English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 26/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
The Mustard Seed Parable & the Depth Of Faith
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Letter to the Romans 08/28-39:”We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 25-26/2024
Blinken Says Urgent to Reach Diplomatic Resolution in Lebanon
Peacekeepers Withdrew from Watchtower in Dhayra in South Lebanon after Israeli Fire
UNHCR: Israel's Border Airstrikes Hindering Refugees Fleeing Lebanon for Syria
Israel Has Attacked 55 Hospitals, Lebanon’s Health Minister Says
An Israeli Airstrike Killed Journalists Covering the War in Lebanon as They Slept
An Israeli airstrike killed journalists covering the war in Lebanon as they slept
IAF hits Hezbollah arms route at Jousieh border crossing between Lebanon, Syria
Israel strikes Beirut suburbs, members of press team killed in Hasbaya hit - report
IDF eliminates Abbas Adnan Moslem, Radwan Force Aitaroun commander
Israel Army Chief Sees Possibility for 'Sharp Conclusion' to Hezbollah Conflict
Lebanon Struggles to Leverage International Efforts for Resolution 1701
Israeli strikes kill 38 people in Gaza's Khan Younis and 3 journalists in southern Lebanon
Israel Shouldn’t Suffer from the UN’s Failure in Lebanon
Explaining UNSC Resolution 1701 and its relation to Resolution 1559/David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/October 25/2024
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 24-25/2024
Israeli army announces carrying out "precision strikes" on "military" targets in Iran
Israeli military launches strikes on military targets in Iran, officials say
Explosions heard in Iran, Syria as Middle East braces for Israeli retaliation
Up to 1,000 missiles: Iranian officials disclose potential retaliation plans - NYT
IDF confirms five soldiers killed, four wounded in Lebanon combat All served in the 89th Battalion of the 8th Brigade.
'Don't count on THAAD' for protection: IRGC issues renewed threats to Israel
Israel Says It Killed Hamas Commander Who ‘Doubled’ as UN Aid Worker
Hamas Wants Russia to Push Abbas Towards Unity Government
One of 3 judges weighing request for ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and others is replaced
‘Instead of aid, we are receiving tanks’: Key hospital in northern Gaza comes under Israeli fire
With no exit strategy for Israel in Gaza, critics fear an open-ended stay
Israel’s ‘generals’ plan’ to clear Palestinians from north of Gaza could pave the way for settlers to return
Pentagon promotes official with alleged Iran ties amid leak probe and spy accusations - report
Gaza 'genocide' must stop for there to be a hostage deal, says Hamas official - report
'A pressure card': Al-Quds claims alleged Hamas docs reveal Sinwar's orders on Gaza hostages
Indictment filed against seven Israelis suspected for spying for Iran
Israeli forces kill 38 people in Khan Younis, storm north Gaza hospital, say medics
Two U.S. soldiers, injured in Iraqi operation, en route to Walter Reed
Exclusive-Accused Iranian hackers successfully peddle stolen Trump emails
Kurdish militants claim responsibility for deadly attack on Turkish defense firm

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on October 25-26/2024
China's Blockade of Taiwan: Irresistible Momentum to War/Gordon G. Chang/ Gatestone Institute/October 25, 2024
Putin suffers another massive defeat, this time in Moldova/Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth, Opinion Contributors/ The Hill/October 25/2024
The past year's military events have rewritten Israel's defense doctrine/Amotz Asa-El/Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Is Iran next? Israel's next move after Hezbollah/Eric R. Mandel/Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Grieving Druze double down on bond of blood with Israel/Canaan Lidor/Israel Today/Publised on October 23, 2024
Question: “What does the Bible say about ghosts / hauntings?”/GotQuestions.org/October 25 2024
US Election: On 6 November Skies Won’t Fall/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/October 25/2024
Selective Tweets For Today October 25/2024

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 25-26/2024
Blinken Says Urgent to Reach Diplomatic Resolution in Lebanon
Asharq Al-Awsat/October 25/2024
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday there was a real sense of urgency to reach a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon following Israel's military operations in the country. "We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along the border between Israel and Lebanon," Blinken said in London. He said it was important so "people at both sides of the border can have the confidence to be able to return to their homes".

Peacekeepers Withdrew from Watchtower in Dhayra in South Lebanon after Israeli Fire
Asharq Al-Awsat/October 25/2024
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Friday that its peacekeepers withdrew from a watchtower in one of its posts near Dhayra town in south Lebanon on Tuesday after Israeli forces fired at it. The UN mission is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation Blue Line with Israel - an area that has seen fierce clashes this month between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters. The mission said that when Israeli soldiers conducting house-clearing operations nearby realized they were being observed, they fired at the tower prompting the duty guards to withdraw to avoid being shot. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident. It added that the Israeli military has repeatedly demanded that UNIFIL vacate its positions along the Blue Line and has deliberately damaged camera, lighting and communications equipment at some of these positions. The mission said in a separate statement that a medical facility at a UNIFIL position in Beit Leif was hit on Wednesday by a shell or rocket of unknown origin, causing damage to buildings. Later, two shells or rockets also of unknown origin, impacted near a UNIFIL position in Kkar Shouba, causing damage to living accommodations and shelters. Peacekeepers in both positions were in shelters at the time. No peacekeepers were hurt in any of these incidents, UNIFIL added. Five peacekeepers have already been injured since the start of Israeli ground operation in Lebanon on Oct. 1. UNIFIL positions have been affected at least 20 times, including by direct fire and an incident on Oct.13 when two Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a UNIFIL base, according to the UN. "Despite the pressure being exerted on the mission and our troop-contributing countries, peacekeepers remain in position and on task," UNIFIL said.

UNHCR: Israel's Border Airstrikes Hindering Refugees Fleeing Lebanon for Syria
Asharq Al Awsat/October 25, 2024
Israeli air strikes overnight on the main border crossing to Syria had left Lebanon's main crossing point to its neighbor unable to function, hindering refugee attempts to flee a country where a fifth of the population is already internally displaced, the UN's refugee agency said. Rula Amin, the UNHCR's Amman-based spokesperson, said she was unaware of any warning being given before the strike, which landed 500 meters from the main border crossing, Reuters reported. Some 430,000 people have crossed from Lebanon to Syria since Israel's campaign started, she said. "The attacks on the border crossings are a major concern," she said. "They are blocking the path to safety for people fleeing conflict."

Israel Has Attacked 55 Hospitals, Lebanon’s Health Minister Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/October 25/2024
Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said Friday that Israel has carried out attacks on 55 hospitals — 36 of which were directly hit — leaving 12 people dead and 60 wounded. Abiad told reporters that eight hospitals have been closed while seven are still partially functioning. He said that paramedic groups have been targeted in different areas, killing 151 people and wounding 212. Of the paramedics killed, eight remain in their ambulances in south Lebanon with Israel’s military preventing anyone from reaching them, he said. "Attacks against the medical and paramedic sectors in Lebanon are direct and intentional aggressions," Abiad said, adding that Israel’s military claims to have intelligence information on what is happening in Lebanon, thus cannot say that these attacks happened by mistake. "This is a war crime," Abiad said.

An Israeli Airstrike Killed Journalists Covering the War in Lebanon as They Slept
Beirut: Asharq Al Awsat/October 25, 2024
An Israeli airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon at dawn Friday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the media since hostilities broke out across the border a year ago. It was a rare airstrike on an area that had so far been spared airstrikes and has been used by the media as a base for covering the war. The 3 a.m. airstrike turned the site — a series of chalets nestled among trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war — into rubble, with cars marked "PRESS" overturned and covered in dust and debris and at least one satellite dish for live broadcasting totally destroyed. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike, and later said it was looking into it. Mohammad Farhat, a reporter for Lebanon’s Al Jadeed TV in the south, said everyone rushed out in their sleeping clothes. "The first question we asked each other: ‘Are you alive?’"Those killed were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. It came after a strike earlier in the week that hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. Both outlets are aligned with Hezbollah and its main backer, Iran. The airstrike early Friday was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks against journalists covering the war in Gaza and Lebanon in the past year. Israel has not commented on what its target was in the Friday attack. But human rights groups say deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime. "Journalists are civilians that are entitled to protection under international humanitarian law," said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. "It has been especially disturbing to see Israel target civilian institutions just because of their affiliation to Hezbollah." The strike in the Hasbaya region drew immediate condemnation from officials, journalists and press advocacy groups. TV crews had arrived in Hasbaya, deeming it safer after Israel had ordered an evacuation order for a town further south from which they were reporting. "That is why we consider it a direct targeting, aimed at getting the journalists out of the south," said Elsy Moufarrej, coordinator for the Alternative Press Syndicate in Lebanon. "They want to prevent the journalists from covering and having presence in the south of Lebanon." Lebanese caretaker Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while reporting on what he called Israel’s "crimes," and noted they were among a large group of members of the media. "This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions," he wrote in a post on X.
Struck in their sleep
Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English who was among the journalists in the Hasbaya Village Club guesthouses, said the airstrike hit at around 3:30 a.m. without warning. "These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict," he posted on social media, adding that he and his team were unhurt. Hussein Hoteit, a cameraman for Egypt’s Al-Qahira TV, said he was sleeping when he woke up to a "huge weight" as the walls and ceiling collapsed. He was miraculously saved by colleagues who managed to move the debris covering him a few minutes later. Their team's house was closest to the one housing Al-Mayadeen. He said two missiles hit the chalet next door, although he didn’t hear them. He spoke from his hospital bed where he is being treated for thigh injuries.Three of the 18 journalists staying at the guesthouse, including an Egyptian national, were injured. Yumna Fawaz, a journalist with the Lebanese MTV station, said she was woken up by the roof falling over her head. She suffered a minor injury. "This targeting destroyed the whole compound. All the chalets were destroyed and the roofs fell over our heads," Fawaz told The Associated Press. "This was the safe space. It had not been targeted before."
An unprecedented toll
Friday’s deaths are the latest in a long list of journalists who have been killed in Israeli attacks in the past year in Gaza and Lebanon. In a report earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, had been killed in Gaza and Lebanon — more journalists than have died in any year since it started documenting journalist killings in 1992. All of the killings except two were carried out by Israeli forces, it said. "One year in, Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has exacted an unprecedented and horrific toll on Palestinian journalists and the region’s media landscape," it said. CPJ said it has determined that at least five of the journalists, including one in Lebanon last year, were directly targeted by Israeli forces. The group is investigating other cases and unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt or threatened. The killing of journalists has prompted international outcry from press advocacy groups and United Nations experts, although Israel has said it does not deliberately target them. Lebanon’s Health Minister says over the past year 11 journalists have been killed and eight wounded by Israeli fire in Lebanon. In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border. This week, Israel accused journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of armed groups, citing documents it purportedly found in Gaza. The network has denied the claims as "a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region."
CPJ has dismissed them as well, and said that "Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence." Jad Shahrour, spokesperson for the Samir Kassir Eyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, told AP Friday that bombing press centers is a deliberate effort to obliterate the truth."It means they are establishing a media blackout," he said, adding that it was a troubling trend that is now shifting from Gaza to Lebanon. Al-Mayadeen’s director, Ghassan bin Jiddo, alleged that the Israeli strike Friday was intentional and directed at those covering elements of its military offensive. Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s correspondent in south Lebanon, said the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed in the attack. "We were reporting the news and showing the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes," Shoeib said in a video aired on Al-Manar TV.

An Israeli airstrike killed journalists covering the war in Lebanon as they slept
Sarah El Deeb And Zeina Karam/BEIRUT (AP)/October 25, 2024
An early morning Israeli airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon on Friday, one of the deadliest attacks on the media since hostilities broke out across the border a year ago. It was a rare airstrike on an area that has been used by the media as a base for covering the war.The 3 a.m. airstrike turned the site — a series of chalets nestled among trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war — into rubble. Cars marked “PRESS” were overturned and covered in dust and debris, and at least one satellite dish for live broadcasting was totally destroyed. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike, which it said targeted Hezbollah militant infrastructure. The military later said the strike was being reviewed. Mohammad Farhat, a reporter for Lebanon’s Al Jadeed TV in the south, said everyone rushed out in their sleeping clothes. “The first question we asked each other: ‘Are you alive?’”Those killed were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. Both outlets are aligned with Hezbollah and its main backer, Iran. Earlier in the week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. The airstrike early Friday was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks against journalists covering the war in Gaza and Lebanon in the past year. The Israeli military said it targeted a building from which Hezbollah militants conducted operations, adding that it believed the militants were inside when the airstrike hit. “Several hours after the strike, reports were received that journalists had been hit during the strike,” it said. Human rights groups say deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime. “Journalists are civilians that are entitled to protection under international humanitarian law,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. “It has been especially disturbing to see Israel target civilian institutions just because of their affiliation to Hezbollah.”The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was appalled by the killing of the three journalists and called for an independent investigation. “CPJ is deeply outraged by yet another deadly Israeli airstrike on journalists, this time hitting a compound hosting 18 members of the press in south Lebanon,” said the organization’s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna. TV crews had arrived in Hasbaya, and deemed it safer, after Israel had ordered an evacuation order for a town further south from which they were reporting. “That is why we consider it a direct targeting, aimed at getting the journalists out of the south," said Elsy Moufarrej, coordinator for the Alternative Press Syndicate in Lebanon. “They want to prevent the journalists from covering and having presence in the south of Lebanon.”Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while reporting on what he called Israel’s “crimes,” and noted they were among a large group of members of the media. “This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” he wrote in a post on X.
Struck in their sleep
Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English who was among the journalists in the Hasbaya Village Club guesthouses, said the airstrike hit at around 3:30 a.m. without warning. “These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” he posted on social media, adding that he and his team were unhurt. Hussein Hoteit, a cameraman for Egypt’s Al-Qahira TV, said he was sleeping when he woke up to a “huge weight” as the walls and ceiling collapsed. He was saved by colleagues who managed to move the debris covering him a few minutes later. Their team's house was closest to the one housing Al-Mayadeen. He said two missiles hit the chalet next door, although he didn’t hear them. He spoke from his hospital bed where he is being treated for thigh injuries. Three of the 18 journalists staying at the guesthouse, including an Egyptian national, were injured. Yumna Fawaz, a journalist with the Lebanese MTV station, said she was woken up by the roof falling over her head. She suffered a minor injury. “This targeting destroyed the whole compound. All the chalets were destroyed and the roofs fell over our heads,” Fawaz told The Associated Press. “This was the safe space. It had not been targeted before.”
An unprecedented toll
Friday’s deaths are the latest in a long list of journalists who have been killed in Israeli attacks in the past year in Gaza and Lebanon. In a report earlier this month, CPJ said at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, had been killed in Gaza and Lebanon — more journalists than have died in any year since it started documenting journalist killings in 1992. All of the killings except two were carried out by Israeli forces, it said. “One year in, Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has exacted an unprecedented and horrific toll on Palestinian journalists and the region’s media landscape,” it said. CPJ said it has determined that at least five of the journalists, including one in Lebanon last year, were directly targeted by Israeli forces. The group is investigating other cases and unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt or threatened. The killing of journalists has prompted an international outcry from press advocacy groups and United Nations experts, although Israel has said it does not deliberately target them. Lebanon’s Health Minister says over the past year 11 journalists have been killed and eight wounded by Israeli fire in Lebanon. In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border. This week, Israel accused journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of militant groups, citing documents it purportedly found in Gaza. The network has denied the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”CPJ has dismissed them as well, and said that “Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”Jad Shahrour, spokesperson for the Samir Kassir Eyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, said bombing press centers is a deliberate effort to obliterate the truth. “It means they are establishing a media blackout,” he said, adding that it was a troubling trend that is now shifting from Gaza to Lebanon. Al-Mayadeen’s director, Ghassan bin Jiddo, alleged that the Israeli strike Friday was intentional and directed at those covering elements of its military offensive. Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s correspondent in south Lebanon, said the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed in the attack. “We were reporting the news and showing the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Shoeib said in a video aired on Al-Manar TV.

IAF hits Hezbollah arms route at Jousieh border crossing between Lebanon, Syria
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Hezbollah's unit 4400 was responsible for the transfer of such weapons from Syria into Lebanon. Overnight, Israel Air Force jets targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in the Jousieh border crossing in the area of northern Beqaa in Lebanon, the military said on Friday. The civilian border crossing, which is under the control of the Syrian Regime and managed by the Syrian military, was used by the terror group to transfer weapons and conduct terror activities against the State of Israel and IDF troops, the military emphasized. Hezbollah's unit 4400 was responsible for the transfer of such weapons from Syria into Lebanon. The military further added that it had used precise ammunition in the strike to avoid harming the civilian population. Earlier on Friday, Lebanon's transport minister, Ali Hamieh, said that Lebanon's two eastern border crossings with Syria were shut after an Israeli strike was conducted early on Friday morning on the Syrian side of the Al-Qaa border crossing. Hamieh told Reuters the dawn air strike hit within Syria and said the crossing was now unusable. Strikes earlier this month put the main Masnaa crossing out of service, leaving Lebanon's northern border crossing as the only open route into Syria.

