English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 26/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 12/33-37
"‘Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgement you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.’"

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 25-26/2024
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Iranian Terrorist Hezbollah Booby-Trapped Shiites Villages, Cities, Institutions & Created a Landscape of Hatred and Deception
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Urgent Call to Neutralize the Iranian Mullah Regime Before It’s Too Late
Day 3 of carnage: 51 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon
Hezbollah is not Hamas. Can Israel afford another all-out war?
Israel intercepts Hezbollah ballistic missile near Tel Aviv in first such attack
Israel Widens Air Strikes After Hezbollah Fires at Tel Aviv
Terrified families flee their homes in Lebanon amid new Israeli airstrikes
Hezbollah fires a missile at Tel Aviv in deepest strike yet after Israeli bombardment of Lebanon
Israel has landed heavy blows on Hezbollah. The victory it seeks could prove elusive
Displaced Lebanese recount their ordeal of Israeli strikes and escape
David's Sling intercepts rocket from Lebanon for first time
Britain sends ships to Cyprus in preparation for potential mass Lebanon evacuation
Britain urges nationals to leave Lebanon as Israel-Hezbollah tensions escalate
Hezbollah wants to maintain the illusion of a 'military vs military' war - analysis
IDF commander urges readiness for possible Lebanon invasion amid Hezbollah conflict
Hezbollah uses flexible command and tunnels to sustain operations, sources say
Calling Nasrallah's bluff: IDF strikes bring turning point in Israel-Hezbollah war - analysis
Patriarch Al-Rahi issues an appeal regarding the current events and situations!
Monsignor Abdo Abu Kasm: "The Church calls on everyone to stand by our people"
Turkiye’s Erdogan tells Lebanese PM urgent international solution needed to stop Israel
What will become of the Lebanese displaced by intensifying Israel-Hezbollah conflict?

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 25-26/2024
UN Security Council urges peace amid mounting Mideast war fears
Israel sends scores of bodies to Gaza; Palestinians demand details before burying them
China pledges ‘support’ for Iran says FM Wang
Ukraine urges world leaders not to seek ‘an out’ from Russia’s war instead of true peace
Trump Has a Message for Iran About ‘Ongoing’ Assassination Threats
Trump says would destroy Iran if it ‘harms’ a US election candidate

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on September 25-26/2024
Harris may love Israel but she doesn’t hate Iran - opinion/Shmuley Boteach/Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
Israel's War Is Against Hezbollah, Not The Lebanese People/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./September 25, 2024
‘Pride Was Their Downfall’: The Collapse of Christian Unity Against Jihad Occurred Today in History/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream./September 25, 2024
New UN needed to avert breakdown of law and order/MOHAMED CHEBARO/Arab News/September 25, 2024
As UN General Assembly begins, Lebanon collapses under Israeli bombs/NATHALIE GOULET/Arab News/September 25, 2024
Netanyahu and Nasrallah: two sides of the same coin/FAISAL J. ABBAS/Arab News/September 25, 2024

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 25-26/2024
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Iranian Terrorist Hezbollah Booby-Trapped Shiites Villages, Cities, Institutions & Created a Landscape of Hatred and Deception
Elias Bejjani/September 24/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/09/134845/
There is no shed  of doubt that the terrorist Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, is the one that has mined and booby-trapped the Shiites areas in occupied Lebanon and placed them evilly on explosive barrels. It drowned its Shiites communities with illusions, myths, hatred, arrogance, worshipping death, while belittling its opponents and labeling them as traitors. In this context we are sadly witnessing the ongoing tragedies inflicted on the civilian Lebanese Shiites' communities.
In the recent wave of violence, only in one day over 600 innocent Shiite civilians were killed and two thousand inquired and thousands forced to abandon their homes and livestock's in fear for their lives because of devastating Israeli air strikes targeting Hezbollah's weapon caches strategically hidden among populated areas in South Lebanon, beeka valley, Dahea district in Beirut. This tragedy underscores a painful truth and shows clearly that the real perpetrators behind the suffering of these victims are not only the Israeli forces, but rather Hezbollah and its Iranian backers.
For decades, Hezbollah has turned Lebanese neighborhoods, mainly the Shiites villages, cities and institutions into battlegrounds, placing weaponry in schools, religious institutions, and even homes, endangering the very people it claims to protect. This reckless strategy has turned civilians into collateral damage in a conflict driven by Iran's regional expansionist and denominational satanic ambitions.
Compounding this situation, recently Iran has increasingly distanced itself from Hezbollah and Hamas, opting instead to appease the United States. The Mullahs have publicly stated that they do not seek to engage in direct conflict with Israel, declaring a shift towards cooperation with the U.S. This pivot reveals a significant change in Iran's approach, highlighting its desire to stabilize its position rather than escalate tensions because its main aim is to keep its regime in power.
The continuous threats from Hezbollah and Iran have put Israel in a precarious position, where it feels compelled to act in self-defense. The recent bombings, while devastating, are a response to a longstanding pattern of aggression and provocation. It is essential to recognize that the chaos affecting the Middle East, including the tragic loss of life among Shiite communities, is a direct consequence of Iran's expansionist policies and Hezbollah's militant strategies.
As Lebanon grapples with this ongoing crisis, it is vital to hold accountable those who have chosen to weaponries their neighborhoods. The suffering of innocents must be acknowledged, but so must the responsibility of those who have perpetuated this cycle of violence.
The massacre that the people of the south Lebanon are being subjected  falls on  the terrorist Hezbollah, which is made up of Lebanese and non-Lebanese mercenaries, as well as their masters the Iranian Mullahs. Hezbollah has booby-trapped and mined the south villages and towns with weapons depots among the people in schools, religious, educational and governmental institutions, and even inside homes. Yesterday, Israel blew up a large number of these depots, killing hundreds and wounding thousands of civilian victims.
Terrorist Hezbollah, the enemy of Lebanon and the Lebanese, has kidnapped the Shiites communities and taken them hostage by force and terror. Hezbollah is a mere slave to an expansionist Iranian agenda that has lured Israel into waging its destructive war on Lebanon in general, and on the Shiite areas in the south, the Bekaa and the southern suburbs of Beirut in general in a bid to defend its people and existence of the Jewish state..
What do Hezbollah and its Iranian masters expect from the state of Israel, while they have been shamelessly, immorally and promiscuously promoting the idea of ​​throwing their state into the sea, killing Jews, while raising their children on a culture of ignorance, barbarism, hatred, reverence, sanctification of death and crime, and at the same time demonize who oppose their Iranian ambitions, and labeling them as traitors.
The killing, assassinations and destruction that Israel is doing currently in Iranian occupied Lebanon are caused by the policy and culture of the mullahs of Iran, as well as the Sunni and Shiite political Islam, leftist, nationalist groups, and merchants of the so called resistance and liberation.
In conclusion, Iranian occupied Lebanon will not be saved or restore is sovereignty, independence and free decision making process before uprooting the criminal Hezbollah, arresting and putting on trial its Trojan and mercenary leaders, and implementing the UN resolutions related to Lebanon; The Armistice Accord, 1559, 1701 and 1680, which gives the Lebanese state full control over all Lebanese territories by its own forces, and disarming all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. At the same time arresting and putting on trial all Lebanese politicians, officials and clergymen who conspired against Lebanon and helped Hezbollah to fully occupy Lebanon.

Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Urgent Call to Neutralize the Iranian Mullah Regime Before It’s Too Late
Elias Bejjani/September 23/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/09/134766/

The Iranian mullahs’ regime stands as the head of the snake, a regime that, unless decisively overthrown, will continue to be the central force of instability in the Middle East. Under its leadership, with Hezbollah and its vast network of terrorist arms, Iran foments division, incites conflicts, and destabilizes Arab nations while exploiting the Palestinian cause and maintaining a relentless hostility toward Israel.
The urgency of this threat cannot be overstated. The regime in Tehran, under the guise of its so-called “jihadist revolution,” is working tirelessly to expand its influence, with the ultimate goal of regional hegemony under the pretext of reviving the Persian Empire. And now, Iran stands perilously close to acquiring the world’s most devastating weapon: the atomic bomb.
In a critical analysis published recently by The Jerusalem Post, Israeli policymakers, academics, and Western strategists have raised alarm bells about the immediate and dangerous ramifications of allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons. This isn’t a distant hypothetical; it is an imminent crisis. Years of debate within Israel and Western circles have highlighted two starkly different perspectives on how to handle the Iranian threat.
On one side, some fear that any preemptive strike on Iran could ignite a catastrophic global conflict, possibly even leading to Israel’s destruction. This viewpoint, however, underestimates the catastrophic consequences of inaction. The other, more pragmatic and visionary view—shared by many high-level officials and supported by moderate Arab allies—argues that the only way to prevent regional and global disaster is to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities as swiftly and forcefully as possible. This faction believes that the survival of Israel, the stability of the Arab world, and indeed, global security, depend on a full-scale effort to dismantle the Iranian regime’s nuclear program.
Waiting for Iran to achieve nuclear capability would be a fatal miscalculation. Once armed with a nuclear arsenal, Iran will not only solidify its stranglehold over the Middle East but will also wield unprecedented leverage over the West. Such power would embolden its terrorist proxies, particularly Hezbollah, and ensure decades of unchecked Iranian aggression across the globe. The consequences would be devastating, not just for Israel but for Arab nations that have long suffered under Iranian interference.
The only viable solution is a coordinated military and diplomatic effort, led by the United States, Israel, and moderate Arab nations, to strike the Iranian regime at its core. This would involve not only destroying Iran’s nuclear infrastructure but also empowering the Iranian people in their ongoing struggle against the theocratic tyranny that has oppressed them for over four decades. The Iranian people have demonstrated their thirst for freedom and democracy, and the West must stand firmly with them. The fall of the mullahs' regime would not only remove the immediate nuclear threat but also dismantle the network of terror that Iran has carefully cultivated. Hezbollah, already weakened by its entanglements in Syria, would lose its primary benefactor, rendering the group vulnerable and ultimately, powerless. Furthermore, the collapse of the mullah regime would restore the chance for regional peace, allowing Arab nations to rebuild and pursue prosperity without constant interference from Tehran. In conclusion, the world is at a critical juncture. The decision to act against the Iranian regime must be made now, before the window of opportunity closes. Failure to do so will result in an irreversible shift in the balance of power in the Middle East, with disastrous consequences for global security. The Iranian people deserve better, the region demands stability, and the world cannot afford to allow a nuclear Iran to become a reality. It is time to strike before it is too late.

Day 3 of carnage: 51 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/September 25, 2024
BEIRUT: The Israeli Air Force continued its airstrikes on dozens of towns in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa region on Wednesday, the third day of its war against Hezbollah. For the first time, the strikes reached deep into Lebanese territory, targeting the predominantly Christian area of Keserwan and the Druze-majority region of Chouf. The bloody attacks resulted in dozens of civilian casualties and further destruction. Health Minister Firass Abiad said at least 51 people were killed and 223 wounded in the attacks. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said: “The devastating bombings in Lebanon are claiming the lives of innocents and forcing thousands to flee,” adding that “the losses inflicted on civilians are unacceptable.”The attacks have been intense over the past 24 hours, with Israeli planes attacking first southern areas then the Bekaa region. Many towns were shelled for the first time.
On Wednesday morning, Hezbollah escalated its rocket attacks on Israeli targets, introducing a new phrase in its official statements, replacing “in support for the Gaza Strip” with “in defense of Lebanon and its people.”Hezbollah targeted the vicinity of Tel Aviv with a short-range ballistic missile, an action previously unrecorded in conflicts between Israel and Lebanon.
It also targeted Israeli military bases and army headquarters, demonstrating the effectiveness of its offensive weapons. On Tuesday, the Israeli army counted more than 400 rockets fired by Hezbollah toward the Israeli side. It said the assault was “the highest rate of shelling since the escalation began on Oct. 8, 2023.”On Wednesday, the army reported “detecting the launch of 40 rockets from Lebanon toward the Upper Galilee, with some intercepted, while a house in Safed was hit, causing a fire but no injuries.”
Municipal officials in Safed urged residents to stay near shelters, while the Israeli Home Front advised the remaining residents of Kiryat Shmona in the Upper Galilee to do the same.
An Israeli army spokesman said that “some rockets from Lebanon fell in the Carmel area and Wadi Ara south of Haifa, with others hitting Zikhron Ya’akov and Bat Shlomo, also south of Haifa, for the first time.”Israeli media reported that three people were injured in the settlement of Sa’ar, near Nahariya, one of whom was said to be in a critical condition. In an official statement, Hezbollah said: “The ballistic missile ‘Qader 1’ was aimed at a Mossad headquarters in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, which is responsible for assassinating Hezbollah leaders and blowing up pagers and walkie-talkies.”The missile traveled more than 100 km, but the Israeli army intercepted it using the David’s Sling air defense system. Israeli Channel 13 reported that the surface-to-surface missile launched from Lebanon was directed toward the Glilot base near Herzliya. The army spokesperson said “the Israeli Air Force detected the surface-to-surface missile launch toward the greater Tel Aviv area this morning and after locating its launch platform in the area of Naffakhiyah in Tyre, it shelled it.”
The Israeli Northern Medical Center said Hezbollah’s attacks resulted in “12 people being lightly injured.”Hezbollah said it targeted the Hatsor settlement and Dado base “with dozens of rockets.”Later, Israeli Army Radio reported that about 100 targets in Lebanon were attacked in response to the assault on Tel Aviv. Israel said its raids targeted Hezbollah artillery sites, which it alleged were situated within residential buildings. Israeli military resumed shelling villages that had previously been targeted, including ones recently added to the target list in areas north of the Litani line, including the Nabatieh region, Iqlim Al-Tuffah, Zahrani and western, central and northern Bekaa. For the first time, an Israeli airstrike targeted the town of Al-Maaysra located in the Keserwan District of Mount Lebanon. The Lebanese Civil Defense reported an initial death toll of three individuals, with nine others injured. Israel claimed the strike was aimed at Sheikh Mohammed Amr, a Hezbollah official in Mount Lebanon and the north. However, it was later revealed that he was not in the targeted residence, which belonged to his nephew. The Ministry of Health said that four people were killed and seven injured during an Israeli operation in the mixed-sect town of Joun, located in the Chouf District, predominantly inhabited by Druze. The raid targeted a three-story residential structure that housed both Lebanese and Syrian residents. Israeli airstrikes targeted Civil Defense personnel from the Muslim Scout Association in the town of Burj El-Shemali while they were helping residents whose homes had been struck in an earlier attack on the area. An airstrike targeting the border town of Bint Jbeil resulted in the deaths of three people, while strikes in the Baalbek-Hermel region killed four and injured 38.
Hezbollah mourned the death of three of its members: Abbas Ibrahim Sharaf Al-Din, Hussein Ahmad Awali and Mohammed Hussein Al-Rabbah.
Kamel Karky, a media photographer for Al-Manar TV, affiliated with Hezbollah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home in Qantara. The Lebanese Red Cross issued repeated calls for blood donations following the depletion of the stocks that had been collected in recent days. An intense airstrike was carried out by the Israeli military late on Tuesday night against a facility in the coastal town of Jiyeh, 28 km south of Beirut. The repercussions were felt in Beirut, resulting in significant destruction and causing debris and rocks to obstruct the Beirut-South highway for some time. The Israeli army also conducted an airstrike near the oil facilities in Zahrani, south of Sidon, for the first time. The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that an “airstrike on the border town of Tebnine resulted in the deaths of two and injuries to 27 others.”
The Israeli army reiterated in leaflets its request to the residents of the Lebanese border villages who evacuated their homes not to return to them “for your safety due to the presence of weapons or Hezbollah elements, so do not return to your homes until further notice.”
Public education institutions in Beirut and its surrounding areas were transformed into shelters for displaced people, with official agencies estimating their number at about 40,000 since Monday. There were many complaints regarding a severe shortage of blankets, bedding and other essential supplies. Maj. Gen. Mohammed Khair, chief of the Lebanese High Relief Commission, said: “Our efforts are focused on meeting essential needs with the resources at our disposal.”He appealed to “Arab and foreign countries, international organizations and expatriate businessmen to assist the displaced and provide aid to Lebanon during these challenging circumstances.”

