English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For  August 06/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
Transfiguration Day/Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him
Saint Mark 09/01-07/:”And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.’Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 05-06/2025
The Feast of the Divine Transfiguration: The Light of Glory That Dispels the Shadows of Despair/Elias Bejjani/August 06/2025
On the Fifth Anniversary of the Beirut Port Explosion: Hezbollah’s Crime That Will Never Be Erased from Lebanon’s Memory/Elias Bejjani/August 04/2025
On the Anniversary of Hezbollah’s Terrorist Assassination of Elias Al-Hasrouni: A Crime That Time Will Not Erase/Elias Bejjani/August 02/2025
Sheikh Qassem: Hezbollah is Part of Lebanon’s State, Deciding on Resistance Arms Requires Consensus
Qassem refuses to commit to arms handover while Israel continues attacks
Hezbollah chief says missiles will fall on Israel if it resumes war on Lebanon
Shiite ministers walk out as cabinet tasks army with drafting plan to restrict arms before
Lebanon tasks army with limiting arms to state forces in challenge to Hezbollah
'Black shirts' in Khalde: Hezbollah message or innocent celebration?
Berri says Amal-Hezbollah 'open to discussion' but national interest non-negotiable
Hezbollah MP says group will not sign disarmament decision
Report: Hezbollah, Amal won't resort to 'popular escalation'
British Embassy says applications for Chevening Scholarships in UK now open
Hezbollah rejects timetable for disarmament as Lebanese Cabinet forms plan for arms restrictions
Hezbollah threatens to resume firing missiles at Israel if it intensifies operations in Lebanon
Israeli operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah: July 28–August 3, 2025/David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/August 4/2025
The illusion of deterrence: Lebanon’s crisis is no longer an Israeli one/Makram Rabah/English Arabiya/August 05/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 05-06/2025
Iran names Larijani to head top security body
Iran says detained sabotage cell linked to exiled opposition
Twelve-day war: Impact of Iran’s strikes censored by Israel
Israel considers full Gaza takeover as more die of hunger
How Israel’s Netanyahu created a monster in Gaza — which came back to bite him
Netanyahu holds talks with Israeli security officials over full Gaza occupation plans
What to know as Israel considers reoccupying Gaza in what would be a major escalation of the war
Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs
Syrian and Turkish interior ministers discuss security cooperation in Ankara
Syrian president and UK national security adviser discuss strengthening ties
Witkoff to meet with Russian leadership in Moscow on Wednesday, source says
Zelenskyy speaks with Trump ahead of Putin ceasefire deadline

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on August 05-06/2025
UN report shows Islamic State and Al Qaeda exploiting post-Assad chaos in Syria/Ahmad Sharawi FDD's Long War Journal/August 04/2025
How Hamas Sees the West's Recognition of 'Palestine'/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/August 05/2025
Born dead: The New York Declaration for two states/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/The Times of Israel/August 05/2025
The Houthis Are Breaking into the Drug Trade/Natalie Ecanow, and Bridget Toomey/The National Interest/August 05/2025
Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas is destroying its own reputation/Colin Pascal, opinion contributor/The Hill/August 5, 2025
Selected tweets for 05 August/2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 05-06/2025
The Feast of the Divine Transfiguration: The Light of Glory That Dispels the Shadows of Despair
Elias Bejjani/August 06/2025
Every year on the sixth of August, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, one of the major Feasts of the Lord—also known as the Great Feasts—which mark key events in the life and mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The term "Feasts of the Lord" refers to those holy days that center directly on Christ’s divine mission—His Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and, indeed, His Transfiguration. In Eastern churches such as the Maronite, Syriac, and Chaldean traditions, these feasts are accompanied by a body of liturgical readings and homilies known in Syriac as Peskita (ܦܣܝܟܬܐ)—a term designating the solemn scriptural and homiletic heritage reserved for the Church’s most sacred days.
The Transfiguration is not merely the remembrance of a miraculous event in Christ’s earthly life. Rather, it is an eternal revelation of His divine nature, a glimpse of the glory that is His from before all ages—hidden in the flesh but now unveiled in radiant light.
On this sacred day, we behold Jesus ascending a high mountain—believed to be Mount Tabor—accompanied by three of His apostles: Peter, James, and John. There, before their eyes, “He was transfigured before them; His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as the light” (Matthew 17:2). Appearing with Him were Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets—standing in awe before the One who fulfills them both. From the bright cloud came the voice of the Father: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5).
The Transfiguration is a foreshadowing of the Resurrection, a bursting forth of the unconquerable light of divinity, and a beacon of hope amid trials and darkness. It assures us that suffering is not the end, and that the path of the Cross leads to the brilliance of divine life.
Theological and Spiritual Meanings of the Feast
1. Proclamation of Christ’s Divinity
In shining face and dazzling garments, Christ reveals His divine nature. He is “Light from Light, true God from true God,” no longer veiled, but radiant in truth.
2. A Glimpse of the Resurrection
The event occurs before the Passion to strengthen the disciples, giving them a foretaste of Christ’s victory over death. It is a promise that suffering will give way to glory.
3. Union of the Old and New Covenants
Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets, which now find their fulfillment in Christ. The Transfiguration unites the Old Testament with the New.
4. A Call to Faithfulness
The Father’s voice says: “Listen to Him.” It is a divine command for all generations—to remain faithful to Christ even when the days grow dark and uncertain.
Scriptural Accounts of the Transfiguration
In the New Testament:
Matthew 17:1–8
“Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them…”
Mark 9:2–8
“He was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them…”
Luke 9:28–36
“As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor…”
2 Peter 1:16–18
“We were eyewitnesses of His majesty… For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory…”
Foreshadowings in the Old Testament:
Exodus 24:15–18 — Moses ascends the mountain, and the cloud of God’s glory covers it.
Exodus 34:29–35 — Moses’ face shines after speaking with the Lord.
1 Kings 19:8–13 — Elijah encounters God on Mount Horeb, not in the storm but in a gentle whisper.
Historical Establishment of the Feast
The Feast of the Transfiguration was celebrated in the Christian East as early as the fourth century. It became an official feast for the whole Church when Pope Callixtus III declared it so in 1457, commemorating the miraculous Christian victory over the Ottoman forces in the Battle of Belgrade, which took place on August 6 of that year. The feast, already known in the East, was thus fixed in the Roman liturgical calendar under Pope Nicholas V and later ratified under Callixtus. Since then, it has stood as a symbol of Christian light triumphing over the shadows of tyranny and conquest.
Lebanon and the Transfiguration: From Calvary to the Dawn
Today, Lebanon lives its own Calvary—crucified under the yoke of a brutal, sectarian, and imperial occupation spearheaded by the Iranian regime and its local Trojan horse: the so-called “Hezbollah.” This militia has stolen the dreams and dignity of all Lebanese, especially the Shiite youth who have been sacrificed to its foreign agenda.
But just as Golgotha did not end in the tomb, so too Lebanon shall not remain in the darkness of this foreign barbaric oppression. As the Lord said to His terrified disciples: “Do not be afraid” (Matthew 17:7), so too He says to the people of Lebanon today: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
In the Transfiguration, Jesus changed His appearance and transformed the mountain’s gloom into divine radiance. We, the faithful and free sons and daughters of Lebanon, believe that the day will come when the light of sovereignty, liberty, and true independence will break forth upon our land. Every idol of tyranny will fall, and every altar of deception, terrorism, fundamentalism, and illegal arms shall crumble.
Final Prayer
O Lord of Glory, who was transfigured before Your chosen ones, Shine Your divine light upon our darkened paths.
Open our eyes, as You did with Your disciples, That we may behold Your face even amid our suffering.
Remove the veil from our hearts, and let us see Your presence in our trials.
Deliver Lebanon, scatter the clouds of oppression, And rise upon our nation with the light of Your peace and truth.
May we, like You on the mountain, be transfigured—From slaves of fear into children of light.
Amen.

On the Fifth Anniversary of the Beirut Port Explosion: Hezbollah’s Crime That Will Never Be Erased from Lebanon’s Memory
Elias Bejjani/August 04/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/08/145922/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwuQvSOyu2Q&t=203s

On the fifth anniversary of the Beirut Port explosion, we solemnly remember August 04/2020—a day of national horror and disgrace, one of the darkest in the history of Lebanon and modern international crime. That day, Beirut was shattered by a massive explosion at its port—an act of terrorism that stands as the largest non-nuclear explosion in human history. It killed more than 200 innocent people, wounded over 6,000, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and reduced vast sections of the capital to rubble and ash.
This atrocity was no accident. It was the direct result of a vast criminal operation involving Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy militia that occupies Lebanon, and the Assad regime in Syria. The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored recklessly for years in Hangar 12 at the port were not forgotten or abandoned—they were deliberately stockpiled and protected for use in manufacturing barrel bombs for the Syrian regime and for terrorist operations across Europe. This is not speculation. European security agencies in Cyprus, Germany, and elsewhere have confirmed Hezbollah’s possession and planned use of ammonium nitrate for terror plots.
The trail of blood does not end in Beirut. The same material was used to slaughter thousands of civilians in Syria, and its presence in Lebanon’s capital was not only a criminal act of negligence—it was a calculated threat against both Lebanese sovereignty and international peace.
Since the moment of the blast, Hezbollah has worked relentlessly to bury the truth. As the main party responsible for storing, securing, and benefiting from these explosives, Hezbollah launched a vicious campaign to obstruct the judicial investigation. It threatened and intimidated the judiciary, openly blackmailed investigators, and assassinated key witnesses and officers. Among those silenced were the port officials Joseph Skaf and Mounir Abu Rjeili, the banker Wissam Al-Tarraf, and photographer Joe Bejjani, who was shot dead in his own home in Kahaleh. Their blood cries out for justice.
In a flagrant act of mafia-style intimidation, Hezbollah’s security chief Wafic Safa threatened Judge Tarek Bitar—the last credible investigative judge on the case—forcing the suspension of the probe and shielding from justice the ministers, MPs, and security chiefs implicated in the crime. All of this occurred in full view of a cowardly Lebanese state, whose political class, judiciary, army, and security services have bowed in fear or complicity to Hezbollah’s criminal authority.
For five years, not one perpetrator has been tried. Not one has been jailed. Not one has been hanged. The Lebanese judiciary has become a tool of political paralysis and moral bankruptcy, unable—or unwilling—to deliver justice to the victims and their families. The Lebanese authorities, through their silence and inaction, have become accomplices in the cover-up of this mass murder.
Today, August 4, the families of the victims will gather once again in the streets of Beirut—not to commemorate, but to demand. They demand justice, truth, and accountability. They demand that the criminals be named, tried, and punished. Their tears, their pain, their courage must not go unanswered.
Let it be clear: the Beirut Port explosion was not a tragic accident. It was a premeditated terrorist act—a massacre of innocent civilians facilitated by the cowardice of the Lebanese authorities and executed under the command of Hezbollah, the Iranian regime’s militant arm in Lebanon.
There can be no future for Lebanon without justice. No reform, no sovereignty, no peace—unless those who murdered the people of Beirut are held to account in full, with no deals, no amnesties, and no delay.
Lebanon will rise only when the truth prevails, when justice is served, and when the criminals are finally put behind bars—or better yet, brought to the gallows.

On the Anniversary of Hezbollah’s Terrorist Assassination of Elias Al-Hasrouni: A Crime That Time Will Not Erase
Elias Bejjani/August 02/2025

https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/08/145874/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubjDYs2HE2U&t=60s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TidGqbBZAU&t=9s
The Blood of Elias Al-Hasrouni (Al-Hantoush) Exposes Hezbollah’s Crime and Betrayal of the South
On this day in 2023, the hand of treachery struck again. The hand of darkness, of jihadist terrorism, of Iran’s proxy militia Hezbollah, reached deep into the heart of southern Lebanon — into the steadfast town of Ain Ebel — and assassinated one of its most devoted sons, Elias Al-Hasrouni, known affectionately as “Al-Hantoush.” They tried to pass off the murder as a car accident, but God, truth, and technology exposed them. Surveillance cameras recorded the crime and unmasked the killers. The lie fell. Once again, Hezbollah was caught in its own web of deceit. From that moment on, Hezbollah moved to suppress justice — threatening the victim’s family, silencing questions, and blocking the investigation entirely. Shockingly, official investigators told Al-Hasrouni’s family that there would be no investigation, simply because the “Party” does not allow it. What kind of country is this, where justice requires Hezbollah’s permission?
Elias Al-Hasrouni: The Voice of a Free South
Elias Al-Hasrouni was not a random victim — he was a target. He was a man who stood for the Lebanese state, not the state-within-a-state. A believer in peace, not war. In coexistence, not sectarianism. In a Lebanese south, not an Iranian satellite. In Ain Ebel, he was a beloved figure — selfless, compassionate, and committed to serving his people. He worked tirelessly to promote coexistence between communities, and he stood as a proud and active member of the Lebanese Forces, a party deeply rooted in the struggle for Lebanon’s sovereignty. He carried no weapon — only conviction. He spread no hatred — only hope. And that is why they killed him.
A Bloodstained Record: Hezbollah’s Trail of Crimes
The assassination of Elias Al-Hasrouni is not an isolated incident — it is part of a long and bloody history of violence by Hezbollah:
The May 7, 2008 invasion of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, aimed at crushing political opponents.
The assassination of photojournalist Joe Bejjani, who had captured footage of the Beirut Port blast.
The deliberate obstruction of the Beirut Port investigation, with judges intimidated and replaced.
The murder of MP Gebran Tueni and his fellow journalists at An-Nahar newspaper.
The assassination of Rafik Hariri, and the cover-up that followed.
The execution-style killing of Lokman Slim, a Shiite intellectual who dared to say “No.”
The dozens — if not hundreds — of other assassinations of journalists, politicians, and activists.
Hezbollah does not know dialogue — only bullets. It does not believe in democracy — only obedience to Iran. It is not a resistance — it is a criminal enterprise.
Hezbollah: Iran’s Terror Armed Proxy in Lebanon
It is no longer a secret that Hezbollah is not a Lebanese party. It is an Iranian military wing, a direct extension of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It does not take orders from Beirut, but from Tehran and Qom. It claims to defend Lebanon, but it destroys it. It claims to protect dignity, but it murders the dignified. It claims to resist the enemy, but it occupies the homeland. There can be no salvation for Lebanon as long as this armed, sectarian, foreign-controlled militia is allowed to operate with impunity.
No Lebanon Without Disarmament and Justice
Lebanon cannot rise unless Hezbollah is disarmed, its leadership arrested and tried, and its military and security infrastructure dismantled, in accordance with international resolutions:
UNSCR 1559 (calling for disarmament of militias),
UNSCR 1701 (enforcing the cessation of hostilities and deployment of the Lebanese Army in the south),
UNSCR 1680, and The Ceasefire Agreement that Hezbollah violates daily.
A sovereign, free, and peaceful Lebanon cannot coexist with a private army that answers to foreign rulers.
In Conclusion
On the anniversary of Elias Al-Hasrouni’s martyrdom, we bow our heads in reverence before his sacred blood. We vow that his memory will not fade, and that his cause will live on — not just in the hearts of the people of Ain Ebel, but in every Lebanese soul that still believes in justice, in truth, in freedom.
O martyr of free Lebanon and of sovereign politics, O hero Elias Al-Hasrouni – Al-Hantoush, your voice still echoes through Ain Ebel, the South, and all of Lebanon, crying out: No to Iran, no to the terrorist Hezbollah, no to crime — and yes to justice and to Lebanon.

