Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 01-02/2024
Israel's Chief of Staff reports 'preparing for an offensive in the north'
Report: Berri says French proposal good as Hezbollah agrees to it
Southern Front: Tensions Between Israel and Hezbollah Continue
South Lebanon: Night Air Raids in Khiam
ISF arrests six individuals, including notorious minors on TikTok, after reports of sexual assaults
Six People Arrested on Charges of Rape of Minors
Beirut Fire Brigade: ‘Our Work Is Based on Evidence Not Speculation’
Maronite Bishops Dread International Desire to Keep Displaced Syrians in Lebanon
Geagea says Hezbollah's fighting with Israel has harmed Lebanon
Lebanon's compliance with Resolution 1701: Insights from MP Hadi Aboul Hosn's interview on LBCI
Bechara Asmar to LBCI: Progress hindered in securing rights for Lebanese workers
Hankach discusses Syrian refugee crisis with Chairman of Cypriot Parliamentary Committee on Foreign and European Affairs
Migration agency chief warns more Syrians will leave Lebanon as donors cut back on aid
Lebanon Under Mandate(s)ظNicolas Sbeih/This is Beirut/May 01/2024
Mikati chairs mini ministerial meeting over south Lebanon war developments, meets with Secretary General of Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council,...
Lebanese Christian leader says Hezbollah's fighting with Israel has harmed Lebanon
Southern Lebanon: BBC sees air strike destruction in deserted towns

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 01-02/2024
Protesters clash at UCLA after police clear pro-Palestinian demonstrators from Columbia University
Small percentage of students’causing US campus ‘disruption’, says White House
Blinken says US cannot support Rafah assault without humanitarian plan
Blinken urges Hamas to agree Gaza truce as he meets Israel leaders
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups clash at University of California
The UN's nuclear watchdog chief will visit Iran next week as concerns rise about uranium enrichment
Why Israel is so determined to launch an offensive in Rafah. And why so many oppose it
Saudi Arabia confirms a fitness influencer received an 11-year sentence over 'terrorist offenses'
Jordan says Israeli settlers attacked Jordanian aid convoys on way to Gaza
Turkiye to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at World Court, minister says
US military destroys Houthi drone boat
Colombia to cut diplomatic ties with Israel
Images show US military building floating pier off Gaza. Pentagon says it will cost $320 million
US Sanctions Suppliers in Russia, China over Ukraine War
French-Iranian ‘Persepolis’ Author Honored with Spanish Humanities Award
Ukraine says hit Russian oil refinery south of Moscow

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on May 01-02/2024
Will the West Get Ever Serious about Sanctions on Iran?/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/May 01/2024
US University Protests: Inconsistencies and Ignorance/Michel Touma/This is Beirut/May 01/2024
Why Israel Should Declare a Unilateral Cease-Fire in Gaza/Dennis Ross and David Makovsky/Foreign Affairs/May 01/2024
The Middle East’s ‘1989 moment’/Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/May 01/2024
New Ukraine aid unlikely to turn the tables on Russia/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/May 01/2024
International support for Palestinian Christians in short supply/Ray Hanania/Arab News/May 01/2024
The Ottoman Infection: How Great Nations Die/Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/May 01/2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 01-02/2024
Israel's Chief of Staff reports 'preparing for an offensive in the north'
Reuters/May 01/2024
Israel's military chief of staff said on Wednesday that the offensive operation in Gaza "will continue with strength" and that Israel was "preparing for an offensive in the north". The head of the armed forces, Herzi Halevi, did not elaborate further in the remarks he made while conducting a tour and a situational assessment at the Lebanese border.

Report: Berri says French proposal good as Hezbollah agrees to it
Naharnet/May 01/2024 
Speaker Nabih Berri met Monday evening with Hezbollah secretary-general's political aide Hussein Khalil and handed him a copy of the French paper suggesting a solution for the Israel-Hezbollah border conflict, MTV said.
According to MTV, Berri told Khalil that "the offer is good and deserves to be studied."Hezbollah for its part was "satisfied with the French paper and with the use of the term 'redeployment' instead of Hezbollah's 'withdrawal' to the area beyond the Litani River which had been previously used by (US mediator Amos) Hochstein," MTV reported. "Hezbollah does not mind what is proposed in the French and U.S. papers, specifically (Israel's) full withdrawal from seven border points and partial withdrawal from other points while keeping the Shebaa Farms problem pending," the TV network added.

Southern Front: Tensions Between Israel and Hezbollah Continue
This Is Beirut/May 01/2024 
Tensions persisted on Wednesday at the southern front, where exchanges of artillery fire between Hezbollah and Israel continued intermittently throughout the day. The Israeli army raided a house in Tayr Harfa, without causing any casualties, as well as the area between Blat and Marwahin in the western sector. Israel also bombed Tal al-Nahas. In the evening, it carried out a series of raids against Aita al-Shaab. A rocket was also dropped on Tallet Hamames. For its part, Hezbollah announced that it had targeted a gathering of soldiers around the Branit barracks. It also claimed responsibility for attacks on two houses in Shtula and another in Metula, as well as on the Rweissat al-Alam position in the Kfarchouba hills. The pro-Iranian group also announced the death of one of its fighters.

South Lebanon: Night Air Raids in Khiam
This Is Beirut/May 01/2024
Fire exchange between Hezbollah and Israel intensified on Tuesday evening. A raid was carried out on the house of Abu Hussein Mehdi in Khiam, but no casualties were reported. Several raids were also carried out in Khiam targeting Wadi al-Assafir. The Israeli army also bombed Alma al-Shaab, Dhayra, Tayr Harfa, the outskirts of Kfar Hamam-Rachaya al-Foukhar. Airstrikes also targeted Odaisseh, Yaroun, Aitaroun, the areas between Hula and Markaba, and between Odaisseh and Kfar Kila, as well as Naqoura where UNIFIL alarms blared. Rocket salvos were launched from South Lebanon towards Metula, where six explosions were heard. In a statement, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for these attacks, stating that it had “destroyed two military buildings in the settlement of Metula.”The pro-Iranian group also claimed attacks against Israeli soldiers and a Merkava tank in Mtalleh, and the so-called Radar position in the Shebaa farms. Earlier in the afternoon, several airstrikes targeted Yaroun and Odaisseh, following a relatively calm morning during which the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab were bombed. Another attack on the road to Kfar Kila destroyed a manor and caused extensive damage to nearby properties and homes.

ISF arrests six individuals, including notorious minors on TikTok, after reports of sexual assaults
LBCI/May 01/2024
The Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced on Wednesday that it managed, after conducting an investigation, to arrest six individuals in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and the North, including three notorious minors on the TikTok application. The arrested individuals are of Lebanese, Syrian, and Turkish nationalities, a statement confirmed. This comes after several minors reported to the Public Prosecutor's Office of being subjected to sexual assaults and filmed by members of an organized gang, in addition to being forced to use drugs in several hotels. The statement affirmed that the investigation is ongoing under the supervision of the competent judiciary, and efforts are underway to arrest all the members of the gang.

Six People Arrested on Charges of Rape of Minors
This Is Beirut/May 01/2024
The Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced on Wednesday that they had arrested six people accused of soliciting children for sexual purposes. In a press release, the ISF explained that “several minors had filed complaints with the public prosecutor’s office about rapes committed by members of an organized gang.” According to the statement, the gang members “filmed” the children and “forced them to take drugs.” These acts were “committed in several hotels,” reads the text. The ISF points out that “information gathering lasted almost a month,” at the end of which “six people have been arrested to date in Beirut, Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon.” Among them, “three minors famous on TikTok,” specified the ISF. Those arrested are of “Lebanese, Syrian and Turkish nationality.” “The investigation is continuing under the supervision of the competent judicial authorities, and the search is on to arrest all the gang members,” concluded the ISF. On Wednesday, information was widely shared on social networks, according to which a 30-strong gang, including a TikTok influencer and hair salon owner, was soliciting children for sex and drug trafficking. Thirty children were raped by members of the gang, eight of whom filed complaints with the public prosecutor’s office, according to this information.

Beirut Fire Brigade: ‘Our Work Is Based on Evidence Not Speculation’
This Is Beirut/May 01/2024 
The Beirut Fire Brigade declared on Wednesday that it tasked two expert officers to investigate the cause of the fire that devastated Pizza Secrets restaurant in Beirut a day earlier, in which nine people died. The officers “will be inspecting the scene and collecting evidence to reveal the causes of the fire, upon the orders of Beirut Governor, Judge Marwan Abboud,” the Brigade said in a statement, adding, “After finishing their work, they will write down a report and submit it to the competent authorities.”“The Beirut Fire Brigade draws attention to the fact that its work is professional and based on science and evidence, not speculation,” the statement continued, noting that the Brigade’s public statements are stricly issued by Regiment Commander, Brigadier General Maher Al Ajouz, or the head of Public Relations Division, Captain Ali Najem, otherwise they should be treated as inaccurate. Earlier on Wednesday, Al-Akhbar newspaper quoted “Beirut Fire Brigade sources,” claiming that the reason behind the fire at Pizza Secrets restaurant was workers welding gas pipes.

Maronite Bishops Dread International Desire to Keep Displaced Syrians in Lebanon
This Is Beirut/May 01/2024 
Maronite bishops rejected on Wednesday an apparent desire by certain international powers to keep displaced Syrians in Lebanon, stressing that their protracted presence poses fateful dangers on Lebanon’s entity and its existence as a state. At the end of their monthly meeting headed by Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai, the Maronite bishops asserted that the issue of displaced Syrians “threatens Lebanon’s existence as a state and transforms it into a breeding ground for chaos, as well as various forms of security risks, and material and moral corruption.”
The bishops also called on the government to assume its responsibilities by “forcing municipalities to regulate the movement of Syrians.”Finally, they deplored the postponement of constitutional deadlines such as electing a President of the Republic and the municipal elections, calling on MPs to assume their responsibilities in this regard.

Geagea says Hezbollah's fighting with Israel has harmed Lebanon
Associated Press/May 01/2024
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has blasted Hezbollah anew for opening a front with Israel to back up its ally Hamas, saying it has harmed Lebanon without making a dent in Israel's crushing offensive in the Gaza Strip. In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday night, Geagea said Hezbollah should withdraw from areas along the border with Israel and the Lebanese Army should deploy in all points where militants of the Iran-backed group have taken positions. His comments came as Western diplomats try to broker a de-escalation in the border conflict amid fears of a wider war. Hezbollah began launching rockets toward Israeli military posts on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack that sparked the crushing war in Gaza. The near-daily violence has mostly been confined to the area along the border, and international mediators have been scrambling to prevent an all-out war. The fighting has killed 12 soldiers and 10 civilians in Israel. More than 350 people have been killed in Lebanon including 273 Hezbollah fighters and more than 50 civilians.
"No one has the right to control the fate of a country and people on its own," Geagea said in his heavily guarded headquarters in the mountain village of Maarab. "Hezbollah is not the government in Lebanon. There is a government in Lebanon in which Hezbollah is represented." In addition to its military arm, Hezbollah is a political party. Geagea, whose party has the largest bloc in Lebanon's 128-member parliament, has angled to position himself as the leader of the opposition against Hezbollah. Hezbollah officials have said that by opening the front along Israel's northern border, the militant group has reduced the pressure on Gaza by keeping several Israeli army divisions on alert in the north rather than taking part in the monthslong offensive in the enclave.
"All the damage that could have happened in Gaza ... happened. What was the benefit of military operations that were launched from south Lebanon? Nothing," Geagea said, pointing the death toll and massive destruction in Lebanon's border villages. Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, caused wide destruction and displaced hundreds of thousands to the city of Rafah along Egypt's border. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Tuesday to launch an offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah despite international calls for restraint.
Geagea said Hezbollah aims through the ongoing fighting to benefit its main backer, Iran, by giving it a presence along Israel's border and called for the group to withdraw from border areas and Lebanese army deploy in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006. Geagea also discussed the campaign by his party to repatriate Syrian refugees who fled war into Lebanon. Those calls intensified after a Syrian gang was blamed for last month's killing of Lebanese Forces official Pascal Sleiman, allegedly in a carjacking gone wrong, although many initially suspected political motives. Lebanon, with a total population of around 6 million, hosts what the U.N. refugee agency says are nearly 785,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees, of which 90% rely on aid to survive. Lebanese officials estimate there may be 1.5 million or 2 million, of whom only around 300,000 have legal residency. Human rights groups say that Syria is not safe for mass returns and that many Syrians who have gone back — voluntarily or not — have been detained and tortured. Geagea, whose party is adamantly opposed to the government of President Bashar Assad in Syria, insisted that only a small percentage of Syrians in Lebanon are true political refugees and that those who are could go to opposition-controlled areas of Syria. The Lebanese politician suggested his country should follow in the steps of Western countries like Britain, which passed controversial legislation last week to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda. "In Lebanon we should tell them, guys, go back to your country. Syria exists," said Geagea, who headed the largest Christian militia during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

Lebanon's compliance with Resolution 1701: Insights from MP Hadi Aboul Hosn's interview on LBCI
LBCI/May 01/2024
Member of the "Democratic Gathering" bloc, MP Hadi Aboul Hosn, said on Wednesday that the developments in Lebanon cannot be separated from the regional situation, as "many [...] are betting on-field results for investments."In an interview with LBCI's "Hiwar Al Marhala" talk show, he said that there is clear American-French coordination, and "there has been convergence and integration in roles, but the bottom line remains that the final signatory will be American."He added: "We have not yet seen the French document, but there are expected visits next week, and I know that the paper focuses on the necessity of implementing Resolution 1701."MP Hadi Aboul Hosn reported that the document mentions Hezbollah's "repositioning," not its "withdrawal."He noted: "Lebanon did not violate Resolution 1701, and the violator [...] has been Israel through air and maritime violations." Regarding the Maarab meeting, he said that the disagreement was on the form and timing "because it is not appropriate," noting that Lebanon negotiates with Israel through the American side. During the interview, he indicated that the Maarab visit would be to discuss the French document and the Syrian displacement, adding that "nothing will change Al Jabal's reconciliation; it is a red line."He emphasized the importance of avoiding deviation from the Taif Agreement, stating that any position not conducive to internal unity would not garner their participation. MP Hadi Aboul Hosn confirmed: "It is essential to regulate statements to prevent stirring up discord within the nation, and we will not permit any faction to undermine another."