Israel strikes Beirut suburbs, members of press team killed in Hasbaya hit - report
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
The airstrikes came approximately two hours after IDF Arabic Spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued warnings to residents to evacute. Multiple journalists from a press team were allegedly killed in an Israeli strike on Lebanon's Hasbaya that took place during the early hours of Friday, the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news channel Al Mayadeen reported. According to the report, the strike targeted the hotel where the press team stayed. The Lebanese outlet later reported that one of its photographers, Ghassan Najjar, and one of its broadcast engineers, Mohammad Reda, were among those killed. Hezbollah-run Al-Manar announced that its camera operator, Wissam Qassem, was also killed. The report came after Israel hit Beruit suburbs with airstrikes during the late hours of Thursday night, Reuters images of the strikes showed. Al-Manar reported on the strikes, noting that they took place in the southern suburb of Chouaifet El Aamroussieh. The images of the airstrikes came approximately two hours after IDF Arabic Spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued warnings to residents in Chouaifet El Aamroussieh and Haret Hreik, south of Beirut, to evacuate due to the strike plans. In an X/Twitter post, Adraee wrote to those close to Chouaifet El Aamroussieh and Hart Hreik, "You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will operate in the near future." The spokesperson advised to remain at a distance of no less than 500 meters, attaching a graphic that marked in red the location of the intended strike. Israel has conducted strikes in the Beirut area throughout the week. The IDF struck several weapons storage and manufacturing facilities belonging to Hezbollah near the Beirut suburb of Dahieh, Israel's military said on Thursday morning. The IDF noted that the sites hit were built under and inside civilian buildings, which it said was a part of Hezbollah's systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure, endangering the civilian population in the area. It also emphasized that several steps had been taken to mitigate civilian harm before those strikes as well.

IDF eliminates Abbas Adnan Moslem, Radwan Force Aitaroun commander
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Moslem was responsible for conducting terror activities against Israel's North and IDF troops, the military added. An IDF aircraft eliminated Abbas Adnan Moslem, Hezbollah's Radwan force commander of the Aitaroun area in southern Lebanon, the military said on Friday. Moslem was responsible for conducting terror activities against Israel's North and IDF troops, the military added. Throughout the past day, IDF troops killed dozens of Hezbollah terrorists and destroyed terror infrastructure and military structures belonging to the terrorist group. Troops of the 146th Division struck some 50 terror infrastructure while soldiers of the 98th Division eliminated terrorists who were preparing to ambush them. The troops also located and destroyed a Kornet missile launcher ready for use. In addition,
the military noted that in the past day, Israel Air Force jets struck some 200 terror targets throughout Lebanon. In central Gaza, soldiers of the 252 Division conducted targeted raids, killing terrorists and demolishing Hamas terror infrastructure. Troops also operated in southern Gaza, destroying infrastructure and eliminating terrorists with the aid of the IAF.

Israel Army Chief Sees Possibility for 'Sharp Conclusion' to Hezbollah Conflict
Asharq Al Awsat/October 25, 2024
Israel's military chief said there was a possibility for a "sharp conclusion" to the conflict with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, the military said on Thursday. "In the north, there's a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion. We thoroughly dismantled Hezbollah's senior chain of command," Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a video statement from a security assessment in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Israel unleashed its Lebanon offensive with the declared aim of securing the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from homes in northern Israel during a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah. Israel has used airstrikes to pound southern Lebanon, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, and sent ground forces into areas near the border. Lebanese authorities say the campaign has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people, spawning a humanitarian crisis.

Lebanon Struggles to Leverage International Efforts for Resolution 1701
Beirut: Youssef Diab/October 25, 2024
The Paris Conference, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron to support Lebanon, has failed to resonate with local factions, especially Hezbollah and its allies. They oppose calls for a presidential election and the implementation of UN resolution 1701 before achieving a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. An official told Asharq Al-Awsat that the only thing the Lebanese can do now is to immediately elect a president to outline a political roadmap, but this crucial step isn’t a priority for some. The source, speaking under the conditions of anonymity, emphasized that the constitution gives the president sole authority to negotiate and sign international treaties, including resolution 1701. This responsibility cannot be handed to anyone else.The source also pointed out that Lebanon’s fate is currently in Iranian hands, which insists on a ceasefire before anything else. Iran has  made it clear that it alone will negotiate the implementation of resolution 1701. As political efforts for Lebanon have stalled, the French capital hosted a support conference attended by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. Macron stressed the importance of electing a new president, stating that France is committed to preserving Lebanon’s sovereignty and helping it navigate current challenges. He called for peacekeeping measures along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, saying that there is a need for a ceasefire, and it is in Lebanon’s interest to remain neutral. Former lawmaker Fares Soaid remarked that “Lebanon’s political forces cannot engage positively with international initiatives as long as the decision-making power lies with Hezbollah and Iran.” “We will not emerge from this war unless Hezbollah adopts a national vision that leads to handing over its weapons to the Lebanese state. This would be the most honorable move instead of waiting for international solutions to be imposed,” he added. Soaid urged the party to accept state conditions and the National Accord Document, which protects everyone’s rights, rather than continuing a destructive war. Mikati reiterated that a ceasefire in Lebanon “would open the door for a diplomatic process fully supported by the government.”“This process aims to address security concerns along the southern border and disputes along the Blue Line,” added Mikati. He stressed that “the current form of UN Security Council resolution 1701 must remain the foundation for stability and security in southern Lebanon, and its full implementation by Lebanon and Israel is essential for preserving Lebanon's sovereignty.”Lebanese views on the post-war phase differ from global perspectives on the region’s future. Soaid believes that Lebanese will struggle with the consequences of displacement just as regional post-war arrangements begin.

Israeli strikes kill 38 people in Gaza's Khan Younis and 3 journalists in southern Lebanon
Bassem Mroue And Wafaa Shurafa/BEIRUT (AP)/October 25, 2024
 Israeli strikes killed 38 people in Gaza and three journalists in Lebanon on Friday as growing worries about supply shortages in Gaza and international pressure for a cease-fire mounted. The deaths reported by Gaza health officials were the latest in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where people have in recent days lined up for bread outside the city's only bakery in operation. They come a day after United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas and implored both sides to revive negotiations. Also on Friday, an Israeli airstrike on guesthouses where journalists were staying in southeast Lebanon killed three media staffers. Outside of now-collapsed buildings rented by various media outlets, cars marked “PRESS" lay covered in dust and rubble after the strike, Associated Press photos showed. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike. Representatives of the news networks and Lebanese politicians accused Israel of war crimes and intentionally targeting journalists. “These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” said Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English who was among the journalists in the compound. In a social media post, he said he and his team were unhurt. The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers — camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida — were among the journalists killed early Friday. Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region.
Al-Mayadeen’s director Ghassan bin Jiddo alleged that the Israeli strike on a compound housing journalists was intentional and directed at those covering elements of its military offensive. He vowed that the Beirut-based station would continue its work.
Lebanon's Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while broadcasting what he called Israel's crimes, and noted they were among a large group of members of the media. “This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” he wrote in a post on X.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.
Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s well-known correspondent in south Lebanon, was seen in a video filming himself with a cellphone saying that the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed. Shoeib said the Israeli military knew that the area that was struck housed journalists of different media organizations. “We were reporting the news and showing the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Shoeib added in the video aired on Al-Manar TV. The Hasbaya region has been spared much of the violence along the border and many of the journalists now staying there have moved from the nearby town of Marjayoun that has been subjected to sporadic strikes in recent weeks. Earlier in the week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Lebanon’s Health Minister said Friday that 11 journalists have been killed and eight wounded since exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border in early October 2023. In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV. The killing of journalists has prompted international outcry from press advocacy groups and United Nations experts, although Israel has said it does not deliberately target them. On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it had preliminarily counted 128 journalists killed in Gaza since the war began.
Israel has accused journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of militant groups, citing documents it purportedly found in Gaza. The network has denied the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has dismissed them as well, and said that “Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence. The Israeli campaign has since expanded to Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion Oct. 1, after trading fire with the Hezbollah militant group for much of the past year.Lebanese health officials reported another day of intense airstrikes and shelling Thursday, which they said killed 19 people over 24 hours and raised the overall Lebanese death toll to 2,593 since October 2023.

