English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 17/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person
First Letter to the Corinthians 03/10-23: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’, and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’ So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 16-17/2024
Elias Bejjani / Text and Video: A Spiritual Summit of Hypocrisy, Lacking Lebanon’s Spirit, and Its Statement a Replica of Hezbollah’s Declarations;
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: The Epic Failure of Maarab Conference No. 2—Maronite Misery Defined by Geagea and Aoun
Elias Bejjani/Lebanese Christian Leadership: Subservient, Neutered, and Ignorant of Gratitude
A Failed Spiritual Summit/By Abu Arz – Etienne Sakr
Gallant: Any talks for truce in Lebanon must be conducted 'under fire'
Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon
Israeli strikes kill 21 in Lebanon, including in Nabatiyeh
Israel resumes strikes on Dahieh after 6-day pause
Spiritual summit in peace push amid continued Israeli massacres in southern Lebanon
At Bkirki summit, Shiite leader urges consensual president and end to 'crazy war'
At least 4 killed in Israeli strikes on Bekaa
US sanctions 3 people and 4 firms for raising money for Hezbollah
State Dept affirms Israel’s right to target Hezbollah in Lebanon, urges civilian protection
Berri: Paris, Doha seeking to draft ceasefire resolution
UNIFIL says Israeli tank fired at peacekeepers watchtower in Lebanon
Macron riles Netanyahu with jab on Israel's creation
Strike on Jwaya injures 2 Red Cross paramedics on UN-coordinated mission
16 dead in Israeli strike on Lebanese municipality building
Israel's air defences are straining under repeated attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, expert says
Israeli strikes hit Lebanon and kill at least 15 in a town with a dark history of civilian deaths
The Road to the Third Lebanon War/David Daoud & Ahmad Sharawi/FDD's Long War Journal/October 16/2024
Time for Berri to lead Lebanon’s Shiites away from Iran/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Arab News/October 16/2024
Lebanon: assassinating sectarian leaders has always led to instability – this time will be no different
Mohamad El Kari, PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London/The Conversation/October 16/ 2024
Final Statement of the Bkerke Summit: Emphasis on Lebanese Unity and Call for Immediate Security Council Session to Cease Hostilities and Begin Implementing Resolution 1701, and Elect a President Who Enjoys the Confidence of All

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 16-17/2024
UNRWA 'very near' possible breaking point in Gaza operation, head says
Iran’s FM arrives in Egypt for first visit since 2013: state media
IDF arrests three more Hezbollah Radwan terrorists along with commander
At BRICS summit, Russia to push to end dollar dominance
UK considers sanctioning 2 ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers
US warns Israel to boost humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing weapons funding
Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on October 16-17/2024
‘Axis of Resistance’ or ‘Axis of Espionage?’ Iran’s struggles to staff leadership/Janatan Sayeh/FDD's Long War Journal/October 16/2024
The Biden-Harris Administration's Misguided Policy On The Palestinians/Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute./October 16, 2024
Why Syria’s Assad regime must toe a fine line as Israel-Iran tensions escalate/ROBERT EDWARDS/Arab News/October 16, 2024
Starmer should be courageous despite bumpy first 100 days/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/October 16, 2024
The Gulf states’ role in shaping Middle Eastern stability/Dr. Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed/Arab News/October 16, 2024
Can international coalition to push for two-state solution succeed?/Bakir Oweida/Arab News/October 16, 2024
US’ curious relationship with Netanyahu and Israel/Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/October 16, 2024
Selective Tweets for October 16/2024

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 16-17/2024
Elias Bejjani / Text and Video: A Spiritual Summit of Hypocrisy, Lacking Lebanon’s Spirit, and Its Statement a Replica of Hezbollah’s Declarations; All It Lacked Was Praise for the Shameless Slogan of "Army, People, and Resistance"
A Time of Decay, Misery, and Dwarfs Alienated from Lebanon's Identity, Mission, and History
Elias Bejjani/ctober 16/ 2024
To start, anyone who cannot speak the truth in this critical moment—while the war between Israel and Hezbollah rages, leaving behind casualties, destruction, and displacement—anyone who lacks the courage to call things by their true names, to testify without distortion, cowardice, or selfish motives, no matter their position, be it clergyman, politician, party leader, media personality, or even an ordinary citizen—it is a thousand times better for them to remain silent! They should tie their tongues and cease their hollow, useless talk. They should stay at home and stop burdening the Lebanese with their nonsense and lies. Silence is far more merciful than the deceitful drivel of those who pander and speak out of cowardice. Especially if all they are going to offer is the pinnacle of hypocrisy, deceit, and denial of reality, hiding behind misleading words that deceive themselves and others.
In this context, Patriarch Al-Rahi has utterly failed in his ecclesiastical and pastoral duties. He has become estranged from the suffering of Lebanon and indifferent to the injustices, oppression, violations of rights, marginalization, and division his community and country have endured since he was installed as Patriarch by agents of occupation. It would have been better if he had shut the doors of Bkerke, locked himself in with his civilian and ecclesiastical team, who are immersed in worldly, material pursuits, and retreated in prayer, humbly seeking forgiveness and repentance for the mistakes and sins they have committed. Only after sincere repentance could they begin to atone.
Many of us, both in Lebanon and abroad, ask: What did this so-called spiritual summit achieve? It was nothing more than a summit of hypocrisy, blindness, and deceit, ignoring the root causes of the war, and failing to hold accountable those who dragged Lebanon into this conflict against the will of its people. There is no doubt—the culprit is Hezbollah, the Iranian jihadist and criminal entity.
Anyone who reads the summit’s final statement (attached below in both Arabic and English) will immediately realize that it might as well have been written by Hezbollah’s propaganda machine. The only thing missing was the forced mention of the worn-out slogan, “Army, People, Resistance.”
The statement deliberately ignored Hezbollah’s heinous crimes and the group’s declaration of war on Israel. It was filled with meaningless, outdated phrases that no longer fool anyone, all aimed solely at attacking the State of Israel while conveniently bypassing the core issue: Hezbollah’s destructive occupation of Lebanon.
If the participants of this spiritual summit had truly wanted to help Lebanon—to liberate it, to restore its sovereignty, independence, and free will, to end the war, and to rid the country of Hezbollah’s Iranian-backed terrorist occupation—they would have acted boldly. By now, they should have packed their bags, headed straight to the United Nations Security Council, and demanded that Lebanon be placed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter as a failed and rogue state, needing international protection and intervention.
In short, this so-called spiritual summit was nothing but a gathering of hypocrisy and deceit, completely detached from Lebanon’s mission and sanctity, and utterly incapable of bearing witness to the truth and justice. It was doomed to fail before it even began and will have no impact whatsoever on the course of the war.

Elias Bejjani/Text & Video:  The Epic Failure of Maarab Conference No. 2—Maronite Misery Defined by Geagea and Aoun
Elias Bejjani, October 14, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/135690/
Let’s cut to the chase: the second Maarab Conference held last Saturday was a colossal failure, just like the first. It was a disgrace to the alienated Christian leadership, disconnected from the realities unfolding in Lebanon and across the Middle East. The sole purpose of the conference was not to address the concerns of Lebanon, its people, or the Christian presence under Iranian occupation. Nor did it focus on the ongoing war between Hezbollah and Israel, or the disasters plaguing the nation. What Geagea sought, and will never achieve, is the fulfillment of his grandiose delusion of being the "one and only Christian leader." This delusion has blinded him for years, and because of it, untold catastrophes have befallen the Christians. Let us not forget that he seized the leadership of the Lebanese Forces Party (LF) through violence, without ever being elected to that position.
It is evident that this so-called conference achieved nothing but exposing Geagea's illusions. There will be no presidency, no first lady, and it’s time to wake up from these delusional daydreams. His obsessive hallucinations will likely lead him to call for a third Maarab Conference soon, driven by the same baseless fantasy of being the "sole Christian leader." Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
On the other side, Aoun, his son-in-law, and their opportunistic herd held prayers for the martyrs of October 13, 1990—the very martyrs they betrayed. It was Aoun and his cronies who jumped over their blood, forming alliances with those who killed them. Aoun and his son-in-law and their herd of puppets, just like Geagea, live in a distorted reality and stuck in a 1990 déjà vu, as if they were still in the presidential palace.
A Brief on Samir Geagea’s Failures
Geagea lacks any vision, and in every pivotal moment, his decisions have been blind and destructive for the Christians. Some examples include: the execution of two men he falsely accused of trying to assassinate him, his participation in the killing of Tony Frangieh, his surrender of the Lebanese Forces’ weapons, his drowning in the Taif Agreement, his idiotic alliance of mutual personal interest with Aoun, his election of Aoun for presidency, and his failure to flee during the Syrian occupation and stupidly go willingly to prison  (even Christ fled multiple times). He even extended condolences in Qardaha over Basil al-Assad’s death, abandoned the South Lebanon Army members, and showed cowardice in defending them. His hypocrisy knows no bounds, claiming Hezbollah’s martyrs are like those of the Lebanese Forces, while also falsely stating that Hezbollah liberated the South when he knows Israel withdrew by internal decision. His shameless flattery of Hezbollah's MPs, calling them Lebanese representatives of the Shiites, while in reality, Hezbollah holds the Shiite population hostage and imposes its MPs by force. He opposed the Orthodox electoral law and sidelined every intellectual in his circle. All this, coupled with his narcissistic delusion of being the "sole Christian leader," leads to a total lack of leadership and vision.
In conclusion, All Maronites' Failures, Disasters, and Downfalls since 1986 are the Direct Products of Aoun & Geagea's Narcissistic and Blind Agendas"

Elias Bejjani/Lebanese Christian Leadership: Subservient, Neutered, and Ignorant of Gratitude
Elias Bejjani / October 13, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/135609/
Nothing has destroyed Arab societies, their nations, and Lebanon more than the ignorant and foolish phrase: "No voice is louder than the voice of battle."
This unfortunate and self-destructive slogan has for years concealed the deep existential problems eating away at the Lebanese state, allowing Hezbollah, the armed, sectarian, and terrorist Iranian armed proxy to expand, take control of the country, and turn it into a military base for Iranian arms, a battlefield for its wars, and a launch pad for its destructive expansionist evil project. Hezbollah was left free to roam under the "mafia-militia" equation (the mafia covering corruption, the militia covering weapons and occupation), creating a culture of fear, submission, surrender, and Dhimmitude. It suppressed, through force, assassinations, and fabricated judicial cases, any attempt to confront its terror that has been choking Lebanon and its people for more than 40 years.
In the midst of this ongoing war between Hezbollah and Israel that is burning and destroying our homeland and displacing our people, we must speak honestly and loudly, without fear: Hezbollah is not just a threat to Lebanon; it is a plague that has infiltrated every corner of the Lebanese societies, oppressing our people, particularly Christians, and assassinating Lebanese leaders who stand against it.
Whether we like Israel or not, it is currently the only force capable of facing this enormous challenge, dismantling Hezbollah's leadership, and breaking its terrorist network. No other power in the world has the military capability or strategic interest to accomplish this mission. Yet, many Lebanese Christian leaders, driven by Dhimmitude and foolishness, continue to show vile ingratitude, attacking Israel with empty rhetoric, labeling it  "enemy" "barbaric" and "criminal." etc
These leaders, whether secular or religious, are betraying their own people by failing to recognize the importance of what Israel is doing to liberate Lebanon from Hezbollah’s occupation and threat.
This is not just about regional politics; it is a matter of Lebanon’s survival and existence, especially for the Christians, whom Hezbollah has systematically targeted for decades in an effort to uproot them. Hezbollah's terrorism, arrogance, and depravity have turned Christians into second-class citizens in their own country, forced to live under the threat of violence, coerced into submission, and stripped of their political power in governance.
In 1982, when Bachir Gemayel was assassinated, we, as Christians and Lebanese in general, lost our greatest chance to reclaim Lebanon from the forces that sought its destruction. Now, 42 years later, we are at another critical crossroads in our history.
Instead of seizing this opportunity and aligning with the only force—Israel—that can destroy Hezbollah, Lebanese Christian leaders are once again proving themselves to be neutered and subservient, unable to break free from the mentality and culture of Dhimmitude that has enslaved them. These leaders, in their foolishness, continue to appease Hezbollah, standing idly by while Israel does the hard work of dismantling a terrorist organization that has brought nothing but pain and destruction to Lebanon and its people.
This is not just cowardice; it is a betrayal of the Lebanese people, especially Christians, who deserve to live freely, like other Lebanese, in a sovereign and independent nation.
If these Christian leaders had any dignity or vision, they would stop their pointless and foolish attacks on Israel and start showing gratitude for what is being done to free Lebanon from the grip of the Iranian militia.
History will not forgive those who, at the moment of Hezbollah's fall, chose cowardice over courage, and ingratitude over the duty to acknowledge the favor.
The chance to reclaim Lebanon from the jaws of Iran and its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, is now. Israel is offering us this final opportunity. Let us not repeat the mistake we made in 1982; this may be our last chance to restore our homeland and live in peace.

A Failed Spiritual Summit
By Abu Arz – Etienne Sakr/October 16/2024
(Free translation from Arabic by Elias Bejjani)
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/135786/
The statement issued by the so-called Spiritual Summit, held today, Wednesday, October 24, 2024, in Bkerke, does not represent the aspirations of free Lebanese citizens who long to liberate their homeland from the Iranian occupation. This occupation has oppressed them for over forty years through its exclusive proxy, Hezbollah, which has spread corruption and terrorism across the country. Hezbollah has committed heinous individual and collective crimes, seized control of the state’s decisions regarding war and peace, and established a parallel state within Lebanon, receiving orders and support directly from the Islamic Republic of Iran. This parallel entity boasts its own military, educational, financial, and social institutions—leading to the weakening of the Lebanese state and the decay of its public and private institutions. The consequences have been dire, plunging the nation into suffocating economic, financial, and social crises, bringing Lebanon to the brink of total collapse.
Today, Lebanon stands before a historic opportunity to reclaim its lost freedom and full sovereignty over its land. However, this can only be achieved if the nation seizes this moment with courage, wisdom, and foresight. We warn the spiritual and political leaders against squandering this golden opportunity through reckless, shallow, and short-sighted actions, as was the case in 1982. Beware.
Long Live Lebanon
Etienne Sakr – Abu Arz

Gallant: Any talks for truce in Lebanon must be conducted 'under fire'
Naharnet/October 16, 2024
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that any negotiations to end fighting in Lebanon must be conducted “under fire,” during a situational assessment on the northern front. Meeting with commanders of the reservist 146th Division, Gallant said the recent capture of Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon proves the Israeli army's "success and Hezbollah's predicament," according to a Defense Ministry statement. “We are learning things through questioning that we would not have learned any other way, and they will be useful for us soon,” Gallant said, adding that the ongoing ground operation will allow evacuated residents of northern Israel to return to their homes.

Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon
AFP/October 17, 2024
PARIS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a French newspaper that Israeli forces had found “state-of-the-art” Russian weapons in searches of Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon. Netanyahu highlighted to Le Figaro newspaper, in an interview released Wednesday, that under a 2006 UN Security Council resolution only the Lebanese army was allowed to have weapons south of the country’s key Litani river. “However, in this area, Hezbollah has dug hundreds of tunnels and caches, where we have just found a quantity of state-of-the-art Russian weapons,” the French article quoted Netanyahu as saying. The Washington Post, quoting Israeli officials, has reported that Russian and Chinese anti-tank weapons had been found in Israel’s raids inside Lebanon since it escalated its conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah last month. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP question about the prime minister’s comments. Israel says the aim of its military campaign against Hezbollah is to make the region safe so that about 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel can return to their homes. Many left their homes because of cross-border shelling between Israel and Hezbollah after the launch of the Gaza war on October 7 last year. “A new civil war in Lebanon would be a tragedy. It is certainly not our aim to provoke one. Israel does not intend to interfere in Lebanon’s internal affairs,” Netanyahu told Le Figaro. “Our only aim is to allow our citizens living along the Lebanon frontier to go home and feel safe,” he added.Hezbollah and Israel fought a gradually mounting artillery duel after the Hamas attacks on Israel set off the Gaza war. Since Israel started raids on Hezbollah, at least 1,373 people have died in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. The real toll is likely higher.

Israeli strikes kill 21 in Lebanon, including in Nabatiyeh
AP/October 16, 2024
BEIRUT: Israeli airstrikes pounded areas across Lebanon, killing at least 21 people, officials said Wednesday, including more than a dozen in a southern town where Israeli bombardments in previous conflicts are seared into local memory. Elsewhere in the south, a city’s mayor was among the dead in a strike that Lebanese officials said targeted a meeting coordinating relief efforts. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes late Tuesday on the southern town of Qana, where 15 people were killed. Associated Press photos and video of the scene showed several flattened buildings and others with their top floors collapsed. Rescue workers carried away the remains of dead people and used a bulldozer to remove rubble, as they searched for more victims. In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more people, including four UN peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building. “Qana always gets its share,” Mayor Mohammed Krasht told the AP, referring to the town’s grim history. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, meanwhile accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a municipal council meeting to discuss relief efforts in Nabatiyeh, where six people were killed. “What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he asked in a statement. The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah command centers and weapons facilities that had been embedded in civilian areas of Nabatiyeh in Wednesday’s strikes, without providing evidence. Israel also resumed its barrage on Beirut’s southern suburbs after a six-day pause, hitting what it said was an arms warehouse under an apartment building, without providing evidence. The military warned residents to evacuate before the strike, and there were no reports of casualties.
Israel resumes strikes on Beirut
The strikes on southern Beirut came after Mikati said the United States had given him assurances that Israel would curb its strikes on the capital. Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, known as the Dahiyeh, which is also a residential and commercial area home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group. The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on the social media platform X ahead of the strike in Beirut. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice. In Nabatiyeh, more than half a dozen strikes hit the city and surrounding areas, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which said at least six people were killed and 43 wounded, with rescue efforts still underway. The city’s mayor, Ahmad Kahil, was among those killed, provincial governor Huwaida Turk told The Associated Press. In his statement about Nabatiyeh, Mikati, the caretaker prime minister, said the international community has been “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians. UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called reports of Kahlil’s death “alarming.”“This attack follows other incidents in which civilians and civilian infrastructure have been targeted across Lebanon,” she said. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following the surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. A year of low-level fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border escalated into all-out war last month, and Israel invaded Lebanon at the start of October. Israeli airstrikes have killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders, and Israel has vowed to continue its offensive until its citizens can safely return to communities near the border. Some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since last October, more than three-quarters of them in the past month, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, which have extended their range and grown more intense over the past month, have driven around 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the north. The attacks have killed nearly 60 people in Israel, around half of them soldiers. Hezbollah has said it will keep up its attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, but that appears increasingly remote after months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar sputtered to a halt. Palestinians say 350 bodies recovered from Israeli operation in Gaza
Israel is still at war in Gaza more than a year after Hamas’ attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and another 250 were abducted. Around 100 captives are still being held, about a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel has been carrying out a major operation for more than a week in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in the territory’s north dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to Jabaliya and other areas after saying that Hamas militants had regrouped. Hospitals have received around 350 bodies since the offensive began on Oct. 6, according to Dr. Mounir Al-Boursh, the director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry. He told the AP that more than half the dead were women and children, and that many bodies remain in the streets and under the rubble, with rescue teams unable to reach them because of Israeli strikes. “Entire families have disappeared,” he said. Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 people, according to the Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says more than half were women and children. The offensive has left large areas in ruins and displaced around 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, forcing hundreds of thousands into crowded tent camps or schools-turned-shelters.

Israel resumes strikes on Dahieh after 6-day pause
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/October 16, 2024
Israeli warplanes targeted Wednesday Haret Hreik in Beirut's southern suburbs, for the first time in nearly a week. The strikes on southern Beirut were the first in six days, and came after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States had given him assurances that Israel would curb its strikes on the capital. The Israeli army said it struck a "strategic weapons depot" belonging to Hezbollah, under a residential building, without providing evidence. "You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, which the IDF (Israeli military) will work against in the near future", Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote in Arabic on X. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice. Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, which is also a residential and commercial area home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group. Israel also carried out Wednesday 11 air strikes on Nabatiyeh and surrounding areas in south Lebanon, days after strikes destroyed the southern city's marketplace. "For now, 11 strikes have mainly hit Nabatiyeh but also its surroundings," Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk told AFP when asked about Israeli strikes, adding that the intense raids "formed a kind of belt of fire" in the area. She reported casualties but could not provide a precise toll. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Tuesday the idea of a ceasefire in Lebanon that would leave Hezbollah close to his country's northern border. In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu said he was "opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was", according to a statement from his office. "Prime Minister Netanyahu clarified that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this (a buffer zone) and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping," the statement said.
Sonic booms rattle Beirut -
Israeli jets caused two sonic booms over Beirut and the surrounding area Wednesday. "Enemy aircraft violently broke the sound barrier twice in the airspace of (Beirut's) southern suburbs" and surroundings areas, the National News Agency said. 50 projectiles fired from Lebanon -
Around 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon at Israel's north early Wednesday, without any reports of casualties. "Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area," an Israeli military statement said, while Hezbollah said it launched "a large salvo of missiles" at the town of Safed.
Hezbollah downs two drones -
Hezbollah said it downed a second Israeli drone on Tuesday, adding that it was seen "burning" over Israeli territory. Fighters from the group's "air defense units shot down a second Israeli Hermes 450 drone," on Tuesday, Hezbollah said, adding that "it was seen burning in the skies of occupied Palestine."

Spiritual summit in peace push amid continued Israeli massacres in southern Lebanon
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/October 16, 2024
BEIRUT: Islamic and Christian spiritual authorities in Lebanon have called unanimously for “the immediate and full implementation of Resolution 1701,” which includes supporting the Lebanese army, enhancing its capabilities to defend the country, and ensuring its widespread deployment south of the Litani River and across all Lebanese territories.The summit took place on Wednesday at the Maronite Patriarchate headquarters in Bkerke amidst escalating Israeli attacks and included Shiite representatives, despite previous differences between the sect and Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi over Lebanon’s neutrality and Hezbollah’s weapons. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon was praised for “remaining at their positions despite unjustified Israeli harassment and warnings aimed at removing any witnesses to the brutal massacres Israel is committing against our nation.”
In its closing statement, it added: “Solutions for Lebanon will only, and must only, come through comprehensive national solutions. “These solutions should be based on adherence to the Lebanese constitution, the Taif Agreement, the Lebanese state, its unified authority, its free decision-making, and its responsible role in protecting the nation, national sovereignty, and its responsibilities toward its people, ensuring their security, stability, and prosperity.” The summit stressed the need for “reforming constitutional institutions, especially for parliament to immediately begin the election of a president who enjoys the trust of all Lebanese, in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, with as much understanding and consensus as possible, based on a collective Lebanese will, adhering to the spirit of the National Pact, prioritizing the national interest, and surpassing external interests.”
It also called on the government to “fully assume its responsibilities and to cooperate with parliament according to the Constitution, to mobilize the efforts of Arab brothers and the many friends around the world, to contribute with the Lebanese in saving Lebanon.”
Parallel to the summit, Israeli attacks and confrontations continued along the border. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health announced a case of cholera 01 in a Lebanese woman in the Akkar region As a result, the national cholera plan and containment measures were being deployed. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced from the south, Bekaa and Beirut’s southern suburb as a result of the war, moving toward central and northern Lebanon. Hundreds are without shelter, sleeping outdoors or in their cars. Israeli airstrikes have targeted the southern suburb of Beirut — specifically the uninhabited area of Haret Hreik — following a week-long cessation of such attacks. It came after a warning to evacuate residential buildings was issued by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee on social media, claiming the raids “targeted, with precise intelligence guidance from the Military Intelligence Service, a strategic weapons depot for Hezbollah that was stored in an underground warehouse in the southern suburb.”
Airstrikes targeted the city of Nabatieh, 56 km from Beirut, unleashing a series of missiles that destroyed the municipal building. At the time, the mayor, council members and administrative personnel were organizing humanitarian aid for displaced people in the region. The attack left six people dead, including Mayor Dr. Ahmad Kahil, and 43 injured. Condemning the attack, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said it was “a message to the world that remains deliberately silent on the crimes of the occupation, which encourages it to persist in its transgressions and crimes.”He added: “If all the countries in the world are unable to deter a blatant aggression against the Lebanese people, what is the point of turning to the Security Council to demand a ceasefire? What can possibly dissuade the enemy from committing atrocities that have escalated to the point of targeting peacekeeping forces in the south? What solution can be anticipated in light of this reality?”
The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, called for “the protection of civilians at all times.”
She said “violations of international humanitarian law are entirely unacceptable. It is imperative that all concerned parties immediately cease hostilities and pave the way for diplomatic solutions.”Media reports indicated that Israel had captured three additional members of Hezbollah after initially detaining four on Tuesday. This was not confirmed by the organization.Airstrikes on the town of Qana at dawn left three people dead and 54 more injured. The Ministry of Health confirmed rescuers were working to clear rubble in an effort to reach those trapped beneath it, while an infant who was found still alive had been taken to hospital. Mourners and rescue teams in cemeteries in Jouya were also targeted by airstrikes as they tried to buy the victims of previous attacks, resulting in additional injuries. Direct confrontations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah continued along the routes of Taybeh, Rab El-Thalathine, Markaba, Hula, Ramya, Aita Al-Shaab, and Qaouzah.
Shebaa also experienced heavy artillery shelling, prompting the intervention of the Lebanese Red Cross to evacuate several elderly individuals who insisted on remaining in the town rather than relocating to Hasbaya.The Israeli army reported 13 injured soldiers along the Lebanese front in the past 24 hours. A statement said: “Israeli naval forces attacked dozens of Hezbollah terrorist targets, in cooperation with the fighters on the ground.” Meanwhile, it also waged psychological warfare by calling civilians directly. The Ghandour Hospital in Nabatieh Al-Fawqa, which closed some years ago, received warnings to evacuate after hosting displaced people from border villages. A man driving his car on the coast ride in Sidon was also prompted to flee his vehicle after he received a call. Six people were wounded in airstrikes on the town of Yammoune, while Israeli drones flew at low altitude over the Lebanese-Syrian border area in Hermel in an attempt to prevent the reopening of crossings shelled in previous attacks. Hezbollah announced a series of targets on the Israeli side, including Safed, the Yeftah settlement and Israeli army artillery positions in Dalton, Dishon and Misgav Am.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that two Israelis were wounded after five Lebanese rockets struck the yard of a house in Safed. The Israeli army said 50 missiles had been launched from Lebanon toward the north of the country at dawn, some of which were intercepted.

At Bkirki summit, Shiite leader urges consensual president and end to 'crazy war'
Naharnet/October 16, 2024
Higher Islamic Shiite Council deputy head Sheikh Ali al-Khatib on Wednesday agreed that a “consensual president” must be elected for the country so that all Lebanese can support him in addressing the “heavy burden” of the ongoing Israeli war. “But first this crazy war must be stopped through the unity of the Lebanese people,” Khatib added, during a spiritual summit in Bkirki organized by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi. “We are counting on the efforts of Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and we place our full confidence in them,” Khatib added. “Hezbollah’s secretary-general, the martyr Hassan Nasrallah, offered himself as a sacrifice for Lebanon and our people were forced to flee. We salute the Lebanese people from all sects for opening their doors to their brothers,” the Shiite leader added. “We are the advocates, sponsors and protectors of the state and we are keen on its rise, strength and authority, but throughout decades, the state renounced its sovereignty and showed impotence and carelessness about the sovereignty and dignity of its people and their suffering, abandoning them on the border to the Zionist monster,” Khatib lamented. Saluting “the heroic men of the resistance,” the Shiite leader called for “building a real and capable state that can shoulder their national responsibilities in defending its sovereignty and the dignity of its people.” Patriarch al-Rahi for his part said there is “a national tragedy” that is “sweeping everyone.”“Today the time is for mending wounds and finding solutions, and this is our role as spiritual leaders,” the patriarch added. Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Sami Abi al-Mona meanwhile warned against seeking “foreign” assistance against internal parties and against any attempt to “defeat any sect.” A closing statement issued later in the day called on the U.N. Security Council to "meet immediately to secure a ceasefire and stop the massacre against Lebanon." "We call for electing a president who enjoys the biggest level of consensus and for the immediate implementation of Resolution 1701," it added.

At least 4 killed in Israeli strikes on Bekaa
Associated Press/October 16, 2024
Israeli warplanes struck a two-story building in Yammouneh, in the Bekaa Valley, killing two people, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency. The victims in the strike Wednesday afternoon were a local woman and a displaced person, the report said. Two people were killed and nine others were injured in a separate airstrike on the Rayak-Baalbek highway, the Health Ministry said. Several Lebanese army soldiers were wounded, the news agency reported.

US sanctions 3 people and 4 firms for raising money for Hezbollah
Associated Press/October 16, 2024
The U.S. has sanctioned three people and four firms involved in a Lebanon-based sanctions evasion network accused of generating millions in revenue for the militant group Hezbollah. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also imposed sanctions on three people involved in trafficking of Captagon, an amphetamine, from Lebanon into Jordan. The majority of the world’s Captagon is produced in Syria, with smaller production in neighboring Lebanon. Western governments estimate illegal trade in the pills generates billions of dollars for senior members of the Syrian government. The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them. Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said Wednesday’s action underscores Hezbollah’s “destabilizing influence within Lebanon and on the wider region.” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. will “continue to target the illicit Captagon trade in the region.”

State Dept affirms Israel’s right to target Hezbollah in Lebanon, urges civilian protection
REUTERS/October 16, 2024
Washington supports limited incursions by Israel to attack and degrade Hezbollah
WASHINGTON: Israel has a right to target Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah even as it may be hiding in civilian buildings in Lebanon, but should do so in a way that protects civilians, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday. Asked at a regular press briefing about an Israeli airstrike that destroyed the municipal headquarters in the southern Lebanon town of Nabatieh that killed 16 people including the mayor, Miller said he could not comment on the specific strike, but “we don’t want to see civilian buildings destroyed.”“We understand that Hezbollah does operate at times from underneath civilian homes, inside civilian homes. We’ve seen footage that has emerged over the course of the past two weeks of rockets and other military weapons held in civilian homes,” he said. “Israel does have a right to go after those legitimate targets, but they need to do so in a way that protects civilian infrastructure, protects civilians,” he said. Washington supports limited incursions by Israel to attack and degrade Hezbollah, but the US opposes a broad bombing campaign on Beirut and attacks that don’t avoid civilian harm, Miller said. Lebanese officials denounced Wednesday’s attack, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel’s campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the strike hit civilians meeting to coordinate relief efforts.Miller said if Israel intentionally targeted such a meeting that would be “unacceptable,” but said the circumstances would need to be verified. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations. “Hezbollah is in great distress,” he said according to a statement from his office. “We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza, and I am saying it here.”

