Israeli bulldozers carrying out demolitions. Israel routinely demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks, arguing that such measures act as a deterrent, while critics say this policy amounts to collective punishment. Bakr said the violence and fear had taken a toll on the hospital's staff and made for a much more reserved Ramadan. Their work is high-pressure, with casualties often arriving at night and overwhelming emergency medics. "Nowadays I hurry up" to get home after the daily fast ends at sunset, "because I'm afraid not only for me, but for my children too," Bakr said. Last week Israeli forces killed two men inside the hospital, in what the military described as "counterterrorism activity" against "armed suspects". In footage stored on Bakr's phone, one of the men, Mahmoud Abu al-Haija, wearing jeans and a black sweater, is gunned down just outside the emergency ward, leaving a bright red streak of blood on the floor as others drag him away. The man's aunt, Farha Abu al-Haija, told AFP that he was "neither a resistance fighter nor a weapon bearer", and that he had run to the hospital seeking safety.
Both of the slain men's bodies were draped in green Hamas flags and adorned with headbands of the militant group's armed wing for their funeral, AFP footage showed.
'Ramadan wasn't like this'
Farha Abu al-Haija said she usually looks forward to Ramadan, but now her family and others' "are missing a member"."There is sadness, anger, pain."At least 444 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers across the West Bank since October 7, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Mokhles Turkman was driving home from work on Wednesday, planning to break the fast with his family, when he heard a loud explosion -- a strike Israel said had targeted Palestinian militants. As Turkman, 29, learned that the blast had killed three men, he abandoned his original plans and decided instead to join the funeral procession through the streets of Jenin. One of those killed was an Islamic Jihad "commander", according to the Israeli military, which also accused him of a deadly attack last year that killed an Israeli civilian. "Ramadan was never like this," Turkman told AFP, as young men fired automatic weapons into the sky and others lowered the three bodies into freshly dug graves. He said he attended the funeral "to stand with the people". "We want to stand with their families, let them know that we are all united."

Russia and China veto US resolution calling for immediate cease-fire in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS (AP)/Fri, March 22, 2024
Russia and China on Friday vetoed a U.S.-sponsored U.N. resolution calling for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza to protect civilians and enable humanitarian aid to be delivered to more than 2 million hungry Palestinians. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 11 members in favor, three against and one abstention. Before the vote, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow supports an immediate cease-fire, but he questioned the language in the resolution and accused U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield of “misleading the international community” for “politicized” reasons. The resolution declared that a cease-fire is “imperative." The draft that was put to a vote made no direct link to the release of hostages taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which was in the previous draft. But it unequivocally supported diplomatic efforts “to secure such a cease-fire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”The Security Council had already adopted two resolutions on the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, but none calling for a cease-fire. Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution in late October calling for pauses in the fighting to deliver aid, protection of civilians, and a halt to arming Hamas. They said it didn’t reflect global calls for a cease-fire.
The U.S., Israel’s closest ally, has vetoed three resolutions demanding a cease-fire, the most recent an Arab-backed measure supported by 13 council members with one abstention on Feb. 20. A day earlier, the U.S. circulated a rival resolution, which went through major changes during negotiations before Friday's vote. It initially would have supported a temporary cease-fire linked to the release of all hostages, and the previous draft would have supported international efforts for a cease-fire as part of a hostage deal. The vote took place as Blinken, America’s top diplomat, is on his sixth urgent mission to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war, discussing a deal for a cease-fire and hostage release, as well as post-war scenarios. Nate Evans, the spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said the resolution was "an opportunity for the Council to speak with one voice to support the diplomacy happening on the ground and pressure Hamas to accept the deal on the table.”Meanwhile, the 10 elected members of the Security Council have been drafting their own resolution, which demands an immediate humanitarian cease-fire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that began March 10 to be “respected by all parties leading to a permanent sustainable cease-fire.”
It also demands “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages ” and emphasizes the urgent need to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in the surprise Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that triggered the war, and abducted another 250 people. Hamas is still believed to be holding some 100 people hostage, as well as the remains of 30 others.In Gaza, the Health Ministry raised the death toll in the territory Thursday to nearly 32,000 Palestinians. It doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. The international community’s authority on determining the severity of hunger crises warned this week that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of people are experiencing catastrophic hunger. The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC, warned that escalation of the war could push half of Gaza’s total population to the brink of starvation. The U.S. draft expressed “deep concern about the threat of conflict-induced famine and epidemics presently facing the civilian population in Gaza as well as the number of undernourished people, and also that hunger in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels.”It emphasized “the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to civilians in the entire Gaza Strip” and lift all barriers to getting aid to civilians “at scale.”Israel faces mounting pressure from even its closest allies to streamline the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip and to open more land crossings, and come to a cease-fire agreement. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to move the military offensive to the southern city of Rafah, where some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians have sought safety. Netanyahu says it's a Hamas stronghold. The final U.S. draft eliminated language in the initial draft that said Israel’s offensive in Rafah “should not proceed under current circumstances.” Instead, in an introductory paragraph, the council emphasized its concern that a ground offensive into Rafah “would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement, potentially into neighboring countries, and would have serious implications for regional peace and security.” For the first time in a U.N. resolution, the U.S. draft would condemn “all acts of terrorism, including the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, as well as its taking and killing of hostages, murder of civilians, and sexual violence, including rape.

Israeli military says opening new aid routes into Gaza
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
Israel's military said it had opened a new entry point for aid to enter Gaza and was allowing unlimited supplies into the enclave, after a U.N.-backed report said there was an imminent risk of famine in the north and that it would spread. After closing off access to Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 that set off the war, Israel has since allowed in aid convoys amid growing international pressure to boost the amount of supplies to feed Gaza's 2.3 million people. "As much as we know, by our analysis, there is no starvation in Gaza. There is a sufficient amount of food entering Gaza every day," Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of Israel's Coordination and Liasion Administration for Gaza, told reporters at Gate 96, a new entry point for delivering supplies to the northern area. A convoy of seven trucks entered through Gate 96 on Thursday, which he said was the third time the route was used. The plight of Gaza's population after nearly six months of war has aroused growing international concern and anger. "We are doing everything that we can to enlarge the capacity of humanitarian aid going into Gaza," Tetro said, blaming "bottlenecks" on international aid groups which he said lacked capacity to distribute supplies inside Gaza, where fighting has left a trail of destruction. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Israel during his sixth trip to the Middle East since the war started, said he would push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take urgent steps to allow in more aid. The U.S. has joined other nations in using air drops to get aid into Gaza and has said it would build a pier so aid could also be delivered by sea. Aid agencies say that, though welcome, such routes are no substitute for bring aid by truck on land. Aid convoys, which are driven by Palestinian drivers, are cleared by the military at the southern cross point of Kerem Shalom and drive up on the Israeli side of the Gaza security fence to Gate 96 where they enter Gaza and turn north.

France to work on new UN Gaza ceasefire resolution, Macron says
BRUSSELS (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
France will work with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to convince Russia and China to back a resolution at the United Nations for a ceasefire in Gaza after the two big powers blocked a text by the U.S., President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday. "Following the Russian and Chinese veto a few minutes ago, we are going to resume work on the basis of the French draft resolution in the Security Council and work with our American, European and Arab partners to reach an agreement," Macron said at end of a European Union leaders' summit in Brussels. France's foreign ministry said on Thursday it had started drafting a resolution with diplomats, saying they would put a draft forward if the U.S. resolution did not pass. The U.N. Security Council on Friday failed to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal, the first time the U.S. has backed such language. The resolution called for an "immediate and sustained ceasefire" lasting roughly six weeks that would protect civilians and allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Macron said that the change in tone from Washington meant that he was hopeful a new resolution with Arab states could succeed if they were able to convince Russia and China not to oppose. "What is important to note is that the U.S. has changed its position and has indicated its desire to now very clearly defend a ceasefire, which is a good thing for us and for the progress of our draft," Macron said.