Sheikh Qassem: Hezbollah is Part of Lebanon’s State, Deciding on Resistance Arms Requires Consensus
Al-Manar English Websiteظ August 5, 2025
Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem indicated on Tuesday that to build the nation and maintain stability, the Lebanese must cooperate within the national unity and set necessary priorities, away from the US guardianship. During a memorial ceremony in tribute of senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Mohammad Saeed Izadi, Sheikh Qassem maintained that the ceasefire agreement is an indirect agreement highlighting close cooperation between the Resistance and the state. “Hezbollah has fully committed to the ceasefire terms, and no violations were reported against the enemy or in cooperation with the state. ‘Israel’ violated the agreement thousands of times.” According to Sheikh Qassem, the Israeli enemy regretted the agreement, seeing that it empowered Hezbollah to maintain its strength in Lebanon, “and therefore did not abide by it”. Sheikh Qassem affirmed that teh United States has imposed terms to strip Lebanon, the Resistance, and the entire people of their strength and capabilities, entirely benefiting ‘Israel’. “Barrack demanded disarmament within 30 days, including even hand grenades and mortar shells—basic weapons. He demanded dismantling 50% of the capabilities within a month, but they do not know the extent of our capabilities to determine what 50% means. Barrack said that after these measures, ‘Israel’ would withdraw from the five points.” America wanted, in its proposal, to strip Lebanon of its military capability represented by the Resistance and to prevent the army from acquiring weapons that could affect ‘Israel’, Sheikh Qassem added. Sheikh Qassem affirmed that Hezbollah rejects any new agreement, saying “They must implement the old agreement, and we reject any timetable proposed for implementation under the umbrella of ‘Israeli’ aggression”. “We refuse to be slaves to anyone. To those who talk to us about concessions because of funding cuts, we ask: What funding do you mean?”Hezbollah Chief noted that the Zionist enemy’s interest does not lie in escalating the aggression on Lebanon because the “Resistance will defend, the army will defend, the people will defend, and rockets will fall inside the entity, collapsing the security they have built over eight months within one hour”.If we relinquish our weapons, aggression will not stop—this is confirmed by ‘Israeli’ officials, Sheikh Qassem added. “The government statement talks about fortifying sovereignty—so is abandoning weapons based on Israel’s, America’s, and some Arab countries’ prescriptions fortifying sovereignty? The government statement talks about deterring aggressors, but where is the state that shields Lebanon from calamity? Where is the defense of borders and frontiers? If you say you cannot, then let us preserve and build our capabilities.”Sheikh Qassem recalled that the Prime Minister boasts about the government’s commitment to take all measures to liberate all territories from ‘Israeli’ occupation, asking: “But where are these measures?”
“The state must provide protection, not strip its people and resistance of their strength; it should benefit from it rather than disarm in favor of ‘Israel’, America, and an Arab country.”
We must bring a proposal to the [Lebanese] Cabinet to face aggression, preserve sovereignty, set a timetable to achieve this, discuss how to involve everyone in Lebanon’s defense, and increase pressure on the enemy, Sheikh Qassem said. “The Resistance is part of the Taif Agreement constitution and explicitly mentioned; it is a constitutional matter. Let us discuss a national security strategy that strengthens Lebanon, not a timetable to disarm. We are keen on cooperation and understanding between us and the three presidents.”
Sheikh Qassem warned against the internal sedition advocates whose hands are stained with blood and those who serve the Israeli project, adding: “This country has advanced through sacrifices and blood, and we will not allow anyone to impose dictates upon us”.
“We are arranging our internal situation through cooperation and understanding; no solution will happen without internal consensus. The state must tell the international community that it is responsible for protecting its southern and eastern borders and must assume that responsibility.”No one can deprive Lebanon of its strength or prevent Lebanon from being honorable, Sheikh Qassem affirmed, adding that those who made sacrifices and liberated the land are more patriotic than those who destroyed the country and killed its citizens.
“Thanks to #The_Formidable_in_Might, we were able to stop the aggression before it reached Beirut, and the resistance, army, and people prevented the enemy from achieving its goals.”His eminence said, “The Resistance is well, strong, and honorable; it possesses faith, will, and is determined to be the master in its country. Lebanon will be honorable, independent, and its people steadfast and united, with fighters ready for the utmost sacrifices.”
The wounded from the ‘Pagers’ operation, and all the wounded, are people of insight and determination, at the peak of sacrifice and resolve, and they achieved success in official exams, Sheikh Qassem added. Sheikh Qassem affirmed that Hezbollah’s injured fighters are never out of service, congratulating all the students, who passes the official exams, especially the “Pagers wounded”. Hezbollah Leader indicated that the Resistance consists of parties, forces, and individuals from various sects and ideologies—this is our greatest asset, adding: “Our enemy does not have a free hand and has not achieved its goals to this day, so don’t allow it to do so”.“In today’s battle, either all of Lebanon wins together or everyone loses; our conviction is that we can triumph together. We must be alert to attempts by sedition-mongers and defeatists who seek to exploit the situation in favor of foreign agendas.” – The aggression is the problem, not the weapons, according to Sheikh Qassem, who added that the solution lies in possessing the elements of strength, not abandoning them, and relying on the honorable—not the American wolf.
“We will confront foreign guardianship, American-Arab encroachment, and internal bullying. This is a dangerous phase in Lebanon’s path to independence, but we are stronger through the triad of the army, the people, and the resistance—and through unity.”
Beirut Port
We pause at the great disaster of the Beirut port explosion on August 4, which caused a deep wound in Lebanon, Hezbollah Secretary General said. “We call for accelerating the completion of trials and investigations, away from politicization that delayed results until now.”
Hajj Ramadan
Sheikh Qassem indicated that Martyr Hajj Ramadan is the Iranian martyr of Palestine, adding that he dedicated his life to serving Palestine. “Hajj Ramadan held a sensitive leadership position at the age of 19. He worked in the Palestine Office responsible for coordination with the Palestinian factions.”Hajj Ramadan was keen on the unity of the Palestinian factions and ensured that Hezbollah remained close to them, His Eminence added. Sheikh Qassem indicated that Hajj Ramadan hadsaid, “Al-Aqsa Flood is a miracle not achieved by any resistance force, and Al-Aqsa and Al-Quds elevate those who serve them.”“Hajj Ramadan embraced Imam Khomeini’s view of the Zionist entity as a cancerous tumor. Our leadership’s perspective is that Palestine is a humanitarian cause, not merely a geographic issue, meaning everyone must support it.”Sheikh Qassem said that Hajj Ramadan arrived in Lebanon two days after the martyrdom of His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah to dedicate himself to Hezbollah’s service, adding that the martyr as a humble and reverent spiritual man, deeply devoted to Imam Khomeini and Imam Khamenei.
Al-Manar English Website

Qassem refuses to commit to arms handover while Israel continues attacks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Associated Press/August 05/2025
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said Tuesday his group would not accept any timetable on handing over its weapons to the Lebanese state while Israeli strikes continue, as the government held a session on the issue. "Any timetable presented for implementation under... Israeli aggression cannot be agreed to," Qassem said in a televised address, urging the state to develop "plans to face the pressure and threats" and not to "deprive the resistance (Hezbollah) of its capacities and strength." "The resistance is fine, strong and dignified, its supporters are resilient and coherent, and its fighters are ready to offer the dearest sacrifices," Qassem added. The Iran-backed Hezbollah emerged badly weakened from more than a year of hostilities with Israel, including two months of all-out war that saw its arsenal pummeled and a slew of senior commanders killed, among them leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Long the strongest political force in Lebanon -- with detractors accusing it of using the threat of its weaponry to impose its will on domestic decisions -- Hezbollah has also seen that influence diminish since the conflict. Israel has kept up regular raids on Lebanon despite the November truce, mostly saying it is striking Hezbollah targets, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed.
"Are we being asked to engage in dialogue, or to surrender our weapons without dialogue?" Qassem said. "We cannot accept Lebanon committing to gradually giving up its strength while all the strength cards remain in the hands of the Israeli enemy," he added.
Qassem also criticized a recent proposal presented by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack on disarming the group. "Whoever looks at the deal Barrack brought doesn't find an agreement but dictates," he said, arguing that "it removes the strength and capabilities of Hezbollah and Lebanon entirely."Hezbollah is the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, doing so in the name of "resistance" against Israel, which occupied the country's south until 2000. Last month, Barrack urged Lebanon to "act now" to impose a state weapons monopoly. A Lebanese official with knowledge of the talks told AFP that "Washington is pressuring Lebanon to make Hezbollah hand over its weapons according to a timetable, but without (the U.S.) providing any guarantees." President Joseph Aoun last week said Lebanon was committed to removing "weapons from all armed groups including Hezbollah" and seeing them surrendered to the Lebanese Army. Lebanon is at "a crucial stage" and must choose "between collapse and stability," Aoun had said, linking international support for the crisis-hit country to disarming the group. In his speech, Qassem said that "we do not agree to any new deal other than the existing deal between the Lebanese state and the Israeli entity," referring to the November ceasefire. Qassem also warned Israel against launching any new "large-scale aggression."“Israel's interest is not to widen the aggression because if they expand, the resistance will defend, the army will defend and the people will defend,” Qassem said. "This defense will lead to the fall of missiles inside the Israeli entity,” he added. Before discussing the fate of its weapons, which it considers a matter of domestic defense strategy, Hezbollah has demanded that reconstruction of areas destroyed during the war begin, and that Israel stop its attacks, withdraw from five areas it occupies and release Lebanese prisoners.

Hezbollah chief says missiles will fall on Israel if it resumes war on Lebanon
Reuters/05 August/2025
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem threatened Israel directly for the first time in months in a televised speech on Tuesday, saying missiles would fall on it if it resumed a broad war on Lebanon. His comments came as Lebanon’s cabinet met to discuss the fate of Hezbollah’s arsenal, after Washington pressured Lebanese officials to commit to disarming the Iran-backed group and amid fears that Israel could intensify strikes if they fail to do so. Qassem said that, should Israel engage in a “large-scale aggression” against Lebanon, Hezbollah, Lebanon’s army and Lebanon’s people would defend themselves.
“This defense will lead to missiles falling inside the Israeli entity, and all the security they have built over eight months will collapse within an hour,” he said. A US-brokered ceasefire in November brought an end to months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. The war killed much of Hezbollah’s leadership – including Qassem’s predecessor Hassan Nasrallah – and destroyed much of its arsenal. Qassem said the war had killed 5,000 Hezbollah fighters and wounded 13,000, the first official toll the group has given. But he said the organization remained in good order, with fighters ready to make “the harshest sacrifices” if needed. Minutes after he spoke, dozens of men on motorcycles carrying Hezbollah’s yellow flags emerged from its strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs for the second day in a row. Washington and Beirut have been in talks since June on a US roadmap to fully disarm Hezbollah in exchange for a halt to Israeli strikes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying five points in south Lebanon and funds to rebuild areas destroyed by Israeli bombardment during the war. But with little progress on disarmament, Washington’s patience began wearing thin and it pressured Lebanon’s ministers to swiftly make a public pledge so that talks could continue. Qassem pushed back against the conditions, saying Israel must implement the ceasefire in full by halting its military activities in Lebanon before any other discussion. “Solve the problem of the (Israeli) aggression, and then we will discuss the issue of the weapons,” he said. Addressing Lebanese officials, he said: “I hope you don’t waste time on the storms stirred up by external dictates.”

Shiite ministers walk out as cabinet tasks army with drafting plan to restrict arms before
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 05/2025
Lebanon's government on Tuesday tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict arms to the state by year end, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said, an unprecedented move that paves the way for disarming Hezbollah. The government "tasked the Lebanese Army with setting an implementation plan to restrict weapons" to the army and other government forces "before the end of this year," with the plan to be presented to the cabinet by the end of this month, Salam told a press conference after a nearly six-hour cabinet session headed by President Joseph Aoun. Environment Minister Tamara al-Zein of the Amal Movement and Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine of Hezbollah had walked out of the cabinet session shortly before its end in protest at its decisions. State Minister for Administrative Development Fadi Makki meanwhile voiced reservations over the part related to setting a timetable before the army presents its proposal and before the continuation of discussions in the presence of all parties in the next cabinet session. Finance Minister Yassine Jaber of the Amal Movement and Labor Minister Mohammad Haidar of Hezbollah did not attend the session due to their presence outside the country. Salam also announced that Cabinet would discuss the latest U.S. paper in its session on Thursday.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah emerged badly weakened from more than a year of hostilities with Israel, including two months of all-out war that saw its arsenal pummelled and a slew of senior commanders killed, among them leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Long the strongest political force in Lebanon -- with detractors accusing it of using the threat of its weaponry to impose its will on domestic decisions -- Hezbollah has also seen that influence diminish since the conflict. Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem, in a televised address while the cabinet meeting was underway, said the Iran-backed group would not disarm while Israeli attacks continue. "Any timetable presented for implementation under... Israeli aggression cannot be agreed to," he said. Israel has kept up regular raids on Lebanon despite the November truce, mostly saying it is striking Hezbollah targets, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed. Qassem also criticized a recent proposal presented by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack on disarming the group. Hezbollah is the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, doing so in the name of "resistance" against Israel, which occupied the country's south until 2000. Last month, Barrack urged Lebanon to "act now" to impose a state weapons monopoly. A Lebanese official with knowledge of the talks told AFP that "Washington is pressuring Lebanon to make Hezbollah hand over its weapons according to a timetable, but without (the U.S.) providing any guarantees."The group will not surrender its weapons "without something in return -- the Americans know this well," the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Aoun last week said Lebanon was committed to removing "weapons from all armed groups including Hezbollah" and seeing them surrendered to the Lebanese Army.
Lebanon is at "a crucial stage" and must choose "between collapse and stability," Aoun had said, linking international support for the crisis-hit country to disarming the group. Before discussing the fate of its weapons, which it considers a matter of domestic defense strategy, Hezbollah has demanded that reconstruction of areas destroyed during the war begin, and that Israel stop its attacks, withdraw from five areas it occupies and release Lebanese prisoners. But analysts say Hezbollah's options for pressing its demands are more limited since the conflict. According to David Wood from the International Crisis Group, Hezbollah could apply pressure to the government by saying "that the (disarmament) decision doesn't represent Lebanon's national interests."It could also encourage its supporters to demonstrate, but any violent escalation "that Hezbollah's leadership deliberately plans and calls for is still a pretty unlikely scenario," he said, noting a domestic confrontation was "not in Hezbollah's interest." However, with the government pushing for disarmament and Hezbollah demanding concessions first, Wood said a diplomatic track could run into an impasse.