Bechara Asmar to LBCI: Progress hindered in securing rights for Lebanese workers
LBCI/May 01/2024
Head of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers, Bechara Asmar, assessed the Lebanese worker's situation, describing it as one marred by "oppression and injustice."Speaking on LBCI's "Nharkom Said" TV show, Asmar revealed the union's efforts to secure rights for Lebanese workers over the years.
He highlighted the struggles faced by workers in the private sector, who often find themselves adversely affected by settlements. Asmar called for state intervention across all its apparatus to start reforms and revitalize the Executive Power. Addressing concerns over wage and cost-of-living disparities, Asmar disclosed that despite agreements within the union, "some have attempted to thwart progress."Furthermore, he said, "We have achieved the pension and social security law and are awaiting meetings to implement it." Asmar emphasized the committee's dedication to restoring compensation values across the public and private sectors.

Hankach discusses Syrian refugee crisis with Chairman of Cypriot Parliamentary Committee on Foreign and European Affairs
LBCI/May 01/2024
During a visit to Cyprus, MP Elias Hankach of the Kataeb Bloc met with the Chairman of the Cypriot Parliamentary Committee on Foreign and European Affairs, Harris Georgiades. He presented Georgiades with a policy paper developed by the Kataeb Party to address the Syrian crisis in Lebanon. Hankach explained in detail, with facts and figures, the complexities of the issue and its impact on Lebanon, including its infrastructure, Lebanese demographics, and security risks due to the rising crime rates committed by refugees. Georgiades valued the information Hankach provided and fully understood the concerns he raised. He recognized the scale of the problem and emphasized the need for a quick solution. Hankach expressed his appreciation for the prompt action taken by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, who will visit Lebanon for the second time on Thursday accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to find a swift solution to the crisis with the relevant Lebanese authorities. He hoped this would be a step towards a partnership that would amplify Lebanon's voice internationally and explain its position on the Syrian refugee crisis.At the end of the meeting, an agreement was reached to establish an operational plan and a roadmap to address the crisis with the European Union in a working meeting that could take place in the European Parliament in Brussels or another agreed location. This would provide a detailed explanation of the intricacies and implications of the crisis for both Lebanon and Europe, to reach sustainable solutions. The agreement aims to avoid any hasty handling of the matter, as the crisis poses a shared risk to both Lebanon, Europe, and Cyprus.

Migration agency chief warns more Syrians will leave Lebanon as donors cut back on aid
Associated Press/May 01/2024
The number of Syrian refugees leaving Lebanon is likely to keep rising as donors cut back on aid, the head of the U.N.'s migration agency warned, as pressure builds over their arrival on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration, said that around 3,000 Syrians have left Lebanon since January, compared to 4,500 for the whole of last year. Many of them have headed to Cyprus, about 180 kilometers away. In response, Cyprus suspended the processing of asylum applications by Syrian nationals earlier this month due to the large numbers. Cypriot authorities have reportedly dispatched police patrol vessels just outside Lebanese territorial waters to thwart refugee boats trying to head to Cyprus. Pope told The Associated Press that governments are cutting aid funding to agencies working with people who have fled Syria, which has been ravaged by civil war for over 13 years, and that this is making things worse. At the same time, some Lebanese communities are getting tired of hosting them. "My concern is that we will see it become increasingly difficult for Syrians to stay safely in Lebanon. And when people cannot stay safely in one place, they do what every human being will do, is look where they can go," Pope said. "The numbers are ticking up," she said. "Lebanon is becoming a less hospitable place for them to stay." Asked why aid to Syrian refugees is being cut, Pope said: "Because the number of conflicts has gone up, because the Syrian populations have been displaced now for almost 10 years, because the assumptions are we can't continue to fund Syrians when we have increasing numbers of people from different parts of the world."The Cypriot government says a crumbling Lebanese economy, coupled with uncertainty brought on by the Israeli-Hamas war and recent tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Lebanon, has resulted in a huge number of boats overloaded with migrants – almost all Syrians – reaching the island. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen are due in Beirut on Thursday to discuss a possible aid package.

Lebanon Under Mandate(s)
Nicolas Sbeih/This is Beirut/May 01/2024
Some countries require caretaking. They need someone else to manage not only an exceptional situation, but also their day-to-day life. This pattern recalls the period of mandates, all born after the First or Second World War – initiatives meant to build a state that wasn’t there, or to organize a country that was barely so. Our French mandate did so, before concluding in 1943. Since then, politically, we’ve had quite a few tribulations until the advent of the mandating power that was Syria, which we thought was the worst of all – until it was replaced by Iran under the mullahs.
But that’s not all. Seeing that this country is still too weak to stand on its own, concurrent attempts at alternative mandates have never ceased, from the French side, Americans or the United Nations; including at the current hour, the hour of all dangers. Attempts symbolized by Jean-Yves Le Drian, Amos Hochstein, or even the Quintet Committe, which has been active for months. All situations perfectly explained by our political analysts on the site.
At the socio-economic level, mandates are perhaps less publicized but just as omnipresent. So what’s the panorama on this front? Nothing radically different from the political sphere: first the financial mandate given to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Then, on an individual level, ministries and other state entities seem to be subject to their own mandates, plural; so that the initiatives of each entity are decided, organized, executed, and controlled by mandating parties. Not a single initiative or project is carried out without an external sponsor, creating this unfortunate impression of dependence.
Take, for example, the Ministry of Health. Just in the last two years, not to go too far back, the ministry has concluded what it euphemistically calls cooperation agreements, which are in fact takeovers, with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the European Union (EU), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), UNICEF, Global Alliance for Vaccines (GAVI), South Korea, Canada, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Organon (a global healthcare company), Italy, the World Bank, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Japan… and dozens of associations or private entities.
Equivalent listings could be drawn up for all the other ministries, if we had enough space or megabytes. Interventions, sometimes presented as mere “crisis-time assistance,” go far beyond that. Representatives of the cooperating party even settle in at the ministry to prepare files, plan, and execute. The height of absurdity is that some of these employees stationed at the ministry, and paid by an international organization, are tasked with preparing the necessary files to request aid from another international organization… and so on.
This situation, which has lasted for more than four years now, has even created an almost pathological addiction. We enjoy being taken care of. This is perhaps far from the essence of a real state. But no one cares, as long as the next assistance dossier passes the test. As for the ministers in all of this, they are kept in the freezer, just to preserve them for their role as a figurehead at the next press conference. This is why some essential issues have remained unresolved for years, such as a comprehensive financial plan, or negotiations with creditors, or certain laws or reform measures: simply because the mandators have not been able to handle them yet. It’s also why all these ordinary people find it difficult to foresee a future beyond the next two days, let alone shape it. We have the unbearable impression that the future of the country depends on our statesmen, as much as the weather next week depends on the weatherman on TV.
This is entirely understandable when all you see are sleepy leaders, and mandators busy with everyday affairs, taking their hand to cross the street, helping them with the daily homework, or burping them before bedtime.

Mikati chairs mini ministerial meeting over south Lebanon war developments, meets with Secretary General of Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council,...
NNA/May 01/2024
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Tuesday chaired a meeting at the Grand Serail, attended by Caretaker Minister of Social Affairs Hector Al-Hajjar, Caretaker Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin and the Secretary-General of the Supreme Defense Council, Major General Mohammad al-Mustafa.
Following the meeting, Minister Al-Hajjar said: “We met as a mini-ministerial committee to follow up on the developments of the war in the south, and we discussed the assistance we currently provide to the displaced, even if it is minimal, and how to provide this assistance, in terms of food supplies, shelter, or material support.”Minister Al-Hajjar added: “We also discussed what the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Affairs are currently undertaking to keep pace with people’s conditions.” “We will keep our meetings open to follow up on the situation,” the Minister said. On the other hand, Premier Mikati held a meeting with the Secretary General of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council, at the Grand Serail, Nasri Khoury. The pair reportedly discussed the current situation between both countries and common dossiers. Mikati later received at the Grand Serail the head of Lebanon's permanent mission to the European Union Ambassador Fadi Hajj Ali,a with whom he discussed preparations for the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Lebanon on Thursday. Moreover, Mikati received MP Haider Nasser. The PM also held a meeting attended by Caretaker Minister of Industry, Georges Bouchikian, Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin, and Mayor of Majdel Anjar Saeed Yassin. Mikati then received a delegation from the Tripoli Municipality, headed by Mayor Dr. Riad Yamak. The delegation raised with the Premier the municipality conditions and affairs related to the northern city of Tripoli.

Lebanese Christian leader says Hezbollah's fighting with Israel has harmed Lebanon
BASSEM MROUE and ABBY SEWELL/MAARAB, Lebanon (AP)/Wed, May 1, 2024
The leader of a main Christian political party in Lebanon blasted the Shiite militant group Hezbollah for opening a front with Israel to back up its ally Hamas, saying it has harmed Lebanon without making a dent in Israel’s crushing offensive in the Gaza Strip.In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday night, Samir Geagea of the Lebanese Forces Party said Hezbollah should withdraw from areas along the border with Israel and the Lebanese army should deploy in all points where militants of the Iran-backed group have taken positions. His comments came as Western diplomats try to broker a de-escalation in the border conflict amid fears of a wider war. Hezbollah began launching rockets toward Israeli military posts on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack that sparked the crushing war in Gaza. The near-daily violence has mostly been confined to the area along the border, and international mediators have been scrambling to prevent an all-out war. The fighting has killed 12 soldiers and 10 civilians in Israel. More than 350 people have been killed in Lebanon including 273 Hezbollah fighters and more than 50 civilians. “No one has the right to control the fate of a country and people on its own,” Geagea said in his heavily guarded headquarters in the mountain village of Maarab. “Hezbollah is not the government in Lebanon. There is a government in Lebanon in which Hezbollah is represented.” In addition to its military arm, Hezbollah is a political party. Geagea, whose party has the largest bloc in Lebanon’s 128-member parliament, has angled to position himself as the leader of the opposition against Hezbollah. Hezbollah officials have said that by opening the front along Israel’s northern border, the militant group has reduced the pressure on Gaza by keeping several Israeli army divisions on alert in the north rather than taking part in the monthslong offensive in the enclave.
“All the damage that could have happened in Gaza ... happened. What was the benefit of military operations that were launched from south Lebanon? Nothing,” Geagea said, pointing the the death toll and massive destruction in Lebanon's border villages. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, caused wide destruction and displaced hundreds of thousands to the city of Rafah along Egypt’s border. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Tuesday to launch an offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah despite international calls for restraint. Geagea said Hezbollah aims through the ongoing fighting to benefit its main backer, Iran, by giving it a presence along Israel’s border and called for the group to withdraw from border areas and Lebanese army deploy in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006. Geagea also discussed the campaign by his party to repatriate Syrian refugees who fled war into Lebanon. Those calls intensified after a Syrian gang was blamed for last month's killing of Lebanese Forces official Pascal Suleiman, allegedly in a carjacking gone wrong, although many initially suspected political motives. Lebanon, with a total population of around 6 million, hosts what the U.N. refugee agency says are nearly 785,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees, of which 90% rely on aid to survive. Lebanese officials estimate there may be 1.5 million or 2 million, of whom only around 300,000 have legal residency. Human rights groups say that Syria is not safe for mass returns and that many Syrians who have gone back — voluntarily or not — have been detained and tortured. Geagea, whose party is adamantly opposed to the government of President Bashar Assad in Syria, insisted that only a small percentage of Syrians in Lebanon are true political refugees and that those who are could go to opposition-controlled areas of Syria. The Lebanese politician suggested his country should follow in the steps of Western countries like Britain, which passed controversial legislation last week to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
“In Lebanon we should tell them, guys, go back to your country. Syria exists,” said Geagea, who headed the largest Christian militia during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