Blinken pushes for more aid for Gaza in talks with Israel’s Netanyahu
REUTERS/March 22, 2024
TEL AVIV: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday for talks aimed at ensuring more aid flows into Gaza, amid increasingly tense relations between the two allies over the six-month-old war. In Gaza, Israel claimed to have killed or captured hundreds of Hamas fighters in a five-day operation at the Al-Shifa hospital complex, one of the only medical facilities even partially functioning in the north. Hamas and medical staff deny fighters were present there. Blinken, on his sixth trip to the Middle East since the war broke out on Oct. 7, has been engaged in an intense round of diplomacy since arriving in the region on Wednesday, meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and foreign ministers and officials from Arab nations in Cairo on Thursday. Parallel meetings are also taking place in Doha on Friday aimed at securing a ceasefire in the conflict. The top US diplomat’s latest visit to Israel comes at a time of strained ties between the two countries, with US President Joe Biden calling Israel’s campaign in Gaza “over the top” and saying it has had too great a toll on civilian lives. Prior to the meeting with Netanyahu, which lasted about 40 minutes, Blinken said he would address the growing gap between the two countries in his one-on-one conversation. He also met with the Israeli war cabinet. Blinken said he would push Netanyahu to take urgent steps to allow more aid into the densely-populated enclave, where mass death from famine is imminent, according to the United Nations. The war was triggered by a raid into southern Israel by Hamas fighters who killed 1,200 and took 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent Israeli bombardments, with many more feared dead under the rubble, Gaza health authorities say.
US officials say the number of aid deliveries via land needs to increase fast and that aid needs to be sustained over a long period. Israel says it is not restricting aid. “A hundred percent of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue,” Blinken told a news conference late on Thursday.
Israeli Col. Moshe Tetro, head of Israel’s Coordination and Liasion Administration for Gaza, said the military does not believe there is a food shortage in the enclave.“As much as we know, by our analysis, there is no starvation in Gaza. There is a sufficient amount of food entering Gaza every day,” he told reporters. Blinken is also expected to discuss Israel’s intention to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, a city on the southern edge of the enclave where more than half of Gaza’s population is now sheltering in makeshift accommodation. Washington has repeatedly objected to such a plan. Netanyahu told Biden in a phone call on Monday that Israel sees no other way to defeat Hamas fighters it says are holed up there. Last week, the leader of Biden’s Democratic Party in the US Senate called Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and said Israelis should vote him out. Biden called it a “good speech“; Netanyahu called it “inappropriate” and later held a video conference with lawmakers from Biden’s Republican opposition.

Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Jewish Convert in West Bank, Says Spokesman
Asharq Al Awsat/22 March 2024
Israeli gunfire killed a Palestinian convert to Judaism in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, a spokesman said. The Israeli army said it killed a "suspect" in the same area, without disclosing an identity. "This morning, the life of David Ben Avraham, a convert, ended tragically," Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Jewish community in the West Bank town of Hebron, said on local news website Aroutz 7. Sameh Zaitoun, 62, converted to Judaism in 2020 and took the Hebrew name David Ben Avraham, said Arnon, who was a friend. Arnon said that "soldiers found him suspicious and shot him" at the Elazar junction, between Hebron and Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank. "He died from his wounds," he added, AFP reported. The Israeli military said "soldiers fired shots toward a Palestinian who aroused their suspicion at the Elazar Junction".
The Palestinian, whose identity the army did not disclose, then died from his wounds, and military police opened an investigation into the incident, the statement added. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sameh Zaitoun said in media in the past that he had been arrested by the Palestinian Authority because of his conversion. At least 444 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers across the West Bank since the war in Gaza started on October 7, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
This includes at least eight killed from Wednesday to Thursday, aside from Zaitoun. At least 17 Israeli soldiers and civilians died in attacks over the same time period, Israeli authorities said.

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TEL AVIV (Reuters)/March 22, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State of State Antony Blinken shook hands and chatted on Friday with demonstrators in Tel Aviv demanding Israel focus on the release of hostages held by Hamas, promising them that he was working to bring them home. Several dozen people, including some family members of hostages, gathered outside a Tel Aviv hotel where Blinken's delegation was based, holding banners calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which has been under bombardment since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages on Oct. 7. Some hostages were released in an earlier pause in fighting, but more than 100 are believed to remain, although some have been reported killed by Israeli airstrikes. "No more blood, hostage deal now," they chanted. Blinken, who earlier met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of Israel's war cabinet, delayed his departure from Israel to briefly greet the demonstrators. "We're working to bring them home," Blinken said as he shook hands with the line of demonstrators, hitting his chest with his hand. Blinken also met inside the hotel with the families of American-Israeli hostages, a U.S. official said. Some in Israel have criticized Netanyahu for not securing a ceasefire deal with Hamas and instead focusing on rooting out the militant group from Gaza. Almost 32,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli assault, according to Gaza health authorities. Tensions between the Biden administration and Netanyahu have spiked in recent weeks. Washington has implored Israel to do more to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where aid agencies say much of the population is on the verge of famine, and warned against an offensive on the southern city of Rafah. “We want to end the war. We don’t want to extend it," said Tom Schapiro, 27, who was among the protesters. He said he opposed an offensive in Rafah, and urged Washington to use U.S. military support to Israel as leverage over Netanyahu. "Blinken can press the government to make a deal, I’m sure he has some leverage. And if it means not sending weapons - he should be doing that. We think the hostages are the most important thing," Shapiro said.

Israel announces large West Bank land seizure
AFP/March 22, 2024
JERUSALEM: Israel reported Friday the seizure of 800 hectares (1,977 acres) of land in the occupied West Bank, which activists called the largest action of its kind in decades. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared as “state lands” the area in the northern Jordan Valley, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel for Gaza war talks. Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said the size of the seized area is the largest since 1993’s Oslo Accords, and that “2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land.”Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. “While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right over the Judea and Samaria area and the country in general, we are promoting settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country,” Smotrich said, using Israel’s term for the West Bank. Settlements in the Palestinian territories are illegal under international law. Smotrich, who heads the extreme-right Religious Zionism party, lives in a settlement. Despite opposition abroad, Israel has in recent decades build dozens of settlements across the West Bank. They are now home to more than 490,000 Israelis, who live alongside around three million Palestinians in the territory. The United Nations human rights chief has reported a drastic acceleration in illegal settlement building since Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began months ago, and said this risks eliminating any likelihood of a viable Palestinian state.
Blinken has described settlement expansion as “counterproductive to reaching enduring peace” with the Palestinians.

US Says Yemen's Houthis Attacked Ships at Least 50 Times
Asharq Al Awsat/22 March 2024
The Houthis have attacked civilian and military ships sailing off Yemen's shores at least 50 times since their assaults began late last year, a senior US Defense Department official said Thursday. "In the Red Sea, the Houthis seek to affect this vital channel for global trade with at least 50 attacks against commercial shipping and naval vessels," Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander told a House Armed Services Committee hearing. The Houthis began attacking ships in November, a campaign they say is intended to signal solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. They have vowed to target Israeli, British and American ships, as well as vessels heading to Israeli ports, disrupting traffic through the vital trade route off Yemen's coasts. The attacks have sent insurance costs spiraling for vessels transiting the Red Sea and prompted many shipping firms to take the far longer passage around the southern tip of Africa instead. The US and Britain have since January carried out strikes targeting the Houthis, but the military officer responsible for US forces in the Middle East said Houthi equipment that has been destroyed can be replaced with relative ease. "Only two ships can resupply the vast majority of the equipment that we've destroyed so far of the Houthis," General Erik Kurilla told the same hearing, without specifying the size of the vessels. "We have to increase the international effort to be able to do the inspections on the vessels that are going into Hodeidah," he said, referring to a Houthi-contolled Yemeni port, adding: "We need to isolate the Houthis in the information environment, and we have to impose costs on Iran."