Lebanon tasks army with limiting arms to state forces in challenge to Hezbollah
Reuters/05 August/2025
Lebanon’s cabinet on Tuesday tasked the army with drawing up a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year, a challenge to Hezbollah, which has rejected calls to disarm since last year’s devastating war with Israel. The Iran-backed group is under pressure from its rivals in Lebanon and from Washington, who want Lebanon’s ministers to publicly commit to disarming the party and worry that Israel could intensify strikes on Lebanon if they fail to do so. The session at Lebanon’s presidential palace was the first time the cabinet addressed Hezbollah’s weapons – unimaginable when the group was at the zenith of its power just two years ago. Ministers met for nearly six hours. In a concluding statement, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the cabinet had authorized Lebanon’s army to develop a plan to ensure that all arms across the country would be confined to six specific state security forces by the end of the year. But as ministers met, Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem resisted calls to disarm in a televised speech, saying: “I hope you (Lebanese officials) don’t waste time on the storms stirred up by external dictates.” He threatened Hezbollah would respond if Israel resumed a broader war on Lebanon and said any decision on Hezbollah’s arms would have to come through a consensus reached with the group. “The strategy is not a timetable for disarmament,” Qassem said. “The issue has become simply: give us weapons, but no national security. How is that possible? We do not accept it, because we consider ourselves a fundamental component of Lebanon.”Two Shia Muslim ministers left the session before the statement was agreed upon in a signal of their disapproval. Two other Shia ministers were not present due to travel.
US proposal on agenda
Lebanon’s Information Minister Paul Morcos said the army would have until the end of the month to submit its plan. He said the cabinet had discussed US proposals to disarm Hezbollah but had not reached an agreement, and would resume its debate in a session on Thursday. In June, US envoy Thomas Barrack proposed a roadmap to Lebanese officials to fully disarm Hezbollah, in exchange for Israel halting its strikes on Lebanon and withdrawing its troops from five points they still occupy in southern Lebanon. That proposal included a condition that Lebanon’s government pass a cabinet decision clearly pledging to disarm Hezbollah. With little progress on the proposals, Washington’s patience began wearing thin. It pressured Lebanon’s ministers to swiftly make the public pledge so that talks could continue. But Lebanese officials and diplomats say such an explicit vow could spark communal tensions in Lebanon, where Hezbollah and its arsenal retain significant support among the country’s Shia Muslim community. Qassem on Tuesday read out parts of Barrack’s proposal in his address, rejecting each clause. As he finished speaking, dozens of motorcycles with men carrying Hezbollah flags set out from one of the group’s strongholds in Beirut’s suburbs for the second time in two days. Hezbollah’s main ally, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, was in talks with President Joseph Aoun and the prime minister, Salam, ahead of Tuesday’s session to agree on a general phrase to include in a cabinet decision to appease the US and buy Lebanon more time, two Lebanese officials said. Berri’s proposed wording would commit Lebanon to forming a national defense strategy and maintaining a ceasefire with Israel, but would avoid an explicit pledge to disarm Hezbollah across Lebanon, the officials said. But other Lebanese ministers plan to propose a formulation that commits Lebanon to a deadline to disarm Hezbollah, said Kamal Shehadi, a minister affiliated with the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces Party. “There’s frankly no need to kick the can down the road and postpone a decision. We have to put Lebanon’s interest first and take a decision today,” Shehadi told Reuters. Lebanese officials and foreign envoys say Lebanese leaders fear that a failure to issue a clear decision on Tuesday could prompt Israel to escalate its strikes, including on Beirut. A US-brokered ceasefire last November ended the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, though Israel has continued to carry out strikes on what it says are Hezbollah arms depots and fighters, mostly in southern Lebanon.

'Black shirts' in Khalde: Hezbollah message or innocent celebration?
Naharnet/August 05/2025
Videos and pictures of over 100 black-clad young people outside a restaurant in Khalde have sparked concern in the country, hours before a crucial cabinet session that will discuss the thorny issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament. But the restaurant’s administration confirmed to Al-Jadeed TV that the gathering was to celebrate reaching a certain number of followers on social media. The footage also shows celebratory balloons outside the restaurant in addition to buses, an army vehicle and another belonging to the Internal Security Forces or municipal police. Sources close to the restaurant owner meanwhile told Naharnet that the young people in the footage are restaurant workers who came from its various branches and that their official uniform is black-colored. The “black shirts” show of force refers to the unarmed, black-clad march that Hezbollah organized on February 18, 2011, which was widely seen as a message to Druze leader Walid Jumblat, who promptly shifted his stance and abandoned his alliance with then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Jumblat, aware of his minority community’s vulnerable position and seeking to protect his leadership, decided then to support Najib Mikati, Hezbollah's preferred candidate for the premiership.The move marked a significant change in Jumblat's position, as he had previously maintained a friendship with Hariri despite leaving the March 14 alliance in 2009.

Berri says Amal-Hezbollah 'open to discussion' but national interest non-negotiable
Naharnet/05 August/2025
Cabinet convened Tuesday to discuss restricting the possession of weapons to the state, in a session attended by Hezbollah and Amal ministers. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was quoted as saying that Amal and Hezbollah are open to any positive discussion but will not accept any decision "that does not take the national interest into account." Berri's visitors quoted him as saying, in remarks published Tuesday in al-Liwaa newspaper, that his only concern is south Lebanon's reconstruction and the southerners' return to their villages. President Joseph Aoun had said last week that Lebanon is at "a crucial stage" and must choose "between collapse and stability", linking international support for the crisis-hit country to disarming Hezbollah. A Lebanese official meanwhile told AFP that "Washington is pressuring Lebanon to make Hezbollah hand over its weapons according to a timetable, but without (the U.S.) providing any guarantees".Hezbollah "will not hand over its weapons without something in return -- the Americans know this well", the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hezbollah MP says group will not sign disarmament decision
Naharnet/05 August/2025
As cabinet convened Tuesday to discuss a thorny and controversial plan to disarm Hezbollah under heavy U.S. pressure, Hezbollah and its ally Amal were reportedly trying to postpone the discussion after overnight protests that Hezbollah said were "spontaneous".
Supporters of the group had roamed the streets of the capital and its southern suburbs on motorbikes, in a show of defiance reflecting their rejection of Hezbollah’s disarmament. Hezbollah MP Ali Al-Moqdad told Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik that Hezbollah will not sign a decision that would end sovereignty and completely erase a large portion of the Lebanese people. "Is this session necessary for Lebanon, or for the Israelis and Americans?" he asked. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have both vowed to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah and ally Amal MPs gave twice their confidence to Salam's government and backed President Aoun in a second round of voting last January. Al-Moqdad said the presidential inaugural speech mentioned the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories in south Lebanon and the halt to Israeli attacks on Lebanon before Hezbollah's disarmament. "Solving domestic crises should be done between the Lebanese without any external pressure," he added. Under a ceasefire deal reached in late November, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river and Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country, but has kept them in five locations in south Lebanon that it deems strategic. Whether Hezbollah must first disarm or Israel must first withdraw remains a chicken and egg situation. Israel has kept up regular raids on Lebanon since the truce, mostly saying it is striking Hezbollah targets, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed. Hezbollah has demanded that reconstruction of areas destroyed during the war begin, and that Israel stop its attacks, withdraw from five areas it occupies and release Lebanese prisoners, before discussing the fate of its weapons, which it considers a matter of domestic defense strategy.

Report: Hezbollah, Amal won't resort to 'popular escalation'
Naharnet/05 August/2025
Hezbollah and the Amal Movement do not want a “popular escalation” on the streets over Tuesday’s cabinet session that will tackle the thorny issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, pro-Hezbollah journalist Qassem Qassir told Al-Jadeed TV on Tuesday. “There are contacts to reach an agreement and the atmosphere is positive,” Qassir added. Supporters of Hezbollah had overnight roamed the streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs and the capital on motorbikes, in a show of defiance reflecting their rejection of Hezbollah’s disarmament. Qassir, however, said those protests were “spontaneous” and not organized by the party.

British Embassy says applications for Chevening Scholarships in UK now open
Naharnet/05 August/2025
The British Embassy in Beirut announced Tuesday that applications for the UK Government’s flagship Chevening Scholarships program are now open. Applicants should apply online via www.chevening.org/apply by 7 October 2025. Lebanese citizens (and Palestinians residing in Lebanon) are eligible to apply under the Lebanon scheme in any subject area, the embassy said in a statement. The scholarship offers full financial support for scholars to study for any eligible master’s degree at over 150 UK universities whilst also gaining access to a wide range of exclusive academic, professional, and cultural experiences.
"Chevening Scholarships are awarded to potential future leaders and individuals from all backgrounds who can clearly demonstrate outstanding leadership, influence, and networking skills. They should have the commitment and skills required to create positive change in their respective field and/or community, and to show how a master’s degree from a UK university would help them achieve that upon their return to their home country," the British Embassy said. Charge D’Affaires Victoria Dunne said that "every year future leaders and inspiring Lebanese scholars attend world-leading universities in the UK through the prestigious Chevening Award. If you can demonstrate outstanding leadership, influence, and networking skills, I strongly encourage you to apply. In Lebanon, we remain inspired by the dedication and drive of the Chevening community who are contributing in their respective fields to the Lebanon they aspire to see."The Scholarship scheme for Lebanon has two local partnerships. For the fifth consecutive year, The Chevening-Siren Associates Scholarship will offer one scholarship to a Lebanese national (or Palestinian national who would be normally resident in Lebanon) to an individual who wishes to pursue a master’s in Governance, International Development, Human Rights or Public Financial Management/Administration at one of the UK’s top 20 universities. For the second year, The Chevening-Raffy Manoukian Scholarship will offer up to three scholarships to a Lebanese (or Palestinian national residing in Lebanon) to an individual pursuing a master's in Information Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, STEM and similar topics at one of the UK’s top 10 universities. In addition to The Chevening-Rebecca Dykes Scholarship which was set up by the British Embassy in Beirut since 2017 offers one scholarship to a woman who wishes to pursue a master's in an area related to Gender Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Development and Human Rights and Refugee and Migration Studies or other similar fields. The candidate is chosen by the British Embassy when awarded the Chevening scholarship.
The Chevening Alumni Association in Lebanon consists of over 250 members, including who have specialized in a variety of subjects, including in gender, human rights, good governance, humanitarian emergencies, economy, health and more. "Since the program started in 1983, over 60,000 professionals have advanced their careers through Chevening, demonstrating the UK’s commitment to developing the leaders of tomorrow," the embassy's statement said. For eligibility and criteria visit www.chevening.org/scholarships. You can also contact the British Embassy at ukinlebanon@fcdo.gov.uk.

Hezbollah rejects timetable for disarmament as Lebanese Cabinet forms plan for arms restrictions
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/August 05, 2025
BEIRUT: The Lebanese Cabinet met at the Presidential Palace on Tuesday to discuss the most sensitive item on its agenda: the disarming of Hezbollah and the need to restrict control of weaponry to the state. However, ministers faced pressure from Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, and his supporters amid external diplomatic counterpressures. The session, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and attended by President Joseph Aoun, lasted for about five hours, with the proceedings shrouded in secrecy. It concluded with an announcement by Salam that the Cabinet had decided to continue the discussions, and to implement proposals presented by US envoy Tom Barrack, during their next meeting on Thursday. They will also ask the Lebanese army to develop a plan to restrict control of arms to the state by the end of the year, and present it to the Cabinet by the end of this month. A political observer told Arab News: “Lebanon has received foreign diplomatic calls to refrain from delaying the approval of the arms-restriction clause and setting a timetable for its implementation. Otherwise, Lebanon will be left to its own fate, in the absence of any guarantees that Israel will, in return, withdraw from the positions it still occupies within Lebanese territory.”Qassem responded to the Cabinet meeting with a vehement speech in which he said: “The state must take steps to ensure protection, not strip its citizens and resistance of their power. The international community cannot intervene merely to demand that Lebanon achieve Israel’s goals.”Beginning on Tuesday morning, the army carried out security operations on the old Sidon road that separates Beirut’s southern suburbs from the city and its eastern suburbs. Their activities blocked demonstrators who attempted to leave the area on motorcycles during the Cabinet meeting in a show of support for Qassem. It came as political and security officials intensified coordination in an attempt to contain street protests and prevent any activity they feared might threaten stability. Beirut has been gripped by anxiety in the past few days, which has affected normally vibrant evening street activity. On Monday night, dozens of Hezbollah-supporting motorcyclists roamed the streets of the capital, chanting “long live Hassan Nasrallah,” the former secretary-general of Hezbollah who was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike on southern Beirut in September last year.
During his speech, Qassem said that “any discussion about Lebanon’s future security must be based on a comprehensive national security strategy, not on timetables aimed at disarming the resistance.” He rejected the demands that Hezbollah disarm, warning that any attempt to impose such action without broad national agreement would fail.
“The resistance is an integral part of the Lebanese fabric and of the Taif Accord itself,” he said, referring to the 1989 agreement that ended the 15-year Lebanese Civil War. “Therefore it cannot be treated as a matter subject to a vote, or cancellation by a numerical majority. Rather, it must be discussed through national consensus, out of respect for constitutional and charter principles.”Ignoring this reality, regardless of international or regional pressures, would “undermine the foundations of stability in Lebanon,” he added. Qassem also said that “the American presence in Lebanon aims to dismantle the power and capabilities of Hezbollah, and Lebanon as a whole,” and the latest, third memorandum on the issue from Barrack, the US envoy, was “worse than the first and second.”He added: “Among its provisions is the dismantling of 50 percent of Hezbollah’s infrastructure within 30 days, including hand grenades and mortar shells, i.e. weapons considered simple, and these measures should be completed before Israel withdraws from the five remaining points on the border.”Qassem said that “what Barrack brought is entirely in Israel’s interest” and added: “We cannot adhere to any timetable for dismantling Lebanon’s power that is implemented under the umbrella of Israeli aggression.“If Israel chooses a large-scale aggression against Lebanon, missiles will fall upon it. All the security that Israel has worked to achieve for eight months will collapse in a single hour.”
He added that if Hezbollah surrendered its weapons, “the aggression will not stop, and this is what Israeli officials are saying. We will not accept being slaves to anyone. To anyone who speaks of concessions under the pretext of halting funding, we ask: what funding is he talking about?
“Prime Minister Nawaf Salam boasts of his commitment to taking measures to liberate all occupied territories, but where are these measures?”
The atmosphere in the 24 hours leading up to the Cabinet meeting was increasingly tense. Pro-Hezbollah activists took to social media to recall the bloody events of May 7, 2008, when the group’s members, wearing black shirts, took to the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon and clashed with supporters of the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party, in an attempt was to overturn a decision by the Lebanese government at the time to confiscate the communications network belonging Hezbollah's Signal Corps, and to dismiss the then commander of Beirut Airport Security, Brig. Gen. Wafiq Shuqair, who was close to Hezbollah. Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, government ministers from the Amal Movement stressed that they supported efforts to restrict control of weapons to the state. Fadi Makki denied that ministers from Amal and Hezbollah would withdraw from the session, and Hanin Al-Sayyed said she would “vote in favor of restricting Hezbollah’s weapons.” However, Rakan Nasser Al-Din, a Hezbollah member of the government, said only: “Anything will be done according to its requirements.”A proposal circulated later on Tuesday stated that Lebanese authorities will “refer the implementation of the arms-control agreement to the Supreme Defense Council, headed by the president of the republic. This referral means assigning the Lebanese army the responsibility of planning and preparing for the implementation phases, as the matter relates to technical military matters. Some weapons need to be destroyed, while others need to be dismantled.”During a speech on Aug 1., celebrated annually as Lebanese Army Day, President Aoun told the country that “this is a fateful phase and all illusions have fallen. Let us together make a historic decision to authorize the army alone to bear arms and protect the borders for all of us.”