Berri: Paris, Doha seeking to draft ceasefire resolution
Naharnet/October 16, 2024Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has lamented that “the Americans are still endorsing the Israeli stance until the end, despite U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s diplomatic tone.”
“There is no progress in the U.S. stance, whether through Blinken or U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein,” Berri told his visitors. “The bet today is on the French and Qatari roles and on the battlefield, with Paris and Doha seeking to draft a ceasefire resolution,” the Speaker added.

UNIFIL says Israeli tank fired at peacekeepers watchtower in Lebanon
REUTERS/October 16, 2024
CAIRO: The UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers at a position near southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kela observed an Israeli Merkava tank firing at their watchtower on Wednesday morning. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, the UNIFIL said in its statement.

Macron riles Netanyahu with jab on Israel's creation
Agence France Presse/October 16, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron has further strained tense relations with Israel with a comment referring o the creation of the Israeli state, a verbal jab that was rapidly denounced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as distorting history. Macron has sought to take a more uncompromising stance on the conflicts in the Middle East after Israel launched an offensive in Lebanon, a former French protectorate. The French leader said last week that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip was the only way to stop the two conflicts. France, which is home to Europe's largest Jewish population, has repeatedly urged a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, but has also increasingly criticized Israel over the heavy civilian toll in the conflicts. Paris has also denounced Israeli fire against the 10,000 peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon, which includes a French contingent of around 700 troops. In a new sign of the tensions between the countries, organizers of the major Euronaval defense show outside Paris next month said that following a decision of the French government, no Israeli stands or exhibits would be allowed at the salon.
'Not the time' -
"Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the U.N.," Macron told the weekly French cabinet meeting on Tuesday, referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. His comments during the closed-door meeting at the Elysee Palace were quoted by two participants who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named. "Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the U.N.," he added. Netanyahu hit back at Macron's comments later Tuesday, saying the country's founding was achieved by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, not a U.N. ruling. He also said that among those who fought for Israel in 1948 were French Jews who had been sent to death camps after being rounded up by the collaborationist Vichy regime, which governed France during the Nazi occupation in World War II. "A reminder to the president of France: It was not the U.N. resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the war of independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors -- including from the Vichy regime in France," Netanyahu said.
The French presidency's readout of a phone call between both men Tuesday -- sent deep in the night, several hours after the conversation took place -- made clear the testy nature of the exchange. Macron told Netanyahu that he condemned "the indiscriminate Israeli strikes that only add to an already intolerable human toll, in Gaza as in Lebanon", it said.
'What does it imply?' -
But Macron's comment on Israel's creation had also caused concern within the Jewish community in France. Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), an umbrella group, said the remarks "dangerously strengthen the camp of those who contest the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist". Caroline Yadan, an MP for Macron's centrist party, asked "What does this statement imply? That what the U.N. has done, the U.N. can undo? Is this a warning?" "Macron's words have sown trouble in the macronie," said the left-wing daily Liberation, using the colloquial term for Macron's supporters.

Strike on Jwaya injures 2 Red Cross paramedics on UN-coordinated mission
Agence France Presse/October 16, 2024
The Lebanese Red Cross said two paramedics were wounded in an Israeli strike on Wednesday that hit a south Lebanon village while on a rescue mission coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers.
Two rescuers in the village of Jwaya sustained "light injuries", said a statement posted on social media, adding that the volunteers were dispatched after "coordination with UNIFIL", the U.N. peacekeeping mission, to search for casualties in an earlier Israeli strike on the same area.

16 dead in Israeli strike on Lebanese municipality building
Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily/Reuters/October 16, 2024
Smoke rises after an Israeli Air Force air strike in southern Lebanon village, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from as seen from Nahariya, northern Israel
By Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily
The mayor of a major town in south Lebanon was among 16 people killed when an Israeli airstrike destroyed its municipal headquarters in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began.
Lebanese officials denounced the incident, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel's campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.
The Israelis "intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city's service and relief situation" to aid people displaced by the Israeli campaign, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said. The U.N. mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon's Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the UNIFIL statement.
Israel has previously called on the United Nations to move members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon out of the combat zone for their safety.
UNIFIL says its troops have come under Israeli attack several times, though Israel has disputed accounts of those incidents. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.
"We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here," he said according to a statement from his office. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on Wednesday spoke to Gallant and "reinforced the importance of taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces," according to the Department of Defense. Israel launched its ground and air campaign in Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah after a year during which the Iran-backed militant group fired across the border in support of the Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza. In recent weeks Israel has assassinated Hezbollah's senior leadership and pushed into southern border towns, saying its aim is to make it safe for tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes in Israel's north evacuated under Hezbollah fire. Israel first issued an evacuation notice for Nabatieh, a city of tens of thousands of people, on Oct. 3. At the time, the city's Mayor Ahmed Kahil told Reuters he would not leave.
Asked about Israeli strike on Nabatieh, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to comment on the circumstances of specific strikes but said the U.S. understands Hezbollah operates from places like civilian homes and supported limited strikes to target the group.
"Obviously, we'd not want to see entire villages destroyed. We don't want to see civilian homes destroyed," Miller said. Israel said on Wednesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area and its navy also hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.
It said it had "dismantled" a tunnel network used by Hezbollah's elite Radwan Forces in the heart of a town near the border with Israel, publishing a video showing multiple explosions rocking a cluster of buildings. Lebanese officials said it was the small town of Mhaibib.
STRIKES RESUME ON SOUTHERN BEIRUT SUBURBS
Israeli warplanes on Wednesday also hit Beirut's southern suburbs, in the first attack on the city since Oct. 10, when two strikes near the city centre killed 22 people and brought down entire buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood. Israeli operations in Lebanon have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. The U.N. says a quarter of the country is under evacuation orders. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes hundreds of women and children. Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the same period, according to Israel. Having long accused UNIFIL of failing in its mission to keep armed fighters out of the border area, Israel adopted a more conciliatory tone earlier on Wednesday.
"The State of Israel places great importance on the activities of UNIFIL and has no intention of harming the organization or its personnel," Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
The 10,000-strong peacekeeper force comprises contingents from 50 countries, including 2,500 Italian, French and Spanish soldiers, causing strain between Israel and some of its most prominent European allies. (Reporting by Laila Bassam and Timour Azhar in Beirut, Humeyra Pamuk and Jasper Ward in Washington and Andrew Gray in Brussels and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Peter Graff, Deepa Babington and Costas Pitas; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Israel's air defences are straining under repeated attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, expert says
CBC/October 16, 2024
The arrival of a U.S. high-altitude defence battery — along with dozens of American troops — will help boost Israel's air defence systems, which, according to one Israeli defence expert, are straining under repeated attacks from Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. "Israel's air defence requires any help it can get especially if the war escalates and it turns into a war of attrition between Israel and Iran," said Ehud Eilam, who used to serve in Israel's military and is a longtime researcher of its security issues and defence policy. Israel's current, multi-layered defence system is designed to intercept incoming missiles and other projectiles at various altitudes and has, for the most part, protected cities and military installations that have come under fire during the past year from Iran, Hezbollah and Houthi militias in Yemen. But as Israel gets set to launch retaliatory attacks against Iran — for its recent barrage of more than 180 ballistic missiles — there are concerns it will have to be ready for additional, significant attacks from that country, which has the largest missile stockpile in the Middle East. Israel, with the help of the U.S., intercepted most of the missiles in Iran's Oct. 1 attack. But, Eilam told CBC News, that they weren't all shot down likely means Israel is rationing its supply of interceptors. "Israel will have to calculate very carefully how many missiles it can use," Eilam said from Boston, where he is based.
"It definitely has a shortage of missiles."Israel's air defence network is comprised of three different systems: the Iron Dome which shoots down short-range projectiles, including rockets launched from Gaza; David's Sling, which shoots down medium-range rockets, like those fired from Lebanon; and the Arrow system which has intercepted long-range ballistic missiles from Iran. The U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system will soon also be operational. That system can even intercept missiles flying above the earth's atmosphere. The battery, which can be repositioned as it is mounted on military vehicles, costs about $1 billion US and will be operated by 100 U.S. troops.
While the deployment is seen as a significant step by Washington, Eilam says he believes Israel and the U.S. can't keep producing missiles as quickly as may be required.Israel is defending against attacks on multiple fronts, which is extremely costly.
The country is ramping up its production of ammunition and other weaponry to arm its soldiers who have been fighting in Gaza since last year, and in Lebanon since the beginning of October.
In an article by the U.K.-based Financial Times, the chief executive of Israel Aerospace Industries, which produces the missiles used for the Arrow system, said its production facilities are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to try to meet demand. Eilam says each Arrow missile costs about $3 million US. While ballistic missiles pose the greatest threat to communities and infrastructure, drones have proved challenging for Israel to defend against, as they are smaller, much slower and fly closer to the ground. They are also relatively cheap to produce, so they can be deployed en masse. Four Israeli soldiers were killed and dozens of others were wounded on Sunday after a drone crashed into the roof of a dining hall at a military base near the town of Binyamina-Giv'at Ada in central Israel. "There was no alarm, I didn't hear a boom," said area resident Noam Weintraub, 20. "We have an amazing air defence system… but sometimes mistakes can happen and of course, as we get better, also the enemy gets better with their drones." The Israeli military says it is investigating how the drone evaded the air defence systems. Eilam says missile interceptors are sometimes not effective against drones. And while a single drone won't cause anywhere near the damage of a ballistic missile, they can still be lethal, and Iran has a large supply of them, he says.
Its drones have also been used by Russia — deployed throughout the war in Ukraine against cities and infrastructure. Drones "are like a terror weapon because they can come out of nowhere and just hit in the middle of some town," Eilam said. On Monday, several Israeli companies participated in a trial where they tested prototypes for intercepting drones. The field test took place in southern Israel, and included large defence contractors and startups. Israel's government said it will select several of the technologies to go through accelerated testing and production.

Israeli strikes hit Lebanon and kill at least 15 in a town with a dark history of civilian deaths
Kareem Chehayeb, Mohammad Zaatari And Samy Magdy/QANA, Lebanon (AP) /October 16, 2024
Israeli airstrikes pounded areas across Lebanon, killing at least 21 people, officials said Wednesday, including 15 in a southern town where Israeli bombardments in previous conflicts are seared into local memory. The other six were killed in a wave of strikes on the southern city of Nabatiyeh, where an earlier Israeli barrage destroyed a century-old market. The city's mayor was among the dead. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a meeting of the municipal council to discuss relief efforts, and said the international community has been “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians.
“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he asked in a statement.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah command centers and weapons facilities that had been embedded in civilian areas of Nabatiyeh in Wednesday's strikes, without providing evidence.
Israel also resumed its barrage on Beirut's southern suburbs after a six-day pause, hitting what it said was an arms warehouse under an apartment building, without providing evidence. The military warned residents to evacuate before the strike, and there were no reports of casualties.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes on the southern town of Qana late Tuesday. Associated Press photos and video from the scene showed several flattened buildings and others with their top floors collapsed. Rescue workers carried away the remains of dead people and used a bulldozer to remove rubble, as they searched for more victims.
In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more people, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.
Israel resumes strikes on Beirut after a pause
The strikes on southern Beirut were the first in six days, and came after Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States had given him assurances that Israel would curb its strikes on the capital. Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, known as the Dahiyeh, which is also a residential and commercial area home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group. The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on the social media platform X ahead of the strike in Beirut. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice. In Nabatiyeh, more than half a dozen strikes hit the city and surrounding areas, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry, which said at least six people were killed. The city's mayor, Ahmad Kahil, was among those killed, provincial governor Huwaida Turk told The Associated Press. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following the surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. A year of low-level fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border escalated into all-out war last month, and Israel invaded Lebanon at the start of October. Israeli airstrikes have killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders, and Israel has vowed to continue its offensive until its citizens can safely return to communities near the border. Some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since last October, more than three-quarters of them in the past month, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon. Hezbollah's rocket attacks, which have extended their range and grown more intense over the past month, have driven around 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the north. The attacks have killed nearly 60 people in Israel, around half of them soldiers. Hezbollah has said it will keep up its attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza, but that appears increasingly remote after months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar sputtered to a halt. Palestinians say 350 bodies recovered from Israeli operation in Gaza
Israel is still at war in Gaza more than a year after Hamas' attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and another 250 were abducted. Around 100 captives are still being held, about a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel has been carrying out a major operation for more than a week in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in the territory's north dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to Jabaliya and other areas after saying that Hamas militants had regrouped.Hospitals have received around 350 bodies since the offensive began on Oct. 6, according to Dr. Mounir al-Boursh, the director-general of Gaza's Health Ministry. He told the AP that more than half the dead were women and children, and that many bodies remain in the streets and under the rubble, with rescue teams unable to reach them because of Israeli strikes. “Entire families have disappeared,” he said. Israel's offensive has killed over 42,000 people, according to the Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says more than half were women and children. The offensive has left large areas in ruins and displaced around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people, forcing hundreds of thousands into crowded tent camps or schools-turned-shelters.