Biden to Host Iraqi PM Sudani on April 15, White House Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/March 22/2024
US President Joe Biden will host Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani at the White House on April 15, the White House said on Friday. Biden and Sudani will consult on issues including ISIS, Iraqi financial reforms and energy independence, the White House said in a statement.

UN Seeks $4B for Aid in Syria as Civilians Face Growing Humanitarian Crisis
Asharq Al Awsat/22 March 2024
A UN humanitarian official appealed Friday for more than $4 billion in life-saving aid for more than 10 million Syrians, saying that the country's largely forgotten crisis remains “one of the most deadly to civilians in the world.”Adam Abdelmoula, resident coordinator in Syria for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, made the appeal days after Syria marked the 13th anniversary of the conflict that has killed nearly a half million people and left large parts of the country destroyed. “Today, we are facing an unprecedented situation in Syria -- one that we cannot afford to ignore,” Abdelmoula told reporters in Geneva. “Inaction will be costly for all of us and will inevitably lead to additional suffering.” About 16.7 million people require some form of humanitarian assistance in Syria, an increase from 15.3 million last year, he said. Over 7 million people are internally displaced and nearly as many are refugees in other countries, including neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye. The war has left 90% of Syria’s population below the poverty line as millions face cuts in food aid because of a funding shortfall. The UN World Food Program ended its main assistance program in the country in January, The AP reported. “The Syria crisis remains one of the most deadly to civilians in the world. Hostilities continue to plague various parts of Syria and have recently seen a sharp spike, especially in the north,” Abdelmoula said. He suggested that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza had given cover for more military activity in parts of Syria. “We saw the world’s attention focusing on Gaza, and that provided some kind of diversion of attention that allowed the significant escalation of hostilities in the northeast without much attention being paid to that situation by the international community,” Abdelmoula said.

Attack on Nigerien forces kills 23 soldiers and underscores continued conflict with militants
NIAMEY, Niger (AP)/March 22, 2024
A militant attack on Nigerien forces in a border region near Mali and Burkina Faso killed 23 soldiers, the defense ministry said Friday. The soldiers were taking part in an overnight clearing operation on Tuesday in the country's west when they were ambushed by armed men on motorcycles equipped with homemade bombs, the ministry statement said, according to state television. Details of the attack were previously unreported. The statement by Defense Minister Gen. Salifou Mody blamed the attack on jihadi fighters, saying the army had killed about 30 attackers in response. The violence highlighted the troubles facing Niger and its neighbors. Niger, along with neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso, is battling jihadi groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in a decade-long conflict in the Sahel region that is worsening. The violence killed thousands of people last year and civilian killings routinely go unpunished. More than 2 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations. The Associated Press on Friday reported on rare first-hand details of a mass killing at a village in Burkina Faso. Until recently, Niger was a critical element of U.S. military operations in the Sahel, where Washington has sought to help local governments beat back militant groups. Some 650 U.S. troops and hundreds of support staff work at a recently built airbase in Agadez, about 920 kilometers (550 miles) from Niamey. But last week, Niger’s ruling junta said it no longer recognized the U.S. presence there, casting doubt on the future of U.S. military operations in the Sahel. The U.S. has said the ruling junta has not formally asked them to leave, and it is weighing its options. The junta in Niamey seized control in July when soldiers — including some trained by the U.S. — ousted the country’s democratically elected president. France completed the withdrawal of its forces from Niger in December after being asked to leave. Mali and Burkina Faso are also led by juntas and have experienced two coups each since 2020. Fed up with the continued violence, both juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russian mercenaries instead.

Kremlin: Russia in a ‘state of war’ in Ukraine
AFP/March 22, 2024
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said Friday it is in a “state of war” in Ukraine, escalating the official language it uses to describe the conflict, now in its third year. Russia has presented its offensive on Ukraine as a “special military operation,” banned media outlets from using the word “war” and prosecuted anti-offensive campaigners for using the word to describe Russia’s military actions. “We are in a state of war. Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as this bunch was formed there, when the collective West became a participant on Ukraine’s side, for us it already became a war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview to a pro-Kremlin newspaper published on Friday. Asked to elaborate, Peskov told reporters later: “De jure it is a special military operation. But de facto it has turned into a war.”President Vladimir Putin has previously said the West has unleashed a “hybrid war” against Moscow, but largely stuck to calling the conflict in Ukraine a “special military operation.” Peskov also said that when it comes to the prosecution of anti-conflict campaigners for using the word “war,” the context of his comments was different. “The word ‘war’ is used in different contexts. Compare my context with those in the cases you cite,” he said in response to a question about criminal cases brought against anti-Kremlin protesters. Russia passed sweeping military censorship laws in the days after it sent troops into Ukraine that allow it to send critics of the offensive to jail for years if they are found to have spread “false information” or “discredited” the armed forces. More than 900 criminal cases have been launched over the past two years for opposing the conflict, according to the OVD-Info rights group.

Russia says 40 killed and more than 100 wounded in attack on Moscow concert hall
MOSCOW (AP)/March 22, 2024
Several gunmen burst into a large concert hall on the edge of Moscow on Friday and sprayed the crowd with automatic gunfire, killing at least 40 people, injuring more than 100 others and setting fire to the venue in a brazen attack just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide. It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the attackers, and there were no immediate claims of responsibility for the raid, which Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described as a “huge tragedy" and which state authorities were investigating as terrorism. The attack, which left the concert hall in flames with a collapsed roof, was the deadliest attack in Russia in years and came as the country's war in Ukraine dragged into a third year. Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main domestic security and counter-terrorism agency, said 40 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in the attack at Crocus City Hall, a large music hall on Moscow’s western edge. The assailants threw explosives, triggering the massive blaze at the hall, which can accommodate 6,000, according to Russian news outlets. Video from outside showed the building on fire, with a huge cloud of smoke rising through the night sky. The street was lit up by the blinking blue lights of dozens of firetrucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles. The attack took place as crowds gathered for a performance by the famous Russian rock band Picnic. Russian news reports said concertgoers were being evacuated, but that an unknown number could have been trapped by the blaze. The prosecutor’s office said several men in combat fatigues entered the concert hall and fired on concertgoers.
Repeated volleys of gunfire could be heard in videos posted by Russian media and on Telegram channels. One showed two men with rifles moving through the venue. Another showed a man inside the auditorium and saying the assailants had set it on fire, as gunshots rang out incessantly in the background.
Other videos showed up to four attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing caps, who were shooting screaming people at point-blank range. Guards at the concert hall didn't have guns, and some could have been killed at the start of the attack, Russian media reported. It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the assailants, but some Russian news outlets suggested that they fled before special forces and riot police arrived. Russian authorities said security has been tightened at Moscow’s airports, railway stations and the capital's sprawling subway system. Moscow's mayor canceled all mass gatherings and theaters and museums shut for the weekend. Other Russian regions also tightened security. The Kremlin hasn't blamed anyone for the attack, but some Russian lawmakers were quick to accuse Ukraine of being behind it. Hours before the attack, the Russian military l aunched a sweeping barrage on Ukraine's power system, crippling the country's biggest hydroelectric plant and other energy facilities and leaving more than a million people without electricity.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukraine's involvement in the concert hall attack. “Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.” John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Friday that he couldn’t yet speak about all the details but that “the images are just horrible. And just hard to watch.”“Our thoughts are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack,” Kirby said. “There are some moms and dads and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters who haven’t gotten the news yet. This is going to be a tough day.”
The attack followed a statement issued earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged the Americans to avoid crowded places in the Russian capital in view of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large gatherings in Moscow, a warning that was repeated by several other Western embassies.
Asked about the embassy's notice issued on March 7, Kirby referred the question to the State Department, adding: "I don’t think that was related to this specific attack.” Responding to a question about whether Washington had any prior information about the assault, Kirby responded: “I’m not aware of any advance knowledge that we had of this terrible attack.”Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in the March 15-17 presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, earlier this week denounced the Western warnings as an attempt to intimidate Russians. Russia was shaken by a series of deadly terror attacks in the early 2000s during the fighting with separatists in the Russian province of Chechnya. In October 2002, Chechen militants took about 800 people hostage at a Moscow theater. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed the building and 129 hostages and 41 Chechen fighters died, most of them from effects of narcotic gas Russian forces use to subdue the attackers. And in September 2004, about 30 Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan in southern Russia taking hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later and more than 330 people, about half of them children, were killed.