Hezbollah threatens to resume firing missiles at Israel if it intensifies operations in Lebanon
Arab News/August 05, 2025
LONDON: Israeli forces on Tuesday raided the home of a Palestinian family in the Bayader area of Hizma, a town north of occupied East Jerusalem. Tear gas was used against residents, resulting in dozens of cases of difficulty breathing among women and children, the Wafa News agency reported.
The three-story building that was targeted belongs to the family of detainee Ahmed Fayez Subaih Al-Khatib and is designated for demolition. The Israeli forces arrived, accompanied by bulldozers, just hours before son Fayez Sbeih was due to get married, and gave the family an hour to evacuate, Wafa said.
According to local media reports the demolition did not take place, however, as the Subaih family’s lawyer filed a legal appeal, and the Israeli forces withdrew about five hours after they arrived. Residents of Hizma have faced repeated attacks by Israeli forces targeting Palestinian areas near Jerusalem, Wafa reported. The town is close to an Israeli military checkpoint and the illegal settlement of Pisgat Zeev. It is next to two main roads leading to Jericho in the south and Ramallah in the north.

Israeli operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah: July 28–August 3, 2025
David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/August 4/2025
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/08/israeli-operations-in-lebanon-against-hezbollah-july-28-august-3-2025.php
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted numerous operations throughout Lebanon against Hezbollah between July 21 and August 3, 2025. The IDF executed fewer operations than usual this week, with its activity mainly concentrated in the Beqaa Valley but also targeting areas north and south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military focused on destroying Hezbollah assets, and its operations included at least one intentional targeted assassination.
On July 29, the IDF released an update on its operations to Lebanon to date, saying that in the 243 days since the ceasefire on November 27, 2024, it had conducted approximately 500 airstrikes in Lebanon and hundreds of ground operations. The Israeli military stated that it has destroyed approximately 90 rocket launchers, 40 weapons storage facilities, 40 Hezbollah military installations, 20 headquarters, 14 unspecified targets in Beirut, five weapons production facilities, three Radwan Force training camps, and “thousands” of Hezbollah rockets. The IDF also noted that it has killed over 230 Hezbollah operatives and commanders in its operations.
Additionally, the IDF reported that since the onset of fighting between it and Hezbollah on October 8, 2023, it has killed between 4,000–5,000 Hezbollah operatives and commanders, made an additional 9,000 combat-ineffective, destroyed 70–80 percent of Hezbollah’s short-range rocket launchers, and demolished approximately 1,500 of the group’s underground installations on the frontlines with Israel.
The IDF also noted that it has adopted an active defense posture in southern Lebanon, centered on its five outposts located within the territory. Its purpose is to maintain Israel’s strategic advantage, destroy remaining weapons and Hezbollah infrastructure, prevent Hezbollah from involvement in local reconstruction efforts, reduce the freedom of movement and action of Hezbollah operatives, and instill within the group a feeling of being pursued and penetrated. As a result, the IDF had deployed two and a half times the number of its previous forces on the border.
The IDF also noted that it had logged 1,280 violations of the ceasefire from the Lebanese side since November 27. Israel dealt unilaterally with 530 of those violations, only subsequently submitting them to the ceasefire oversight committee. Israel submitted 670 violations to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which, per the IDF release, “claims to have dealt with 460” of them. The IDF addressed an additional 80 violations after the LAF failed to do so, and 18 were subsequently deemed irrelevant.
However, the IDF’s release did not elaborate on several factors regarding the ceasefire violations and enforcement that are critical to gauge the effectiveness and seriousness of the LAF’s performance, including:
Why the IDF didn’t first request that the LAF deal with the 530 violations where the IDF acted unilaterally, and the nature of those violations.
The nature of the 460 violations that were submitted to LAF to address.
The nature of the 80 violations that the LAF was asked to address but did not.
Last week, the IDF conducted operations in 14 Lebanese locales, some more than once. The Israeli military carried out 17 batches of airstrikes or other aerial activity, conducted two ground activities, and dropped leaflets and fired flares over one area each.
Bint Jbeil District: Ayta Ash Shaab, Bint Jbeil, Ramyeh, and Yaroun
Hasbaya District: Kfarshouba
Marjayoun District: Kfar Kela and Wazzani
Nabatieh District: Al Khardali Bridge
South Lebanon Governorate
Israeli operations in Lebanon killed five people, all Hezbollah members, and wounded four unidentified individuals.
July 28, 2025: One Hezbollah operative was killed and four unidentified people were wounded.
July 29, 2025: No casualties were reported.
July 30, 2025: No casualties were reported.
July 31, 2025: Four Hezbollah operatives were killed.
August 1, 2025: No casualties were reported.
August 2, 2025: No casualties were reported.
August 3, 2025: No casualties were reported.
Chronology of Israeli operations against Hezbollah, July 28–August 3, 2025
July 28
At 6:57 am, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli forces positioned inside Israel directed gunfire toward the outskirts of Ayta Ash Shaab in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District.
At 7:28 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli drone targeted a motorbike near the pond area in Bint Jbeil in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District. The strike killed one person and wounded four others. At 10:28 pm, the IDF released a statement saying its aircraft had earlier targeted and killed a Hezbollah artillery operative near Bint Jbeil. Hezbollah-affiliated social media accounts soon announced the death of Hezbollah operative Haitham Mohammad Idris, whose nom de guerre was Abdel Rasoul, from Bint Jbeil.
At 11:42 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped an explosive near the cemetery in Ayta Ash Shaab in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District.
At 10:40 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive near the cemetery in Ayta Ash Shaab.
July 31
At 8:40 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted an uninhabited home, which it had struck in the past, near the cemetery in Ayta Ash Shaab in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District.
At 6:14 pm, NNA Lebanon reported an Israeli airstrike on Mahmoudiyeh in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Jezzine District.
At 6:16 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted the area between the outskirts of Khreibeh and Brital in the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate’s Baalbek District.
At 6:22 pm, NNA Lebanon reported three Israeli airstrikes on Mahmoudiyeh in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Jezzine District and near Al Khardali Bridge in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Nabatieh District.
At 6:25 pm, NNA Lebanon reported three new airstrikes near Jarmaq in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Jezzine District.
At 6:27 pm, NNA Lebanon reported an Israeli airstrike on the Shaara area in the Anti-Lebanon Mountain Range in the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate’s Baalbek District.
At 6:31 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that a series of Israeli airstrikes targeted the Anti-Lebanon Mountain Range in the Beqaa area in Beqaa Governorate’s Zahle District.
At 6:38 pm, NNA Lebanon reported an Israeli airstrike on the Nasriyeh-Talat al Sandouq area in the Beqaa Governorate’s Zahle District.
At 6:47 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted the Anti-Lebanon Mountain Range on the outskirts of Brital.
At 7:06 pm, the IDF released a statement saying it had completed a series of strikes on Hezbollah military positions in south Lebanon and the Beqaa area, striking infrastructure used to produce and store explosives and weapons. The statement claimed that “Hezbollah was rebuilding the sites” in “violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
Hezbollah announced the deaths of four of its operatives in the strikes: Hassan Sharif Ghamloush, whose nom de guerre was Jawad Ali, from Jbaa in south Lebanon; Ali Mohammad Hammoud, whose nom de guerre was Ruhollah, from Kfar Malki in south Lebanon; Naaseef al Abed Bahjat, whose nom de guerre was Hadi, from Jibsheet in south Lebanon; and Hassan Mohammad al Hershi, whose nom de guerre was Jawad, from Sohmor in the Beqaa.
At 7:13 pm, NNA Lebanon reported two Israeli airstrikes targeting the area between Khreibeh and Brital.
At 8:12 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli forces fired flares over Wazzani in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 12:14 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped leaflets on Yaroun in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District, which it described as “threatening” the village mukhtar, Mohammad Shahine. The leaflet stated, “Mohammad Shahine, are you still afraid? For more details, listen to 106 FM.” The IDF had also dropped leaflets addressing Shahine on June 4, 2025, accusing him of cooperating with the Hezbollah social NGO WaTaawanou.
August 2
At 11:42 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped an explosive in Ramyeh in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District.
At 11:27 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped three explosives on Kfar Kela in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 11:32 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli troops positioned inside Israel directed gunfire toward Kfarshouba in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Hasbaya District.
August 3
At 7:47 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive on the outskirts of Yaroun in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District.
At 8:05 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that two Israeli quadcopters each dropped an explosive on a digger in the Fawara neighborhood of Yaroun, setting it on fire and damaging it.
**David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.

The illusion of deterrence: Lebanon’s crisis is no longer an Israeli one
Makram Rabah/English Arabiya/August 05/2025
Lebanon stands at a critical juncture. On the eve of a landmark cabinet session expected to address the disarmament of Hezbollah – an issue long avoided by the Lebanese political class – the US government officially delivered its final proposal outlining a roadmap for resolving the country’s security crisis. President Joseph Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri were notified by the Trump administration that the document is final and non-negotiable, in stark contrast to previous drafts that had been left open for discussion. This document offers a phased plan for Hezbollah’s disarmament – beginning with its heavy weapons, followed by drones and unmanned aerial systems, and ending with individual arms. It also calls for the accelerated demarcation of Lebanon’s borders with Syria and Israel, a cessation of Israeli strikes, Israeli withdrawal from remaining occupied points in southern Lebanon, and the release of Lebanese detainees. In return, the United States and its international partners pledge robust support for Lebanon’s reconstruction and economic recovery – contingent upon full compliance with these demands.
To assuage Lebanese sensitivities, key phrases have been softened. “Internationally recognized borders” was replaced with “international borders,” and the matter of Shebaa Farms was deferred to a later phase of negotiations. But the overarching tone remains unequivocal: Washington expects a definitive answer. With the cabinet meeting fast approaching, Lebanon is being asked to shed its habitual ambiguity and finally take a stand. For a state long paralyzed by fear and clientelism, the moment of reckoning has arrived. The timing could not be more symbolic – or more damning. The cabinet is set to meet one day after the fifth anniversary of the Beirut port explosion, a national tragedy for which Hezbollah bears political, logistical, and criminal responsibility. It is a crime that destroyed half the capital, killed hundreds, and injured thousands. And yet, Hezbollah has done everything in its power to obstruct justice, intimidate judges, and derail the investigation. President Aoun’s legacy – if it is to carry any credibility – hinges not only on his ability to confront and disarm Iran’s militia, but also on his refusal to allow the port blast to be buried under the lie of mere negligence. There can be no reconciliation without accountability.
If Hezbollah and the Amal Movement once again resort to creative evasions – boycotting the session, obstructing quorum, or diluting the language of any final resolution – they will only confirm the core argument of this moment: That the militia state remains unwilling to accept the authority of the republic, and that its leadership is committed to maintaining Lebanon as a hostage rather than as a sovereign nation. Such maneuvers will not buy time – they will accelerate collapse.The key question remains: Is Lebanon’s political class willing to govern – or will it continue to outsource sovereignty to a militia?
For decades, Hezbollah has operated beyond the authority of the Lebanese state, unaccountable to its institutions, immune from criticism, and increasingly divorced from the national interest. Its narrative of “resistance” has become a threadbare excuse for political domination, economic capture, and social coercion. Most tellingly, its own leaders, including its uninspiring Secretary- General Naim Qassem, who now insists that disarmament is a “red line,” and that any local initiative to discuss it amounts to treason.
Such statements should provoke national outrage. They confirm what many have long suspected: Hezbollah is not merely unwilling to relinquish its weapons – it is unwilling to acknowledge the authority of the very state it claims to protect. Even United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which Hezbollah once invoked to halt Israeli bombardment, is now dismissed as a threat to its hegemony.
Israel’s recent strikes across southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley were not timed to coincide with political developments in Beirut. They are part of a broader, methodical campaign to degrade Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. More significantly, they reflect a shift in regional perception: Hezbollah is no longer seen as an organic Lebanese actor, but as an Iranian asset whose wars do not rally national unity. What we are witnessing is not the prelude to a full-scale war, but the unraveling of a political-military entity whose bluff has been called. Despite its rhetoric, Hezbollah was unprepared for the current confrontation. Its weapons were never about defending Lebanon – they were about dominating it. When faced with a genuine military threat, Hezbollah’s posture collapsed.
Lebanon can no longer pretend to be a sovereign republic while allowing an unaccountable militia to hold a monopoly over force. No state can claim legitimacy if it tolerates an armed group that invades its capital, silences its critics, derails investigations, and assassinates political opponents – including former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and activist Lokman Slim, and many others in between the two. Even in diplomacy, Hezbollah has failed to act as a national stakeholder. During the maritime demarcation negotiations with Israel, Hezbollah and its allies conceded more than was asked – only to later reframe the outcome as a “resistance victory.” Behind their posturing lies a deeper truth: Hezbollah’s power is ultimately guaranteed not by the Lebanese state, but by tacit American tolerance, as the Obama and the Biden administrations gave Iran and its proxies a mandate over Lebanon and the region.
It is now up to President Aoun and his cabinet to end this deception. The president need not order a military operation – he must instead articulate, clearly and decisively, that only the state has the right to bear arms. Hezbollah’s parallel military structure must end. This is not a call for internal conflict. It is a call to reestablish legal and constitutional order.
Speaker Nabih Berri, too, must be held accountable. His repeated manipulation of the constitution to serve Hezbollah’s interests has undermined the credibility of parliament. The legislature cannot serve as a haven for armed factions. It must represent the people – not their captors. Some claim Lebanon lacks the time, will, or strength to confront Hezbollah. But time has already run out. The international community is offering one final opportunity for Lebanon to reintegrate into the regional order and secure its future. The shift from Morgan Ortagus to Tom Barrack – and now back to Ortagus – is a signal that the window for compromise is closing. Hezbollah’s arsenal no longer serves as a deterrent against Israel. It has become a liability, not only to Lebanon’s sovereignty, but to its very survival. Hezbollah knows this. That’s why it avoided direct escalation and now clings to threats of internal strife. Its resistance rhetoric has given way to the language of coercion. The Lebanese people – especially those in the south many of whom lost their loved ones and their homes – deserve more than the brittle calm of temporary ceasefires. They want lasting peace, rooted not in fear but in dignity, legality, and a shared national purpose. That peace is no longer a dream – it is an inevitability. Lebanon cannot afford to postpone an open, national conversation about its future – nor can it survive failing to do the right thing when the choice is finally placed on the table. The illusion of deterrence has shattered. It is time for Lebanon to choose statehood over submission – before the next opportunity becomes the final warning.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 05-06/2025
Iran names Larijani to head top security body
Al Arabiya English/05 August/2025
Iran has appointed veteran politician Ali Larijani to lead Iran’s top security body, state media said Tuesday. “Ali Larijani was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in a decree by President Masoud Pezeshkian,” official news agency IRNA reported. Larijani, 68, replaces Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general who was named to the position in May 2023. His appointment comes after a 12-day war in June, launched by Israel and later joined by the United States, during which key Iranian nuclear and military sites were hit. The security council is responsible for laying out Iran’s defense and security strategy, but its decisions must be approved by the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The secretary, as the most senior member of the council, oversees the implementation of its decisions. A former member of the IRGC, Larijani has held several senior government positions over three decades. Khamenei made him one of his advisers in May 2020. The following year, Larijani’s presidential run was blocked by a government vetting body despite him being considered a leading candidate. Starting in 2005, Larijani had led Iran’s nuclear policy but resigned after two years of negotiations with Western powers, citing “serious differences” with the president at the time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As parliament speaker from 2008 to 2020, Larijani put his weight behind the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. The son of a grand ayatollah, Larijani comes from an influential Shia Muslim family with ties to the government, and holds a doctorate in philosophy. Tehran and Washington had been engaged in negotiations aimed at reaching a new nuclear deal earlier this year, but the talks were derailed by the Israel-Iran war. Israel said its offensive was aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, an ambition Tehran has consistently denied pursuing. With AFP