Israel Shouldn’t Suffer from the UN’s Failure in Lebanon
Enia Krivine & Ben Cohen/The National Interest/October 25/2024
Had UNIFIL carried out its mandate, many, if not most, of Israeli operations in Lebanon would not be necessary.
Israel revealed earlier this month that its troops had uncovered Hezbollah preparations for an October 7-style invasion and massacre in Israel’s northern communities. The Iran-backed terror organization has spent years building the infrastructure necessary to carry out such an attack under the nose of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
Having failed to prevent Hezbollah from establishing military capabilities on Israel’s border, the 10,000-strong force is now complaining that it’s caught in the crossfire as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attempt to defang the terror organization.
In recent weeks, the IDF has stepped up its operations in Lebanon with the primary goal of safely returning the over 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Israel by Hezbollah’s missile barrages. During its operations in southern Lebanon, the IDF has discovered a network of terror tunnels, Hezbollah weapons caches, and evidence of Hezbollah’s plans to invade the Jewish state.
Despite UNIFIL’s mandate to prevent Hezbollah from militarizing southern Lebanon, the IDF has identified multiple locations where terror infrastructure has been established in close proximity to UNIFIL installations. In one recent incident, after a UNIFIL post was struck in southern Lebanon, injuring two UNIFIL personnel, the IDF carefully explained that its troops had identified an “immediate threat” approximately fifty meters away from the post, spurring them to respond with fire. The IDF then clarified that it had already instructed UNIFIL personnel to move to protected spaces, but they had failed to comply. Earlier this month, the IDF requested that UNIFIL evacuate its posts to avoid the fighting; UNIFIL refused.
Despite the IDF’s efforts, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom released a statement falsely accusing Israel of targeting UNIFIL positions. That slander has been articulated by, among others, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and Irish President Michael Higgins—who, over the last year, has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s never met an anti-Israel conspiracy theory he didn’t like.
These claims neatly fit the narrative prevailing in Europe, the Middle East, and much of the media coverage that the Israelis are conducting a scorched-earth campaign in Lebanon in which no one is safe. Lost in all this noise is the simple fact that it’s UNIFIL’s job to keep Hezbollah out of South Lebanon. Instead, Hezbollah has emerged as one of the most well-armed paramilitaries in the world.
We’ve seen this pattern before in other UN peacekeeping operations, where peacekeepers become accessories to the escalation of military conflict and the gross human rights abuses that inevitably follow. During the Bosnian War in 1995, Dutch UN peacekeepers acceded to the conquest of the town of Srebrenica by Serb forces, leading to the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys. The previous year, the UN mission in Rwanda merely stood by as Hutu militias launched a genocide that claimed more than 800,000 lives.
One can reasonably conclude that had Hezbollah succeeded in using south Lebanon as a launch pad for an October 7-style assault on northern Israel, UNIFIL would have observed everything and done nothing.
Had UNIFIL carried out its mandate, many, if not most, of these Israeli operations would not have been necessary. However, like the conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia, the presence of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon has provided belligerent actors with an opportunity to increase and extend the fighting with much-needed political cover.
Israel rightly calculates that dealing with international opprobrium is preferable to suffering massacres in the presence of the UN.
It didn’t need to be this way. Since its establishment, UNIFIL has increased its manpower fivefold. Today, UNIFIL employs over 10,000 military personnel supporting the U.S.-backed Lebanese Armed Forces—which number more than 80,000 troops—and has an annual budget of over $550 million, of which the United States contributes $143 million. Hezbollah should have never been permitted to become the force it is today, albeit significantly degraded by the IDF in recent weeks. Moreover, UNIFIL is mandated to use force “to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities.” For nearly two decades, it has consistently failed to do so. UNIFIL is not Israel’s target. Rather than allow UN peacekeepers to be used as human shields by Hezbollah, the UN Security Council should now instruct the force to cooperate with the Israelis to ensure that UNIFIL casualties are kept to an absolute minimum. Practically, that means ensuring that UNIFIL staff follow IDF guidance and maintain a safe distance from the battle zones so that the Security Council mandates systematically violated by Hezbollah can finally be enforced. If UNIFIL doesn’t play ball, then we are forced to question the purpose of its continued existence.
*Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow her on X: @EKrivine. Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with FDD. Follow him on X: @BenCohenOpinion. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Explaining UNSC Resolution 1701 and its relation to Resolution 1559
David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/October 25/2024
A specious argument fueled by DC-based Lebanese activists is gaining traction. It alleges that UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004) takes a stronger stance against Hezbollah than its successor, Resolution 1701, adopted after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. This argument most commonly rests on two alleged proofs. The first is that Resolution 1701’s Operative Paragraph 3 (OP3) allegedly makes disarming Hezbollah discretionary by leaving the matter of independent “weapons” up to “the consent of the Government of Lebanon.”
This gives room for Hezbollah, the argument goes, to join the Lebanese Government and pressure it into providing consent to the group’s arms, thus circumventing Resolution 1701’s disarmament requirement. The second prong of the argument rests on a partial reading of Resolution 1701’s Operative Paragraph (OP) 8, and a misinterpretation of its requirement to remove Hezbollah from Lebanese territory south of the Litani River. Requiring this condition only south of the Litani River, claims this argument, facilitates Hezbollah’s control over the rest of Lebanon—by allegedly releasing the group from confronting Israel and thus “directing its weapons inwards.” Better that Hezbollah’s weapons remain busy being pointed at Israel, these activists likely reason.
This entire argument, however, rests on misinterpretations of Resolution 1701’s meaning and intent and demonstrates ignorance of international law.
UN Security Council Resolution 1559
The Security Council adopted Resolution 1559 on September 2, 2004, under the UN Charter’s Chapter VI. In relevant part, Resolution 1559:
“Reaffirms [the Council’s] call” for Lebanese territory to be “under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon throughout Lebanon” (OP1).
“Calls for” disbanding and disarming all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias inside Lebanon (OP3).
“Supports”—which generally leans towards being non-binding—the Government of Lebanon’s extension of its control over all Lebanese territory. This operative paragraph uses non-binding language (OP4).
Lebanon, then under the premiership of Rafic Hariri, officially rejected Resolution 1559 as a grave interference in its internal affairs. Hariri would later support 1559’s call for all foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah also rejected the resolution, which gained more domestic significance after the group assassinated Hariri on February 14, 2005. Hezbollah then joined a Lebanese Cabinet for the first time in July of 2005, under the premiership of Fuad Siniora, to protect itself from any consequences of Resolution 1559.
Siniora was Hariri’s political successor as the head of the Future Movement, which was aligned with the umbrella March 14 Movement—variously described as sovereigntist, pro-Western, anti-Hezbollah, and anti-Syrian. Nevertheless, Siniora’s July 7, 2005, Cabinet Policy Statement lauded Hezbollah as Lebanon’s “youth and people who rose up for their country’s honor and liberated its South and the Western Beqaa…” The statement called for “preserving our brave resistance” and exploring “options to arrive at a militant/struggling [nidaliyya] Arab equation to confront Israel, its occupation, and greed and fortify Lebanon.” The Statement also stated the Siniora’s government “considers the Lebanese Resistance an honest and natural expression of the national right of the Lebanese people to liberate their land and defend their honor in the confrontation against Israeli aggression, threats, and greed, and to work towards finishing the liberation of Lebanese lands.”
The statement addressed Resolution 1559 obliquely, expressing Lebanon’s alleged “respect for international law […] and respect for international resolutions, through national sovereignty, solidarity, and unity.” This compliance, however, would be achieved “through a Lebanese internal dialogue that seeks to achieve a national consensus aiming to strengthen national unity, confirm the country’s supreme interests, and fortify Lebanon’s position and its credibility in the international community.” Historically, Lebanon’s preconditioning compliance with international obligations on consensus has been a code for inaction.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701
The Security Council adopted Resolution 1701 on August 11, 2006, to end the Second Lebanon War, “emphasizing the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis.” At Lebanon’s request, the Resolution did not explicitly mention its adoption under the UN Charter’s Chapter VII. The international community complied, likely as an act of grace to Siniora. Explicitly adopting Resolution 1701 under Chapter VII would have put Hezbollah on alter and domestically endangered Siniora’s government, and perhaps his life.
During the war, the United States and its partners expressly forbade any action—including by Israel—jeopardizing Siniora’s premiership. Believing him to be a credible interlocutor, they tailored the resolution’s language accordingly, to give Siniora sufficient maneuverability to deal with Hezbollah’s weapons according to Lebanon’s “special circumstances.”
In relevant part, Resolution 1701:
“Calls upon” Lebanon and the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) to deploy their forces to the south (OP2).
“Reiterates [the Council’s] strong support” for Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty “as contemplated by the Israeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949” (OP5).
“Decides” that all states should impose an arms embargo upon Lebanon, except to the Government of Lebanon and UNIFIL (OP15).
“Calls for” Lebanon and Israel to “support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution” (OP8) based on:
— Fully respecting the Blue Line.
— Establishing security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the exclusive presence of LAF and UNIFIL between the Litani River and the Blue Line.
— “Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004), and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State [emphasis own].” This section of OP8 incorporates by reference the terms and obligations in the Taif Agreement —the quasi-constitutional document that ended Lebanon’s civil war—and the enumerated Security Council Resolutions. Resolution 1701 is thus meant to carry forward the obligations they contain, rather than to repudiate or replace them or those documents.
— No foreign forces in Lebanon “without the consent of the Government” or sale of weapons and related material “except as authorized by its Government.”
Resolution 1701’s purpose
Failing to explicitly invoke Chapter VII does not, alone, make Resolution 1701 or its terms merely exhortatory. Furthermore, ample textual evidence suggests that Resolution 1701, or at least some of its provisions, were adopted under the Charter’s Chapter VII—including the Council’s “determin[ation] that the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”
Resolution 1701 also doesn’t create any new underlying obligations for Lebanon. Instead, it incorporates Israel’s and Lebanon’s preexisting, non-derogable obligations under customary international law and bilateral treaties. These underlying obligations require Lebanon to exercise vigilance against Hezbollah and take all feasible measures to restrain the group. That is because they absolutely prohibit Lebanon—notwithstanding its refusal to accept Israel’s existence or legitimacy— from employing any form or threat of coercion against Israel’s sovereignty, political independence, or territorial integrity, from promoting propaganda for wars of aggression against Israel, or allowing Hezbollah to use its territory to do so.
Resolution 1701, therefore, recalls Israel and Lebanon’s mutual obligation to “full[y] respect” and ensure “a permanent ceasefire” along the Blue Line “in its entirety” and “prevent any attacks” from crossing it—notwithstanding reservations regarding its course or the line not being an international border. Resolution 1701 does so by recalling Israel and Lebanon’s mutual obligations under the March 23, 1949 Lebanon-Israel General Armistice Agreement. That Armistice Agreement, among other matters, prohibits:
1. “Any element of the land, sea or air military or paramilitary forces of either Party, including non-regular forces,” from “commit[ing] any warlike or hostile act against the military or paramilitary forces of the other Party, or against civilians in territory under the control of that Party;”
2. Crossing the “Armistice Demarcation Line”—“the line beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move”—by land, air, or sea “for any purpose whatsoever”
3. Any “warlike act or act of hostility [to] be conducted from territory controlled by one of the parties to this Agreement against the other party.”
Resolution 1701 “calls for” Lebanon to undertake certain measures necessary—indeed, indispensable—to fulfill these foregoing obligations, namely: 1) distancing Hezbollah north of the Litani River and deploying a sufficient number of LAF troops, alongside UNIFIL, to prevent its return; 2) to subsequently disarm the group; 3) and to secure its borders against the entry of unauthorized foreign forces, arms, or related materiel to prevent Hezbollah’s generation. The resolution also “decides”—in explicitly binding language—that the international community must also be part of this effort by enforcing an arms embargo on non-state actors in Lebanon.
That Resolution 1701 frames these measures as “calls for” action by Lebanon does not make them conclusive recommendations. The obligatory nature of Security Council “calls” for action is unclear, rather than unambiguously exhortatory or non–binding. In the International Court of Justice’s 1971 Namibia Advisory Opinion, the Court, dealing with a Security Council Resolution that “call[ed] upon” States to undertake certain tasks, noted:
It has also been contented that the relevant Security Council resolutions are couched in exhortatory rather than mandatory language, and that, therefore, they do not purport to impose any legal duty on any State nor to affect legally any right of any State. The language of a resolution of the Security Council should be carefully analyzed before a conclusion can be made as to its binding effect […] the question whether [the Security Council’s powers to mandate actions by States] have been in fact exercised is to be determined in each case, having regard to the terms of the resolution to be interpreted, the discussions leading to it, the Charter provisions invoked and, in general, all circumstances that might assist in determining the legal consequences of the resolution of the Security Council.
In other words, whether a “call for” action by a state is mandatory or a recommendation depends on the totality of the circumstances. Here, several factors lend themselves to interpreting OP8 as—per multiple UN secretaries-general—“obligations” to which Beirut “must fully adhere,” and therefore mandating action by Lebanon.
First, Resolution 1701 was the Council’s response to a breach of international peace and an act of aggression, namely Hezbollah’s July 12, 2006, attack on Israel that ignited the war. The Council, determining that the “situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” enumerated remedial measures designed to “address urgently the causes” that gave rise to the crisis. These causes were Hezbollah’s unfettered presence in south Lebanon, its private arsenal, and its access to an external resupply of materiel and fighters.
The Security Council’s recommended measures in OP8 are the “elements” without which the Council’s envisioned “permanent ceasefire and long-term solution” cannot be achieved. Furthermore, OP8’s measures stem from Lebanon’s underlying and preexisting binding obligations. Indeed, short of explicitly authorizing external or Israeli force, no other measures than the ones enumerated will suffice to fulfill these obligations, restrain and disarm Hezbollah, or achieve the Security Council’s explicitly desired outcome.
Finally, since Resolution 1701 only conditionally abrogated Israel’s right of self-defense against Hezbollah, the implicit consequences of Lebanon’s failure to implement Resolution 1701’s terms, actively tracked by the Council, would be a resumption of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Those repercussions are thus sufficiently severe to suggest that the measures intended to prevent the renewed outbreak of hostilities are mandatory and not exhortatory.
Lebanon’s idiosyncratic interpretation of Resolution 1701
Further lending to Resolution 1701’s binding nature, Lebanon’s Cabinet unanimously accepted the resolution and its terms on August 12, 2006. Lebanon also routinely reaffirms its commitment to Resolution 1701. Yet, it has failed to implement any of the measures set forth in the Resolution, including OP8, or its own August 7, 2006, decision to deploy 15,000 troops to south Lebanon.
Lebanon produces several unconvincing justifications for its inaction.
The first is an idiosyncratic interpretation of Resolution 1701’s term “armed groups.” Lebanon argues that since Hezbollah is a “resistance organization” and not an “armed group,” Resolution 1701’s terms don’t apply to it, and, therefore, Beirut need not restrain or disarm Hezbollah pursuant to the Resolution’s enumerated measures. This remains Lebanon’s interpretation, even as it calls for implementing Resolution 1701 amidst the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
This reading of Resolution 1701 parallels Lebanon’s interpretation of Paragraph C, Section III of the Taif Agreement—incorporated by reference into Operative Paragraph 8—to consider Hezbollah as but one of all the “necessary measures/procedures [kafat al-ijraat al-lazima] to liberate all Lebanese territory from Israeli occupation,” to exclude Hezbollah from the Paragraph A, Section II of the Agreement’s requirement to disband all “militias.” Hezbollah, Lebanon argues, is the country’s means of liberating the territory it alleges remains occupied by Israel.
This argument fails for two reasons.
First, accepting Lebanon’s bad-faith interpretations—of Resolution 1701 and the Taif Agreement—would gut those documents of meaning and impact. Resolution 1701 was adopted when Hezbollah was Lebanon’s last prominent armed group. Further, it was adopted in response to a war sparked by Hezbollah and to solve the problems caused by the group’s independent arsenal and unfettered military activities. Therefore, if Resolution 1701 wasn’t meant to address Hezbollah and its arms, it would have no purpose.
Additionally, in officially rejecting Resolution 1559, whose terms and obligations were incorporated by reference into 1701’s Operative Paragraph 8, Lebanon recognized that the resolution’s terms applied to Hezbollah. Finally, Lebanon’s interpretation could lead to a proliferation of armed groups in Lebanon claiming “resistance” exemptions.
Second, Lebanon is suggesting an interpretation of Resolution 1701 and the Taif Agreement that is illegal under international law, as well as Lebanon’s bilateral treaties with Israel. International law prohibits the use of force, even allegedly defensive force by a “resistance organization,” to settle territorial disputes. This is so even in cases where a state can assert a valid claim to a parcel of territory.
The Eritrea-Ethiopia Arbitration noted that this prohibition stems from “border disputes between States [being] so frequent that any exception to the prohibition of the threat or use of force for territory that is allegedly occupied unlawfully would create a large and dangerous hole in a fundamental rule of international law.” This default prohibition is underscored by the 1949 Israeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement by the very nature of it being an armistice agreement, and its specific prohibition of any “element of the land, sea or military or paramilitary forces of either Party, including non-regular forces” from “commit[ing] any warlike or hostile act against […] the other Party […] or […] advance[ing] beyond or pass[ing] over for any purpose whatsoever the Armistice Declaration Line.”
Nor can Lebanon circumvent these prohibitions by empowering Hezbollah to act under domestic law. The characterization of an act of a state as illegal under international law is governed by international law alone and cannot be affected or undone by the characterization of the same act as lawful by domestic law.
This also negates the validity of the “Consent of the Government” argument used to portray Resolution 1701 as weaker on Hezbollah than Resolution 1559. Put simply, international law prohibits the Lebanese Government from providing its “consent” to internationally wrongful acts, or that consent transforming the nature of those unlawful acts. Interpreted in good faith, “Consent of the Government” was meant to empower the Lebanese Government to monopolize the use of force throughout its territory, not to violate international law.
Resolution 1701’s failure
The distinction between Resolution 1701 and Resolution 1559 is, therefore, contrived. Resolution 1701 does not repudiate Resolution 1559. On the contrary, it incorporates it by reference and strengthens its terms by explicitly “call[ing] for” Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. Lebanon’s responsibility to undertake this action was implicit in Resolution 1559 because the obligation to police and control one’s own territory and prevent non-state actors from using it to harm other states falls, by default, on the state itself—in this case, Lebanon. Furthermore, there is a stronger case to be made for the binding nature of the “call for” Lebanon to act under Resolution 1701 than under Resolution 1559.
Eighteen years on, however, Resolution 1701 can only be described as a failure. Not because its terms are weaker than Resolution 1559, or because it doesn’t contain good legal benchmarks—but because Lebanon, the party responsible for implementing the obligations it contains and its underlying obligations under international law, is unwilling or unable to do so.
Lebanon is built around a system called “Confessionalism”—a quasi-feudalistic system where portions of power are distributed according to religious sect, which, in practice, devolves upon sub-sectarian representative parties. Lebanon can only act by the consensus of all its sub-sectarian representative parties. As an integral part of Lebanon’s political and social fabric and a representative of a legitimate segment of Lebanese society, the Shiites, Hezbollah is part of that consensus—irrespective of its ultimate loyalty to Iran. It is comprised of Lebanese citizens and empowered by them to act on their behalf—and a sizable portion of them, at that.
In the May 2022 parliamentary elections, Hezbollah won 356,122 of approximately 1.8 million votes cast—the largest number of votes for any party, and almost 153,000 votes ahead of the second-largest party. A 2024 poll found that 93% of Shiites—likely Lebanon’s largest and certainly its fastest-growing sect—had a positive view of Hezbollah, 89% of them “very positive.”
Hezbollah is, therefore, not a marginal actor. Lebanon would have to seek the group’s approval, alongside the rest of the country’s sub-sectarian representative parties, to pursue its disarmament. That consent is unlikely to ever happen, as Hezbollah is not in the business of self-destruction. To pursue Hezbollah’s disarmament otherwise would risk plunging Lebanon into a political deadlock, street fighting, or a civil war in which Hezbollah could draw upon its allies from the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance.
UNIFIL is not empowered by its current mandate to proactively act to disarm or restrain Hezbollah. Its purpose is auxiliary: to aid Lebanon in that task. In theory, UNIFIL could be provided with an upgraded mandate permitting it to fight Hezbollah. But UNIFIL’s troop-contributing countries are unlikely to ever approve of putting their soldiers in harm’s way; Lebanon, which took issue with UNIFIL’s unannounced patrols, will never approve of using force against Hezbollah; and such a mandate would never gain Security Council approval, where Russia and China, as permanent members, would exercise their veto to protect Hezbollah.
A sleight of hand
In July, Kataeb Party chairman Samy Gemayel called for implementing Resolution 1559—as Lebanon could simply pick and choose which instruments of international law it would follow. His reasoning was that Resolution 1559 “suits Lebanon,” while Resolution 1701 “serves Israel’s interests” and places it “at the top of the West’s priorities.”
Since both Resolutions call for Hezbollah’s disarmament, the only plausible reason for Gemayel’s opposition to 1701 is that—in contrast to Resolution 1559—it explicitly calls upon Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. Kataeb’s preference remains, in line with history, to sit back while outsiders fight its battles. This also seems to be the goal of the similarly inclined pro-Lebanon activists.
They seek to undermine Resolution 1701’s credibility by incomprehensibly claiming it is lenient on Hezbollah—contorting both the Resolution’s meaning and intent and international law in the process. They can thus gin up support for a 1559-style Resolution that omits Lebanese responsibility for disarming Hezbollah on the erroneous assumption this will lead the primary responsibility of disarming the group to devolve upon someone else. It is a desperate attempt to burden others with the task of spending their blood and treasure to undo what is fundamentally a Lebanese problem and Lebanese phenomenon, while, in their thinking, enshrining Lebanese inaction in international law.
*David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 25-26/2024
Israeli army announces carrying out "precision strikes" on "military" targets in Iran
Middle East/October 26, 2024
The Israeli army announced carrying out precision strikes on military targets in Iran. Avichay Adraee, the army spokesman, said on his account on the (X) platform: "The Defense Forces are currently attacking with precision military targets in Iran in response to the Iranian regime's continuous attacks against the State of Israel over the past months." Following the strikes, the Israeli army said it was "on alert offensively and defensively." Semi-official Iranian media reported, early Saturday morning, that a number of strong explosions were heard in the capital, Tehran, and the neighboring city of Karaj. Iranian state television said that a number of strong explosions were heard throughout Tehran, but there was no official comment regarding the cause of the explosions. A US official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters that Israel informed the United States before launching attacks on targets in Iran. The official added that the United States was not participating in the Israeli operation.

Israeli military launches strikes on military targets in Iran, officials say
WAFAA SHURAFA and BASSEM MROUE/AP/October 26 2024
The Israeli military launched strikes early Saturday on military targets in Iran, officials said. It wasn’t immediately clear what the targets were. Iranian state media reported the sound of explosions around Iran’s capital, Tehran, without immediately elaborating. An Israeli military statement said that Israel “has the right and the duty to respond.”“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” the statement read. It also did not elaborate on the targets. Iranian state television later identified some of the blasts as coming from air defense systems, without offering more details. Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Explosions heard in Iran, Syria as Middle East braces for Israeli retaliation
Reuters/October 25, 2024
Loud explosions were heard in Iran and near Syria's capital early on Saturday, state media in both countries said, the possible start of an awaited response by Israel to a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran on Oct. 1. Iran's state TV said several strong explosions were heard around the capital Tehran, but there was no official comment about the source of explosions. Semi-official Iranian media said explosions were also heard in the nearby city of Karaj. The Israel Defence Forces said its military was conducting precise strikes. Syrian state TV said explosions were also heard in the Damascus countryside and central region. The Middle East has been on edge in anticipation of Israeli retaliation for Iran's attack, in which around 200 ballistic missiles were fired at Israel, Iran's second direct attack on Israel in six months. Israel's defense minister said this week that enemies would "pay a heavy price" for trying to harm Israel. In the past few weeks Israel has intensified its offensive against Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza and its Iran-backed ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. The war was triggered a year ago by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. Washington is seeking to head off further widening of the conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Israel's retaliation should not lead to greater escalation. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Up to 1,000 missiles: Iranian officials disclose potential retaliation plans - NYT
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Iran's response to an Israeli strike would be contingent on the extent of Israel's attack, the officials claimed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has asked the Iranian military to prepare response scenarios to a potential Israeli attack, according to a Thursday New York Times report, citing four Iranian officials.
Iran's response to an Israeli strike would be contingent on the extent of Israel's attack, the officials, two of whom were from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed. According to them, the Islamic Republic may choose not to respond if Israel reduces the scope of its strike to solely military warehouses and bases. However, were the strike to cause major casualties and destruction, or were Israel to attack nuclear, oil, or energy infrastructure or carry out targeted eliminations, Iran would hit back, the officials noted. In such a case, Iran's response scenario could include a potential barrage of up to 1,000 ballistic missiles, further attacks by Iranian proxies, and interference in energy supplies and shipping in the Persian Gulf. Israel has vowed to respond to Iran's October 1 attack, which saw the Islamic Republic fire some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in what the IRGC said was a response to the killing of Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah. Prior to October 1, Iran last attacked Israel on April 14, launching some 300 aerial threats at the Jewish State.