Drones have ushered in a brutal new phase of Syria's civil war
Business Insider/March 22, 2024
The most widely drones are explosive-laden quadcopters that can be flown into a target. "When the status quo finally breaks, it could happen very quickly and dramatically," an expert said. Drones are increasingly shaping warfare in the Syrian civil war that entered its 14th year in March. Both sides have stepped up drone attacks on each other in recent months, as the attention and resources of the regime's backer, Russia, are focused on Ukraine. Since the beginning of 2024, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus reportedly shot down at least 33 drones launched by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group that controls the northwestern Idlib province. Regime forces have also targeted HTS-controlled territories with at least 48 single-use exploding drones. The current round of tit-for-tat drone strikes began in October when an unprecedented drone attack killed at least 89 and injured as many as 277 at a Syrian military graduation ceremony in Homs. Damascus responded by striking rebel-held Idlib. It has also increased the targeting of civilians using drones. "The increasing use of these drones is likely due to their low prices and high accuracy," Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, told Business Insider. "They can hover over their targets before striking, making hits more accurate." The most widely used type in Syria are first-person view drones, typically quadrotors that cost less than $1,000 and are remotely piloted into a target via a video feed. While small compared to more advanced drones like the infamous Iranian-built Shahed-136 loitering munition Russia has used against Ukraine, these inexpensive drones rigged with explosives are still lethal. "They're still dangerous, especially in Syria, where both regime and opposition air defenses against these are scarce or ineffective mostly," Khoueiry said.
Aron Lund, a Syria expert and fellow with Century International, noted that there has barely been any movement along the Syrian war's frontlines since spring 2020, a situation he warns won't last forever. "When the status quo finally breaks, it could happen very quickly and dramatically," Lund told BI. "Despite the geographic stalemate, all sides still fire at each other every now and then. Sometimes, there are serious flare-ups." Khoueiry summed up the current phase in the war as "a continuation of tit-for-tat exchanges we've seen over the past months and years between regime and opposition forces albeit with an increase in frequency and intensity, in addition to the use of drones."
"The use of drones falls under the global military trend of increasing loitering munitions usage due to their wide availability and ease of operation," Khoueiry said. Unlike the HTS Islamist militants it is fighting, the Syrian military has other options to strike from a distance, such as artillery and aircraft.
However, unlike drones, Syrian Air Force aircraft require significant support from Russia. Given Russia's embroilment in Ukraine, Lund suspects Moscow's "tolerance for escalation" in Syria has decreased. "The Russians might not want to spend any more jet fuel and Soviet-designed bombs on Assad just to help him blow up hospitals and marketplaces in Idlib," Lund said. "They now have their own hospitals and marketplaces to blow up in Ukraine." In addition to being cheap, the regime can manufacture these drones, or at least many of their components, locally.
"The Scientific Studies and Research Center, a Ministry of Defense body that also ran Syria's chemical weapons program, has worked on military drones in the past, as well as on Iranian-assisted missile production," Lund said. "I would be surprised if they're not still doing it." The Syria expert also pointed out that it would make "a lot of sense for Iran to help set up production lines" inside Syria.
"By supporting local production in Syria, Iran can bypass cumbersome and insecure smuggling routes," Lund said. "It would be a way of supporting both Assad's government and Hezbollah — and perhaps other allies, too." RANE's Khoueiry noted that many reports have detailed that these drones are locally assembled and built under Iranian and Russian supervision. Furthermore, several Iran-backed groups — including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iraqi militias — have assembled drones using parts shipped from Iran. "Given the proliferation of pro-Iran militias in Syria and the Syrian regime's dire economy, it would be logical to assume that they're likely assembling these rather than importing them," Khoueiry said. "HTS could be potentially doing the same, but under Turkish supervision and/or support most likely." A swarm of drones originating from Idlib targeted Russia's main airbase in Syria, Hmeimim, in the coastal province of Latakia in January 2018. "It seems well within the means of Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant jihadi militia in Idlib, to manufacture and use kamikaze drones," Lund said. "They might not be the most sophisticated drones around, but I'm sure they can build something good enough to fly to its target and explode unless shot down." Even though many of these opposition drones are often described as crude, low-tech, and DIY, Lund also does not rule out the possibility that Syrian opposition groups have received state backing for some attacks.
"While there's no real evidence either way, it also seems possible that Syrian rebels have received under-the-table support from their backer, Turkey," Lund said. "It may even be that Turkey is behind some of these unclaimed drone strikes as part of its own tit-for-tat game with Russia."

