English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 19/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
If you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples and know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
John 08/31038/Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed in Him, If you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples and know the truth, and the truth will make you free. They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, ‘Ye shall be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Verily, verily I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham’s seed, but ye seek to kill Me, because My Word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with My Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 18-19/2024
Elias Bejjani: Hezbollah in All Its Forms is an Existential Threat to Lebanon and the Lebanese People
Hezbollah Claims Downing Israeli Hermes 450 Drone
G20 Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon
Netanyahu: Negotiating Under Fire; Hezbollah Still Has Missile Capability

Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah: Netanyahu
Lebanon, Hezbollah agree to US proposal for ceasefire with Israel, Lebanese official says
Public Health Emergency: 3,516 Martyrs and 14,929 Injured Since the Start of the Aggression
The cumulative toll since the beginning of the aggression has reached 3,516 martyrs and 14,929 injured.
Foreign Ministry Directs UN Mission to File Complaint Over Army Targeting
Public Health Emergency: Final Casualty Count from Raids on Ras Al-Nabaa and Mar Elias
Deaths of a Mukhtar and Deputy Mayor in Tyre Amid Ongoing Strikes
Recovery of Six Martyrs from the Islamic Health Authority in Braachit

US envoy heads to Beirut as Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire talks gain momentum
US awaits Lebanon response to Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire plan
Israeli airstrike hits central Beirut near key government buildings and embassies
Lebanon, Hezbollah accept US ceasefire proposal as Israeli strike in Beirut kills 5
Hezbollah's True Intentions Are Definitely Vicious, Jihadist, and Entirely Iranian/Lubos El Jerdi/November 18/2024
Israel’s expanding efforts to disrupt Hezbollah’s supply chain/Emanuele Ottolenghi & Joe Truzman/| FDD's Long War Journal/November 18/2024
The Return of Hochstein and Return of the Lebanese State/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/November 18/2028

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 18-19/2024
Canada foils Iranian plot to assassinate pro-Israel human rights lawyer - report/Jerusalem post/
Former justice minister Irwin Cotler says RCMP told him Iranian plot to kill him was foiled
Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics
Five wounded in Tel Aviv area rocket strikes: first responders
Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say
Netanyahu says Israel's October attack hit a component in Iran nuclear programme
Latin American nations demand action against Iranian threats, declare solidarity with Israel
Russia's engagement with the Houthis as they lob missiles at ships is getting 'serious,' US official says
UK announces fresh sanctions against Iran’s air and shipping operators
US sanctions group that builds illegal West Bank settlements, with close ties to Israeli government
The silenced suffering of Iran’s youth and the deafening silence of the West - opinion
Zelensky is sure the war will 'end sooner' under Trump admin
Palestinian NGO to ask UK court to block F-35 parts to Israel over Gaza war
Suspected Houthi rebels in Yemen target a ship in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on November 18-19/2024
Donald Trump: Back to the Future on Iran Policy/Behnam Ben Taleblu & Janatan Sayeh/The Algemeiner/November 18/2024
UNRWA Hires Palestinian Terrorists, Glorifies Violence And Terrorism/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./November 18/ 2024
Trump’s Return: A Bold Vision to Reshape the Middle East/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/November 18/2028
The Riyadh Summit: Regional Security Founded on a Two-State/Sam Menassa/Asharq Al Awsat/November 18/2028
Hoori or Whore? How Islam’s ‘72 Virgins’ Inspire Muslims to Suicidal Violence/Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/November 18/2028

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 18-19/2024
Elias Bejjani: Hezbollah in All Its Forms is an Existential Threat to Lebanon and the Lebanese People
November 17, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/11/136914/
Hezbollah’s Threat to Lebanon Is Beyond Armed Resistance
Hezbollah, the armed Iranian jihadist terrorist proxy, represents a multifaceted and existential threat that transcends its military capabilities. It poses a grave danger to Lebanon, the Arab world, Israel, and the international peace as a whole—whether it exists as an armed militia or a so-called political entity. Dismantling Hezbollah, disarming it, and prosecuting its leadership as enablers of the Shiite political Islamist ideology are crucial steps to preserving Lebanese, regional, and global stability.
The threat of Hezbollah lies in its religious ideology, which mirrors the Shiite branch of political Islam and is almost a carbon copy of the Sunni variant, with its extremist and jihadist organizations like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the Muslim Brotherhood offshoots. Despite sectarian differences, all political Islamist groups share a unified goal: imposing a totalitarian religious-political agenda that threatens nation-states, disrupts societal stability, and causes global unrest. Hezbollah’s Shiite agenda is no less dangerous or extreme than its Sunni counterparts.
Hezbollah Does Not Represent Shiites in Lebanon or the Arab World
Contrary to the propaganda spread by Iran and its so-called "Resistance Axis" in Lebanon and beyond, Hezbollah does not represent Lebanese or Arab Shiites. Instead, it stands as their greatest adversary. In the 1980s, through a conspiracy between Syria’s Assad regime and Iran’s mullahs, Hezbollah was created and equipped with extensive military, financial, and sectarian resources to hijack Lebanon's Shiite community and hold it hostage.
This destructive reality persists today, just last year, Hezbollah launched a war against Israel under direct Iranian orders, continuing it despite disastrous consequences on Lebanese Shiites, including destruction, death, impoverishment, humiliation, and displacement. Despite the devastation and suffering caused by its policies and wars in its areas of influence, Hezbollah persists in waging senseless battles solely to serve Iran’s regional agenda, which starkly opposes the interests of Shiites, Lebanon, and the Lebanese people. These suicidal policies underscore Hezbollah's loyalty to Iran, surpassing any concern for the community it falsely claims to defend and represent—its so-called “supportive-embracing base.”
Hezbollah’s Role in Undermining Lebanon’s Sovereignty
Since 2005, following Syria's forced withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah has entrenched itself as a "state within a state." It seized control of the government, coerced or bought off political parties and figures, and transformed Lebanon into an arms depot, monopolizing decisions of war and peace.
Despite this reality, most Lebanese politicians and leaders of corrupted political parties, driven by ignorance, opportunism, or betrayal, openly propose allowing Hezbollah to continue as a political party after its inevitable military defeat. This servile stance highlights the shortsightedness of these individuals, serving only Iran’s hegemonic agenda by ensuring Hezbollah's ideological and cultural dominance and extending its function as Tehran’s tool in the region.
The Heresy of the “Defense Strategy” Hoax
Amid this political and religious subjugation, calls have emerged to integrate Hezbollah’s weapons into a so-called “national defense strategy” or to incorporate thousands of its fighters into the Lebanese Army under the guise of “border guards.” These proposals are national betrayals designed to cement Hezbollah’s status as a parallel armed entity dominating the Lebanese Army's leadership and institutions, effectively creating a state within the state.
This is the same model Iran has promoted through the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and its militias in Syria, undermining the sovereignty of these nations’ governments. Hezbollah mirrors this structure in Lebanon today.
Iran: Chaos, Destruction, and the Fragmentation of States
Iran’s strategy is clear: weaken nation-states, empower sectarian militias loyal to Tehran, and consolidate its influence. In Lebanon, Hezbollah serves as Iran’s primary tool for maintaining its grip on the country. The same strategy is replicated in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, where Iranian militias systematically dismantle national institutions, replacing legitimate governance with chaos and mini-states.
The Path to Liberating Lebanon from Iranian Occupation
Dismantling Hezbollah, disarming it, and banning its participation in political life are essential preconditions for freeing Lebanon from Iranian occupation. The Lebanese people, alongside political, religious, academic, and partisan elites, must recognize a crucial truth: Hezbollah, in any form, is incompatible with sovereignty, constitutional governance, independence, democracy, freedoms, coexistence, and national unity. The international community must support Lebanon by exerting maximum pressure on Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors to dismantle the group, liberate the Shiites and all Lebanese from its authoritarian control, and restore Lebanon's sovereignty.
Lebanon’s future hinges on breaking the vicious cycle of occupations and external dependency that have plagued it since the 1970s. Achieving this requires the complete eradication of Hezbollah as a military force, its dissolution as a political entity, and its prosecution as an organization promoting terrorism and jihadist wars. Only then can Lebanon regain its sovereignty and lay the foundation for a stable and prosperous future.

Hezbollah Claims Downing Israeli Hermes 450 Drone
Asharq Al-Awsat – November 18, 2024
The Lebanese Hezbollah group announced early Tuesday that it had downed an Israeli drone with a surface-to-air missile in southern Lebanon. In a statement, the group said its fighters targeted an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over the town of Taybeh on Monday evening, shooting it down and observing it engulfed in flames. On Monday night, Hezbollah also declared it had launched drone strikes against sensitive military sites in Tel Aviv. The group stated that the operation, conducted in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza and in defense of Lebanon, involved a squadron of advanced assault drones targeting sensitive military points in Tel Aviv, which will be revealed later. No further details were immediately provided. Earlier, the Israeli military reported that debris from a rocket fired from Lebanon landed after being intercepted, causing injuries and material damage in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. Israeli media reported that five people were injured in the incident.

G20 Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon
Rio de Janeiro – Asharq Al-Awsat, November 18, 2024
The G20 nations issued a joint statement Monday evening at the conclusion of their summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, expressing unified support for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. The leaders said, “Deeply concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and the escalation in Lebanon, we stress the urgent need to increase humanitarian aid and enhance civilian protection.” The G20 also welcomed any "constructive initiatives" aimed at achieving a "comprehensive, just, and lasting peace" in Ukraine. In their two-day summit's final communiqué, leaders of the world's largest economies, including Russia, supported efforts aligned with UN principles to foster peaceful, friendly, and harmonious relations between neighboring states.

Netanyahu: Negotiating Under Fire; Hezbollah Still Has Missile Capability
Dubai – Al Arabiya Net, November 18, 2024
As hopes for a resolution to Lebanon's crisis dimmed following the postponement of U.S. Presidential Envoy Amos Hochstein's visit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized that negotiations are ongoing "under fire and bombardment." Netanyahu explained that Tel Aviv demands Hezbollah be pushed beyond the Litani River and the group’s rearmament through Syria be halted. While noting that Israel has destroyed 70–80% of Hezbollah's missile infrastructure, he acknowledged that the group retains significant missile capabilities. He also revealed that his government presented three options for dealing with Hezbollah but ultimately chose a fourth option: "destroying Hezbollah's missile capabilities." Netanyahu disclosed that the assassination of former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was approved by an overwhelming majority in the Israeli cabinet. He warned that if Hezbollah had executed its plans, the consequences would have been far more severe than the current situation in Gaza. These developments follow reports from U.S. officials that Hochstein postponed his trip to Beirut, citing the need for Lebanese clarity on a proposed ceasefire agreement. The U.S. envoy informed Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the delay, seeking specific responses from Lebanon before proceeding. Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram, aligned with Hezbollah, announced after meeting with Berri that the latter would deliver a positive response to Hochstein regarding the American proposal. However, Bayram insisted the situation now depends on Israel, which previously rejected a ceasefire and continued its aggression. The U.S. proposal reportedly includes provisions under UN Resolution 1701, emphasizing Lebanese Army control in southern Lebanon, the disarmament of militias, and an initial 60-day truce. Meanwhile, intense Israeli airstrikes continue across Lebanon, targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Bekaa Valley, and the south, alongside fierce clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in multiple border towns.

Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah: Netanyahu
AFP/November 18, 2024
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon. “The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament. “We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said. Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached. “We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said. Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year. Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday. Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.

Lebanon, Hezbollah agree to US proposal for ceasefire with Israel, Lebanese official says
Laila Bassam/November 18, 2024
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon and Hezbollah have agreed to a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire with Israel with some comments on the content, a top Lebanese official told Reuters on Monday, describing the effort as the most serious yet to end to the fighting. Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, said Lebanon had delivered its written response to the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon on Monday, and White House envoy Amos Hochstein was travelling to Beirut to continue talks. There was no immediate comment from Israel. Hezbollah, a heavily armed movement backed by Iran, endorsed its long-time ally Berri to negotiate over a ceasefire. "Lebanon presented its comments on the paper in a positive atmosphere," Khalil said, declining to give further details. "All the comments that we presented affirm the precise adherence to (U.N.) Resolution 1701 with all its provisions," he said. He was referring to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a previous war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Its terms require Hezbollah to have no armed presence in the area between the Lebanese-Israeli border and the Litani River, which runs some 30 km (20 miles) north of the frontier. Khalil said the success of the initiative now depended on Israel, saying if Israel did not want a solution, "it could make 100 problems". Israel has long claimed that Resolution 1701 was never properly implemented, pointing to the presence of Hezbollah fighters and weapons along the border. Lebanon has accused Israel of violations including flying warplanes in its airspace. Khalil said Israel was trying to negotiate "under fire", a reference to an escalation of its bombardment of Beirut and the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. "This won't affect our position," he said.

Public Health Emergency: 3,516 Martyrs and 14,929 Injured Since the Start of the Aggression
National News Agency – November 18, 2024
The Public Health Emergency Operations Center at the Ministry of Public Health released its daily report on the toll and repercussions of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Lebanon. According to the report, Israeli airstrikes on Sunday, November 17, 2024, resulted in 35 martyrs and 143 injured.