The Road to the Third Lebanon War
David Daoud & Ahmad Sharawi/FDD's Long War Journal/October 16/2024
The conflict that Hezbollah initiated against Israel on October 8, 2023, is now one year old. The group vowed to maintain this “support front” for its allies in the Gaza Strip to bleed Israeli morale and treasure through attrition until a premature ceasefire would allow “the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and Hamas in particular, to emerge victorious.” But Hezbollah doesn’t understand Israel. It, therefore, misread the Israeli national mood on October 8, bogging itself down in a war of attrition that lasted far longer than the group expected or intended.
However, two things were predictable about this conflict from the outset: the first was that Hezbollah could not back down from attacking Israel in support of Gaza without looking weak and risking its own unraveling. The second was that this war of attrition, having exposed a Hezbollah threat to northern Israel not amenable to diplomatic resolution, would eventually and inevitably evolve into the Third Lebanon War.
In the early stages of the escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, the conflict was characterized by a recurring and almost predictable pattern of hostilities. Skirmishes frequently erupted along the border, with Hezbollah launching rockets and mortars toward Israeli military posts, while Israel responded with targeted strikes against Hezbollah cells and the sources of fire. Though intense at times, these exchanges remained largely localized, focused on border towns.
Hezbollah’s attacks served multiple purposes for the group: a show of solidarity with Hamas in the wake of the October 7 assault and a means to divert Israeli attention from the Gaza Strip, as iterated by Hezbollah’s former Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in his November 3 speech. Initially, the group exercised caution in its use of advanced weaponry, such as loitering munitions, as it sought to avoid provoking a large-scale Israeli retaliation. However, as the group’s conflict with Israel evolved, the Israeli incursion into Gaza deepened, and US-Israel relations grew more tense as a result, these more sophisticated arms became a staple in Hezbollah’s arsenal, marking a shift in the intensity of the group’s operations.
Israel’s strategy in the initial days was equally measured. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) concentrated Israel’s early retaliations on immediate threats. However, as the conflict progressed, Israel broadened the scope of its strikes, increasingly targeting Hezbollah’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon as well as operational commanders. This tactical shift aimed to degrade the group’s logistical and military capabilities.
As both sides adapted to the evolving conflict, their tactical approaches became more aggressive, though they did not cross the threshold into all-out war. Their strikes intensified, with Hezbollah adjusting its actions in response to shifts in Israeli tactics that became more aggressive to force the group to decouple Lebanon from a Gaza ceasefire. For example, Israeli strikes on high-level operational commanders in southern Lebanon would prompt Hezbollah to escalate its attacks on northern Israel, often by temporarily expanding the scope of its targets or increasing the volume of munitions used. After these escalations, Hezbollah typically reverted to its routine attacks on IDF positions along the border.
Israel’s strategy can be described as carefully testing the boundaries of engagement. By periodically escalating hostilities, Israel gauged Hezbollah’s responses to determine whether to set the new escalation as a regular tactic. If Hezbollah’s retaliations remained measured and within Israel’s expectation—maintaining the same intensity without crossing red lines, such as military or civilian casualties or serious damage to an IDF base or Israeli population center—then these escalations would become normalized as part of Israel’s operational routine.
For instance, in mid-November, Israel initiated targeted strikes on Hezbollah’s Radwan commanders in the village of Beit Yahoun. Hezbollah’s response, a rocket attack on the headquarters of the IDF’s 91st Division, had a minimal impact on the base and caused zero casualties. This limited retaliation reinforced Israel’s assessment that it could continue its targeted strikes on Radwan commanders in southern Lebanon with little fear of intensification from Hezbollah.
This situation culminated with Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah Chief of Staff Fuad Shukr in the heart of the group’s Dahiyeh stronghold on July 30. Israel had crossed all of Hezbollah’s red lines with the strike, and the group’s underwhelming response on August 25 revealed its limits. From then on, Israel could escalate to tip the weight of attrition heavily against Hezbollah—including by assassinating Nasrallah—while being virtually assured the group had hit its ceiling of violence.
It was necessary for Israel to press Hezbollah in this manner, for it faced two equally unpalatable alternatives. The first was to accept Hezbollah’s (and the collective Axis of Resistance’s) terms and cease military operations in the Gaza Strip. This acquiescence would have bought Israel immediate quiet but allowed Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other allied militant groups to survive, regenerate, rebuild, and resume attacking Israel. It would have also left Israeli deterrence in shambles, as the Resistance Axis would have succeeded in imposing terms upon Israel—so soon after the massive setback of October 7. It would also have allowed Hezbollah to claim the unprecedented victory of pushing Israelis out of Israel itself for the first time in the country’s history and that its largesse, not the IDF’s efforts, returned them home—which could have boosted Hezbollah’s popular support.
The second, equally unpalatable outcome was for Israel to accept American or French ceasefire deals. These initiatives, whose failure was predictable from the outset, proposed to distance Hezbollah a mere handful of kilometers from the frontier—far below the Litani River, as required by Resolution 1701. The terms also lacked a credible enforcement mechanism to prevent the group’s return from even that limited buffer zone. There were no suggestions regarding disarming the group.
In parallel, the proposed ceasefire deals offered several incentives to the Lebanese government—including funds to rebuild Hezbollah-dominated south Lebanon, assistance in resolving Beirut’s two-year presidential deadlock, and territorial concessions from Israel in disputed frontier areas—even though it was exploiting Hezbollah’s attacks to obtain these benefits. These diplomatic initiatives, while ostensibly aimed at preventing further escalation, would have merely delayed an inevitable Israel-Hezbollah confrontation, virtually ensuring it would be more destructive when it finally happened. In any case, Hezbollah rejected these deals, refusing to decouple a Lebanon ceasefire from one in Gaza.
Peaceful resolutions having run their course and Hezbollah’s limitations already laid bare, Israel set returning its civilians to their homes in the north as a war goal and decided to break the stalemate. It escalated the fight against Hezbollah, dealing the organization several heavy blows in rapid succession to make the group’s commitment to bombarding northern Israel unsustainable. But even as the Israelis have tilted the pain of the war of attrition to weigh heavy upon Hezbollah, the group is nevertheless unlikely to back down—suggesting the current Israeli escalation may be an intermediate phase preceding an even larger operation against Hezbollah.
See FDD’s interactive map: “Road to the Third Lebanon War: Mapping Hezbollah’s War of Attrition Since October 8, 2023.“
David Daoud is senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs. Ahmad Sharawi is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on Iranian intervention in Arab affairs and the Levant.

Time for Berri to lead Lebanon’s Shiites away from Iran
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Arab News/October 16/2024
With Hassan Nasrallah gone, Hezbollah reeling and Iran’s grip weakening, the Lebanese have started crawling out of the woodwork. On Monday, a few oligarchs and a bloc of 31 lawmakers, out of 128, called for Lebanon’s war to be untied from the conflict in Gaza, for the enforcement of the constitution and UN Security Council resolutions that call for the disarming of Hezbollah, and for the revival of the 1949 truce between Lebanon and Israel. However, no change in Lebanese affairs can be as consequential as steering the Shiites, who have long served as the fodder for Hezbollah’s wars, away from Iran: enter Speaker Nabih Berri.
At 86, Berri has proven to be the savviest of all. He was first elected as speaker in 1992 and has held onto his position ever since, navigating a treacherous and ever-changing political landscape and winning reelection six times. Days before Nasrallah’s death, on Sept. 27, Berri said Lebanon would not stop warring without a ceasefire in Gaza. Days after Nasrallah’s death, Berri said Lebanon was ready for an unconditional ceasefire, dropping Gaza. When whatever was left of the Hezbollah leadership blamed him for changing positions, Berri claimed that Nasrallah himself had agreed to abandoning Gaza, a claim that some in America used — without any reasonable substantiation — to depict Nasrallah as having changed course and arguing that Israel took him out because it wanted to continue fighting.
Berri’s change prompted caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the leader of the Druze Walid Jumblatt to follow suit. The three said they agreed to an unconditional ceasefire and the enforcement of UNSC Resolution 1701, which stipulates disarming Hezbollah and deploying the Lebanese army to the south. Jumblatt later added to his demands the 1949 truce.
While Hezbollah remains a formidable militia that could beat the army if the army tried to disarm it, the Iran-backed militia has a fatal weak point. If all the non-Shiite Lebanese oligarchs and lawmakers demanded that it surrender its arms, keeping them would become increasingly untenable. While Hezbollah remains a formidable militia that could beat the army, the Iran-backed militia has a fatal weak point
While Hezbollah’s armament will become difficult if Lebanon’s non-Shiites demand it, maintaining the militia would become impossible if the Shiites started joining the rest of the Lebanese in demanding that Hezbollah be disbanded.
Berri can play an instrumental role in leading the Shiites to join the rest of the Lebanese population, but being the shrewd politician he is, the speaker always hedges and rarely miscalculates or takes risks. For Berri — and with him his significant Shiite following — to abandon Hezbollah, world and Arab capitals, especially Washington, must offer guarantees that they will not reverse course and start making nice with Tehran midway. Global consistency in insisting that Hezbollah disarm is the surest way to win Berri over to the Lebanese side.
Should Berri decide to sign any statement that spells out that Hezbollah must surrender its arms to the Lebanese army, he could find a wealth of ideological justifications in the literature of the founder of his own party, Amal.
Sayyid Musa Al-Sadr, a charismatic and iconic Shiite cleric, cut his teeth in opposing “resistance,” which at the time was a word that described armed Palestinian militias attacking Israel from Lebanon’s predominantly Shiite south.
“Our problem is the launching of rockets and bombs at Israel from the south,” Al-Sadr said, shortly before he disappeared in Libya in 1978. Launching attacks on Israel was “absolutely not permitted,” he argued, because it meant that “Lebanon (would be) in a state of war with Israel.” When the interviewer challenged him by saying that Lebanon was already at war with Israel, Al-Sadr retorted: “No. We have a truce that was signed between us and Israel until further notice.”
Berri could find a wealth of ideological justifications in the literature of the founder of his own party, Amal. If Al-Sadr, the founder of Berri’s Amal Movement, opposed launching cross-border attacks into Israel and demanded that the 1949 truce between the two countries be observed, just like Jumblatt and the opposition bloc are now doing, then there is no reason why Berri should not follow Al-Sadr’s antiwar vision and policy.
Until it was disbanded, alongside all civil war militias except for Hezbollah, Berri’s Amal militia often clashed with Hezbollah. Berri then transformed himself into a statesman, while Hezbollah stayed out of politics and focused on war until Lebanon ejected Syria’s troops from the country in 2005. Starting in 2008, Nasrallah took over as the ruler of Lebanon and Berri was relegated to the status of “junior partner,” often serving as a communication channel between the world and the Iran-backed militia.
But now is the time for Berri to come back and assume the leadership of the Shiites, help dissociate them from Islamist Iran and renew their allegiance to Lebanon and its constitution.
The aging speaker might not have much time left on this Earth, but if he does Lebanon and its Shiites this one last favor, history will remember him favorably.
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).