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 22-23/2024
Jew-Hate and 'Inquisitions' in Canada
Robert Williams/Gatestone Institute./March 22, 2024
"I would walk in every single day and I would see 'f–k you Jews,' 'you are not welcome here,' 'we hate Zionists,' and 'kill yourself.'" — Samantha Kline, student at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Vancouver Sun, March 6, 2024.
In 2022, the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act to shut down the so-called trucker convoy protests, in which thousands of truck drivers and their supporters rallied to call for an end to the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Last year, in a move reminiscent of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's "rehabilitation psychiatric wards," the celebrated psychologist, Professor Jordan Peterson, was ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to be "disciplined" in a "Soviet style re-training camp" or lose his license, simply for having expressed personal opinions about a variety of subjects, from obesity to transgender ideology.
The same Canadian leaders and officials, however, evidently see no need to comment on the mobs calling for the genocide of Jews.
As a final blow to Canadian Jews, the Canadian government has decided, at this time of all times, to implement new standards that will effectively end the practice of kosher slaughter in Canada.
Is Canada trying to get rid of its Jews? And its freedoms? It might just succeed in doing both.
Is Canada trying to get rid of its Jews? Since the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, Jews in Canada have been under constant attack, including shootings, firebombings, boycotts, vandalism, and intimidation and harassment in the streets. Few lawmakers are willing to wholeheartedly condemn any of this. Pictured: Anti-Israel protesters at Dorchester Square in Montreal, Canada, on November 18, 2023. (Photo by Alexis Aubin/AFP via Getty Images)
Since the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, Jews in Canada have been under constant attack. Shooting attacks against schools, firebombings of Jewish institutions, boycotts and vandalism against businesses owned by Jews, imams inciting and telling their congregations that Jews are "vermin", and the constant marches of pro-Hamas activists chanting "long live the intifada" and "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" -- a euphemism for annihilating a democratic member of the United Nations, Israel.
In Montreal alone, police recorded 38 reports of hate crimes and other incidents targeting the city's Jewish community in the weeks following October 7. According to Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs:
"There is a reason the Jews are being targeted on the streets of Toronto or Vancouver or Montreal. There's a reason that schools and synagogues are being firebombed. And it's because the antipathy is for the Jewish people, and the Jewish state is only an extension of the Jewish people, not something independent and separate."
In British Columbia, where there are roughly 35,000 Jews, Provincial Premier David Eby said that he had heard "devastating" accounts of antisemitism from the Jewish community.
Eby met with leaders of Jewish groups, and said after that antisemitism "exists in schools, in civil society, in private employers, and I believe that people have had antisemitism experiences within the government of B.C. public service."
According to Eby, in one incident, a grade-school teacher had asked students to "self-identify as Jewish" and then demanded they explain to the entire class "what Israel was doing in Gaza."
In another incident, a student who opposed a teacher's opinion on Hamas and Israel was accused of "creating a disturbance" and told to sit outside the class.
In the heavily Jewish Toronto suburb of Thornhill, pro-Hamas protesters assembled outside two Orthodox synagogues and screamed "From the river to the sea", "intifada," and "go back to Poland." Jews walking in the street were intimidated and harassed.
Elsewhere in Toronto, a Jewish-owned delicatessen was set on fire, after "free Palestine" had been painted on the doors. In Montreal, lists of Jewish businesses were circulated on social media, asking people to boycott Jewish-owned establishments and serving as a guide for mobs to gather outside Jewish establishments to call for boycotts, as they did in front of Toronto's Jewish-owned Café Landwer.
"I think it would be impossible for our community not to feel nervous and concerned about safety issues amid the current reality," said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, vice president for the greater Toronto area at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).
"Given the dramatic uptick in hate-motivated crime that we're seeing, given that visible Jews are being attacked on the street, Jewish businesses being targeted by boycotts, campaigns of intimidation and now arson, it's only natural the community is worried."
According to the daily Globe and Mail, in October, police investigated incidents where "people [were] allegedly banging on doors of Jewish homes and stealing mezuzahs."
Canadian universities are steeped in antisemitic rhetoric, and Jewish students are harassed, with some receiving death threats and having to stay away from campus.
"Jewish students are singled out and demonized for simply being Jewish," said Jay Solomon of Hillel Canada, a network of Jewish student clubs at universities across the country, adding that antisemitism is at unprecedented levels.
According to the Vancouver Sun:
"Six prominent Canadian universities, and several student unions, are currently facing class-action lawsuits from students claiming they have allowed an environment hostile to Jews to flourish on campus."
One Jewish student, Samantha Kline, received such serious threats that she stopped going to the campus. She also described seeing antisemitic graffiti there on a daily basis.
"I would walk in every single day and I would see 'f–k you Jews,' 'you are not welcome here,' 'we hate Zionists,' and 'kill yourself,'" she said.
Demonstrations feature swastikas and speakers call to "destroy the arrogant Zionists... kill them all, and do not exempt even one of them," while there are constant calls for "Intifada", "resistance" and the annihilation of Israel.
Unfortunately, few lawmakers are willing to wholeheartedly condemn any of this. With a few exceptions, they choose instead to issue half-hearted statements and do virtually nothing to fight the explosion of hatred against Jews.
In 2022, the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act to shut down the so-called trucker convoy protests, in which thousands of truck drivers and their supporters rallied to call for an end to the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
In 20o8, the author Mark Steyn was prosecuted in Canada for having warned, in his book America Alone, about the potential consequences of Islam in the West.
Last year, in a move reminiscent of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's "rehabilitation psychiatric wards," the celebrated psychologist, Professor Jordan Peterson, was ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to be "disciplined" in a "Soviet style re-training camp" or lose his license, simply for having expressed personal opinions about a variety of subjects, from obesity to transgender ideology.
The same Canadian leaders and officials, however, evidently see no need to comment on the mobs calling for the genocide of Jews.
Vivian Bercovici, Canada's former ambassador to Israel, wrote on October 21:
"It was well into Sunday, Oct. 8, before Canada's prime minister released a statement. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the attacks but in much more careful and restrained language than did most western leaders...
"Meanwhile, across Canada, there has been an alarming spike in hate crimes targeting Jews. In Toronto, word of mouth tells of many Jewish families removing mezuzot (a symbol that the home is inhabited by Jews) from their external door frames...
"People are afraid to go to Jewish community centres, Jewish schools, Jewish areas and Jewish shops. In fact, as a show of understanding and support, Toronto's chief of police made a point of visiting an iconic Jewish restaurant in Lawrence Plaza, United Bakers, to demonstrate solidarity and support."
Trudeau's government in October falsely accused Israel of bombing a hospital in Gaza -- the explosion was quickly proven to have been caused by a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The incident triggered violent protests around the world by Hamas supporters, including in Canada. Trudeau refused to admit the facts of the hospital explosion for a full week, although the truth was already known worldwide within hours of the attack.
Trudeau did, however, decide to resume funding the UN agency UNRWA, even before the UN had finished investigating whether UNWRA employees participated in the October 7 massacre and are members of Hamas and other terrorist organizations. It turns out at least 30 of them did participate in the atrocities -- and also "1,468 of UNRWA's 13,000 staff members in Gaza are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
"Canada will be lifting its temporary pause on funding to [UNRWA]," Canadian International Aid Minister Ahmed Hussen said. "UNRWA plays a vital role in Gaza."
In addition, the Canadian government this week decided to end arms sales to Israel, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, following the passing of a non-binding motion in the Canadian parliament, which called on Canada to "officially recognize the State of Palestine."
"The reality for Canadian Jews post-October 7 has been an alarming and unfathomable rise in antisemitism," said Michael Levitt, president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center.
"Making matters worse, at a time when we need our federal government to be living up to their pledge of 'We will always have the Jewish community and Israel's back,' that's not been the case."
As a final blow to Canadian Jews, the Canadian government has decided, at this time of all times, to implement new standards that will effectively end the practice of kosher slaughter in Canada.
According to the Kashruth Council of Canada (COR):
"The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the regulatory body which governs animal slaughter in Canada, introduced new guidelines governing animal slaughter in Canada that in effect - if not intention - place shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) in jeopardy."
Rabbi Eric Grossman, headmaster of The Akiva School in Montreal, wrote on March 11:
"This past Friday, a legal Notice of Application was filed on behalf of the kashrut organizations of Canada against the Attorney General in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the implementation of new standards that will end shechitah in Canada within the next two months. The process is well underway and already one-third of abattoirs in Canada have stopped producing kosher meat. The kosher certifiers and their representatives had been working with the Canadian government to find a solution, including a recent meeting in Ottawa, but according to the application, '...those efforts have proven fruitless.'
The application asserts that ending shechitah violates the rights of Canadian Jews to practice their faith as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As such, this new policy is one of the most severe blows ever dealt to the Canadian Jewish community, which has lived in this land for over two hundred years."
Is Canada trying to get rid of its Jews? And its freedoms? It might just succeed in doing both.
*Robert Williams is a researcher based in the United States.
© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