The cumulative toll since the beginning of the aggression has reached 3,516 martyrs and 14,929 injured.
Foreign Ministry Directs UN Mission to File Complaint Over Army Targeting

National News Agency – November 18, 2024
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants instructed Lebanon’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York to file a complaint with the UN Security Council in response to “Israel’s repeated targeting of the Lebanese Army.” The latest incident, which occurred on November 17, 2024, involved an attack on an army post in the town of Al-Mari in the Hasbaya district of southern Lebanon, resulting in the death of two soldiers and the injury of three others, one critically. This raises the total death toll among army personnel to 36 since October 8, 2023. Lebanon called on Security Council member states to “condemn Israel’s repeated attacks on the army, considering them a blatant violation of international law, the UN Charter, and international resolutions, particularly Resolution 1701.” The statement emphasized that the Lebanese Army is the cornerstone of implementing Resolution 1701 and ensuring sustainable security and stability in southern Lebanon by extending state authority across all its internationally recognized territories and borders in close coordination with UNIFIL. Lebanon stressed that “targeting the army undermines international efforts to implement Resolution 1701” and affirmed that “ensuring the safety and support of the army to fully carry out its duties is essential for strengthening security along Lebanon’s borders.”

Public Health Emergency: Final Casualty Count from Raids on Ras Al-Nabaa and Mar Elias
National News Agency – November 18, 2024
The Public Health Emergency Operations Center at the Ministry of Public Health announced that the final casualty count from the Israeli airstrike on Ras Al-Nabaa in Beirut stands at seven martyrs, including a woman, and 16 injured. The final count from the Israeli airstrike on Mar Elias in Beirut revealed three martyrs, including a woman, and 29 injured.

Deaths of a Mukhtar and Deputy Mayor in Tyre Amid Ongoing Strikes

National News Agency – November 18, 2024
A correspondent for the National News Agency reported the death of Mukhtar Samer Chaghri in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Tyre Water Company. The Deputy Mayor of Burj Al-Shamali was also killed in the strike, with two others injured. Tyre Municipality appealed to residents to "conserve water consumption until repairs to the damage caused by the aggression can be completed." The correspondent also noted an airstrike on the town of Kafra and reported artillery shelling with 155mm rounds targeting the towns of Mansouri and Bayyout Al-Sayyad. Both towns were also struck with phosphorus shells.

Recovery of Six Martyrs from the Islamic Health Authority in Braachit
National News Agency – November 18, 2024
Lebanese Red Cross teams and the International Committee of the Red Cross managed to enter the town of Braachit in the Bint Jbeil district and recover the bodies of six martyrs from the Islamic Health Authority. The martyrs were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting their center late last night.

US envoy heads to Beirut as Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire talks gain momentum
Tamara Qiblawi, Becky Anderson, Dana Karni and Jennifer Hansler, CNN/November 18, 2024
United States envoy Amos Hochstein is expected in Beirut on Tuesday, according to two Lebanese official sources, in what is seen as a sign of progress in ceasefire negotiations for the deadly cross-border conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The news comes after Beirut responded “positively” to a US-backed proposal to stop the Israel-Hezbollah war, per Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Makati. Speaking to Al Araby TV news channel on Monday, Makati said the Lebanese government had been seeking clarification on some “unclear points” in the ceasefire proposal, but that large parts of the draft agreement were resolved. Certain points would “clarification” through a “face to face” discussions with Hochstein, he added. US ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson relayed the proposal to the Lebanese government via Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker, on Thursday night, a Lebanese official told CNN earlier. According to the official, Hezbollah reviewed the proposal and submitted their response to Lebanese authorities on Sunday evening. The source described the response as largely “positive.” A source familiar with the situation told CNN that the negotiations on a diplomatic resolution are continuing and noted that Hochstein’s trip does not necessarily signal that a deal is imminent.
What’s in the ceasefire proposal
The US-backed proposal aims to achieve a 60-day cessation of hostilities and is being portrayed as the basis of a lasting ceasefire, according to the Lebanese official, adding that terms lie within the parameters of UN Resolution 1701 which ended the Lebanon-Israel war of 2006. The resolution stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces. The proposal also requires Israeli ground forces, operating in southern Lebanon since late September, to withdraw from the country and demands a stricter enforcement of resolution 1701, according to the Lebanese official. Both Israel and Lebanon have “reacted” to the proposal, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday. “We have been sharing proposals, both with the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel. Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward,” he said at a press briefing. Miller would not say if the US is optimistic about the prospects of reaching an agreement, but noted that “when you have a resolution in the interest of all the relevant parties, we ought to be able to get to an agreement, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”“We’re going to continue to stay at that process, because we believe a diplomatic resolution is key to allowing the fighting to stop, to protecting civilians and allowing the civilians in both Israel and Lebanon to return to their homes,” said Miller.
Israeli ‘operational freedom’
An Israeli source familiar with the talks however cast doubt on the likelihood of an imminent deal, noting that while progress has been made, Hezbollah’s refusal to accept Israel’s demand for the right to strike Hezbollah targets in the event of a ceasefire violation could jeopardize the process. Without this clause, the source added, it is uncertain whether Netanyahu can secure cabinet approval for the agreement. The Israeli source added that Hochstein has not yet confirmed when he will arrive in the region. Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right Israeli minister of finance, said on Monday that “full operational freedom” for the Israeli military in southern Lebanon is “a non-negotiable condition.” “At the end of the war, we will have operational freedom in Gaza, and so we will also have operational freedom in Lebanon. We will not agree to any arrangement that is not worth the paper it is written on,” he said. “We are changing the security paradigm and will not return to decades of concepts of containment and threats without response. This will not happen again.”In his interview with Al Araby TV, Mikati dismissed reports of demands to give the Israeli military operational freedom in south Lebanon as “speculation,” adding that he hasn’t seen such a clause in the proposal. Berri, who leads the Hezbollah-allied Amal party and is an interlocutor in the talks, told Saudi-owned Asharq Al Awsat newspaper on Friday that the proposal he received from the US does not include mention of Israeli military operational freedom in Lebanon, adding that the US knows that such a demand would be “unacceptable.”The Lebanese official who spoke to CNN also said the proposal does not refer to Israel’s right to continue striking Lebanon after a truce. The source also said Hezbollah has agreed to separate its conflict with Israel from Israel’s war in Gaza. Prior to Israel’s all-out offensive in late September, the militant group had insisted it would only cease near-daily attacks on Israel’s northern-most territories once a ceasefire was achieved in Gaza. According to multiple high-level Lebanese officials, Hezbollah had initially agreed to delink the two conflicts the night before its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September.Mikati said that his government is in contact with US President-elect Donald Trump’s team. Another Lebanese source familiar with the ceasefire talks told CNN earlier that President-elect Trump has endorsed Hochstein’s ceasefire negotiations track, increasing the chances of its success.
Israel is ‘ready to do’ a deal
Meanwhile, a senior US official told CNN that there is “no stock” in reports that Israel will try to delay a deal. “The Israelis have confirmed to us they’re ready to do it,” the source said. A deal with Hezbollah would “send a signal to Hamas” that Israel and its partners will do their utmost to secure a deal that brings back hostages held in Gaza, the US official said. “If we have a Lebanon deal, we’re going to come down like a ton of bricks on Hamas to try to get a hostage deal,” the official said, adding that Israel needs “to turn this military success… into a strategic success.” The US official said that the region was in a deadlock as Hamas refused to strike a ceasefire deal that returns Israeli hostages, and Hezbollah had vowed to keep fighting until Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza came to an end. While the US is not privy to all of Israel’s military plans, the official said, “having the degradation of Hezbollah helps” to strike an agreement. “To get a deal in Lebanon, Hezbollah has to be put under pressure,” the US official said, adding that “Hezbollah cannot rebuild its massive military infrastructure” across the border with Israel.
CNN’s Nadeen Ebrahim and Jenny Hansler contributed to this article.

US awaits Lebanon response to Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire plan

Hugo Bachega - BBC Middle East correspondent/November 18, 2024
Efforts for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified, with Lebanon's government expected to respond to a draft deal presented by the US, amid an escalation of Israel’s air attacks across the country. The strikes in the past week, which have killed dozens of people in Lebanon, appear aimed at putting pressure on both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to accept an agreement to end more than a year of conflict. Details of the proposal remained unclear, after it was delivered last week by the US ambassador to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has been backed by Hezbollah to negotiate. Lebanese media reported the text had been received “positively”. Israel has stepped up its air attacks on Lebanon’s south, where it also appears to be expanding a ground invasion, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut. In the capital, it has carried out the most violent wave of strikes yet on the southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, where Hezbollah is based. On Monday central Beirut was hit for the second consecutive day and at least five people were killed, the Lebanese health ministry said. A day earlier, the first air strikes in the area for about a month killed seven others, including Mohammed Afif, who acted as the Hezbollah spokesman and was one of the few remaining public faces of the group. The recent attacks are seen as part of Israel’s strategy to force Hezbollah and Lebanon to agree to a ceasefire, and an indication that it is prepared to expand its offensive by killing non-military members of the group and striking places outside areas where the movement has a strong presence, possibly to stir anti-Hezbollah sentiment. Mourners carry the body of Hezbollah's spokesman Mohammed Afif, who was killed by an Israeli strike on a building in central Beirut, during his funeral in Sidon, southern Lebanon (18 November 2024) A funeral for Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was held in the southern city Sidon on Monday [Reuters]
Since the conflict intensified in late September, Lebanese authorities have said any deal should be based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. The resolution includes the removal of the group’s fighters and weapons in areas between the Blue Line - the unofficial frontier between Lebanon and Israel - and the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the boundary with Israel. A potential agreement would likely include the creation of an international mechanism to monitor its implementation, and the deployment of thousands of additional troops of the Lebanese army to southern Lebanon. The deal would also stipulate a timeline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the south. A sticking point remains, however, related to Israel’s demand to have the right to act inside Lebanon if there is any violation of a deal - something the Lebanese authorities consider unacceptable. Amos Hochstein, who has led the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts, was expected to return to Beirut on Tuesday, but his trip has been delayed until there are more clarifications about the Lebanese position, the Axios website reported, quoting unnamed US officials. Israel’s stated goal in its war against Hezbollah is to allow the return of about 60,000 residents who have been displaced from communities in the country’s north because of Hezbollah’s rocket fire. The group launched its campaign the day after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel last year, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. In the past year, Israel’s attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 3,840 people and wounded nearly 15,000 others, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. More than one million people have been displaced, putting more pressure on a country that was already struggling to cope after years of a severe economic crisis. Hezbollah’s attacks have killed 31 soldiers and 45 civilians inside Israel, Israeli authorities say. On Monday, a woman was killed when a rocket hit a building in Shfaram, in the north, according to Israel’s ambulance service. Another 45 Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting in southern Lebanon. Israeli air strikes have destroyed large parts of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and killed many of its leaders, but the group continues to carry out daily attacks, although not with the same intensity.

Israeli airstrike hits central Beirut near key government buildings and embassies
Sally Abou Aljoud/The Associated Press/November 18, 2024
An Israeli airstrike slammed into a densely populated residential area in Lebanon’s capital near key government and diplomatic buildings late Monday, killing at least five people as the U.S. pressed ahead with cease-fire efforts. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two missiles hit the area of Zoqaq al-Blat neighborhood – where local U.N. headquarters and Lebanon’s parliament and prime minister’s office are located. Since late September, Israel has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon, vowing to severely weaken the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group and end its barrages in Israel that the militants have said are in solidarity with Palestinians during the war in Gaza. The U.S. has been working on a cease-fire proposal that would remove Israeli ground forces from Lebanon and push Hezbollah forces far from the Israeli border. Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who is mediating for the militants, is expected to meet with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein in the Lebanese capital on Tuesday. The White House has not confirmed Hochstein's visit. Labor Minister Mostafa Bayram, who met with Berri on Monday, said Lebanon would convey its “positive position” to the latest U.S. proposal. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strike, which also wounded 24 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Many areas in central Beirut, including Zoqaq al-Blat, have become a refuge for many of the roughly 1 million people displaced by the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. The strike also occurred near a Hussainiye, a Shia mosque. The target of the airstrike remained unclear, and the Israeli army did not issue a prior warning. Ambulance sirens echoed through the streets as an Associated Press photographer on the scene saw significant casualties on the street. It was the second consecutive day of Israeli strikes on central Beirut after more than a month-long pause. On Sunday, a strike in the area of Ras el-Nabaa killed Hezbollah media spokesperson Mohammed Afif, along with six other people, including a woman. Later that day, four people were killed in a separate strike in the commercial district of Mar Elias. The Israeli military has not said what the target of that strike was. Minutes after Monday's strike, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a post on X, “All countries and decision-makers are required to end the bloody and destructive Israeli aggression on Lebanon and implement international resolutions, most notably Resolution 1701.”
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, ended a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah and was intended to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. However, the resolution’s full implementation has faced challenges from both sides. The resolution is again on the table as part of an American proposal for a cease-fire deal, aiming to end 13 months of exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Israeli ground forces, who invaded southern Lebanon on Oct. 1, would fully withdraw from Lebanon, where the Lebanese army and the U.N. peacekeeping force UNIFIL would be the exclusive armed presence south of Lebanon’s Litani River. Hezbollah would withdraws from the area. A Western diplomat familiar with the talks told The Associated Press there is a sense of “cautious optimism.” The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes negotiations, said a final deal, however, was “still in the hands” of the warring players. Israel is said to be pushing for guarantees it can continue to act militarily against Hezbollah if needed, a demand the Lebanese are unlikely to accept. Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said Israel would continue attacking Hezbollah infrastructure while the US and other countries led negotiations for the ceasefire. “The military campaign will continue until the immediate threat from Lebanon is removed," he said.Also on Monday, Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles against Israel. A rocket that hit the northern Israeli city of Shfaram killed one woman and injured 10, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services. More then 3,500 people have been killed by Israeli fire, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. In Israel, 77 people, including 31 soldiers, have been killed by Hezbollah projectiles, while over 50 soldiers have been killed in the Israeli ground offensive. Israel has said it is targeting Hezbollah in order to ensure that thousands of Israelis can return to their homes near the border.