Iran says detained sabotage cell linked to exiled opposition
Agence France Presse/August 5, 2025
Iran has arrested three members of a suspected sabotage cell linked to the exiled opposition for attempting to disrupt public order, Iranian media reported Tuesday. The suspects, who are allegedly linked to banned former rebel group the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (MEK), were detained by the Revolutionary Guard in the county of Pakdasht, southeast of Tehran, the ISNA news agency said. "Three members of MEK-linked sabotage cells who sought to disrupt public order and security were identified and arrested," prosecutor Mohammad Hassanpour told ISNA. He accused the MEK of using underground propaganda networks to recruit individuals to form "sabotage cells" aimed at disrupting public order. Security forces dismantled the cell and arrested all its members, he added. Hassanpour said the suspects were undergoing "specialized interrogation" and the investigation was ongoing. Their arrest comes after the execution late last month of two alleged long-term members of the group. They had been found guilty of producing improvised mortars to attack civilians, homes and public institutions.Founded in the 1960s to oppose the Western-backed shah, the MEK was outlawed after the Islamic revolution of 1979 for fighting alongside Saddam Hussein's troops in the Iran-Iraq war. Disarmed by a US-led coalition following its invasion of Iraq in 2003, the group now advocates a change in Iran's system from abroad. In recent weeks, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the group of seeking to foment "unrest" with the aim of toppling the system during Israel's June 13 attack, which triggered a 12-day war with Iran.

Twelve-day war: Impact of Iran’s strikes censored by Israel
Derek THOMSON/The Observers/August 5, 2025
A month after the end of the conflict between Iran and Israel, the damage caused by the Islamic republic remains unclear largely because of Israeli censorship. Images analysed by the FRANCE 24 Observers team show that Iran caused extensive damage and hit at least eight strategic and military targets. Sirens blared in the minutes before an Iranian ballistic missile crashed into the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan on the night of June 13, alerting residents to get into bomb shelters. The next morning, the people of Tirzah Street emerged to the sight of collapsed buildings and cars crushed into one another – hundreds of metres of destruction. One 74-year-old woman was killed. Just hours before Iran’s strike on Ramat Gan, Israel had launched a surprise attack on Iran, kicking off a new armed conflict between the two nations. In a speech broadcast on June 13, 2025, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu justified the attack by citing the “clear and present danger” that the Iranian nuclear program posed to "Israel’s survival”. During the conflict, Israel killed about 30 Iranian senior security officials and 11 Iranian nuclear scientists. The Israeli army attacked more than 900 military sites, and between 800 and 1,000 Iranian missiles were destroyed on the ground.
36 Iranian strikes verified by the Observers team
The strike on Ramat Gan was one of the first to hit Israeli soil. Despite the Israeli strikes on Iran’s military bases, Iran was still able to fire more than 500 missiles at Israel during the 12 days of the war, according to The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an Israeli think tank with links to the University of Tel Aviv. While most of the missiles were intercepted by the Israeli defence system, INSS reported that more than 50 missiles struck the country. The two parties, however, have had divergent narratives on the impact of the Iranian strikes both during and after the 12 days of the conflict. Iranian authorities bragged about their successes, claiming that they hit 16 strategic sites in Israel, while Israeli authorities minimised the damage caused by the Iranian strikes. The FRANCE 24 Observers team identified and geolocated 36 different Iranian strikes in Israel using open source data and by cross-referencing both amateur and professional images. The images that we verified show large swaths of destruction in several residential areas, as well as evidence that strikes hit strategic and military sites. Even though Israel incurred less damage than Iran, our investigation reveals that major strikes did take place but were kept under wraps by Israeli censorship. During the hostilities, the Israeli army ordered Israeli and international media outlets to refrain from publishing images of strikes on or near military targets.
Silence around strikes on military sites
Thanks to amateur images leaked online, our team was able to identify four Iranian missiles that landed on or near Israeli military zones. On June 17, an Iranian missile hit Camp Moshe Dayan, just a few hundred metres from the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. The camp, located in Ramat HaSharon to the north of Tel Aviv, is home to both Mossad and Unit 8200, which specialises in intercepting communications. An amateur video shows the impact of the missile on the camp, and photos taken on the ground that were published on Telegram enabled us to confirm that at least one building – a hangar – was damaged, though we don’t know what the hangar was being used for before it came under fire. Three other missiles visible in the video hit civilian targets near the camp. Despite the site’s strategic importance, neither the authorities nor Israeli or international media outlets reported this strike. It was the same story for a strike that hit the Kirya, a neighbourhood in Tel Aviv, on June 13. The Kirya is home to both the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Ministry of Defence. While reporting live, Trey Yingst, a journalist with the US news channel Fox News, had just said that a building in the complex had been hit by an Iranian missile when he was interrupted by a man who told him, in English, to “go back”. The journalist asks his cameraman to turn towards another building. However, he is interrupted again, and the cameraman is forced to turn his camera towards the ground. The video isn’t visible on the social media channels of Fox News, but it was copied and then shared online. By examining photos and videos of the strike, our team was able to determine that the strike hit the Da Vinci complex, a 32-floor residential building, which is located right next to the military complex.
The way that information about this attack was reported in other Israeli and international media outlets also makes it look like censorship was at play. Israeli newspaper Haaretz waited until June 29 to mention this strike in an article – a full two weeks after the attack took place, even though the images of it had already circulated online.
We were also able to verify two other strikes that hit military targets thanks to data from the University of Oregon. One strike hit the airbase in Tel Nof, to the south of Rehovot. Another hit Camp Zipporit, located to the north of Nazareth. Our team asked the IDF on August 1 if they could confirm that Iranian missiles had hit Israeli military sites during the conflict. The army had not responded by the publication of this article. If the army does send a statement, we will update this article.
An oil refinery that has halted operations for several months
Additional Iranian strikes have hit strategic infrastructure for the Israeli economy. We identified that three Iranian attacks damaged energy infrastructure. Two hit and damaged an oil refinery in the port city of Haifa on the night of June 14. We were able to geolocate one of the impacts using images published by the press and those we found on social media. We were able to geolocate the other using satellite images. If you compare an aerial view of one building located in the western part of the oil refinery on June 21 – a few days after the strike – with another image from December 2024, you can see that it looks like the roof has caved in, leaving the building’s skeleton exposed. After the wave of attacks on the night of June 14, Bazan Group – which runs the oil refinery – halted its activities for nearly two weeks. The company informed the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that it wouldn’t be back to full operations until October. It further reported that damage to the refinery caused by the Iranian missiles is estimated at between 150 and 200 million dollars. Three employees died in a fire caused by the attack.
Several million dollars of damage caused to a research institute
Another one of the so-called "strategic” Iranian missile strikes hit the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, on the night of June 14. The institute is ranked among the best in the world (outside the United States). It also has strong links to the Israeli defence industry. The AP, quoting the Institute, reported that the missile hit two buildings. One housed a biology lab. The other, which was still under construction, was to be used for chemistry research. More than 45 labs were damaged, according to the Times of Israel. Researchers at the institute estimated the damage at hundreds of millions of dollars. According to several images verified by our team, one of the buildings hit by the strike was completely destroyed.
Residential areas in ruin
Out of the 36 strikes that our team geolocated on Israeli soil, 28 hit civilian sites. Some hit fields, beaches, and parking lots, but others caused extensive damage across the country.
The town of Rehovot, located about 20 kilometres south of Tel Aviv, was one of the cities most impacted by Iranian missiles. One strike on the night of June 14 landed downtown, damaging or destroying a number of neighbouring buildings. Drone images filmed a few hours after the impact by local media outlet News Rehovot give a sense of the scale of the damage. Videos available on TikTok show the extent of the damage, including shops with blown-out windows and crumbled facades more than 250 metres from the point of impact. Iranian strikes hit a number of residential areas in Israel throughout the month of June. A missile hit a parking lot in the southwest of Tel Aviv on June 16, tearing apart most of the surrounding buildings. speech broadcast on June 10, our team shows how we located damage nearly 300 metres from the point of impact. 3,500 people injured, 41,000 requests for compensation filed Farzin Nadimi, a researcher at the Washington Institute who specialises in Iranian security and defence, says that civilian areas were among the targets of the Islamic republic. “At some point, during or from the very beginning of the campaign, they actually intended to strike residential areas,” Nadimi told our team. “You shouldn't forget that they consider all Israelis as enemies, enemy combatants.”
Nadimi says that these strikes may have been part of an Iranian strategy to negotiate an end to the conflict. “They knew that by pressuring the Israeli civilians and by destroying the residential areas, they would pressure the Israeli government and the military to probably agree to a ceasefire,” he said. The destruction caused by Iranian missiles to Israel had a direct impact on the lives of many Israelis. Nearly 3,500 Israelis were injured during the conflict with Iran, according to INSS, and about 30 people died. More than 41,000 applications were submitted to the Compensation Fund at the Israel Tax Authority. In Israel, these funds cover some of the damage to buildings and materials caused by war. However, this damage remains minor compared to what Iran experienced. Around 935 Iranians were killed and more than 4,700 people were injured by Israeli and American bombs, according to INSS.
Blind missiles
Outside of the missiles that caused damage, our team also identified strikes that hit roads, parking lots, and even uninhabited zones. For example, we identified one strike that took place on June 14 in the northern Israeli city of Tirat Carmel. A video of the missile falling shows that it hit a beach, located a few dozen metres from a road and 200 metres from the closest homes. It was a full two kilometres from the Tirat Carmel military base. A missile landed in a parking lot in the town of Beersheba on June 20, damaging several nearby buildings and setting fire to a number of cars. A new military base, which houses the southern command of the army and a division specialised in cyber defence and communication technology, is just 300 metres from the point of impact. The parking lot is also close to Beersheba’s so-called "cyber campus" where American companies Microsoft, IBM and Dell all have offices. The Iranian authorities have not clearly communicated what they were targeting, so it is hard to determine their intentions. Nadimi thinks that the missiles that fell a few hundred metres from military and strategic targets lacked precision. “While they were quite ‘successful’ at hitting residential blocks in central Tel Aviv, for example, they still lack precision to specifically strike a certain building in a military, security, or intelligence complex.”When reporting on a strike that hit Soroka Hospital on June 19, Israeli newspaper Haaretz suggested that Iran might be following a strategy of “ballistic terror.” This would explain the three Iranian strikes using cluster missiles. These weapons, used to hit a number of targets at once, hit buildings housing a school and nursery in southern Israel on June 20. There were no victims.
Strong censorship from the authorities
All of the strikes that we reported in this article were either partially or fully kept under wraps by Israeli military censorship. A Chief Censor in the Israeli military is tasked with limiting the sensitive information disseminated by both Israeli and international media outlets. Guidelines updated in May specify that information about “the impact and results of enemy actions and attacks… carried out against the state of Israel” must be submitted to the Censor before publication. Authorities doubled down on these policies after the conflict with Iran began. In a communiqué dated June 16 and addressed to all Israeli and international newsrooms present in Israel, the Chief Censor said that “the use of drones or fixed-position cameras to capture wide-area footage around the impact site is strictly prohibited”. On June 17, Israeli police arrested journalists from the Turkish Arabic-language channel TRT and the Egyptian channel Al Ghad TV who were filming the port in Haifa. Police also seized some of their material. And while Israel has been trying to limit the spread of information about all missile impacts on its territory, information about strikes that damaged military sites is even more tightly controlled. In the same communiqué, the Chief Censor banned “filming damage at or near military sites” and broadcasting “the exact address of the impact location” in “civilian areas near security facilities”.