IDF confirms five soldiers killed, four wounded in Lebanon combat All served in the 89th Battalion of the 8th Brigade.
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Five soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, the IDF said on Friday.
Major (Res.) Dan Maori, 43, from Beit Yitzhak, served as a battalion deputy commander and Captain (Res.) Alon Safrai, 28, from Jerusalem, served as a tank officer. The other soldiers were named as Chief Warrant Officer (Res.) Omri Lotan, 47, from Bat Hefer; Chief Warrant Officer (Res.) Guy Idan, 51, from Kibbutz Shomrat; and Staff-Sergeant-Major Tom Segal, 28, from Ein Habesor. All the fallen soldiers served in the 89th Battalion in the 8th Brigade. According to the IDF's tally, the deaths of Maj. Maori, Capt. Safrai, CWO Lotan, CWO Idan, and St.-Sgt.-Maj. Segal raises the total of soldiers killed on or since October 7 of last year to 762. The military added that in the incident in which the five soldiers fell, four reservists were seriously wounded. In a separate incident on Friday, an IDF reservist of the 221st Battalion in the 2nd Brigade was seriously wounded during combat in southern Lebanon.

'Don't count on THAAD' for protection: IRGC issues renewed threats to Israel
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
"Don't count on THAAD. Every time you fire a projectile, we will fire more than you," Salami reportedly said. IRGC chief Hossein Salami issued new threats to Israel on Thursday, warning the country not to count on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system for protection, Saudi media site Al-Hadath reported. The comment came as Iran has been awaiting Israeli retaliation for its aerial attack earlier this month. The US military rushed the THAAD advanced anti-missile system to Israel, and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described it as being "in place" on Monday. "Don't count on THAAD. Every time you fire a projectile, we will fire more than you," Salami reportedly said. Austin declined to say whether the THAAD system was operational. However, he added, "We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly, and we're on pace with our expectations."
Salami stated that Iran's October 1 missile attack on Israel was proof that the THAAD system was incapable of protecting Israel. This was said despite the fact that the system was not in use in Israel during the time of the October attack. "The Zionist entity is wrong, and the 'True Promise 2' operation proved the failure of its defense systems. The THAAD system will not succeed in protecting it," he said. *Reuters contributed to this report.

Israel Says It Killed Hamas Commander Who ‘Doubled’ as UN Aid Worker
Asharq Al Awsat/October 25/2024
Israel's military said on Thursday it killed a Hamas commander who took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel and also worked for the UN aid agency in the Gaza Strip. The agency, UNRWA, has been accused by Israel of having many employees who double as members of Hamas and other armed groups. The UN, after an investigation, said in August that nine UNRWA staff were possibly involved in the Oct. 7 attacks and fired them. The Israeli military said Mohammad Abu Itiwi was killed on Wednesday. It said he was a Hamas commander and had been involved in the murder and abduction of Israeli civilians. It also said he had been employed by UNRWA since July 2022 and that his name appeared on a list of the agency's employees. UNRWA confirmed Itiwi was a staff member and was killed on Wednesday. It said Itiwi's name was included in a letter UNRWA received from Israel in July that included a list of 100 staff members who were also allegedly members of armed groups, including Hamas. "The UNRWA commissioner general responded to that letter immediately stating that any allegation is taken seriously. He urged (the government of Israel) to cooperate with the agency by providing more information so he could take action. To date, UNRWA has not received any response to that letter," said Juliette Touma, UNRWA's director of communications. 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 relations have deteriorated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza and Israel has called repeatedly for UNRWA to be disbanded. "Israel has requested urgent clarifications from senior UN officials and an urgent investigation into the involvement of UNRWA employees in the Oct. 7 massacre," said Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Hamas Wants Russia to Push Abbas Towards Unity Government
Asharq Al Awsat/October 25/2024
Hamas wants Russia to push Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to begin negotiations on a national unity government for post-war Gaza, a senior Hamas official told the Russian RIA state news agency after talks in Moscow. Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas politburo member, met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow. “We discussed issues related to Palestinian national unity and the creation of a government that should govern the Gaza Strip after the war,” Abu Marzouk was quoted as saying by RIA. He said that Hamas had asked Russia to encourage Abbas, who is attending the BRICS summit in Kazan, to start negotiations about a unity government, RIA reported. Abbas is head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing body of the occupied Palestinian territories. The PA was set up three decades ago under the interim peace agreement known as the Oslo Accords and exercises limited governance over parts of the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state. The PA, controlled by Abbas' Fatah political faction, has long had a strained relationship with Hamas, and the two factions fought a brief war before Fatah was expelled from the territory in 2007. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed strong opposition to the PA being involved in running Gaza.

One of 3 judges weighing request for ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and others is replaced
Mike Corder/THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)/October 25, 2024
— The presiding judge of an International Criminal Court panel considering a request to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and senior Hamas leaders has been replaced on medical grounds. The court published a decision Friday granting a request by Romanian judge Iulia Motoc to be taken off the case “based on medical grounds and the need to safeguard the proper administration of justice.” The ruling did not elaborate or disclose further details, saying that “the personal medical situation of Judge Motoc is entitled to medical confidentiality.”Motoc was replaced by Beti Hohler, a Slovenian who was elected as a judge at the court last year after earlier serving as a trial lawyer in the court's prosecution office. The decision is likely to further delay a decision on the request by the court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. In his May request for warrants, Khan accused Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel. Netanyahu called the prosecutor’s accusations against him a “disgrace,” and an attack on the Israeli military and all of Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden called the request for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding “whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”Hamas also denounced the ICC prosecutor’s actions, saying the request to arrest its leaders “equates the victim with the executioner.”Since the request, Sinwar and Haniyeh have been confirmed killed. Israel has claimed to have killed Deif, but Hamas has said he survived. Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad. Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence. The Israeli campaign has since expanded to Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion Oct. 1, after trading fire with the Hezbollah militant group for much of the past year. Friday's announcement about Motoc came as unrelated accusations surfaced that Khan tried for more than a year to coerce a female aide into a sexual relationship and groped her against her will. He categorically denied the allegations, saying there was “no truth to suggestions of misconduct.” Court officials have said they may have been made as part of an Israeli intelligence smear campaign. A court watchdog could not determine wrongdoing, but urged Khan in a memo to minimize contact with the woman to protect the rights of all involved and safeguard the court’s integrity.
Mike Corder, The Associated Press

‘Instead of aid, we are receiving tanks’: Key hospital in northern Gaza comes under Israeli fire
CNN/October 25, 2024
Abeer Salman, Eyad Kourdi, Kareem Khadder, Tim Lister, Ibrahim Dahman and Nadeen Ebrahim,
‘We have to let some die’: Doctor says Gaza hospital is out of blood, medicationScroll back up to restore default view.Israeli forces entered the compound of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and opened fire after days of laying siege to the facility, health authorities in the enclave said.
The Gaza health ministry and the director of the hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, have told CNN that the Israeli military twice entered the hospital compound over the past 24 hours and fired at parts of the complex.Health officials in Gaza have told CNN over the past few days that the facility is running low on supplies and in desperate need of aid as injured people from neighboring areas pour in. Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, said in a video that Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the hospital compound late Thursday and began firing at parts of the complex, adding that “all departments of the hospital are under direct shelling.”“Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks,” he said. Kamal Adwan is one of three minimally operational hospitals in northern Gaza, and the closest to Israeli military activity in Beit Lahiya and the Jabalya Refugee Camp. Despite its limited capacity, it has been receiving most of the injured from the surrounding fighting. World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that since the raid on Kamal Adwan hospital, WHO has “lost touch with the personnel there.”“This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there,” Ghebreyesus said on X. Prior to Friday’s raid, he said, WHO and its partners managed to reach Kamal Adwan “amid hostilities in the vicinity, and transferred 23 patients and 26 caregivers to Al-Shifa Hospital.”The Israeli military said in a statement Friday that its forces are operating in the area of the Kamal Adwan Hospital “based on intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure,” adding that in the weeks preceding the operation, “the IDF facilitated the evacuation of patients from the area while maintaining emergency services.”COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the strip, said on Friday that with the help of UNICEF and WHO, several patients and their escorts were evacuated from the facility. The hospital was also given fuel, blood units and medical equipment. But WHO’s Ghebreyesus stated on X that the hospital is housing about 200 patients, along with hundreds more seeking shelter there.
‘Shocked by the entry of bulldozers and tanks’
Maher Shamiya, an official with the Gaza health ministry, told CNN Friday that the Israeli military had demolished parts of the hospital’s wall. The oxygen station had also been damaged by Israeli fire, he said. Shamiya said that the military had entered the hospital yard for a second time on Friday morning and had begun separating men from women. “After that, it became impossible to communicate with anyone.”In his video message, Safiya said he was “shocked by the entry of bulldozers and tanks into the hospital compound,” adding that tanks began firing at the upper floors, shattering windows and “creating an atmosphere of panic, terror, and fear.”“Everyone in the hospital gathered in the stairwell; it was a very distressing scene,” he said. One video showed Abu Safiya speaking from within the Intensive Care Unit, where patients and medical staff were huddled. He said that some severely injured people were dying. Abu Safiya said that a number of properties around the hospital had been set on fire. Later Thursday night, a convoy of supplies from the World Health Organization reached the hospital, he said. Video showed a fuel tanker and other vehicles close to the facility. Abu Safiya said the convoy delivered enough fuel for five days, as well as 200 units of blood and a few other supplies, but no food or water. He said he had been in touch with Israeli officers. “I explained the situation of the patients and the injured people in the hospital, emphasizing that their condition was extremely critical and that evacuation was necessary.”The health ministry in Gaza told CNN Friday that 23 injured people had been evacuated in six ambulances. Abu Safiya said there were 70 critically injured people at the hospital needing evacuation. Abu Safiya also told CNN that there was a large number of injured people in the Jabalya area of northern Gaza, which has been subjected to intense Israeli military operations in recent days. “We have no medical assistance that can reach them, and I do not have the means to help them even if they were able to reach us. We have nothing to offer them.” It has been 21 days since Israel ramped up its military operation in northern Gaza. Authorities in Gaza say the military has stopped aid from reaching parts of the area and displaced many of its residents. Israel says it is preventing Hamas from regrouping.

With no exit strategy for Israel in Gaza, critics fear an open-ended stay
Jonathan Saul and James Mackenzie/JERUSALEM (Reuters)/October 25, 2024
Retired Israeli general Giora Eiland believes Israel faces months of fighting in Gaza unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uses the chance offered by the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to end the war. Since Sinwar's death this month, Eiland has been one of a chorus of former senior army officers questioning the government's strategy in Gaza, where earlier this month troops went back into areas of the north that had already been cleared at least twice before. For the past three weeks, Israeli troops have been operating around Jabalia, in northern Gaza, the third time they have returned to the town and its historic refugee camp since the beginning of the war in October 2023. Instead of the Israeli military's preferred approach of quick decisive actions, many former security officials say the army risks being bogged down in an open-ended campaign requiring a permanent troop presence. "The Israeli government is acting in total opposition to Israel's security concept," Yom-Tov Samia, former head of the military's Southern Command, told Kan public radio. Part of the operation has involved evacuating thousands of people from the area in an effort to separate civilians from Hamas fighters.
The military says it has moved around 45,000 civilians from the area around Jabalia and killed hundreds of militants during the operation. But it has been heavily criticised for the large number of civilian casualties also reported, and faced widespread calls to get more aid supplies in to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the area. Eiland, a former head of Israel's National Security Council, was the lead author of a much-discussed proposal dubbed "the generals' plan" that would see Israel rapidly clear northern Gaza of civilians before starving out surviving Hamas fighters by cutting off their water and food supplies. The Israeli moves this month have aroused Palestinian accusations that the military has embraced Eiland's plan, which he envisaged as a short-term measure to take on Hamas in the north but which Palestinians see as aimed at clearing the area permanently to create a buffer zone for the military after the war. The military has denied it is following any such plan and Eiland himself believes the strategy adopted is neither his plan, nor a classical occupation. "I don't know exactly what is happening in Jabalia," Eiland told Reuters. "But I think that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) is doing something which is in between the two alternatives, the ordinary military attack and my plan," he said.
NO PLAN TO STAY
From the outset of the war, Netanyahu declared Israel would get hostages home and dismantle Hamas as a military and governing force, and did not intend to stay in Gaza. But his government never articulated a clear policy for the aftermath of the campaign, launched following the attack on Oct. 7, 2023 on southern Israeli communities by Hamas gunmen who killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. The Israeli onslaught has killed nearly 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and the enclave has been largely reduced to a wasteland that will require billions of dollars in international assistance to rebuild. For months there have been open disagreements between Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant that reflect a wider division between the governing coalition and the military, which has long favoured reaching a deal to end the fighting and bring the hostages home. With no agreed strategy, Israel risks being stuck in Gaza for the foreseeable future, said Ofer Shelah, director of the Israel National Security Policy research program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "The situation for Israel is very precarious right now. We are sliding towards a situation where Israel is considered the de facto ruler in Gaza," he said. The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on suggestions that the military is getting bogged down in Gaza.
HIT AND RUN RAIDS
With Israel's military focus now directed against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, the number of army divisions engaged in Gaza is down to two, compared with five at the start of the war. According to estimates from Israeli security sources there are 10,000-15,000 troops in each IDF division. The Israeli military estimates that the 25 Hamas battalions it assessed Hamas possessed at the start of the war have been destroyed long ago, and around half the force, or some 17,000-18,000 fighters have been killed. But bands of fighters remain to conduct hit and run raids on Israeli troops. "We don't engage with tanks on the ground, we choose our targets," said one Hamas fighter, contacted through a chat app. "We are acting in a way that keeps us fighting for the longest time possible."Although such tactics will not prevent Israel's military from moving around Gaza as it wants, they still have the potential to impose a significant cost on Israel.
The commander of Israel's 401st Armoured Brigade was killed in Gaza this week when he got out of his tank to talk to other commanders at an observation point where militants had rigged up a booby trap bomb. He was one of the most senior officers killed in Gaza during the war. Three soldiers were killed on Friday."With the killing of Sinwar, there is no logic in remaining in Gaza," said a former top military official with direct experience of the enclave, who asked not to be named. "Methodical" pinpointed operations going forward should be carried out if Hamas regroups and resumes any war on Israel, but the risk of leaving troops permanently in Gaza was a major danger, the former official said, advocating securing the hostages and getting out. Netanyahu's office said on Thursday that Israeli negotiators would fly to Qatar this weekend to join long-stalled talks on a ceasefire deal and the release of hostages. But what Hamas' position will be and who Israel will allow to run the enclave when the fighting stops remains unclear. Netanyahu has denied any plans to stay on in Gaza or to allow Israeli settlers to return, as many Palestinians fear. But the hardline pro-settler parties in his coalition and many in his own Likud party would like nothing more than to reverse the 2005 unilateral removal of Israeli settlers by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads one of the pro-settler parties, said on Thursday - at the close of the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah - that he hoped to celebrate the festival next year in the old Gaza settlement bloc of Gush Katif.