Lebanon, Hezbollah accept US ceasefire proposal as Israeli strike in Beirut kills 5
Riham Alkousaa and Ari Rabinovitch/USA TODAY/November 18, 2024
Lebanon and the militant group Hezbollah have agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal and made some comments on the content, a top Lebanese official told Reuters on Monday, describing the effort as the most serious yet to end weeks of fighting and Israeli bombardments. An Israeli airstrike killed five people in central Beirut on Monday, Lebanon's health ministry said, the second day in a row Israel hit a target within the capital as it presses its campaign against the Iran-backed armed group. Smoke was seen rising from the strike in the densely populated Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood, near the central Beirut district where the Lebanese government is headquartered. Two people were missing after the strike and another 31 were wounded, the ministry said. Israel has intensified its bombardment in and around the Lebanese capital over the last week, and Hezbollah has kept up missile fire into Israel, even as U.S.-led diplomacy to halt the fighting has progressed. More: Israeli strike on Beirut kills Hezbollah media head, Hezbollah confirms his death. A diplomat familiar with the talks cautioned that details still needed to be ironed out and these could still hold up a final agreement. U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein was expected in Beirut soon, a U.S. source told Reuters. Israel has dealt big blows to Hezbollah since late September, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes, and sending troops into southern Lebanon.Rocket sirens sounded across Tel Aviv and much of central Israel on Monday evening.More: Iran backs Lebanon in cease-fire talks, seeks end to 'problems'. Falling shrapnel from an intercepted missile hit a main street in a Tel Aviv suburb, according to the Israeli military, which said it was still investigating. The blast wounded six people, including a 54-year-old woman who was in serious condition, according to Israel's ambulance service.
Hezbollah said in a statement it launched a salvo of drone attacks at "sensitive military sites" in Tel Aviv. Earlier an Israeli woman was killed when a rocket struck a building in Shfaram, in the north, Israel's ambulance service said. The Israeli military said about five projectiles were fired from Lebanon.
Since Israel went on the offensive in September, the bulk of its airstrikes in the Beirut area have targeted the Hezbollah's strongholds in the southern suburbs. But on Sunday, Israel hit targets in the Beirut city limits for the first time in more than five weeks, killing 10 people in two separate strikes, including Hezbollah's top media official. Israel launched its offensive after almost a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah. Its declared goal is to dismantle Hezbollah's capabilities and secure the return of tens of thousands of Israelis who evacuated the north.Hezbollah has fired rockets at Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas since the Gaza war began more than a year ago. Israel's campaign has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon in the last eight weeks. World powers say a ceasefire must be based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Its terms require Hezbollah to move weapons and fighters north of the Litani River, about 30 km (20 miles) north of the Israeli border.
Terms for a truce
Hochstein, who has conducted several rounds of fruitless ceasefire talks over the last year, expressed hope last week that one could be reached. Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, said Lebanon had on Monday delivered its written response to the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon. Hezbollah, a heavily armed movement backed by Iran, has endorsed its long-time ally Berri to negotiate about a ceasefire. "All the comments that we presented affirm the precise adherence to (U.N.) Resolution 1701 with all its provisions," said Khalil. The success of the initiative now depended on Israel, Khalil said. If Israel did not want a solution, "it could make 100 problems," he added. There was no immediate comment from Israel on Lebanon's latest assessment of the diplomacy. Berri said earlier on Monday that he saw a positive atmosphere in the diplomacy but also cautioned against counting chickens before they were hatched, Labour Minister Mustafa Bayram said, speaking after a meeting with him. Israel's campaign has killed 3,481 people in Lebanon since hostilities began, most since late September, Lebanese authorities say. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Hezbollah strikes have killed 43 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, while 73 soldiers have been killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli figures.

Hezbollah's True Intentions Are Definitely Vicious, Jihadist, and Entirely Iranian
Lubos El Jerdi/November 18/2024
(Free translation, quotations, explanation and summary by Elias Bejjani, editor & publisher of the LCCC website)
This analysis written by the Canadian-Lebanese author delivers a scathing critique of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed, jihadist, and terrorist proxy operating in Lebanon under the guise of a Shiite Islamist political party and militant group. The author accuses Hezbollah of:
Plotting to establish an Islamic state: Hezbollah harbors malicious intentions to transform Lebanon into an Islamic state dominated by Shiites, governed by the Iranian doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist).
Exploiting the Palestinian cause: Hezbollah's professed support for Palestine is a deceptive facade, serving as a cover for its ultimate goal—creating a sectarian Shiite state loyal to Iran.
Resorting to aggression and land theft: The group employs violence, intimidation, and systematic land seizures to achieve its jihadist-Iranian ambitions.
Persecuting non-Shiite communities: Hezbollah is accused of marginalizing and displacing non-Shiites, particularly Christians, to entrench its sectarian hegemony.
Subverting state institutions: The group infiltrates and controls Lebanese state institutions, rendering the government a puppet in its hands and undermining national sovereignty.
The analysis is aptly titled: "What Are Hezbollah's True Intentions? Vicious, Jihadist, and Entirely Iranian."
Hezbollah: A Cancer in the Lebanese State
Hezbollah operates like a cancer, spreading its malign influence into every facet of Lebanon's public and private sectors. The group has effectively hijacked the country's rulers, officials, and judiciary, leaving no institution untouched by its sinister grip.
Where is this leading? Ultimately, Hezbollah seeks unchecked power to impose its rule. The late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was forthright about his goal: to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon governed by Iran’s Wilayat al-Faqih. The Palestinian cause served merely as a convenient cover to justify their agenda. However, the ongoing war with Israel has exposed their true intentions and derailed their Iranian-inspired scheme. Hezbollah's hubris led its leaders to believe they could overpower Israel, underestimating its military strength. The tables have now turned, and Hezbollah’s arrogance has brought its agenda into sharp focus.
Sectarian Rhetoric and Religious Intolerance
Chillingly, many prominent Shiite figures aligned with Hezbollah openly call for the expulsion of Christians, declaring Lebanon as an exclusively Shiite domain. Such hateful rhetoric not only sows division but also threatens Lebanon's pluralistic identity.
Ironically, while Lebanese citizens fear potential Israeli occupation, Hezbollah's reckless actions have played directly into Israel’s hands. Israel has exploited Hezbollah's miscalculations to significantly weaken the group.
Theft and Falsehood
Hezbollah’s aggressive land seizures and confiscation of private and communal properties expose its disregard for the rights of others. Under the guise of religious or ideological justifications, the group transforms falsehoods into “rights.”
A Call for Restraint
To Hezbollah, we say: Enough. Lebanon is not yours alone. Your destructive dreams are not shared by all Lebanese, and your actions have caused immeasurable harm. It is time to stop this madness and demonstrate restraint.
Key Takeaways
Strong anti-Hezbollah stance: The author condemns Hezbollah’s actions, exposing its crimes and destructive agenda. Sectarian and religious tensions: The analysis highlights Hezbollah's intent to dominate Lebanon at the expense of other communities, particularly Christians.
Geopolitical implications: Hezbollah’s missteps have inadvertently bolstered Israel’s strategic position, undermining its own objectives. Threat to sovereignty: Hezbollah’s control over state institutions erodes Lebanon’s sovereignty, turning the country into an extension of Iran’s regional ambitions.

Israel’s expanding efforts to disrupt Hezbollah’s supply chain
Emanuele Ottolenghi & Joe Truzman/| FDD's Long War Journal/November 18/2024
In recent years, Iran steadily built up Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon and Syria by shipping weapons, flying them in, and transporting them by truck. Weapons consignments arrived at ports and airports and were stored at warehouses in both countries before being distributed to Hezbollah units. Israel has sought to disrupt the flow of weapons, chiefly by bombing raids on targets in Syria (including the port of Latakia and the airport in Damascus). Since Hezbollah joined Hamas and opened a second front against Israel on October 8, 2023, Israel has hit targets in Lebanon as well. But Israel’s efforts to degrade and destroy Hezbollah’s arsenal and disrupt Iran’s efforts to resupply it have dramatically increased in tempo since September 28, the day after Israel eliminated Hezbollah’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
On that day, Israel interdicted an Iranian cargo plane as it made its final descent into Beirut airport, forcing it to return to Tehran. Following the interdiction, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson Daniel Hagari warned that the Israeli military would prohibit Iranian weapon transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IDF put Hagari’s words into action as Israeli interdictions occurred twice more before October 5, when Iranian cargo was permanently diverted to Latakia in Syria.
Supplies are now landing by plane in Latakia and reaching its Syrian port by cargo ship from Iran, with Israel making no attempts so far to disrupt the air traffic. Flight tracking data available from the commercial website FlightRadar24 show that, since September 28, when a cargo aircraft operated by the US-sanctioned, IRGC-controlled Qeshm Fars Air sought to land in Beirut, the same cargo plane flew four times to Latakia. Aircraft operated by Mahan Air and Yazd Airways—both A310 and A342 Airbus passenger planes—have flown to Latakia at least 17 times since September 28. Nevertheless, once an aircraft lands in Syria, the goods it carries have an additional hurdle to overcome—supplies must then safely travel to Lebanon.
Since September, Israel also bombed land border crossings between Lebanon and Syria more than once and targeted multiple warehouses in Syria. However, what remains open for weapons transport is the sea.
That’s where a daring naval raid comes in. Snatching a key operative in Hezbollah’s maritime operation is a sure way to gather critical intelligence about Iran’s supply chain to Hezbollah and the plans and capabilities of Hezbollah’s naval unit.
In the pre-dawn hours of November 1, 25 Israeli naval commandos quietly approached the shore of the northern Lebanese town of Batrun, more than 100 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border. The moonless night was perfect for a raid. After the commandos landed on the beach, they were already on their way out with their target safely in custody within minutes. The prisoner was Imad Fadel Amhaz, a 38-year-old officer in Lebanon’s navy and a trained pilot. The commandos seized his electronics and 10 SIM cards from foreign mobile phone operators as well.
The Israelis were clearly looking for intelligence. Hezbollah’s naval unit may be small and has seen little action over the years, but size and quality are not the same. Equipped with Russian-made Yakhont missiles, the naval unit can inflict serious harm to Israeli maritime forces. It did so in 2006, during the previous Israel-Hezbollah war, when Chinese-made C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles hit an Israeli frigate, crippling the boat and killing four crew.
Which brings us to Amhaz. Since his capture, the Hezbollah propaganda machine has been assiduously denying he had any official role in the terrorist group. Alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah-appointed minister of transport, Ali Hamie, who insisted that Amhaz was a civilian naval officer, Amhaz’s family members reported the same to Lebanese media. The Israelis, in contrast, have been mum, other than confirming the raid and identifying Amhaz as a key member of Hezbollah’s naval unit.
Records obtained from Lebanon’s commercial registry and leaked files from Hezbollah’s bank, Al Qard Al Hassan (AQAH), do not reveal any direct link between Amhaz and Hezbollah. However, several members of his family, including his paternal uncles Ahmad, Jawdat, and Mohamad, are AQAH account holders, while his paternal uncle Hussein is listed as an account holder and a non-military Hezbollah member. These ties are not enough to confirm or deny what Israel claims but sufficient to suggest that his family, several members of which bank with AQAH, is within Hezbollah’s orbit.
One thing, however, seems beyond dispute. As a naval officer and a ship captain, Amhaz could be involved in maritime shipping between Syria and Lebanon. Among friends who liked his social media posts showing a large ship’s command deck (or bridge), there are several Syrian naval officers based in Latakia and Tartous, including one who studied at MERSATI, the same maritime school where Amhad reportedly did his training.
The evidence that has emerged is quite convincing that Iran is exploiting maritime routes to conceal weapons shipments to Hezbollah, and the port of Latakia has become a critical part of this strategy. It should not come as a surprise. Hezbollah has also been using Latakia as a logistics hub for fenethylline shipments, and what moves illegal drugs can also move weapons.
One scheme involves Iran attempting to evade Israeli intelligence by using European sea ports to mask weapons shipments, which are subsequently ferried to Latakia before being transported to Lebanon, The Telegraph reported.
Furthermore, recent Israeli strikes at Latakia port lend credibility to The Telegraph’s findings.
In October, the IDF launched two strikes against the coastal city. Social media footage showed secondary explosions when a site was targeted on October 17, providing strong evidence that weapons were stored there.
While Latakia’s strategic position as a hub for Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah is evident, other ports, such as Baniyas, have also played a role in facilitating illicit arms shipments.
Baniyas is a hub for oil imports, with Iranian vessels frequently docking there. In recent years, Israel has conducted airstrikes at the port, reportedly aimed at weapons transfers and Iranian military personnel. On July 9, Syrian state-controlled media reported IDF airstrikes near Baniyas that “caused some material losses.” The attacks are yet another indication of the ongoing confrontations between Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah over these critical maritime routes.
Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 is a partner in Iran’s strategy to exploit maritime routes to arm its Lebanese proxy. Hezbollah established the special division after the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in 2008. The unit is primarily tasked with handling Iranian weapons smuggling, including precision-guided munitions and long-range rockets. As a part of Israel’s strategy to prevent Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah during the current conflict, the Israeli military has carried out strikes against Unit 4400’s leadership and infrastructure.
On October 25, 2024, Israeli jets targeted Hezbollah infrastructure at the Syrian-controlled Jusiyah Border Crossing in the northern Beqaa Valley. This location had been utilized by Unit 4400 to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. According to the IDF, the strike was part of a series of attacks that month aimed at border crossings that Unit 4400 was exploiting along the Syria-Lebanon frontier.
Several weeks before the strike in Jusiyah, Israel targeted Building 14 in the al-Sheikh Saad area of the Mezzeh neighborhood in southern Damascus. The attack eliminated “Hajj Samer,” a commander in Unit 4400.
It’s clear that Iran and its partners in the region are using every method available to them to transfer illicit weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This strategy has been successful. Despite Israel’s efforts to interdict the transfer of these arms, the current conflict in Lebanon demonstrates that advanced weapons have still reached Hezbollah. Furthermore, Hezbollah has not been shy about showing off some of the arsenals it has received from its patron in Tehran. Ballistic missiles, anti-air defense systems, and drones are just some of the arms displayed by the group.
It is noteworthy that over the years, Iran has acquired significant expertise in transferring arms to its proxy in Lebanon through land, air, and sea routes. These lessons are now being mirrored with other Iranian proxies in regions such as Iraq and Yemen.Israel’s supply chain disruption is not going to deprive Hezbollah of access to weapons completely. Hezbollah has also pursued the capabilities to manufacture advanced weapons on a large scale in Lebanon, with some measure of success. Regardless, the group remains heavily dependent on Iranian resupply, and Israel’s interdictions of air and land supply routes to Lebanon confirm this. What intelligence Israel may be able to extract from Mr. Amhaz remains to be seen. But the key to starving Hezbollah’s arsenal must include shutting down its sea lanes, and a pre-dawn raid in Batrun may have given Israel the knowledge it needs to do it.
*Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on national security and foreign policy. Joe Truzman is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an editor at FDD’s Long War Journal.