Hezbollah is not Hamas. Can Israel afford another all-out war?
Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN/September 25, 2024
After nearly a year of fighting in Gaza, Israel is ramping up hostilities with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with covert operations targeting communications devices and a ferocious bombing campaign that has left hundreds dead. The fight against Hamas has strained the Israeli military, with soldiers receiving little respite, officials citing army shortages, the economy facing its steepest decline in years, and growing public pressure for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. It is unclear whether Israel intends – or will feel compelled – to launch a ground invasion into Lebanon. But the question looms: Can the country take on a second front? Since October 8, the day after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, there has been regular cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military. Hezbollah first fired at Israel to protest the war in Gaza, demanding a ceasefire there as a condition to end its attacks. The stakes were raised last week when Israel injured thousands of people across Lebanon, detonating pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. Escalating exchanges of fire have followed. Should Israel enter full-scale war with Hezbollah, experts say it will face a much stronger threat than Hamas – and commensurate costs. “Hezbollah is not Hamas,” said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv who served in Israel’s National Security Council under three prime ministers. Hezbollah is “a state within a state” with far more sophisticated military capabilities, he told CNN. Over the weekend, the group launched one of its deepest strikes into Israel, with the Israeli military reporting impacts in Kiryat Bialik, Tsur Shalom and Moreshet near the port city of Haifa, around 40 km (25 miles) south of the border. The cross-border exchange over the past year has already led to more than 62,000 residents being evacuated from their homes in Israel’s north, and the deaths of 26 Israeli civilians and 22 soldiers and reservists, according to Israeli media. Ahead of the weekend’s escalation, over 94,000 had been displaced and more than 740 killed on the Lebanese side, including some 500 Hezbollah fighters, according to Reuters. Israeli strikes since Monday alone have killed at least another 558 people and led to the displacement of 16,500, according to Lebanese authorities.
Here are some of Israel’s main challenges in a potential wider conflict with Hezbollah:
A stronger enemy
Iran’s closest regional partner, the Shiite Islamist group has not only showcased more sophisticated weaponry over the past year, but it also boasts strategic depth through its allies and partners across the Middle East – including in Iraq and Yemen. While Israel’s military capabilities have improved since its last war in Lebanon in 2006 – when the Jewish state did not yet have its Iron Dome defense system – so has Hezbollah’s arsenal. Military analysts estimate Hezbollah to have between 30,000 and 50,000 troops, but earlier this year its leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed it has more than 100,000 fighters and reservists. The group is also believed to possess between 120,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles. Its biggest military asset is the long-range ballistic missile, of which it is estimated to have thousands, including 1,500 precision missiles with ranges of 250–300 kilometers (155–186 miles). During the weekend attack, Hezbollah said it targeted Israel’s Ramat David airbase with Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles, longer-range weapons that are believed to have been used for the first time. The base is some 30 miles from the Lebanese border. The Israeli military did not respond to queries about whether the base was impacted. Israeli emergency services reported that three people were wounded in the attacks. ⁠Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank in Washington DC who focuses on Iran and its proxies, said that the “warhead weight of these projectiles is reminiscent of the heavy Burkan IRAM (improved rocket assisted munition) first introduced last winter against Israel by Hezbollah, but at considerably longer range.”Hezbollah’s attacks using these projectiles “are likely a way the group aims to save face without losing its head following the communications attacks and strike on senior leaders last week by Israel,” Ben Taleblu told CNN. Orna Mizrahi, a Hezbollah expert at INSS said that much of Israel’s ability to fight a two-front war rests on US support. “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) can fight both fronts for a long time, and we have the capabilities to do it if we have the ammunition from the Americans,” Mizrahi said, adding that if there is a full-scale war, the US will likely intervene to support Israel. Israel also has a huge intelligence advantage, most notably seen in last week’s audacious attacks on Hezbollah’s communications.
Stretched military
Israel is a small state and its military manpower is not limitless. As it gears up for a possible second war, the IDF is diverting some of its key divisions from Gaza to its northern border. “When you are fighting more than one front, you cannot invest too much in every front,” Mizrahi said. “So it will be a different way of fighting.”Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week said that “the center of gravity is moving north,” and that “forces, resources, energy” are now being moved. Among those units is Israel’s elite 98th Division. Also known as Utzbat HaEsh, this paratrooper division is believed to consist of 10,000 to 20,000 troops, according to Israeli media. Guzansky said that diverting resources toward Lebanon does not mean the Gaza war is over, but that Netanyahu feels compelled to deal with the northern front amid mounting domestic pressure to facilitate the return of evacuees from the area. Analysts and army officials cited in Israeli media have also repeatedly said the IDF is suffering from shortages. At the outset of the war with Hamas, the military recruited about 295,000 reservists in an effort to boost its manpower. But that number is proving insufficient. The fighting in Gaza and elsewhere has also taken its toll on soldiers, of whom 715 have so far been killed since October 7, including in the north. “This is the longest (war) of its kind in Israel’s history, longer than the War of Independence in 1948,” Guzansky said, adding that this is Hezbollah and Iran’s goal, “to weaken Israel gradually.”“To fire rockets every day, on a low scale, and to occupy the IDF, to overstretch the IDF,” he said.
An economy in decline
Israel’s economy has been one of the biggest casualties of the war in Gaza, taking a sharp blow from the early days of the October 7 attack. Thousands of businesses suffered as reservists abandoned their civilian lives to take up arms, and the country’s economy is shrinking at an alarming rate. “It’s devastating on the Israeli economy, on Israeli society,” Guzansky said, adding that the impacts will live on for years to come. Of all 38 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Israel showed the sharpest economic slowdown between April and June of this year, the organization said in its quarterly report. According to OECD data, Israel’s economy shrank by 4.1% in the early months of the war, and continued to contract, albeit at a slower rate, throughout the first and second quarters of 2024. The contracting economy comes as Israel’s military spending skyrockets. Earlier this year, Amir Yaron, the governor of Israel’s central bank, warned that the war is expected to cost Israel up to 253 billion Israeli shekels ($67 billion) between 2023 and 2025, Israeli media reported. That’s almost 13% of Israel’s GDP, in addition to regular military expenditure, which has stood at an annual 4.5% to 6.5% of GDP, according to World Bank data. An expansion of the conflict has also impacted Israel’s credit rating, making it more expensive to take on debt, with multiple rating agencies downgrading the country since the war began. In a statement last month, credit ratings agency Moody’s warned that an all-out war with Hezbollah or Iran could have significant “credit consequences for Israeli debt issuers.”
A legitimacy crisis
A second front, especially one that could be far more damaging to Lebanon than to Israel, could be the final straw for many countries already critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, experts said. The global sympathy that Israel received in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack has turned into sharp criticism due to Israel’s devastating reaction, as it now faces accusations of war crimes and genocide in international courts, which it strongly denies. Domestically, while Israelis showed a greater appetite for fighting at the outset of the Gaza war, polls show that domestic support has waned over the last months. On support for a war with Hezbollah, Israelis appear split on the matter. A survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute think tank in July found that 42% of Israelis think their country should pursue a diplomatic agreement with Hezbollah, despite the chances of an additional conflict in the future, while 38% think Israel should pursue a military victory against the group, even at the cost of significant damage to civilian areas. Despite the split in opinion, there is now less support for war with Hezbollah compared to responses in late 2023, the poll said. Guzansky said that pressure for war is likely more palpable in northern Israel, where “people that don’t have businesses anymore, families (are) broken apart… people (are) being killed.” Many of these residents, who have lived close to the frontline for nearly a year, believe that “only a full-scale war can change the reality in the north,” he added.

Israel intercepts Hezbollah ballistic missile near Tel Aviv in first such attack
Irene Nasser, Dana Karni, Helen Regan and Sophie Tanno, CNN/September 25, 2024
Israel intercepted a missile fired by Hezbollah near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, an unprecedented attack by the militant group that reached deep into the country’s commercial heartlands and marked a new escalatory step in the conflict between the two sides. People in Tel Aviv and the central city of Netanya woke up to sirens on Wednesday as Israel said its air defenses intercepted a surface-to-surface missile – the first time ever a missile fired by Hezbollah has reached close to the city, the Israeli military said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah confirmed it launched a Qadr 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad, which it blames for attacks targeting its members, including the coordinated explosions of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies last week. It is believed to be the first ballistic missile to be launched by Hezbollah toward Israel, and was fired “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in Gaza” and in “defense of Lebanon and its people,” Hezbollah said. The Israeli military said the missile was intercepted near Tel Aviv, a city of more than 4 million people on the Mediterranean coast, and the air force struck its launcher in the area of Nafakhiyeh, southern Lebanon. “Following the sirens that sounded in the Tel Aviv and Netanya areas, one surface-to-surface missile was identified crossing from Lebanon and was intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array,” the Israeli military said. Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani described the missile as “heavy” and “long range.”“It’s the first time that Hezbollah has fired toward Tel Aviv,” he said. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly said that any Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital would prompt an attack on Israel’s economic center.
Israel and Hezbollah’s exchange of fire continued Wednesday. At least 10 people were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday, officials said, as the Israeli military said it launched “extensive strikes” on Hezbollah in the south and east of the country. The IDF told CNN it had struck more than 100 targets in Lebanon on Wednesday so far. Meanwhile, around 40 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel on Wednesday morning, according to the IDF. Several were intercepted but one hit an assisted-living facility in northern Israel, with no injuries reported. Since the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas last October, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones from Lebanon targeting northern Israel. About 60,000 people have been evacuated from Israel’s northern region as a result of the cross-border fighting. Israel has maintained that fighting will continue until it is safe for those residents to return home. The missile intercept comes days after Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah killed more than 500 people across Lebanon, including dozens of children. Monday was the deadliest day in Lebanon in nearly two decades. Flights at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport continued as usual Wednesday, an airport spokesperson said. Sirens were heard Wednesday in Netanya for the first time since October 7, 2023, according to Israeli authorities.
Misery in Lebanon
In recent days, Israel and Hezbollah have traded waves of airstrikes and rocket attacks, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes in southern Lebanon. Israel has said it is targeting Hezbollah positions and infrastructure — which it has said are embedded in residential areas — with one strike killing a senior commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi, on Tuesday. The Israeli military said Qubaisi commanded various Hezbollah missile units and was killed along with two other commanders in southern Beirut. Residents who have fled their homes in Lebanon said residential areas had been flattened and whole towns emptied. One man told CNN he witnessed “non-stop bombardment from every direction” which he described as “indiscriminate bombing.” The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) warned that many children remain “missing under rubble” and caught “on dangerous roads” after Israeli airstrikes. At least 558 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Monday, including 50 children and 94 women, Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said. More children were killed in the country in one day on Monday than in the entire past year, Ettie Higgins, UNICEF Deputy Representative for Lebanon Ettie Higgins told a UN briefing. Meanwhile Lebanese hospitals are struggling with the influx of wounded, and there are difficulties getting those in need to hospital for treatment as roads were congested with people trying to flee from Israeli strikes. British-Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah said the healthcare system is “very, very fragile” as it cannot cope with more than 2,000 injuries in two days. “We have received children with unfortunately, the same pattern of injuries that I used to see in Gaza,” Abu-Sittah told CNN. “Blast injuries in the face, amputations to the limbs, multiple shrapnel injuries, crushing injuries as a result of houses being demolished on top of them.”An estimated half a million people have been displaced in Lebanon, the country’s foreign minister said Tuesday, with that number set to rise further. Om Hussein’s family were among the thousands who fled the country’s south. They spent 14 hours on the road to Beirut, stuck in congested roads, and said they didn’t have time to collect clothes or medicine. “We had no food or water, but volunteers on motorcycles distributed water to those stranded in cars,” she told CNN. On Wednesday, the Israeli military warned displaced residents of southern Lebanon not to return to their homes as it vowed to speed up its “offensive operations” against Hezbollah without reprieve. Israeli troops held exercises simulating ground combat in Lebanon, which the military has not ruled out.

Israel Widens Air Strikes After Hezbollah Fires at Tel Aviv

Henry Meyer/Bloomberg/September 25, 2024
Israel stepped up its heaviest air attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since 2006 after shooting down the first missile ever fired by the militant group at Tel Aviv. Air sirens were activated in Israel’s commercial capital early on Wednesday as the projectile flew over central parts of the country, the military said. Hezbollah, an organization backed by Iran, said it was aiming for the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s external-intelligence agency, in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. The US, Europe and Arab states are striving to calm the escalating fighting and prevent an Israeli ground offensive on Lebanon, which would likely entail large human and economic costs. Such a scenario could spiral into a region-wide war that risks dragging Washington and Tehran into direct conflict. Around 570 people have been killed since Israel started a massive bombardment of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley in the northeast on Monday, Lebanese government officials said, a figure that included at least 50 children. More than 1,800 people were wounded. Israel broadened its targets on Wednesday, striking a town north of Beirut and carrying out an attack south-east of the Lebanese capital.
Hezbollah fired about 300 rockets at northern Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli army said. Israel Electric Corp., the country’s biggest power provider, said a “strategic” facility was targeted without causing damage. On Wednesday, the militant group fired a rocket at the northern town of Safed without causing any casualties. Lebanon is on “the brink,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday at the organization’s annual summit in New York. “The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.”
US President Joe Biden, in his final address to the general assembly, reiterated his call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza as a way to de-escalate tension in the wider region. Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel shortly after the start of that conflict in October, fighting in solidarity with its fellow Iran-backed group. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are considered terrorist organizations by the US.
The prospects of a Gaza truce any time soon look slim, however. Talks mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt have been deadlocked for several months and there’s no indication of an imminent breakthrough. Saudi Arabia warned of the “dangers of spreading violence across the region.” The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, in a joint statement, said Israel “is pushing the region toward a comprehensive war.”Israel says its attacks on Lebanon are aimed at Hezbollah targets and meant to force the group’s fighters away from the Israel-Lebanon border area. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s set to travel to New York to speak at the UN later this week, is trying to enable tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north of the country. A similar number of people have had to flee southern Lebanon. The Israeli strikes on Lebanon started days after an attack in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies owned primarily by Hezbollah members in the country exploded. Hezbollah and Iran blamed Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied it was responsible. Israel later killed top military commanders in Beirut in a bombing raid. Israel has killed “valuable” Hezbollah members but this won’t dent the group’s strength, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. The Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah “cannot go unanswered,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a speech at the UN meeting. Netanyahu and his generals appear to believe they can force Hezbollah’s hand with an aerial campaign alone and avoid sending troops into southern Lebanon. Still, Israeli officials say they are prepared to move soldiers across the border if they deem it necessary. Beirut hasn’t been the target of a major bombardment, but Israel has struck it several times in the past two days in attacks seemingly aimed at specific Hezbollah commanders. On Tuesday, the military killed Ibrahim Muhammad Qabisi, head of Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets force, in one such operation. “Any Hezbollah force that you may encounter will be destroyed,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli troops, adding that Israel’s forces have been hardened by fighting Hamas in Gaza for almost a year. Israel believes that in the past week it has destroyed about half of Hezbollah’s short-range rockets, which can fly up to 45 kilometers (28 miles), and their medium-range equivalents, which can hit targets 125 kilometers away, according to an Israeli official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. The hostilities are likely to exacerbate the economic and political turmoil that’s embroiled Lebanon for about five years. Inflation is running at 35%, and the country — under s caretaker government — is in default on tens of billions of dollars of international bonds.