Lebanon: assassinating sectarian leaders has always led to instability – this time will be no different
Mohamad El Kari, PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London/The Conversation/October 16/ 2024
The assassination of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in September sent shock waves through the Middle East and beyond. Nasrallah had evolved into the very embodiment of Hezbollah over his 32 years in charge, and had established himself as a key figure in Iran’s so-called axis of resistance. At the height of his influence, Nasrallah was so widely admired from North Africa to Iran that shops sold DVDs of his speeches, cars were embellished with his image, and many Lebanese even used his quotes as ringtones.
He is not the first sectarian leader to have been assassinated in Lebanon. And on each occasion the killings have intensified sectarian tensions in the country and have jeopardised social stability. The impact of Nasrallah’s death will, in my opinion, probably be no different.
His killing could destabilise the fragile balance of power in the country. And it could also trigger a reshuffling of political alliances within Lebanon’s complex sectarian power-sharing framework that was established in 1990 after the end of the civil war.
In 1977, the leftist leader of the Druze community, Kamal Jumblatt, was assassinated by two unidentified gunmen in his stronghold in the Shouf mountains of central Lebanon. Many of his followers believed they knew who was responsible, and channelled their anger toward Lebanon’s Christian community. Security officials reported that more than 250 Christians were killed in revenge, many brutally, with their throats cut by Druze assailants. At least 7,000 Christians fled their villages after the killings, with around 700 of them travelling to the presidential palace in Baabda, a suburb of Beirut, to request government protection.
This spell of fighting marked a significant escalation of sectarian violence during the civil war, and resulted in a persistent cycle of retaliation, deepening division and entrenched sectarian identities.
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Then, in June 1982, a powerful bomb explosion killed Lebanon’s Maronite Christian president, Bashir Gemayel. The assassination was carried out by two members of the Syrian Social Nationalist party, reportedly under orders from Syria’s then president, Hafez al-Assad.
The next day, Israeli troops entered west Beirut in support of the Phalange, a Lebanese Christian militia that blamed the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) for Gemayel’s death. Israel had earlier that month launched a massive invasion of Lebanon to destroy the PLO, which had been carrying out attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon.
Knowing that the Phalangists sought revenge for Gemayel’s death, Israeli forces allowed them to enter the Shatila refugee camp and the adjacent Sabra neighbourhood in Beirut and carry out a massacre a few months later. Lebanese Christian militiamen, in coordination with the Israeli army, killed between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Muslim Lebanese civilians in just two days. Scores of witness and survivor accounts say women were routinely raped, and some victims were buried alive or shot in front of their families. Women and children were crammed into trucks and taken to unknown destinations. These people were never seen again.
Following the end of Lebanon’s civil war, there was a period of relative stability as a delicate balance of power was established between Lebanese sects. But a car bomb in downtown Beirut in 2005 killed the country’s former prime minister, Rafic Hariri, and again altered the dynamics of sectarian rivalry in Lebanon.
Lebanon lost one of its central figures, while fury over Syria’s alleged involvement in Hariri’s murder raised international pressure on Syria to end its 29-year occupation. The withdrawal diminished Syria’s influence as the primary mediator in the country, and the underlying tension between the two main sectarian groups vying for power, the Sunnis and Shia, surfaced abruptly.
Lebanon experienced 18 months of political deadlock and protests, with Hezbollah and its allies pushing for a veto power in the government. Hostilities intensified and violence became a constant threat. Then, in May 2008, the Lebanese government attempted to remove a Hezbollah-aligned security officer and investigate the organisation’s private communications network. This ignited fierce clashes between supporters of the government and the Hezbollah-led opposition.
Hezbollah and its allies occupied west Beirut and at least 71 people, including 14 civilians, were killed over the following fortnight.
Hezbollah steadily expanded and enhanced its military capabilities over the next ten years. And it also emerged as a powerful regional player by joining Iran and Russia in supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the Syrian civil war.
The organisation assumed an increasingly central role in Lebanese politics, and secured a majority of seats in the 2018 parliamentary elections.
What happens now?
Lebanon’s modern history is rife with conflict. The assassination of Nasrallah marks the latest in a series of bloody milestones that have served as sharp turning points – and even transformational moments – in Lebanon’s sectarian politics.
Christian and Sunni factions in Lebanon have for years viewed Hezbollah as effectively commandeering the state, leveraging its powerful military wing and Iranian backing. With Hezbollah now visibly weakened in the absence of its powerful and charismatic leader, this longstanding power dynamic may be set for a shift.
There are signs that divisions are already deepening. Videos from Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni city in northern Lebanon, show residents dancing in the streets in celebration of Nasrallah’s death. Other videos show people removing Hezbollah stickers from the vehicles of displaced Shias.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah supporters have pledged retaliation for Nasrallah’s elimination. Lebanon once again finds itself on the verge of fierce sectarian tension and instability.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Final Statement of the Bkerke Summit: Emphasis on Lebanese Unity and Call for Immediate Security Council Session to Cease Hostilities and Begin Implementing Resolution 1701, and Elect a President Who Enjoys the Confidence of All
National News Agency, October 16, 2024 (Google translation from Arabic)
A final statement was issued by the Christian-Islamic spiritual summit, held at the Patriarchal See in Bkerke, and read by Bishop Antoine Aker, the Patriarchal Vicar. The statement reads as follows:
"Out of a sense of spiritual, moral, and national responsibility, and in an effort to foster a positive impact on Lebanese society and urge the salvation of the nation, a Christian-Islamic spiritual summit was convened on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, in Bkerke, upon the invitation of His Beatitude Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rai, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East for the Maronites. The summit was attended by Christian and Muslim spiritual leaders, including His Beatitude Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rai, His Eminence the Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian, His Eminence Sheikh Ali al-Khatib, Vice President of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council, His Beatitude John X Yazigi, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, His Eminence Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna, Spiritual Leader of the Druze community, His Beatitude Joseph Absi, Greek Melkite Catholic Patriarch, represented by Bishop George Bacouni, His Holiness Catholicos of the Armenian Orthodox Aram I Keshishian, represented by Bishop Shahe Panossian, His Beatitude Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church Mar Ignatius Joseph III Yonan, represented by Bishop Charles Mourad, His Holiness Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Mar Ignatius Aphrem II, represented by Bishop Paulos Saffar, Sheikh Ali Kadour, President of the Islamic Alawite Council, Reverend Joseph Kassab, President of the Supreme Evangelical Council in Lebanon and Syria, Bishop Michel Kassarji of the Chaldean Church, and Metropolitan Mar Meelis Zia of the Assyrian Orthodox Church, represented by Archimandrite Korkis Touma. The summit was attended by several other religious leaders.
The discussions centered on the brutal and savage aggression that Israel is committing against Lebanon, disregarding international treaties and conventions, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and showing no regard for the United Nations or the Security Council and its resolutions. Israel continues to engage in violence, destruction, killing, and genocide, demolishing infrastructure, institutions, and homes, burying their inhabitants underneath. This comes after Israel completely destroyed Gaza, killing children, women, the elderly, and leveling hospitals, mosques, and churches.
Faced with this catastrophic, tragic, and horrendous humanitarian reality, unprecedented in modern history in terms of the scale of the atrocities and massacres, the silence over the horrors committed, and the degree of passivity and inaction in adopting measures to deter Israel and maintain international peace and security, the spiritual leaders of Lebanon convened this national gathering. They addressed the Lebanese people, particularly those in the south, the Beqaa, Beirut, and its suburbs, and all areas targeted by the Zionist aggression. The leaders expressed heartfelt condolences to the martyrs of the nation who sacrificed their lives in defense of Lebanon, as well as to the innocent civilian victims, including women, children, the elderly, and the infirm. They prayed to God to heal the wounded and grant them a speedy recovery.
The summit affirmed that the barbaric Israeli aggression against Lebanon affects the entire country and undermines the dignity and pride of all Lebanese. The Lebanese, through their unity, solidarity, and attachment to their land and nation, are capable of resisting and driving the enemy back. The leaders stressed that solutions for Lebanon must come through national, inclusive solutions rooted in adherence to the Lebanese constitution, the Taif Agreement, the Lebanese state, its singular authority, free decision-making, and its responsible role in protecting the nation, national sovereignty, and the well-being, security, and prosperity of its people.
Based on this, the summit concluded the following:
Call for the United Nations Security Council to convene immediately and without delay to take decisive action to cease hostilities and stop this humanitarian massacre being perpetrated against Lebanon, a country that stands as a remarkable model in the region, upholding values of justice, equality, tolerance, openness, and peaceful coexistence among religious communities and cultures. Lebanon was described by Pope John Paul II as a "message of peace and love."
Call on all Lebanese to save their homeland. This is not the time for fruitless debates or pursuit of demands and gains. It is a time to prove our worthiness as united Lebanese and to deserve our belonging to this country, which the world admires. Now is the time for understanding, cooperation, and solidarity, as Lebanon's very existence is under threat from Israeli ambitions, which know no bounds. It is time for sacrifice for the salvation of Lebanon, time for solidarity, mutual support, and unity. Trust in one another must be strengthened, and collaboration to build a capable and just state must be fostered, so that Lebanese unity remains the most effective weapon in defending Lebanon and asserting its right to freedom, independence, and sovereignty.
Urging all Lebanese to fulfill their national duties, starting with the re-establishment of constitutional institutions. The Parliament must immediately begin the process of electing a President of the Republic who enjoys the trust of all Lebanese, in accordance with the constitution, with as much consensus as possible, through a collective Lebanese will, in the spirit of the National Pact, and by prioritizing national interests over external ones.
Immediate implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 in its entirety, including supporting and strengthening the Lebanese Army's capabilities to defend Lebanon and ensuring its broad deployment south of the Litani River and throughout Lebanese territories. The Lebanese government, as the custodian of executive authority, must assume its full responsibilities and work in cooperation with the Parliament to mobilize efforts and engage the support of Arab and international allies to contribute with the Lebanese people to Lebanon's salvation.
Affirming Lebanese unity and the need for mutual support, especially in this difficult period of widespread concern among all Lebanese. It is essential that they return, as a united and cohesive team, to what is in their collective best interest and in the interest of Lebanon, under the conditions and authority of the Lebanese state. This means that the state must firmly hold the national decision-making power, defend its sovereignty, and be the sole authority across all Lebanese territory.
Expressing gratitude to all Lebanese for their goodwill initiatives throughout Lebanon, which reflect their authenticity and patriotism in embracing one another and in providing relief to their displaced compatriots, who were forced to flee their villages and homes due to Israeli aggression. The summit stressed the importance of hosting these displaced people as guests until they can return to their villages, with care and attention, and with respect for private property, rejecting any form of trespassing on individuals and their belongings.
Extending thanks to the brotherly Arab nations and friendly countries for their supportive initiatives toward Lebanon, offering political backing and material, medical, and food aid. The summit called on these nations to increase their efforts in supporting Lebanon to stop the brutal Israeli aggression and to reinforce the resilience of the Lebanese people, as Lebanon has now become a disaster-stricken country in need of assistance from all brotherly and friendly nations, as well as international and humanitarian organizations, to provide all necessary and urgent aid to preserve the dignity of those displaced from their villages and towns, and to begin rebuilding and reconstructing what has been destroyed.
Thanking the United Nations forces operating in southern Lebanon for their efforts and sacrifices in protecting Lebanon’s southern borders and the residents of that region. The summit appreciates their determination to remain at their posts despite unjustified Israeli harassment and warnings aimed at eliminating any witnesses to the atrocities being committed against Lebanon. The summit called on the international community to stand by these forces and protect them.
Reaffirming that the central cause in the Arab region remains the legitimate Palestinian cause, which still awaits a just and comprehensive solution, allowing the Palestinians to have their homeland and establish their independent sovereign state, in line with the Arab Peace Initiative launched at the 2002 Beirut Summit. This should be achieved through a fair and lasting solution under the auspices of the United Nations and international and Arab capitals, bringing about peace and ending the tragedy.
In conclusion, the summit participants prayed to God, the God of peace, to grant us lasting, just, and comprehensive peace, making us builders of peace. They beseeched Almighty God to protect Lebanon and the Lebanese from all harm, and to grant the Lebanese people the strength and hope to endure this catastrophe, while reinforcing their national unity, sovereignty, freedom, and the safety of their land across all of Lebanon’s territory."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 16-17/2024
UNRWA 'very near' possible breaking point in Gaza operation, head says
Reuters/October 16, 2024
BERLIN (Reuters) - The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency is close to a possible breaking point for its operations in the Gaza Strip due to increasingly complicated conditions, its head said on Wednesday. "I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won't be able anymore to operate," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at a news conference in Berlin. "We are very near to a possible breaking point. When will it be? I don't know. But we are very near of that," he said. He said the agency was facing a combination of a financial and political threats to its existence, in addition to difficulties in day-to-day operations, as aid is even more desperately needed against the threat of disease and famine. He said there was a real risk, heading into winter, with people's immune systems weakened, that famine or acute malnutrition could become a likelihood. UNRWA provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It has long had tense relations with Israel but ties have deteriorated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage to Gaza, by Israeli tallies. More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, according to Gaza's health authorities. Israeli leaders in January accused UNRWA staff of collaborating with Hamas militants in Gaza, leading some donors to suspend funding, although many of those decisions have since been reversed. The U.N. launched an investigation into Israel's accusations and dismissed nine staff.

Iran’s FM arrives in Egypt for first visit since 2013: state media
AFP/October 16, 2024
TEHRAN: Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, arrived Wednesday in Cairo, state media reported, the first visit by an Iranian foreign minister in almost 12 years. The last visit to Egypt was in January 2013 when Ali Akbar Salehi traveled to Cairo during an African tour. Araghchi who is currently on a multi-country tour, arrived in the Egyptian capital after a visit to Jordan where he met and talked to his counterpart, Ayman Safadi. The two discussed regional developments amid Israel’s “atrocity and aggression against Gaza and Lebanon,” according to the foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei. Araghchi, while in Amman also met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Over the past week, Araghchi has visited Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and Oman in an effort to ease tensions and contain the conflict from spreading into the region. He is also expected to visit Turkiye after Egypt, according to the ministry. On Tuesday, Araghchi spoke with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot and the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to the same source. The diplomatic measures by Tehran come with the region awaiting Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel. Iran has said the attack was itself in retaliation for the killing of the chiefs of Iran-allied groups, as well as a commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Iran has said that it will hit back if Israel attacks.

IDF arrests three more Hezbollah Radwan terrorists along with commander
Jerusalem Post/October 16/2024
The capture happened after the terrorists surrendered, realizing the IDF was about to enter the tunnel where they were hiding.
Israeli troops captured three additional Hezbollah terrorists from the Lebanese terror group's Radwan Force unit during Tuesday's operation, which also saw the arrest of a Radwan Force commander, according to a Wednesday KAN News report.
During the same operation reported on by The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, in which Radwan commander Wadah Kamal Yunis was captured, the IDF had also arrested three Hezbollah terrorists from the Radwan unit inside a tunnel in southern Lebanon, according to a Wednesday KAN News report. The Tuesday arrests happened after several hours of negotiations, during which the terrorists surrendered after realizing that the IDF was about to enter the tunnel where they were hiding, KAN News noted.
Yunis told investigators that after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, many members of the group, including local commanders, fled. Yunis described the Radwan unit as "unbelievers, people without religion" who came to receive money and ran away because they feared the IDF.
He also mentioned that they had planned to retaliate against an attack and move into Israel’s Galilee region, but after Nasrallah's death, those members had stopped showing up.
Underground Radwan lodging and storage complex
Yunis and the three other Hezbollah Radwan members were captured at a network of shafts and underground infrastructure that included areas for lodging and equipment storage, which the IDF had recently raided and uncovered a large cache of weapons.
According to the IDF, these facilities were intended for use by Hezbollah’s Radwan members in the event of an operation aimed at the "conquest of the Galilee." The infrastructure was at the heart of a village, beneath Lebanese civilian homes that Hezbollah terrorists had exploited.The complex was destroyed by Task Force 8 and Yahalom Unit forces on Wednesday morning. Before the underground complex was destroyed, Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Amir Baram conducted a situational assessment on Tuesday with Brigadier General Shai Kalper of the Galilee Division, Colonel Dori Saar of the "Zaken" Brigade, and Colonel A, commander of the Yahalom Unit, as he met with soldiers engaged in ground operations in southern Lebanon.
During his visit, Baram toured the underground complex, and stated,"For years, Division 91 and the Northern Command have prepared for defense and containment against what Hezbollah called the 'conquest of the Galilee.' It’s powerful and pride-inducing that we are now fighting in the very area from which they planned to attack us—destroying their infrastructure and plans. This is how it should be done; there’s no other way. Continue with quality, meaningful operational actions that will have an impact on us and the Middle East for years to come." Four more terrorists captured
Previously, it has been reported that in two different operations, Hezbollah terrorists were captured inside tunnels. The first operation was announced on Sunday when IDF soldiers arrested a terrorist hiding in a tunnel with various weapons and supplies for extended stays.
According to KAN News, in another operation, Battalion 13 of the IDF’s Golani Brigade found the entrance to the tunnel in a Hezbollah building with terrorists operating inside and surrounded it. The three terrorists inside surrendered and were taken into custody. They were first interrogated by field investigators from Unit 504 in military intelligence and then moved to a detention facility for further questioning in Israel. Along with the terrorists, a large amount of weapons and equipment for extended stays was discovered. All three suspects cooperated with their interrogations, providing important information to Israeli authorities.

At BRICS summit, Russia to push to end dollar dominance
Gleb Bryanski/Reuters/October 16, 2024 at 10:42 a.m. EDT·3 min read
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is seeking to convince BRICS countries to build an alternative platform for international payments that would be immune to Western sanctions when it hosts the group's leaders at a summit next week. President Vladimir Putin is keen to build up BRICS - which has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as well as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - as a powerful counterweight to the West in global politics and trade. The Oct. 22-24 summit in the city of Kazan is being presented by Moscow as evidence that Western efforts to isolate Russia have failed. It wants other countries to work with it to overhaul the global financial system and end the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Central to that is the proposal for a new payments system based on a network of commercial banks linked to each other through the BRICS central banks, according to a document prepared by Russia's finance ministry and central bank, distributed to journalists ahead of the summit. The system would use blockchain technology to store and transfer digital tokens backed by national currencies. This, in turn, would then allow those currencies to be easily and securely exchanged, bypassing the need for dollar transactions. Russia sees it as a way to resolve increasing problems in settling trade payments, even with friendly countries such as China, where local banks fear they could be hit by secondary sanctions by the United States. Yaroslav Lissovolik, founder of the BRICS+ Analytics think tank, said the creation of such a system was technically feasible but would take time. "After the significant expansion of BRICS membership last year, the attainment of consensus is arguably harder," he said.
GRAIN EXCHANGE
The Russian document accuses existing institutions such as the International Monetary Fund of serving the interests of Western countries and says they need "improvements to better serve the evolving global economy". Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called on BRICS members last week to create an alternative to the IMF. Among other initiatives to facilitate trade and investment, Russia is also proposing to create a "BRICS Clear" platform to settle trade in securities. The document calls for better communication between credit rating agencies in member countries and for a common ratings methodology, but stops short of proposing a joint BRICS rating agency, an idea that the group had discussed earlier. Russia, the world's top wheat exporter, is also urging the creation of a BRICS grain trading exchange, backed by a pricing agency, to create an alternative to Western bourses where international prices for agricultural commodities are set. But in a sign that Moscow will need to work hard to push its proposals through, most BRICS members sent only lower-level officials - not finance ministers or central bankers - to a preparatory meeting last week. For the summit itself, Russia says it expects to welcome leaders from all nine BRICS members and about 15 other countries keen to work as partners with the group, as well as the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, which has been invited to join.
"BRICS is a structure that cannot be ignored," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters last week.

UK considers sanctioning 2 ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers
Associated Press/October 17, 2024
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the U.K. government is considering sanctioning two ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers. Starmer said “we are looking at” imposing sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He said the pair had made “abhorrent” comments about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Britain, France and Algeria have called a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday on the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, which Starmer called “dire.”
“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes, and provide the U.N. humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively,” Starmer said in the House of Commons. David Cameron, who was foreign secretary in the previous Conservative government until its defeat in the U.K.’s July election, said Tuesday that while in office he was working on a plan to sanction Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over their support for blocking aid from entering the Gaza Strip and expanding illegal Israeli settlements there and in the occupied West Bank. The sanctions were not put in place before Britain’s snap election was called.