Israel considers full Gaza takeover as more die of hunger
Reuters/August 05, 2025
TEL AVIV/CAIRO, Aug 5 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors a complete military takeover of Gaza for the first time in two decades, media reported, and was to meet senior security officials on Tuesday to finalize a new strategy in the 22-month war.
Mediation between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has collapsed despite intense international pressure for a ceasefire to ease hunger and appalling conditions in the besieged Palestinian enclave. Eight more people died of starvation or malnutrition in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said, while another 79 died in the latest Israeli fire. Netanyahu was to meet Defense Minister Israel Katz and military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir to decide on a strategy to take to cabinet later this week, an Israeli official told Reuters. Strategic Affairs Minister Rob Dermer, a confidant of Netanyahu, would also be present.
Israel’s Channel 12, citing an official from Netanyahu’s office, said the prime minister was leaning toward taking control of the entire territory. That would reverse a 2005 decision to pull settlers and military out of Gaza while retaining control over its borders, a move right-wing parties blame for Hamas gaining power there. It was unclear, however, whether Netanyahu was foreseeing a prolonged occupation or a short-term operation aimed at dismantling Hamas and freeing Israeli hostages. The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Channel 12 report.
A Palestinian official said it may be a tactic to pressure Hamas into concessions, while the Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged foreign nations to take heed of the reports. “The ministry urges countries and the international community to treat these leaks with utmost seriousness and to intervene urgently to prevent their implementation, whether these leaks are meant to exert pressure, test international reactions, or are genuine and serious,” it said.
STRAINED MILITARY
Israel’s coalition government, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in its history, includes far-right politicians who advocate for the annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank and encourage Palestinians to leave their homeland. Nearly two years of fighting in Gaza has strained the military, which has a small standing army and has had to repeatedly mobilize reservists. It has throughout the war pushed back against the idea of Israel fully occupying Gaza and establishing military rule. In a sign of differences between some members of Israel’s ruling coalition and the military, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on X challenged military head Zamir to state he would comply with government directives even if a decision was made to take all of Gaza. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar then said the military chief must give his professional opinion, while Defense Minister Katz weighed in to say the military would professionally implement whatever policy the government set. “Defeating Hamas in Gaza, while creating the conditions for the return of the hostages, are the central goals of the war in Gaza, and we must take all necessary actions to achieve them,” Katz said. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants on October 7, 2023, attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing 251 hostages, taking them into Gaza. Israel’s military response has devastated the tiny, crowded enclave, killing more than 61,000 people — mostly civilians — according to Palestinian health authorities.
HUNGER
Israel’s campaign has forced nearly all of Gaza’s over 2 million people from their homes and caused what a global hunger monitor called last week an unfolding famine. Some 188 Palestinians, including 94 children, have died from hunger since the war began, according to Gaza authorities. An Israeli security official, in a briefing to reporters, acknowledged there may be hunger in some parts of Gaza but rejected reports of famine or starvation. International anger at the suffering in Gaza has prompted several countries to recognize or announce their intention to recognize Palestine as an independent state.
On Tuesday, Israeli tanks pushed into central Gaza but it was not clear if the move was part of a larger ground offensive. Palestinians living in the last quarter of territory where Israel has not yet taken military control — via ground incursions or orders for civilians to leave — said any new push would be catastrophic. “If the tanks pushed through, where would we go, into the sea? This will be like a death sentence to the entire population,” said Abu Jehad, a Gaza wood merchant. The failed mediation in Doha had aimed to clinch agreements on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce, during which aid would be flown into Gaza and half of the hostages Hamas is holding would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

How Israel’s Netanyahu created a monster in Gaza — which came back to bite him
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/August 05, 2025
LONDON: Politics often gives rise to unexpected partnerships, which might at first glance seem illogical — even outright irrational. But for those who broker them, there is usually some inherent logic. In the case of the partnership between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, however, they can also be twisted and destructive. The relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas, which began long before the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war in Gaza, is a prime example of a complete misreading by the Israeli prime minister of the true intentions of this fundamentalist organization, which would have tragic repercussions for both peoples. What brings Netanyahu and Hamas together is that neither appear to have any interest in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a compromise that could lead to a two-state solution. For the longest-serving Israeli prime minister in the country’s history, averting an end to the conflict based on ending the occupation and agreeing to a two-state solution is his life’s mission. James Dorsey of the Middle East Institute believes Netanyahu has developed a symbiotic relationship with the hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide as a tool for sabotaging any progress toward a peace process — let alone a successful conclusion. One telling instance came soon after Netanyahu was first elected as prime minister in 1996 and Israel unexpectedly dropped the request made by his predecessor, Shimon Peres, for Hamas political bureau member Mousa Abu Marzouk to be extradited from the US, where he was a resident, against the advice of the security establishment.This enabled a major Hamas figure to continue his advocacy for armed resistance freely from outside Gaza after his deportation to Jordan. One might think that a right-wing leader, at a time when other Hamas leaders were in Israeli jails, including its founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, would be keen to put someone with Abu Marzouk’s history behind bars. That is unless Netanyahu already saw the potential in Hamas, with its total resistance to Israel’s existence, of keeping him in power, allowing him to become increasingly authoritarian, and leaving the two-state solution as an eternally hypothetical option. In the symbiotic relationship between the two, Netanyahu needed Hamas and Hamas needed Netanyahu, because they justified each other’s existence in convincing their respective constituencies that they are each other’s antidote. Preserving the relevance of Hamas in Palestinian politics and the conflict with Israel have become key instruments in Netanyahu’s strategy of preventing Palestine from becoming a state, mainly by maintaining divisions within Palestinian society.
The victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election against the governing Fatah movement played into the hands of Netanyahu. He further relished the violent split in Gaza a year later between Fatah and Hamas, which left Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, in control of the West Bank and Hamas in control of Gaza.
With the Palestinian polity divided politically and territorially, and bad blood between the two factions, Netanyahu saw more than ever the opportunity to divide and conquer. He is not the only one in Israeli politics to harbor this Machiavellian approach. Bezalel Smotrich, now Israel’s finance minister and one of the most extreme representatives of the settlers’ movement in the cabinet, told the Knesset Channel in 2015: “Hamas is an asset and Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is a burden.”Speaking to Israeli media outlet Makor Rison in 2019, one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers, Jonathan Urich, praised the Israeli prime minister for succeeding “in achieving severance” between Gaza and the West Bank and “effectively smashed the vision of the Palestinian state in those two regions.”One of the ploys to keep the Palestinian political system divided and paralyzed, many times with the unfortunate helping hand of Palestinian factions themselves, is to make it impossible to conduct free and fair elections. Such elections would offer the victor both domestic and international legitimacy, allowing them to advocate with enhanced credibility for an end to Israeli occupation. On the rare occasion that holding elections seemed to be possible, as was the case in the spring of 2021, Israel created obstacles, such as ignoring the EU’s request to access the Palestinian occupied territories to observe the elections, in violation of the Oslo accords, and refusing to allow for East Jerusalemites to vote, knowing that without their participation, no Palestinian leader would agree to hold elections.

Netanyahu holds talks with Israeli security officials over full Gaza occupation plans
Gavin Blackburn/Euronews/August 5, 2025
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with senior security officials to discuss war plans for Gaza on Tuesday as tensions between him and the military reportedly rise over the prospect of the IDF fully occupying the Strip, domestic media say. On Monday night, Netanyahu said that a decision had been made for the complete occupation of Gaza, including in areas where Hamas-held hostages are believed to be located. "We're committing to free Gaza from the tyranny of these terrorists," Netanyahu said in a video address posted on X. "Many Gazans come to us and they say 'Help us be free. Help us be free of Hamas' and that's what we will do."Tuesday's talks include Defence Minister Israel Katz, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and IDF Operations Directorate head Major General Itzik Cohen, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. But the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who are both staunch supporters of the complete takeover of Gaza, have been excluded from the meeting, the Israel Hayom daily said. Netanyahu reportedly told ministers this week that he would seek cabinet backing for a plan to fully occupy Gaza, despite objections from within the IDF. In comments directed to his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, in his message on Monday night, Netanyahu said, "If this does not suit you, then you should resign." Zamir is believed to be against the takeover plan, which has sparked anger among those loyal to Netanyahu. Ben Gvir said Zamir should commit to carrying out the orders of elected officials. "The chief of staff must say clearly that he will fully carry out the orders of the political echelon, even if it's decided to go for full conquest and a clear result," Ben Gvir said in a post on X. Gaza Security and Recovery Programme on the table? No other details have so far been released about what the plans for a post-war Gaza would look like, but they could match those in a document seen by Euronews dated December 2023. That proposal, in the form of a 32-page academic paper titled "Gaza Security and Recovery Programme, How Should The Day After Look Like," was authored by the Israel Defence and Security Forum, a group of over 35,000 Israeli security force reservists and the think tank Jerusalem Centre for Security and Foreign Affairs. The study was presented to the Israeli government at an unknown date and represents one of the future options currently under consideration by Israel for the Gaza Strip, according to officials who spoke to Euronews. The proposal depicts what "the day after" should look like in the scenario of the fall of Hamas. It entails economic reconstruction, building infrastructure and, as the authors of the study say, "uprooting a murderous ideology," also labelled as a process of "de-Nazification." "In order to prepare for the new state of affairs, even though the results of the military operation have not yet been achieved, it is necessary to prepare an orderly plan for the control of the Gaza Strip after the fall of Hamas," the document reads. The plan explicitly excludes the sovereignty of Palestine, or more specifically the Palestinian Authority (PA), or the presence of the United Nations relief agency, UNRWA, as a source for humanitarian aid.


What to know as Israel considers reoccupying Gaza in what would be a major escalation of the war
Joseph Krauss/The Associated Press/August 5, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering ordering the full reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media, a move that would draw fierce opposition internationally and within Israel. It would mark a stunning escalation of the nearly 22-month war in the territory that has already been largely destroyed and where experts say famine is unfolding. It would put the lives of countless Palestinians and about 20 living hostages at risk, and deepen Israel's already stark international isolation. It would also face fierce opposition within Israel: Families of the hostages would consider it a virtual death sentence, and much of the security establishment is also reportedly opposed to an open-ended occupation that would bog down and further strain the army after nearly two years of regional wars. The threat to reoccupy Gaza could be a negotiating tactic aimed at pressuring Hamas after talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar appeared to have broken down last month. Or it could be aimed at shoring up support from Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners. His governing allies have long called for escalating the war, taking over Gaza, relocating much of its population through what they refer to as voluntary emigration and reestablishing Jewish settlements that were dismantled when Israel withdrew in 2005. Whether they prevail will likely depend on the one person with leverage over Israel — U.S. President Donald Trump, who has not yet weighed in. Ground operations in the most densely populated areas. To take full control of Gaza, Israel would need to launch ground operations in the last areas of the territory that haven't been flattened and where most of Gaza's 2 million Palestinians have sought refuge. That would mean going into the central city of Deir al-Balah and Muwasi, a so-called humanitarian zone where hundreds of thousands of people live in squalid tent camps along the coast. Such operations would force another wave of mass displacement and further disrupt aid deliveries as the U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations are already struggling to avert famine.
Israel already controls around 75% of the territory, which has been declared a buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders. With Israel also largely sealing Gaza's borders, it's unclear where civilians would go. It would also pose a major risk for the remaining 20 or so living hostages, likely held in tunnels or other secret locations. Hamas is believed to have ordered its guards to kill captives if Israeli forces approach. Hamas-led militants abducted 251 hostages in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war and killed around 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians. They are still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, and recent videos have shown emaciated captives pleading for their lives. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and run by medical professionals, is seen by the United Nations and other experts as the most reliable source on casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own.
International outrage and further isolation
Israel's wartime conduct has shocked much of the international community, and prompted even close Western allies to call for an end to the war and to take steps to recognize Palestinian statehood. The International Court of Justice is considering allegations of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a method of war. Israel has rejected the allegations and accused those making them of antisemitic “blood libel." It says it has taken every effort to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants are deeply entrenched in heavily populated areas. Israel has said it will keep fighting until all the hostages are returned, Hamas is defeated or disarmed, and Gaza's population is given the option of “voluntary emigration,” which the Palestinians and much of the international community view as forcible expulsion. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. It says it is willing to give up power but will not lay down its arms as long as Israel occupies territories the Palestinians want for a future state.
Another open-ended occupation
Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. The United Nations, the Palestinians and others continued to view Gaza as occupied territory after the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers, as Israel maintained control of its airspace, coastline, most of its land border and its population registry. The full reoccupation of Gaza would pose long-term challenges that Israel is well aware of given its long history of occupying Arab lands, including the likelihood of a prolonged insurgency. Israeli support for the war already appears to have declined since Netanyahu ended a ceasefire in March, as soldiers have been killed in hit-and-run attacks. As an occupying power, Israel would be expected to maintain order and ensure the basic needs of the population are met. In the West Bank, it has largely outsourced that to the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in population centers. But in Gaza, Netanyahu has ruled out any future role for the PA, accusing it of not being fully committed to peace, and has not produced any plan for Gaza's postwar governance and reconstruction.
Long-term repercussions
Even if Israel succeeds in suppressing Hamas, the reoccupation of Gaza could pose an even more profound threat to the country. It would leave Israel in full control of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, which is home to around 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians — most of the latter denied basic rights, including the vote. Even before the war, major human rights groups said the situation amounted to apartheid, something Israel vehemently denies. Unless large numbers of Palestinians are expelled — no longer merely a fantasy of Israel's far-right — Israel would face an all-too-familiar existential dilemma: Create a Palestinian state in the 1967 territories and preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, or rule over millions of Palestinians indefinitely and hope they never rally behind the idea of equal rights in a binational state. Israel would no longer be able to point to Hamas' rule in Gaza, or factional divisions among Palestinians, as reasons to avoid such a reckoning. And when Trump leaves office, it may find it has few friends to back it up.

Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs
AP/August 05, 2025
GAZA CITY: Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory’s rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza’s markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said. Drivers have been killed in the mayhem. Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a “worst-case scenario of famine” in Gaza.
FASTFACT
Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields.
Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it’s still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said.
Thousands of people packed the road around them on Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, as shown in AP video. Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs’ roofs, dangling from the sides, and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving. “Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they’re concerned about how they’ll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,” said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers’ rights. Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving.
Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head.  Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices, Now, “with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,” said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses. The UN does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid, it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren’t violent. Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Ali Al-Derbashi, 22, had been an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago due to the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives, and axes, he said.
He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There, everything was stolen, including his truck’s fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen.
“We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don’t even have water or food ourselves,” he said.  In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through “prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.” The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government.
The threats come from everywhere
Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere.  He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields.  In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks. Hossni Al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings.
Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations.
Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger.Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week, his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd. “Our instructions are to stop, because we don’t want to run anyone over,” he said.
“It’s crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It’s like you’re blind, you can’t see out.”After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said. “Every time we go out, we get robbed,” he said. “It’s getting worse day by day.”

Syrian and Turkish interior ministers discuss security cooperation in Ankara
Arab News/August 05, 2025
LONDON: Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab discussed various topics with his Turkish counterpart, Ali Yerlikaya, during his official visit to Ankara this week. The two ministers explored ways to strengthen security cooperation and coordination, in addition to supporting and developing Syrian security institutions. Khattab highlighted the status of Syrian nationals who sought refuge in Turkiye during the civil war, calling for continued cooperation with Ankara to ensure their safe return home, the SANA agency reported. Yerlikaya wrote on X that his meeting with Khattab focused on providing essential support to the security and related units of the Syrian Interior Ministry. “(We discussed) sharing experience and providing an intensive training program and cooperating on the return of Syrians under temporary protection in our country,” he said. “Strengthening security in Syria is vital for the consolidation of internal peace, economic development and social welfare,” he added, affirming Turkiye’s support of Syria’s stability.