The Return of Hochstein and Return of the Lebanese State
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/November 18/2028
A home is meant to protect you and your children. It is meant to protect you from rain, storms and fears. It is meant to harbor dreams and safeguard memories. Homes are meant to be there when children go to school and return. Home is your nation inside the nation.
But you have grown too comfortable. War has come back as it always does. The roof of the home is fragile like the nation. Avichay Adraee issues an open warning: leave or be ground by the rubble. Become displaced or a corpse. Adraee is backed by a terrible arsenal. The Israeli killing machine doesn’t take long to arrive with its artificial intelligence and American missiles. You have no choice but to seek a displacement shelter and await Amos Hochstein’s return.
This has been our case for decades. The Israeli jet and American envoy. Where can we go?
Luckily, the wounds of the past two decades haven’t erased the Lebanese people’s sense of national and humanitarian solidarity, despite the deteriorating relations between various Lebanese “islands”. The “islands” do not hide their opposition to the “unity of arenas.” They believe that the weapons “must be limited to legitimate forces alone, as should the decision of war and peace.” They believe that the “support front did not save Gaza, but rather led Lebanon to the situation it is in right now.” They believe that “Israel’s hostile intentions are clear for everyone to see and so, we must not give it any excuse to act on them.” They also believe that the “unity of arenas is much greater than Lebanon’s ability to withstand and the same goes for Hezbollah’s regional role.”
The regular Lebanese citizen knows what Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Mikati know: the only number they can call now is Hochstein’s. The same Hochstein whose proposals Lebanon rejected months ago. There can be no delusions over this issue. Hochstein is not a representative of a charity or relief agency. He is the envoy of the American administration that was quick to contain the repercussions of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation and condemned the “support front” from day one. The Lebanese citizen knows that the US is a partner with Israel in dismantling the “unity of arenas” and in taking southern Lebanon out of the Israeli military conflict. The Lebanese people know this, but they have no choice but to deal with Hochstein.
Meanwhile, Israel has expanded its destructive war. Its goal is clear: make Hezbollah’s popular support base pay a terrible price for embracing the party, “unity of arenas” and “support front”. Israel wants the popular base to drown in rubble and displacement and its ensuing tensions.
Drowning one segment of the population means drowning the whole of Lebanon with it. No Lebanese segment can abandon the other. The fate of the Lebanese people is connected no matter how much they are divided. Israel has displaced over a million Lebanese people. It is as if it wants to destroy the entire popular environment. Some believe that Israel wants to reignite internal strife in Lebanon and lead the Lebanese to fight each other amid the rubble of their country when the war stops.
Lebanon awaits Hochstein as the entire world awaits Donald Trump to officially assume the US presidency in two months. The fate of the American envoy’s mission cannot be separated from the discussions going on about what will happen to Iran during Trump’s second term in office. If the reports are true, Trump will kick off the term by tightening the grip on the Iranian economy.
There is no doubt that Hezbollah’s agreement to seriously implement Resolution 1701 needs Iran’s approval. The issue may be more complicated than that. The Trump administration seems unwilling to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear file alone, like Barack Obama’s administration did. Rather, it wants the negotiations to cover Iran’s proxies.
Lebanon urgently needs a ceasefire to avert the total collapse. No one can withstand the consequences of the exchange of blows between Iran and Israel, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government threatens to expand its targets in Iran to include highly sensitive locations. So, we must turn to Hochstein who at the moment holds the only key, which is implementing Resolution 1701.
The implementation of Resolution 1701 is extremely important, but it’s not enough to save Lebanon. Lebanese official have repeatedly heard from international parties that rebuilding Lebanon demands the establishment of a normal Lebanese state and that the world will not offer aid if its results will turn to dust in the next war. This means that the Lebanese people find themselves confronted with the need to take bold and painful decisions.
The first decision should be returning decision-making to the Lebanese state and its institutions. This clearly means returning from the era of arenas to the era of the state. This means the Lebanese must return to the Taif Accord and return normalcy to state institutions.
Hochstein may be able to stop the war in southern Lebanon, but rebuilding the Lebanese home demands that the Lebanese unit under its institutions and that they overcome the bitter experiences of the past. Hezbollah, which has been dealt devastating blows to its leadership and popular base, is therefore demanded to take painful decisions.
The months that separate us from the Trump presidency will be very dangerous. Israel’s barbarity knows no bounds. We need Hochstein and we need to take painful decisions. Taking these decisions today is better than taking them after the total collapse. Hochstein’s return is not enough. We must return to the state. The state alone can tend to the wounds of the targeted segment and the tend to the fears of all others.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 18-19/2024
Canada foils Iranian plot to assassinate pro-Israel human rights lawyer - report
Jerusalem post/November 18/2024
Irwin Cotler is a human rights lawyer, a member of Parliament, and former justice minister in a Liberal government, serving between 2003 and 2006. Iran allegedly planned to assassinate Canadian human rights activist Irwin Cotler, but the plot was foiled by Canadian law enforcement, The Globe and Mail reported on Monday. A source told The Globe and Mail that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) informed Cotler in October that he faced an immediate threat of assassination from Iranian agents within 48 hours. The source said that Canadian authorities knew of two suspects in the plot, but it remains unknown whether they were arrested or fled Canada. According to The Globe and Mail, Cotler has been under constant RCMP protection for over a year since the October 7 attacks, as Cotler has been active in condemning Hamas, an Iranian proxy. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service told Cotler that he was a high-profile target of Iran. RCMP protection included bulletproof vehicles, armed officers, and other security measures meant to protect Cotler.
Who is Irwin Cotler?
Cotler is a human rights lawyer, a member of Parliament, and former justice minister in a Liberal government, serving between 2003 and 2006. Since 2008, Cotler has been part of the global campaign to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, the Globe and Mail reported. He supports Israel and works to counter antisemitism, and has also represented Iranian political prisoners as a human rights lawyer. Cotler served as Canada's first special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism from 2020-2023, as well as founded and chaired the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, the Globe and Mail noted. Cotler has been a vocal critic of Iran and other authoritarian governments and has criticized the Islamic Republic's funding of Hamas.

Former justice minister Irwin Cotler says RCMP told him Iranian plot to kill him was foiled
CBC/Mon, November 18, 2024 at 12:15 p.m. EST·3 min read
The RCMP has told former justice minister Irwin Cotler that a plot by agents of Iran to assassinate him was foiled. As first reported by the Globe and Mail, the 84-year-old former Liberal MP was informed last month that a plot to assassinate him within 48 hours had been discovered. Cotler, a human-rights advocate and an outspoken critic of the regime in Tehran, confirmed the Globe and Mail report and told Radio-Canada on Monday that he has been under police protection for over a year. That protection, Cotler said, remains in place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and involves the use of an armoured car, armed protection officers and other security measures. The Globe and Mail reported the threat level faced by Cotler had been reduced; Cotler himself could not confirm that part of the report. It's also not known whether suspects have been arrested or have fled the country. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) issued a statement on X thanking police for thwarting the assassination plot. "This should be a wake-up call for anyone who doesn't believe defenders of Israel and human rights are under threat worldwide," the statement said. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, a Bloc Québécois MP and human rights critic, told the House of Commons on Monday his party will never accept that anyone's life should be endangered over their opinions."We unreservedly condemn the death threats against Mr. Cotler and we condemn the growing temptation of foreign powers to commit political assassinations on Canadian and Quebec soil," Brunelle-Duceppe said Monday. "Mr Cotler, you are not alone."After question period, Brunelle-Duceppe introduced a motion to the House asking all MPs to condemn the death threats against Cotler and recognize his work to promote human rights. The motion was accepted by unanimous consent.
U.S. linked two Canadians to previous murder plot
Earlier this month, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied U.S. claims that Tehran was linked to an alleged plot to kill Donald Trump. Washington said Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards engaged in a murder-for-hire plot to kill Trump. U.S. authorities charged a man connected to the plot before the U.S. election. Investigators said they learned of the plot from Farhad Shakeri, an alleged Iranian government asset who authorities say maintains a web of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment alleging two Canadians planned to conduct assassinations in the U.S. on behalf of Iran's Intelligence services. The indictment identifies one Canadian suspect as Damion Patrick John Ryan, a full-patch member of the Hells Angels criminal gang who is accused of assembling a team of gunmen in late 2020 and early 2021. Ryan allegedly was working with another Canadian, Adam Richard Pearson, who was living illegally in Minnesota at the time. U.S. authorities say the men were hired by an accused Iranian drug dealer who operates on the instructions of a certain officer with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The men are accused of plotting to shoot a man and woman living in Maryland, one of them a defector from Iran. According to the indictment, Pearson promised that he would recruit people and tell them to shoot the victims repeatedly in the head in order to make an example of them.

Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics
Reuters/November 18, 2024
CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed 18 Palestinians on Monday, including six people who were killed in attacks on tents housing displaced families, medics said. Four people, two of them children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, designated as a humanitarian zone, while two were killed in temporary shelters in the southern city of Rafah and another in drone fire, health officials said. In Beit Lahiya town in northern Gaza, medics said an Israeli missile struck a house, killing at least two people and wounding several others. On Sunday, medics and residents said dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a multi-floor residential building in the town. The Israeli military, which has been fighting Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said it conducted strikes on “terrorist targets,” in Beit Lahiya. An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City killed five people and wounded 10 others, medics said. Later on Monday, an Israeli air strike killed four people in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, they added. There has been no Israeli comment on Monday’s incidents. In Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike on tents housing displaced families sat beside bodies wrapped in blankets and white shrouds to pay farewell before walking them to graves. “My brother wasn’t the only one; many others have been martyred in this brutal way — children torn to pieces, civilians shredded. They weren’t carrying weapons or even know ‘the resistance’, yet they were ripped apart into fragments,” said Mohammed Aboul Hassan, who lost his brother in the attack. “We remain steadfast, patient, and resilient, and by the will of God, we will never falter. We will stay steadfast and patient,” he told Reuters.
The Israeli army sent tanks and soldiers into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, early last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas militants waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, said the hospital was under siege by Israeli forces and the World Health Organization had been unable to deliver supplies of food, medicine and surgical equipment.
Cases of malnutrition among children were increasing, he said, and the hospital was operating at a minimal level. “We receive daily distress calls, but we are unable to assist them due to the lack of ambulances, and the situation is catastrophic,” he said. “Yesterday, I received a distress call from women and children trapped under the rubble, and due to my inability to help them, they are now among the martyrs (dead).” Israel said it had killed hundreds of militants in the three northern areas, which residents said was cut off from Gaza City, making it difficult and dangerous for them to flee. The armed wings of Hamas and militant group Islamic Jihad said they have killed many Israeli soldiers in anti-tank rocket and mortar fire attacks during the same period. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 43,800 people have been confirmed killed since the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in attacks on communities in southern Israel that day, and hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, ac

Five wounded in Tel Aviv area rocket strikes: first responders
AFP/November 18, 2024
JERUSALEM: Five people were injured Monday in the suburbs of Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv, including one woman in serious condition, after rocket fire hit central Israel, first responders said. Air raid sirens had sounded earlier in Tel Aviv and in several cities of central Israel, Israel’s civil defense command said. The military said it had “intercepted one projectile” that crossed from Lebanon while Israeli police said they received reports of rocket debris falling in the Tel Aviv area. The Magen David Adom service said its first responders evacuated five injured people to hospitals following rocket strikes in the Ramat Gan region, near Tel Aviv. AFPTV footage shot in Ramat Gan around 10:00 p.m. (2000 GMT) showed a fire that started on a sidewalk at the base of a transmission tower, as well as surrounding buildings with blown windows. Earlier, a spokesman for Israeli firefighters said a rocket strike killed a woman in the northern Israeli town of Shfaram, east of the Haifa area. The military said Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, fired around 100 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israel on Monday, while Israel’s air force carried out more deadly strikes on Beirut. Israel and Hezbollah have been at war since September.

Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say
Reuters/November 18, 2024
GENEVA/CAIRO: Nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the enclave, where hunger is deepening, two UN agencies told Reuters on Monday. The convoy transporting food provided by UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Programme was instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from Kerem Shalom border crossing, said Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer. Ninety-eight of the 109 trucks in the convoy were raided and some of the transporters were injured during the incident, she said, without detailing who carried out the ambush. “This ... highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” she told Reuters. “⁠The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated; without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive.”The Hamas TV channel Al-Aqsa quoted Hamas interior ministry sources in Gaza as saying that over 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by Hamas security forces in coordination with tribal committees.It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with “an iron fist.”A WFP spokesperson confirmed the looting and said that many routes in Gaza were currently impassable due to security issues. An Israeli official said Israel had been working to address the humanitarian situation since the start of its war against Hamas, adding that the main problem with aid deliveries was UN distribution challenges. A UN aid official said on Friday that access for aid to Gaza had reached a low point, with deliveries to parts of the Israeli-besieged north of the enclave all but impossible. Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza was triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.

Netanyahu says Israel's October attack hit a component in Iran nuclear programme
Reuters/November 18, 2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel's air attack on Iran last month hit an element of Tehran's nuclear programme while degrading its defence and missile production capabilities. "It's not a secret," Netanyahu said in a speech in parliament. "There is a specific component in their nuclear programme that was hit in this attack,"He did not identify the component, but added that Iran's path to a nuclear weapon had not been blocked. On Oct. 26, Israeli fighter jets carried out three waves of attacks on Iranian military targets, a few weeks after Iran had fired a barrage of about 200 ballistic missiles against Israel. This followed a previous exchange of direct attacks in April. Netanyahu, in his speech, offered a few more details on what Israel had targeted. Israel's April strike, he said, was narrower, taking out one of four Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile defence batteries around Tehran, the Iranian capital. He said that in October, Israel destroyed the remaining three batteries and caused serious damage to Iran's ballistic missile production capabilities and its ability to produce solid fuel, which is used in long-range ballistic missiles.

Latin American nations demand action against Iranian threats, declare solidarity with Israel

Jerusalem post/November 18/2024
CAM forum in Costa Rica highlights Latin America’s role in combating antisemitism and supporting Israel’s security. eaders from 19 Latin American countries signed a joint statement affirming solidarity with Israel and backing its right to self-defense at the Combat Antisemitism Movement's (CAM) fourth annual Latin American Forum Against Antisemitism held last week in Costa Rica, the organization announced on Sunday. The declaration calls for implementing zero-hate policies, adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of Antisemitism, developing educational initiatives and interfaith programming, and demanding accountability for terrorist activities in the region – including the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires and the downing of Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 over Panama in 1994. CEO of CAM Sacha Roytman Dratwa highlighted that "no region of the world is immune to the proliferation of antisemitism." She additionally highlighted how Latin American Jewish communities have historically been targeted by Iranian-backed terror. "The forum sent a resounding message of regional solidarity and allyship with the Jewish people and the State of Israel during a time of unprecedented levels of antisemitism worldwide and rising threats from the Tehran regime and its terrorist proxies, including in Latin America, where Jewish communities have already been victimized by Iranian aggression in the past," Dratwa said.
Bring them home
A portion of the declaration centered on the hostages still held in captivity in Gaza. "We IMPLORE world leaders to exert maximum pressure on Hamas to immediately release all of the approximately 101 men, women, and children who remain in captivity in Gaza after being brutally kidnapped from inside Israel on October 7."Speakers at the forum included Ambassador to Costa Rica Michal Gur-Aryeh and Chair of the CAM Advisory Board for Latin America Pilar Rahola. According to Aaron Keyak, the US deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Latin America has "a crucial role to play in the global fight against antisemitism." The four-day forum, in partnership with the World Zionist Organization, featured new research on antisemitism in Latin America since October 7, a Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony, panels examining the evolution of antisemitism and discussions on implementing measures to combat antisemitism in the region. At Costa Rica's legislative assembly, forum attendees met with Latin American lawmakers who presented initiatives to combat antisemitism and hate speech. Shay Salamon, the director of Hispanic Affairs of CAM, said the forum represents a step toward uniting Latin American countries against rising antisemitism. "The breadth of participation and depth of commitment demonstrated here shows that Latin America stands ready to act together against hatred and discrimination," Salamon said.

Russia's engagement with the Houthis as they lob missiles at ships is getting 'serious,' US official says
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/November 18, 2024
Russia could decide to help the Houthis with their Red Sea attacks and is engaging with the Iran-backed rebels at a "serious level," a senior US State Department official said. The Houthis have long received extensive support from Iran, including weapons and training, which the rebels have relied on over the past year to carry out attacks on military and civilian vessels transiting key Middle Eastern shipping lanes. But the State Department has grown increasingly concerned in recent months that the Houthis could be receiving assistance from another country: Russia, US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking told Business Insider in a recent interview. "It does seem as though there is a fairly serious level of engagement happening," Lenderking said of the Houthis and Russia. "We are particularly concerned about the kind of equipment that would really enable the Houthis to be more accurate in their targeting of US and other ships in the region — that would enhance the Houthi capability to strike those targets." Lenderking said the US has discussed the situation at "high levels" with Saudi Arabia, a partner nation that fought the Houthis for years, and with Russia as well. The relationship between Washington and Moscow has been fraught with tension since the latter invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The US has also made efforts to convey messages to the Houthis. Lenderking said that the Yemeni rebels appear to be determined to strike the American and European warships that have spent the past year defending merchant shipping from their relentless attacks. "The fact that the Russians might assist in this effort is diabolical," Lenderking said. "It's a very strong concern." The full scope of Russian support for the Houthis is unclear. Some Western media reports suggest that Moscow has already provided the rebels with targeting data and small arms and was considering supplying them with missiles — a development that could significantly escalate the conflict. The Houthis are known to have received help from outside of Yemen. A recent United Nations report found that the rebels have been getting weapons, training, technical assistance, and financial support from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and armed Iraqi groups. Newly affiliated Houthi fighters shout slogans while attending a demonstration against Israel and in solidarity with Palestinians in Yemen in October. Newly affiliated Houthi fighters shout slogans while attending a demonstration against Israel and in solidarity with Palestinians in Yemen . Russia and Iran have increased their military ties since the start of the Ukraine war. Tehran has provided Moscow with lethal aid, including missiles and drones similar to what it has given the Houthis in previous years. Both countries have been isolated on the world stage over their malign actions and involvement in Ukraine. The Houthis have used their arsenal of missiles and drones over the past year to tirelessly carry out attacks on military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, a campaign that the rebels claim is connected to the Israel-Hamas war. American forces operating in the region in defense of the merchant shipping lanes are frequently tasked with intercepting Houthi threats. Just last week, for instance, two US Navy destroyers had to fend off a complex missile and drone attack. The US also routinely carries out airstrikes in Yemen, targeting rebel missile systems, weapons storage facilities, and other sensitive sites in an effort to curb their ability to carry out the attacks. Lenderking said that the Houthis still "maintain the ability to launch pretty aggressively at passing ships," but the US is committed to keeping shipping lanes open in the Red Sea.

UK announces fresh sanctions against Iran’s air and shipping operators
David Lynch, PA Political Correspondent/PA Media: UK News/November 18, 2024
Iran’s national airliner Iran Air will be subject to an asset freeze in response to the country’s transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia. Shipping carrier the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines has been sanctioned for its role in transporting Iranian military supplies and the Russian cargo ship Port Olya-3 has been sanctioned for carrying missiles from Iran to Russia. Foreign Secretary David Lammy is expected to address the new sanctions as he speaks at the United Nations Security Council in New York on Monday. “Iran’s attempts to undermine global security are dangerous and unacceptable,” he is expected to say. “Alongside our international partners, we were clear that any transfer of ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia would face a significant response. “That’s why today we are sanctioning Iran Air and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, in response to Iran’s deliveries of ballistic missiles to Russia. “We reiterate our call on Iran to cease its support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine which continues to bring devastation to the Ukrainian people. We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
It comes after the Government moved in September to halt flights to Iran, which was attributed to the Middle Eastern nation’s supply of weapons to Russia. At the G20 summit in Brazil, Sir Keir Starmer will press world leaders about more support for Ukraine to defend against Russia’s forces as he marks 1,000 days since the conflict began. The UK has sanctioned more than 450 Iranian individuals and entities, including those responsible for spreading Tehran’s influence across the globe. Britain has also sanctioned 2,100 individuals and entities involved in the Russian regime, with more than 1,900 since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.

US sanctions group that builds illegal West Bank settlements, with close ties to Israeli government
Fatima Hussein And Julia Frankel/WASHINGTON (AP) /November 18, 2024
The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions on organizations and firms involved in illegal settlement development in the occupied West Bank, including a well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership. Treasury sanctioned Amana, the largest organization involved in illegal settlement development in the West Bank, and its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd. Already sanctioned by Britain and Canada, Amana is one of the major funders and supporters of unauthorized settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Peace Now, a settlement tracking group, says its assets are valued at around 600 million Israeli shekels, or about $160 million, and that it has a yearly budget stretching into tens of millions of shekels. Amana, which is based in the West Bank and has no known connection to the U.S. appliance maker, over the past few years has underwritten loans, signed contracts, bought equipment and funded infrastructure projects for new settlements, according to Peace Now. The settlements, small farming outposts, have become some of the primary drivers of violence and displacement of Palestinians living in the West Bank. Additionally, the State Department imposed diplomatic sanctions on Eyal Hari Yehuda Co., which provides construction logistics to sanctioned groups, as well as company owner Itamar Yehuda Levi. The co-founder of the already sanctioned nonprofit group Hashomer Yosh, Shabtai Koshlevsky, and Israeli citizen Zohar Sabah, who has perpetrated acts of violence on Palestinians, also were hit with sanctions. The penalties come as settlers in the territory celebrate the incoming Trump administration, believing it will likely take a more favorable approach to the settlements. During his first term, Trump took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. Treasury’s Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the U.S. “remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to facilitate these destabilizing activities, which threaten the stability of the West Bank, Israel, and the wider region.”Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them.
In February, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that targets Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory. That order is used to justify the financial penalties against the companies and men.
In response, Texans for Israel, a Christian nonprofit, Israeli nonprofit Regavim and others in August sued the Biden administration in Amarillo, Texas, over its sanctions against Israeli extremists in the West Bank. Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who has spent years campaigning for the sanctions on violent West Bank settlers, said the sanctions on Amana were “an earthquake for the settlement project and especially the shepherds farms.” He called on the U.S. to extend the sanctions now to firebrand Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also a far-right settler in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet.
Amana’s leadership has appeared at pro-settlement events alongside Cabinet members. Peace Now says the group’s secretary-general, Zeev Hever, was greeted by Smotrich at a June conference where Smotrich laid out his plans for the West Bank. Violence against Palestinians and their displacement have only picked up since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Around 8,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank during that time and over 700 killed, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Palestinian health officials.
The Associated Press previously reported that the sanctions measures have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers as attacks and land-grabs escalate, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP. Additionally, Smotrich has previously vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’ behalf. Israel captured the West Bank along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. Settlement growth and construction have been promoted by successive Israeli governments stretching back decades, but it has exploded under Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, which has settlers in key Cabinet posts. There are now well over 100 settlements and 500,000 Israeli settlers sprawling across the territory from north to south — a reality, rights groups say, dimming any hopes for an eventual two-state solution. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “we once again call on the Government of Israel to take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land. The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who further destabilize conditions in the West Bank and support extremist violence in the region.”