Israel’s ‘generals’ plan’ to clear Palestinians from north of Gaza could pave the way for settlers to return
Leonie Fleischmann/The Conversation/October 25, 2024
Western political leaders were quick to argue that the killing of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, on October 17 presented a window of opportunity. Perhaps the decapitation of the militant group’s senior command would be a chance for renewed ceasefire talks and the release of the Israeli hostages. The US president, Joe Biden, urged the Israeli government the following day to “make this moment an opportunity” to end the war in Gaza. But Israel had already launched a major operation in northern Gaza. On October 12, the IDF posted a message in Arabic on social media sites warning civilians living in an area designated as D5 on Israel’s grid map of Gaza to evacuate. It said the area would soon be a “dangerous combat zone” and ordered people to move to safe areas in the south of Gaza. This process has continued as the IDF has renewed its offensive in the north of the enclave, with an estimated 400,000 people affected, about 20% of the population of Gaza. The UN reported on October 21 that only a “trickle” of food aid has been allowed into north Gaza over the previous week. The Israeli military has denied this. But it has also been reported that the emergency polio vaccination campaign in north Gaza has had to be suspended, due to Israeli bombardment and a lack of access to UN personnel. The forcible transfer of a population during war is illegal under international law, as is denying access to humanitarian aid for civilians. But there are fears that there is a plan to move Palestinians out of north Gaza in a plan which could pave the way for settlers to move in. The liberal Haaretz newspaper, a consistent critic of the Netanyahu government, published an editorial on October 22 saying that there was mounting evidence that Israel is now pursuing a policy of siege and starvation to force the complete evacuation of the civilian population of northern Gaza. In doing this, the newspaper said, Israel is implementing the now notorious “generals’ plan”. It asserted:
Make no mistake, [the generals’ plan] is a war crime, and it runs contrary to UN Security Council decision 2334, which states that land may not be taken through force, referring to acts of war.
Military plan or land grab?
The “generals’ plan” is attributed to retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former head of national security in Israel. As a strategy to defeat Hamas (something which has proved elusive in 12 months of bitter fighting in Gaza) it proposes the wholesale transfer of north Gaza’s population south beyond the Netzarim corridor. A siege would be imposed on those who remain. In late September Eiland argued in an interview with Haaretz that “it’s permissible and even recommended to starve an enemy to death, provided you’ve allowed the civilians corridors of exits beforehand. And that is exactly what I am proposing”.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently told US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that Israel is not planning to lay siege to northern Gaza. But the evidence of the military’s actions on the ground suggests otherwise. Since October 6 the IDF has been conducting what it calls a “clearing operation” in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, channelling civilians south while launching airstrikes against the Jabalia refugee camp, where it says units of Hamas are embedded.
Changing the reality
There is widespread concern that the end game in north Gaza will include the return of settlers. A conference on October 22 attended by members of the ruling Likud Party, including several ministers in the Netanyahu government, heard the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, assert that “encouraging emigration” of Palestinian residents of Gaza would be the “most ethical” solution to the conflict. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, told journalists on his way to the conference that the Gaza Strip was “part of the Land of Israel” and that “without settlements, there is no security”.
Settlers were moved out of the the Gaza Strip in 2005, under the then prime minister Ariel Sharon’s Disengagement Plan. The plan dismantled 21 settlements in the Strip, relocating an estimated 8,000 settlers. Many vowed at the time that they would return one day. There was a Jewish presence on the Gaza Strip from biblical times until 1929, when they were driven out during the Arab revolts, in which 133 Gazan Jews were killed. After the six-day war in 1967, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. In the aftermath of the war, the main focus of settlement was national security, rather than religious ideology. Here the driving force was Israel’s deputy prime minister, Yigal Allon, who believed that national security could be guaranteed by building settlements. As a consequence, in the 1970s, the Labour government established the initial modern settlements in the Gaza Strip. The settlements divided the enclave such that the Palestinian inhabitants in each area were isolated from each other, thus enabling Israeli control. UK-based historian Ahron Bregman, a former Israeli army officer (who has written for The Conversation on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians), warned in a post on X about how national security could once again be used as a pretext for settlements to be established in north Gaza. The current operation in northern Gaza feels like a particularly ominous moment, not only in the Hamas-Israel war, but in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather than use the opportunity of a weakened Hamas to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal and allow the people of Gaza to attempt to rebuild their shattered lives, Israel appears to be illegally, immorally and irreversibly changing the realities on the ground. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
**Leonie Fleischmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Pentagon promotes official with alleged Iran ties amid leak probe and spy accusations - report
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Tabatabai's promotion comes amid an FBI-led investigation into the leaked intelligence documents, which reportedly detailed Israel’s plans to counter Iran following its October missile attacks. Ariane Tabatabai, a Pentagon official with alleged links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has been promoted despite a recent leak of US intelligence concerning Israel’s potential retaliatory strike against Iran. Tabatabai, previously Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, was elevated last month to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Education and Training, as reported by Politico on Thursday. Her promotion comes amid an FBI-led investigation into the leaked intelligence documents, which reportedly detailed Israel’s plans to counter Iran following its October missile attacks. This has led to heightened criticism, as some have accused Tabatabai of divided loyalties, recalling prior calls from members of Congress for her removal over past IRGC-related communication concerns. Earlier this week, Sky News Arabia reported her as a central figure in the leak investigation. However, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder stated that “to my knowledge, this official is not a subject of interest.” The FBI remains in charge of the probe, with the Pentagon deferring to its findings. The timing of the leak, as Israel gears up for potential action against Iran, has intensified concerns. Israeli officials have described the breach as “extremely serious” but noted it is unlikely to alter their strategic plans. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reportedly spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, emphasizing the Pentagon’s commitment to safeguarding intelligence shared between the allies.

Gaza 'genocide' must stop for there to be a hostage deal, says Hamas official - report
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
According to a separate report by the AFP, Hamas told the Egyptians it was ready to cease fighting if Israel were to agree to ceasefire. Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya visited Cairo on Thursday to discuss Egyptian and American hostage deal proposals, according to a Friday report from the UK-based Qatari newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed. According to the report, al Hayya claimed that any movement towards negotiations must be preceded by an end to what he termed the "genocide" being carried out in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. According to a separate report by the AFP, Hamas told the Egyptians it was ready to cease fighting if Israel were to agree to a ceasefire. This would reportedly include the withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip and the entrance of humanitarian aid into Gaza, among other things. "Hamas has expressed readiness to stop the fighting, but Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal, and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza," a Hamas official was quoted by the news agency as saying.

'A pressure card': Al-Quds claims alleged Hamas docs reveal Sinwar's orders on Gaza hostages
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
One document reportedly calls on Hamas terrorists to "take care of the lives" of the hostages, considered by Sinwar as a "pressure card."The Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds published three documents on Friday that it claimed were written by former Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. The documents reportedly contain instructions to Hamas operatives concerning the hostages held in the Gaza Strip. According to the newspaper, the first document calls on the Hamas terrorists to "take care of the lives" of the hostages, considered by the Hamas chief as a "pressure card." The second document reportedly includes lists of the hostages, detailing their gender, age, whether they were soldiers, and where in Gaza they were held. The final document records the names of 11 female hostages, aged 41 and up, and includes whether they held foreign nationalities.The 11 hostages were all since released from Hamas captivity.
The Al-Quds report could not be confirmed by The Jerusalem Post.  This follows a report by The Telegraph last week, which claimed that Sinwar may have issued an order to execute all remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza if he were to be killed. Sinwar's elimination by the IDF. Sinwar was eliminated by the IDF last week in Tel Sultan in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after troops of the 828 Bislach Brigade identified three suspicious figures walking in and out of a structure. Following fire from the troops, the figures separated, with the individual, who later turned out to be Sinwar, entering a building separately. An IDF tank struck the structure in which Sinwar was embedded, after which a drone was dispatched to assess the situation. A masked Sinwar could be seen in footage later published by IDF attacking the drone with a stick. The tank subsequently fired at the structure again, after which troops waited for DNA checks to ascertain Sinwar's identity.  All indications pointed to the fact that no hostages were killed in the operation.
Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jacob Laznik, and Maya Gur Arieh contributed to this report.

Indictment filed against seven Israelis suspected for spying for Iran
Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
They are charged with security offenses, including aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy. The State Attorney filed an indictment on Friday at the Haifa District Court against seven residents of Haifa and northern Israel, who were suspected of operating an Iranian spy cell for approximately two years. They are charged with security offenses, including aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy. The State Attorney has requested that they be detained until the end of the legal proceedings.
The investigation revealed that the suspects operated in a cell recruited by an Iranian agent and spent approximately two years gathering information and photographing military facilities and bases, including the Israeli Air Force bases in Nevatim and Ramat David, the Kirya in Tel Aviv, and Iron Dome battery sites. The main defendant and head of the cell, Aziz Nisanov, 43, was in contact with the handlers and worked to recruit additional members to the cell. Alexander Sadikov, 58, who served as Nisanov's deputy, was effectively responsible for managing the cell, assigning tasks, and distributing payments among its members. The third defendant, a minor, served as the primary operative responsible for photographing and sending the materials to the Iranian handlers. Another minor was involved in photographing tasks, sending materials, and receiving funds from the Iranian agent. The additional defendants in the case are Yigal Nisan, 20, the son of defendant Nisanov; Vyacheslav Goshchin from Haifa, 46; and Yevgeny Yoffe, 47, from Nof HaGalil. The defendants carried out approximately 600 missions for the Iranians, divided into three main categories: intelligence gathering on sensitive facilities, military bases, and individual targets, all for the purpose of Iranian attacks. According to the indictment, the defendants carried out missions for an individual identifying himself as Elkhan Agayev over the past two years on behalf of Iranian intelligence agencies and another foreign agent known as "Orkhan." The two maintained regular contact with the defendants and recruited them for various intelligence-gathering missions. These included photographing and collecting information on civilian infrastructure, military bases, defense systems, IDF weaponry, and specific individuals.
Among the bases photographed by the defendants were Tel Nof and Palmachim Air Force bases, Be’er Tuvia, Kiryat Gat, Emek Hefer, and the Glilot complex.  Additionally, following the Iranian handlers' instructions, the defendants photographed Iron Dome batteries in the Haifa and bayside suburbs areas, the government complex in Haifa, the ports of Haifa, Ashdod, and Eilat, the Hadera power station, and the IDF observation balloon near the Golani Junction. Among other missions, the cell was instructed to photograph the Nevatim base in April 2024, a day after the base suffered light damage in the April 14 Iranian attack. The Iranian handlers sent the defendants the locations for photographing sites, including maps, aerial images, and precise coordinates, and sometimes even specified the exact spots from which they should take the photos. The handlers also sent the minor defendant coordinates of military bases and strategic sites for future photography missions, including the Golani Brigade Training Base, specifying coordinates for the base’s dining hall, Rafael, and other locations. Nisanov was asked to gather information regarding a Haifa University expert specializing in gas engineering and Caucasus affairs whose lectures on Iran were published online. He was also asked to gather details about her family members, vehicle, and schedule. Tour guides cover story . Additionally, in case they were caught photographing prohibited areas, Nisanov created a cover story for the cell, portraying them as tour guides.
For completing the tasks, the defendants received payment and expense reimbursements for each mission, ranging from $500 to $1,200 per mission. The total amount they received reached $300,000, which was divided among the cell members.

Israeli forces kill 38 people in Khan Younis, storm north Gaza hospital, say medics
Nidal al-Mughrabi/Reuters/October 25, 2024
CAIRO (Reuters) - Israeli military strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis killed at least 38 people since Thursday night and Israeli forces launched a night-time raid on a hospital in the north, Palestinian officials said. The Gaza health ministry said many of the casualties from the Israeli strikes on houses in southeast Khan Younis were women and children. The Israeli military said in a statement forces killed a number of Palestinian gunmen in air and ground strikes in the southern Gaza Strip and dismantled military infrastructure. Some residents returned to the scene on Friday morning, sifting through rubble in an attempt to retrieve some of their clothes and documents, while children looked for their toys. At the nearby Nasser Hospital, medics prepared the dead, among them three children wrapped in the same white shroud. In the north of the enclave, where the area around the town of Jabalia has been the target of a weeks-long offensive, health officials said Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities struggling to operate there, and stationed forces outside it. "Since last night, at midnight, the occupation army tanks and bulldozers reached the hospital. The terrorising of civilians, the injured and children began as they (the Israeli army) started opening fire on the hospital," Eid Sabbah, the hospital's director of nursing, said in a voice note to Reuters. He said when army retreated, a delegation from the World Health Organisation arrived with an ambulance and evacuated 40 patients. Israeli tanks returned and opened fire on the hospital, striking its oxygen stores, before raiding the building and ordering staff and patients to leave, Sabbah said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or WHO on the hospital raid. Israeli strikes on three houses in the nearby Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed 25 people and wounded dozens of others, medics said. Medics at the three hospitals have refused Israeli orders to evacuate their hospitals and leave patients unattended. They said at least 800 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza since the army began the new offensive three weeks ago. "IDF troops continue their operational activity in the area of Jabaliya and have eliminated dozens of terrorists, dismantled terrorist infrastructure, and located numerous weapons over the past day," the Israeli military said.Israel says its forces returned to northern Gaza as Palestinian militant Hamas fighters had regrouped there.
NEW CEASEFIRE PUSH
The escalation came as the United States pushed for a new effort to reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, that would end the war and see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza as well as many Palestinians jailed by Israel. A Hamas official confirmed to Reuters on Friday that a delegation led by the group's chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya arrived in Cairo on Thursday for talks with Egyptian officials to discuss "ways to end the Israeli aggression on Gaza".The official says Hamas was determined any agreement must end the war in Gaza, get Israeli forces out of the enclave and achieve a prisoners-for-hostages swap deal. U.S. and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha in the coming days to try to restart talks toward a deal, officials said on Thursday. Israel is also fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Qatar and Egypt have acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas in months of talks that broke down in August without an agreement to end the war that erupted when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. As the war moves into its second year, the death toll from the Israeli campaign in Gaza is approaching 43,000, with the densely populated enclave in ruins. The operation in northern Gaza has fuelled fears among Palestinians that Israeli forces are clearing the area in order to create a buffer zone for the military after the war or to pave the way for the return of settlers who left Gaza in 2005. Israel has denied such plans and accuses Hamas of hindering the evacuation of civilians to provide cover for its own forces, which Hamas, in turn, denies.

Two U.S. soldiers, injured in Iraqi operation, en route to Walter Reed
Darryl Coote/United Press International/October 25, 2024
Two U.S. soldiers wounded in a raid targeting Islamic State leaders in Iraq earlier this week are heading to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for care, Pentagon officials said Thursday. The two unidentified soldiers were injured by an explosion while assisting Iraqi forces with site exploitation during a joint operation on Tuesday. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters during a Thursday press conference that both soldiers were en route to the military medical facility in Bethesda, Md. She said they had sustained serious injuries but were in stable condition. She added a third U.S. soldier was being assessed for a potential traumatic brain injury. "All are in stable condition and receiving the care that they need," she said. The U.S. soldiers were wounded during a joint operation with Iraqi security forces targeting senior ISIS leaders in the Hamrin Mountains of northern Iraq. The operation consisted of airstrikes and raids on multiple known ISIS locations, resulting in the deaths of at least seven ISIS operatives, Singh said. Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani of Iraq announced following the operation that Jassim al-Mazrouei Abu Abdul Qader, ISIS' Iraqi leader, was among the dead. "We commend the effort of the heroes of all our security forces and reaffirm that there is no place for terrorists in Iraq," al-Sudani said in a statement. "We will pursue them to their hideouts and eliminate them until Iraq is cleansed of them and their heinous acts."Singh announced Thursday that U.S. forces participated in an Iraqi-led operation against ISIS in western Anbar province. The results of the operation were still being assessed, she said, resulting in zero U.S. casualties. As of August, there are some 40,000 U.S. service members in the Middle East.