Terrified families flee their homes in Lebanon amid new Israeli airstrikes

Sky News/September 25, 2024
Emergency workers have been struggling to cope with the sudden spike of people fleeing their homes in the south of Lebanon as the Israeli forces continued their campaign of airstrikes across the country. The capital, Beirut, was struck for the third time in five days as the Israeli military said it had targeted and "eliminated" another key Hezbollah commander. He was named by Israeli forces as Muhammed Qabisi - Hezbollah's commander in charge of missiles and rockets - and comes days after the militant group buried another of its top leaders. There were multiple Israeli airstrikes across the south and in the east for a second day as huge swathes of the population continued fleeing to the north of the country. We saw terrified and worried families turning up at the emergency centre in Tyre as Israeli jets flew overhead alongside the sounds of Hezbollah rockets being fired into Israel. "We have nothing left," a woman called Fatima told us. "We have no food, no water, nothing." The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said two of its workers had been killed in airstrikes, including a young mother and her son. The agency said it was "outraged and deeply saddened" at the deaths. Dina Daarwiche and her family were at home in the Bekaa Valley when the house was targeted. She and her youngest son were killed and her husband and second child are critical in hospital. The second UNHCR worker was named as Ali Basma, who had worked in the agency's Tyre office for seven years. The Lebanese Ministry Of Health said the number killed in Monday and Tuesday's airstrikes included children and many women and had now risen to nearly 600. UNHCR said in a statement: "The protection of civilians is a must. "We reiterate the UN secretary-general's call for urgent de-escalation and calls on all parties to protect civilians, including aid workers in line with obligations under international humanitarian law." We've been witnessing multiple airstrikes in the south throughout the day and evening with the constant sounds of blasts and ambulance sirens going off. The head of Tyre's emergency response, Hassan Dbouk, told us: "Half of the IDPs (displaced people), they slept in the garden, on the beach, without any tent, any cover, any blanket, in the streets and in their cars, that's a disaster. "And when you see the eyes of the babies and the women, it's really a disaster."As desperate people turned up at the disaster response centre in Tyre, one man told us his was the only house still standing in his village. "They hit them all," Abu Ali said.
The Israeli forces say they are targeting Hezbollah weapons stores, fighters and commanders and said the militant group is hiding in residential areas and using Lebanese people as human shields. But Abu Ali insisted: "That's not true. Not a single target (in our village) was on a military position. "They're only hitting civilians. We don't have military operations in our village."The astonishing movement of tens of thousands of the Lebanese population from the south and along the border comes on the back of nearly a year of Israel saying it wants to create a buffer zone so Hezbollah cannot fire into its northern communities. Even if the continuous Israeli bombardment of the south and the border is not a deliberate tactic to ensure this happens, that certainly appears to be the growing result. But despite a range of Israeli attacks on its military command and supporters through the booby-trapped pagers and radios; despite its targeting of key Hezbollah commanders; and despite its aerial bombardment of multiple population centres and significant Hezbollah strongholds, the militant group shows no signs of backing down. Last night, for the first time, the group used a ballistic missile aimed at the suburbs of Tel Aviv, they say targeting a Mossad building, and in the last few days they have continuously fired their long-range Fadi rockets, which they have been launching deeper and deeper into Israeli territory. The Iran-allied group, which the UK and US have designated as a terror group, has linked its attacks on Israel since last October to a Gaza ceasefire - and insists it will continue until there is one. That's ensured its hero status among its many loyalists and its Hamas allies. But with a Gaza ceasefire unlikely soon, and with the Israeli forces vowing to increase their onslaught on the militants, Lebanon looks set for a very rough period ahead.
The Sky News team reporting with Alex Crawford from south Lebanon is camera Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon producers Jihad Jneid and Sami Zein.

Hezbollah fires a missile at Tel Aviv in deepest strike yet after Israeli bombardment of Lebanon
Melanie Lidman, Tia Goldenberg And Kareem Chehayeb/TEL AVIV, Israel (AP)/September 25, 2024
Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel early Wednesday, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group's deepest strike yet and marked a further escalation after Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed hundreds of people. The Israeli military said it intercepted the surface-to-surface missile, which set off air-raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it struck the site in southern Lebanon where the missile was launched. The launch ratcheted up tensions as the region appeared to be teetering toward another all-out war, even as Israel continues to battle Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A wave of Israeli strikes on Monday and Tuesday killed at least 560 people in Lebanon and forced thousands to seek refuge. Fleeing families have flocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria. Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a recent string of targeted killings of its top commanders and for an attack last week in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands, including many Hezbollah members. The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month in an aerial attack, but there was no confirmation. The Palestinian Hamas militant group in Gaza repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv in the opening months of the war. Hezbollah's latest strikes included dozens of rockets fired Wednesday into northern Israel, the military said. Two people suffered shrapnel wounds in the agricultural community of Kibbutz Saar, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service. Israel responded with its own new strikes on Hezbollah. In Lebanon, at least three people were killed and nine wounded in an Israeli strike near Byblos, according to the country's Health Ministry. The coastal town is north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah's main strongholds.
The Israeli military has said there are no immediate plans for a ground invasion, but it has declined to give a timetable for the air campaign.
Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have steadily escalated over the last 11 months. Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and its ally Hamas, a fellow Iran-backed militant group.
Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders while threatening a wider operation. The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on Lebanon for Wednesday at the request of France. Nearly a year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before this week’s escalation. Israel has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will keep up its rocket attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza, something that appears increasingly remote. The rocket fire over the past week has disrupted life for more than 1 million people across northern Israel, with schools closed and restrictions on public gatherings. Many restaurants and other businesses are shut in the coastal city of Haifa, and there are fewer people on the streets. Some who fled south from communities near the border are coming under rocket fire again. Israel has moved thousands of troops who had been serving in Gaza to the northern border. It says Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including some capable of striking anywhere in Israel, and that the group has fired some 9,000 rockets and drones since last October. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the missile fired Wednesday had a “heavy warhead” but declined to elaborate or confirm it was the type described by Hezbollah. He dismissed Hezbollah's claim of targeting the Mossad headquarters, located just north of Tel Aviv, as “psychological warfare.” The Iranian-made Qader is a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile with multiple types and payloads. It can carry an explosive payload of up to 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds), according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iranian officials have described the liquid-fueled missile as having a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). Cross-border fire began ramping up Sunday in the wake of the pager and walkie-talkie bombings, which killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility. On Sunday, Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel. The next day, Israel said its warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons concealed in private homes. The strikes racked up the highest one-day death toll in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bruising monthlong war in 2006. An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, whom Israel described as a top Hezbollah commander with the group’s rocket and missile unit. Military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for launches toward Israel and planned a 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed. Hezbollah later confirmed his death. It was the latest in a string of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, which is Lebanon's strongest political and military actor and is widely considered the top paramilitary force in the Arab world. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said six people were killed and 15 were wounded in the strike in a southern Beirut suburb, an area where Hezbollah has a strong presence. The country’s National News Agency said the attack destroyed three floors of a six-story apartment building. The U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon said one of its staffers and her young son were among those killed Monday in the Bekaa region, while a cleaner under contract was killed in a strike in the south. Hezbollah fired 300 rockets on Tuesday, injuring six Israeli soldiers and civilians, most of them lightly, according to the Israeli military. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 564 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Monday, including 50 children and 94 women, and that more than 1,800 have been wounded, a staggering toll for a country still reeling from the deadly pager and walkie-talkie bombings last week.

Israel has landed heavy blows on Hezbollah. The victory it seeks could prove elusive
Joseph Krauss/The Associated Press/September 25, 2024
It has been a devastating week for Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon. Bombs hidden in the group's pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands — many of them Hezbollah members. Israeli strikes on Beirut killed two of Hezbollah's top commanders. And Israel has bombed what it said were 1,600 militant sites across large parts of Lebanon, killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands. Israel says its objective is to secure the border so that tens of thousands of people who fled under Hezbollah fire nearly a year ago can return to their homes. But it's far from clear that its recent operations — as tactically successful as they were — will bring that about. “No one either in or out of the defense establishment has any clue as to how to translate these brilliant operational achievements into political benefit, into a real victory that will stop the war in the north,” columnist Nadav Eyal wrote in Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper. “As long as Hezbollah retains any firepower, the northern border will not be able to return to normal.”Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Its stated aim was to pin down Israeli forces in the north to help its ally Hamas, which — like Hezbollah — is backed by Iran. The Lebanese militant group has said it would cease the attacks if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, which appears increasingly unlikely. Hezbollah's response to the past week's escalation has seemed meager. The hundreds of rockets and drones it has fired into northern Israel — including areas much farther from the border than it hit previously — have caused few casualties and only scattered damage. The militants fired a longer-range missile early Wednesday that targeted Tel Aviv for the first time, marking a clear escalation. The Israeli military said it intercepted the projectile, and there were no reports of casualties or damage. Experts say Hezbollah is holding more such weapons in reserve.
Israeli air power has its limits
The footage on Monday of Israeli strikes sending up plumes of dust and smoke seemed grimly familiar. The American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the NATO campaign in Libya in 2011, and the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State group in 2014 all began with massive airstrikes lighting up the sky. In each case, the war dragged on for months or years, and ground forces played a crucial role. Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza began with nearly three weeks of heavy airstrikes across the territory, followed by a full-scale ground invasion. Nearly a year later, Hamas is still putting up a fight and holding scores of hostages.
With Hezbollah, Israel has so far adopted narrower objectives — not the disarmament or defeat of the Lebanese militant group, but a new arrangement in which militants retreat from the border and halt their attacks. But even that may not be possible without a ground invasion.
There's also the risk of mission-creep, as America discovered after its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ground on for years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. NATO airstrikes initially aimed at preventing a feared massacre in Benghazi morphed into a seven-month campaign of regime change from which Libya has yet to fully recover. Hezbollah likely has capabilities we haven't seen yet. Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant boasted that Monday's strikes alone had taken out tens of thousands of Hezbollah's rockets and missiles. “This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment," he added. "A blow has been dealt to the chain of command, to the terrorists themselves on different levels, to their shooting capabilities and to their morale.”Hezbollah has acknowledged suffering heavy blows, but even if Gallant's assessment is correct, it still has considerable resources. “The rocket unit is still active, Hezbollah has absorbed the initial shock, and the battle has only begun,” said Qassim Qassir, a former Hezbollah member who wrote a book about the group. “Hezbollah has only used a small part of its capabilities."The militant group was established with the help of Iran following Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon, and it seeks Israel’s destruction. It has survived countless battles with Israeli forces, replaced several slain commanders over the years and rearmed after a monthlong war in 2006. Hezbollah claims to have some 100,000 fighters. Before the latest hostilities, it was believed to have some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including long-range projectiles capable of hitting anywhere inside Israel, and some precision-guided missiles. Its more sophisticated weapons are likely being held in reserve as it seeks to avoid triggering an all-out war. Sarit Zehavi, a former Israeli military intelligence analyst and founder of the Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank focused on the northern border, said Hezbollah has concealed its weapons in different parts of the country, including in areas close to Beirut where it has a strong presence. “Hezbollah was building redundancy, so they spread their munitions and infrastructure all over, and that’s why that many targets are being attacked, because it’s everywhere,” she said. Hezbollah is far more advanced militarily than Hamas. Hezbollah also has a far larger area in which to operate, extensive supply lines linking it more directly to Iran, and networks of tunnels potentially even more extensive than those in Gaza. In the event of a ground invasion, Hezbollah fighters could be joined by thousands of fighters from fellow Iran-backed groups from Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere in the region.
Neither side has good options
Israel says it has no immediate plans for a ground invasion but is prepared for one, and has sent thousands of battle-hardened forces from Gaza to the northern border. If the air campaign fails to bring Hezbollah to heel, Israeli leaders will be tempted to send them in.
Even if the goal is only to carve out a buffer zone to better secure the north, the risks are great. Most Israelis are insulated from the air war by distance and Israel's missile defense systems, but a ground invasion would mean more casualties and protracted fighting for soldiers and reservists already weary from a year of war in Gaza. Hezbollah waged an 18-year-long insurgency against Israel the last time it occupied Lebanon, eventually forcing it to withdraw, and another prolonged occupation could be similarly costly. Israel has already faced international outrage over the war in Gaza, including ongoing investigations by top world courts, and risks even greater isolation if it launches a similar campaign in Lebanon.
Hezbollah also has few good options.
Halting its rocket fire on the north in the face of Israeli pressure would likely be seen by its supporters — and its patron Iran — as a humiliating capitulation and an abandonment of the Palestinians. Escalating its attacks, either by launching more sophisticated rockets or targeting major cities like Tel Aviv, could bring an even more crushing Israeli response or an all-out war that devastates Lebanon — with Hezbollah at risk of being blamed. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah already faces criticism from many Lebanese who accuse him of tying their country’s fate to Iran and inviting war at a time of financial ruin. That leaves it stuck with the status quo, in which Israel carries out increasingly heavy strikes while Hezbollah makes do with a relatively restrained response. For Hezbollah, and the Lebanese people, that might make the coming weeks even worse.

Displaced Lebanese recount their ordeal of Israeli strikes and escape

Emilie Madi/September 25, 2024
BEIRUT (Reuters) - After evacuating her family from the village of Seddiqine in southern Lebanon, Feryal Mehsen went back to fetch belongings. It was then that an Israeli airstrike hit close by. Now in a shelter in Beirut, she sits scrolling through messages from friends and relatives checking if she survived the blast. "Are you still alive? I heard that you’re dead," one man asked her in a voice recording. Israel's bombardment of southern villages in Lebanon, striking what it says are sites linked to the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, has driven tens of thousands of people like Mehsen, 58, from their homes. Seddiqine residents had grown used to sporadic bombardment of the area near their village over months of cross-border fire triggered by the war in Gaza that began a year ago, but were not prepared for Monday's sudden escalation. "All the people rushed out but I don't panic easily so I helped my neighbours get out. Then I came inside again and helped my family to leave with me," Mehsen said. She left with her daughter and grandchildren, taking them to the southern city of Tyre before returning to Seddiqine to collect their belongings. That was when the airstrike hit. "The rocket landed in front of me. I was shocked. I couldn't hear or see after that. Dust was everywhere. So I drove off quickly," she said. As Israeli strikes intensified across southern Lebanon, with Hezbollah firing at targets in northern Israel, the family joined the throng of displaced people seeking refuge in Lebanon's capital, Beirut. They ended up in the same shelter that Mehsen had used during the last major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in July 2006. "Now the situation is much harder," she said.
'ATMOSPHERE OF WAR'
In the same shelter, 63-year-old Souad Mahde was registering her name after fleeing her own southern Lebanese village of Qsaibah. "The day before yesterday strikes started getting closer and planes were in the sky. We were scared," she said. As the strikes started to creep closer into the village from the fields outside, Qsaibah's residents fled. "The first thing I thought of was to take some clothes so I could change if we got somewhere. Just the basics, and medicine of course. Nothing more than that. No one cares any more about things like the house because fear takes over," she said. As people across southern Lebanon headed north, the roads filled with crawling traffic. A journey that would normally take two hours turned into a day-long journey. "Our way out was very slow. The traffic was horrible. It was really hard. We moved for a bit and stopped for a bit. There were strikes here and there until we reached Beirut. It took us until evening," she said. Reaching her destination did not bring her a sense of peace. "Even in Beirut, there is an atmosphere of war. Of course, we are in a war," she said.