Southern Lebanon: BBC sees air strike destruction in deserted towns/ تقرير من “بي بي سي”، يبين الدمار الذي تسبب به الإرهابي الإيراني حزب الله في الجنوب جراء اعلانه الحرب على إسرائيل
Carine Torbey – BBC Arabic, Beirut/Tue, April 30, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/129355/129355/
Spiralling tensions and cross-border strikes which have killed more than 70 civilians in Lebanon have turned parts of south into ghost towns. Residents have fled, leaving their homes at risk of destruction. The BBC went on patrol with the UN’s peacekeeping force there to see what has happened. The huge crater containing a mangled mattress buried under a pile of dust and stone is all that’s left of the building that stood on this spot just days ago. “We call it ‘the pool’,” said a Lebanese army officer at Yarine – a border town on the front line of the one of the region’s most dangerous conflict zones. Yarine is just 1km (0.6 miles) from the UN-designated Blue Line – the highly volatile, unofficial boundary between Israel and Lebanon. In every town near the line, there are similar sights: buildings levelled or vanished into craters; next to them, buildings which have been damaged, then rows of houses intact – followed by more craters. In Alma el Shaab, about 4km west of Yarine, stand the remains of what appears to have been a gated villa with parked cars – destroyed, apart from a fence now surrounding a pile of rubble. The windows of houses nearby were all smashed from the force of the explosions.
A white car parked outside a destroyed villa locked behind a gate.
More than 90,000 civilians have fled on the Lebanese side of the border [BBC]
“We are paying the price of all of this,” lamented the 75-year-old owner of the villa, Nadim Sayyah. Mr Sayyah said he used to keep the lights on all the time in the hope that might spare the family home from being hit. “Everything is lost, the house, the belongings, and the cars. But I will return as soon as I can, even if I were to live in a tent there.” A soldier there pointed out that “one missile did all of this”. Israel has been carrying out strikes on southern Lebanon almost daily since Hezbollah – the powerful Lebanese Shia Islamist group – fired rockets at Israel on 8 October in support of Hamas in Gaza, triggering an escalating series of attacks and counter-attacks.
The latest fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has been going on for nearly six month [BBC]
Because of the danger – three reporters (one from Reuters and two from Al Mayadeen) have been killed in strikes in south Lebanon which their news organisations and Lebanon have blamed on Israel – the BBC team visited the border area with the UN peacekeeping force, Unifil. Israel has said it does not target journalists. Unifil has been in south Lebanon since Israel’s pullback and eventual withdrawal following its invasion of 1978. In a not-too-distant past, Unifil proudly emphasised that it had overseen the longest period of calm between Lebanon and Israel – stretching to 16 years since the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. As the BBC team was filming, what seemed to be Israeli drones could be heard in the sky. Moments later, plumes of thick black smoke appeared in the distance, an apparent Israeli strike. It was not possible to know what had been hit. The Israeli army says it targets Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure and retaliates to attacks on Israeli army bases in northern Israel. But some Lebanese officials, including the caretaker prime minster and Speaker of Parliament, have accused it of implementing scorched earth tactics to make the whole area uninhabitable.
Seven people wearing helmets and bulletproof vests standing next to three white trucks with the words UN marked on the side
Right now, there is no sign of life in many southern villages. People have fled, leaving towns deserted. About 90,000 Lebanese have become displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). On the Israeli side, about 80,000 people have been evacuated. Israel’s defence minister has said Israelis from northern communities cannot expect to return home until Hezbollah has been driven back from the border. The Lebanese town of Aita el Shaab – just 700m (2,300ft) from Israel – has suffered the heaviest damage so far. On the day of our visit, Israel said it launched 40 strikes on the town. “We know that our house has been badly damaged, but it is still standing – as far as we know,” said Hussein Jawad, who comes from Aita el Shaab. Hussein, a construction worker, left his house with his seven children and his wife in October. They are now staying in an apartment on the outskirts of Beirut. “We didn’t expect it all to last that long. We thought it would just be a couple of days,” his wife Maryam said. “We know it will still take a while.”
Maryam and Hussein Jawad fled their town of Aita el Shaab [BBC]
We showed Hussein a video of his town that we filmed just months ago. “This house is now destroyed, that one doesn’t exist any more, this row of shops here is now totally flattened,” he pointed out. He has ventured back to his town once – weeks ago when he attended a funeral. He gets updates about his house every once in a while, from the civil defence staff there or from the mayor who has not left the town. According to the US-based monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), there have been more than 5,400 cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah since October. It says 80% of those were carried out by Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said last month that it had hit over 4,300 “Hezbollah targets”. It has also said that as of 2 April, approximately 3,100 rockets had been fired at Israel from Lebanese territory. Israel says nine civilians have been killed by rocket-fire from Lebanon. Hussein does not expect to be able to move back home any time soon. “It could be that what we are witnessing is just the beginning of it,” he says. Back on the road with the Italian contingent on Unifil, its commander, Colonel Alberto Salvador, insists that the peacekeeping forces’ role is still very important, despite the continuing violence. We see many people are tired of the situation on this side of the border and on the other side as well. I think it’s time for peace,” he says. “The next challenge for the Unifil is to help and support the local population in returning to their homes.” But as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, the prospect of that happening remains dim.
Col Alberto Salvador says UN peacekeeping forces’ role is still important despite the ongoing violence [BBC]

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 01-02/2024
Protesters clash at UCLA after police clear pro-Palestinian demonstrators from Columbia University
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. Hours earlier, police carrying riot shields burst into a building at Columbia University that pro-Palestinian protesters took over and broke up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school while inspiring others. After a couple of hours of scuffles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence. Police have swept through campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks in response to protests calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza. There have been confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies. The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum. It was not clear how many people might be injured.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable" in a spot on social media platform X and said officers from the Los Angeles Police Department were on the scene. Officers from the California Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested help. Security was tightened Tuesday at the campus after officials said there were “physical altercations” between factions of protesters.
Late that same day, New York City officers entered Columbia's campus after the university requested help, according to a statement released by a spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school's grounds was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 20 hours earlier.
“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said. “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.” Police spokesman Carlos Nieves said he had no immediate reports of any injuries. The arrests occurred after protesters shrugged off an earlier ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or be suspended and unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to end demonstrations that were inspired by Columbia. Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university’s decision to call in police.
“This is too intense,” he said. “It feels like more of an escalation than a de-escalation.” Just blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college’s main gate. Video posted on social media by news reporters on the scene late Tuesday showed officers putting some people to the ground and shoving others as they cleared people from the street and sidewalks.
After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag atop the City College flagpole, balled it up and tossed it to the ground before raising an American flag.
Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment from Israel in October. The compromise appeared to mark the first time a U.S. college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the protests. Meanwhile, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, police in riot gear closed in on an encampment late Tuesday and arrested about 20 people for trespassing, at least one of whom was thrown to the ground. University officials had warned earlier in the day that students would face criminal charges if they did not disperse.First-year student Brayden Lang watched from the sidelines. “I still know very little about this conflict,” he said. “But the deaths of thousands is something I cannot stand for.”The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. As cease-fire negotiations appeared to gain steam, it wasn’t clear whether those talks would lead to an easing of protests.
Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
Columbia's police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a similar move to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War. The police department earlier Tuesday said officers wouldn't enter the grounds without the college administration’s request or an imminent emergency. Now, law enforcement will be there through May 17, the end of the university's commencement events.
In a letter to senior NYPD officials, Columbia President Minouche Shafik said the administration made the request that police remove protesters from the occupied building and a nearby tent encampment “with the utmost regret.”
Protesters first set up a tent encampment at Columbia almost two weeks ago. The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, arresting more than 100 people, only for the students to return. Negotiations between the protesters and the college came to a standstill in recent days, and the school set a deadline for the activists to abandon the tent encampment Monday afternoon or be suspended.
Instead, protesters defied the ultimatum and took over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, carrying in furniture and metal barricades. Ilana Lewkovitch, a self-described “leftist Zionist” student at Columbia, said it’s been hard to concentrate on school for weeks. Her exams have been disrupted with chants of “say it loud, say it clear, we want Zionists out of here.” Lewkovitch, who is Jewish, said she wished the current pro-Palestinian protests were more open to people like her who criticize Israel’s war policies but believe there should be an Israeli state.
*Offenhartz and Frederick reported from New York. Associated Press journalists around the country contributed to this report, including Cedar Attanasio, Jonathan Mattise, Colleen Long, Karen Matthews, Jim Vertuno, Hannah Schoenbaum, Sarah Brumfield, Christopher Weber, Carolyn Thompson, Dave Collins, Makiya Seminera, Philip Marcelo, Corey Williams and Felicia Fonseca.
*Stefanie Dazio, Ethan Swope, Jake Offenhartz And Joseph B. Frederick, The Associated Press

Small percentage of students’causing US campus ‘disruption’, says White House
AFP/Wed, May 1, 2024
The White House reaffirmed Wednesday its support for Americans' right to protest, stressing that a "small percentage" of students are causing “disruption” on university campuses witnessing protests against the war in Gaza in recent weeks. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, "We believe it’s a small number of students who are causing this disruption, and if they’re going to protest, Americans have the right to do it in a peaceful way within the law." She emphasized that the White House "continue to call out hateful speech as we have been," denouncing anti-Semitism as youth anger continues to grow due to the high human toll of the war in the sector.

Blinken says US cannot support Rafah assault without humanitarian plan
REUTERS/May 01, 2024
ASHDOD: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday he has still not seen a plan for Israel’s planned offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah that would protect civilians, repeating that Washington could not support such an assault. Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Jerusalem for two-and-a-half hours, after which Israel repeated that the Rafah operation would go ahead despite the US position and a UN warning that it would lead to “tragedy.”“We cannot, will not support a major military operation in Rafah absent an effective plan to make sure that civilians are not harmed and no, we’ve not seen such a plan,” Blinken told reporters. “There are other ways, and in our judgment better ways, of dealing with the ... ongoing challenge of Hamas that does not require a major military operation in Rafah,” he said, adding that it was the subject of ongoing talks with Israeli officials.
An Israeli government spokesperson said Israel remained determined to destroy the remaining Hamas fighting formations. “When it comes to Rafah — we are committed to remove the last four of five Hamas battalions in Rafah — we are sharing our plans with Secretary of State Blinken,” the spokesperson told a regular briefing. Israel is the final stop on the top US diplomat’s Middle East tour, his seventh visit to the region which was plunged into conflict last October when Hamas attacked southern Israel. It has largely focused on efforts to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
Blinken spoke at Israel’s main port, Ashdod, and praised “meaningful progress” in recent weeks on humanitarian access, including by allowing flour for Gaza to flow through the port, as well as by opening up new border crossings. “The progress is real but given the need, given the immense need in Gaza, it needs to be accelerated, it needs to be sustained,” he said. Blinken asked Israel’s government to take a set of specific steps to facilitate aid to Gaza, where nearly half the population are suffering catastrophic hunger, he said. The United States is Israel’s main diplomatic supporter and weapons supplier. Blinken’s visit comes about a month after US President Joe Biden issued a stark warning that Washington’s policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers. Blinken also urged Hamas to accept a truce deal proposed by Egyptian mediators which would see 33 hostages released in exchange for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners and a halt to the fighting, with the possibility of further steps toward a comprehensive deal later. “Israel has made very important compromises,” he said. “There’s no time for further haggling. The deal is there. They (Hamas) should take it.”A senior official for Hamas said it was still studying the proposed deal but said Israel was the real obstacle. “Blinken’s comments contradict reality,” Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Israel is holding off sending a delegation to Cairo for follow-up truce talks, pending a response from Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, an Israeli official told Reuters.
Assault on Rafah
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday that an Israeli ground operation in Rafah was “on the immediate horizon.” In a statement, he said Israeli improvements to aid access in Gaza “cannot be used to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah.”Netanyahu has insisted the operation will go ahead, whatever the outcome of the talks, and Israeli media reported on Wednesday that he was still refusing to accept Hamas’ central demand that any deal would have to include a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. Ynet news site, citing the Prime Minister’s Office, said Netanyahu told Blinken a Rafah operation “was not contingent on anything” and that he rejected any truce proposals that would end the Gaza war. While facing international calls to hold off on any Rafah offensive, Netanyahu has faced pressure from the religious nationalist partners he depends on for the survival of his coalition government to press ahead. Israel has described Rafah as a last bastion of Hamas, which it has vowed to eliminate. En route to a visit to Kerem Shalom, one of the main crossing points for aid into Gaza, Blinken made a brief stop at Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel, where Hamas militants attacked on Oct.7, killing dozens of residents and kidnapping others. Blinken visited the heavily damaged home of an American-Israeli family, all of whom, including five-year old twins, were killed in the assault.Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 253 in the assault, according to Israeli tallies. The hostages are mostly Israeli but include some foreign nationals. In response, Israel has overrun Gaza, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians, local health authorities say, in a bombardment that has reduced much of the enclave to a wasteland. More than one million people face famine after six months of war, the United Nations has said. As night fell on Wednesday, Israeli planes and tanks pounded several areas across Gaza, residents and Hamas media said. Medics in Gaza said at least 27 Palestinians were killed in strikes on Wednesday, with others likely hurt or killed in areas they were unable to reach.