The silenced suffering of Iran’s youth and the deafening silence of the West - opinion
CATHERINE PEREZ-SHAKDAM/Jerusalem post/November 18/2024
In the end, it is not only Iran’s youth who suffer under this hypocrisy; it is the integrity of human rights itself.
As six young Iranians now await execution in what is chillingly known as the “Ekbatan Case,” the Iranian regime once again reveals its brutal commitment to suppressing dissent.
Their names – Milad Armon, Alireza Kafaei, Amir Mohammad Khosh Ighbal, Navid Najaran, Hossein Nemati, and Alireza Baramarz Pournak – will likely vanish into the abyss if the Islamic Republic of Iran has its way.
Their “crime”? Taking part in a movement that demanded nothing more than dignity and the right to a voice. In the “Woman Life Freedom” movement of 2022, sparked by the tragic killing of Mahsa Amini, these young Iranians dared to imagine a future free from the stranglehold of a regime that views every breath of liberty as a mortal threat. The Islamic Republic’s unyielding response to these protests is as strategic as it is ruthless. Arrested, paraded before courts notorious for rubber-stamping sentences of death, and confined in some of Iran’s most infamous prisons, these young men and women are offered no justice. Trials are mere formalities, judgments predetermined, and the sentences – death by hanging – are delivered without a hint of remorse.
As the executions loom, one might expect an outcry from global champions of human rights and a surge of outrage from those who claim to stand with the oppressed. But here lies the insidious hypocrisy of the modern-day liberal Left. Western blindness
In Western capitals, selective blindness has settled over the progressive movements and voices that proclaim themselves defenders of justice. There is passion, of course, but only when the cause fits a preferred narrative. Observe the throngs rallying in European streets in “solidarity” with the Palestinian cause, voicing calls for “freedom” while aligning with pro-Hamas factions that openly call for the destruction of Israel. These crowds, with their slogans of liberation, claim the moral high ground, yet they are conspicuously silent when it comes to the cries of Iran’s youth, who face not merely political oppression but the ultimate penalty for daring to speak out. One cannot escape the bitter irony that those who raise banners of “Freedom for Palestinians” often refuse even a whisper of solidarity for Iranian citizens who face the noose for daring to seek freedom in their own homeland. The moral compass of those voices, quick to castigate Western democracies, grows suspiciously quiet when it comes to the brutal suppression and state-sanctioned murder carried out by Iran’s ruling regime.
And so, we are forced to ask: Where are the self-proclaimed champions of human rights, those tireless voices for “justice”? Where are the mass protests in London, Paris, and Berlin for these young Iranians who risk everything to break their chains?
Yet beyond the silence lies an even darker reality. Crowds have been co-opted into endorsing the regime’s narrative to such an extent that they have become indifferent, perhaps even blind, to the true implications of their stance. By aligning themselves with slogans crafted by the Islamic Republic, these activists and protesters unwittingly lend credibility to a regime that has made brutality its default policy not only in Iran but throughout the infamous Shia Crescent.
The cries of “resistance” and “liberation” have become twisted mantras, recycled and repurposed to veil the suffering inflicted upon Iran’s own people. Such allegiance, whether given knowingly or ignorantly, supports a narrative that despises dissent, that brands anyone who dares challenge the regime’s stranglehold as a heretic to be silenced. IN THEIR eagerness to appear “on the right side of history,” many in the West have fallen victim to a moral rot that appears to have spread unchecked. The callous indifference shown to Iran’s plight is not merely a lapse in judgment but an abdication of the very principles these voices claim to uphold. By parroting slogans tailored to suit the regime’s purposes, they forsake the real victims of tyranny and feed a perverse cycle of support for the oppressor. This is not simply a failure of activism; it is a grotesque betrayal of those who, unlike the pro-regime crowds, are not calling for the destruction of others but merely for their own right to live in dignity.
Until the West wakes up to this hypocrisy and recognizes the moral contamination at the heart of these selective alliances, the young men and women of Iran – and indeed, those oppressed across the Shia Crescent – will continue to face their oppressors alone while those who could have lent them their voices march blindly in step with the very forces of repression they claim to oppose.
The Left’s enthusiasm for human rights appears to be highly conditional. In Iran, a theocratic regime perpetuates its grip through sheer terror, stripping its citizens of their rights and exacting terrible retribution on those who dare to stand against it.
The Ekbatan case embodies this tactic, as Iran’s judiciary wields capital punishment to silence the very generation that could envision a future without such fear. Imprisoning and executing young men for demanding freedom is not just an attack on individuals; it is a direct assault on the future of the nation.
What is unfolding in Iran is not merely repression but a campaign of terror – an attempt to obliterate the spirit of youth in order to preserve the twisted values of a regime that has consistently acted with impunity. And the world, mesmerized by other agendas, looks the other way.
This willful ignorance from the West is nothing short of complicity. The liberal Left, which claims to stand for the underdog, seems to have chosen whose oppression is worth championing and whose suffering is best ignored. It appears that the Iranian people’s desperate cries for help fall outside this selective moral compass. If the Left truly champions freedom, democracy, and human rights, then let them prove it. Let them raise their voices for Iran’s youth, who, unlike the pro-Hamas crowds, are not calling for the destruction of others but for the right to live in peace, with dignity, in their own homeland. The hypocrisy of celebrating “resistance” in Gaza while ignoring genuine bravery in Tehran is a moral failure that history will not look kindly upon.
As the world stays silent, the Islamic Republic continues to act with impunity, secure in the knowledge that its crimes will be met with little more than a passing nod. But for the rest of us, for those who see through this duplicity, there is a duty to speak out, to demand that these young men and women are not forgotten. Their names and their courage must not vanish into obscurity simply because their oppressor does not fit the Western Left’s preferred narrative.In the end, it is not only Iran’s youth who suffer under this hypocrisy; it is the integrity of human rights itself. If we fail to raise our voices now, we betray the very ideals we claim to cherish, leaving Iran’s youth to face the darkness alone while their persecutors operate in full view of a world that simply cannot be bothered to care.
**The writer is the executive director of We Believe In Israel.

Zelensky is sure the war will 'end sooner' under Trump admin
Jerusalem post/November 18/2024
“It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to their citizens.”
Ukraine must do everything possible to end the war diplomatically, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne on Saturday. In the interview, Zelensky said he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want peace. Instead, he will likely use negotiations to reintegrate himself with Western countries that have isolated him since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. "I don't think Putin wants peace at all. But this does not mean he does not want to sit down with one of the leaders," Zelensky said. He also stated that he spoke on the phone with US President-elect Donald Trump after his victory in the US elections. However, US law prohibits the two leaders from meeting in person before the inauguration on January 20. In the interview, Zelensky emphasized that the US cannot remain neutral in the war, "America must maintain the position that Russia is an aggressor, that it has violated our territorial integrity and international law." Zelensky said that he is sure the war will “end sooner” under Trump’s presidential administration. “It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to their citizens.” Following the Republican election win, Zelensky was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump, who criticized the scale of US military and financial support for Kyiv and vowed to end the war with Russia quickly without saying how. "I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good with both of them. I would tell Zelensky no more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give him a lot. We're going to [give Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to. I will have the deal done in one day. One day," Trump told Fox News in July. In a message on X/Twitter, Zelensky said he looked forward to an "era of a strong United States of America under President Trump's decisive leadership." Both sides expect Trump's assistance. Officials on both sides of the war between Russia and Ukraine have voiced their optimism in Trump’s assistance to end the war.  Following the US election, Putin officially congratulated Trump on his victory while speaking at the Valadai forum in Sochi, praising Trump for behaving “courageously” during the assassination attempt this summer. “His words about his desire to restore relations with the Russian Federation and to help resolve the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion, deserve attention," Putin said. However, a Russian lawmaker recently warned that the Biden administration was risking World War Three if it allowed Ukraine to use US-made weapons to strike Russia, but gave hope in Trump’s ability to intervene. "I have a great hope that (Donald) Trump will overcome this decision if this has been made because they are seriously risking the start of World War Three, which is not in anybody's interest."

Palestinian NGO to ask UK court to block F-35 parts to Israel over Gaza war
Sam Tobin/LONDON (Reuters)/November 18, 2024
Britain is allowing parts for F-35 fighter jets to be exported to Israel despite accepting they could be used in breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza, lawyers for a Palestinian rights group told a London court on Monday. West Bank-based Al-Haq, which documents alleged rights violations by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is taking legal action against Britain's Department for Business and Trade at London's High Court. Israel has been accused of violations of international humanitarian law in the Gaza war, with the U.N. Human Rights Office saying nearly 70% of fatalities it has verified were women and children, a report Israel rejected. Israel says it takes care to avoid harming civilians and denies committing abuses and war crimes in the conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Al-Haq's case comes after Britain in September suspended 30 of 350 arms export licences, though it exempted the indirect export of F-35 parts, citing the impact on the global F-35 programme. Al-Haq argues that decision was unlawful as there is a clear risk F-35s could be used in breach of international humanitarian law. British government lawyers said in documents for Monday's hearing that ministers assessed Israel had committed possible breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) in relation to humanitarian access and the treatment of detainees. Britain also "accepts that there is clear risk that F-35 components might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of IHL", its lawyer James Eadie said.
Eadie added that Britain had nonetheless decided that F-35 components should still be exported, quoting from advice to defence minister John Healey that suspending F-35 parts "would have a profound impact on international peace and security". A full hearing of Al-Haq's legal challenge is likely to be heard early in 2025.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 43,800 people have been confirmed killed since the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in attacks on communities in southern Israel that day, and hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Suspected Houthi rebels in Yemen target a ship in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