David's Sling intercepts rocket from Lebanon for first time
Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
The IDF used David's Sling to intercept a rocket from Lebanon, triggering sirens across central Israel due to safety precautions.
The IDF used the "David's Sling" system in an operational interception of a rocket launched from southern Lebanon over the skies of central Israel, Israeli media reported on Wednesday morning. Despite identifying a single rocket targeting the center of the country, sirens sounded across multiple cities. “Due to uncertainty about where it will land and risk of interception shrapnel, sirens may sound in more distant places,” former Defense Array System Commander Ilan Biton explained, according to KAN. The David's Sling system, formerly known as the "Magic Wand," is designed to intercept advanced threats, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft, and drones. The was jointly developed by the US and Israel under the directive of the “Homa” Missile Directorate at the Defense Ministry. David's Sling is intended to intercept very advanced threats, which is why the cost of each interceptor is very high, amounting to over one million dollars, Israeli media sites explained. About a year ago, the system intercepted a missile launched from the Gaza Strip toward central Israel. David's Sling is the third layer in the national missile and rocket defense system, above the future laser system "Iron Beam" and Iron Dome, and below the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 missiles. The system was developed by Rafael and the American Raytheon. Along the flight path of an aerial threat, there are designated zones where the missile is expected to fall, according to KAN’s report. “Therefore, there are areas along the flight path where a siren may blare for a more distant area,” even though the interception may occur in an earlier zone along the missile’s path, explained Biton. Hezbollah had intended to target a Mossad base near Tel Aviv, according to a report on Reuters on Wednesday. The attack was in response to Israel’s responsibility for assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, as well as blowing up pagers mid-September. The missile which triggered the sirens in central Israel fell into the sea off the coast of Herzliya and Tel Aviv, Home Front Command announced.
Finland's $345M purchase
David’s Sling’s development began in 2006 with US funding, and the system began operating in 2016. Its interceptor missile has a unique structure, and it is equipped with a radar and an optical sensor. The control system was developed and supplied by Elbit. The radar was developed by Elta, which is a division of the Israel Aerospace Industries. In 2018, two years after its introduction, David's Sling failed in its first operational interception attempt, targeting two Syrian missiles. It is possible that due to that failure, the Air Force's air defense system decided to use the system this time, to test it again and evaluate the improvements made to it. In addition to Israel, one foreign customer purchased the defense system: Finland. The country bought David’s Sling as part of its efforts to enhance military readiness following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Finland announced in 2023 that it would purchase the system in a deal worth $345 million, with an option to increase it to $600 million.

Britain sends ships to Cyprus in preparation for potential mass Lebanon evacuation

Reuters/Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
Britain is deploying 700 troops to Cyprus to assist nationals leaving Lebanon amid escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Britain is moving troops to Cyprus to help its nationals leave Lebanon, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that the escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah was pushing the region towards the brink. The government said in a statement late on Tuesday that 700 troops would travel to Cyprus, bolstering its presence in the area where it already has two Royal Navy ships, aircraft and transport helicopters. "Events in the past hours and days have demonstrated how volatile this situation is, which is why our message is clear, British nationals should leave now," said Defence Secretary John Healey. "Our government is ensuring all preparations are in place to support British nationals should the situation deteriorate." Fierce fighting this week between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah has increased fears that nearly a year of conflict will explode and destabilize the Middle East, where a war between Hamas and Israel is already raging in Gaza.
Starmer urges ceasefire
Starmer said he was very concerned that the region was spiraling out of control. "All parties need to pull back from the brink," he said in an interview with LBC radio. "I'm obviously going to New York to the UN General Assembly to talk to colleagues and allies, but my message will be very much ceasefire. Pull back from the brink. De-escalate the situation." Israel's offensive since Monday morning has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad has said. Thousands of displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings. Israel has said it is shifting its focus from Gaza to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

Britain urges nationals to leave Lebanon as Israel-Hezbollah tensions escalate
Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
The Defense Ministry also announced that 700 troops will be sent to the region to assist in evacuation. Britain has announced that its nationals should leave Lebanon and continued to advise against all travel to the country amid the escalating tensions between Hezbollah and Isarel, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Tuesday. "The Government continues to prepare its contingency plans following significant escalation between Israel and Lebanon in recent days," the office said in a statement. “Events in the past hours and days have demonstrated how volatile this situation is, which is why our message is clear: British nationals should leave now,” Defence Secretary John Healey said.

Hezbollah wants to maintain the illusion of a 'military vs military' war - analysis

Seth J.Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
Hezbollah escalated attacks on Israel, targeting near Tel Aviv with ballistic missiles on September 25 in response to Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah, on September 25, sought to target an area near Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile. Later, the group also targeted an area near Zicron Yaakov. This represents the furthest extent of Hezbollah's attacks since it began its attacks on Israel on October 8. Hezbollah’s strikes on September 25 is apparently in response to Israel’s increased attacks on Israel that began over the past week and culminated in strikes on 1,600 targets on September 23. This is not the first time Hezbollah has sought to target areas close to Tel Aviv. On August 25, a month before the September 25 ballistic missile launch, the group also claimed to target an area near Tel Aviv. Hassan Nasrallah claimed Hezbollah targeted the IDF’s 8200 unit at Glilot. However, Hezbollah was frustrated in its August 25 attacks by an IDF preemptive strike that destroyed many Hezbollah launchers and prevented a larger attack. Instead, Hezbollah was able to launch several hundred rockets. Now Hezbollah is back to targeting central Israel. It is doing this to expand the “equation” of its attacks. It usually targeted only Israeli border areas. When Israel struck the Bekaa valley, Hezbollah would usually claim to target other IDF sites in the Galilee, launching rockets at Mount Meron or areas near the Golani junction.
Ongoing military engagement following Israeli strikes
When Israel struck Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander, in Beirut in July, Hezbollah responded with the August 25 attack. Now, Israel has eliminated numerous Hezbollah commanders and carried out more strikes in Beirut. Hezbollah has responded by claiming to target the Ramat David airbase in the Jezreel valley. Now, Hezbollah is upping its claims and its targets. Hezbollah appears proud of using a single ballistic missile in the September 25 attack. Hezbollah supposedly has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, but some have been destroyed by Israel’s airstrikes. It has lost some of its medium and long-range missile capacity. It has also lost the ability to launch some of the rockets. Hezbollah still has precision-guided munitions and large numbers of drones. It appears Hezbollah is not ready to unleash a large barrage against central Israel. It prefers small attacks using one missile, as in today’s case, or barrages of five or ten rockets targeting areas east of Haifa. Hezbollah also continues to keep up the image of targeting IDF sites and thus carrying on a “military vs military’ war. It wants to show it can go toe-to-toe with the IDF. This is an illusion, but Hezbollah wants to maintain the illusion. For now, it has sought to increase the equation of launching deeper attacks into Israel as a new normal to confront Israel’s increased attacks in Lebanon.

IDF commander urges readiness for possible Lebanon invasion amid Hezbollah conflict

Yonah Jeremy Bob/Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
IDF Northern Commander urges readiness for potential Lebanon invasion amid escalating conflict with Hezbollah as Operation Northern Arrows intensifies. IDF Northern Commander Maj. Gen. Uri Gordon on Wednesday told his forces that "we need to be very ready to go into action and to invade" Lebanon in the rising escalation against Hezbollah. Speaking to Brigade 7, he emphasized that their actions must change the security reality for Israel's 60,000 northern residents who have been evacuated from their homes for nearly a year.
In addition, Gordon said, "We have entered a new phase in the conflict, and now we are fighting as part of Operation Northern Arrows.""The operation began with very harsh strikes against Hezbollah's capabilities, with an emphasis on its [long-range] firepower, as well as significant harm to its commanders and operatives."
Weaken Hezbollah with airstrikes
Earlier on Wednesday, former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said that the IDF should wear down Hezbollah with air power for two weeks before beginning a ground forces invasion.
However, other sources have told the Jerusalem Post that the key parts of any ground invasion should be wrapped up by around the start of November to avoid major maneuvers in Lebanon's mountainous winter weather. Western powers are still hoping to convince Israel to forego a ground invasion in favor of diplomacy. Meanwhile, all IDF political and defense officials have acknowledged that even in the event of a ground invasion, diplomacy will eventually be needed to solidify any long-term gains from the use of military force.

Hezbollah uses flexible command and tunnels to sustain operations, sources say
Reuters/September 25/2024
A Hezbollah official, said the attack on communication devices put 1,500 fighters out of commission because of their injuries. Hezbollah's flexible chain of command, together with its extensive tunnel network and a vast arsenal of missiles and weapons it has bolstered over the past year, is helping it weather unprecedented Israeli strikes, three sources familiar with the Lebanese militant group's operations said. Israel's assault on Hezbollah over the past week, including the targeting of senior commanders and the detonation of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies, has left the powerful Lebanese Shiite militant group and political party reeling. On Friday, Israel killed the commander who founded and led the group's elite Radwan force, Ibrahim Aqil. And since Monday, Lebanon's deadliest day of violence in decades, the health ministry says more than 560 people, among them 50 children, have died in air barrages.
The Israeli military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said on Sunday that Aqil's death had shaken the organization. Israel says its strikes have also destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets and shells. But two of the sources familiar with Hezbollah operations said the group swiftly appointed replacements for Aqil and other senior figures killed in Friday's airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an Aug. 1 speech that the group quickly fills gaps whenever a leader is killed. A fourth source, a Hezbollah official, said the attack on communication devices put 1,500 fighters out of commission because of their injuries, with many having been blinded or had their hands blown off. While that is a major blow, it represents a fraction of Hezbollah's strength, which a report for the U.S. Congress on Friday put at 40,000-50,000 fighters. Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters. Since October, when Hezbollah began firing at Israel in October in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza, it has redeployed fighters to frontline areas in the south, including some from Syria, the three sources said. It has also been bringing rockets into Lebanon at a fast pace, anticipating a drawn-out conflict, the sources said, adding that the group sought to avoid all out war. Hezbollah's main supporter and weapons supplier is Iran. The group is the most powerful faction in Tehran's "Axis of Resistance" of allied irregular forces across the Middle East. Many of its weapons are Iranian, Russian or Chinese models. The sources, who all asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, did not provide details of the weapons or where they were bought. Hezbollah's media office did not reply to requests for comment for this story. Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London, said that while Hezbollah operations had been disrupted by the past week's attacks, the group's networked organizational structure helped make it an extremely resilient force. "This is the most formidable enemy Israel has ever faced on the battlefield, not because of numbers and tech but in terms of resilience."
Powerful missiles
Fighting has escalated this week. Israel killed another top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi, on Tuesday. For its part, Hezbollah has shown its capacity to continue operations, firing hundreds of rockets towards Israel in ever deeper attacks. On Wednesday, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv, more than 100 km (60 miles) from the border. Warning sirens sounded in Tel Aviv as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defense systems, the Israeli military said. The group has yet to say whether it has launched any of its most potent, precision-guided rockets, such as the Fateh-110, an Iranian-made ballistic missile with a range of 250-300 km (341.75 miles). Hezbollah's Fateh-110 have a 450-500 kg warhead, according to a 2018 paper published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Hezbollah's rocket attacks are possible because the chain of command has kept functioning despite the group suffering a brief spell of disarray after the pagers and radios detonated, one of the sources, a senior security official, said. The three sources said Hezbollah's ability to communicate is underpinned by a dedicated, fixed-line telephone network - which it has described as critical to its communications and continues to work - as well as by other devices. Many of its fighters were carrying older models of pagers, for example, that were unaffected by last week's attack. Reuters could not independently verify the information. Most injuries from the exploding pagers were in Beirut, far from the front. Hezbollah stepped up the use of pagers after banning its fighters from using cellphones on the battlefield in February, in response to commanders being killed in strikes. If the chain of command breaks, frontline fighters are trained to operate in small, independent clusters comprised of a few villages near the border, capable of fighting Israeli forces for long periods, the senior source added. That is precisely what happened in 2006, during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel, when the group's fighters held out for weeks, some in frontline villages invaded by Israel. Israel says it has escalated attacks to degrade Hezbollah's capabilities and make it safe for tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes near the Lebanon border, which they fled when Hezbollah began firing rockets on Oct. 8. Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu's government has said it prefers to reach a negotiated agreement that would see Hezbollah withdraw from the border region but stands ready to continue its bombing campaign if Hezbollah refuses, and does not rule out any military options. Hezbollah's resilience means the fighting has raised fears of a protracted war that could suck in the U.S., Israel's close ally, and Iran - especially if Israel launches, and gets bogged down in, a ground offensive in southern Lebanon. Israel's military did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Monday of "irreversible" consequences of a full blown war in the Middle East. A U.S. State Department official said Washington disagreed with Israel's strategy of escalation and sought to reduce tensions.
Underground arsenal
In what two of the sources said was an indication of how well some of Hezbollah's weapons are hidden, on Sunday rockets were launched from areas of southern Lebanon that had been targeted by Israel shortly before, the two sources said. Hezbollah is believed to have an underground arsenal and last month published footage that appeared to show its fighters driving trucks with rocket launchers through tunnels. The sources did not specify if the rockets fired on Sunday were launched from underground. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday's barrage had destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets and munitions. Israel's military said long-range cruise missiles, rockets with warheads capable of carrying 100kg of explosives, short-range rockets, and explosive UAVs were all struck on Monday. Reuters could not independently verify the military claims. Boaz Shapira a researcher at Alma, an Israeli think tank that specializes in Hezbollah, said Israel had yet to target strategic sites such as long-range missiles and drone sites. "I don't think we are anywhere near finishing this," Shapira said. Hezbollah's arsenal is believed to compromise some 150,000 rockets, the U.S. Congress report said. Krieg said its most powerful, long-range ballistic missiles were kept below ground. Hezbollah has spent years building a tunnel network that by Israeli estimates extends for hundreds of kilometers. The Israeli military said Monday's air strikes hit Hezbollah missile launch sites hidden under homes in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians. Hezbollah has issued no statement on the impact of Israel's strikes since Monday.
Tunnels
The group's arsenal and tunnels have expanded since the 2006 war, especially precision guidance systems, leader Nasrallah has said. Hezbollah officials have said the group has used a small part of the arsenal in fighting over the past year. Israeli officials have said Hezbollah's military infrastructure is tightly meshed into the villages and communities of southern Lebanon, with ammunition and missile launcher pads stored in houses throughout the area. Israel has been pounding some of those villages for months to degrade Hezbollah's capabilities. Confirmed details on the tunnel network remain scarce. A 2021 report by Alma, an Israeli think tank that specializes in Hezbollah, said Iran and North Korea both helped build up the network of tunnels in the aftermath of the 2006 war. Israel has already struggled to root out Hamas commanders and self-reliant fighting units from the tunnels criss-crossing Gaza. "It is one of our biggest challenges in Gaza, and it is certainly something we could meet in Lebanon," said Carmit Valensi, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, a think-tank. Krieg said that unlike Gaza, where most tunnels are manually dug into a sandy soil, the tunnels in Lebanon had been dug deep in mountain rock. "They are far less accessible than in Gaza and even less easy to destroy."