Blinken urges Hamas to agree Gaza truce as he meets Israel leaders
Agence France Presse/Wed, May 1, 2024
Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken urged Hamas to accept a truce in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to send troops into its far southern city of Rafah. Washington has heightened pressure on all sides to reach a ceasefire -- a message pushed by Blinken, who was on his seventh regional tour since the Gaza war broke out in October. An Israeli official told AFP the government "will wait for answers until Wednesday night," and then "make a decision" whether to send a delegation to indirect talks being brokered by U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo. The Palestinian militant group said it was considering a plan for a 40-day ceasefire and the exchange of scores of hostages for larger numbers of Palestinian prisoners. Hamas, whose envoys returned from Cairo talks to their base in Qatar, would "discuss the ideas and the proposal," said a Hamas source, adding: "We are keen to respond as quickly as possible."
Blinken put the ball squarely in Hamas' court.
"There is a very strong proposal on the table right now. Hamas needs to say yes, and needs to get this done," he said. But analysts questioned whether Hamas would sign up to another temporary ceasefire like the week-long truce that saw more than 100 hostages released in November, knowing that Israeli troops could resume their onslaught as soon as it was over. "I'm pessimistic about the option of Hamas agreeing to a deal that doesn't have a permanent ceasefire baked into it," said Mairav Zonszein, senior analyst on Israel-Palestine at the International Crisis Group. Zonszein said the three countries brokering the truce talks had their own reasons for trying to bounce the warring parties into a deal. "The U.S. and Egypt and Qatar all have very strong interests of their own, for various reasons, why they're trying very hard now to pressure both sides into agreeing to a deal. "And I think they believe that if they're able to get an initial deal and a pause, that they can try to build on that," he said.
Rafah differences
Hours before Blinken landed in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu fired a shot across his bows, vowing to send Israeli ground troops into Rafah despite repeated U.S. warnings of the potential for heavy casualties among the 1.5 million civilians sheltering in the city. "We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there with or without a deal," the right-wing premier told hostage families, his office said. Ahead of what promised to be a difficult meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Blinken too met privately with hostage relatives in Tel Aviv. In rare scenes for the top U.S. diplomat, who has faced furor at home and abroad over the administration's support for Israel in its campaign against Hamas, Blinken was greeted outside his Tel Aviv hotel by Israeli demonstrators waving U.S. flags. Blinken told them that freeing the hostages was "at the heart of everything we're trying to do." The estimates that 129 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, 34 of whom are presumed dead. Many of their families have expressed hope that U.S. pressure may force Netanyahu to agree a deal for their release.
More routes for aid -
On the previous leg of his regional tour in Jordan, Blinken said a Gaza truce and the redoubling of aid deliveries went hand in hand. A truce is "the most effective way to relieve the suffering" of civilians in Gaza, he told reporters near Amman.
Blinken saw off a first Jordanian truck convoy of aid heading to Gaza through the Erez crossing reopened by Israel. "It is real and important progress, but more still needs to be done," he said. U.N. agencies have warned that without urgent intervention, famine looms in Gaza, particularly in northern areas which are hardest to reach. A U.S.-built floating pier on Gaza's coast is expected to be completed later this week, said Cyprus, the departure point for the planned "maritime corridor." Blinken said the pier would "significantly increase the assistance" but was not "a substitute" for greater overland access. In northern Gaza's Beit Lahia, across from Erez crossing, 24-year-old farmer Youssef Abu Rabih was replanting plots he said had been "completely destroyed" by the fighting. "We decided to return to farming despite difficult conditions and scarce resources" after suffering "severe hunger", he told AFP.
'Unbearable escalation' -
The war started after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Washington has strongly backed its ally Israel but also pressured it to refrain from a ground invasion of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians. Calev Ben-Dor, a former analyst for the Israeli foreign ministry and now deputy editor for specialized review Fathom, told AFP that Netanyahu's "Rafah comments likely have more to do with trying to keep his coalition intact, rather than operational plans in the near term."The prime minister "is feeling the squeeze between the Biden administration" and far-right members of his government who have vehemently opposed the proposed truce, Ben-Dor said. U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said an Israeli assault on Rafah would "be an unbearable escalation, killing thousands more civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee."

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups clash at University of California
Agence France Presse/Wed, May 1, 2024
Clashes broke out on Wednesday at pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, U.S. television media footage showed, as dozens of universities around the United States struggle to contain similar protests.According to CNN, the clashes erupted just before dawn between rival pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups. LA police department "is responding immediately to (the university Chancellor's) request for support on campus," said Zach Seidl, a spokesman for the city mayor, in a post on social media platform X. Protesters and counter-protesters were seen clashing with sticks, and tearing down metal barricades, TV images showed. Others were seen launching fireworks or hurling objects at each other in the dark -- lit up with laser pointers and bright flashlights. UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block warned ahead of clashes that protesters including "both members of the UCLA community and others unaffiliated with our campus" had set up a camp last week. "Many of the demonstrators, as well as counter-demonstrators who have come to the area, have been peaceful in their activism," Block warned in a letter posted on the university website on Tuesday. "But the tactics of others have frankly been shocking and shameful." "We have seen instances of violence". "These incidents have put many on our campus, especially our Jewish students, in a state of anxiety and fear," he said.

The UN's nuclear watchdog chief will visit Iran next week as concerns rise about uranium enrichment
JON GAMBRELL/Associated Press/Wed, May 1, 2024
The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog will travel to Iran next week as Tehran's nuclear program enriches uranium a step away from weapons-grade levels and international oversight remains limited, officials said Wednesday. Rafael Mariano Grossi's visit will coincide with a nuclear energy conference Iran will hold in the central city of Isfahan, which hosts sensitive enrichment sites and was targeted in an apparent Israeli attack on April 19. It also coincides with wider regional tensions in the Mideast inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, including attacks on shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Iran on May 6 and 7, the Vienna-based agency said. It did not elaborate on his schedule or his meetings. Iranian state television has described the conference in Isfahan as an “international conference on nuclear sciences and techniques.” The broadcaster quoted Mohammed Eslami, the head of Iran's civilian nuclear program, as saying on Wednesday that Grossi will attend the conference and meet with him and other officials. “I am sure that the ambiguities will be resolved and we can strengthen our relations with the agency within the framework of safeguards and” the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Eslami said. Tensions have only grown between Iran and the IAEA since then-President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and now has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to build them, Grossi has warned. IAEA surveillance cameras have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the agency's most experienced inspectors. Iranian officials have increasingly threatened they could pursue atomic weapons, particularly after launching an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons, saying its atomic program is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003. The latest American intelligence community assessment says Iran “is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”

Why Israel is so determined to launch an offensive in Rafah. And why so many oppose it
The Associated Press/May 01/2024
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, a plan that has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there. Even as the U.S., Egypt and Qatar pushed for a cease-fire deal they hope would avert an assault on Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Tuesday that the military would move on the town “with or without a deal” to achieve its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group. “We will enter Rafah because we have no other choice. We will destroy the Hamas battalions there, we will complete all the objectives of the war, including the return of all our hostages,” he said. Israel has approved military plans for its offensive and has moved troops and tanks to southern Israel in apparent preparation — though it's still unknown when or if it will happen. About 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza’s population — are jammed into the town and its surroundings. Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel’s onslaught and now face another wrenching move, or the danger of facing the brunt of a new assault. They live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing U.N. shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.
WHY RAFAH IS SO CRITICAL
Since Israel declared war in response to Hamas’ deadly cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Netanyahu has said a central goal is to destroy its military capabilities. Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip, after operations elsewhere dismantled 18 out of the militant group’s 24 battalions, according to the military. But even in northern Gaza, the first target of the offensive, Hamas has regrouped in some areas and continued to launch attacks. Israel says Hamas has four battalions in Rafah and that it must send in ground forces to topple them. Some senior militants could also be hiding in the city.
WHY THERE IS SO MUCH OPPOSITION TO ISRAEL’S PLAN
The U.S. has urged Israel not to carry out the operation without a “credible” plan to evacuate civilians. Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border — which is supposed to be demilitarized — or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel. Israel’s previous ground assaults, backed by devastating bombardment since October, leveled huge parts of northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis and caused widespread civilian deaths, even after evacuation orders were given for those areas.
Israel’s military says it plans to direct the civilians in Rafah to “humanitarian islands” in central Gaza before the planned offensive. It says it has ordered thousands of tents to shelter people. But it hasn't given details on its plan. It's unclear if it's logistically possible to move such a large population all at once without widespread suffering among a population already exhausted by multiple moves and months of bombardment. Moreover, U.N. officials say an attack on Rafah will collapse the aid operation that is keeping the population across the Gaza Strip alive,. and potentially push Palestinians into greater starvation and mass death. Some entry points have been opened in the north, and the U.S. has promised that a port to bring in supplies by sea will be ready in weeks. But the majority of food, medicine and other material enters Gaza from Egypt through Rafah or the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing — traffic that is likely to be impossible during an invasion. The U.S. has said that Israel should use pinpoint operations against Hamas inside Rafah without a major ground assault. After Netanyahu’s latest comments, U.S. National Security spokesperson John Kirby said, “We don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah. Certainly, we don’t want to see operations that haven’t factored in the safety, security of” those taking refuge in the town.
POLITICAL CALCULATIONS
The question of attacking Rafah has heavy political repercussions for Netanyahu. His government could be threatened with collapse if he doesn’t go through with it. Some of his ultranationalist and conservative religious governing partners could pull out of the coalition, if he signs onto a cease-fire deal that prevents an assault. Critics of Netanyahu say that he’s more concerned with keeping his government intact and staying in power than national interest, an accusation he denies. One of his coalition members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said Tuesday that accepting a cease-fire deal and not carrying out a Rafah operation would amount to Israel “raising a white flag” and giving victory to Hamas. On the other hand, Netanyahu risks increasing Israel’s international isolation — and alienating its top ally, the United States — if it does attack Rafah. His vocal refusals to be swayed by world pressure and his promises to launch the operation could be aimed at placating his political allies even as he considers a deal. Or he could bet that international anger will remain largely rhetorical if he goes ahead with the attack. The Biden administration has used progressively tougher language to express concerns over Netanyahu’s conduct of the war, but it has also continued to provide weapons to Israel’s military and diplomatic support.