Exclusive-Accused Iranian hackers successfully peddle stolen Trump emails
Christopher Bing, Raphael Satter and Gram Slattery/WASHINGTON (Reuters)/October 25, 2024
The accused Iranian hacking group who intercepted Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign emails have finally found some success in getting their stolen material published after initially failing to interest the mainstream media.
In recent weeks, the hackers began peddling Trump emails more widely to one Democratic political operative, who has posted a trove of material to the website of his political action committee, American Muckrakers, and to independent journalists, at least one of whom posted them on the writing platform Substack. The latest material shows Trump campaign communications with external advisers and other allies, discussing a range of topics leading up to the 2024 election.
The hackers' activities tracked by Reuters provide a rare glimpse into the operations of an election interference effort. They also demonstrate Iran remains determined to meddle in elections despite a September U.S. Justice Department indictment accusing the leakers of working for Tehran and using a fake persona. The indictment alleged that an Iranian-government linked hacking group, known as Mint Sandstorm or APT42, compromised multiple Trump campaign staffers between May and June by stealing their passwords. In a Homeland Security advisory published earlier this month, the agency warned that the hackers continue to target campaign staff. If found guilty, they face prison time and fines. The Department of Justice indictment said the leakers were three Iranian hackers working with Iran’s Basij paramilitary force whose voluntary members help the regime to enforce its strict rules and to project influence. Attempts to reach the hackers identified by name in the indictment via email and text message were unsuccessful. In conversations with Reuters, the leakers - who collectively use the fake persona "Robert" - did not directly address the U.S. allegations, with one saying “Do you really expect me to answer?!”"Robert" is the same fake persona referred to in the U.S. indictment, according to FBI emails sent to journalists and reviewed by Reuters.
Iran's mission to the United Nations said in a statement that reports of the country's involvement in hacking against the U.S. election were "fundamentally unfounded, and wholly inadmissible," adding that it "categorically repudiates such accusations." The FBI, which is investigating Iran’s hacking activity against both presidential campaigns in this election, declined to comment.
David Wheeler, the founder of American Muckrakers, said the documents he shared were authentic and in the public interest. Wheeler said his goal was to “expose how desperate the Trump campaign is to try to win" and to provide the public with factual information. He declined to discuss the material's origin. Without making any specific references, the Trump campaign said earlier this month that Iran's hacking operation was “intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our democratic process,” adding any journalists reprinting the stolen documents “are doing the bidding of America’s enemies.”In 2016, Trump took a different position when he encouraged Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails and provide them to the press.
LEAK OPERATION
The leak operation started around July when an anonymous email account, noswamp@aol.com, began communicating with reporters at several media outlets, using the Robert moniker, according to two people familiar with the matter. They initially contacted Politico, the Washington Post and the New York Times, promising damning internal information about the Trump campaign.
In early September, the accused Iranian hackers used a second email address, bobibobi.007@aol.com, in a fresh round of overtures, including to Reuters and at least two other news outlets, the two people familiar with the matter, said. At the time, they offered research compiled with public information by the Trump campaign into Republican politicians JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Doug Burgum, all of whom were under consideration as Trump’s running mate. The vice presidential reports were authentic, a person familiar with the Trump campaign told Reuters. Neither Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times, nor Reuters published stories based on the reports. New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha, said the newspaper only published articles based on hacked material “if we find newsworthy information in the materials and can verify them.”In an email, the Washington Post referred Reuters to past comments made by its executive editor, Matt Murray, who said the episode reflected the fact that news organizations "aren’t going to snap at any hack" provided to them. A spokesperson for Politico said the origin of the documents was more newsworthy than the leaked material. Reuters did not publish this material because the news agency did not believe it was newsworthy, a spokesperson said.
Both AOL email accounts identified by Reuters were taken offline in September by its owner Yahoo, which worked with the FBI before the indictment to trace them to the Iranian hacker group, according to two people familiar with the investigation. Yahoo did not respond to a request for comment. Before losing email access, Robert suggested reporters might need an alternate contact and offered a telephone number on the encrypted chat application Signal. Signal, which is more difficult to monitor by law enforcement, did not return messages seeking comment.
Some senior U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have said that Iran's interference efforts this election cycle are focused on denigrating Trump as they hold him responsible for the 2020 American drone assassination of former Iranian military general Qassem Soleimani.
Thus far, the already-published leaks do not appear to have changed the public dynamics of the Trump campaign.
MUCKRAKERS
On Sept. 26, North Carolina-based American Muckrakers, began publishing internal Trump campaign emails. Active since 2021, the PAC has a history of publicizing unflattering material about high-profile Republicans. According to public disclosure reports, it is funded through individual, small-dollar donors from around the country. On its website, American Muckrakers said the leaks came from “a source,” but, ahead of the publication last month, the group publicly asked Robert to get in touch. “HACKER ROBERT, WHY THE F DO YOU KEEP SENDING THE TRUMP INFORMATION TO CORPORATE MEDIA?” the group said in a post to X. “Send it to us and we'll get it out.”When asked whether his source was the alleged Iranian persona Robert, Wheeler said “that is confidential” and that he had “no confirmation of the source's location.” He also declined to comment on whether the FBI had warned him that the communication was the product of a foreign influence operation. In one example, Muckrakers published material on Oct. 4th purporting to show an unspecified financial arrangement with lawyers representing former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump. RFK Jr. attorney Scott Street, said in an email to Reuters he could not speak publicly about the incident. Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the material. Muckrakers subsequently published documents from Robert about two high-profile races. It included alleged campaign communication about North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson and Florida Republican representative Anna Paulina Luna, both of whom were endorsed by Trump. The exchange about Robinson concerned an attempt by Republican adviser W. Kirk Bell, to seek guidance from the Trump camp after the scandal over comments attributed to Robinson on a pornographic forum. Robinson has previously denied the comments. The other message came from a Republican adviser sharing information with the campaign about Luna's personal life. Robinson and Luna’s campaigns did not return messages seeking comment. One of the few journalists contacted by Robert who did publish material was independent national security reporter Ken Klippenstein, who posted the vice presidential research documents to Substack late last month. Robert confirmed to Reuters that they gave the material to Klippenstein.
Substack did not respond to a question about its policies concerning hacked material. After the story, Klippenstein said FBI agents contacted him over his communication with Robert, warning that they were part of a “foreign malign influence operation.” In a post, Klippenstein said the material was newsworthy and he chose to publish it because he believed the news media should not be a "gatekeeper of what the public should know." A spokesperson for Reuters, which received similar notifications from the FBI, said, "We cannot comment on our interactions, if any, with law enforcement." An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on its media notification effort. Wheeler said he had new leaks in store “soon” and that he would continue to publish similar documents as long as they were “authentic and relevant.”

Kurdish militants claim responsibility for deadly attack on Turkish defense firm
Qassim Abdul-zahra/BAGHDAD (AP) /October 25, 2024
A banned Kurdish militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack on the headquarters of a key defense company in Ankara that killed at least five people. A statement from the military wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, said Wednesday’s attack on the premises of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS was carried out by two members of its so-called “Immortal Battalion” in response to Turkish “massacres” and other actions in Kurdish regions. A man and a woman stormed TUSAS’ premises on the outskirts of Ankara, setting off explosives and opening fire. Four TUSAS employees were killed there. The assailants arrived on the scene in a taxi that they had commandeered by killing its driver. More than 20 people were injured in the attack. The woman assailant took her own life by detonating an explosive device after being injured in an exchange of fire at the entrance of the complex, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. The male attacker hurled hand grenades at approaching security forces, then also detonated himself in the restroom of a nearby building “realizing there was no way out,” the minister said. Turkey blamed the attack on the PKK and immediately launched a series of aerial strikes on locations and facilities suspected to be used by the militant group in northern Iraq or by its affiliates in northern Syria. The attack on TUSAS came at a time of growing signs of a possible new attempt at dialogue to end the more than four-decade-old conflict between the PKK and Turkey's military. Earlier this week, the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party that’s allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the possibility that Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s imprisoned leader, could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.
Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul, said in a message conveyed by his nephew on Thursday that he was ready to work for peace.
The PKK's military wing, the People’s Defense Center, said, however, that the attack was not related to the latest “political agenda,” insisting it was planned long before. It said TUSAS was chosen as a target because weapons produced there “killed thousands of civilians, including children and women, in Kurdistan.” TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its defense systems have been credited as key to Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.
On Friday, an Iraqi security official said Turkish warplanes intensified their airstrikes on sites belonging to the PKK and other loyal forces in northern Iraq’s Sinjar district. The intensive bombing targeted tunnels, headquarters and military points of the PKK and the Sinjar Protection Units inside the Sinjar Mountain area. A local official and a security official said the bombings killed five Yazidis. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The Turkish defense ministry said 34 alleged PKK targets including caves, shelters, depots and other facilities were hit in an aerial operation overnight. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said drones operated by the national intelligence agency have struck 120 suspected sites since Wednesday’s attack. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Thursday that the Turkish warplanes and drones struck bakeries, a power station, oil facilities and local police checkpoints. At least 12 civilians were killed and 25 others were wounded.The People's Defense Center statement claimed there were no casualties among PKK fighters in the airstrikes. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a group of journalists on his return from a trip to Russia late Thursday that the two TUSAS assailants had infiltrated from Syria, but did not provide details. Addressing a defense industry fair in Istanbul on Friday, he said Turkey was determined to stamp out the militant group. “Although our pain is great because of our martyrs, our determination to fight against the scoundrels is much greater,” Erdogan said. “We will continue to crush those who think they can make us step back with such treachery.”On Friday, Turkish police detained 176 suspected PKK members in operations across Turkey, the Interior Ministry said. Police also detained a man who hurled rocks at the entrance of the headquarters of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, DEM, Anadolu reported. DEM party spokeswoman Aysegul Dogan said on the media platform X that the entrance door and windows were broken in the attack. The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

he Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on October 25-26/2024
China's Blockade of Taiwan: Irresistible Momentum to War
Gordon G. Chang/ Gatestone Institute/October 25, 2024
Beijing maintains that the island has been an "inalienable" part of China since time immemorial. The People's Republic has never exercised control over Taiwan. In fact, no Chinese regime has ever held indisputable sovereignty to it. Chiang Kai-shek, the first Chinese ruler to exercise control of the whole island, arrived in 1949.
A quarantine is a cunning maneuver at a time that China is not prepared for a full-scale war and is not ready to start hostilities by launching an invasion of Taiwan's main island.
Not prepared? Xi Jinping does not trust the Chinese military, a war on Taiwan would be extremely unpopular with the Chinese people, and the Chinese regime is extremely casualty averse.
Xi, therefore, is trying to intimidate everyone else into submission.
"The real target is the United States." ... They were "practicing ways to ambush the U.S. Navy if it heads towards an already held-hostage Taiwan." — Chang Ching of the R.O.C. Society for Strategic Studies.
Xi's implied threats to use these weapons are particularly ominous. We have to ask ourselves: When in history has a militant regime engaged in belligerent acts and constantly threatened to go to war but did not actually do so?
China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait. The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People's Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country's three aircraft carriers. Pictured: Sailors and fighter jets on the deck of the Liaoning in the Yellow Sea near Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on April 23, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images)
China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People's Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country's three aircraft carriers.
The Chinese Coast Guard participated in the massive drill as well, carrying out, as the Economist noted, an "unprecedented" patrol around the main Taiwan island.
The drill, according to the Chinese Coast Guard, was a "practical action to control Taiwan island in accordance with the law based on the one-China principle."
The announced drill zones for Joint Sword-2024B were only 24 nautical miles from Taiwan's shoreline, closer than zones in previous exercises.
Observers suggested the presence of Coast Guard vessels, dedicated to domestic law enforcement activities, signaled that China was buttressing its claim that Taiwan was Chinese territory.
Beijing maintains that the island has been an "inalienable" part of China since time immemorial. The People's Republic has never exercised control over Taiwan. In fact, no Chinese regime has ever held indisputable sovereignty to it. Chiang Kai-shek, the first Chinese ruler to exercise control of the whole island, arrived in 1949.
Taiwan officials have told visiting foreigners that they expect Beijing to impose a quarantine over the island republic in the coming months.
"With Joint Sword, the Communist Party of China is developing and finalizing their quarantine concept for Taiwan," John Mills, a retired U.S. Army colonel, told Gatestone. "They know a blockade is an act of war, so they're playing the quarantine game, modeled after what President Kennedy did in 1963 for Cuba.""When the Chinese initiate their quarantine, they will target vessels carrying weapons shipments, such as the recent one that ferried Harpoon missiles," said Mills, who was director of Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. "They will also target civil aircraft carrying personalities that they want to render to Chinese control. Undersea cables will also likely be cut."
When will this happen? There is wide disagreement. Mills believes that the Chinese could declare their quarantine this year or soon after.
A quarantine is a cunning maneuver at a time that China is not prepared for a full-scale war and is not ready to start hostilities by launching an invasion of Taiwan's main island.
Not prepared? Xi Jinping does not trust the Chinese military, a war on Taiwan would be extremely unpopular with the Chinese people, and the Chinese regime is extremely casualty averse.
Xi, therefore, is trying to intimidate everyone else into submission. "The purposes of the exercises are to threaten Taiwan's security to the point that the Taiwan people lose confidence in their government and to change the status quo of a Taiwan separate from China," Elizabeth Freund Larus of the Atlantic Council Global China Hub told Fox News Digital. "They were using a very old Chinese strategy called 'encircling the point/striking the reinforcement'" said Chang Ching of the R.O.C. Society for Strategic Studies, who examined the track of Russian and Chinese vessels before Joint Sword-2024B. "The real target is the United States," the Taiwan analyst told Fox. They were "practicing ways to ambush the U.S. Navy if it heads towards an already held-hostage Taiwan."
Xi may think he can take Taiwan with just a quarantine, which is not an act of war, but the risk for him is that if the move fails he has to move to a full blockade, which is. The Chinese military announced that Joint Sword-2024B practices a "key port blockade." A quarantine, therefore, could start a chain of events that leads to conflict. For a blockade to be successful, it will almost certainly have to include sovereign Japanese territory, specifically the island of Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost inhabited territory. Taiwan's mountains are visible from this small island south of Taipei. The U.S. has a mutual defense treaty with Japan, which means once China declares a blockade, the resulting war will pull in the U.S. If Xi's quarantine fails, he cannot back down. At the moment, only the most belligerent answers are considered acceptable in senior Communist Party circles. The extreme hostility suggests something is wrong in the Chinese capital, so the world should be prepared for anything, at anyplace, and at any time. China is capable of the inconceivable. The regime released a propaganda barrage on October 19, showcasing China's military might just two days after Xi, who is also chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission, had inspected a brigade of the People's Liberation Army's Rocket Force. Xi urged the missile troops to, among other things, sharpen "combat capabilities."
The Rocket Force, which test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in the general direction of Hawaii on September 25, has responsibility for most of the country's nuclear weapons.
Xi's implied threats to use these weapons are particularly ominous. We have to ask ourselves: When in history has a militant regime engaged in belligerent acts and constantly threatened to go to war but did not actually do so?
Nothing is inevitable, but now there is an almost irresistible momentum to war.
**Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
© 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.