From Scarcity to Sustainability: The GCC's Journey Towards Water Security
Safaa El Tayeb El-Kogali/World Bank’s Country Director for the (GCC) countries/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 22/2024
World Water Day casts a spotlight on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries' journey towards sustainable water security—a remarkable feat given their extreme water scarcity. The GCC countries face a stark reality: the absence of surface water and their unsustainable use of groundwater resources which ranks them among the most water-scarce countries globally. The benchmark for absolute water scarcity is 500 cubic meters of renewable freshwater per person annually, a figure that remains a distant aspiration for many of these countries, some of whose renewable freshwater reserves are below 100 cubic meters per capita. Despite this scarcity, GCC countries have seen a surge in water consumption, driven by economic growth, population increase, and urbanization. Consumption rates often exceed 500 liters per person per day, dwarfing the figures of countries with comparable income levels, such as Germany, where consumption is around 120 liters per person per day. This overconsumption is rapidly depleting the GCC's already limited water reserves.
In response, the GCC countries have embarked on ambitious and innovative measures to ensure their water future. Leveraging their substantial financial and human resources, these oil-rich countries have prioritized the development of desalination technology. Thanks to innovation driven by the GCC countries, notably advancements in membrane technologies and energy efficiency, the price of desalinated water has plummeted from US$5.00 per cubic meter in the 1980s to as low as US$0.40-0.50 in recent projects. This is making desalination increasingly affordable for countries worldwide.
Beyond desalination, the GCC countries are implementing diversified water management strategies to manage water demand. One of the most important areas is the reduction of “non-revenue water” (NRW) — physical and commercial losses of water. The extraordinary experience of the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) deserves mention. The authority reduced NRW from 42% in 1988 to 4.6% by 2023. The NRW levels in other MENA countries can be as high as 70%; and even in North America, NRW levels average around 15%.
Circular economy approaches are also increasing the collection, treatment, and reuse of wastewater, which is proving to be a strategic addition to supplement diminishing water resources and to increase the value derived from desalinated water. While some countries have been reluctant to reuse treated wastewater, its acceptability is growing, in part thanks to successful public outreach campaigns. The pioneering role of the GCC countries in desalination began in the 1970s, and today they lead the world in desalination capacity. Desalination plants operate in 186 countries, producing 140 million cubic meters of clean water daily, with the GCC responsible for nearly half of this output, despite making up less than 1% of the world's population.
The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) of Saudi Arabia, the largest desalination company globally, produces about 20% of the world's desalinated water. SWCC capitalizes on its vast experience by providing training through its Water Academy, which has trained thousands of water specialists worldwide, and by conducting research to improve the desalination process, aiming to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize waste. Other countries in MENA have started to develop desalination more recently, benefiting from the technological and cost-reducing innovations driven by the experience of the GCC countries. However, in the complex realm of water management, many challenges remain, and the desalination industry is still seeking a long-term solution for managing saline brine, the by-product of desalination. The dramatic increase in desalination has the potential to exacerbate the already naturally high salinity levels in the Gulf and Red Sea. This can degrade marine biodiversity, species persistence, fisheries productivity, and affect coastal communities. As the development of desalination plants increases, there is an increasing need for cooperation among GCC countries in planning and management to identify potential cumulative impacts and optimize investment decisions for ensuring environmentally sustainable regional water security.
In partnership with the World Bank, the GCC countries are working on the remaining challenges for achieving sustainable water security. Building on over 50 years of partnerships, the World Bank’s global knowledge is combined with local experience to explore new approaches to valuing water, along with opportunities to strengthen sustainable practices in desalination and to promote knowledge-sharing and capacity-building in other countries. This is based on the expertise and innovation by companies such as SWCC in Saudi Arabia and DEWA in the UAE, along with taking the World Bank’s development experience from ideas into action. The decades of investment in innovation in desalination technology and in good utility management have given the GCC countries a competitive edge in technology and human expertise to address the looming global challenge of water scarcity. The research and development efforts spearheaded by the GCC countries have yielded what economists call a “global public good”, a benefit for literally the entire planet. Saudi Arabia's upcoming role as host of the World Water Forum in 2027 underscores the GCC's leadership in water management and provides a platform to showcase their achievements and share their knowledge in water security with the world.

Gaza: Razzia as Political Warfare
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 22/2024
Although the tragic narrative that started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel isn’t yet completed, do-gooders and virtue-signalers are rushing to write their postscripts. British and European Union leaders say the time has come to formally accept the creation of a Palestinian state.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and EU foreign policy tsar Josep Borrel even suggest that the Security Council pass a resolution to make that mandatory, adding to the 230 resolutions already passed on the issue.
Meanwhile, Major-General Ismail Qaani, chief of the Quds Corps of the Islamic Republic in Tehran promises to “rebuild Gaza stronger than before as an advance post against world Zionism.”
The Biden administration in Washington is making favorable noises about the two-state “solution” while musing about regime change, albeit in Israel.
Some pundits assert that the Gaza war has already lasted too long and should be brought to a speedy end before it produces a definite winner and loser.
One pundit wonders what Henry Kissinger, the anointed guru of American diplomacy, would have done to end the war. He forgets that Kissinger was a crafty conjurer who turned something into nothing but persuaded the spectators that the opposite had happened.
Remember his shuttle diplomacy”, each stage of which gave him a photo-op? And his “confidence building” roadshows to divert attention from the core issue at hand? Pundits in the Parisian daily Le Monde advocate the two-state solution as if it were a newly discovered flavor. They forget that the so-called “solution “has been there since 1947 and has led nowhere because those directly involved don’t want it.
As a reporter, I covered the so-called “peace talks” from the Madrid Conference in 1991 until it petered out as a sorrowful farce. For over a decade, the two-state solution was on the agenda without anyone telling us where those imaginary states would be located.
British and European pundits are also “concerned” about the length of the Gaza war and urge unspecified action to shorten it.
They forget that fighting armed groups that wish to impose their agenda by, to put it in a politically correct manner as the BBC does, “irregular warfare” cannot be conceived in terms of a short theatrical sketch.
It took the British 11 years to extinguish the fire of “irregular fighters” in Malaya.
The fight against Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru took almost 30 years. In Colombia, the M19 took 20 years to die. The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” did better by hanging on for almost 40 years. Uruguay managed to kill the Tupamaros in five years.
India partly calmed down the “freedom fighters” of Nagaland after a 40-year war while it continues to face an even more tenacious adversary in Kashmir.
Turkey has been fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for more than 30 years. In Burma Karen “freedom fighters” have been at war with the Rangoon junta for almost half a century.
Claiming to be a “freedom fighter” shouldn’t mean a license to kill at will. Even the “oppressed” have certain duties and must observe some rules while, as history has shown, the tyranny of the underdog could be as deadly as that of the oppressor. In 1962 President John F Kennedy identified insurgency as the predominant threat to American interests.
Kennedy’s National Security Action Memorandum No 124 of January 18, 1962, saw insurgency as a major form of politico-military conflict equal in importance to conventional warfare. Kennedy made support for the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) conditional on observing a set of rules, especially by not attacking civilian targets. The US position was deeply resented by the French but forced the FLN to stop planting bombs in cafes and start acting like a political party pursuing its goal through political and diplomatic channels. The question today is why when no time limit is imposed on conventional war until a victor emerges should war against an insurgent group be subjected to calendar-based shenanigans?
The 7 October attack on Israel was a razzia, an Italian word that has entered most European languages. In fact, the origin of razzia is the Arabic word ghazwa which means a sudden no-holds-bar attack on a single-set of targets in the hope of knocking out an adversary.
The sinking of the cruiser Lusitania during the First World War in May 1915 was a razzia as was the Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December 1941. Those two razzias pushed the United States into two world wars.
The 9/11 attacks of 2001 on the US were four coordinated razzias
Each of those razzias led to the destruction of perpetrators, sometimes, as in the case of the August 7 attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the carpet-bombing of Dresden, with far greater fury.
Payback after those razzias didn’t produce sympathy for the perpetrators. People in the so-called democracies didn’t march to stop action against those who had sunk Lusitania, bombed Pearl Harbor, and turned part of London into heaps of rubble.
Harvard and Princeton luminaries didn’t protest when the US launched its “war on terror” to avenge 9/11.
No one denies that for over seven decades Palestinians have suffered a great deal. But is the way to end or a least alleviate their suffering to exempt their self-imposed political organizations from observing a minimum of ethical rules even if their adversary didn’t always reciprocate?
Treating the Palestinian issue as if it were an exception to all rules has done great harm to Palestinians.
They have become the first people in history to have four generations frozen in the status of refugees. World War II produced over 30 million refugees all of whom acquired new abodes within a decade. The partition of India produced 14 million refugees, again, seeing all of them re-settled in less than a decade. Since 1959 more than 10 million Cubans have been driven out of their homeland and settled in a dozen countries notably the United States.
Does it make any sense to have refugee camps even in Gaza which was free of Israeli occupation for two decades? Or in the West Bank governed by the Palestinian Authority? Is it humane to turn being a refugee into a profession with UNWRA as the franchise holder?
Do those who encourage Hamas by marching in its support know what percentage of Palestinians it represents and, more importantly, whether those who do support it also approve of the 7Octiber razzia?
The Biden administration is making a big mistake by implicitly upgrading Hamas as a legitimate partner through regional allies, thus creating the illusion that the October 7 razzias like the October 7 one could still produce at least a lollipop for perpetrators.