Jon Gambrell/DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/November 18, 2024
Suspected attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a commercial ship traveling through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, though no damage or injuries were reported, authorities said Monday. The attacks come as the rebels continue their monthslong assault targeting shipping through a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon. The ship's captain saw that “a missile splashed in close proximity to the vessel” as it traveled in the southern Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting to the Gulf of Aden in the first attack late Sunday night, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in an alert. The attack happened some 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Yemen port city of Mocha. On Monday, another attack some 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Aden in the Gulf of Aden similarly saw a missile splash down close to the vessel, the UKMTO said. “The vessel and crew are safe and proceeding to its next port of call,” the UKMTO added. The Houthis did not immediately claim the attacks. However, it can take the rebels hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults. The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign, which also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well. The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran. The Houthis have shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones as well. In the rebels' last attack on Nov. 11, two U.S. Navy warships targeted with multiple drones and missiles as they were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but the attacks were not successful.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on November 18-19/2024
Donald Trump: Back to the Future on Iran Policy
Behnam Ben Taleblu & Janatan Sayeh/The Algemeiner/November 18/2024
Tehran’s theocrats must be terrified. That’s a good thing.
Despite the limited and lackluster commentary on Donald Trump’s electoral victory in the Iranian press and by officials, regime elites must now face the fact that the candidate they sought to kill is set to re-assume the presidency on January 20, 2025.
During his first term, Trump functioned like a bull in a china shop on Iran policy, and it worked. The administration pulled out of the fatally flawed 2015 Iran nuclear deal, designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, showed the strength of US unilateral sanctions against the Iranian economy, and even killed Quds-Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, Tehran’s chief terrorist-strategist. And for good measure, Trump drew a sharp contrast with his predecessor by strongly supporting Iranian protestors. In so doing, he broke long-held taboos among the Washington establishment about foreign backing being a kiss of death. And he did it all without triggering World War Three.
A second Trump administration is reportedly set to resume its “maximum pressure” policy against the Islamic Republic, the broad contours of which are encompassed by the above moves. Returning to this policy would course-correct the outgoing Biden administration’s approach, which has been defined by light sanctions enforcement, a preference for de-escalation over deterrence, and turning a blind eye to Iran’s growing atomic infrastructure and nuclear saber-rattling.
But the resurrection of this policy cannot be divorced from the challenges of the present. 2025 will be harder than 2016-2020 were. Iran today is on the nuclear threshold, with an enriched uranium stockpile and centrifuge capacity assessed by experts to be able to produce sufficient weapons grade uranium for one bomb in a week, and up to 15 in five months.
Iran is also increasing its missile capabilities, hinting that it might develop longer-range projectiles that could threaten the European continent and the American homeland. It is also relying on trans-national criminal syndicates rather than traditional proxies, trying everything from Mexican drug cartels to Azeri gangs to Canadian bikers, to reach onto American soil. Had the Islamic Republic been deterred or felt it had more to lose than to gain from these threats and plots, it would not have embarked on them.
For deterrence to work, a credible military threat is needed. Given that deterrence is first and foremost psychological, threats alone may be insufficient for an adversary as resolute as the Islamic Republic and one with the impression of America as a risk-averse power. In order to avoid a larger conflict with the Islamic Republic, the US will counterintuitively be required to push back earlier and harder against the full-spectrum of Iran-backed threats to change the impression of American risk-tolerance for Iranian national security decision-makers.
A pure “management” approach towards Tehran that aims to contain rather than roll-back the full-spectrum of these threats will only lead to Washington being managed by Tehran. Now is the time to push past mere management as a strategy and work to roll back threats.
The maximum pressure strategy during Trump’s first term began to lay the groundwork to do precisely that. By targeting Iran’s oil, natural gas, petrochemical, and industrial metal exports, the administration aimed to put the macroeconomic squeeze on Tehran, shrinking the overall ability to resource threats. This campaign reduced Iran’s 2.9 million barrels a day oil exports from 2018 to 775,000 by 2021. Trump’s policies also led to a decline in non-oil exports, with Iran’s total exports dropping by 12.8% in 2020.
Iran’s oil exports surged under the Biden administration, largely due to a relaxed sanctions enforcement posture and the prospects for nuclear diplomacy. As a result, Iran’s annual oil revenue reportedly soared, rising from $16 billion in 2020 to $53 billion in 2023. In August 2023 alone, Iran’s exports to China peaked at an estimated 1.5 million barrels per day — a sharp increase from the lower levels seen during the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign. As a reminder, China has been the most importer purchaser of Iranian oil — increasingly marked as “Malaysian” — for over a decade.
Iran’s petroleum export value and volume under the Biden administration also drastically increased, countering the sharp decline seen amid Trump-era sanctions. Between 2021 and 2023, Tehran generated an estimated $144 billion from petroleum sales, a stark contrast to the mere $16 billion in 2020. The increase has been substantial across multiple categories, with crude oil and condensate exports rising over threefold, reaching 1.59 million barrels per day, while Iranian petroleum product exports expanded over 50% in the same timeframe.
The new administration should work overtime to plug the economic lifelines Tehran has benefited from in the illicit petrochemical and oil trade. The Trump administration previously warned of sanctions against Chinese entities involved in importing Iranian oil, and this stance should be maintained if Beijing continues enabling Tehran’s sanctions evasion, which in turn underwrites Tehran’s global terrorist apparatus and regional “ring of fire” against Israel. Likewise, the next administration must take a firm stand, emphasizing the severe consequences for any person, bank, or business aiding the Islamic Republic’s illicit trade.
The United States should marry this economic pressure with a political strategy that aims to multiliterate maximum pressure with its trans-Atlantic and five-eyes partners. First and foremost, this must begin by commencing a diplomatic track on day-one with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to reinstate UN sanctions on Iran by triggering the snapback mechanism set to expire this October in UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
The administration should also impress upon its allies to leverage their individual counterterrorism authorities and designate the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist organization. After more than a decade of deliberation, Canada has done precisely this. Other US partners should be encouraged to follow suit.
Additionally, Washington should impose strict limitations on the entry of Iranian officials into the US for United Nations-related matters and closely monitor their movements. To further isolate the Islamic Republic diplomatically, the US should press its European counterparts to either reduce the size of Iran’s diplomatic missions or expel Iranian diplomats and shutter these embassies altogether.
While former US Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, who is reportedly leading Trump’s transition team at the State Department, claims the incoming administration isn’t aiming for regime change, the brittleness of the deeply unpopular regime in Tehran and the impact maximum pressure can have will mean nationwide anti-regime demonstrations like those seen in 2019 and 2022 are more a matter of when and not if. To recalibrate US strategy toward Iran, Washington must find ways to empower the Iranian street against the state, and in a manner in conjunction with American values and broader regional interests. Marrying “Maximum Support” for the Iranian people with maximum pressure against the regime may provide the necessary pincer that can force the Islamic Republic into settling for suboptimal outcomes or better yet, making mistakes that can be capitalized upon.
By leveraging enduring internal opposition to the regime, Washington can bolster the efforts of the Iranian people in their fight for a government that reflects their views, values, and interests. The next administration must have the audacity to imagine what a Middle East without the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism looks like, one which distracted time, attention, and resources away from rising security challenges in the Asia-Pacific.
To assist Iranians in defining their own destiny, the US should provide them access to free, reliable Internet through the provision of VPNs and collaboration with private companies like Starlink. Intelligence support can also help protestors outwit the regime’s forces, enabling them to leverage their non-violent resistance effectively. Additionally, the US should coordinate with allies to provide cyber support, targeting regime communications infrastructure, disabling surveillance systems, and disrupting the security forces’ command and control. Giving Iranians a tactical advantage ensures they are better equipped to confront a well-armed authoritarian regime, especially the next time Iranians take to the streets en masse.
The Islamic Republic is a determined adversary that means what it says when it chants “death to America” and “death to Israel.” The same applies to its attempts to take President Trump’s life. Only by building on the successes from his first term does the incoming president stand a chance at meaningfully confronting Iran, and maximizing the fears in Tehran about what will come next.
*Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington DC, where Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/11/15/donald-trump-back-to-the-future-on-iran-policy/

UNRWA Hires Palestinian Terrorists, Glorifies Violence And Terrorism

Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./November 18/ 2024
According to Israeli intelligence, more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA.
"By not firing them, the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA's Commissioner General are brazenly demonstrating their determination to continue employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad even after having been presented with incriminating evidence to this effect. It is time for donor governments to wake up and stop funneling their taxpayers' money to members of designated terrorist organizations." – www.idf.il, August 5, 2024
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini recently told the UN General Assembly that his agency provides tolerant, respectful and anti-extremist education in Gaza. However, IMPACT-se's new report unveils institutional teaching material taught in five UNRWA schools in Gaza, where Hamas commanders have been exposed masquerading as school principals.
A poem taught to seventh-graders... calls on knights, symbolizing Arab leaders, to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem "from the fist of unbelief, from Satan's aides – revenge to the Jews."
What is disturbing is that the UN chief and other donor countries refuse to see what many Palestinians already see, namely that UNRWA has long been playing a significant role in inciting hatred against Israel and raising another generation of Palestinian children on the glorification of violence and terrorism. It is time for this agency, as well as the entire UN, to be dismantled and removed, or at least, as suggested years ago, to have nations pay only for what they want and to get what they pay for.
It is also time for the Palestinian "refugees" to move on with their lives and stop relying on Western taxpayers' money.
According to Israeli intelligence, more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA. Several terrorists who participated in the October 7 atrocities were officially employed by UNRWA. Pictured: Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to a Hamas terror tunnel directly outside an UNRWA compound in Gaza City, on February 8, 2024. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which terrorists from Gaza murdered 1,200 Israelis, there has been increased evidence of the role the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) plays in supporting and funding Palestinian terrorism.
In early November, Israel passed a new law that will ban UNRWA's operations in Israel, and prevent Israeli officials from cooperating with the agency. Given UNRWA's longtime support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the ban will benefit not only Israel, but also those Palestinians who are not affiliated with the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group.
The law came after the discovery that several terrorists who participated in the October 7 atrocities – which included murder, rape, beheadings and kidnappings -- were officially employed by UNRWA. The United Nations has even admitted that nine UNRWA staff members "will be sacked because they may have been involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks against Israel." The accusations surfaced earlier this year, when Israel presented evidence to UNRWA of the involvement of 12 of its staff members in the atrocities. UNRWA identified and terminated the employment of ten of them. Two were confirmed dead. "I'm inside, I'm inside with the Jews"; "We have female hostages, I captured one". These are quotes from recordings of UNRWA teachers who took part in the October 7 massacre.
In a video caught by a security camera on October 7, two Hamas terrorists are seen loading onto a truck the corpse of an Israeli civilian they had murdered. These Hamas terrorists were also employees of UNRWA. They were not the only UNRWA employees involved in the atrocities.
According to Israeli intelligence, more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA. According to an IDF report:
"The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has gathered substantial evidence of several other circumstances that reveal the participation of UNRWA staff in the October 7 massacre. This was also confirmed by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS): In addition to the nine employees that the UN's investigative team determined were involved in the October 7 massacre, other workers -- about whom the team claimed there was insufficient evidence -- were also involved in the massacre. They are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the UN must fire them immediately, and not sweep the issue under the rug. "By not firing them, the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA's Commissioner General are brazenly demonstrating their determination to continue employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad even after having been presented with incriminating evidence to this effect. It is time for donor governments to wake up and stop funneling their taxpayers' money to members of designated terrorist organizations."
A recent report, published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an NGO that analyzes schoolbooks and curriculum around the world, exposes deep terrorist ties to UNRWA education. The report highlights five UNRWA schools where Hamas commanders are principals or senior staff. The report found that more than 10% of UNRWA principals and senior education staff in the Gaza Strip are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. UNRWA schools, in addition, use class lessons to deny Israel's existence, promote hostility, and encourage violent narratives.
The report pointed out that at least 12 UNRWA employees in the Gaza Strip who hold senior positions (school principals, deputies, directors and deputy directors of training centers) have been identified as members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
This is far from "a few isolated cases," as UNRWA claims, and instead points to UNRWA's endemic links to terror. Many of UNRWA's Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad employees have continued to receive a regular salary funded by international taxpayers since October 7. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini recently told the UN General Assembly that his agency provides tolerant, respectful and anti-extremist education in Gaza. However, IMPACT-se's new report unveils institutional teaching material taught in five UNRWA schools in Gaza, where Hamas commanders have been exposed masquerading as school principals. UNRWA teachers and schools have produced material that glorifies violence and terrorism and demonizes Israelis. An Arabic language study card produced by an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip contains a reading comprehension story that celebrates an attack on Israeli passengers traveling on a bus, describing it as a "barbecue party." Another card produced by an UNRWA school includes a reading comprehension test titled "Hooray for the Heroes." It glorifies figures associated with war, violence, religious extremism, and even terrorism. The text encourages young Palestinian students to view these "heroes" as role models. The study card also encourages students to criticize those who choose a peaceful, fulfilling life over martyrdom: "Drinking the cup of bitterness with glory is much sweeter than a pleasant long life accompanied by humiliation." The text's list of heroes includes: Dalal al-Mughrabi, responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, in which 38 civilians were murdered, including 13 children; Izz Ad-Din al-Qassam, founder of the Palestinian jihadi movement and namesake of the Hamas military wing.
A fifth-grade Arabic language summary teaches a text titled: "I Love My Village," which presents martyrdom in a positive light by praising the fact that the land – a reference to Palestine – is "mixed with the blood of the martyrs." It also teaches students that martyrdom and Jihad are "the most important meanings of life."A poem taught to seventh-graders portrays Arab nations as a herd of horses – a revered symbol of war in Bedouin Arab culture – that would fall if not united. The poem calls on knights, symbolizing Arab leaders, to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem "from the fist of unbelief, from Satan's aides – revenge to the Jews." These are only a few examples of how educational activities organized by UNRWA schools have poisoned the hearts and minds of many Palestinian children over the past seven decades. The participation of UNRWA employees in the October 7 atrocities against Israelis did not come as a surprise. What is disturbing is that the UN chief and other donor countries refuse to see what many Palestinians already see, namely that UNRWA has long been playing a significant role in inciting hatred against Israel and raising another generation of Palestinian children on the glorification of violence and terrorism. It is time for this agency, as well as the entire UN, to be dismantled and removed, or at least, as suggested years ago, to have nations pay only for what they want and to get what they pay for.
It is also time for the Palestinian "refugees" to move on with their lives and stop relying on Western taxpayers' money.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
© 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.