US warns Israel to boost humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing weapons funding
Associated Press/October 17, 2024
The Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to U.S. weapons funding.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that the changes must occur. The letter, which restates U.S. policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and an Israeli airstrike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people and burned others. A similar letter that Blinken sent to Israeli officials in April led to more humanitarian assistance getting to the Palestinian territory, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday. But that has not lasted. "In fact, it's fallen by over 50% from where it was at its peak," Miller said at a briefing. Blinken and Austin "thought it was appropriate to make clear to the government of Israel that there are changes that they need to make again, to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today." For Israel to continue qualifying for foreign military financing, the level of aid getting into Gaza must increase to at least 350 trucks a day, Israel must institute additional humanitarian pauses and provide increased security for humanitarian sites, Austin and Blinken said in their letter. They said Israel had 30 days to respond to the requirements. "The letter was not meant as a threat," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "The letter was simply meant to reiterate the sense of urgency we feel and the seriousness with which we feel it, about the need for an increase, a dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance." An Israeli official confirmed a letter had been delivered but did not discuss the contents. That official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, confirmed the U.S. had raised "humanitarian concerns" and was putting pressure on Israel to speed up the flow of aid into Gaza. The letter, which an Axios reporter posted a copy of online, was sent during a period of growing frustration in the administration that despite repeated and increasingly vocal requests to scale back offensive operations against Hamas, Israel's bombardment has led to unnecessary civilian deaths and risks plunging the region into a much wider war. "We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government, including halting commercial imports, denying or impeding 90 percent of humanitarian movements" and other restrictions have kept aid from flowing, Blinken and Austin said. The Biden administration is increasing its calls for its ally and biggest recipient of U.S. military aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while assuring that America's support for Israel is unwavering just before the U.S. presidential election in three weeks.
Funding for Israel has long carried weight in U.S. politics, and Biden said this month that "no administration has helped Israel more than I have." Humanitarian aid groups fear that Israeli leaders may approve a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas, which could trap hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are unwilling or unable to leave their homes without food, water, medicine and fuel. U.N. humanitarian officials said last week that aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months. The three hospitals operating minimally in northern Gaza are facing "dire shortages" of fuel, trauma supplies, medications and blood, and while meals are being delivered each day, food is dwindling, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
"There is barely any food left to distribute, and most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in just days without any additional fuel," he said. The U.N. humanitarian office reported that Israeli authorities facilitated just one of its 54 efforts to get to the north this month, Dujarric said. He said 85% of the requests were denied, with the rest impeded or canceled for logistical or security reasons. COGAT, the Israeli body facilitating aid crossings into Gaza, denied that crossings to the north have been closed. U.S. officials said the letter was sent to remind Israel of both its obligations under international humanitarian law and of the Biden administration's legal obligation to ensure that the delivery of American humanitarian assistance should not be hindered, diverted or held up by a recipient of U.S. military aid. Israel's retaliatory offensive since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas has killed over 42,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians but has said a little more than half the dead are women and children. The United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University's Costs of War project.
That aid has enabled Israel to purchase billions of dollars worth of munitions it has used in its operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Those strikes have killed civilians in both areas.

Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports
REUTERS/October 17, 2024
CAIRO: An Israeli strike targeting Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday resulted in fires breaking out there, Syrian state news agency SANA reported. Firefighters are working on extinguishing the fires, SANA added. Syrian state television reported the country’s air defenses had confronted Israeli targets over Latakia. Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by armed group Hamas on Israeli territory.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on October 16-17/2024
‘Axis of Resistance’ or ‘Axis of Espionage?’ Iran’s struggles to staff leadership
Janatan Sayeh/FDD's Long War Journal/October 16/2024
The Kuwaiti Al-Jarida newspaper reported on October 13 that Islamic Republic Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed the Quds Force deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh, as Hezbollah’s “supervisor” until a new secretary-general is named. Tehran’s failure to appoint a Lebanese successor for its crown jewel not only underscores Israel’s devastating blow to Hezbollah but also complicates the leadership dynamics within the “Axis of Resistance” after numerous high-level intelligence breaches.
Sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2024 for terrorist financing, Fallahzadeh was appointed as the deputy commander of IRGC’s Quds Force in 2021. Prior, he served as the Quds Force deputy coordinator, and Iranian state media has glorified his role of fighting alongside former IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani during the height of the Syrian Civil War. Fallahzadeh also led two IRGC ground force commands: Fajr 19 Division and Al-Ghadir 18 Brigade. His time overseeing IRGC ground forces, paired with his experience coordinating Iranian military efforts with Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, made him a prime candidate to implement Tehran’s damage-control strategy in Lebanon as Israel launches ground operations in that country’s south.
Fallahzadeh’s new responsibility comes at a desperate time for the Islamic Republic’s oldest proxy group. Not only has the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) eliminated Hassan Nasrallah’s successor as Hezbollah’s secretary-general, but it has also decapitated the group’s broader leadership. Since late September, the IDF has targeted approximately 20 high-ranking Hezbollah military and political officials, including leaders of combat units and those overseeing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and missile operations.
The regime in Tehran perceives the IDF’s tactical military victories in Lebanon as part of a greater troubling pattern: Israel’s intelligence superiority over that of the Islamic Republic. The depth of Mossad’s penetration of the regime’s intelligence apparatus—namely, the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC Intelligence Division—has led to sophisticated assassination plots inside Iran targeting the likes of former Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh, Iranian Nuclear Chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and many others. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently revealed that his administration’s secret intelligence unit tasked with identifying Israeli espionage operations in Iran was, in fact, led by a Mossad agent.
Israel’s intelligence campaign against the regime made headlines last week, with rumors alleging that the regime suspects IRGC Quds Force Commander Esmail Gha’ani of being a spy working at the behest of the Mossad. The Qatar-affiliated Middle East Eye claimed on October 10 that Gha’ani and his team are on house arrest and being investigated by the IRGC for potential ties to the Mossad. On the same day, Sky News Arabia reported that Gha’ani had suffered a heart attack while under interrogation under the suspicion of espionage for Israel. An identified source affiliated with President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government allegedly told IranWire that this administration is unable to confirm or deny whether Gha’ani is alive.
To counter these narratives, the Islamic Republic announced that Gha’ani would soon be awarded the “Fath” medal by Khamenei. Gha’ani eventually made a public appearance on October 14 at the funeral of IRGC General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was killed in the same Israeli strike that targeted Nasrallah. Gha’ani’s temporary disappearance amid the wave of assassinations of Hezbollah officials suggests that the Quds Force commander feared he could be the next casualty. These instances of high-level security breaches both inside and outside Iran have created a state of panic among various leaders and institutions. Following the news of Nasrallah’s assassination, Khamenei was reportedly hiding in a secure location until he officially led Tehran’s Friday prayer a week later. The 85-year-old theocrat is now increasingly more paranoid about staffing the regime’s critical position vacancies both domestically and abroad. In this vacuum of reliable aides, Khamenei is compelled to increasingly entrust his son, Mojtaba, to spearhead initiatives on behalf of the Supreme Leader’s Office. In addition to the challenges of identifying a successor to his own reign after former President Ebrahim Raisi’s death, Khamenei’s Axis of Resistance struggles to appoint a trusted and experienced commander to navigate Hezbollah’s losing battle against Israel.
*Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on Iranian domestic affairs and the Islamic Republic’s regional malign influence.

The Biden-Harris Administration's Misguided Policy On The Palestinians
Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute./October 16, 2024
On a number of occasions over the past few months, US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has declared her support for the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. Last month, Harris said: "We must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve."
Harris's repeated talk about the need to establish a Palestinian state in the aftermath of the October 7 atrocities against Israelis is the best gift the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group could have wished for.
Harris seems to ignore that a majority of Palestinians continue to support Hamas and the October 7 atrocities.... Two-thirds of the Palestinians [in a poll conducted by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in June] said that the October 7 massacres were "correct."
What is most disturbing about Harris's advocacy for the establishment of an Iranian-controlled Palestinian state is that it is seen by many Palestinians as a reward for the October 7 atrocities.... So, when Harris talks about the need to establish a Palestinian state, she is sending a message to Hamas and other Palestinians that terrorism against Israel pays....
If Harris really cared about the Palestinians, she should be calling on Hamas to surrender; and calling on the Palestinian Authority (PA) stop glorifying terrorists and paying their families monthly salaries, dismantle all terror groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stop poisoning the hearts and minds of their people, and recognize Israel's right to exist. Unfortunately, she has done none of the above.
Moreover, the assumption that the PA can be "revitalized" and play a role in a post-war Gaza shows that Harris and the Biden administration are unfortunately clueless.... The poll also found that if presidential elections were held today, Hamas arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar would receive 41% of the votes, while Abbas would get only 13%. A majority of 84% of the Palestinians want Abbas to resign.
Abbas is also well aware that the talk about "revitalizing" the corrupt PA is nothing but a farce. The PA was established more than 30 years ago and its leaders, first Yasser Arafat and now Abbas, have never shown any serious intention to combat rampant corruption, anarchy and lawlessness in areas under their control.
Abbas and the Egyptians appear to have renewed their talks with Hamas because they sense that the Biden-Harris administration is not interested in ending the terror group's rule over the Gaza Strip.
If Biden and Harris really wanted to see Hamas removed from power and the Israeli hostages released, all they need to do, is issue an ultimatum to the ruler of Qatar, who funds and hosts the terror group's leadership, that the US will withdraw its air base from the Gulf state and impose sanctions on the emirate if the issue is not resolved immediately.
If the Biden-Harris administration really wanted to get rid of Hamas, they would be calling out Abbas and the Egyptians for negotiating with a terror group about ways of incorporating it in a new administration in the Gaza Strip.
Talk about creating a Palestinian state emboldens terrorists everywhere and assures the world that the US is on their side.
Vice President Kamala Harris's repeated talk about the need to establish a Palestinian state in the aftermath of the October 7 atrocities against Israelis is the best gift the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group could have wished for. Pictured: Harris and President Joe Biden on in New York City, September 11, 2024. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
On a number of occasions over the past few months, US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has declared her support for the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. Last month, Harris said: "We must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve."
In July, she was quoted as saying that the two-state solution is the "only path" forward for Israel and the Palestinians. Less than two months after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, which resulted in the murder of 1,200 Israelis, including many of them being raped, tortured and burned alive, Harris, after meeting with a number of Arab leaders in the United Arab Emirates, talked about the need to "revitalize the Palestinian Authority" headed by Mahmoud Abbas and the need to "see a unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority." She added: "A two-state solution remains the best path, we believe, toward a durable peace. The President (Joe Biden) and I are committed to that goal."
Harris's repeated talk about the need to establish a Palestinian state in the aftermath of the October 7 atrocities against Israelis is the best gift the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group could have wished for. Harris is basically saying that, if elected, she will pursue the Biden administration's policy of appeasing Iran and its terror proxies by helping them establish a Palestinian terror state that would undoubtedly be controlled by Hamas murderers and rapists.
If such a state is created in the West Bank, Gaza Strip or east Jerusalem, it will be used as a base from which to launch more October 7-style massacres and eliminate Israel.
Harris seems to ignore that a majority of Palestinians continue to support Hamas and the October 7 atrocities. A poll published by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in June found that overall support for Hamas among the Palestinians stood at 40%, a six-point increase from a previous survey conducted three months earlier. According to the poll, only some 20% support the ruling Fatah faction headed by Abbas. In addition, the poll showed that more than half of the Palestinians, support the "armed struggle" (terrorism) against Israel. Two-thirds of the Palestinians said that the October 7 massacres were "correct."
What is most disturbing about Harris's advocacy for the establishment of an Iranian-controlled Palestinian state is that it is seen by many Palestinians as a reward for the October 7 atrocities. When asked by the PSR pollsters why they believe the Hamas-led attack was "correct," 82% of the Palestinians said it was because the massacres "revived international attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could lead to increased recognition of Palestinian statehood."
So, when Harris talks about the need to establish a Palestinian state, she is sending a message to Hamas and other Palestinians that terrorism against Israel pays and brings them closer to achieving their goal of creating a terror state that would facilitate their goal of murdering more Jews and destroying Israel. She has, in fact, revived the hopes of Palestinian terrorists that they are closer than ever to fulfill their dream of replacing Israel with a jihadi-genocidal state armed and funded by Qatar and the mullahs in Iran.
If Harris wants the Palestinians to live in security and dignity, she should be urging them to revolt against the Hamas murders and rapists who, on October 7, 2023, launched the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. If Harris really cared about the Palestinians, she should be calling on Hamas to surrender; and calling on the Palestinian Authority (PA) stop glorifying terrorists and paying their families monthly salaries, dismantle all terror groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stop poisoning the hearts and minds of their people, and recognize Israel's right to exist. Unfortunately, she has done none of the above.
The absence of a firm and tough US policy towards Hamas and terrorism has led many Palestinians, including the PA's Abbas, to believe that it is fine to seek unity with Iran's Palestinian terror proxies. Moreover, the assumption that the PA can be "revitalized" and play a role in a post-war Gaza shows that Harris and the Biden administration are unfortunately clueless. As several PSR polls have shown, more than 80% of the Palestinians have no faith in Abbas and the PA. The latest poll, published in September, showed that a majority of 57% of the Palestinians believe that when the war ends, Hamas will continue to rule the Gaza Strip. The poll also found that if presidential elections were held today, Hamas arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar would receive 41% of the votes, while Abbas would get only 13%. A majority of 84% of the Palestinians want Abbas to resign. Unlike Harris, Abbas is well aware that a vast majority of the Palestinians prefer Hamas over him and his PA. That is why he has so far refused to condemn the Hamas-led October 7 atrocities. Abbas is also well aware that the talk about "revitalizing" the corrupt PA is nothing but a farce. The PA was established more than 30 years ago and its leaders, first Yasser Arafat and now Abbas, have never shown any serious intention to combat rampant corruption, anarchy and lawlessness in areas under their control.
If Biden and Harris want to see a "revitalized" PA, the first thing they need to do is ask Abbas, whose term in office expired in 2009, to step down. If they want to see a "revitalized" PA, they should be asking the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank immediately to crack down on hundreds of Iran-backed militiamen who have formed terror groups to murder Jews. Biden and Harris are misguided if they think that Abbas would ever be able to return to the Gaza Strip, from where he and his PA were expelled by Hamas during a brutal and bloody coup in 2007.
Abbas does not even have the courage to publicly call on Hamas to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip. Instead, he is busy these days trying to forge an alliance with Hamas. According to reports in the Arab media, Abbas loyalists and Hamas leaders, who recently met in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, agreed to "form a joint committee to manage the Gaza Strip." The committee, the reports said, consists of 10-15 "professional members" who are not affiliated with any Palestinian faction. If true, the reports demonstrate that Abbas continues to view Hamas, whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel through jihad, as a legitimate partner. Worse, it shows that Egypt, a key US ally in the Middle East, also sees Hamas as a legitimate player in the Palestinian arena.
Future meetings between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo will be based on four pillars, "in light of Egypt's commitment to the Palestinian cause as a matter of national security," according to Egyptian academic and political analyst Dr. Tarek Fahmy. "According to my understanding, these pillars include Cairo completing its efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation," he said.
Ibrahim Al-Madhoun, a Palestinian political analyst close to Hamas, said that the Fatah-Hamas meetings are being held under Egyptian sponsorship to discuss ways of forming a new Palestinian unity government. Al-Madhoun believes that "the Egyptian sponsorship will facilitate the course of the talks in that meeting and will make everyone work with open hearts to reach agreements."
Abbas and the Egyptians appear to have renewed their talks with Hamas because they sense that the Biden-Harris administration is not interested in ending the terror group's rule over the Gaza Strip. If Biden and Harris really wanted to see Hamas removed from power and the Israeli hostages released, all they need to do, is issue an ultimatum to the ruler of Qatar, who funds and hosts the terror group's leadership, that the US will withdraw its air base from the Gulf state and impose sanctions on the emirate if the issue is not resolved immediately.
If the Biden-Harris administration really wanted to get rid of Hamas, they would be calling out Abbas and the Egyptians for negotiating with a terror group about ways of incorporating it in a new administration in the Gaza Strip.
Talk about creating a Palestinian state emboldens terrorists everywhere and assures the world that the US is on their side.
*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.