Calling Nasrallah's bluff: IDF strikes bring turning point in Israel-Hezbollah war - analysis

Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
It’s possible Iran will enter the conflict or push the Houthis to increase attacks. Many things can happen in war. It is likely that Israel’s decision to turn the tables on Hezbollah and call its bluff via massive airstrikes against it this week will be seen as a turning point in the conflict. It is important to understand how these events unfolded, especially since, for many years, an ingrained fear of Hezbollah was built up in Israel. On Monday, the IAF launched airstrikes on more than 1,300 Hezbollah targets. They included numerous waves of airstrikes across southern Lebanon and deeper into Lebanon. Lebanese civilians were called upon to flee areas where Hezbollah is present in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Many things occurred on Monday that illustrate how Israel is turning the tide against Hezbollah. Calling on civilians to leave areas in Lebanon where Hezbollah is present is one example. The IDF provided details on how Hezbollah has used civilian homes to store arms. This is important information that could have been provided earlier, although this might have tipped Israel’s hand about its plans to turn the tables on Hezbollah. Another key aspect of the turning of the tide against Hezbollah was calling the terrorist group’s bluff. Hezbollah has always threatened to rain down thousands of missiles a day on Israel and also use numerous new capabilities it had acquired over the last years. For instance, Hezbollah acquired precision-guided munitions and also drones. It threatened to use these capabilities to target Israeli infrastructure.
Hezbollah was seen as so powerful that any war with it would be devastating for Israel. In past years, the description of war with Hezbollah always made it seem almost apocalyptic. According to those predictions, it would mean civilians in shelters across the country for days or weeks on end, widespread destruction, and large numbers of casualties. The Hezbollah bogeyman was conjured up because of fears of what a major conventional-style war would mean. This model for what war would look like emerged slowly and wasn’t typical in the years after the 2006 war. Instead, in the years after 2006, the main concern was that Hezbollah had proven itself tougher to fight than Israel assumed. The IDF had to put in place reforms for its ground forces after the war. Training was a key element intended to redeploy the IDF from fighting terrorism in the West Bank to being a conventional military force again.
The fear of another 2006 war haunted Israel, and fear soon became an overarching narrative that Hezbollah was some kind of all-powerful monster. Hezbollah increased its capabilities, and it became typical to talk of the group as possessing 150,000 or 200,000 rockets. The rocket arsenal soon came to include precision-guided munitions. Over the past year or two, it became clear that the terrorist group had also acquired thousands of drones.
Hezbollah's weaponry
This huge arsenal painted a picture of a war in which thousands of rockets would rain down across Israel, threatening most of the country. This is because Hezbollah was assumed to have a large number of long-range rockets as well. Hezbollah benefited from the Syrian civil war. Even though it suffered losses in Syria due to its involvement from 2012-2018, it also achieved a lot. Its fighters gained experience fighting as a conventional ground force. It also was able to penetrate Syria deeply and knit itself in with other Iranian-backed militias. Hezbollah sought to expand the threat to Israel to include the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Iran also used Hezbollah to expand its own concept of a multifront or multi-arena war. This is what gave Hezbollah the sense it could get involved in the war against Israel after October 7. Hezbollah broke through any sense of Israel’s ability to deter it by beginning its attacks on Israel on October 8. Hezbollah forced Israel to evacuate the North. Fears that it could carry out an October 7-type attack led to the evacuations. In addition, there was hesitancy about creating a larger war with Hezbollah. The limited proportional war began to take shape, which benefited Hezbollah.
Israel called Hezbollah’s bluff on September 23. It was able to do this by eliminating Hezbollah’s commanders in an airstrike on September 20. In addition, Israel was able to accomplish this via other means. The exploding pagers hurt Hezbollah and caused numerous casualties. Hezbollah struggled to respond, but it found itself in chaos. Hezbollah was seen as a major bogeyman, but it’s possible it never put in place an ability to launch thousands of rockets a day. Hamas had achieved this on October 7. Hezbollah may not have actually been able to do what Hamas did. In addition, the chaos that emerged after September 18 also enabled Israel to increase its strikes on Hezbollah launchers. The lessons of August 25, when Hezbollah sought to launch thousands of projectiles at Israel, also helped Israel understand how Hezbollah would react.
The overall story here is that Hezbollah became arrogant and complacent. It also came to overly rely on Iran and Iran’s multifront strategy. This reined in Hezbollah. This restrained it and turned it into a kind of secondary front for Iran. Iran wants to preserve Hezbollah, and therefore, it is afraid of Hezbollah entering a major war. This left Hezbollah open to the kinds of attacks it suffered from September 17-23.
It’s possible Hezbollah will be able to get its house in order and carry out large-scale attacks against Israel. It’s possible Iran will enter the conflict or push the Houthis to increase their attacks. Many things can happen in a war. Once you decide to go to war, there is contact with the enemy, and one cannot know how the war will unfold. Israel will also have to decide what to do. Israel shaped the battlefield in strikes on September 20-22. That is why September 23 will ring out as a major shift in this conflict. Israel has sought to turn the tide on the Iranian-backed terrorist group. It has called Iran’s bluff and pushed away the bogeyman of Hezbollah. Now, the sum of all our fears about Hezbollah’s capabilities has been deflated a bit. I drove along the border of northern Israel on September 23 and expected to see wide-ranging Hezbollah rocket fire. I expected to see the enemy launch anti-tank-guided missiles along the border. As I drove home at sunset, after most of Israel’s 1,300 airstrikes had been carried out, I saw numerous barrages of Hezbollah rockets over my head. But it appeared that Hezbollah’s capabilities to launch its arsenal of rockets had been degraded to a similar level that Hamas had in October 2023. It’s still a major threat, but the fear of Hezbollah has now diminished.

Patriarch Al-Rahi issues an appeal regarding the current events and situations!
Sawt El Mehabi website/September 25, 2024 (Translated from Arabic by Google)
Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi issued an appeal regarding the current events and situations that the country is exposed to, including destruction and war. This is what it said:
In light of the horror of the national disaster in southern Lebanon, Baalbek and the suburbs, where civilians are homeless or have left their homes and migrated to other safe places in Lebanon, we can only direct this appeal:
1. Thanks to all those in safe areas who receive our afflicted people in their homes.
2. Thanks to the public schools and others that have opened their doors to receive them.
3. Thanks to the humanitarian organizations that seek to secure their needs of food, medicine, mattresses and basic household needs.
4. Thanks to the hospitals that receive the wounded, and to the Ministry of Public Health and other ministries.
It is the Lebanese family that unites in the face of the disaster. However, we call on those concerned to cease fire immediately, to avoid more victims, wounded and homeless people. We appeal to the United Nations and the Security Council to intervene effectively to compel those concerned to stop the war and go to negotiations, and to compel the Parliament to elect a President of the Republic, as there is an urgent need for him to be at the head of the country. We pray to God to inspire everyone with the means to achieve a just and comprehensive peace.

Monsignor Abdo Abu Kasm: "The Church calls on everyone to stand by our people"
Sawt El Mehabi website/September 25, 2024 (Translated from Arabic by Google)
Monsignor Abdo Abu Kasm, Director of the Catholic Media Center, said in a statement regarding the recent events that have swept Lebanon: "The teachings of the Church are the teachings of Christ and the Gospel, and they are to be with everyone, close to everyone through good deeds for the homeland, all of the homeland, without discrimination. This has been the role of the Maronite Church since its presence in Lebanon 1600 years ago, in preserving Lebanon, all of Lebanon, with its rich diversity mentioned in the Holy Books. Certainly, God has given this Lebanese people a love that distinguishes them from others, and this love is what protects Lebanon and its people. The Church calls for peace, and the rejection of war, hatred, and animosity. But since the war has occurred, and what the Church has always warned against has happened, we now have no choice but to stand by our people, and to provide all the support and giving we can. Caritas Foundation Lebanon has been and continues to be a pioneer in offering giving from the hands of the able to the gates of heaven, by providing full support. Many blessed people also carry out charitable activities, and we urge those who can give to give, for goodness is available to all. Today we are facing a test and an opportunity to confirm what Patriarch Al-Rahi said: “Thus, Jesus left us an approach in our approach to every human being, especially to everyone who is in physical, material, spiritual or moral need. With this approach, we build human brotherhood, peace and unity among people. How much the world and our Lebanese society need these basic values ​​to strengthen the bonds of the national family.”

Turkiye’s Erdogan tells Lebanese PM urgent international solution needed to stop Israel
REUTERS/September 25, 2024
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Wednesday that the international community must urgently implement a solution to stop Israel’s aggression, the Turkish presidency said, adding he had also voiced support for Lebanon.
A NATO member, Turkiye has denounced Israel’s devastating military offensive in Gaza prompted by Palestinian militant group Hamas’ cross-border attack last Oct. 7. Turkiye halted all trade with Israel and applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court. Israel has said the genocide accusations are baseless and has repeatedly denied targeting civilians. Erdogan has previously condemned Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory, which Israel says are targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure, and has called for international steps to halt Israel’s war in Gaza and cross-border fire with Hezbollah.
Turkiye’s presidency said Erdogan told Mikati in a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York that the international community must urgently implement a solution to stop “Israel’s aggression.”“President Erdogan said Israel was disregarding fundamental human rights, committing a genocide in front of the world, noting that stopping this and the humanitarian crisis that emerged as a result of the attacks was a humanitarian duty,” the presidency said in a statement. Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib in New York that Israel’s attacks in Lebanon were “unacceptable” and meant to “drag the region into chaos,” according to the Turkish diplomatic source. Bou Habib thanked Fidan for a Turkish shipment of medicine that arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday, the source added, and also briefed Fidan on the latest developments in Lebanon.
Separately, Fidan told a G20 foreign ministers meeting in New York that it was unclear whether the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah would spread further, though the world was facing a wider conflict. Fidan also reiterated Ankara’s long-standing call to reform the UN Security Council to make it “fully effective,” adding Turkiye wanted to see a structure in which “one country’s veto does not determine another’s destiny,” the source added. The United States, Russia, China, France and Britain are the permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council. There are 10 non-permanent members that serve two-year terms.

What will become of the Lebanese displaced by intensifying Israel-Hezbollah conflict?
ANAN TELLO/ROBERT EDWARDS/Arab News/September 25, 2024
ANALYSISWhat will become of the Lebanese displaced by intensifying Israel-Hezbollah conflict?
LONDON: Nearly half a million Lebanese civilians have been displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley since Israel intensified its air campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia this week, raising the prospect of a major humanitarian emergency.
In a country already grappling with a profound economic crisis, the exodus of thousands of civilians from towns and villages bordering Israel is stretching Lebanon’s limited resources and further destabilizing its fragile society. The most pressing question on the minds of those fleeing, however, is whether their displacement will be temporary or permanent.
Indeed, villages closest to the border have been the most heavily damaged, with entire areas reduced to rubble. Israeli forces have been accused of creating a “dead zone” as a buffer between the two countries. “We don’t think this is going to last only for a short duration,” Tania Baban, Lebanon country director of the US-based charity MedGlobal, told Arab News. “Some people may not be able to go home if their home is no longer standing.”
Since Hezbollah began rocketing northern Israel in solidarity with its Hamas allies following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, southern Lebanon has been transformed into a battleground, with Israel mounting retaliatory strikes. The region, a stronghold for Hezbollah, has faced near daily bombardment, leaving towns and villages in ruins and devastating forests and farmland. Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, has said that about 500,000 Lebanese have been displaced since Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah ramped up, with more than 110,000 fleeing prior to the recent escalation. Areas such as Tyre, Sidon and Nabatiyeh have experienced a mass exodus. Some 70 percent of Tyre’s population has evacuated, according to the city’s mayor, Hassan Dbouk. “People could not tolerate it anymore,” he told the Washington Post. Baban believes the official number of displaced is an underestimate. “We started distributing some much-needed basic items to the shelters on Tuesday, such as mattresses, towels, pillows, water and personal hygiene kits,” she said.
“We went to several schools to get their information and do our assessment, and there were displaced people flooding in, and this is only in Beirut.
“They’re mostly from the south. I’m sure Bekaa as well, but we don’t have those types of details yet, because people are still flooding in.”
The exodus of thousands of civilians from towns and villages bordering Israel is stretching Lebanon’s limited resources
Safa Kosaibani, 21, who fled from Nabatiyeh to the coastal city of Sidon with her daughters and sisters-in-law, said that she heard Israel was telling civilians to leave southern Lebanon, but did not trust the warnings.
“We thought it was just psychological warfare,” she told the Washington Post. “That they were just trying to push us to leave our land, because we pushed them away from their land in the north. They want to do the same to us.”
An estimated 60,000 or so Israelis are internally displaced from the other side. On Sept. 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu updated his government’s war goals to include returning those people home.
Nour Hamad, a 22-year-old student in the Lebanese city of Baalbek, described living “in a state of terror” all week. “We spent four or five days without sleep, not knowing if we will wake up in the morning,” she told the AFP news agency.
“The sound of the bombardment is very frightening, everyone’s afraid. The children are afraid, and the grown-ups are afraid too.”
Israeli forces have struck multiple targets across Lebanon, leading to the death of almost 600 people, many of them civilians.
As civilians tried to escape the conflict zones this week, they found highways from the south clogged with traffic. Roads to safety were so busy that many spent 12 hours or more on a journey that previously took just one or two.
While some have found refuge with friends or relatives, the sheer volume of displaced people is overwhelming Lebanon’s capacity to provide accommodation, with schools, community centers and unfinished buildings quickly being converted into temporary shelters.
Lebanon’s government is in no position to mount a significant relief effort. In recent years, it has been paralyzed by political deadlock and financial collapse, with its currency losing more than 90 percent of its value.
“Lebanon has been dealing with multiple crises and has still not recovered from the devastating of the Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut port explosion, as well as the economic crisis that engulfed the country starting in late 2019,” Hovig Atamian, director of programs at CARE International in Lebanon, told Arab News.
“Humanitarian organizations have been preparing for the worst case scenario of a very significant escalation for months now, but the reality on the ground, including access constraints due to the security risks will always remain a challenge.
“We call on the parties to the conflict to uphold the provisions of international humanitarian law, including taking measures to avoid and minimize loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects as well as protecting all humanitarian personnel and operations.”
With international funding already stretched due to crises in Gaza, Ukraine and other conflict zones, there is a fear that Lebanon could be overlooked in terms of humanitarian assistance.
Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, has allocated a $24 million emergency aid package from the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund to address the urgent needs of those impacted by the hostilities. Those needs are now likely to grow rapidly, however.
Lebanon is “grappling with multiple crises, which have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to cope,” Riza said in a statement.
“As the escalation of hostilities in south Lebanon drags on longer than we had hoped, it has led to further displacement and deepened the already critical needs.”
The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it had hit 1,500 “terrorist infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon and deep inside Lebanese territory.”
Charities such as MedGlobal are now mobilizing to deliver essential items to the temporary shelters. “We are going to distribute food that is pre-prepared, because they don’t have cooking supplies, but also mattresses, winterization kits, blankets — because winter is on the doorstep, so they need to be prepared,” Baban said. “The people who are coming into the shelters, a lot of them are elderly people who left their medications, who left their money, who need to get their medicine for their chronic illnesses as well. “We’re talking about diabetes, heart problems, hypertension, and some patients are on dialysis. Some patients are maybe on chemotherapy, and we haven’t even begun to speak about the risk of communicable diseases.
“These are going to be overcrowded school turned shelters and winters coming, and we haven’t even discussed flu, COVID-19 and all of that. So it’s a very grim situation.”
Synchronized Israeli attacks last week on Hezbollah’s communication devices, which killed 39 people and injured more than 3,000.
Israeli forces have struck multiple targets across Lebanon, leading to the death of almost 600 people, many of them civilians. The strikes followed a synchronized attack last week on Hezbollah’s communication devices, which killed 39 people and injured more than 3,000.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it had hit 1,500 “terrorist infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon and deep inside Lebanese territory.”
“Hezbollah today is not the same Hezbollah we knew a week ago,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, claiming that the group “has suffered a sequence of blows to its command and control, its fighters, and the means to fight.”
INNUMBERS
• 500,000 People displaced across Lebanon. • 600 Fatalities, including 50 children and 94 women.
• 1,700 People injured by strikes across Lebanon.
• 60,000 Israelis evacuated from border areas since October.
The violence escalated on Wednesday when Hezbollah said it had launched a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv. Although Israel intercepted the missile, it represents an unprecedented move and a dangerous new phase in the conflict.Early on Wednesday, Hezbollah confirmed that the commander of its missile unit, Ibrahim Muhammad Qubaisi, had been killed, hours after the Israeli military said that he had been “eliminated” in an airstrike on Ghobeiri in Beirut’s southern suburbs. An estimated 60,000 or so Israelis are internally displaced from the other side.
The escalation comes nearly a year after Hezbollah began launching attacks shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 240 taken hostage. Israel responded by invading the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, leading to a conflict that has claimed more than 41,000 lives, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict have so far failed. US President Joe Biden, addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, warned of the dangers of full-scale war in Lebanon, urging for restraint from all sides. “Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest,” Biden said. “Even though the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible.”For Baban of MedGlobal, the unfolding humanitarian emergency could have serious implications for the wider region.
“Something needs to be done to stop this, to prevent this catastrophe from not only hitting Lebanon but becoming a regional catastrophe.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 25-26/2024
UN Security Council urges peace amid mounting Mideast war fears
CASPAR WEBB/Arab News/September 25, 2024
NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council has issued a statement warning against the “scourge of war” amid heightened fears of regional conflict in the Middle East. It follows a significant escalation between Israel and Hezbollah this week, with Israeli strikes killing more than 500 Lebanese citizens and injuring thousands. The UNSC’s focus is also on the Russia-Ukraine war and conflict in Sudan, with representatives from all three countries present in New York City this week for the 79th UN General Assembly. “The Security Council recalls that the UN was established to save mankind from the scourge of war,” the statement said. “The need to strengthen resolve to maintain international peace and security, consistent with the UN Charter, is more pressing than ever.” Issued by the UNSC president for September, Samuel Zbogar, the statement described the UN Charter’s principles as “universal, indispensable and irreplaceable foundations of a more safe, peaceful, just, equal, inclusive, sustainable and prosperous world.” Achieving and sustaining global peace requires a “comprehensive approach,” it added. The UNSC highlighted its “strong support for the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The council calls upon all parties to armed conflict to comply fully with their obligations under international humanitarian law, in order to respect and protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, and reiterates its commitment towards accountability for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.” Alongside the permanent five members of the UNSC — the US, UK, France, Russia and China — there are 10 non-permanent members: Algeria, Japan, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland. The statement added: “The Security Council reaffirms that development, peace and security, and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. “The council recognizes that the spirit that guided the creation of the UN should prevail and inspire mankind to persist on the path of peace.”