Putin suffers another massive defeat, this time in Moldova
Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth, Opinion Contributors/ The Hill/October 25/2024
White House National Security Communications advisor John Kirby confirmed that Russia’s military is losing 1,200 soldiers a day in Ukraine. Failing to win on the battlefield, Putin is now desperately resorting to trying to buy his would-be empire with rubles.
But on Monday, Putin’s motley crew of oligarchs failed him yet again. This time it was in Moldova. Russia allegedly spent $15 million to bribe Moldovan voters against moving toward European Union membership. Moldovans, however, narrowly approved changes to their constitution that commit the country to joining the EU.
The bribery plan was allegedly perpetrated by Ilan Shor, who was “accused of laundering the money and orchestrating the network, despite his political party being banned [in Moldova].” Shor is a Moldovan-Israeli industry mogul.
Nonetheless, Putin’s Russian rubles for votes scheme in Chișinău fell short. Official Moldovan government results indicated a 50.46 percent to 49.54 percent victory for the small nation, which is wedged between Ukraine and Romania.
Mad Vlad did achieve a Pyrrhic victory. Moldovan incumbent President Maia Sandu failed to win an outright majority. She secured just 41 percent of the vote and consequently faces a run-off election on Nov. 3 against Aleksandr Stoianoglo, who received 26 percent of the vote. Stoianoglo is supported by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists.
Sandu accused Russia of committing an “unprecedented assault on democracy” by paying people to vote against the EU referendum. She says she has “clear evidence” that 300,000 votes were bought.
EU spokesperson Peter Stano acknowledged the validity of Sandu’s claim. “This vote took place under unprecedented interference and intimidation by Russia and its proxies, aiming to destabilize the democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the accusation, calling for evidence to support her claims. That evidence was presented shortly thereafter, when a BBC reporter interviewed a woman at a polling station for residents of the breakaway region of Transnistria, who said she was offered 1,000 rubles to vote against the referendum and Sandu.
Sandu is likely to win the November run-off election. In the process, she is exposing Putin’s desperation and growing military weakness.
Yet Putin remains undeterred for now. Up next is Georgia, whose parliamentary election takes place Oct. 26. Enthusiasm is evident in the streets of Tbilisi, where tens of thousands of pro-EU protesters were observed Monday evening.
Holding her own pro-EU rally on Monday before Moldova’s election, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili expressed her solidarity with Sandu. She emphasized their shared goal of European integration, telling the Moldovan President, “Maia, we will join Europe together!”
Standing in her way, however, is Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former prime minister of Georgia and founder of the governing Georgian Dream party. Ivanishvili is a reclusive Georgian oligarch who effectively controls Georgia’s economy. Much of his fortune was made while he was living in Moscow.
Gia Khukhashvili, Ivanishvili’s former chief political adviser, claimed, “He has turned Georgia into a private company, of which he is the 100 percent owner.” Giorgi Gakharia, the former Georgian Dream Prime Minister, asserted, “There is not even one independent institution in this country. All these people are indirectly connected with Ivanishvili.”
As Felix Light noted for Reuters, Ivanishvili has been called “Georgia’s savior. Russia’s stooge. Philanthropist. Oligarch. And more.” Despite initially arguing for Georgian integration with the West, Ivanishvili has been pushing Georgia away from the European Union and Washington ever since Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
By September, the Biden administration had had enough. The White House withdrew an invitation for Irakli Kobakhidze, the current Georgian prime minister, to a reception held by President Joe Biden at the 75th meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. The U.S. embassy in Tbilisi said it was due to Georgia’s “anti-democratic actions, disinformation, and negative rhetoric towards the U.S. and the West.”The choice facing Georgians is stark. Ivanishvili has argued against opposing Putin in Ukraine. Earlier in April, while addressing pro-Georgian Dream party demonstrators, he accused the West of trying to overthrow the Georgian government.
If that sounds like a familiar Russian argument, it should. Putin has long accused the West of overthrowing the Ukrainian government during the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine. Indeed, in August 2021, in his lengthy written diatribe inventing a mythical Ukrainian history rooted in Russia, Putin claimed, “Western countries directly interfered in Ukraine’s internal affairs and supported the coup.”Now, Ivanishvili is essentially parroting Putin. During his April speech, he argued that Georgia must refuse to become the West’s “cannon fodder,” and that it must not militarily create a “second front” against Russia. Notably, Georgia has not imposed any economic sanctions against Moscow, nor has Tbilisi provided Ukraine with military assistance.
In direct contrast, earlier this week, Zourabichvili supported Ukraine’s fight against Putin’s illegal war. “I want to address Volodymyr Zelensky — from here, on your behalf — and tell him that we know that he is fighting for us and will win!” she said. “And we will enter Europe together!”
Nika Gvaramia concurs. He is the opposition leader of the Georgian political party Coalition for Change. While leading a protest in Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Gvaramia told Georgians that, “Our choice is Europe.”Much, therefore, is at stake for the nation of Georgia, which strategically bridges Europe and Asia. This is arguably the last opportunity for Tbilisi to join the European Union. A loss would likely crush democracy in Georgia. If the Georgian Dream party wins on Saturday, Ivanishvili has vowed to ban all Georgian opposition parties.
Putin has a lot to lose as well. For Russia, a defeat of Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream could lead to Georgia regaining control over its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. If so, the Russian naval base being constructed at Ochamchire in Abkhazia would be at risk. It is being built to house Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, recently expelled from Crimea.
Putin’s rubles are also desperately at work in North Korea. In addition to buying upwards of 3 million artillery shells a year — or half Moscow’s needs in Ukraine — Putin is finalizing plans with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to use his troops in the Donbas. On Tuesday, Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said that North Korean soldiers are expected to arrive in Russia’s Kursk region on Wednesday. This is yet another sign that all Putin has available to him now to secure his kingdom are rubles and his evergreen nuclear bluffing.
Western freedom isn’t free. Putin is trying to buy it with rubles that are rapidly losing their value. The West must resolve to defeat him with dollars and Euros in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia — and if necessary, with military might.
Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The past year's military events have rewritten Israel's defense doctrine - opinion
Amotz Asa-El/Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
Israel stuck to its defense doctrine for another 45 years, failing to understand the fundamental change in its strategic surroundings and the doctrinal adjustment it required.
Christmas 1948 was one day away when The Palestine Post’s lead headline reported: “Tank and air battles rage near Egyptian border.”
It was not the full drama. Having erupted two days earlier, but been kept secret by the censor, the reported battle was actually Israel’s first invasion of another country. Even more importantly, it inspired a time-honored military doctrine which over the past 12 months was effectively rewritten.
Known as Operation Horev – after one of Mount Sinai’s names – the last major battle of the War of Independence was significant for its military size and diplomatic fallout, but its most important consequence was its long-term impact on Israel’s strategic thought. In terms of size, the seven-month-old IDF launched its first-ever divisional attack, deploying four infantry and mechanized brigades which crossed the border into the Sinai Desert, surprising the Egyptian Army from its southern rear while the navy and air force faked a northern attack by bombing Gaza, Khan Yunis, and Rafah.
Diplomatically, the invasion was reversed by foreign powers, after US president Harry Truman sent ambassador James McDonald to David Ben-Gurion, warning him that if the IDF did not immediately withdraw to the international border, Britain would attack Israel, as its defense pact with Egypt demanded. Ben-Gurion complied, silencing protests from the invasion’s commander, Yigal Allon, but the brief invasion’s effect was remarkable: Egypt, realizing the depth and scope of the attack it faced, and fearing a grand siege of its entire expeditionary force, agreed to enter ceasefire talks.
That’s what happened diplomatically. Strategically, the episode shaped a defense doctrine that guided Israel for 75 years. How are military doctrines expressed, how do they come to be?
MILITARY DOCTRINES reflect the threats countries think they face, the resources they wield, and the aims they seek. The US, for instance, invests in its naval forces a much larger share than other countries because it is positioned between two oceans and also wants to maintain a global military presence.
Israel’s situation was, of course, entirely different. Geographically miniscule, demographically inferior, economically impoverished, and militarily challenged by all its neighbors, Israel needed a doctrine that would minimize its wars’ number and length and at the same time maximize its resources.
Resources were maximized by the creation of the IDF’s elaborate system of reserve duty, which let one of the world’s smallest countries field one of the world’s largest armies. The doctrine’s other part was inspired by Operation Horev: Transfer the war into enemy territory. This aim underscored the doctrine’s other pillars, namely, strategic deterrence and tactical preemption. That meant using a strong military to dissuade the enemy from attacking, but if the enemy still chooses war – attack before being attacked, and do so in the enemy’s land.
This is exactly what happened in the Sinai Campaign of 1956 and the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel attacked before being attacked (but after facing naval blockades), and also in 1973, when Israel failed to preempt but still managed to keep the war outside its internationally recognized borders. This doctrine proved itself not only by producing military victories, but also diplomatically, as the IDF’s achievements convinced the largest Arab state, Egypt, to lay down its arms and strike a peace agreement with the Jewish state after four gruesome wars. Understandably, Israel stuck to its defense doctrine for another 45 years, failing to understand the fundamental change in its strategic surroundings and the doctrinal adjustment it required.
BY THE most bizarre and frustrating coincidence, the same year that Egypt struck a peace deal with Israel, the shah of Iran was deposed by Ayatollah Khomeini. Had the shah not been toppled, and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat not been assassinated, the Tehran-Cairo-Jerusalem axis would have led the Middle East to a brave future of regional harmony.
Instead, both the shah and Sadat were removed by a force that until then was seen as a domestic problem of Muslim-majority lands: Islamism.
Fought not only by the shah and Sadat, but also by the latter’s predecessor Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria’s Hafez Assad and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, no country outside the Muslim world saw jihadism as a strategic threat.
Neither did Israel, even after the Khomeini revolution. First, Jerusalem waited to see whether the Khomeini regime would last, then – for a whole decade – it indulged in the illusion that the Iran-Iraq War was sapping Tehran’s energies, and then, when Iran accelerated its nuclear activity, Jerusalem focused on that, belittling the rest of its strategic threat to the Jewish state.
That is how when Hezbollah arose in Lebanon, Israel’s old defense doctrine was activated, and effectively said: if a military threat mobilizes, attack it, but if what threatens you it isn’t a military – it isn’t a strategic threat.
A military, in this thinking, was what Israel saw in its previous wars – infantry divisions, armored brigades, artillery batteries, and fighter jets. It is now a year since Israel learned, the hard way, that militias, despite lacking jets, tanks and corvettes, can also constitute a strategic threat.
Until 2023, Israeli strategists thought Israel could tolerate jihadist militias’ existence, because, like the Arab armies before them, they could be deterred. That was before an Islamist militia demonstrated its ability, and eagerness, to unleash thousands of riflemen on 32 communities along a 40-km. front.
Now Israel revised its doctrine: Neighboring states’ armies should be deterred in peacetime and preempted in wartime, but jihadist militias should be fought anytime, because Israel cannot afford their presence anywhere along its borders.
Israel will therefore kill such militias’ leaders, storm their troops, bomb their hideouts, burn their money, and do anything it takes to chase them away from its borders. It’s a doctrine fully shared by the Right, Center and Left, and it supersedes regional circumstances, international admonitions, and also allies’ cautions, even when delivered by an envoy of the president of the United States.
www.MiddleIsrael.net
The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the best-selling Mitz’ad Ha’ivelet Hayehudi (The Jewish March of Folly, Yediot Sfarim, 2019), a revisionist history of the Jewish people’s political leadership.

Is Iran next? Israel's next move after Hezbollah - opinion
Eric R. Mandel/Jerusalem Post/October 25/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/136165/
Israel does not have the luxury of waiting. Iran is determined to destroy Israel. Those who doubt it are fooling themselves.
Last year, veteran Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross said that as someone who has worked on the issue of a nuclear Iran and “talked to the Israelis for a long time, the one thing I am personally convinced of is they will never allow themselves to lose the option [to preemptively strike Iran]. You don’t wait until it is one minute to midnight.”
After Iran’s unprecedented attack against Israel in April 2024 with ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, a Reuters headline read, “Iran threatens to annihilate Israel should it launch a major attack.”
The question is even more urgent in the fall of 2024, as Israel has decided to go on the offensive, dramatically increasing its kinetic actions against Iran’s most important proxy in the North. In rapid succession was the daring special forces operation in the Masyaf area of Syria, destroying an IRGC and Hezbollah precision weapons factory; the assassination of the terror group’s chief of staff Faud Shukr, who was directly related to killing US soldiers in the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983; the pager and walkie-talkie attacks targeting the Hezbollah command structure; and culminating in the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. By forcing Israel to empty its northern civilian communities since October 2023, Iran and Hezbollah had achieved a decisive short-term victory. This has followed the Iranian playbook – to design long wars of attrition to dishearten the Jewish nation while using Lebanese civilians and their homes as human shields to manipulate the West and isolate Israel diplomatically. The more far-reaching strategy is to encircle Israel and construct an unending multi-front war without bearing direct consequences on its nuclear, military, or economic resources on Iranian territory.
Will Israel strike Iran and will the US support them?
So, is Israel’s major offensive against Hezbollah to push them north of the Litani River, which is called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the beginning, or is it the end of its strategy to deter Iran? The real questions are: How far is Israel from falling off the proverbial cliff by not having already targeted the primary source of its existential issues, a nuclear Iran? And when does it become too late to save itself?
Unfortunately, Iran has been assisted by the Biden administration’s decision not to fully enforce sanctions that were crippling its economy and its ability to support its proxy network of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal on September 23, 2024, President Biden’s Iran envoy Robert Malley – who is under FBI investigation for allegedly mishandling secret documents – proposed right from the beginning of the Biden administration, “removing…US sanctions that related to Iran’s nuclear program,” which the Iranians “pocketed” while demanding even more far-reaching concessions.
The Iranians correctly interpreted this as weakness and desperation on the Americans’ part. According to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Iran continued to march within “two weeks” from “producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.” Although former president Donald Trump should be commended for ending a terrible deal guaranteeing an industrial-sized Iranian nuclear arsenal over time, he should have had a Plan B after withdrawing from the executive action.
Israel’s survival is directly related to the viability of the Iranian regime, its hegemonic ambitions, and its fundamental goal to annihilate the Jewish nation as a central feature of its religious mindset. What is needed but is highly unlikely to occur is a meaningful American-led economic coalition against the leading state sponsor of terror, fully enforcing sanctions. There is clear justification, as Iran is thumbing its nose at the International Atomic Energy Agency, not allowing them to certify their compliance with the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which it is a signatory.
Is there any nation in the world willing to design or be part of a coalition and strategy to destabilize the Islamic regime, even if they are convinced Israel’s survival is at stake? The answer is no, and that likely includes the United States, which sees Israel as an essential security partner but considers the threats of China, North Korea, and Russia to be of much greater danger to American security.
The empty rhetoric of the Biden administration about not allowing Iran to get a nuclear weapon is transparently false, as Iran has advanced its ability to enrich enough uranium for many atomic bombs in just a few weeks. The US national director of intelligence, Avril Haines, could not affirm to Congress this summer that Iran is not weaponizing a device. Trump talks a big game, but would he have his secretary of state clearly declare it is in America’s interests to aid the Iranian people to change their fanatic government?
No discerning person believes a future Harris administration, with Secretary of State Chris Murphy or National Security Advisor Phillip Gordon, would counsel president Harris to help Israel end the Iranian nuclear program kinetically or have the courage to state that American foreign policy’s goal is to be for the Iranian people and against the regime and take actions, even non-military actions, to undermine the authoritarian government, even if it were only days from a functional atomic weapon.
Weaponization entails turning uranium gas into a metal for a nuclear warhead, enhancing the computer modeling to test a nuclear device successfully, and crafting the neutron initiators to ignite an atomic device. The Biden team, until the last quarter turn of a screw for a fully functional nuclear weapon is done, pretends to consider Iran a non-nuclear weapon state. For Israel, feigning ignorance of how far the Iranian nuclear project has progressed is not an option.
So, Israel has a choice, knowing that as long as the Supreme Leader and his henchmen, the Iranian Republican Guards, are in power, their unbending goal is to destroy Israel and kill as many Jews as possible. Will Israel accept the inevitable, a nuclear Iran?
The alternative is to hope that a defensive missile shield protects Israel and that a few nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles among thousands of conventional missiles in an overwhelming Iranian missile barrage will not evade the passive defense. Israel’s multi-layered missile shield, even in conjunction with America’s, could still fail to intercept at least 5% of the missiles. Does Israel want to play this Russian roulette with the jihadists in Tehran? It should be noted that the Biden administration should be commended for increasing American aid by $5.2 billion to the Iron Beam, Iron Dome, and David Sling anti-missile system this fall. If Israel decides Iran is the head of the octopus that must be directly confronted, it could bring on a devastating war; but waiting for American help, which is unlikely ever to come, would increase the risk that Iran can fulfill its dream of killing seven million Jews, more than in the Holocaust, with a couple of million Palestinian Arabs as collateral damage.
A recent article in The Jerusalem Post highlighted two contradictory opinions. Maj-Gen. (res.) Itzhak Brik was “adamant that war with Iran now would lead to Israel’s destruction. Security expert Yair Ansbacher was convinced that war with Iran at this point is a must – to avoid Israel’s destruction. Brik warned, Iran is backed by Russia, China, and North Korea, and the US will avoid getting involved in a war that could develop into a world war. He advised building a strategic alliance with Western and moderate Arab nations that will form a deterrence balance against Iran and its partners. Trying to thwart the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capacity is futile. Ansbacher said the time is right to strike Iran before it makes its final nuclear breakthrough. If today the West has little success in taming the ayatollahs, it will have zero success when they obtain atomic weapons. Iran will provide a nuclear umbrella to terrorists across the globe.
If Israel decides to go it alone, the targets to destabilize the Iranian economy are the same as if America joined in, whether by cyber or military attacks. This includes the container port in Bandar Abbas, where 90% of the container shipments transit; the primary fossil fuel port on Kharg Island that supplies China with cheap oil; Iran’s drone and missile sites and production facilities; and most consequentially, its nuclear enrichment facilities, deeply embedded within mountains; and its clandestine weaponization sites.
There is little chance that an American administration will overtly help Israel. The best hope is behind-the-scenes intelligence allowing the US to claim plausible deniability. The more likely scenario is the United States slowing its supply lines as the Biden administration did in Israel’s war with Hamas, slow-tracking licenses for weapons and deliveries during Israel’s Gaza war.
Will the world be a better place if the Iranian people overthrow the current Islamic revolutionary regime in Tehran? In a word, yes, even considering the unknown risk of the law of unintended consequences. Suppose the US wants stability in the Middle East to turn to the more significant threat of an ascendant and belligerent China. In that case, the best path is to undermine and weaken the malign anti-American regime as soon as possible.
But is Iran a threat to America? Yes.
“The US intelligence community has assessed that Iran will threaten Americans – both directly and via proxy attacks – and that Tehran remains committed to developing networks inside the US,” according to the intelligence community’s 2022 Annual Threat Assessment, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Iran has also placed death contracts on American government officials. On September 24, Blinken said, “we are intensely tracking” an ongoing threat by Iran against current and former US officials. “This is something we’ve been tracking very intensely for a long time, an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials, including former government officials.”
According to Josef Joffe, Distinguished Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, “The real problem is Tehran…America’s mightiest enemy in the Greater Middle East…The playbook is easy to read. Hit Israel, Washington’s only reliable ally, and wound the American giant it dares not take on directly. So, demoralize him to kick him off the Mideast chessboard.”
Israel does not have the luxury of waiting. Iran is determined to destroy Israel. Those who doubt it are fooling themselves. Iranian-directed wars of attrition over the years will demoralize the Jewish state, and Iran is betting on the fecklessness of the international community that doesn’t care about the survival of the Jewish state and would be more than happy to continue trading with Iran, even if it sent a nuclear device toward Tel Aviv.
America, based on its value-based foreign policy, its national security interests, and as a message to allies around the world that it supports its friends even when there are difficult choices, needs to stand firmly with Israel against Iran and stand with the Iranian people who yearn for freedom and a new government – and Iran’s return to the family of nations.
**The writer is director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Network, and has been briefing members of Congress and their foreign policy aides for more than 25 years.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-825508