Saudi Arabia confirms a fitness influencer received an 11-year sentence over 'terrorist offenses'
JON GAMBRELL/JERUSALEM (AP)/May 01/2024
Saudi Arabia confirmed in a letter to the United Nations that a female fitness instruction who was popular online received an 11-year prison sentence but did not specify any of her alleged “terrorism offenses.”Though the kingdom insisted the case had nothing to do with the instructor's online presence, human rights activists say the conviction levied against Manahel al-Otaibi shows the limits of expression in Saudi Arabia. It also highlights another side of the kingdom, now run day-to-day by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who under his 88-year-old father King Salman has dramatically liberalized some aspects of women's lives in the country. “Her charges related solely to her choice of clothing and expression of her views online, including calling on social media for an end to Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system, publishing videos of herself wearing ‘indecent clothes’ and ‘going to the shops without wearing an abaya,’” said Amnesty International and ALQST, a London-based group advocating for human rights in Saudi Arabia that’s followed al-Otaibi’s case. The human rights organization issued joint statements on Tuesday about al-Otaibi's prison sentence, first revealed in Saudi letter dated Jan. 25 and sent to the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In its letter, Saudi Arabia’s permanent mission to the U.N. in Geneva did not outline any of the evidence that convicted al-Otaibi while saying there had been “unfounded and uncorroborated allegations and claims” made about her case.
Al-Otaibi, who posted fitness videos on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, faced charges of “defaming the kingdom at home and abroad, calling for rebellion against public order and society’s traditions and customs, and challenging the judiciary and its justice,” according to court documents earlier seen by The Associated Press. Her posts included advocacy for liberal dress codes for women, LGBTQ+ rights and the abolition of Saudi Arabia male guardianship laws. She was also accused of appearing in indecent clothing and posting Arabic hashtags that include the phrase “overthrow the government.”Al-Otaibi has been detained since November 2022. Her sister Fouz faced similar charges but fled Saudi Arabia, according to ALQST. The kingdom's letter said the Saudi government "wishes to underscore the fact that the exercise and defense of rights is not a crime under Saudi law; however, justifying the actions of terrorists by describing them as exercising or defending rights is unacceptable and constitutes an attempt to legitimize terrorist crimes.” Since 2018, women have been allowed to drive and other restrictions have been lifted in the once-ultraconservative kingdom as it tries to rapidly diversify its oil-based economy. That came as Prince Mohammed solidified his power, partly by imprisoning members of the Saudi elite as his father retains formal control in the kingdom. Several activists have been arrested for denouncing Saudi rules, or following dissidents who do so, on social media. This includes Salma al-Shehab, a former doctoral student at Leeds University who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence.

Jordan says Israeli settlers attacked Jordanian aid convoys on way to Gaza
REUTERS/May 01, 2024
DUBAI: Jordan’s foreign ministry said some Israeli settlers attacked two of its humanitarian aid convoys as they made their way toward the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Both convoys continued on their way and managed to reach their destination in Israeli-besieged Gaza, the ministry said in a statement.
“Two Jordanian aid convoys carrying food, flour and other humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip were attacked by settlers,” the ministry said, without giving details of the incident. Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, said in a statement that four men who “blocked aid trucks (going) to Gaza” near the large West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim had been arrested by Israeli police. One of the convoys was bound for the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza and the other for the Erez crossing, the Jordanian foreign ministry said.

Turkiye to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at World Court, minister says
REUTERS/May 01, 2024
ISTANBUL: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that Turkiye would join in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “Upon completion of the legal text of our work, we will submit the declaration of official intervention before the ICJ with the objective of implementing this political decision,” Fidan said in a joint press conference with Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in Ankara. “Turkiye will continue to support the Palestinian people in all circumstances,” he said. The ICJ ordered Israel in January to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians, after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza. In January, President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkiye was providing documents for the case at the ICJ, also known as the World Court. Israel and its Western allies described the allegation as baseless. A final ruling in South Africa’s ICJ case in The Hague could take years.

US military destroys Houthi drone boat
SAEED AL-BATATI/Arab News/May 01, 2024
AL-MUKALLA: The US Central Command said that its forces have destroyed an explosive-laden and remotely operated boat in a Houthi-held area of Yemen, as the Yemeni militia reaffirmed threats to increase their Red Sea ship campaign unless Israel ceases its assault in Gaza. In a statement on X on Wednesday morning, the US military said it destroyed an uncrewed surface vessel at approximately 1:52 p.m. (Sanaa time) on Tuesday in Yemen after determining that it posed a threat to the US and its allies, as well as international commercial and naval ships in international waters off Yemen’s coasts. “It was determined the USV presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region. These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels,” USCENTCOM said. In Yemen, the Houthis said that the US and UK conducted one attack on the Red Sea Ras Essa in the western province of Hodeidah on Tuesday but did not specify the target area or the extent of the damage. During the last seven months, the Houthis have seized a commercial ship, sunk another, and fired hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, and remotely controlled drones at US, UK, Israeli, and other international ships in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait, and Gulf of Aden. The Houthis claim they solely target Israel-linked and Israel-bound ships to push Israel to let humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip. They also added ships tied to the US and the UK to their list of targets after the two nations launched strikes against areas of Yemen under their control. On Tuesday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations, which tracks ship attacks, advised ships passing through the Indian Ocean to exercise caution after receiving a report of a drone attacking a commercial ship 170 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s Socotra island and approximately 300-400 nautical miles southeast of the Horn of Africa overnight on April 26. “The vessel and crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call,” the UK agency said.
Similarly, the Houthi Supreme Political Council warned the US on Tuesday against conducting a fresh wave of strikes against regions under their control in punishment for the militia’s recent increase in assaults on ships in the Red Sea. “The consequences of any escalation will not stop at Yemen’s borders, nor will they impact the noble Yemeni stance, the steadfastness of the Yemeni people, or the heroism of the military forces at all levels,” Houthi council members said in a statement. On Tuesday, Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi issued the same warning to the US, claiming to possess huge military capabilities that would be utilized to counter any future US military strikes. “Do not play with fire. Yemen’s strategic stockpile of deterrent weapons is much much larger than you would imagine,” Al-Houthi said. The Houthis said this week that they are aware that the US is ready to unleash a fresh round of bombings on Yemeni territories under their control, after the militia’s escalating assault against ships in the Red Sea.

Colombia to cut diplomatic ties with Israel
AFP/May 01, 2024
BOGOTA: Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday his country will sever diplomatic ties with Israel, whose leader he described as “genocidal” over its war in Gaza. “Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with the state of Israel will be severed... for having a genocidal president,” Petro, a harsh critic of the devastating war against Hamas, told a May Day rally in Bogota.Petro has taken a critical stance on the Gaza assault that followed an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 — which resulted in the deaths of some 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
In October, just days after the start of the war, Israel said it was “halting security exports” to Colombia after Petro accused Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of using language about the people of Gaza similar to what the “Nazis said of the Jews.” Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, has also asserted that “democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to reestablish itself in international politics.” In February, Petro suspended Israeli weapons purchases after dozens of people died in a scramble for food aid in the war-torn Palestinian territory — an event he said “is called genocide and recalls the Holocaust.”
In the October attack, Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 Israel says are presumed dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Images show US military building floating pier off Gaza. Pentagon says it will cost $320 million
Helen Regan and Natasha Bertrand, CNN/ May 01/2024
The United States Central Command has released images of a floating pier being built by the US military off the coast of Gaza, which once complete is intended to help deliver much needed humanitarian aid to the devastated strip’s starving population. Construction of the temporary pier began at sea last week and the images show crew from several military vessels building the platform. Separately, a satellite image from Planet Labs shows the pier under construction. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Monday the pier will cost the US about $320 million. That estimate includes all costs associated with the initial construction of the system, known as Joint Logistics Over the Shore, or JLOTS. The cost of operating the pier will likely grow over the next several months. The temporary pier is intended to help deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. - U.S. Central Command
A senior military official said last week the US is “on track to begin delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza from the sea in early May,” which will begin at the equivalent of 90 trucks per day of aid and then “quickly scale up” to 150 trucks per day once full operational capacity is reached. The official said the US military is prepared to execute the mission “for several months,” but emphasized there will be no US boots on the ground in Gaza — something President Joe Biden ruled out when he announced plans for the pier in March. Instead, the Israel Defense Forces will partner with the US military to anchor the causeway to the shore in Gaza “on day one,” the military official said.
US officials previously told CNN the US military is likely to operate the pier for at least the next three months, but the ultimate goal is to turn it into a full-time commercial operation that can be used by other countries and non-governmental organizations. Meanwhile, the British Navy support ship RFA Cardigan Bay was sailing from Cyprus to support efforts to build the temporary pier, according to a statement from the Royal Navy on Saturday. The British ship will provide “accommodation for hundreds of US sailors and soldiers working to establish the pier,” the navy said. Once established, the World Food Programme (WFP) will support distribution of aid from the pier, the organization said Saturday and USAID will work with the United Nations to distribute the aid once it reaches Gaza. CNN previously reported that aid will flow from Cyprus via commercial vessels, which will travel about 200 miles to the floating pier anchored miles off the Gaza coast. That aid will then be moved onto smaller Army boats, which can hold about 15 trucks of aid each, that will shuttle to the causeway anchored to the shore. The pier’s construction comes as the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorates and the death toll from Israel’s bombardment climbs. All 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, with half of the population on the brink of starvation and famine imminent, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Concerns are also heightened over an anticipated Israeli military operation in southern Gaza’s Rafah, prompting renewed calls for a ceasefire to ensure uninterrupted aid flow. Israel’s allies, including the US, have warned against the operation due to the potential for large-scale civilian casualties. It comes as 22 people, including at least one infant and a toddler, were killed in an Israeli airstrike over Rafah, overnight into Monday, according to hospital officials. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday there has been “measurable progress” in getting aid to Gaza but it is “not enough” to address the humanitarian crisis. Human rights agencies have repeatedly warned that Israel’s severe restrictions on aid deliveries means relief is barely trickling into the strip. Before the war, about 500 trucks of supplies entered the Palestinian enclave daily. Negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage exchange are ongoing, with Hamas considering a new framework proposed by Egypt that calls for the group to release as many as 33 hostages kidnapped from Israel in exchange for a pause in hostilities in Gaza, an Israeli source familiar with the negotiations and a foreign diplomatic source told CNN. Israel is awaiting a response from Hamas, which was expected to meet Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Monday, the sources said. A working-level Israeli delegation of intelligence agencies and military officials is expected to travel to Cairo on Tuesday, the Israeli source and another Israeli official said.

US Sanctions Suppliers in Russia, China over Ukraine War
AFP/This Is Beirut/May 01/2024
United States officials on Wednesday announced fresh sanctions aimed at crippling Russia’s military and industrial capabilities, punishing companies in China and elsewhere that help Moscow acquire weapons for its war in Ukraine. In a sweeping package announced by the US Treasury Department, Washington targeted nearly 300 entities in Russia, China, and other countries accused of supporting President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. “Treasury has consistently warned that companies will face significant consequences for providing material support for Russia’s war,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. “Today’s actions will further disrupt and degrade Russia’s war efforts by going after its military industrial base and the evasion networks that help supply it.”The latest wave of sanctions came a week after US President Joe Biden signed a much-delayed bill to provide new funding for Ukraine as Kyiv’s military struggles to hold back Russian advances. “Even as we’re throwing sand in the gears of Russia’s war machine, President (Joe) Biden’s recently passed National Security Supplemental is providing badly needed military, economic and humanitarian support to bolster Ukraine’s courageous resistance,” Yellen said. “Combined, our support for Ukraine and our relentless targeting of Russia’s military capacity is giving Ukraine a critical leg-up on the battlefield.” As part of the measures, the State Department blacklisted additional individuals and companies involved in Moscow’s energy, mining and metals sectors. The sanctions also targeted individuals connected to the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny who died in a Siberian prison in February, the statement said. The almost 300 targets hit included dozens of actors accused of enabling Russia to acquire desperately needed technology and equipment from abroad, the Treasury said. Some of those targeted were based in countries, such as China, which have faced increasing pressure from Washington over support for Russia since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. “The United States, along with many international partners, is particularly concerned about entities based in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other third countries that provide critical inputs to Russia’s military-industrial base,” the Treasury statement said. “This support enables Russia to continue its war against Ukraine and poses a significant threat to international security.” Other than China, targeted non-Russian entities were located in Azerbaijan, Belgium, Slovakia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These companies “enable Russia to acquire desperately needed technology and equipment from abroad,” the statement said.