Israel sends scores of bodies to Gaza; Palestinians demand details before burying them
REUTERS/September 25, 2024
CAIRO: Israel returned the bodies on Wednesday of 88 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which the territory’s health ministry refused to bury before Israel discloses details about who they are and where it killed them. The bodies were brought into Gaza in a container loaded on a truck through an Israeli-controlled crossing, but, according to Palestinian officials, there was no information provided about the names or ages of the victims or locations where they died. Health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis refused to receive them and bury them, urging the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC to seek details from Israel. “The health ministry halted the procedures to receive the container (carrying the bodies) until the completion of the full data and information about those bodies so their relatives can identify them,” the ministry said in a statement. The head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said health ministry officials told the driver of the truck to bring the bodies of dead Palestinians back to the Israeli crossing from which he had arrived. The truck then left the hospital. “They must act according to the international humanitarian law and in a way that preserves the dignity of the martyrs and their families,” Ismail Al-Thawabta told Reuters. The Red Cross said it wasn’t involved in the transfer process. “We reiterate that all families have the right to receive news about their loved ones and bury them respectfully and in line with their traditions,” said a statement issued by the ICRC. Under International Humanitarian Law, those who have died during an armed conflict must be handled with dignity and be properly managed. The law requires that they be searched for, collected and evacuated, which helps ensure that people do not go missing, the ICRC statement added. The Civil Emergency Service tasked with finding people missing under rubble, on roads and in ruined buildings in Gaza says it has been notified of around 10,000 people missing during the near year-long Israeli assault on Gaza. Gaza health authorities list more than 41,000 Palestinians confirmed killed in the assault, which Israel launched after Hamas fighters attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and capturing around 250 hostages. In recent days the conflict has spread to another major theater, with Israel launching the biggest airstrikes on Lebanon in nearly two decades, targeting the Hezbollah movement, which has been rocketing Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
MORE STRIKES IN GAZA
War in Gaza has not let up, even as the conflict in Lebanon has escalated. Many months of diplomatic efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire have yielded little progress, with Israel refusing any deal to halt the fighting without the total defeat of Hamas. Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 14 Palestinians on Wednesday, medics said. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli forces continued their operations in different areas of the city, amid clashes with Hamas-led fighters, according to residents and statements posted by militants. Medics said at least eight Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli strikes on two houses in Rafah. One of those strikes killed a woman and her children, they added. In another attack in Bureij, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, five Palestinians were killed in a house hit by an Israeli missile, medics said. Israel has also sent tanks into the eastern area of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, and medics said a woman was killed in an air strike on a house in the town earlier on Tuesday.

China pledges ‘support’ for Iran says FM Wang

AFP/September 25, 2024
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat Wang Yi pledged to support Iran in safeguarding its security against “external forces” in a meeting with the country’s new president in New York, Beijing’s foreign ministry said Wednesday. Wang met President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, Beijing said, as Israel launched more strikes against Tehran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. The top diplomat promised China would “always be a trustworthy partner.” “China will continue to support Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and national dignity,” Wang said on Tuesday, according to a foreign ministry statement. Beijing also opposed “external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs and imposing sanctions or pressure,” he added. Conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant movement backed by Iran, has intensified in recent weeks. Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed at least 558 people on Monday — the deadliest day of violence in the country since its 1975-90 civil war. Iran, regarded by Israel as its archenemy, is an influential player in the Middle East, supporting armed groups in the region including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. China is a close partner of Iran, its largest trade partner, and a top buyer of its sanctioned oil. Both countries have often faced Western pressure in the form of sanctions, most recently because of their stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine urges world leaders not to seek ‘an out’ from Russia’s war instead of true peace
AP/September 25, 2024
UNITED NATIONS: Ukraine’s president urged global leaders Wednesday to stand with his country and not seek “an out” instead of a “real, just peace” more than two years into Russia’s war. At a time when he faces growing pressure from Western allies and some of his fellow Ukrainians to negotiate a ceasefire, President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN General Assembly there’s no alternative to the “peace formula” he presented two years ago. Among other things, it seeks the expulsion of all Russian forces from Ukraine and accountability for war crimes. “Any parallel or alternative attempts to seek peace are, in fact, efforts to achieve an out instead of an end to the war,” he said. “Do not divide the world. Be united nations,” he implored. “And that will bring us peace.” Russia hasn’t yet had its turn to speak at the assembly’s annual gathering of presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and other high officials. Low-level Russian diplomats occupied the country’s seats in the huge assembly hall during Zelensky’s speech. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not attending this year’s high-level meetings at the General Assembly. The war in Ukraine was center stage the last two times that world leaders convened for the UN’s signature annual meeting. But this year, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the escalating developments along the Israeli-Lebanese border have gotten much of the spotlight. Ukraine and Russia, with one of the world’s most potent armies, are locked in a grinding fight along a 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line. The war began when Russia invaded in February 2022 and has killed tens of thousands of people. Russia has gained momentum in Ukraine’s east; Ukraine, meanwhile, startled Russia by sending troops across the border in a daring incursion last month. Zelensky argued Tuesday at the UN Security Council that Russia needs to ” be forced into peace,” saying there’s no point in pursuing peace talks with Putin. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded Wednesday that the Ukrainian president’s call for compulsion was “a fatal mistake” and “a profound misconception, which, of course, will inevitably have consequences for the Kyiv regime.” Zelensky is expected to present a victory plan this week to US President Joe Biden.

Trump Has a Message for Iran About ‘Ongoing’ Assassination Threats
Dan Ladden-Hall/The Daily Beast./September 25, 2024
Donald Trump was given a briefing Tuesday by intelligence officials about “real and specific threats” from Iran to assassinate him, his campaign said. In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence informed the former president about the Iranian plots, which aim to “destabilize and sow chaos in the United States.” The briefing comes after the FBI foiled an alleged Iran-linked plot to kill Trump earlier this year that authorities said was not believed to be related to the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally shooting, which wounded the Republican nominee in July. Cheung said intelligence officials “have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months.” It’s not clear if the briefing concerned threats already known to U.S. intelligence or if new plots from Iran have been detected. “Big threats on my life by Iran,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform after the campaign statement. “The entire U.S. Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again. Not a good situation for anyone.” He added that he is “surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before,” and praised lawmakers for backing bipartisan legislation increasing Secret Service protection for presidential candidates in the days after the latest apparent attempt on his life at his West Palm Beach golf course. “Nice to see Republicans and Democrats get together on something,” Trump wrote, adding: “An attack on a former President is a Death Wish for the attacker!” The briefing came after Iranian hackers targeted the Trump campaign, sending unsolicited stolen secrets to reporters and President Joe Biden’s campaign team. Authorities said there’s no evidence that recipients responded to the hacked materials, however, and said the Biden-Harris campaign was also targeted by Iranian hacking efforts. A report Tuesday said Trump’s camp had been hacked again within the last 10 days, with sensitive campaign files again reportedly sent to journalists. Despite both campaigns being targeted, Trump spokesman Cheung claimed without evidence that Tehran wants Kamala Harris to win the November election. “Make no mistake, the terror regime in Iran loves the weakness of Kamala Harris, and is terrified of the strength and resolve of President Trump,” Cheung said. “He will let nothing stop him or get in his way to fight for the American people and to Make America Great Again.

Trump says would destroy Iran if it ‘harms’ a US election candidate
AFP/September 25, 2024
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump said Wednesday Iran should be blown “to smithereens” if the Islamic republic is involved in the harming of a US White House candidate or ex-president.
The provocative remarks come after American intelligence warned of threats from Tehran against the Republican’s life after two apparent assassination bids in recent months. “As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve — but possibly do — Iran,” Trump said at a campaign event in North Carolina. “If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” he added. Trump went on to say he and the United States have been “threatened very directly by Iran” and that a firm message needed to reach Tehran that there would be the most severe consequences should it be involved in plots to kill or hurt an American president or candidate. “The best way to do it is through the office of the president, that (if) you do any attacks on former presidents or candidates for president, your country gets blown to smithereens, as we say.”Trump also said it was “strange” that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in New York this week and accorded substantial protection as he attends the United Nations General Assembly even as news of the threats emerged. “We have large security forces guarding him, and yet they’re threatening our former president and the leading candidate to become the next president of the United States,” Trump said. The remarks come as world leaders scramble to try to avert hostilities between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel escalating into a wider regional war. Iran has rejected accusations it is trying to kill Trump this summer, shortly after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, killing one person and wounding the presidential candidate. Days later, Trump posted on social media that if Iran did kill him, “I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth.” On Wednesday, the 78-year-old Trump suggested the would-be assassin in Pennsylvania had used “potentially foreign-based apps,” and that the alleged gunman in Florida had multiple mobile phones that Trump said US authorities have been unable to open. “They must get Apple to open these foreign apps (and) open the six phones from the second lunatic,” Trump said. “Because we have a lot at stake.”