Syrian president and UK national security adviser discuss strengthening ties
Arab News/August 05, 2025
LONDON: Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the interim president of the Syrian Arab Republic, discussed strengthening ties with the UK during a meeting with National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell in Damascus on Tuesday. The two sides discussed regional and international developments during a meeting attended by Asaad Al-Shaibani, the minister of foreign affairs and expatriates, and Director of General Intelligence Hussein Al-Salama. Al-Sharaa emphasized Syria’s willingness to consider sincere initiatives that promote regional security and stability, as long as they respect Syrian sovereignty and independent national decisions, the official SANA news agency reported.

Witkoff to meet with Russian leadership in Moscow on Wednesday, source says
Arab News/August 05, 2025
WASHINGTON: US special envoy Steve Witkoff will be in Moscow on Wednesday to meet with Russian leadership, a source familiar with the plan said on Tuesday.Officials in Washington provided few details of Witkoff’s schedule.“The president has noted, of course, that Special Envoy Witkoff will be traveling to Russia this week, so we can confirm that from this podium,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters. “What that will entail, I have no details for you.”Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, quoting aviation sources, said an aircraft believed to have Witkoff on board, had already left the United States. US President Donald Trump, who has signaled frustration with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in recent weeks, has given him until this Friday to make progress toward peace in Ukraine or face tougher sanctions.

Zelenskyy speaks with Trump ahead of Putin ceasefire deadline
Reuters/05 August/2025
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he had had a “productive” conversation with his US counterpart Donald Trump on ending the war, sanctions on Russia and the finalization of a US-Ukraine drone deal. Trump, who has signaled frustration with Vladimir Putin in recent weeks, has given the Russian president until August 8 to make peace in Ukraine or face tougher sanctions. “President Trump is fully informed about Russian strikes on Kyiv and other cities and communities,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, referring to intensifying drone and missile attacks. Trump has threatened to hit Russia with new sanctions and impose 100 percent tariffs on countries that buy its oil, but sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Putin was unlikely to bow to the ultimatum. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was also ready to conclude a deal with the US on the purchase of Ukrainian drones that would amount to “one of the strongest agreements.” He had earlier said the deal was worth around $30 billion. Ukraine is increasingly seeking financing and investment from its foreign partners to bolster its burgeoning domestic arms industry. Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s European partners had so far pledged to buy more than $1 billion in US weapons for Ukraine as part of a new scheme.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on August 05-06/2025
UN report shows Islamic State and Al Qaeda exploiting post-Assad chaos in Syria

Ahmad Sharawi/| FDD's Long War Journal/August 04/2025
On July 29, the United Nations Security Council Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team released its latest report detailing terrorist group activities around the world. The section on Syria discussed the most recent developments related to the resurgence of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, in addition to the difficulties of integrating various groups into the country’s military.
The UN Monitoring Team report notes that “at least 9 out of 23 [Syrian government] ministers are directly or indirectly linked” to Hayat Tahir al Sham (HTS), the former Islamist coalition led by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa that took over Syria and overthrew former dictator Bashar al Assad. HTS succeeded Jabhat al Nusrah, Al Qaeda’s former branch in Syria. Among the HTS-affiliated officials are the heads of the most prominent ministries: foreign affairs, defense, interior, and justice.
The report also highlights the rising sectarian violence in Syria, most importantly, the massacres on the Syrian coast in March 2025, where HTS affiliates, Turkish-backed Syrian National Army factions, and Hurras al Din, Al Qaeda’s current affiliate in Syria, took part. UN Monitoring Team further states that “many tactical-level individuals hold more extreme views than the HTS leader and interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and the Interior Minister Anas Khattab, who are generally regarded as more pragmatic than ideological.” Finally, the report claims that there are “no active ties between Al-Qaeda and HTS.”
The UN Monitoring Team details how, in the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime, both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda took advantage of the chaos and “seized stockpiles of heavy weaponry held by the previous government.” Prisoners affiliated with both groups also managed to escape from prisons. The most recent escape was in March, when 70 detainees fled a prison in Aleppo. In total, 500 detainees linked to both terrorist organizations have been released since the fall of the Assad regime.
The UN Monitoring Team report assesses that the Islamic State “exploited shifting security conditions in the Syrian Arab Republic, where some key leaders remained based, and maintained up to 3,000 fighters across Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic.”
The primary location of the Islamic State’s cells has been the Syrian Desert, with a smaller presence “near Damascus and the Aleppo countryside, Homs and southern regions.”
According to the report, the Islamic State “also tried to incite sectarian tensions and ran multilingual campaigns to discredit al-Sharaa, recruiting some dissatisfied fighters, foreign terrorist fighters and former regime soldiers.”
While the UN Monitoring Team does not name specific groups linked to the Islamic State, Saraya Ansar al Sunnah—a group that claims it splintered from Hayat Tahrir al Sham—can be linked to the Islamic State, given that it has continuously criticized Sharaa and incited against minorities in Syria. The report claims that the Islamic State “carried out more than 90 attacks across the country, mostly targeting Syrian Democratic Forces in north-eastern Syrian Arab Republic, where about 400 ISIL (Da’esh) fighters remain active.”
Regarding Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the report claims that Hurras al Din saw its decision to dissolve as “largely symbolic.” The report adds that the “group retained approximately 2,000 fighters.” The group’s leaders are Samir Hijazi and Sami al Aridi, who are present in northwest Syria and have coordinated with “HTS defectors to form new factions in Idlib and the coastal countryside.”
The report further claims that some members within Hurras al Din are “exploring relocation to Afghanistan, Africa, or Yemen under al-Qaida leadership.”
The UN Monitoring Team report also raised the issue of “foreign terrorist fighters,” stating that the number of them “at large in the Syrian Arab Republic [is] estimated at more than 5,000.” It further claimed that “certain foreign terrorist fighters (in particular from Central Asia) retained external ambitions, were dissatisfied with the interim government’s approach, and may operate beyond its control.”
Notably, the Trump administration has greenlit the integration of foreign fighters into Syria’s armed forces. Despite the integration of the Turkistan Islamic Party, an Al Qaeda-affiliated Uighur jihadist group that operates in both Afghanistan and Syria, into the Syrian army under the 84th Division, the report mentioned that the “interim government had not asserted full control over all factions, including some that held extremist ideologies.”
One of those independent groups is Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad, a US-designated terrorist organization. Other organizations mentioned by the report are “Ajnad al-Kawkaz, Ansar al-Tawhid, Ansar al-Islam, Ansar al-Din, [and] Katibad al-Ghoraba al-Faransiya.” Some of these groups still have a relationship with Al Qaeda affiliates and share logistics.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/08/un-report-shows-islamic-state-and-al-qaeda-exploiting-post-assad-chaos-in-syria.php
*Ahmad Sharawi is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on Iranian intervention in Arab affairs and the levant.

How Hamas Sees the West's Recognition of 'Palestine'

Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/August 05/2025
Hamas's primary goal is to remain in power after the war so that it can continue its jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel.
Western leaders have succeeded in making any negotiations impossible. The message they sent -- especially in Europeans -- was: Massacre and keep the hostages and be rewarded with a state. The terrorists clearly see, yet again, that terrorism pays off. So keep on doing it!
Despite their opposition to the "two-state solution," the Palestinian terrorists are nevertheless prepared to take any land Israel gives them so it can be used as a launchpad to destroy Israel.
In 2017, Hamas issued a "policy document" that confirmed this approach. The terror group made it clear in its document that it would not oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Hamas, however, stressed that this does not mean that the terror group would recognize Israel's right to exist.
Hamas's policy document has been mistakenly interpreted by some Westerners as a sign of pragmatism, moderation and acceptance of the "two-state solution" on the part of the terror group. False. Hamas, as part of a campaign to deceive and mislead Westerners into accepting it as a legitimate player in the Palestinian arena, is pretending that it supports a Palestinian next to Israel. In reality, Hamas is clearly stating that such a state will be used for "the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea."
In the same document, Hamas makes it abundantly clear that it will pursue its jihad against Israel after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
This is certainly not the right time to talk about a "two-state solution." The jihadists and terrorists see it as a reward for their atrocities against Israel. It is more important to focus efforts on dismantling and crushing all the Palestinian terror groups and embarking on a process of deradicalization for the Palestinians before talking about a peace process or "two-state solution."
Under the current circumstances, statements about recognizing a Palestinian state send a message to the Palestinians that terrorism and violence -- not negotiations -- are the best way to gain international support for statehood... and anything else.
Hamas's primary goal is to remain in power after the war so that it can continue its jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel. Pictured: Hamas terrorists n Khan Yunis, Gaza, on February 1, 2025. (Photo by Moiz Salhi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The recent announcements by France, Britain, Canada and other countries that they intend to recognize a Palestinian state have emboldened the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas. Its members, on October 7, 2023, were behind the worst crime committed against Jews since the Holocaust. The massacre resulted in the murder of more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and the wounding of thousands. In addition, another 251 Israelis and foreign nationals were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 50 hostages – 30 believed dead and 20 believed alive – are still held captive.
This was Hamas's initial reaction to the announcements: "The recognition of the State of Palestine with full sovereignty is the fruit of our people's continuous struggle." Hamas clearly views the statements made by the leaders of France, Britain, Canada and other countries as the direct result of its October 7 carnage.
The announcements by the Western countries about recognizing a Palestinian state came at a time when Hamas has consistently rejected all proposals for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. Hamas continues to insist that Israel surrender -- by ending the war started by the terror group on October 7 and withdrawing its forces from the Gaza Strip as a precondition for a ceasefire-hostage deal. Hamas's primary goal is to remain in power after the war so that it can continue its jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel.
Instead of exerting pressure on Hamas to release the hostages, lay down its weapons and relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, the leaders of France, Britain, Canada and other Western countries have sent a message to the terror group: The October 7 massacres will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, undoubtedly ruled by Iranian-backed jihadists who murdered, raped, tortured, beheaded and abducted thousands of Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7.
Western leaders have succeeded in making any negotiations impossible. The message they sent -- especially in Europeans -- was: Massacre and keep the hostages and be rewarded with a state. The terrorists clearly see, yet again, that terrorism pays off. So keep on doing it!
Hamas leaders can only conclude that by not releasing the hostages, they have advanced "in the right direction." Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim wrote:
"O our great people...
"Based on my monitoring of the international scene, what is happening today around the world is not merely a campaign of solidarity — it is a true global revolution in support of Palestinian rights: for freedom and the right to determine our destiny. It surpasses the borders of the great city [Gaza] that is creating miracles and laying the foundation for future glory — Gaza. I do not believe there has ever been a city or cause in human history that has achieved such unanimous and unwavering global support for victory, despite all differences in religion, race, and language, as Gaza and Palestine have.
"The road ahead is long, difficult, painful, and costly, but it is honorable and precious. We are moving in the right direction — toward victory and liberation — and the steps are closer than we expect. Our enemy and its allies know this very well.
"God Almighty will grant us victory, and when He gives, He gives with honor. And in that moment, all who played a role in this glorious epic will be proud — proud of their contribution to the history of our people and our cause."
In a post on X, a Hamas-affiliated account praised the Western countries that have announced their intention to recognize a Palestinian state: "Legitimacy advances, Occupation [Israel] Erodes." According to the QudsNet account, the recent statements by Western leaders constitute a "moral blow" to Israel and "increase its isolation in the international arena."
Hamas and several terror factions in the Gaza Strip have also welcomed the July 30 joint statement of the foreign ministers of Andorra, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia and Spain, in which they stressed "our unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders."
What could possibly go wrong?
A joint statement issued by Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Sai'qa Forces – terror groups that do not recognize Israel's right to exist and are strongly opposed to the so-called two-state solution – stated:
"We welcome any international effort that supports the Palestinian people and their rights and demand unconditional recognition of the Palestinian state and the rights of its people as a political entitlement and historical justice."
These Palestinian terror groups have emphasized time and again that they will never disarm or recognize Israel's right to exist. They have also repeatedly vowed to continue their jihad against Israel until it is obliterated. Despite their opposition to the "two-state solution," the Palestinian terrorists are nevertheless prepared to take any land Israel gives them so it can be used as a launchpad to destroy Israel.
In 2017, Hamas issued a "policy document" that confirmed this approach. The terror group made it clear in its document that it would not oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Hamas, however, stressed that this does not mean that the terror group would recognize Israel's right to exist:
"Hamas believes that no part of Palestine shall be compromised or ceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus."
Hamas's policy document has been mistakenly interpreted by some Westerners as a sign of pragmatism, moderation and acceptance of the "two-state solution" on the part of the terror group. False. Hamas, as part of a campaign to deceive and mislead Westerners into accepting it as a legitimate player in the Palestinian arena, is pretending that it supports a Palestinian next to Israel. In reality, Hamas is clearly stating that such a state will be used for "the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea."
In the same document, Hamas makes it abundantly clear that it will pursue its jihad against Israel after the establishment of a Palestinian state:
"Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and rights of the Palestinian people."
"There is no sign of 'moderation' here, despite Hamas's description of Islam as a religion of 'the middle way (wasatiyyah) and of moderation,'" noted Dr. Eran Lerman, senior research associate at The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
"The document aggressively repeats the familiar themes of Hamas ideology – Palestine in its entirety is indivisible, and the rights of the Palestinian people are eternally inalienable. No facts created on the ground by the 'Zionist Project' are to be allowed to survive."
This is certainly not the right time to talk about a "two-state solution." The jihadists and terrorists see it as a reward for their atrocities against Israel. It is more important to focus efforts on dismantling and crushing all the Palestinian terror groups and embarking on a process of deradicalization for the Palestinians before talking about a peace process or "two-state solution."
Under the current circumstances, statements about recognizing a Palestinian state send a message to the Palestinians that terrorism and violence -- not negotiations -- are the best way to gain international support for statehood... and anything else.
**Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
**Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter)
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Born dead: The New York Declaration for two states
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/The Times of Israel/August 05/2025
Seventeen countries, the European Union, and the Arab League last week endorsed the New York Declaration, a 17-page document outlining “tangible, time-bound, and irreversible steps” to implement a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, in line with the Arab Peace Initiative adopted at the 2002 Beirut Summit. I was at the Beirut Summit in 2002, reporting for The Daily Star, when Arab League member states agreed on a plan they believed could foster peace and establish two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side.  Saudi Arabia’s original draft was straightforward: land for peace. If Israel withdrew to the 1949 armistice line, enabling a Palestinian state, all 21 league members would normalize relations with Israel. However, three regimes – Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – undermined the draft by inserting a clause that ensured its failure. In his memoirs, Amr Moussa, former Arab League Secretary-General, recounts what I witnessed firsthand. Syria’s Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa met with his Saudi counterpart and insisted on adding a clause to the Arab Peace Initiative: “Attain a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” This clause guaranteed Israel’s rejection.
The same clause appears as Article 14 of the New York Declaration: “Upon reaching a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194, UNRWA will transfer its public services in the Palestinian territories to empowered and equipped Palestinian institutions.”
Adopted in 1949 by the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are non-binding, Resolution 194 stated that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date” and that “compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property.”  Initially, the word refugees in the resolution referred to approximately 700,000 Arabs who left the territory that became Israel during the 1949 war, as well as about 70,000 Jews displaced from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the following years, nearly 700,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries, primarily Iraq and Egypt. India and Pakistan in 1947. Israel resettled displaced Jews within territory delineated by the 1949 armistice line.  Arab countries, except Jordan, prevented Palestinian assimilation. The UN established UNRWA to resettle Palestinian refugees, but as resettlement efforts faltered, UNRWA became the de facto provider of housing, healthcare, education, food and provisions for Palestinians. UNRWA also maintained a registry, adding new births and removing the deceased. As of 2025, the original 700,000 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA have grown to 5.9 million, still classified as refugees, though nearly five million have gained citizenship in other countries. Applying UNGA Resolution 194 to these 5.9 million, a process that Palestinians call the “right of return,” would effectively end Israel as a Jewish state. The two-state solution implicitly envisions a Jewish Israel and an Arab Palestine. Arab governments demand that Israel dismantle settlements and relocate approximately one million Jews from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to within the 1948 armistice line, creating a Jew-free Palestine. At the same time, Arabs insist that Israel accept UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which Palestinians interpret as granting a “right of return” for 5.9 million registered refugees to Israel.
Under the New York Declaration and the Arab Peace Initiative, Jews would leave Palestine while Palestinians would move to Israel.
Given current birth rates and demographic trends, Resolution 194 guarantees that Israel would become majority Arab within a few years. Some Palestinians describe this potential shift as a victory, often describing it as “the power of the womb.”If Israel accepts the New York Declaration, within a decade, both Israel and Palestine could become predominantly Arab nations. Israel could then join the Arab League, or even merge into Palestine by decision of Israel’s Arab majority. This is why successive Israeli governments across political spectra have opposed two-state solutions that include the “right of return.”Israel rarely voices this concern publicly. When American presidents pressed Israel to accept a two-state plan, Israel agreed but requested Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state (not simply recognizing the existence of Israel). The Palestinian Authority consistently refused, arguing that Israel’s Jewish character was not their decision to make, in other words, insisting on UNGA Resolution 194. If Palestinians and Arab states recognized Jewish nationhood, Israel would likely reciprocate by recognizing an Arab Palestine. At that point, establishing a Palestinian government capable of addressing security threats to Israel – present and future – would become a procedural matter.
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a non-partisan organization focused on national security and foreign policy.