Why Syria’s Assad regime must toe a fine line as Israel-Iran tensions escalate
ROBERT EDWARDS/Arab News/October 16, 2024
LONDON: Over the past year, the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad has been at pains to avoid direct involvement in Gaza and Lebanon, despite its informal alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah and professed support for their cause against Israel, not to mention the deadly Israeli strikes on Iranian military assets on Syrian territory.
Crippled by 13 years of civil war, international isolation, and economic weakness, this might seem a prudent move. Intervening in either conflict could invite a devastating retaliation from Israel and drag the country into a wider regional war.
However, Assad’s absence from the battlefield has raised questions about his role within the so-called Axis of Resistance — the loose network of Iran-backed Arab proxies that includes Hamas and Hezbollah — and, by extension, his reliability as an ally of the Islamic Republic.
Ever since Iran came to Assad’s rescue in 2011-12 when an armed uprising threatened his rule, Syria has effectively been a vassal of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, used as a land bridge to deliver weapons to Hezbollah, making it a favored target for the Israeli military.
The attacks have become more frequent since the wars in Gaza and along the Israel-Lebanon border erupted in October last year — the most significant being the April 1 strike on the Iranian Embassy annex in Damascus that killed multiple high-level IRGC commanders.
“Israel has been striking alleged Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, but the pace of Israeli strikes has increased since 2023,” Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, told Arab News.
“With the war in Gaza and now also the invasion of Lebanon, Israel has adopted a much more aggressive posture against Syria. Israeli jets strike with regularity and impunity, and the Syrians are just soaking it up. They can’t do much to stop it and are probably afraid to try, for fear of further escalation.”While Lund highlights Israel’s intensifying air campaign in Syria, Karam Shaar, a political economist and non-resident senior fellow at Newlines Institute, points to a deeper concern driving the Syrian regime’s inaction. He suggests that Assad’s reluctance to retaliate against these Israeli strikes stems from his regime’s vulnerability. “It knows that the Israelis might actually just topple it altogether,” Shaar told Arab News. “All it needs is a nudge for it to just come down crashing.”
Although it has enjoyed years of Russian and Iranian support, the Syrian Arab Army is today a shadow of its former self — ground down by more than a decade of underinvestment and fighting with armed opposition groups.
According to Randa Slim, director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., Syria is in no position to withstand a major Israeli offensive. “The Assad regime is weak and cannot afford to get entangled in another war at the moment,” she told Arab News. “His army is weak, with major parts of the country outside his control. His two principal allies, Russia and Iran, cannot come to his defense at this time in case Israel decides it is time to mount a major attack on Syria akin to what is taking place in Lebanon.”
Elaborating on the point, she said: “Moscow is entangled in a protracted war against Ukraine. Tehran has its own problems to contend with domestically and is facing a potential war with Israel and the US. Assad’s modus operandi for now is to avoid getting entangled in the Axis of Resistance war against Israel.”
FASTFACTS
• Hafez Assad established Alawite-minority rule in Sunni-majority Syria in 1971, serving as its president until his death in 2000.
• Bashar Assad succeeded his father but presides over a nation riven by civil war since the uprising against his rule began in 2011.
Some experts have suggested that in the case of Gaza, it is not just Syria’s military weakness that is likely preventing a meaningful contribution: Assad’s relationship with Hamas has been sour since 2011 when the Palestinian militant group sided with the Syrian uprising against his rule.
“The relationship between Hamas and the regime is bad and has been bad since 2011, since Hamas stood in support of the Syrian revolution,” Jihad Yazigi, editor in chief of The Syria Report, told Arab News. In the case of Lebanon, the Syrian regime’s ability to project any kind of influence is a far cry from the days before 2011 when its forces exerted considerable control from within Lebanon itself.
“Remember that before 2005, it was the Syrian army that was in Lebanon,” said Yazigi. “From there, it had a say in Lebanese affairs and to an extent on Palestinian ones. Since 2011, it’s (Lebanon’s) Hezbollah that’s been on Syrian territory.”
The consensus view of experts is that, far from playing the role of a regional kingmaker, Assad’s primary concern today is maintaining power. At the same time, just as he is reliant on Iran and Hezbollah to guarantee his survival, the IRGC and its proxies are also highly dependent on continued access to Syrian territory. “Hezbollah has no other choice but Syria as far as their strategic depth is concerned,” said Slim.
“They need Assad’s acquiescence to maintain their Iranian weapons supply route through Syrian territory as well as to use some of the regime’s weapons production facilities in Syria to manufacture parts for their weapons.
“Given Israel’s unrelenting attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, Damascus is also the only place where Hezbollah and the IRGC can meet and coordinate their activities.”
The secular Syrian regime’s relationship with Iran and its Shiite and Sunni proxies has long been described as a marriage of convenience, underpinned by overlapping interests rather than ideological affinity. Some think Assad may very well sell out his axis allies if a better offer comes along. “Hezbollah has long realized that Assad is neither a dependable nor a trustworthy ally,” Slim told Arab News. “He has always toyed with the idea of striking an agreement with Israel. In 2006, in the midst of Israel’s war on Lebanon, he authorized an indirect communication channel with Tel Aviv. “Despite their reservations about his loyalty, they sent men and weapons in support of the Assad regime in 2011-12 primarily because they could not afford to lose this ‘strategic depth’ if the Assad regime were to be replaced by an anti-Iranian, Sunni-majority government in Damascus.”Although Syria’s role in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs has effectively shifted over the years from active participant to passive supporter, this does not mean the Assad regime has shirked responsibility altogether. “Even in this weakened state and despite the risks, the Syrian government does seem to be providing support for Hezbollah,” said Lund of Century International.
“Damascus has allowed Hezbollah and Iran to train and equip themselves on Syrian territory, and Syrian state institutions offer medical care and other services to Hezbollah fighters.
“Many of the heavy rockets that Hezbollah recently began firing on Israel are Syrian in origin, although we don’t know when they were provided.”
Having been rescued by Iran and Hezbollah, Assad may have been expected by his benefactors to do far more to support his axis allies — at the very least as a sign of gratitude. It appears, however, that they recognized his limitations early on in the conflict.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s late secretary-general, said as much shortly before he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on Sept. 27.
“It seems that Iran and Hezbollah have, so far, agreed on a more passive role for Syria,” Armenak Tokmajyan, a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, told Arab News. “Just weeks before his death, Nasrallah said that ‘Syria is not required to enter the fighting because of its internal circumstances,’ adding that Syria should take on a supportive role.
“The pattern of Israeli strikes in Syria suggests that Syria is indeed playing this supportive role, such as allowing Hezbollah to store weapons on its territory.
“However, a more active involvement would likely attract unwanted Israeli attention, posing a significant risk to Assad’s regime.”
The expectation that he must feel eternally indebted to Iran and Hezbollah for rescuing his regime may also be an indignity too far for Assad, according to some analysts who also believe that Israeli pressure on his allies may offer just the opportunity he has been waiting for to extricate himself from Iran’s sphere of influence.
“Assad hopes that Iran and its militias will weaken after this war,” Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defected from the regime in mid-2013, told Arab News, suggesting that Assad might already be quietly double-crossing the axis.
“He anticipates that Arab countries will reward him for his stance against Hezbollah and Iran by supporting the economy and reopening diplomatic channels to restore his relationships with the Arab and Western worlds.
“A significant question arises regarding how Iran would respond if it realizes that Assad has betrayed it. Trucks wait at the entrance of the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees, south of Damascus, during a delivery of humanitarian aid provided by Iran on March 26, 2024. (AFP)
Although there is ongoing discussion about the possibility of Syria moving away from Iran and closer to the Arab states, Yazigi of The Syria Report believes the Assad dynasty’s ability to distance themselves from Tehran remains limited. “The Iranian-Syrian relationship is very important. We don’t realize it enough,” he said.
“They have had ties since the late 1970s, early 1980s. Even before Hezbollah was created, you had a strategic alliance between Syria and Iran, which dates back to the Iran-Iraq war and the Islamic Revolution. So, it is not even clear how confident and how capable Bashar is to depart too much from the Iranians.
“The other aspect is if you want to build back ties with the Arab regimes, departing from the Iranians is a good thing, it’s a starter, but it’s not enough. Assad has shown a lot of difficulties making the required concessions to gain more funding from the Arabs, to make a peace deal with the Turks.” Despite Assad’s readmission to the Arab League in 2023, one sore point that has hindered progress on the restoration of trust and economic ties is his perceived failure to crack down on the production and smuggling of narcotics, particularly Captagon, which appears to have become a valuable source of income for the sanctions-squeezed regime. Avoiding active involvement in Gaza and Lebanon may help preserve the Assad regime in the short term, but Syria’s dire economic situation remains an existential threat. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Lebanon, the bulk of them Syrians who had previously fled the civil war in their own country, could also exacerbate Syria’s internal instability.
Even though the majority are women and children, “Assad completely rejects the return of refugees, viewing them as his enemies from whom he wishes to distance himself,” Barabandi, the former Syrian diplomat, told Arab News. For his part, Yazigi says that population movements have played a role in the past in destabilizing Syria, comparing the current situation to the wave of returnees from Lebanon following the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. “If the uprising began in 2011, it is due to many factors, one of them is the return of hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers from Lebanon after the assassination of Hariri and the withdrawal of the Syrian army,” he said. “The Syrians faced a lot of anti-Syrian acts in Lebanon, which led to hundreds of thousands of people returning and staying in Syria without a job.
“Of course, the situation has completely changed since then. Everybody is exhausted, and nobody has in mind in Syria to do anything in the form of an uprising. But it is a (potential) factor of destabilization.”Despite Assad’s passive support for the Axis of Resistance, some say keeping him in power in his enfeebled state likely serves Israeli and US interests far better than the alternative — regime change and all its associated chaos. “To date, Israel has found Assad a reliable enemy,” said Slim. “They have him now at a position that serves their interests: a weak ruler over a divided and bankrupt country.”
Ultimately, Syria’s limited role in the ongoing regional turmoil reflects Assad’s delicate balancing act — caught between the competing demands of regional powers, economic weakness and the need to preserve his own regime. “There’s no doubt that Assad is grappling with multiple challenges on various fronts,” said Tokmajyan. “A displacement crisis that brings social and economic pressures at home, while also reducing remittances from Lebanon; the loss of an important economic lifeline in Lebanon; an ally in Hezbollah, whose capabilities are being eroded; the risk of being dragged into a war. “All of this comes on top of Syria’s existing economic troubles. But will this lead to a revolt or the regime’s collapse? It’s hard to say. Assad has proven to be resilient so far.”

Starmer should be courageous despite bumpy first 100 days
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/October 16, 2024
Saturday was the 100th day since the UK Labour Party, under the leadership of Keir Starmer, entered 10 Downing Street to end 14 years of chaotic Conservative Party rule that had eroded the country’s reputation and the standing of its political class and its institutions around the world.
Yet, even before Labour under Starmer won a landslide election victory in July, shadows of doubt were beginning to encircle everything that it touched or could touch in an attempt to stabilize the country and usher in a new vision. It sought to reboot an austerity-hit state, compounded by a poorly thought through Brexit, which severed Britain’s economic, social and political ties from the EU. It was like the country had suddenly woken up to find itself on the margins and out in the cold under a dysfunctional Conservative Party that was lurching further and further to the right, entrenching a “me-first” approach to running the country and its relationships with its neighbors.
Even outside the UK, the vibes on social and traditional media were skeptical. Once, during an interview with a Middle Eastern channel, I nearly got convinced by the journalist’s line of questioning that Starmer’s government would fall before the end of its first year in power, or even before the end of its first 100 days.
Inside Britain, instead of rejoicing at the new government and the prospect of hitting the restart button, many people have maintained a nonchalant air of skepticism, even a malaise about what Labour can potentially achieve and whether or not it will drive the change that the country has craved for years.
Many people have maintained a nonchalant air of skepticism, even a malaise about what Labour can potentially achieve
The dilemma faced by the new prime minister is an age-old one. It is also faced by most Western democracies, whether they are led by the left, the center, the right, the populists or the extreme right. You cannot keep on shrinking the state and believing that a self-regulating private sector will deliver unsupervised, accountable leadership that meets the complex web of society’s expectations and demands.
In a world that is more in transition than ever, the appeal of the welfare state in Western society has never been clearer. Yet, no citizen on the left or the right believes in paying more taxes to cater for those needs in a climate of scarcity and economic uncertainty.
Labour wanted to hit the ground running. It hoped to present in government a project that could deliver high investment and a growing economy, coupled with high productivity and certainty that could limit inequality and social division, while increasing security and safety. It also aimed to provide housing, access to transport, education, health and social care, as well as a ladder to climb the stairs of personal prosperity through more training and employment.
Instead, while trying to explain the conditions of the state it inherited, the new government has indirectly hurt itself with its often gloomy but realistic rhetoric about the dire state of the economy and public services. And just as it was positioning itself to unveil its reform projects, Starmer’s government was hit by the summer riots that were fueled by racism and divisions and which bore all the hallmarks of the extreme right.
Just as the government then tried to catch its breath, stories about freebies and cronyism piled up. These added to some unpopular announcements, such as the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and the abandonment of a planned cap on social care bills, as well as voting to retain the two-child limit on social benefit payments, all as a means to balance the books.
Many voters in Britain, and I am one of them, believe that Starmer and the Labour Party were elected because the country needed fresh thinking and more plausible ideas. Away from the right-wing narratives that cannot be missed in today’s UK, most people want Labour to succeed, as the country cannot afford five more wasted years. The new government has a license to be innovative and bold, especially as it is backed by a large majority in Parliament.
The new government has a license to be innovative and bold, especially as it is backed by a large majority in Parliament
Starmer and his government are right to be frank and open about the dilapidated state of the country they inherited, but equally they should be courageous in revealing their vision without fearing being labeled as “lefties,” “socialists” or “pro-Europe.” The biggest harm that plagues political discourses today — and maybe stunts many policy ideas before they even become policies — are the near-immediate court martials they get subjected to in the social media realm. The political philosophies, ethics and values that could and should underpin any legislation or policy rarely stand the test of focus groups or political chat shows.
In this world plagued by misinformation, fake news and “multiple truths,” have we become superficial consumers of whatever opinion is expressed in often sensationalist soundbites at the expense of a deeper, multilayered approach to what is right and what is wrong? This has been eroding trust in politicians, institutions and any actor that might espouse an idea that some of us might deem alien, just because it has earned no traction in terms of the number of “thumbs up” on our social media feeds.
Despite its bumpy start, Starmer’s new government should worry less about being attacked for raising taxes if raising taxes is the way to serve society and meet its aspirations of law and order, improved healthcare and education, economic growth and prosperity. A state that retains its empathy and fights poverty and dispossession will not cancel out its commitment to opening new horizons for investment, development and growth.
Starmer is likely to remain in Downing Street for at least five years and he must not tire of persuading both the converted and the skeptics about his true mettle and what his government stands for: the country and its people, despite all the adversities and challenges it inherited.
**Mohamed Chebaro is a British Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.