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on September 25-26/2024
Harris may love Israel but she doesn’t hate Iran - opinion
Shmuley Boteach/Jerusalem Post/September 25/2024
While acknowledging that Harris does not hate Israel, Trump emphasized that her failure to confront Iran’s aggressive actions, including its support for terrorist proxies, has emboldened the regime.Last week, at the IAC Conference in DC, former president Donald Trump made two comments that angered many American Jews. The first, let’s be clear, was highly inappropriate. Without him, he said, Israel would be done for in two years. Now, I’m not doubting for one moment that Trump would be better for Israel as a US president than Vice President Kamala Harris, given the control that people like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib exert over the Democratic party. But Israel finished in two years? That definitely wasn’t the wisest thing to say to a people who just 80 years ago experienced one Holocaust. And wasn’t the whole point of Zionism that Jews – even accepting that we need strong allies – defend themselves? That we don’t rely on popes, princes, or even the benevolent presidents to protect us? The second Trump comment was even more incendiary. He said that were he to lose the election, it would be ungrateful Jews who would be to blame. Now, I’ve always believed that the American Jewish community should show far greater gratitude to the most pro-Israel president in history. But to suggest that they can control the election? In swing states such as Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Arizona where their numbers are tiny? Come on.
Yet, with all that, a recent poll in Israel reflected that if Israelis could vote in the US elections, Trump would beat Harris by well over 60%. I believe it would be much higher.
Why? It all comes down to Iran.
Only Trump, Israelis know, is strong enough to stop Iran, which is not only the most evil government on Earth but the source of all mayhem in the Middle East. Firstly, Iran’s plots to assassinate a former US president (Yes, we’re back to Trump), confirmed by Attorney General Merrick Garland – who was appointed by President Joe Biden – is a declaration of war against the US and fundamentally undermines the social and democratic fabric of America. How has Biden not struck Tehran militarily when they are actively trying to murder a former and possibly future American president? Talk about weakness! I believe that Trump would handle things differently. Yes, Trump is always railing against the forever wars. I know he’s an isolationist. But Iran also perceives him as crazy. It’s back to the Nixonian madman theory so expertly cultivated by Henry Kissinger. And besides, Trump got close to bankrupting the mullahs while Kamala and Joe have allowed them to sell over $150 billion in oil revenue to nefarious governments like China. When Trump was president, we all witnessed firsthand how effectively American strength and resolve held back Iranian aggression. This hit its apogee when Trump decided to send Qassim Soleimani, the world’s foremost terrorist, to roast forever on a spit in hell. Now, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeting president Trump and Israel besieged by Iran’s terrorists in the Middle East, we’re seeing American weakness set the world aflame. As is always the case with presidential misconduct, innocents are paying the price. Israel, our most vital ally in the Middle East suffered the deadliest terrorist attack in its history at the hands of bloodthirsty Hamas death squads paid for and trained by Iran. One thousand two hundred men, women, and children were butchered, and 251 people were taken hostage by an Iranian proxy army, while 100 remain in the brutal captivity of terrorists loyal to the ayatollah.
Iran's active proxies
Since then, Iran has activated its Axis of Resistance, using its terrorist militias in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen to pound Israel and US bases with thousands of rockets, while sinking ships and blocking trade routes. These countries are plagued by the predictable symptoms of Iranian dominance: Women are persecuted; food is scarce; people wait in lines to fill jerry cans with water; and political persecution is all-encompassing. But this is all child’s play. Iran might soon fuel conflict and chaos far beyond the Middle East because, according to the best estimates of American intelligence, the murderous mullahs are on the very brink of obtaining the means to launch a nuclear world war. Iran’s resurgence provides the context of its plots to assassinate president Trump – and the motive: when Trump enters the Oval Office, Iran’s reign of terror comes to an end. Much of the world believes that Trump is crazy. The ones who fear that the most are Iran. What Iran most fears is a non-rational actor who will utterly destroy a nation that regularly engages in asymmetrical warfare. While Biden and Harris are content to play charades and let the mullahs hide behind heinous hired guns like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, Trump held Iran rightly accountable for the actions of its blood-soaked proxies. He understood that funding, arming, directing, and protecting terrorist activity constitutes complicity. Angel of Death Qasem Soleimani visited his militias in Iraq days after they murdered an American and expected the US to just play along. He turned out to be dead wrong, literally.
Trump also left the mullahs too broke and isolated to sponsor proxies, understanding that the path to preventing Iran’s pursuit of regional dominance passed through their purse. China, he made clear, could buy Iranian oil or do business with the United States. It could not do both.
President Biden, with his vice president at his side, instead paid handsome ransoms and provided sanctions waivers, letting Iran export 1.7 million barrels of oil a day – more than five times the 300,000 barrels they were selling daily under Trump. The influx of cash to Iran explains the influx of regional terror.
Trump also understood that a nation that believes kidnapping and murder pass for prudent policy cannot be trusted with fighter jets and advanced missile systems. Former US ambassadors to the United Nations Nikki Haley and (my close friend) Kelly Craft personally led the Trump administration’s tooth-and-nail fight at the UN to extend the international arms embargo on Iran, one that is crumbling under the Biden-Harris administration. Under Biden and Harris, crucial restrictions on Iranian missile and drone imports were allowed to quietly expire last November, and Putin provided advanced air defense and radar equipment to Iran just last month. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has been too busy defending Joe Biden’s decision to block essential arms shipments needed for Israel’s war of survival.
Harris would argue that these concessions to Iran will reduce tensions and may achieve peace. How then to explain that President Biden – just this month – sent thousands of US troops, carrier groups, a missile submarine, and a squadron of F-22s to the Mediterranean? Policies of appeasement don’t mitigate the chance of conflict. On the contrary, war with Iran appears closer today than ever before. Donald Trump understood that when deterrence fades the risks will only escalate and that, especially in the Middle East, weakness leads to one outcome: war.
But gripped by global stage fright, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden seek to achieve security by showing insecurity and to avert conflict by making enemies love instead of fear us. Their timidity has only bred contempt – and the expansion of Iran’s infernal reach.
Iran’s reckless adventurism in targeting a presidential nominee shows they don’t fear Harris – even while she serves as second-in-command of the United States of America. But, like Ronald Reagan, who secured the release of 52 American hostages from Tehran hours before entering the Oval Office, Trump is striking fear in Iran before he even takes the reigns, which is why they are literally trying to kill him.  Let me be clear. Those who say that Harris hates Israel – as Trump has said – are, of course, completely wrong. She is married to a very proud Jew and a mensch, Doug Emhoff, who has valiantly, proudly, and publicly fought antisemitism as second gentleman for the last three years. Rather, the problem with Kamala is not that she doesn’t love Israel, it’s that she doesn’t hate Iran.
**The writer is the international best-selling author of The Israel Warrior, a newly-published guide to fighting back for Israel. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Israel's War Is Against Hezbollah, Not The Lebanese People
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./September 25, 2024
On October 8, 2023, the very day after Hamas attacked, Hezbollah opened a "second front" against Israel to help Hezbollah's brothers in Hamas.
On September 19, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah promised that his organization's terrorist attacks on Israel would continue until the war in Gaza ended. Hezbollah, he said, will continue supporting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip "no matter what the consequences are, what the sacrifices are, what scenarios will unfold." Nasrallah further threatened that Israelis who have evacuated from their homes will not be allowed to return, implying that Hezbollah might be planning to invade and occupy Israel's north.
The war in the Gaza Strip could end tomorrow if Hamas would lay down its weapons and release the 101 Israelis hostages it is still holding, only about half of whom are thought to be alive. Hamas, nonetheless, seems to have chosen to fight to the last Palestinian. Hamas evidently does not care if thousands of Palestinians are killed in the war. Its main objective is to hold onto power.
How would the US respond if a terrorist organization in Mexico began launching hundreds of missiles and drones into American cities?... How would France respond if its cities came under attack from terrorists based in neighboring countries... Would the French call for negotiations with the terrorists, or would they practice their right to self-defense?
Hezbollah has decided to destroy Lebanon and sacrifice a large number of Lebanese civilians to keep Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. It has left Israel with no choice but to wage a counterterrorism offensive to defend its own citizens. After Hamas brought a nakba (catastrophe) to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah is bringing the Lebanese people another.
How would the US respond if a terrorist organization in Mexico began launching hundreds of missiles and drones into American cities? Would the US tolerate such attacks for nearly a year? How would France respond if its cities came under attack from terrorists based in neighboring countries? Would the French call for negotiations with the terrorists, or would they practice their right to self-defense?
Some in the international media are misrepresenting the recent round of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah, as a war between Israel and Lebanon. This, however, is not a war between Israel and the Lebanese people. Rather, it is a war between Israel and a heavily armed terrorist group that has created a state within a state in Lebanon and is acting on orders from the mullahs in Tehran to advance their goal of destroying the "Zionist entity." This war was initiated 11 months ago by Hezbollah in support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, another Iran-backed proxy based in the Gaza Strip.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas and thousands of "ordinary" Palestinians launched an attack on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip, murdering 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping more than 240 others. Israel responded by sending troops into the Gaza Strip with two objectives: to release the Israeli hostages and destroy the military capabilities of Hamas, a group whose charter openly calls for waging Jihad (holy war) with the purpose of killing Jews and eliminating Israel.
On October 8, 2023, the very day after Hamas attacked, Hezbollah opened a "second front" against Israel to help Hezbollah's brothers in Hamas. On October 13, 2023, after the Israeli military offensive in Gaza began in earnest, Hezbollah terrorists began firing hundreds of rockets, drones and guided missiles at Israeli communities along the border with Lebanon. As a result, Israel was forced to evacuate tens of thousands of residents from northern Israel. Since then, the displaced Israeli families have been unable to return to their homes, some of which have been severely damaged or completely destroyed by Hezbollah's missiles and drones.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have displayed incredible self-restraint in the face of Hezbollah's war of attrition. Netanyahu and his government have tried their utmost to avoid a full-scale war with Hezbollah, mainly to avoid harming innocent civilians in Lebanon. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) have repeatedly warned Lebanese civilians to flee north out of harm's way. The Israeli military's response to the unremitting daily barrage of rockets and drones fired by Hezbollah over the past 11 months was restricted to airstrikes targeting Hezbollah terrorists and their military installations in southern Lebanon.
How would the US respond if a terrorist organization in Mexico began launching hundreds of missiles and drones into American cities? Would the US tolerate such attacks for nearly a year? Would the US accept a situation where tens of thousands of its own citizens are forced to flee their homes and become refugees in their own country? How would France respond if its cities came under attack from terrorists based in neighboring countries such as Belgium, Spain or Germany? Would the French call for negotiations with the terrorists, or would they practice their right to self-defense?
On September 19, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah promised that his organization's terrorist attacks on Israel would continue until the war in Gaza ended. Hezbollah, he said, will continue supporting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip "no matter what the consequences are, what the sacrifices are, what scenarios will unfold." Nasrallah further threatened that Israelis who have evacuated from their homes will not be allowed to return, implying that Hezbollah might be planning to invade and occupy Israel's north.
The Hezbollah leader is evidently more worried about the well-being of Hamas than the safety of the Lebanese people. He seems to believe that the war he waged against Israel 11 months ago would save Hamas and allow it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip. Nasrallah and his patrons in Iran are willing to destroy Lebanon and sacrifice many Lebanese citizens to keep Hamas in power. They seem determined to prevent the downfall of one of Iran's Palestinian terror proxies in the Middle East. Hezbollah, it seems, has made the decision to hold the entire Lebanese population captive to shield the Hamas murderers and rapists who carried out the massacres against Israelis on October 7.
Earlier this week, Israel published photographic evidence of Hezbollah weaponry placed inside of homes in southern Lebanon. Among the weapons siloed in Lebanese homes were cruise missiles, rockets with enormous warheads, and drones. In one instance, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed pictures showing a long-range missile, mounted on a hydraulic launcher, sitting in the attic of a Lebanese family's home.
This is the same tactic used by Hamas in the Gaza Strip over the past two decades. Like Hezbollah, the Palestinian terror group has also been placing weapons and missile launchers in densely populated areas throughout the Gaza Strip, in homes, hospitals, mosques, United Nations facilities and schools.
Israel's war primarily aims to prevent Hamas from launching another October 7-style attack against Israelis in the future. Shortly after the attack, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad declared that his group is prepared to repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated:
"The Al-Aqsa Flood [the name Hamas uses to call its October 7 attack] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight. We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. Israel is a country that has no place on our land."
The war in the Gaza Strip could end tomorrow if Hamas would lay down its weapons and release the 101 Israelis hostages it is still holding, only about half of whom are thought to be alive. Hamas, nonetheless, seems to have chosen to fight to the last Palestinian. Hamas evidently does not care if thousands of Palestinians are killed in the war. Its main objective is to hold onto power.
The war in Lebanon could end tomorrow if Hezbollah stopped its rocket and drone attacks on Israeli towns and cities. Hezbollah, however, has so far indicated that it has no intention of halting them. Many Lebanese people are strongly opposed to Hezbollah's attempt to drag their country into a war on behalf of Hamas and Iran. Addressing the Hezbollah secretary-general, Lebanese journalist and political analyst Dr. Ghassan A. Bou Diab wrote:
"You have plunged your community and people into a confrontation whose extent only God knows, with the state of Israel, a state that is truly one of the foremost nations in terms of technological and military advancement, enjoying an extensive network of international relations, all under the pretext of supporting the Gaza front. "The day after the terrorist organization Hamas began its fateful operation, you initiated gunfire into Israeli territory, causing dozens of innocent civilians to flee their homes. You supported the terrorist organization in its horrific crime of kidnapping hostages and using civilians as human shields. "This was preceded by your constant threats that you would 'keep the Israelis on one and a half feet,' and that you were ready to 'destroy Israel in seven and a half minutes.'
"Your misguided bets have characterized your journey. You gambled that Israel could not withstand a prolonged war, but Israel surprised everyone, and the war has continued for nearly a year. You bet on the collapse of the political, security, and military institutions if fronts were opened, yet Israel has proven to be cohesive. In fact, it forged a new social contract in Israel following the events of October 7, centered around fighting for existence...
"You gambled on direct Iranian intervention in the battle, only to see Khamenei retreat and limit himself to prayer and seeking safety as soon as he witnessed American aircraft carriers, equipped with fifth-generation technologies, sailing with terrifying weaponry capable of annihilating half the globe. You relied on international diplomatic pressure and protests around the world, yet you failed because your axis initiated the aggression."
Hezbollah has decided to destroy Lebanon and sacrifice a large number of Lebanese civilians to keep Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. It has left Israel with no choice but to wage a counterterrorism offensive to defend its own citizens. After Hamas brought a nakba (catastrophe) to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah is bringing the Lebanese people another.
**Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20968/war-against-hezbollah

‘Pride Was Their Downfall’: The Collapse of Christian Unity Against Jihad Occurred Today in History
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream./September 25, 2024
On September 25, 1396, a major military encounter with Islam that demonstrated just how disunited Christendom had become (and still is) took place.
Two years earlier, the Ottoman Turks had been “doing great injury to Hungary,” causing its young king, Sigismund, to appeal “to Christendom for assistance.” It came at an opportune time. The hitherto quarreling English and French had made peace in 1389, and a “crusade against the Turks furnished a desirable outlet for the noble instincts of the Western chivalry.”
Matters were further settled once “men of all kinds” — pilgrims, laymen, and clerics returning from the Holy Land and Egypt — told of
the miseries and persecutions to which their Eastern coreligionists were subjected by the ‘unbelieving Saracen,’ and . . . appealed with all the vehemence of piety for a crusade to recover the native land of Christ.
Western knights everywhere — mostly French but also English, Scottish, German, Spanish, Italian, and Polish — took up the cross in one of the largest multiethnic crusades against Islam. Their ultimate goal, according to a contemporary, was “to [re-]conquer the whole of Turkey and to march into the Empire of Persia . . . the kingdoms of Syria and the Holy Land.” A vast host of some 100,000 crusaders — “the largest Christian force that had ever confronted the infidel” — reached Buda in July 1396.
But numbers could not mask the disunity, mutual suspicions, and internal rancor that was evident from the start.
Hubris at Work
Not only did the French spurn Sigismund’s suggestion that they take only a defensive posture, but when the king suggested that his Hungarians were more experienced with and thus should lead the attack on the Turks, the Frenchmen accused him of trying to take away their glory and set out to take the field before him. They easily took two garrisons before reaching and besieging Nicopolis, an Ottoman stronghold on the Danube. Victories and still no response from Sultan Bayezid led to overconfidence and complacency.
Suddenly, on September 25, as the Western leaders were feasting in a tent, a herald burst in with news that Sultan Bayezid — who only three weeks earlier had been far away besieging Constantinople — had come. Without waiting for Sigismund’s Hungarians, who were still trailing behind, the Westerners instantly formed rank and made for the first, visible line of the Ottoman force, the akinjis (irregular light cavalry).
Although they made quick work of them, the Muslim horsemen had “veiled from the sight of the enemy a forest of pointed stakes, inclined towards the Christians, and high enough to reach the breast of a horse.” Many charging horses were impaled and fell as volleys of arrows descended upon man and beast, killing both.
The initial loss inflicted on the Christians was considerable. A young French knight called on the men “to march into the lines of the enemy to avoid a coward’s death from their arrows and the Christians responded to the marshal’s call.” Although the Muslim archers harrying them were scattered along a sloping hill, the unhorsed and heavily armored crusaders marched to it on foot.
Fallen Banner
As they ascended,
the Christians struck vigorously with axe and sword, and the Ottomans retaliated with sabre, scimitar and mace so valiantly, and packed their lines so closely, that the issue remained at first undecided. But as the Christians were mailed, and the Ottomans fought without armor, the bearers of the Cross . . . butchered 10,000 of the infantry of the defenders of the Crescent, who began to waver and finally took to their heels.
As the latter fled, another, larger host of Islamic horsemen became visible. The unwavering crusaders “hurled themselves on the Turkish horse, effected a gap in their lines, and, striking hard, right and left, came finally to the rear,” where they hoped to find and kill Bayezid with “their daggers [which they used] with great effect against the rear.” Startled at this unusual way of fighting — reportedly five thousand Muslims were slaughtered in the melee — “the Turks sought safety in flight and raced back to Bayezid beyond the summit of the hill.”
At this point, the Western leaders called on their knights to stop, recover, and regroup; yet despite “their exhaustion, the weight of their armor, and the excessive heat of an Eastern summer day,” the berserkers pursued “the fugitives uphill in order to complete the victory.” There, atop the hill, the full might of the Muslim host finally became visible: 40,000 professional cavalrymen (sipahi), with Bayezid grinning in their midst.
Instantly and to the clamor of drums, trumpets, and wild exclamations of “Allahu Akbar!” they charged at the outnumbered and now-exhausted Christians. The latter valiantly fought on, “no frothing boar nor enraged wolf more fiercely,” writes a contemporary. One veteran knight, Jean de Vienne, “defended the banner of the Virgin Mary with unflinching valor. Six times the banner fell, and six times he raised it again. It fell forever only when the great admiral himself succumbed under the weight of Turkish blows.” His “body was found later in the day with his hand still clutching the sacred banner.”
Large Piles of Martyred Heads
Still, no amount of righteous indignation or battle fury could withstand the rushing onslaught. Some crusaders broke rank and fled; hundreds tumbled down the steep hill to their deaths; others hurled themselves in the river and drowned; a few escaped and got lost in the wood (a handful made it home from their odyssey years later, in rags and unrecognizable).
The Hungarians arrived only to witness the grisly spectacle of a vast Muslim army surrounding and massacring their Western coreligionists. Sigismund boarded and escaped on a ship in the Danube. “If they had only believed me,” the young king (who lived on to become Holy Roman Emperor 37 years later) reminisced; “we had forces in plenty to fight our enemies.” He was not alone in blaming Western impetuosity: “If they had only waited for the king of Hungary,” wrote Froissart, a contemporary Frenchman, “they could have done great deeds; but pride was their downfall.”
Though it failed, the crusade caused considerable damage to Sultan Bayezid’s forces: “for the body of every Christian, thirty Muhammadan corpses or more were to be found on the battlefield.” But the Islamic warlord would have his vengeance:
On the morning after the battle, the sultan sat and watched as the surviving crusaders were led naked before him, their hands tied behind them. He offered them the choice of conversion to Islam or, if they refused, immediate decapitation. Few would renounce their faith, and the growing piles of heads were arranged in tall cairns before the sultan, and the corpses dragged away. By the end of a long day, more than 3,000 crusaders had been butchered, and some accounts said as many as 10,000.
Whether because hours of this “hideous spectacle of mutilated corpses and spilt blood horrified [even] Bayezid,” or whether because his advisors convinced him that he was needlessly provoking the West, “he ordered the executioners to stop.”
When news of this disaster spread throughout Europe, “bitter despair and affliction reigned in all hearts,” writes a chronicler. Never again would the West unite and crusade in the East. “Henceforward it would be left to those whose borders were directly threatened to defend Christendom against the expansion of Islam.” All of this was a sign of the times, of a burgeoning secularization that prioritized nationality over religion in the West. As historian Aziz Atiya notes in his seminal study of the battle:
The Christian army consisted of heterogeneous masses, which represented the various and conflicting aspirations of their countries and nascent spirit of nationality therein. The sense of unity and universality that had been the foundation of Empire and Papacy in the early Middle Ages was passing away, and in its place the separatism of independent kingdoms was arising. This new separatist tendency demonstrated itself amidst the crusading medley before Nicopolis. There was no unity of purpose, no unity of arms and companies, and no common tactics in the camp of the Christians.
If such a judgment was applicable then, how much more is it now?
*Raymond Ibrahim is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Portions of this article were excerpted from his book, Sword and Scimitar.