Trump’s Return: A Bold Vision to Reshape the Middle East
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/November 18/2028
One of the biggest mistakes in dealing with President-elect Donald Trump is underestimating his capabilities. The fact that he lacks academic jargon, analyst-style phrasing, or the polished demeanor of traditional politicians does not diminish his knowledge or awareness of the issues at hand.
Trump faced ridicule from his opponents, both domestically during the electoral process and from foreign commentators seeking to tarnish his reputation. Trump is not a Yale graduate like Bill Clinton or someone with 50 years of political experience like Joe Biden. Yet, his actions during his four years as president were arguably more successful in addressing key events. For instance, when he threatened to cancel or improve the comprehensive agreement with Iran, he was told it was an international deal he couldn’t withdraw from. He canceled it entirely, altering the course of the region’s history and saving it from the dangers of that flawed agreement.
Trump may not be as intellectually renowned as Henry Kissinger or as humble as Jimmy Carter, but his background in business, investment, and real estate gives him an edge in a capitalist country like the United States, which values hard work, competition, and success.
Trump demonstrated his leadership abilities, most notably in winning the presidency not once but twice. His success is attributed to his personal efforts rather than public relations firms or the Republican Party’s backing, unlike many previous US presidents who relied on party support. His electoral victory is a unique testament to his popularity and influence, highlighting his ability to lead a major power like the United States and make bold decisions that others might shy away from.
Trump will face multiple domestic battles as he has promised his voters changes in immigration, the economy, and education. His upcoming four-year term is expected to be filled with controversy and significant shifts.
What about the Middle East? Let’s recall what he did when he first took office in 2017. Breaking protocol, Trump chose Riyadh, not London, as his first international destination, a departure from the tradition of visiting Britain first. At the time, Saudi Arabia faced harsh criticism from US politicians, with former President Obama relegating the relationship with the Kingdom to the past.
Trump, who entered office amid allegations of racism against Arabs and Muslims, surprised everyone by accepting Saudi Arabia’s invitation and making it his first stop. His trip sent a clear message to his adversaries in Washington and countries in the region. Over his four years, Trump maintained the relationship as he envisioned, and even his successor, Biden, initially backtracked on his promises before eventually following Trump’s approach. When the president-elect claims he can solve critical crises like those in Ukraine, Gaza, and Lebanon, among others, we should take him seriously. Trump enjoys a majority in Congress and has already initiated communications before officially assuming office on January 20.
The final point worth noting is not how Trump sees the world but how the world sees Trump. Internationally, he is perceived as a having strong personality, quick to act, and a leader who follows through on his words. This image forces US adversaries to think twice before engaging in major confrontations with him. Most would likely prefer to negotiate agreements and political deals with him, knowing he possesses the willpower and tools, such as Congressional support, to back his decisions.
It seems clear that Trump intends to reshape the Middle East, and we will witness this through agreements and sanctions rather than wars. Indeed, as he often points out, he governed for four years without engaging in a single war, but he was relentless in enforcing sanctions. For this reason, the region must prepare and adapt to the upcoming changes.

The Riyadh Summit: Regional Security Founded on a Two-State Solution
Sam Menassa/Asharq Al Awsat/November 18/2028
Media outlets are brimming with predictions and analyses about the new US administration’s Middle East policy. Most of it is wishful thinking, with each camp making projections according to their political orientation. The key appointments that President-elect Donald Trump has announced he wants to make so far suggest that he will choose hawks and loyal, trusted friends. The proposed figures tow a harder line than Trump himself, and we can only speculate about how much influence they will yield given his personality and unpredictability.
For the region, what distinguishes this Trump team is its hardline stance towards Iran, which is matched by its absolute support for Israel, giving Benjamin Netanyahu the space he needs to complete his wars in Gaza and Lebanon during the transitional phase that will not end until January 20, by which point he will have to have catered to Trump’s declared intention to end the ongoing wars before then.
The risks of Netanyahu exploiting the transitional phase were bolstered by the despair that has gripped the Biden administration since its resounding defeat at the hands of Trump and the Republicans- the red wave that swept both houses of Congress. The current administration’s frustration will hinder any ability to curb Netanyahu’s adventures in Gaza and Lebanon.
An attack on Iran by Netanyahu is possible despite its repercussions, especially since there is no end to his ongoing wars on Gaza and Lebanon in sight. The Gaza war has achieved what it could after Hamas was dismantled and the Gaza Strip was made all but uninhabitable, and the war on Hezbollah destroyed most of the party's military capabilities, as well as over a third of Lebanon, displacing more than a million people from the south, the Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut. What more does Netanyahu want? Protecting Israel is an ambiguous slogan that he has been exploited to the last drop, and his military operations now amount to nothing more than collective punishment.
Will Trump and his team turn a blind eye to the expected Israeli adventures or will reign in Netanyahu and heedless his government? The first option seems more likely. In contrast, the Arab Islamic summit held last week in Riyadh sent several messages to Washington and Israel, all of them unequivocally reflecting deep anger at Israel's excesses and military actions, and they went as far as to call for freezing Israel's membership in the United Nations General Assembly. The summit unequivocally denounced the attacks on Iran, stressing the need to force “Israel to respect Iran’s sovereignty and not attack its territory,” as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said.
The most important message was a solid commitment to the two-state solution, which the summit considered the gateway to regional stability. The emphasis on not making decisions regarding Gaza stems purely from a desire to place this issue in the hands of the Palestinian Authority alone, according to the Kingdom’s foreign minister. Highlighting the role of the Palestinian Authority strips the plans for settlements on the day after in Gaza of any legitimacy. These schemes disregard the PA’s role. It also pushed back on any attempt to do away with the idea of establishing a Palestinian state. Here, we are referring to the rhetoric of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has talked about Israel re-imposing its sovereignty over the West
Bank, adding that he seeks “a government decision confirming that Israel will work with the Trump administration and the international community to enforce sovereignty with US recognition.”
The demand for the establishment of a Palestinian state will undoubtedly lead to disputes with the Trump administration. The fear is a return to solutions based on improving the economic and living conditions of the Palestinians that deny their right to an independent, demilitarized Palestinian state, and live in peace side by side with Israel. This obstacle the new administration will probably present is likely to be the main obstacle to broadening Arab-Israeli normalization, which is supposed to lead to a permanent and just peace in the region, introducing a phase of prosperity and progress on all levels.
Differences regarding the two-state solution do not mean that the new administration is not serious about wanting to end wars and conflicts; Trump and his team could conclude deals and settlements with Arab partners on a whole host of issues, including matters tied to regional security. Crucially, solutions to these conflicts must be viable, sustainable, and just, and they must not be made at the expense of one party over another.
Solutions imposed by force, cosmetic stitch-ups, and agreements meant to satisfy the powerful at the expense of the weak and their rights, will only fuel new wars; they may be even more horrific and cruel than those of the past. The final statement of the Riyadh Summit warns against stop-gap solutions and explicitly calls for resolving conflicts by creating just and sustained peace. We hope that Washington will heed this call because it can do more than anyone else to achieve this difficult task, provided that it uses American lenses, not Israeli ones.

Hoori or Whore? How Islam’s ‘72 Virgins’ Inspire Muslims to Suicidal Violence
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/November 18/2028
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2024/11/18/hoori-or-whore-how-islams-72-virgins-inspire-muslims-to-suicidal-violence/
A recent report highlights what must surely appear as “fake news” to Western sensibilities: the fact that “marrying” supernatural women in Islamic paradise — the notorious hooris — actuates young Muslim men in general, Palestinian suicide bombers (“martyrs”) in particular.
The examples offered by the report are many.
In one video, the mother of dead terrorist Abd al-Jabbar al-Sabbagh shared their final moments:
He said to me: ‘Mom, this is the last week you’ll see me. That’s it, bid me farewell.’ I said: ‘Sweetie, why?’ He said: ‘That’s it, I feel I won’t remain much longer.’ I’m satisfied, I’m going to the Dark-Eyed Maidens [Hoor al-‘Ayn in the original Arabic] in Paradise, I want Martyrdom.’ I said: ‘Allah will be satisfied with you.’ Martyrdom is beautiful, not everyone who seeks it merits it, but the farewell is difficult.
In another video discussing her “martyred” nephew, Intisar Nafea said of Ashraf Nafea:
Praise Allah, [teen Martyr] Ashraf [Nafea] raises our heads up high. On Aug. 1, [2024,] he was supposed to turn 18 years old. I wanted to do a birthday for him. He said: ‘Get me married.’ I said: ‘[You will have] 72 [Virgins] like your uncle.’ He said: ‘Right. I don’t want to marry women from this world, I want to marry [women] from the world to come.’
The brother of terrorist Uday Al-Zayyat said:
I told him: ‘Go on and get married’ … He told me: ‘Actually I want the Dark-Eyed Maidens of Paradise.’ Praise Allah, Allah granted him Paradise, Allah willing he will see the Dark-Eyed Maidens of Paradise.
The wives of other “martyrs” posted things like, “All of you make sounds of joy for him. Don’t cry, he’s a groom and let everyone accompany him to his wedding.”
So who are these “dark-eyed virgins” who “yearn” — as another Palestinian once phrased it — for martyrs, for those Muslims who, in the Koran’s words, “slay and are slain” (9:111)?
The proper Arabic term for these entities is hoor al-‘ayn, commonly known by the English transliteration hoori (also “houri”). They are supernatural, celestial women — “wide-eyed” and “big-bosomed,” says the Koran (56:22, 78:33) — created by Allah for the express purpose of sexually gratifying his favorites in perpetuity.
One of the canonical hadiths — a statement attributed to Muhammad that mainstream Islam acknowledges as true — has Muhammad saying,
The martyr [shahid, one who dies fighting for Islam] is special to Allah. He is forgiven from the first drop of blood [that he sheds]. He sees his throne in paradise…. And he will copulate with seventy-two hooris. (See also Koran 44:54, 52:20, 55:72, and 56:22.)
While the hooris may invoke images of scantily-clad genies and/or other wild tales from the Arabian Nights to the Western mind — and thus be dismissed as “fairy tales” with no capacity to inspire anyone — the fact is, desire for these immortal concubines has driven Muslim men to acts of suicidal terror, past and present, as recorded in both Muslim and Western historical sources.
“As for religious enthusiasm and ardour for the holy war,” writes historian Marius Canard, “it is certain that numerous Muslims were moved by this sentiment… There are numerous accounts [in Arabic sources] describing combatants going to their deaths with joyful heart, seeing visions of the celestial hoori who is calling to them and signaling to them.”
Indeed, the hooris are depicted as being ever present on the fields of jihad, beckoning their would-be lovers to rush to their embraces by engaging in wild acts of “martyrdom.” This is evident from the West’s first major military encounter with Islam, the fateful Battle of Yarmuk (636). There, one Muslim came upon a fallen comrade “smitten on the ground, and I watched as he lifted his fingers to the sky. I understood he was rejoicing, for he saw the hooris.” Another Arab chieftain told his men that a headlong charge against the “Christian dogs” is synonymous with a “rush to the embraces of the hooris!”
“The Muslim preachers did not cease to encourage the combatants [at Yarmuk]: Prepare yourselves for the encounter with the hooris of the big black eyes!” explains a medieval Persian historian. “And to be sure, never has a day been seen when more heads fell than on the day of the Yarmuk.”
Nearly a millennium later, on the night before the sack of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks also invoked the hooris to kindle the men’s fighting spirit. Wandering “dervishes visited the tents, to instill the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins [hooris].”
At the pivotal battle of Mohacs in 1526, seventy thousand Muslim invaders—described as devotees of “jihad and martyrdom,” eager for “a perpetually happy life” with “the hooris”—defeated the hitherto mighty kingdom of Hungary, built a massive pyramid of heads, and returned to Constantinople with one hundred thousand slaves.
From the start, Western observers have corroborated the mesmerizing effects of the hoori’s siren call. Marco Polo (d.1324) explained why after assassinating their target, the hashashin (whence the English word “assassin”) would not flee but wait to be hacked down by their victim’s guards or men: They were eager to enter “paradise, where every species of sensual gratification should be found, in the society of beautiful nymphs [hooris].”
In an eighth-century “interfaith dialogue” between Caliph Omar II and Eastern Roman Emperor Leo III, the latter wrote: “We [Christians] do not expect to enjoy there [heaven] commerce with women who remain forever virgin,” for “we put no faith in such silly tales engendered by extreme ignorance and by paganism.” But “for you who are given up to carnal vices, and who have never been known to limit the same, you who prefer your pleasures to any good, it is precisely for that reason that you consider the celestial realm of no account if it is not peopled with [supernatural] women.”
If Muslims venerate and seek to emulate the world of early Islam, it should come as no surprise that these Sirens of Islam are still working their magic, above and beyond the opening anecdotes concerning Palestinian indoctrination.
For instance, Naa’imur Rahman, a Muslim man from north London, who was “found guilty of plotting to blow up the gates of Downing Street and assassinate Theresa May… was motivated by the idea of being met by virgins in paradise after the attack, the court heard.” During discussions with an undercover officer, Rahman said that he was eager to “take her [May’s] head off, yeah”:
I want to go to jannah [heaven] when I’m doing it. I don’t want to come back. I want them to kill me, but I just want to do my thing before I’m killed…. [I’ve been] thinking a lot about hur al ayn [hooris]… In sha allah [Allah willing] I meet them soon.
Prior to the battle for Mosul in late 2016, the Islamic State’s “caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said:
All [who die fighting], without exception, will enter paradise as martyrs. Moreover, you will enter paradise with four more hooris than other martyrs. For just as you stand by me now, so will they stand by you—or under you, or above you—so that you might forget what will happen to you by way of violence, death, and degradation in this war.
All this is a reminder that the Muslim mindset and the motivations behind it are many and multifaceted. Few in the West still seem to understand this and see it as, at best, an aberration. Thus a French reporter who once infiltrated and spent time with the Islamic State said, “I never saw any Islam. No will to improve the world,” only “suicidal” men looking forward to being “martyred” on, as they explained it to him, their “path to paradise,” where “women [hooris] are waiting for us.”
Until such time that Western secular minds stop projecting their own materialistic paradigms onto Muslims in general, jihadists in particular, and start understanding Islam’s paradigms and motivations on their own terms, the West will continue to ignore the oldest and simplest advice concerning war: “know your enemy.”