French-Iranian ‘Persepolis’ Author Honored with Spanish Humanities Award
Madeleine Cadoux/This is Beirut/May 01/2024
The renowned French-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi, renowned for her graphic novel Persepolis which poignantly narrates her experiences as a young girl in post-revolutionary Iran, has been honored with Spain’s esteemed Princess of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities. On Tuesday, April 30 2024, the award jury lauded the 54-year-old artist for her pivotal contributions to the defense of human rights and freedoms. Marjane Satrapi’s seminal work Persepolis provides a visceral account of her formative years as a vociferous teenager grappling with the constraints imposed by the Islamic revolution, particularly those affecting women from progressive families like her own. Furthermore, it details the trials during the Iran-Iraq war. Seeking a safer environment due to her resistance against the regime, Satrapi was sent by her parents to Vienna at the age of 14. She eventually returned to Tehran, only to relocate to France in 1994, where she pursued her career as an author, film director, and painter. Her adaptation of Persepolis into an animated film garnered her an Academy Award nomination in 2008. The jury highlighted, “Satrapi is a symbol of women’s civic commitment. Thanks to her audacity and her artistic production, she is considered one of the most influential people in the dialogue between cultures and generations.” The Princess of Asturias Award, which carries a purse of $54,000, is one of eight such accolades distributed annually by a foundation named after the Spanish Crown Princess Leonor. These awards recognize outstanding achievements across various fields, including the arts and sciences. Previous recipients of the communications and humanities prize include luminaries such as US feminist icon Gloria Steinem, Italian novelist Umberto Eco, and Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros. The ceremony for the awards, to be presided over by Spain’s King Felipe VI, is scheduled for October.

Ukraine says hit Russian oil refinery south of Moscow
Agence France Presse/May 01/2024
Ukraine on Wednesday hit a Russian oil refinery in Ryazan, south of Moscow, in a new drone attack on Russia's energy infrastructure, authorities said. Ukraine has launched drones into Russia regularly since last year as the war between the two drags on, increasingly targeting sites such as factories and oil refineries deep inside Russia. "As a result of an operation by the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine on the night of May 1, a UAV (drone) was used to hit the Ryazan oil refinery in Russia," Ukraine's special services said in a statement to AFP. It said the attack took place around 2:00am (2300 GMT). Ryazan regional governor, Pavel Malkov, confirmed an attack but gave no details. "The Ryazan region was targeted by a drone attack. According to preliminary information there are no casualties," he said in a Telegram post. Ryazan is around 190 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Moscow. Social media videos showed an explosion in the dark and smoke rising into the air. The refinery is owned by Russia's oil giant Rosneft. According to its website, it has a capacity of 17.1 million tons of oil per year.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 01-02/2024
Will the West Get Ever Serious about Sanctions on Iran?
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/May 01/2024
[D]espite the clear and present threat Iran poses to the security of both the Middle East and the wider world, Western governments are still proving reluctant to take any measures needed to cripple the Iranian economy.
A key factor in the reluctance of Western leaders to punish Iran for its aggression is the appeasement policy the Biden administration has pursued towards Iran in recent years in the naive hope that, by going easy on Iran, the Iranian regime might be persuaded to agree to a new deal on its nuclear activities.
"The Iranians have mastered the art of sanctions circumvention. If the Biden administration is really going to have an impact, it has to shift the focus to China." — Fernando Ferreira, head of geopolitical risk service at the Rapidan Energy Group, Financial Times, April 17, 2024.
If the West is really serious about holding Iran to account for its aggressive activities, then it... should include the possibility of imposing secondary sanctions against any country that continues to do business with Tehran in defiance of Western sanctions.
Without Chinese oil imports, for example, the Iranian oil industry would most likely collapse, thereby increasing the pressure on the Iranian regime to mend its ways.
If attempts by Western leaders to impose further sanctions against Iran in retaliation for its direct attack against Israel are to have any validity, they will need to be a great deal more effective than those implemented in recent decades.
For decades, the US and its allies have been imposing sanctions against Tehran in an attempt to restrain its malign support for terror organisations, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Wide-ranging sanctions have also been imposed against Tehran to curb its nuclear programme, which most Western intelligence agencies believe is ultimately aimed at fulfilling the Iranian regime's quest to acquire a nuclear weapons arsenal.
This has led to restrictions being placed on Iran's ability to access technology and material that might be used to aid its nuclear development, while a range of other economic sanctions, especially limiting Iran's ability to export oil, have been implemented.
These sanctions were strengthened even more by the US after Iranian-backed militias were accused of attacking US forces in Syria and Iraq in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel.
The UK, too, has adopted a more robust approach to Tehran after British security officials uncovered a number of Iranian plots to kill or kidnap Iranian opposition figures residing in the UK. Seven senior members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and one Iranian organisation were added to the UK's sanctions list in January over claims they were involved in threats to kill journalists on British soil.
Iran's direct attack against Israel earlier this month -- the first time Iran carried out such a mission since its 1979 Islamic Revolution -- has prompted Western leaders to formulate a new round of sanctions against Tehran aimed at targeting Iran's drone and missile production industries.
In a coordinated announcement made by the US, UK and Canada this week, new measures were imposed against individuals and companies that are "closely involved" in Iran's drone production.
The US Treasury announced it was "sanctioning over one dozen entities, individuals, and vessels that have played a central role in facilitating and financing the clandestine sale of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles."
The measures will also result in two individuals facing a travel ban to the UK and an asset freeze, while four companies will be subjected to an asset freeze.
The measures are a direct response to the Iranian attack against Israel, in which more than 300 drones, missiles and ballistic missiles were fired at Israel.
Even so, the fact that the sanctions announced did not extend measures against Iran's lucrative oil industry, whose revenues are primarily responsible for keeping the mullahs in power, shows that, despite the clear and present threat Iran poses to the security of both the Middle East and the wider world, Western governments are still proving reluctant to take the measures needed to cripple the Iranian economy.
A key factor in the reluctance of Western leaders to punish Iran for its aggression is the appeasement policy the Biden administration has pursued towards Iran in recent years in the naive hope that, by going easy on Iran, the Iranian regime might be persuaded to agree to a new deal on its nuclear activities.
US President Joe Biden's desperation to strike a new deal with Tehran even led to him award a sanctions waiver to Iran granting the regime access to $10 billion, money that critics argue is being used to fund Iran's terrorist network throughout the Middle East.
The fallacy of this approach was exposed when Iran threatened, in the wake of its unprecedented attack against Israel, to commence work on building nuclear weapons if Israel attacked any of its nuclear facilities, thereby revealing the true nature of Iran's ultimate nuclear ambitions.
The real challenge Western leaders face, though, in their bid to increase sanctions against Iran, is that all the evidence suggests that, in terms of having any impact on the Iranian regime, they are proving woefully ineffective.
An important factor in the regime's ability to withstand Western sanctions has been the willingness of other autocratic states, such as China and Russia, to continue doing business with Tehran. China has now become the world's largest importer of Iranian oil, while Moscow has enjoyed a number of lucrative contracts with Tehran to supply weapons for use in the Ukraine conflict.
Consequently, the sanctions are failing to have the desired effect in curbing Iran's destabilising activities.
As Fernando Ferreira, head of geopolitical risk service at the Rapidan Energy Group in the US, explained in a recent interview with London's Financial Times, "The Iranians have mastered the art of sanctions circumvention. If the Biden administration is really going to have an impact, it has to shift the focus to China." All the indications from Tehran certainly suggest it does not feel in any way threatened by the prospect of further sanctions. As Iran's oil minister Javad Owji remarked recently, while Iran's enemies wanted to stop its exports, "today, we can export oil anywhere we want, and with minimal discounts".
If the West is really serious about holding Iran to account for its aggressive activities, then it needs to look at new ways at making sure sanctions have their desired effect.
This should include the possibility of imposing secondary sanctions against any country that continues to do business with Tehran in defiance of Western sanctions.
Without Chinese oil imports, for example, the Iranian oil industry would most likely collapse, thereby increasing the pressure on the Iranian regime to mend its ways.
Similarly, Moscow's lucrative arms deals with Tehran provide an important financial lifeline for Iran's arms industry, which is used to arm and equip Iran's global terrorist infrastructure.
If Western leaders really want the sanctions to have the desired effect of curbing Iran's malign activities, then imposing secondary sanctions on those countries that continue to do business with Tehran will send a clear message that the West is not prepared to tolerate any violations of its sanctions regime.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20609/west-serious-iran-sanctions

The Editorial – US University Protests: Inconsistencies and Ignorance
Michel Touma/This is Beirut/May 01/2024
“The dress does not make the monk.” This French idiom, which implies that appearances can be deceiving, certainly applies to the field of political maneuvering, and it is equally pertinent when dealing with mass manipulation. As such, political stances howled amidst the media frenzy often serve as a dense smoke cloud, inadequately veiling the true intentions of those who are orchestrating behind the scenes to serve their political agendas, which are totally unrelated to public demonstrations.
This distortion of realities in the field has come to light during recent student protest movements, which have unfolded on several prestigious American campuses in recent weeks. Dozens of angry students have indeed flooded the campuses of Columbia in New York, as well as Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, among others. This unrest even briefly touched Sciences Po in Paris. At first glance, the catalyst for this upheaval seems to be the deadly escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The fact that students rise up and raise their voices to condemn the massacres endured by the population of Gaza is, in principle, a commendable initiative. Nevertheless, the slogans voiced and the positions taken here and there illustrate the extent to which the protesters are unaware of the realities on the ground and display total ignorance. They vilify the Netanyahu administration while simultaneously endorsing Hamas, which they perceive as a “resistance movement.” In doing so, they overlook — or feign to overlook — that Netanyahu has aided and bolstered Hamas to weaken the Palestinian Authority and undermine the Palestinian state project. Furthermore, they disregard — or pretend to disregard — that it is through the collusion and cooperation of those they condemn, namely Netanyahu and his circle, that Hamas has received substantial funding, with hundreds of millions of dollars regularly transferred by Qatar via Israel. The agitators who present themselves as bearers of the Palestinian cause adopt the slogan “Free Palestine” while consistently glorifying Hamas. However, they conveniently forget — or feign forgetfulness — that Hamas waged a deadly war in Gaza against Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in the early 2000s, resulting in the massacre of about 800 officials, leaders, and Fatah militants, some of whom were brutally executed. This conflict led to the eviction of the Palestinian Authority from Gaza, and consequently, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), which was weakened despite its prior establishment as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people under the leadership of Yasser Arafat while enjoying recognition from the international community.
The protesting students who have occupied American campuses likely do not know — or pretend not to know — that Hamas, with the Israeli right wing as its tacit ally, undermined the Oslo Peace Accords in 1994 and 1995, negotiated by Yasser Arafat’s PLO with Israel, precisely aiming to establish a free Palestine, a cause they claim to fervently defend. These self-proclaimed insurgents also seem unwilling to recognize that Hamas went beyond merely sabotaging the PLO’s efforts towards a “free Palestine,” but concurrently served as a tool for the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose strategy cunningly exploits the Palestinian cause to assert dominance in the region.
Do these zealous agitators not realize that by adopting a blatantly anti-Semitic posture, they are only provoking an international outpouring of solidarity for Israel, thereby inadvertently bolstering the Israeli right?
Such inconsistencies and ignorance have characterized the sudden surge of protests, following a uniform scenario across multiple universities (despite the ongoing Gaza conflict for over six months), revealing a manipulation orchestrated by powerful clandestine actors. Such manipulation is far from serving the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people. The students who stormed multiple campuses in the United States have displayed inconsistencies and ignorance in their positions, revealing a larger manipulation of realities on the ground. Inconsistencies in positions and ignorance of key realities have defined the campus protests in the US.