تقرير من موقع غزرائل تودي يتناول تضحيات وشهداء ابناء الطائفة الدرزية في الجيش الإسرائيلي
Grieving Druze double down on bond of blood with Israel
Canaan Lidor/Israel Today/Publised on October 23, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/136170/
The war has claimed painful sacrifices from the community, but solidarity and a sense of shared fate with the Jewish state remain strong.
In the grieving Druze town of Daliyat al-Karmel, on Mount Carmel southeast of Haifa, Sabura Abu Hamad closed her empty café early on Monday to attend the funeral of the highest-ranking Israeli casualty in the current war.
“It’s a huge loss, but we remain strong,” Abu Hamad, 53, said of the death of Col. Ehsan Daxa, a 41-year-old father of three who died fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza on Sunday.
His death reminded Abu Hamad of her family’s own sacrifices for Israel.
Her father was murdered and his body mutilated by terrorists in Lebanon while serving in the Israel Defense Forces when she, the youngest of four siblings, was in her mother’s womb. Her father’s head was never recovered. Her mother has been wearing black since her husband’s death and rarely smiles, said Abu Hamad. Her mix of personal, communal and national grief is shared by many Israeli Druze, a 150,000-strong ethno-religious minority with a rich military tradition. Their alliance with the Jews predates the state’s establishment and is often described as a fraternal bond of shared fate.
In several places along the main street of this town of some 20,000 residents, giant television screens showed pictures of Daxa. Admired as a local success story, he was also a trailblazer and role model for having climbed the ranks in the IDF Armored Corps, where relatively few Druze serve.
The streets of Daliyat al-Karmel (Arabic for “Vineyards of the Carmel”) were congested with traffic for the funeral, which drew thousands of Druze and Jews from across the country to this hilly tourist spot that visitors normally frequent for its excellent restaurants and shops.
In her eulogy, Daxa’s widow, Hudah, spoke of how her husband, a decorated war hero, managed to always be present at his home and his community despite his long absences as a career officer during wartime.
“I want to ask that the journey that he had made, that he chose, not be in vain,” she said, explaining that she wants others to follow in his footsteps to ensure a better future for all Israelis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement called Daxa “an Israeli hero, a fighter and a commander—a model for the lifelong alliance with the Druze minority.”
Although Druze women are exempt from mandatory military service, Druze men are mandatorily conscripted along with Jewish ones. The men have a conscription rate of more than 80%, which is roughly 10 percentage points higher than that of the general male population in Israel. And many, many serve in combat roles.
The conflict that broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, has taken a heavy toll on Israel’s Druze. Among the hundreds of IDF casualties, 12 Druze soldiers have been killed in action. In addition to Col. Daxa, two lieutenant colonels, two majors and two captains have also died, along with five additional combatants. Twelve Druze children were murdered in August in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan by terrorists in Lebanon who fired a rocket at the local soccer pitch.
It was the deadliest attack on an Israeli target since the massacres of October 2023, in which thousands of Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted another 251 into Gaza. Hezbollah and other terrorists in Lebanon began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. Israel has been fighting Hamas and Hezbollah and exchanging fire with Iran in an ongoing regional conflict that has been one of the longest in the state’s history.
The war has hit the Druze minority disproportionately not only because of the casualties but also because it has suspended tourism in Israel’s north, where the community is concentrated and where the livelihood of whole towns depends largely on outside visitors.
Abu Hamad is “hanging in there financially,” she said at her centrally located Shafiq café, which is known for its knafeh, a Middle Eastern cheesy dessert.
Hiba Halabi, a restaurant owner who specializes in Druze cuisine, including stuffed cabbage and so-called Druze pita, can barely make ends meet, she said.
A Druze man waits to join the funeral procession of Col. Ehsan Daxa in Daliyat al-Karmel, Israel, on Oct. 21, 2024. Photo by Canaan Lidor.
Several interviewees in Daliyat al-Karmel said that despite the hardships it has created, the war only cemented the Druze-Jewish partnership.
In the Golan especially, “the war crystalized integration processes that have been underway for decades,” said former Communications Minister Ayoob Kara, a prominent Druze politician in the Likud party who had served until 2019 as a cabinet minister under Netanyahu.
It was a reference to how about 20,000 Golan Druze had for many years presented themselves as Syrians under Israeli occupation amid fears that Israel would return the Golan to Syria. That country’s Druze had been allies of the regime of President Bashar Assad. As part of that narrative, the vast majority of Golan Druze had refrained from voting in local elections or taking up the Israeli citizenship to which they’re entitled.
That started changing following the de facto breakup of Syria in its civil war that began in 2011. This year, the four Golan Druze communities had more than 1,400 Israeli citizens, compared to only about 200 in 2006. In the local elections, more than 3,000 Golan Druze voted, compared to 277 in 2009.
Syrian flags, which were once commonplace in the Golan Druze communities, have all but disappeared there, Yusri Hazran, a lecturer on Druze culture at Shalem College in Jerusalem, told Globes in August.
Following the rocket strike in Majdal Shams, this reporter heard locals expressing themselves in public in ways that had been unthinkable. One told the media under his real name that “Israel should burn Lebanon.” Another said that Israel should “destroy Hezbollah.”
The scene of a deadly rocket attack at a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Golan Heights, July 28, 2024. Photo by Ayal Margolin/Flash90.
Back in Daliyat al-Karmel, the continuation of the war is subject to the same debates taking place across the rest of Israeli society. Abu Hamad, who has in her café a large picture of Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein smoking cigarettes together, thinks it’s time to end hostilities. “Enough blood has been shed,” she told JNS. Radi Mishilah, a retired postman and poet in his 70s, thinks the IDF should pull out of Gaza to retrieve the hostages in a deal, but keep fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon and retaliate against Iran.
Kara believes Israel must keep fighting on all fronts “until the collapse of all of its enemies, which is within sight.”
This is imperative for Israel’s survival, he said, “but also that of the Druze because we have no alternatives: Only a strong Jewish Israel will ensure a free Druze community. Otherwise, we’re condemning ourselves to the ruthless oppression that has been the sorry fate of each and every religious minority in this region.”Yet some locals feel discriminated against. Mishilah said he feels like a “third-rate citizen” because of the authorities’ refusal to connect one of his homes to the electricity grid or give him building permits— a common issue in Druze-majority municipalities, where many feel subject to unjust land policies.
“Every time one of us dies defending Israel, there’s talk for a week about the sacred Jewish-Druze alliance of blood, and then we’re again treated like dirt,” he complained.
These long-simmering issues have resurfaced following the passing in 2018 of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, which critics say marginalized the Druze. In November, Netanyahu’s coalition said it would amend the law to enshrine the status of Druze Israelis.
Some community leaders, including Kara, disagree that the law needs amending or that it disenfranchised the Druze. “The left has taken some Druze for a ride, using them in their identity politics to shoot down processes and legislation that can only benefit the community,” he told JNS.
Then-Communications Minister Ayoob Kara with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Likud Party faction meeting at the Knesset on June 25, 2018. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
Ultimately, Kara said, “the war has sidelined these made-up divisions, and underlined the undying alliance between the Druze and the Jewish and democratic State of Israel and its society.
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/grieving-druze-double-down-on-bond-of-blood-with-israel/?mc_cid=d8671fd18d&mc_eid=3ece879aa9

Question: “What does the Bible say about ghosts / hauntings?”
GotQuestions.org/October 25 2024
Answer: Is there such a thing as ghosts? The answer to this question depends on what precisely is meant by the term “ghosts.” If the term means “spirit beings,” the answer is a qualified “yes.” If the term means “spirits of people who have died,” the answer is “no.” The Bible makes it abundantly clear that there are spirit beings, both good and evil. But the Bible negates the idea that the spirits of deceased human beings can remain on earth and “haunt” the living.
Hebrews 9:27 declares, “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” That is what happens to a person’s soul-spirit after death—judgment. The result of this judgment is heaven for the believer (2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:23) and hell for the unbeliever (Matthew 25:46; Luke 16:22-24). There is no in-between. There is no possibility of remaining on earth in spirit form as a “ghost.” If there are such things as ghosts, according to the Bible, they absolutely cannot be the disembodied spirits of deceased human beings.
The Bible teaches very clearly that there are indeed spirit beings who can connect with and appear in our physical world. The Bible identifies these beings as angels and demons. Angels are spirit beings who are faithful in serving God. Angels are righteous, good, and holy. Demons are fallen angels, angels who rebelled against God. Demons are evil, deceptive, and destructive. According to 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, demons masquerade as “angels of light” and as “servants of righteousness.” Appearing as a “ghost” and impersonating a deceased human being definitely seem to be within the power and abilities that demons possess.The closest biblical example of a “haunting” is found in Mark 5:1-20. A legion of demons possessed a man and used the man to haunt a graveyard. There were no ghosts involved. It was a case of a normal person being controlled by demons to terrorize the people of that area. Demons only seek to “kill, steal, and destroy” (John 10:10). They will do anything within their power to deceive people, to lead people away from God. This is very likely the explanation of “ghostly” activity today. Whether it is called a ghost, a ghoul, or a poltergeist, if there is genuine evil spiritual activity occurring, it is the work of demons. What about instances in which “ghosts” act in “positive” ways? What about psychics who claim to summon the deceased and gain true and useful information from them? Again, it is crucial to remember that the goal of demons is to deceive. If the result is that people trust in a psychic instead of God, a demon will be more than willing to reveal true information. Even good and true information, if from a source with evil motives, can be used to mislead, corrupt, and destroy.
Interest in the paranormal is becoming increasingly common. There are individuals and businesses that claim to be “ghost-hunters,” who for a price will rid your home of ghosts. Psychics, séances, tarot cards, and mediums are increasingly considered normal. Human beings are innately aware of the spiritual world. Sadly, instead of seeking the truth about the spirit world by communing with God and studying His Word, many people allow themselves to be led astray by the spirit world. The demons surely laugh at the spiritual mass-deception that exists in the world today.

US Election: On 6 November Skies Won’t Fall
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/October 25/2024
It is late night in Paris when the phone jolts me out of my pre-sleep somnolence. It is a fellow-Iranian who wants to know who I think would be the United States’ next president.
As I mumble in search of an answer the distant caller darts: So who will win?
“The winner will be the American system,” I say and immediately realize
that this might sound more like a dodge than a proper answer.
Nevertheless, I stick with my answer because I know that citing either Donald J. Trump or Kamala Harris as the possible winner will lead to an avalanche of speculation about what will happen if he or she ends up in the White House. The avalanche has been sliding down for weeks as pundits across the pond project contradictory predictions. The Washington Post, a Harris cheer-leader, claims that Trump’s win will push the world back into the 1930s when the slogan “Might is Right” led to the Second World War. At the other end of the spectrum, Max News supporters of Trump claim that a Harris win could transform the United States into an upmarket version of the Third World. The belief that the US is in decline has been the theme of several TV talk shows where in Paris here I currently spend time. The talking heads differ on whose tenure would slowdown or accelerate the decline. But they all agree that the future belongs to China as leader of a new world order in which the US should be thankful if it is casts as a bridesmaid. The idea that the US is on the way of becoming a “has-been” superpower isn’t new. In the 1920s, people like Armand Hammer believed that the future belonged to the emerging Soviet power. And the “new Socialist man” it was creating. In the 1930s, of which we are now reminded, people like Charles Lindbergh saw Germany as the future global power and arbiter of human destiny. In the 1960s all bets were on Japan and in the 1970s futurologists put their chips on France.
Some pundits speak of a new multipolar world order in which the US will be a pole among many poles. That such an analysis is defective in its very nature only if because poles are supposed to be two opposite points that balance each other to give the system stability.
In other words, you can’t have many poles here and there and everywhere, at times even attached to each other like Siamese twins. At any rate, the fact is that the US remains the “indispensable nation” it has been at least for the past century or so. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East won’t be ended without Washington offering the necessary guidance and inspiration backed by military, economic and soft power of a class no other nation can offer at present. The same is true when we come to major reforms needed in the very structure of the United Nations and its agencies along with an overdue review of global trade rules. As far as the November 5 election is concerned the question is what the two candidates offer on those issues.
The answer is: not much.
US presidential elections, indeed as General D Gaulle once noted presidential elections everywhere, are seldom about concrete policies. “It is a rendezvous between a man and a nation,” he insisted. (Now we must say a man or a woman.) The current US presidential campaign has been focused on the personalities of the candidates rather than policies. Republican nominee Trump has always projected himself as a personality rather than a policy wonk. His campaign has amounted to a long monologue in which he reveals himself, warts and all, inviting the voters to judge him as a person. Interestingly, his opponents including Ms. Harris have danced to his music by making him the target of ad-hominem attacks never before seen in the rough-and-tumble of American elections.
This doesn’t mean that Trump has avoided tackling all issues.
He has done so in an oblique way, by telling a story that draws attention to an issue without subjecting it to classical analysis. His opponents have dubbed the method as telling lies pretending that the truth, their truth, trumps the Republican’s narrative. That attitude has helped Trump by persuading his supporters that he is“One of us,” an anti-establishment candidate who shares our sufferings and aspirations. Harris, on the other hand, has been caught in a web of contradictions. She has been unwilling to assume President Joe Biden’s full record without being able to reject it. She has flirted with the idea of casting herself as a policy wonk but has been forced to backtrack because she tries to constitute a coalition of minorities with diverse if not contradictory interests and aspirations. By continuing his never ending monologue Trump tells the voters more and more about himself. Harris, in contrast, talks to hide herself.The more you listen to her the less you know about her.Trump’s opponents castigate his egocentrism and praise Harris’s altruism. However, Trump’s egocentrism is authentic while Harris’s altruism is ersatz. Barak Obama’s intervention in the campaign has hurt rather than helped Harris by causing confusion about the new-old persona she has tried to construct. The current election has not escaped the usual clichés of “historic” or “epoch-making.”However, it is unlikely that whoever wins the United States’ broad strategic positions will change on major issues. On November 6, the Wall Street indexes will rise and the skies won’t fall. The real issue in this election is which of the two candidates Americans, or at least the 50 percent who vote, will feel more akin with. And that in itself is a huge question, huge enough to make this election historic.

Selective Tweets For Today October 25/2024
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
I'm Lebanese.
#Lebanon MUST unconditionally and immediately ratify a peace treaty with #Israel, not a "cessation of hostilities," not a "ceasefire," not a "truce," but full-fledged and sincere peace and people-to-people normalization between the State of Lebanon and the State of Israel.
Lebanon and Israel have no outstanding claims between them. Peace serves the national interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese.The day should come when the Lebanese flag flies in Jerusalem, and the Israeli flag flies in Beirut.
Islamist #Iran and #Hezbollah are responsible for the tragedy that has been unfolding in Lebanon, before and after they launched war on Israel.
I know thousands of Lebanese who fully support this message.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Even though Sinwar is gone, Mossad chief Barnea still visits Doha to negotiate the release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza. This shows that Doha has never been a channel of communication with Hamas, but the place where Hamas decision is made.
It's time for Washington to give #Qatar a choice:  Either get Israeli hostages out, or we're shopping for a new forward headquarters for our CENTCOM.