Iran’s ‘Word’ Is Worthless: Islam Permits Strategic Lying
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/March 22/2024
Once again, Iran has inadvertently made clear why its true intentions can never be discerned — why its word can never be taken at face value.
In February, 2024, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Sadiq al-Shirazi’s delivered a sermon, which was followed by a Q&A session. One of the questions submitted was whether it is permissible to break a fast early, “due to taqiyya.”
During the month of Ramadan, Muslims are required to fast during daylight hours, eating only at sunset. So the question was basically if, out of “fear” (the root meaning of taqiyya), it is okay for a Muslim to break his fast before sunset.
The End Justifies the Means
As a doctrine, taqiyya, in short, permits Muslims to say or do anything — from cursing and condemning Muhammad to being baptized and partaking of communion — so long as they remain committed Muslims at heart, and their deception either benefits themselves or Islam. (For copious documentation, see here)The grand ayatollah replied, “Yes,” it is okay to break a fast early, in the context of taqiyya. He gave several examples of leading Shias throughout history who did not fast properly due to taqiyya, including Jafar al-Sadiq, the Sixth Imam, a very import figure in Shiasm. When the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansour proclaimed a date for Eid al-Fitr (marking the end of Ramadan and fasting) that differed from the Sunni date, rather than continue fasting to the Sunni date, the Sixth Imam broke his fast alongside everyone else, lest he be exposed as a Shia.
His logic: “By Allah, breaking my fast on one day of the month of Ramadan and doing Qada [making up] of the missed duty is more favorable to me than having my head decapitated.”
According to one report on the recent sermon,
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi then concluded: Therefore, if a person does not fast at all, or does not pray at all out of taqiyya, they must do the Qada [make up] of the missed duties, because they did not fast and did not pray. However, if the person breaks his fast earlier than Maghrib [sunset], because they have fasted and only broken the fast before the permissible Sharia-decreed time, the general principles of taqiyya are applied to their situation and there is no need for them to do the Qada. The same applies to a person who performs Salaat [prayers] in a way that is invalid out of taqiyya.
All of this technical wrangling is another way of confirming one thing: Islam is not a religion of principle; circumstance dictates everything — and not just for Shia, but for Sunnis as well (see here and here).
Muhammad Approved of Lying
According to the late Sami Mukaram, the world’s leading authority on taqiyya,
Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.
Moreover, taqiyya is not merely about safeguarding one’s life but can be used to get an advantage over one’s enemy: “Taqiyya,” writes Mukaram, “in order to dupe the enemy is permissible.”
One example from the life of Muhammad: A Jewish poet, Ka‘b ibn Ashraf, had offended the prophet of Islam with his verse, prompting Muhammad once to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has hurt Allah and his prophet?” A young Muslim named Muhammad ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that in order to get close enough to Ka‘b to assassinate him, he must be allowed to lie to the poet.
Muhammad agreed.
Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka‘b and began to denigrate Islam and Muhammad. He carried on in this way till his disaffection became so convincing that Ka‘b took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Ka‘b’s guard was down, killed, beheaded him, and took his head to Muhammad, who praised their deed.
Deceit More Important than Courage
Accordingly, normative Islam teaches that deceit is integral to jihad: Ibn al-Arabi declares that “in the Hadith [sayings and actions of Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage.”
Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333) writes, “War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged by a holy warrior [mujahid] is a war of deception, not confrontation, due to the latter’s inherent danger, and the fact that one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself].” And Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims “to take great caution in war, while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels.” [The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 142-3.]
In short, and to truly understand the impact of taqiyya, consider: If Christians, past and present, preferred martyrdom over renouncing Christ, to Muslims this is a no-brainer: Not only are they permitted to renounce Muhammad and Allah, but they are also permitted to “convert” to Christianity, so long as they are still Muslims at heart and engaging in this farce for their or Islam’s benefit over the infidels they seek to deceive and/or subvert.
Similarly, to better appreciate what this leading Shia cleric is advocating, Western audiences must first appreciate the significance of the examples he provided. Fasting and prayers are absolute pillars of Islam. If any Muslim duty is not to be tampered with, it is precisely fasting and prayer. If Muslims are given a license to compromise these two pillars in the context of taqiyya, then surely nothing is sacred — including a Muslim’s word to the infidels, or, in the context of Iran, its word to all non-Muslims.

Yes, blame Biden for Afghan fiasco … but learn the lessons too
LUKE COFFEY/Arab News/March 22, 2024
Former US generals Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie, who were chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and head of US Central Command respectively when the US withdrew from Afghanistan, were the star witnesses at last week’s congressional hearing on the fiasco.
It was the first time either had spoken publicly and on the record about the events leading up to the Taliban takeover.
Unsurprisingly, what they had to say about the withdrawal was damning for the White House. Both blamed the State Department for delaying, until the last minute, the removal of American and qualifying Afghan civilians from the country. This lack of planning led to the chaotic and dangerous situation at Kabul airport witnessed by the world — including the Daesh bombing on Aug. 26 that killed 183 Afghans and Americans. The consequences of the State Department’s lack of planning is still felt today for Afghans who risked their lives helping US forces for two decades. An estimated 152,000 Afghans who qualify for refuge in the US are still stuck in Afghanistan. Most of them, along with their families, remain in hiding and in fear of Taliban retribution. Congress could pass legislation that would help them, but it has failed to do so.
The two retired generals made it clear that the White House also ignored their military advice. Instead of a total US military withdrawal, both suggested that a small military force of about 2,500 soldiers should remain. This was a telling admission because at the time of the withdrawal the White House denied that such a recommendation had been made. Nobody ever claimed that 2,500 troops would have been enough to help the Afghan government take control of the whole country, but in retrospect we now know it would certainly have been enough to ensure that the Taliban could not have seized power.
There was also a political dimension to the congressional hearing that should not go unnoticed. Since taking over control of the US Congress in 2023, Republicans have been keen to use their oversight authorities over the executive branch to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disastrous Afghan withdrawal. This is especially true in the middle of a presidential election year. The Republican leadership in Congress had been hoping to impeach President Joe Biden this year on other issues, but this is now looking unlikely. Republicans therefore see an opportunity to undermine Biden’s authority by reminding Americans of the disaster in Afghanistan under his watch as commander in chief.
However, taking this overtly political approach is a double-edged sword for Republicans. Democrats at the hearing were quick to point out that the original ill-fated agreement between the US and the Taliban that led to the withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed under the Trump administration. As this line of argument goes, Biden was merely continuing with an agreement reached by his predecessor.
Republicans have been keen to use their oversight authorities over the executive branch to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disastrous Afghan withdrawal.
It is true that Trump made the dodgy deal with the Taliban, but this does not absolve Biden of his responsibilities as commander in chief. After assuming office in January 2021, Biden had no problem whatsoever changing hundreds of other Trump administration executive orders, policies, and initiatives. The current chaos at the US southern border is an example of this. Had Biden wanted to change the Afghan strategy he inherited from his predecessor, he had the power to do so. He chose not to, and now the Taliban are back in power.
Biden was so determined to leave Afghanistan no matter what the costs that he ignored the advice of his military commanders. Sadly, the Afghans are the ones suffering the consequences today. The situation in Afghanistan has been bleak since the Taliban returned to power. The country has been suffering from an economic and humanitarian crisis exacerbated by natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides and droughts. Girls are still banned from attending school above the age of about 11. The international community hasn’t figured out a way to get humanitarian aid into the country and directly to the Afghan people without lining the pockets of the Taliban elites. Al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorist groups operate freely in the country.
Putting the politics to one side, there is a legitimate need for Congress to get to the bottom of how the disaster in Kabul unfolded so the same mistakes are not repeated. From the American point of view, the Afghan withdrawal had disastrous effects on US prestige and honor on the global stage. After seeing the defeat in Afghanistan, America’s adversaries were emboldened to test the US in ways they would never have considered otherwise. And many of America’s friends and allies started to question US resolve and commitment. Just six months after America’s withdrawal from Kabul, Russian tanks were rolling into Ukraine.
Of course Biden should be held responsible for what happened in Afghanistan. But while there is a temptation during an election year to use congressional hearings for political grandstanding, politicians should ensure that lessons are also learned from debacle.
This way the same mistakes will not be made again.
• Luke Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. X: @LukeDCoffey