Why Israel Should Declare a Unilateral Cease-Fire in Gaza
Dennis Ross and David Makovsky/Foreign Affairs/May 01/2024
A Chance to Turn the Tables on Hamas and Iran—and Advance Normalization With Saudi Arabia
Until last month, the war between Iran and Israel was largely fought in the shadows. The Iranians decided to take it out of the shadows, openly attacking Israeli territory directly, from Iranian soil, for the first time in the Islamic Republic’s history. Some observers have argued that Iran’s April 13 drone and missile assault on Israel was a symbolic gesture. Yet given the quantity of drones and missiles fired at Israel and their payloads, Iran clearly meant to inflict serious damage.
Israel’s defenses were nearly flawless, but it did not repel Iran’s attack entirely on its own. Just as Iran’s assault was unprecedented, so was the direct military intervention of the United States and a number of its allies, including some Arab states. U.S. Central Command, with the participation of the United Kingdom and Jordan, intercepted at least a third of the drones and cruise missiles that Iran fired at Israel; Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also shared intelligence that helped Israel defend itself. Their readiness to play this role was remarkable, given how unpopular Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza is among Arab publics.
Five days later, when Israel responded to Iran’s attack, it took Washington’s calls for restraint into account, firing three missiles at a radar facility that guides the S-300 missile defense battery in Isfahan, the site of Iran’s uranium conversion plant. This was a very limited response, one crafted to avoid casualties while showing Israel can penetrate Iran’s defenses and strike any target it seeks to hit.
Stay informed.
In-depth analysis delivered weekly.
Israel seemingly recognized that the best way to deal with the threat Iran and its proxies pose is to work with a coalition. This, too, is without precedent. The idea that Americans, Europeans, and Arabs would come together to help intercept drones and cruise missiles Iran launched against Israel would, in the recent past, have seemed like a fantasy—and, to Israel, undesirable. Israel’s ethos on defense has always been: “We defend ourselves by ourselves.” This has been both a source of pride and a principle—that no one besides Israelis would have to pick up weapons on Israel’s behalf.
But now that Israel faces not only Iran but multiple Iranian proxy groups, the cost of taking on all these fronts by itself is simply becoming too high. This development, as well as the willingness that Arab states showed in April to join Israel to confront the threat Iran and its proxies pose, suggests that a window has opened for the creation of a regional coalition pursuing a common strategy to counter Iran and its proxies.
To take advantage of this opening, however, Israel, the United States, and Arab countries—particularly Saudi Arabia—need to recognize the unique nature of the moment and seize it. A U.S.-brokered breakthrough in a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia would do a great deal to cement this emerging coalition. If the Saudis, whose king is the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites, made peace with Israel, that would likely transform Israel’s relationship with other Sunni-majority states within and outside the Middle East following suit. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, as well as Israeli and Saudi leaders, indicate that they would still like to see such a deal happen soon. But the Biden administration believes that the fighting in Gaza must be paused before negotiations about normalization can proceed.
A unilateral cease-fire of four to six weeks would offer Israel many strategic benefits.
There is some hope that negotiations in Egypt on a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas will finally be achieved and produce a cease-fire of at least six weeks. But the Biden administration must not put all its eggs in that basket. Again and again, Hamas has raised hopes that a deal is imminent only to dash them. Should no deal emerge in Egypt, the Biden administration should turn to the only realistic alternative: encouraging Israel to announce a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza of four to six weeks.
Such an Israeli decision may be the only way to create the conditions for an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal to advance. Of course, a unilateral cease-fire would be controversial in Israel, both because it de-links pausing the fighting in Gaza from the release of hostages and because it may seem to concede something to Hamas for nothing in return. But a unilateral cease-fire of four to six weeks would, in fact, offer Israel many strategic benefits with few material drawbacks. And in truth, if their negotiations with Hamas fail once again, Israeli leaders will need to adopt a different approach if they hope to get hostages released while some are still alive.
The fact that Israel listened to the Biden administration when crafting its response to Iran’s attack shows that it is open to U.S. persuasion. Indeed, a new reality may be taking shape in Israel, one that could change how it approaches defense, deterrence, and the region.
A PRECEDENT FOR RESTRAINT
When it comes to defense strategy, Israel has long been committed to doing its own fighting. All it asked of the United States was to help ensure that it had the means to do so. The help that Israel received to defend itself against the Iranian attack, however, might have been not only welcome but also necessary.
But such help also creates an obligation on Israel’s part. When others participate in Israel’s defense, they gain the right to ask Israel to take their interests and concerns into account. After Iran’s attack, Biden made it clear to Israeli leaders that they did not need to retaliate because their successful defense itself constituted a great success—and, by implication, an embarrassing failure for Iran. For Israel, not to hit back at all would have contradicted the country’s basic concept of deterrence: if you attack us, you will pay, and no one can pressure us not to respond to threats. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not easily dismiss the American position.
Israel’s concept of deterrence has always shaped its responses to direct threats—with one exception that is worth recalling today. During the 1991 Gulf War, the night after U.S. forces attacked Iraq, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hit Israel with Scud missiles. The Israeli defense minister, Moshe Arens, and other senior military officials wanted to retaliate. But U.S. President George H. W. Bush’s administration, particularly Secretary of State James Baker, persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir not to do so. Baker reassured Shamir that Israel could give the United States specific targets it wanted hit, and the United States would hit them. But he also stressed that the world stood against Saddam, and that if Israel retaliated directly, it risked disrupting the coalition fighting Iraq. Saddam was trying to transform the conflict into an Arab-Israeli war, and it was not in Israel’s interest to play into his hands.
In 1991, Israel’s prime minister accepted the counsel of the American president.
There is, of course, one big difference between 1991 and today: back then, the U.S. military was attacking Iraq, not simply trying to intercept its missile launches. The United States is not about to attack Iran today. That said, in 1991, Israel was not already in the midst of another war, as it is today in Gaza. And unlike today, Israel was not also juggling a tense northern front with Hezbollah that could easily escalate into an all-out conflict.
In 1991, Israel’s prime minister accepted the counsel of the American president and secretary of state because he could see that it was in Israel’s interest for the coalition against Saddam to remain intact. Shamir also believed that by responding favorably to the United States, he could repair his relationship with Bush, which had become strained over disagreements about Israel’s settlements policy.
Bush appreciated Shamir’s decision, but the two leaders continued to clash over the United States’ provision of $10 billion in loan guarantees, which Israel needed to manage a surge in immigrants from the Soviet Union. Bush wanted to condition those guarantees on Israel’s freezing settlement building in the West Bank. Shamir would not agree, and the Bush administration did not provide the guarantees until it reached an agreement with Shamir’s successor, Yitzhak Rabin, on reducing the value of the guarantees by the amount the United States estimated that Israel was spending annually on settlements.
MAKE A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY
The nature of Israel’s response to the Iranian attack shows that Netanyahu, too, is willing to take American concerns into account—not going as far as Shamir did to placate Washington but clearly limiting Israel’s response. Today, Netanyahu is also under pressure to repair rifts in his relationship with America’s president, ones that have opened not over Israel’s fundamental war aims in Gaza—ensuring that Hamas can never again threaten Israel—but over Israel’s approach to its military campaign and to humanitarian assistance entering Gaza.
As was the case in 1991, Israel’s restraint in its response to an outside attack will not, by itself, reset its relationship with the United States. With Israel’s assault on Rafah looming, the ties between Biden and Netanyahu could become even more strained. But a U.S.-brokered normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia is the most important thing that could change the trajectory of the relationship. Biden understands that because the Saudis require a credible political advance for the Palestinians in order to finalize a normalization deal, Netanyahu will have to take on the part of his political base that most staunchly opposes Palestinian statehood. And the negotiations cannot make serious progress unless the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is eased—something that cannot easily be done without a cease-fire.
No doubt such a move will be politically difficult for Netanyahu to undertake. He is likely to argue that a pause would take the military pressure off Hamas. Having already greatly reduced its military presence in Gaza since November, however, Israel is not putting the kind of military pressure on Hamas that it was when a hostage deal was brokered that month. No hostages have been released since, a reality that suggests that Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, does not feel any serious pressure to seek a reprieve. Israel’s threat to invade Rafah may increase the pressure on Sinwar, but a Rafah operation cannot take place until Netanyahu fulfills his pledge to Biden that no invasion will happen before Israel evacuates the 1.4 million Palestinians crammed into the area. Because evacuation involves not only moving people but also ensuring they have a place to go that has adequate shelter, food, water, and medicine, an evacuation will itself take four to six weeks, probably longer.
Netanyahu will have to choose between Biden and Ben-Gvir.
In light of these realities, Israel should make a virtue of necessity. If it cannot go into Rafah for some weeks, the cease-fire means that it is giving up little but gaining a number of advantages. A four-to-six-week cease-fire would allow international organizations to ease conditions in Gaza and address the world’s concerns about famine there. They could put better mechanisms in place to ensure that sufficient humanitarian assistance not only enters Gaza but is also actually distributed to those most in need. A cease-fire would refocus the world’s attention onto Hamas’s intransigence and the plight of the Israeli hostages. And it would help alter the skeptical narrative that has taken hold about Israel internationally and reduce the pressure on it to end the war unconditionally. To be sure, the far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir will oppose any unilateral cease-fire, no matter its duration. But their war aims are not the same as Netanyahu’s or the Israeli public’s. They want to reoccupy Gaza, and they will undoubtedly oppose any breakthrough with Saudi Arabia that requires concessions to Palestinians’ national aspirations. At some point or another, Netanyahu will have to choose between Biden and Ben-Gvir.
Put simply, a unilateral Israeli cease-fire for four to six weeks would create a strategic opportunity—particularly if it creates an opening to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia and transform the tacit regional alignment that emerged after Iran’s attack on Israel into a more material reality. For the Biden administration, the role that Arab states played in helping defend Israel against Iran’s attack is a tangible new development that needs quick follow-up. The U.S. political calendar, too, makes achieving progress on Israeli-Saudi normalization urgent. Getting the Senate’s approval for the United States’ direct contributions to the deal—which include a U.S.-Saudi bilateral defense treaty and a civil-nuclear partnership between the two countries—is certain to become more difficult as the U.S. presidential election approaches. The new behavior that the Iran-Israel crisis in April provoked in numerous states shows that long-standing realities in the Middle East can change. Iran is now in a weak position, and Israel has a window of opportunity in an otherwise very difficult year. Rarely has Israel so urgently needed to seize a potential strategic opportunity. But this is equally true for the United States. Biden has a strong interest in showing that he was able to take the Israel-Hamas war and the chaos created by Iran’s proxies and forge a more stable and hopeful Middle East. There is a moment to do that now. But there is no telling how long it will last.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-israel-should-declare-unilateral-cease-fire-gaza

The Middle East’s ‘1989 moment’
Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/May 01/2024
There were a hectic but fruitful few days in Riyadh this week when the World Economic Forum held a Special Meeting in the Kingdom for the first time. It was important not only because Saudi Arabia metaphorically “brought the mountain to Mohammed,” and not only because of the A-list policymakers, thought leaders and business executives who were there — but also because of its timing. The forum took place a few days after the eighth anniversary of the launch of Vision 2030, and what those in attendance witnessed was a coming of age, a revelation of what the new Saudi Arabia stands for.
What they saw, heard and experienced was the emergence of a new force — a force for good, prosperity and inclusion. This force has now created, as described by one of my colleagues who attended a number of forum sessions both on and off the record, the Middle East’s “1989 moment.” That year was a tumultuous one, beginning with the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, ending with the overthrow of dictatorship in Romania, and leading two years later to the implosion of the Soviet Union. It is fascinating that 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are witnessing an equally important moment — a fork in the road, where many are now going to have to choose which route to take.
As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week at his meeting with GCC ministers: “There are really two paths forward for the region as a whole: one driven with division and destruction … the other, greater integration, greater security, greater peace.” He could not have been more accurate, and there could not be a better time or another chance for stakeholders to make the right decision.
The US, despite being the world’s superpower, has clearly made a choice. We have come along way from the hostile rhetoric that marked the beginning of the Biden administration to public reassurances last week that a Saudi-US security pact was “very, very close.” The past four years have also been an opportunity for both sides to reflect and see how multifaceted the relationship is, and could be. Apart from military deals, everything from space exploration to Saudi-American nuclear cooperation is up for grabs. This perhaps has been helped by repeated assurances from Saudi officials that our partners in the US will always be given priority, but also a US realization that the Kingdom has other options — and lots of them — for military, technology and business deals. Interestingly, it seems more likely that a US-Saudi treaty might still proceed even without progress on the Saudi-Israeli front, which has a Palestinian aspect that must be respected.
With so many countries around the world unilaterally recognizing Palestine, Netanyahu will only add to Israel’s isolation if he doesn’t accept the genuine offer to climb down from the tree he ascended since Oct. 7.
Israel also has a choice to make. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it, the choice is between Riyadh and Rafah. The first, he writes “has a much bigger payoff at the end than the road to Rafah, which will be a dead end in every sense of the term.”
There were public reassurances by several Saudi officials at last week’s forum that the Kingdom’s offer to put its weight behind Israel’s integration with the Arab and Muslim world was on the table. The ask? “A credible, irreversible path to a Palestinian state,” as Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.
In other words, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a personal choice to make: one is to accept a two-state solution (although nobody said implementing that will be straightforward, and many details will need to be ironed out later) and permanently end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The other is to be remembered for, and face the consequences of, being a war criminal. With so many countries around the world unilaterally recognizing Palestine, Netanyahu will only add to Israel’s isolation if he doesn’t accept the genuine offer to climb down from the tree he ascended since Oct. 7. His declaration this week that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would go ahead with or without a ceasefire in Gaza did not send a reassuring message — but then again, that is his choice to make.
Hamas, too, has a choice. It must decide — “and decide quickly whether to accept the extraordinarily generous offer of a ceasefire,” as Blinken put it in Riyadh last week. Hamas would be wise to play ball: there are 1.5 million more Palestinian civilians at risk in Rafah, the Qatari mediators in Cairo have shown clear signs of frustration, and time is on Israel’s side.
A US-Saudi treaty might still proceed even without progress on the Saudi-Israeli front, which has a Palestinian aspect that must be respected.
Why doesn’t the Kingdom apply more pressure on the Palestinians? Well, for the same reason the US can’t apply more pressure on Israel. At the end of the day, you can take the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Moreover, what remains to be done after the Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh last November at which everyone — including Iran —committed to a declaration calling for a two-state solution? That was a huge step, given that for over 40 years Tehran’s declared position was to not even recognize Israel.
Confounding the many cynics who criticized the Saudi-Iranian detente of March 2023, that declaration was one of the benefits of the working relationship between Riyadh and Tehran. Nevertheless, Vision 2030 and the Revolution of 1979 are not compatible, and also create two paths for regional forces to choose from. The positive outcome of the Beijing detente is that, at least for now, it is a matter of “each to their own” rather than a permanent standoff between the two countries. Indeed, this was always the Kingdom’s position: what changed was that Iran decided to make the choice to extend its hand and commit to non-aggression and respect for national sovereignty.
Will we see a fully integrated, prosperous Middle East? Will it become the “New Europe,” as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman once said? Well, the vision is there – now it is just a matter of choices … and consequences.
• Faisal J. Abbas is the editor in chief of Arab News