The Gulf states’ role in shaping Middle Eastern stability
Dr. Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed/Arab News/October 16, 2024
The Middle East, characterized by a rich mosaic of cultures, religions and historical narratives, stands at a pivotal crossroads. The rising crises and complex conflicts have underscored the region’s nuanced landscape of peace and warfare. As tensions ebb and flow, the Gulf states are at the forefront, grappling with the repercussions of regional instability while striving for sustainable solutions. For more than 80 years, the Middle East has been shaped by the influence of the American government, state corporations and special interest groups, primarily focused on fostering conflict through various means. These efforts include direct military interventions, weaponizing food and manipulating financial instruments to ensnare nations in debt. The consequences of these actions are evident today.
One notable historical moment is the March 1949 coup in Syria, orchestrated by Army chief Husni Al-Za’im, which marked the first military coup in the country’s modern history. This coup received support from the US government after the previous administration refused to sign a truce with Israel or endorse a pipeline agreement advantageous to the Saudi-American company, Aramco.
The Middle East has long been a battleground influenced by both internal strife and external pressures, often resulting in the entrenchment of corrupt military regimes. This situation has facilitated the rise of extremist groups and drawn global powers into the fray, complicating the prospect of peace. The overarching challenge remains the inability to meet the basic human needs of the populace.
The Middle East has long been a battleground influenced by both internal strife and external pressures.
In this environment, Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar must navigate a delicate balance between their national interests and regional dynamics. Ongoing tensions with Iran, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring compel these countries to reassess their foreign policies and security strategies, prioritizing domestic sustainability over alignment with American agendas.
Historical events, such as the US-backed overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh and the military coup against King Farouk of Egypt, exemplify the documented external involvement that has shaped the current state of the Middle East.
Despite the prevailing challenges, the potential for peace persists, partly due to the influence of special interest groups and the far-right Netanyahu government in Israel. Recent diplomatic efforts by Saudi Arabia, including outreach to Iran and mediation in regional conflicts, indicate a possible shift toward collaboration. Additionally, Gulf countries are increasingly focusing on economic diversification and technological innovation, which could serve as a foundation for stability.
By fostering economic interdependence, these nations can diminish incentives for conflict and nurture an environment conducive to peace. Establishing regional frameworks to tackle shared challenges, such as climate change and economic development, can further enhance cooperation.
Nevertheless, the threat of war looms large. The risk of existing conflicts escalating is significant, particularly if key players like Israel and Iran persist in their proxy confrontations. Heightened military posturing and aggressive rhetoric among various factions raise concerns about potential miscalculations leading to broader conflicts.
Should tensions continue to rise, the Gulf countries may find themselves embroiled in larger confrontations, jeopardizing their security and economic stability. The repercussions of such scenarios would extend beyond the region, potentially impacting global oil markets and international relations. The role of external powers, notably the US and Russia, will be critical in determining whether these conflicts can be contained or spiral out of control.
The international community plays a vital role in shaping the future of the Middle East. Organizations like the UN and regional bodies must actively engage in diplomatic efforts to mediate conflicts and facilitate dialogue. International law, particularly concerning human rights and humanitarian issues, should guide interventions and support sustainable resolutions.
However, the effectiveness of the international community has often come under scrutiny. The lack of decisive action in response to humanitarian crises and the failure to hold violators of international law accountable raise concerns about existing frameworks. Moving forward, it is imperative to strengthen these mechanisms to effectively address the region’s complexities.
Saudi Arabia’s ongoing commitment to fostering stability in the Middle East is commendable. As a regional power, it has proactively sought to mitigate conflicts and encourage dialogue among rival factions. The Kingdom’s Vision 2030 initiative reflects its dedication to economic diversification and social reform, presenting a potential model for other nations in the region.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s leadership in initiatives such as the Gulf Cooperation Council and its involvement in regional dialogues underscore its commitment to a peaceful Middle East. By championing diplomacy and collaboration, the Kingdom can help guide the region away from war and toward a more cooperative future.
By championing diplomacy and collaboration, the Kingdom can help guide the region away from war. Looking ahead, the fate of the Middle East hinges on the ability of regional and international actors to navigate the fragile balance between peace and war. While the opportunities for peace are promising, they are accompanied by significant challenges. The threat of war remains a pressing concern, exacerbated by ongoing conflicts and external influences.
To cultivate a stable environment, it is crucial for Gulf countries to persist in their diplomatic efforts, economic cooperation and conflict resolution initiatives. The international community must also play an active role in supporting these endeavors, ensuring that actions align with the principles of international law.
Understanding the roots of conflict necessitates examining the financial motivations behind them. The enduring Arab-Israeli conflict has largely benefited those profiting from warfare and disaster, particularly the American military-industrial complex — a sentiment echoed by President Dwight Eisenhower. Analyzing who gains financially from these conflicts is essential to comprehending their complexities.
Furthermore, the detrimental effects of cutthroat capitalism and corporate interests extend beyond Western nations, impacting the global landscape. While many endure the hardships resulting from these policies, a select few continue to amass wealth and power. Unfortunately, the focus often remains on the symptoms of conflict rather than addressing their root causes.
In conclusion, the Middle East is a region of profound contradictions, where the potential for peace coexists with the persistent threat of war. The Gulf countries, as pivotal players in this dynamic, have a unique opportunity to lead the way toward a more stable and peaceful future. By embracing dialogue, cooperation and sustainable development, they can shift the region’s narrative from one of conflict to one of hope and resilience. The choice between war and peace lies within their reach, and the time to act is now.
**Dr. Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed is an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Department of Biosystems Engineering. He is the author of “Agricultural Development Strategies: The Saudi Experience.”

Can international coalition to push for two-state solution succeed?
Bakir Oweida/Arab News/October 16, 2024
In a significant diplomatic move, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan last month unveiled a new international alliance that is dedicated to implementing the long-discussed two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The coalition’s primary objective is to establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. With Israel already established on historical Palestinian land since 1948, the focus now turns to creating a viable Palestinian state with full political autonomy, a robust economy that effectively harnesses the state’s natural resources and capitalizes on the potential of its youth, and the support of both regional Arab nations and the international community.
However, this initiative faces staunch opposition from various extremist factions. These include hard-line elements within Israel, currently led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Iran’s leadership and its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also stand in opposition to the two-state framework.
A diverse coalition of groups, often at odds with each other, consistently opposes the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Despite their differences, these factions find common ground in rejecting peace initiatives. The root of this opposition likely stems from a shared interest in maintaining the status quo. Establishing a Palestinian state would threaten the collective benefits these groups derive from the current situation. Chief among these interests is the preservation of extremist ideologies that thrive in conflict. Historical evidence demonstrates a clear pattern: forces opposed to regional peace consistently work to undermine initiatives that challenge their positions.
A diverse coalition of groups, often at odds with each other, consistently opposes the creation of an independent Palestinian state
Attempts to derail peace initiatives in the Middle East have a long history, dating back to the Arab acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242 after the 1967 war. This resolution, which implicitly recognized Israel as a state, was notably supported by Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s influential Arab leadership and international presence.
The pattern of obstruction continued with the formation of the “Steadfastness and Confrontation Front” in response to Anwar Sadat’s controversial Camp David Accords in 1978. This trend persisted in the reception of the Arab Peace Initiative, which was adopted at the Arab League’s 2002 Beirut summit as the official Arab stance on peace with Israel.
The persistent obstruction of peace initiatives by extremist factions has been a hallmark of Middle Eastern politics for decades. This raises questions about the effectiveness of the recently announced two-state solution alliance, launched within the symbolic confines of the “matchbox,” as the UN building is described.
Can this new coalition succeed where others have failed? The answer lies in its ability to exert meaningful pressure on key players, starting with Israel. Success hinges on compelling Israel to adhere to international law and abandon its perceived impunity in regional affairs. This approach aims to create an environment in which peaceful solutions become not just possible, but preferable for all parties involved.
Influencing Israel’s stance is crucial but insufficient on its own. Equal diplomatic pressure must target Israel’s key allies, primarily the US and the UK. With the US presidential election looming next month, timing is critical. The alliance must now formulate effective methods to apply legitimate diplomatic pressure across multiple fronts.
**Bakir Oweida is a Palestinian journalist who pursued a professional career in journalism in Libya in 1968, where he worked at Al-Haqiqa newspaper in Benghazi, then Al-Balagh and Al-Jihad in Tripoli. He has written for several Arab publications in Britain since 1978. He worked at Al-Arab newspaper, Al-Thadamun magazine and the international Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. He has also worked as a consultant at the online newspaper Elaph.
This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.

US’ curious relationship with Netanyahu and Israel
Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/October 16, 2024
In an excerpt from Bob Woodward’s new book, “War,” the journalist reports that President Joe Biden’s frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu burst out in expletives in the spring of this year, with Biden exclaiming that Netanyahu is “a bad guy” and using some stronger words. Despite a decades-long friendship between the two, Netanyahu has ignored every significant demand that Biden has made during the current war in Gaza. Yet, Biden has been unwilling to really use US leverage to pressure Netanyahu to change course.
Biden is not the first president to express annoyance with Netanyahu — or to employ expletives. Even before Netanyahu became prime minister, he so annoyed senior members of the George H.W. Bush administration, in his role as an Israeli diplomat, that he was temporarily banned from visiting the State Department.
After Netanyahu became prime minister, he annoyed President Bill Clinton during a joint press conference in 1996, prompting Clinton to ask his advisers, “Who’s the (expletive) superpower here?” After losing an election in 1999, Netanyahu was elected prime minister again in 2009, when President Barack Obama was in the White House, and their relationship was frosty at best. Netanyahu had a warm relationship with President Donald Trump during Trump’s presidency, but after Netanyahu called Biden to congratulate him on his 2020 presidential win, Trump was angry at what he saw as the Israeli PM’s disloyalty, reportedly also using an expletive against Netanyahu.
Yet, despite his tendency to frustrate and annoy US presidents, Netanyahu often gets what he wants from Washington. Indeed, it seems that he can usually ignore any requests or demands from the president, despite the billions of dollars of annual funding and other forms of support that the US consistently provides to Israel. American leaders often try to use diplomatic and political relationships to persuade Netanyahu to make minor policy changes, but they have been mostly unwilling to suspend economic and military aid when he refuses requests to stop taking steps that undermine peace efforts.
Despite his tendency to frustrate and annoy US presidents, Netanyahu often gets what he wants from Washington.
Historically, US leaders have demonstrated a willingness to place significant pressure on Israel or to break with Israeli leaders on issues that presidents see as vital to US security and interests. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower forced Israel and its allies to withdraw from the Suez Canal. During the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, Henry Kissinger — though generally favoring Israel — viewed the Middle East through the lens of the Cold War and was willing to pressure Israel when he believed it served US interests.
In 1991, Bush withheld $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel over disagreements about settlement expansion — an unusual case. Obama proceeded with the nuclear deal with Iran, despite vehement objections from Israel.
However, the US has not seen Israeli-Palestinian peace as a core national interest. Certainly, some presidents have seen peace as a helpful aspiration that could also boost their legacy, but — at least during Netanyahu’s years in power — they have not seen it as worth spending large amounts of political capital on. This has allowed Netanyahu plenty of space to sabotage any efforts toward a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu intentionally undermined peace efforts during the Clinton administration, as Clinton later acknowledged. Netanyahu ignored calls from the administration to pause settlement expansion and take other steps. However, Clinton and many of his officials placed most of the blame for the failure of peace talks on the Palestinians and did not use the strongest leverage they had with Israel to promote greater concessions.
During the George W. Bush administration, Netanyahu remained influential but was not prime minister. The Bush administration was closely aligned with Israel and, by the time Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, the West Bank settler population had expanded drastically.
Netanyahu has repeatedly and brazenly ignored Biden’s demands. Biden fumes but continues providing huge amounts of aid.
Obama’s rise to the presidency raised hopes that the US might finally have a president who would be willing to use the billions of dollars in aid to Israel as leverage to compel it to make concessions for peace. Certainly, the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama became increasingly frigid, but Obama’s focus was on reaching a deal to block Iran’s nuclear development. Obama was willing to ignore Netanyahu’s warnings about Iran but proved unwilling to spend significant political capital to pressure Israel toward peace with the Palestinians. Settlement expansion in the West Bank and the blockade of the Gaza Strip continued.
Trump had no interest in pushing Israel to make peace with the Palestinians and Netanyahu was able to pursue his policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians without facing objections from the White House.
Biden entered office clearly assuming that he would have some influence with Netanyahu, given Biden’s pro-Israel approach and long-standing relationship with Netanyahu. While Biden’s team might claim some small diplomatic wins, Netanyahu has, in all fundamental areas, repeatedly and brazenly ignored Biden’s demands. He has not offered a day-after plan for Gaza, taken more effective efforts to protect civilians, consistently allowed sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza, accepted ceasefire proposals for Gaza or accepted a ceasefire proposal for Lebanon. He has directly rejected Biden’s insistence on a two-state solution. Biden fumes but continues providing huge amounts of aid and weaponry.
Whoever is the next president should recognize that Netanyahu will ignore any demands from Washington that he does not like, as long as the president is unwilling to credibly and seriously threaten suspending aid. It is odd that a country would provide billions of dollars to another without expecting some significant influence and concessions in return, but such is the US-Israel relationship.
*Kerry Boyd Anderson is a writer and political risk consultant with more than 18 years of experience as a professional analyst of international security issues and Middle East political and business risk. Her previous positions include deputy director for advisory with Oxford Analytica. X: @KBAresearch

Selective Tweets for October 16/2024
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
https://x.com/i/status/1846245414896619629
Wow! If you are a Mideast expert, leave everything and watch this video. I could have watched hours of it. This is Waddah Younis, the Hezbollah fighter whom the IDF captured when he got stuck (or was hiding) in a tunnel shaft in south Lebanon. Waddah hails from a Communist family, but says that no one in Lebanon would give a job to a Shia (totally not true), and says Hezbollah is the only one that has money to employ people (true).
He says that Hezbollah launched attacks from south #Lebanon villages because it controls municipal councils, such as in Hoola (formerly a bastion of Communists) but not in Rmeish (predominantly Christian) because the mayor is a partisan of Christian anti-Hezbollah leader Samir Geagea and his Lebanese Forces Party.
Waddah also says that Hezbollah fighters ran away. They were only interested in the money. This should debunk our perception of Iran-led "resistance" fighters as being ideological, whether Hamas or Hezbollah. These people are unemployed and join terrorist organizations mainly because of unemployment.
Now that we know that Tehran has cashed more than $200 billion since Biden came to power, it'd be wise to reconsider how "de-escalation" might work: Not by holding back our allies from fighting back but by strangling the source of terrorism and belligerence.