New UN needed to avert breakdown of law and order

MOHAMED CHEBARO/Arab News/September 25, 2024
Nothing could have offered a worse backdrop to the opening of the 79th UN General Assembly in New York this week than the news of the massive bombing campaign by Israel against the Iran-aligned Hezbollah in Lebanon. The pictures and live streaming clearly showed Israeli shells and missiles raining down on southern Lebanon — strikes that, in their first 24 hours, killed more than 500 people and injured hundreds more.
This backdrop of yet another flare-up of violence means the risk of an all-out war in the Middle East can be added to the list of other conflicts, adversities and challenges that are raging in our world. It maybe proves that the international order is broken and organizations such as the UN are becoming increasingly redundant, with trust between the big powers at an all-time low. We are now living in a more divided world that is split between the Western countries and their allies on one side and Russia alongside many countries in the so-called global majority, including China, on the other.
All diplomats are most probably working around the clock in New York in an attempt to de-escalate this and other conflicts, but the international organization, it seems, has become entangled in the global rift and therefore has little or no impact, either on Israel or Hezbollah.
It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon, as efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October last year, have come to nothing over the past 11 months.
The UN, it seems, has become entangled in the global rift and therefore has little or no impact
It has become clear over the past two decades that the UN as an organization, despite the crucial work of several of its agencies, is becoming irrelevant due to its failure to orchestrate, design and even impose peace.
The last time the world came together to solve a crisis was maybe the financial meltdown of 2008 and those efforts were led mainly by the G20, assisted by several UN agencies and other groupings. There were two key subsequent crises that indirectly sowed the seeds of discord within the international order. Firstly, the Libyan revolution against Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 and the subsequent UN resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilians, which left key powers, namely Russia, feeling cheated. Moscow viewed the UN-authorized Western airstrikes on Libya as the catalyst that led to the downfall of Qaddafi’s regime. Secondly, the inability of the UN and global powers to present a united front against the Syrian regime in that same period, even after the evident use of chemical and nonconventional weapons against its own people. That was another calamity that may have led to the further erosion of trust in the organization. The strong words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who this week warned that impunity, inequality and uncertainty were creating an “unsustainable world,” will no doubt go unheeded by states and people alike. The deepening geopolitical divisions, wars with no end in sight, climate change, nuclear threats and unregulated tech continue to push humanity toward the “unimaginable — a powder keg that risks engulfing the world,” Guterres added.
But it is not just Israel’s war to dislodge Hamas from Gaza and its ramifications that are threatening peace and stability today. The Iran-backed “axis of resistance” in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria have entered the fray and targeted Israel as a means of supporting Hamas. The Houthis of Yemen have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea with impunity, while the world has again failed to put forward a unified deterrence to help secure supply chains and world trade. The conflict in Sudan, which was high on last year’s UNGA agenda, continues to burn, alongside the Ukraine war, without any end in sight.
And that is just part of the usual story delegates at this annual meeting are shackled with, as global humanitarian needs continue to grow and the funds to meet them shrink, meaning some 2 billion people live in conflict-affected areas. Many of these decide to search for a better life as refugees or migrants in more stable countries, where they often become a burden and risk instability as a result of their large inflow.
It is not unreasonable to demand a summit or a meeting that reviews the essence of the UN Charter
Even the two-day “Summit of the Future,” held before the UNGA meetings, which was supposed to offer some respite and hope from the doom and gloom of our world, was nonbinding and lacked the impetus to rally nations to tackle the challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, artificial intelligence, equality and women’s rights. Like many other initiatives, its blueprint is likely to become yet another document filed in the UN’s archives.
However, all is not lost just yet. While the world continues to hurtle toward greater discord and more conflicts like a train without any brakes, it is not unreasonable to demand a summit or a meeting that reviews the essence of the UN Charter. This document was endorsed at the San Francisco conference in 1945, but maybe it is time to see if those foundations, which served humanity after the Second World War, are still relevant today.
At the time the UN was born nearly 80 years ago, US President Harry Truman’s reversal of “might makes right” into “right makes might” was enshrined in the UN Charter. But such noble principles no longer feature in a world torn between its ultra-liberal and despotic forces, amid a clear return to “might makes right” as the dominant narrative. If the UN, multilateralism and the craft of diplomacy are to have a second wind as a force for good, world leaders must renew their trust in the organization as a vehicle for ensuring peace, not just talking about it.
Most of the 8 billion inhabitants of the planet today would likely agree that we are witnessing the worst decline in the world order and governance since the establishment of the modern state system. The UN has, for the best part of eight decades, been a talking shop for competing forces. To avert global conflicts and their catastrophic consequences today, an effective world body is needed to promote peace and prosperity. The aging UN could renew itself if the superpowers reached such a conclusion.
**Mohamed Chebaro is a British Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.

As UN General Assembly begins, Lebanon collapses under Israeli bombs
NATHALIE GOULET/Arab News/September 25, 2024
France is the only country speaking in favor of Lebanon, but unfortunately it is only speaking.
Last week’s captivating statements by French President Emmanuel Macron had no effect and neither did the visit of his special envoy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was once a great minister of foreign affairs. France’s voice has not been heard in Lebanon for a long time, either on security issues or on the vital question of fighting corruption. We all remember the French president’s statements on governance, whether delivered from Beirut or Paris. Upon arriving in Beirut on Aug. 6, 2020 — two days after the devastating explosion at the city’s port — Macron said: “The priority today is aid, unconditional support for the population, but it’s (also) the demand that France has been making for months, if not years, in fact, for essential reforms in certain sectors. Energy, public procurement, the fight against corruption. If these reforms are not carried out, Lebanon will continue to sink. This is another discussion that we must have and that I also wish to conduct today.”Three days later, Macron told the International Conference on Support to Beirut and the Lebanese People: “I told them a few days ago in Beirut, and President (Michel) Aoun, whom I greet here, knows it: there are reforms to be made in the energy and public procurement sectors and in the fight against corruption. There is the audit of the central bank and the financial sector to be carried out, and the full involvement of the IMF and all international players.”France’s diplomacy has become nothing more than a display of authority, and this is regrettable
The same declarations were reiterated by the French president at the Pine Residence, the official residence of the French ambassador to Lebanon, on Sept. 1, 2020.
With France, however, the Lebanese experience disappointment after disappointment. France’s diplomacy has become nothing more than a display of authority, and this is regrettable. Long gone are the days when Jacques Chirac imposed his vision of peace in the region. Long gone are the days when France was expected and listened to in the Middle East. The voice of “Dr. Chirac,” as Yasser Arafat called him. So, unfortunately, one resolution will not change the situation of the martyred Lebanese people, caught between their Israeli neighbors and Hezbollah — Iran’s armed wing in the region — which has just undergone an elimination operation, thanks to the pager explosions, worthy of the most sophisticated spy series. While many applauded the Israeli secret services’ technical prowess — which, despite having reasons to be admired, was worth questioning — we forgot that this act of retaliation on Lebanese soil was also an act of war and that it resulted in civilian casualties. What would the world think if Vladimir Putin were to use the same methods against his opponents in Russia, Ukraine or elsewhere? Our system of international law has deteriorated to such an extent that nothing can lead to condemnation, let alone sanctions or restitutions. France’s new Prime Minister Michel Barnier this week said that “the question of Israel’s security is nonnegotiable,” foreshadowing his position and that of the government. As the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, pogrom approaches, the regional chaos is such that nothing seems able to stop the spiral of violence and the conflagration of the entire region.
The chaos is such that nothing seems able to stop the spiral of violence and the conflagration of the entire region. As the world gathers in New York for the UN General Assembly, the voice of the Gulf states must be heard. Perhaps it would be important for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation or the Gulf Cooperation Council to try mediation? They are Lebanon’s financial supporters and have no interest in seeing Hezbollah continue its work of destabilizing the region. The Abraham Accords are yet another reason for the UAE, in particular, to act as a mediator. Oman also has a long history in this field. As for Saudi Arabia, it can also be a driving force. It is not in the Arab countries’ interest to allow the possible metastasis of this ongoing chaos.
The world cannot allow the situation to deteriorate like this; we have to act, and fast. Faced with the impotence of the international community, including Europe, who will stand up for the Lebanese and for peace, which must begin with an end to hostilities in Gaza and Lebanon and the return of the Oct. 7 hostages held prisoner for a year?
The situation arising from the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7 has led many Israelis to take to the streets, demanding an end to hostilities and the return of the hostages. The Israeli government seems to have turned a deaf ear to these protests and continues to pursue its worst-case scenario policy. This is a policy for which Lebanon and the Lebanese are still paying the price today, in front of an international community that is watching the disaster unfold. This time, it was not the port of Beirut that exploded, but all of Lebanon and soon the whole region.
**Nathalie Goulet is a French senator for the Orne department in Normandy and the author of “An ABC of Terrorist Financing,” published by Cherche-Midi. X: @senateur61

Netanyahu and Nasrallah: two sides of the same coin

FAISAL J. ABBAS/Arab News/September 25, 2024
Military escalations are always worrying, but as we have witnessed on and since Oct. 7 last year, the gloves in the Middle East are now well and truly off. It is like a Royal Rumble match with no referee, and with none of the wrestlers willing to end the fight when they hear the bell.
This becomes even more worrying when, as Ireland’s trade minister Simon Coveney cautioned several months ago, Israel has chosen to “behave like a monster in order to defeat a monster.”
Indeed, Israel is undeterred by any amount of global condemnation, protests or threats from the International Criminal Court. It appears not to see the contradiction between its ability to eliminate some of its targets with maximum precision and minimal collateral damage (such as Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran), and its insistence on indiscriminate airstrikes that cause maximum damage — which, as army spokesman Daniel Hagari admitted last year, was the aim in Gaza.
To protect himself, and remain in power, Netanyahu is willing to turn his country into a pariah. His coalition of far-right lunatics, who have called for nuking Gaza, are no different from Daesh (and those words are not mine, but those of a prominent Israeli journalist to whom I spoke last January in Davos).
However, responsibility for the recent deaths of at least 1,300 men, women and children in Lebanon, more than 620 of those in the past three days alone, and the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, does not lie solely with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has blood on his hands too.
That is because there is a difference here: Lebanon is not Palestine. In 2000, Israel ended its occupation of Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s role as a resistance movement should have stopped right then and there while the whole region was applauding. In contrast, despite Israel’s unilateral withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza in September 2005, all of the Palestinian Territories including Gaza continue to be considered occupied under international law. This of course does not justify what happened on Oct.7: any civilian life lost is one too many.
Lebanon could have charted another course, and reclaimed its title as the “Switzerland of the Middle East.” Instead, Hezbollah refused for 24 years to lay down their weapons and become a purely political party: a demand that cost former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri his life. Hariri distinguished his time in office by obtaining huge support for Lebanon from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and the international community, but that ended with his assassination in February 2005 in a bombing carried out by a Hezbollah operative.
Since then, coinciding with the rise of the Tehran-backed Hezbollah, Lebanon has been in steady decline. They dominated politics, took over Beirut by force, and dictate to the country when it goes to war and when it doesn’t.
Worse, Hezbollah ruined Lebanon’s relations with fellow Arabs by exporting drugs and meddling in their affairs. They have supported the Assad regime in Syria through 13 years of civil war, and Hezbollah commanders helped the Houthi militia in Yemen to launch missiles into Saudi Arabia — where up to 300,000 Lebanese expatriates live and work, remitting funds to their families back home. Hezbollah has pledged that its resistance will continue until the liberation of Jerusalem: but the last time I checked, the route from Beirut to Jerusalem passed through neither Damascus nor Sanaa!
In Israel’s war on Gaza, Hezbollah showed its true colors (which, ironically, are yellow). What did Nasrallah do to prevent the slaughter of more than 41,000 Palestinians in the enclave? Instead, Hezbollah’s rhetoric invariably points the finger at the axis of moderation, namely Saudi Arabia, for “betraying the cause.”Yet, as an eternal believer in the adage that actions speak louder than words, I prefer to compare Hezbollah’s futile waffle with the diplomatic effort on behalf of the Palestinian people led by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. These efforts have been crowned by Palestine taking a seat at the UN General Assembly and the recognition by 146 countries of a Palestinian state. As for Lebanon, the main difference between the Saudi influence and that of the Iran-backed Hezbollah was most eloquently put in a 2018 interview with the Kingdom’s Defense Minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, who said: “We send tourists to Lebanon, Iran sends terrorists.”
• Faisal J. Abbas is the author of 'Anecdotes of an Arab Anglophile,' published by Nomad Publishing.