New Ukraine aid unlikely to turn the tables on Russia
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/May 01/2024
At the 11th hour, the US Congress last month approved the long-awaited bill to provide essential support to Ukraine. The delays, however, have led to severe shortages in ammunition and air defenses, allowing the Russian president to appear happy and self-assured while his soldiers made some tactical advances that gave Russia the upper hand across the long front line.
At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military commanders were starting to consider defeat, sending messages that Ukraine could, as a result of aid delays, lose the war. The Russian war on Ukraine, which is in its third year, still lacks a resolute and robust response from a fractured Western camp that is busy making announcements and giving assurances instead of providing a stable stream of ammunition and equipment that could achieve the goal of holding back Russia, if not pushing it back, as Kyiv desires.
As aid supplies from the US have resumed, one wonders if President Vladimir Putin will remain comfortable with his “special operation,” which has become a war of attrition. If anything, the current stalemate is likely to persist as both sides grapple with their handicaps. This risks lengthening the war for all its protagonists, short of a breakthrough or a miracle.
The Ukrainians have no doubt fought with valor and managed to make up for their deficiencies with their enthusiasm, high morale and the erratic supplies of Western aid in their fight against a superior neighbor. Though they will remain outnumbered, outgunned and ground down by a relentless Russia, their best hope is for their leadership and allies to provide more in terms of ammunition, air defenses, equipment and manpower. This can help them regain some ground and restore some of their lost momentum due to the failure of their 2023 spring-summer offensive.
If anything, the current stalemate is likely to persist as both sides grapple with their handicaps.
But that will be a tall order. Short of Kyiv fixing its chronic soldier shortage by reducing the age of mobilization, all the new US weapons and ammunition will not be useful. Stories of exhausted troops are permeating through the trenches all along on the front line. Ukraine’s recruitment efforts will also continue to stumble if Europe and the US fail to speed up and stabilize the free flow of aid, supplies and advanced technology. The Ukrainians continue to push for more Patriot air defense batteries, the long-awaited F-16 fighter jets and more long-range missiles to overcome the superior Russian firepower and allow it to target supply lines and bases far away from the front lines.
It is likely to take time for Ukraine to recover from the difficult first few months of this year, but time is not on its side. It needs to recover and recruit, train and deploy new units before it can start achieving some gains come the autumn to help justify the US’ assistance.
All that is likely to be slow and may not turn the tide on Putin’s forces, which have their own challenges to contend with. If anything, the many months of war have exposed Russia’s military limitations and threatened its superpower status. This is despite its huge defense budget, which has surpassed 6 percent of gross domestic product, or $109 billion this year, allowing Russia to produce two-and-a-half times the quantity of artillery and multiple launch systems than previously and as much as 60 times more of certain types of munitions. These Russian advantages are no secret, but most experts have long claimed that Moscow has failed to turn its superior firepower into a significant breakthrough due to its limited availability of advanced and high-precision weapons.
Such experts insist that Western sanctions, though far from watertight, have made it harder for Russia to source high-tech components for drones, smart munitions, guided bombs and high-precision missiles. Moscow’s larger weapons arsenal and access to manpower has failed to give it a radical advantage over Ukraine’s more modern and accurate artillery and other ammunition.
Over recent months, the volume of bombs raining down on Ukraine has retreated from 60,000 shells a day at the start of the war to just under 10,000 a day, according to a Washington think tank. This indicates that Russia has logistical and replenishment challenges, despite its ramped-up production and the supplies it has received from North Korea and Iran.
Russia will always have a manpower advantage, whereas Ukraine struggles to recruit. Moscow is said to be mobilizing nearly 30,000 fresh troops a month, increasing its total number deployed to nearly 500,000. And where Moscow’s cause for the war might not be very convincing among potential new recruits, money and bonuses remain the key driver, to the point that Ukrainian troops keep complaining about the unstoppable waves of infantry attacks on their positions.
New US and European aid has, for the past two years, challenged all of Russia’s tactics in this fight, but both sides today look resigned to fortifying their current positions. The conflict seems to have become attritional for both sides. Russia still believes it has time on its side, as it hopes to see more EU and US support peel off, especially if Donald Trump returns to the White House in November.
All the aid Ukraine receives is not likely to remove the advantages won by Russia in the last few months, at least not until next year. Russia’s numerical superiority is also unlikely to tip the balance, as it is not easy to replace commanders or mid-ranking lieutenants and sergeants or to mount effective attacks to break through the front lines, as the Russians desire. This is why both sides’ deficiencies are likely to see another year of frozen front lines, while a drive for peace remains elusive.
**Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.

International support for Palestinian Christians in short supply
Ray Hanania/Arab News/May 01/2024
Not enough is being done to support Christians in the Arab world, particularly those who are under siege by Israel. This topic only comes up a few times each year, during the Orthodox religious holidays, which fall on different dates from other “mainstream” Christian churches because of their differing calendars. Although most Christians celebrated Easter on March 31, for example, Orthodox Christians will celebrate it this Sunday. Labels do not really mean much, of course, except in Israel, where people are segregated based on their religion. If you are Jewish and recognized as such, Israel’s government gives you more benefits and rights than it does to non-Jews who have Israeli citizenship.
Labels do not really mean much, except in Israel, where people are segregated based on their religion
In Israel, the proportion of the population made up of Christians has dropped from 2.9 percent to 1.9 percent over the past 75 years in the face of the inherent discrimination that exists against them and Muslims alike. Although the total number of Christians in Israel continues to increase slightly each year, that is not because Israel’s discrimination has eased up.
For example, Israel has locked my family’s land — 38 dunums adjacent to the illegal settlement of Gilo between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Israeli officials have told me directly that I will never be able to secure that land, no matter what legal documents I acquire, because I am not Jewish.
The intensity of the discrimination against non-Jews varies, depending on whether or not you accept Israel’s policies and stay quiet or if you protest too loudly. Those who protest often find themselves apprehended and held in so-called administrative detention, which means they can be imprisoned indefinitely without charge. B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reports that there were 1,310 Palestinian civilians being held in administrative detention just before the Hamas attack in October last year. There are now more than 3,600. Most of them are Muslim, but there are many Christian Palestinians too. There may be far more detainees than reported because, in 2020, the Israeli Prison Service stopped providing the data to B’Tselem, knowing that it exposed a dark, sinister and illegal side of Israel’s government. Essentially, the imprisoned Palestinians are political hostages who are denied their legal rights. They are held for periods of up to six months, which are easily renewable. Their situation is no different than that of the Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. So, why does the world seem to care about the Jewish hostages but not the Palestinian ones? The same reason there is no concern about the violence and abuses committed against Christians among Western governments that represent overwhelmingly Christian populations and that should be concerned for them.
Most people in the West fail to even recognize the existence of Arab Christians; instead, they view all Arabs as Muslim and the plight of Christians gets pushed under the rug. Christian activist groups like the evangelists in America, for example, support Israel even over their own brethren because of that blurring of Christian identity. I am an Orthodox Christian raised as Lutheran in the US. But most people I encounter believe I am Muslim because I champion the rights of all Arabs and because the Arab world is overwhelmingly Muslim. Although I am Christian, I tell them I am proud to be mistaken for a Muslim because I am “Muslim by culture” and because most of the people who see through Israel’s propaganda lies are Muslim. During the ongoing Israeli violence in Gaza, several Christian churches have been damaged or destroyed. Of the approximately 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, about 1,000 are Christian. They have been suffering along with the Muslims under Israel’s decades-long oppressive occupation and siege.
It is very difficult to get information on the status of the Christian community and their churches in Gaza. Israel does not permit independent media into Gaza to cover the conflict. It only allows embedded, usually pro-Israel, journalists to accompany the army on very few select missions.
Christian activist groups like the evangelists in America, for example, support Israel even over their own brethren
But some stories are slipping through Israel’s tight censorship. On Oct. 19, Israeli forces attacked the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, the third-oldest church in the world, killing 16 of its parishioners and injuring dozens more. Also during Israel’s war on Gaza, the Gaza Baptist Church, which was established by Southern Baptists in Gaza City in 1954, was heavily damaged and two parishioners at the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, a mother and her daughter, were shot dead by Israeli snipers.
Very few stories about the catastrophe facing Christians in Gaza, amid the massacres of Muslims, have made it to the front pages of mainstream American newspapers. That might explain why no major Christian organizations have spoken out against the Israeli attacks.
This Orthodox Easter, I will pray for the safety not only of Christian Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank, where settler violence has spiked and continues to escalate, but for all of the Palestinians in Gaza. I wonder how many other American so-called Christians will do the same.

The Ottoman Infection: How Great Nations Die
Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/May 01/2024
The United States needs to return to strategic energy independence. Through state-of-the art technology, we now have the means of not only meeting our domestic needs, but the ability to export oil to our allies. Doing so would replace the Russians and Iranians, whose energy stockpiles continue to be wielded as weapons against the West. Pictured: An oil derrick in Monahans, Texas, in the oil- and gas-producing Permian Basin, on March 27, 2024. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Plagued with inept leadership, a fractured society, and an unstable economy, the once powerful, centuries-old Ottoman Empire was described by early 20th century contemporaries as the sick man of Europe. And then it collapsed into the dustbin of history.
America, take note. Consider what medicine needs to be administered in Washington to prevent a fatal malaise from taking down a great nation, for no country is immune to the Ottoman infection.
For the United States, it begins with returning to strategic energy independence. Through state-of-the art technology, we now have the means of not only meeting our domestic needs, but the ability to export oil to our allies. Doing so would replace the Russians and Iranians, whose energy stockpiles continue to be wielded as weapons against the West.
It has been estimated that, were U.S. oil production allowed an open spigot, prices would go back down to $40 or $50 a barrel, nearly half its current $83. That price would create an economic cardiac arrest for Russia and Iran, leaving them unable to afford their global aggression against the West.
Next, the U.S. should return to a policy of strong economic growth. No country has ever taxed itself into prosperity. Let us unleash once again America's best weapon: a creative, robust, open economic marketplace.
Washington needs to lower everyone's taxes and tear up those mountains of regulations that are now throttling growth.
With a strong pro-growth agenda, it is equally important also to provide low-cost loans for business expansion,
We need to recognize that we are being challenged for global leadership by China and that they are engaged in espionage that transits every facet of our nation – from defense to AI to Wall Street. The Communist Chinese will continue to do their best to cripple and displace the U.S. technologically, militarily and economically.
While a strong American military is key, another means to confront that threat is to see the U.S. bring manufacturing back home. Where that is not feasible, one can partner with countries such as India, which are not dedicated to confronting the United States. Otherwise, keep the creation of basic necessities, such as medicine or computer chips as home-grown domestic products.
If America is to remain recognizable as a sovereign nation, we need to secure our borders. It remains inconceivable that it is estimated we currently have more than 20 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., half of which entered since 2021. The current condition of our city streets speaks to the chaos that has been created by White House border policies that are out of control and a national security risk.
Nations get sick. Those that refuse to recognize the lethal risk from these maladies, and refuse to "take their medicine" run the risk of dying.
Just ask the Ottomans.
*Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.