Economic interests driving Turkiye’s security policy
Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/March 22, 2024
In the current geopolitical context, the boundaries between economy and security are becoming increasingly blurred. Economic interests are never separated from security considerations and, therefore, the recipe for a secure country is an integrated economy through cooperation, with any terrorist threats eliminated from the domestic and external environments.
This approach is driven, to a large extent, by the threats posed by terrorist elements, which can jeopardize both economic development and security. It becomes especially relevant when it comes to Turkiye’s relations with countries where its security and economic concerns are intertwined, such as Iraq.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan last week explained the economic-security approach that Ankara has adopted in its relations with Iraq. Fidan said: “When you have a relationship based on economic development, you need to eliminate security issues.” He added that economic development is only possible in a safe and secure atmosphere.
Fidan emphasized that fostering economic growth necessitates resolving security issues, indicating Turkiye’s commitment to not only security-based relations but also broader cooperation, particularly in the defense and energy sectors. This objective requires a reciprocal approach and Turkiye and Iraq have now, after months of discussions, reached a common understanding to fight terrorism together in order to achieve mutual economic interests. This economic-security engagement is expected to reinforce a mutually beneficial relationship.
Turkiye and Iraq’s economic-security engagement is expected to reinforce a mutually beneficial relationship
Historically, Turkiye’s counterterrorism efforts in Iraq have strained its relations with Baghdad. But Fidan’s insistence this week that “we do not want to become enemies with our allies as we eliminate the PKK” was important. This indicates that there has been a shift toward strategic planning and collaboration to combat common threats, such as the PKK, which was last week banned by Baghdad.
Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin last week held talks with their Iraqi counterparts during a security summit. This marked the beginning of a new chapter in bilateral relations between Ankara and Baghdad. These talks also aimed to prepare the ground for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s anticipated post-Ramadan visit to Baghdad. Erdogan’s last trip to Baghdad was in 2012 during his tenure as prime minister. Next month’s expected visit is considered to be crucial in settling any tensions between Baghdad and Ankara on political, security and economic issues. A delegation of high-ranking Turkish officials, business figures and representatives from various companies are to accompany him.
When states aim to push their relations to another level, heads of state tend to pay visits, often with large business delegations accompanying them. Although much of the focus is on what the leaders say during these visits, the most important task falls to the businesspeople behind the scenes, who drive the newly restored relations.
Ankara wants to institutionalize its relations with Iraq and plans to ink various agreements on myriad issues
Iraq and Turkiye have myriad issues to address, including stalled oil exports, trade and water management. Ankara wants to institutionalize its relations with Iraq and plans to ink various agreements on these issues. The two countries also aim to create a strategic framework for all aspects of their relationship and establish joint standing committees on counterterrorism, trade, energy, water and transport. Ahead of his visit, Erdogan signaled Turkiye’s intention to launch a military incursion into Iraq and Syria. He said on Monday that Turkiye would “complete unfinished business” with the PKK and its offshoot, the YPG, in northern Iraq and Syria by this summer. Fidan also said that Iran may be included in the economic and security dimensions of the discussions, as Ankara often discusses Iraq and the issue of terrorism when holding meetings with Tehran. Turkish officials have reportedly stated that Ankara’s main purpose in these operations is to eliminate the presence of the PKK, which has the potential to seriously threaten the Iraq Development Road Project — a planned 1,200-km highway and railway project that will connect the Arabian Gulf to Turkiye through Iraq. Turkiye aims to secure the area for the construction of the project by “killing two birds with one stone.”
Both Turkiye and Iraq, as well as the Gulf states, want to see the project finalized, as it will allow goods to be carried from Al-Faw port in Iraq’s Basra governorate to international markets via Turkiye. The primary objective of the project is to enhance economic cooperation between Iraq, Turkiye, the Gulf states and Europe. This is in line with Turkiye’s economy-oriented foreign policy paradigm and makes Iraq a strategic priority for Ankara. This fits in with the security and economic fields being related when it comes to Turkiye’s relations with Iraq. Three factors have been motivating Turkiye’s approach. Domestically, last year’s election victories for Erdogan have given the government the confidence to focus more on economic gains in foreign policy. The second factor is related to the regional environment, which is now more suitable for Turkiye to cooperate with neighboring states. Ankara wants to eliminate terrorist threats through cooperation with regional countries. In the past, neither Baghdad nor Tehran were supportive in the fight against the PKK. The third factor is related to the US’ position on Turkiye’s counterterrorism operations. Ankara and Washington have been at odds due to the latter’s support for the YPG in Syria. However, in recent months, a positive track in Turkish-American relations has emerged.
Overall, the conditions both at home and in the region are pushing Turkiye to consolidate its policies in Iraq, driven by both security imperatives and economic interests and underpinned by regional cooperation. Things will become clearer with Erdogan’s anticipated visit to Iraq.
• Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkiye’s relations with the Middle East. X: @SinemCngz

Microorganisms are the cornerstone of all marine life in the Red Sea
EMAN SABBAGH/Arab News/March 22, 2024
Between the continents of Africa and Asia lies the Red Sea, a semi-enclosed basin located in oligotrophic (limited in nutrients) tropical and subtropical regions. Despite its harsh conditions, including elevated temperatures, high salinities and limited nutrients, it harbors rich diversity.
Within its clear blue waters lies another world, unseen to the naked eye but which plays a significant role in marine ecosystems.
Microbes are found suspended in the water column, spanning from the surface to the deep, dark sea. With millions of cells and particles in only one milliliter, they indeed form the unseen majority of the Red Sea.
Although microbes have often been overlooked, they are an essential component of the marine ecosystem.
They stimulate nutrient cycling, contribute to oxygen production, promote gas exchange between the sea and the atmosphere, support fisheries and form symbiotic relationships with fish and invertebrates to maintain a healthy balance in this marine environment.
These microbes together form a natural cycle called the microbial food web. It includes complex trophic interactions, in which energy and matter are recycled through microorganisms to reach higher levels in the food chain.
Microbial communities are composed of living organisms and nonliving biological entities such as viruses.
Cyanobacteria, tiny photosynthetic bacteria (0.2 to 0.2 micrometers), form the base of the microbial food web. Like plants, they perform photosynthesis to gain energy from sunlight to produce oxygen and organic matter.
Although microbes have often been overlooked, they are an essential component of the marine ecosystem.
Heterotrophic bacteria (0.2 to 0.5 micrometers), another element in the microbial food web, rely on the organic matter produced by cyanobacteria as a source of energy. Another member of the microbial community is zooplankton, which are slightly larger (2 to 20 micrometers) and mainly predate on bacteria as their preferred source of food. Viruses, meanwhile, are also important microbial components of the food web. Although they are very small (0.02 to 0.2 micrometers), they are the most abundant biological entities on the planet.
When we hear the word virus, the first thing that comes to mind is infection and mortality, but in truth viruses play a far more important role in the health and balance of marine ecosystems.
The contribution of beneficial microorganisms within the microbial food web, as well as those forming symbiotic relationships with other marine creatures and those simply suspended in the water column, serves as the cornerstone of all forms of marine life and, without it, life in the sea would not exist.
Indeed, these microscopic microbes have revealed some secrets, but much mystery remains hidden.
In celebration of World Water Day, I hope this article can help raise awareness about global waters, shedding light not only on the widely seen part but also on the invisible one.
I also want to take a moment to emphasize the remarkable efforts undertaken by the National Center for Wildlife in discovering novel habitats, such as blue holes, which I am sure are full of mystery.
The National Center for Wildlife is also dedicated to protecting marine and coastal environments in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, including coral reefs, seagrass and mangroves and the associated biodiversity, from large marine mammals to tiny algae, aligning with the Saudi Green Initiative and Vision 2030.
• Eman Sabbagh spent eight years at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology working in the field of the microbial ecology of the Red Sea. She now works at the National Center for Wildlife.