The Houthis Are Breaking into the Drug Trade

Natalie Ecanow, and Bridget Toomey/The National Interest/August 05/2025
The ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria left a void in the regional narcotics trade. But the exile of the king of captagon has not led to the end of the drug itself, nor its manufacture, or supply. And certainly not the demand.
It is an opportunity that Yemen’s Houthis—never ones to pass on a profitable scheme—are eager to exploit. The group has a long history of growing and selling khat, a stimulant popular in Yemen. Now, the Iran-backed terrorists are moving into the illicit captagon business, which long helped prop up Syria’s former dictator. Yemen’s internationally recognized government recently seized 1.5 million captagon pills en route to Saudi Arabia from Houthi-controlled territory. Prices in Saudi Arabia reportedly range from $6 to $27 a pill for the amphetamine-like drug. Busts continued throughout July, with Yemeni authorities intercepting tens of thousands more pills in multiple operations. As captagon labs have become less ubiquitous in Syria, the Houthis are producing the drug in Yemen themselves. Yemen’s long and relatively porous border with Saudi Arabia gives the Houthis access to a large consumer market for captagon and other drugs. The Houthis can use the proceeds from these sales to acquire missiles and other munitions to hurl at Israel and its allies, US outposts included.
Clearly, captagon commerce is alive and well, and the United States still has a role to play in countering the regional narco-trade, which has come to span far beyond the Middle East region. One of the largest captagon seizures on record occurred in Italy, where authorities seized 84 million captagon pills worth approximately $1.1 billion at the Port of Salerno in 2020. Captagon has yet to arrive on American shores, but the United States is not out of reach. Global drug networks connect the Middle East and the West. Earlier this month, Emirati authorities seized 131 kilograms of unidentified narcotics and psychotropic substances trafficked to the United Arab Emirates from Canada through Spain. Washington was making good progress countering the regional narco-trade in the months leading up to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel. The Biden administration issued multiple rounds of captagon-related sanctions and released a congressionally mandated strategy to “disrupt and dismantle” Assad-linked narcotics networks. The effort slowed as the war in Gaza raged on, although the US Treasury Department announced sanctions on a handful of captagon traffickers in October 2024.
Now there’s evidence to suggest that Yemen may become a new center for captagon production. While captagon seizures in Yemen remain a fraction of those in other parts of the Middle East, the Houthis are seeking to increase their market share.
In 2023, Asharq al-Awsat reported that the Yemeni terrorist group acquired materials for a captagon production facility. At the end of June 2025, Major General Mutahhar al-Shuaibi, the director of security in Aden, the interim capital of the legitimate government of Yemen, announced that the Houthis had established a captagon production facility in their territory. Moammar al-Eryani, Yemen’s minister of information, added that this was done in coordination with the regime in Iran.
And Assad’s ouster does not mean that Washington can relieve pressure on Syria, either. Despite new leader Ahmad al-Shara’s pledge to “purify” Syria, captagon continues to flow through the country to Jordan and the Persian Gulf.
In the months since Assad’s fall, the Trump administration has been keen to welcome Syria back into the international fold. On June 30, President Donald Trump issued an executive order lifting sanctions on Syria. The executive order left sanctions on “Bashar al-Assad and his associates, human rights abusers, captagon traffickers,” and others in place, but passive adherence to old measures is not enough.
As the recent seizures in Yemen suggest, the world’s captagon trade did not come and go with Bashar al-Assad. Washington must monitor the potential rise of new production hubs in Yemen, while also recognizing that narcotics networks in Syria and Lebanon remain active. Policymakers can continue to hold narcotraffickers accountable by rolling out new sanctions and drawing on the prescriptions identified in the Biden administration’s interagency strategy.

 Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas is destroying its own reputation
Colin Pascal, opinion contributor/The Hill/August 5, 2025
Any discussion about ending the conflict in Gaza must acknowledge that Israel launched the war to safeguard the lives of its people. The events of Oct. 7 showed what Hamas is capable of, and the world should understand Israel’s need to ensure an event like that never happens again. Israeli actions have been effective, and the country has achieved the short-term objective of denying Hamas the ability to threaten its citizens. Beyond that short-term goal, Israel is seeking to eliminate Hamas completely and remove the threat from Gaza forever. But there’s no such thing as forever in geopolitics. Often, the best a state can do is manage situations with skill and tenacity until the underlying circumstances change. This was true for the U.S. during the Cold War, and it’s true for a state like South Korea today. By seeking a permanent solution rather than accepting a limited victory, Israel is now doing more harm than good. Global sympathy continues to shift toward the Palestinians, and this is having an effect on the actions of governments, as more countries take the consequential step of recognizing a Palestinian State. Images of emaciated children in Gaza are searing into people’s minds, even if not all of those images are presented accurately. These are the types of images that aren’t easily forgotten — the type that endure for generations.
Israel’s decision to pause daytime military operations and allow more aid to reach Gaza was a necessary step in the right direction. It acknowledged that world opinion is turning decisively against Israel, even if the Israeli government continues to deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis. Israel is right that Hamas could end the fighting if it surrendered and left Gaza. Hamas’s refusal is completely in keeping with its brutalist worldview, articulated by former leader Yahya Sinwar when he explained that Palestinian suffering was necessary to advance Hamas’s political objectives. He then did everything he could to bring that suffering about. An organization like that won’t ever make decisions in the best interests of its people. Hamas is disinclined to accept Israel’s cease-fire conditions because it is a mafia-like organization more than a government with an army. Its primary interest is always the maintenance of power and privilege, and it’s difficult to imagine it leaving Gaza voluntarily. If Hamas will not do what’s right for the Palestinian people, that leaves only one actor capable of stopping the bloodshed. Halting military operations will be a gut-wrenching decision for Israel. The Israeli people would struggle to accept the continued existence of a terrorist organization guilty of rape and murder. As unsatisfying as the survival of Hamas will be, there isn’t a good alternative. At some point, every successful country needs to substitute the rational for the emotional and recognize the limits of its power. Israel cannot continue to prosecute this war without irreparably damaging its international reputation. It must accept that fact, and it must halt the fighting. Already Israel’s relationship with much of the European and American electorate is damaged and getting worse. The country is becoming a partisan issue in the U.S., where it once enjoyed near total bipartisan support. Even Republicans who have been steadfast in their support are beginning to waver. In early August, 24 Democratic senators voted to withhold military aid from Israel. Americans who unconditionally support Israel can accuse those who don’t of being naïve or antisemitic. Maybe some of them are. In the end, what should matter to Israel is the reality that many Americans are changing their view of the country, risking the special relationship that’s done so much to sustain Israel since its founding.
Hamas is severely degraded even if it isn’t destroyed. Its ability to threaten Israeli civilians is limited. Israel should accept the reality that it can’t eliminate Hamas before global support for its actions collapse and shift its strategy accordingly. It should withdraw from most of Gaza and then robustly control the Israel-Gaza border. Oct. 7 was only effective, after all, because of the brittleness of Israeli defenses. Israel’s intelligence and surveillance capabilities are formidable, even if that day showed they aren’t invincible, and it’s unlikely the country will be caught off guard again. Israeli military action in Gaza has been successful, if success is defined as making Israel safe in the near term. Trying to make Israel safe forever is a luxury it can’t afford because of the constraints imposed by world opinion. Israel seemed to acknowledge this constraint with its decision to airdrop supplies and establish new aid corridors, but it’s wrong to think these measures will turn the tide of global views. The U.S. should help Israel realize that continuing the war in Gaza is no longer in its best interest. The Israeli military has already returned the country to safety and continuing the conflict will lead to negative and far-reaching changes to Israel’s relationship with the world. Israeli leaders need to weigh that outcome against the risk posed by Hamas’s continued presence in Gaza. They’re miscalculating if they conclude that global public sentiment matters less than the residual military threat from Hamas. By pursuing its maximalist aim, Israel is risking its standing in the world and its reputation as a moral actor. Because the nation self-identifies as the world’s only Jewish state, perception of its actions plays a role in how Jewish people are seen around the world. Already, animosity toward Jews is rising.
Sinwar knew that the way to hurt Israel was to create a situation where Palestinian children suffered and starved. By perpetuating the war in Gaza, the Israeli government is following Sinwar’s script. This can’t be in the best long-term interests of the country.
Colin Pascal is a retired Army lieutenant colonel who spent most of his career as a military intelligence officer.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Selected tweets for 05 August/2025
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Even if #Lebanon cabinet decides to disarm #Hezbollah, Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) Commander and presidential hopeful Rudolph Haykal is unlikely to move against militia because he will need the 26 Shia lawmaker bloc in parliament for his 2030 election.

Walid Abu Haya
Why the hell is the world silent? Where is the #UN and @antonioguterres ?
Julani’s terrorists are targeting the Druze in Syria with unspeakable cruelty.
Women and infants have been abducted. Homes looted. Families terrorized.
This is not just war - it’s ethnic persecution. Silence is complicity.
#Druze #Syria #HTS #Julani #HumanRights

Marc Zell
Col. (IDF Res.) Dr. Anan Wahabi: “This Druze girl was abducted by this Syrian regime agent from Suwayda: Heaven’s justice will find you. There will be no mercy for your kind in God’s court. The silence of the world is not neutrality—it is complicity in this crime.”

Marc Zell

Syrian regime forces violate ceasefire with Druze. This just arrived from Druze Col. (IDF Res.) Dr. Anan Wahabi: “How much longer can the international community be deceived?
Tonight, August 4th 2025ⁿ, just before midnight,9 al-Jolani’s militias, known misleadingly as the “General Security Apparatus” (al-Batkhal), once again violated the ceasefire agreement. Disguised in Bedouin attire, they launched deliberate attacks on civilian homes from the villages of al-Mansoura and Rimat Hazem, targeting Atil with live fire. Mortar shells also struck the town of Ara (ʿArā). These are not military confrontations—they are direct assaults on civilians.“This is a blatant breach of the ceasefire.
“To the United States (
@POTUS
@SecRubio
@SpeakerJohnson
@SecDef ) Are these the rules of engagement you endorse? Have you allowed your Defense Department to collaborate in acts of terror against innocent civilian populations?”

Dana Ballan
https://x.com/i/status/1952490082361024891
This is the same man that threatened to not allow any food or water inside As Suwayda city on July 24. Now, a new video has surfaced of him with another militant kidnapping 3 women and a child. https://x.com/osint613/statu/osint613/status/1952487570933436888

Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו
Watch This
https://x.com/i/status/1952419555852116093

Guila Fakhoury
Today holds great significance for Lebanon. The Lebanese government is scheduled to officially pass a law declaring Hezbollah's weapons illegal and establishing a timeline for their removal from the militia. This serves as a big test for the new government, will it stand firm and follow through, or will it surrender to Hezbollah’s influence?
If this law is passed it would mark the first time since Hezbollah's existence that a Lebanese government votes against the group's arms. If and when this vote proceeds successfully, it could signal the beginning of a new Lebanon—one free from Hezbollah’s control. The outcome could shape Lebanon’s future.

Yair Netanyahu
Qatar is the main force behind the unprecedented wave of antisemitism around the world, not seen since the 1930s and 1940s. Qatar is the modern-day Nazi Germany.
Every Jew around the world is in grave danger because of the decades-long vilification of Jews and the Jewish state by Qatar, fueled by the billions of dollars they pour into it.
The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (@TamimBinHamad), and his mother, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned (@MozaBNasser), are the modern-day Hitler and Goebbels.

Zéna Mansour
81 Druze women +children are being held captive by HTS in inhumane conditions. We respectfully request that your administration take action to secure their release and safety through Int pressure, mediation, and Humanitarian Assist, consistent with IHL.
Thank you
 

Hanin Ghaddar
This is absolutely absurd, and a clear attempt to buy more time for Hezbollah.
PM Salam sates that the LAF has been tasked to put out a strategy for disarmament by the end of the year! Seriously? They don’t have this plan yet? And no disarmament before the end of the year? This only means that they continue to give Hezbollah a life line and allow them to prepare for elections fully armed. Disastrous! http://mtv.com.lb/News/1600679