English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For July 12/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and
whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me
Saint Matthew 10/40/42.11,01/:”Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and
whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in
the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a
righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of
the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little
ones in the name of a disciple truly I tell you, none of these will lose their
reward.’Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on
from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities.
Titles For The
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on July 11-12/2025
A Critical Reading of Sheikh Naim Qassem’s Interview with Al-Mayadeen:
Lewdness, Depravity, Illegitimate Usurpation, and Barefaced Iranian
Subservience/Elias Bejjani/July 11/2025
A Testimony of Faith: The Story of the Three Massabki Brothers and Enduring
Sacrifices/Elias Bejjani/July 10/2025
Barrack and Barrot agree to work for Lebanon's sovereignty and stability
US and Europol say Hezbollah remains 'a dangerous organization'
US says still not distinguishing between Hezbollah's political and armed wings
Israeli drone strike on car in Nmairiyeh kills one and wounds five
Aoun: Decision of arms monopoly has been taken and won't be reversed
President Aoun rules out normalization with Israel
Diplomats say US won't back a new Israeli war on Lebanon
'Shared goal, different approach': Geagea says Aoun fears of civil war
'excessive'
Syria denies reports about escalatory steps against Lebanon
LBCI sources: Families of Syrian detainees plan protests at Lebanon-Syria border
crossings
Lebanon announces new BDL Deputy Governors
Cabinet appoints Maher Shaaito as Lebanon's new Financial Prosecutor
Parliament prepares immunity vote: Will political shield protect MP George
Bouchikian?
New chapter on Syrian refugee return: Lebanon launches first coordinated return
of Syrian refugees
Lebanon, Syria at odds: Syrian detainees in Lebanon top priority for Damascus
If Lebanon doesn’t ‘hurry up and get in line’ everyone around them will, US
envoy Tom Barrack tells Arab News/Ephrem Kossaify/Arab News/July 11, 2025
Hezbollah Caught in Criminal Acts: So What Is the State Doing?/Dr. Ali Khalifeh/Nidaa
Al-Watan/July 11/ 2025
Lebanon's president reveals the country's stance on relations with Israel
Lebanon... Waiting at the Train Station/Mustafa Fahs/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 12/
2025
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on July 11-12/2025
All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis
Gaza's largest functioning hospital facing disaster, medics warn, as Israel
widens offensive
Iran expels half a million Afghans in 16-day stretch since recent conflict with
Israel, UN says
EU pressing Israel to improve Gaza humanitarian situation, top diplomat says
Exclusive: Israel and Palestine to join high level Brussels meeting despite
tense EU relations
Israeli strike on U.S. non-profit clinic kills at least 15 in Gaza
Israel says Iran could reach enriched uranium at a nuclear site hit by US
Report links Israel's Mossad to 2020 assassination of top Iranian nuclear
scientist
New dates set for UN Palestinian statehood conference co-chaired by France and
Saudi Arabia
Netanyahu sets out red lines for lasting end to war in Gaza
Israel’s defense minister plans to relocate displaced Palestinians to restricted
area in southern Gaza, Israeli media reports
Trump threatens 35 per cent tariffs on Canada on Aug. 1 in letter posted online
Iran confirms arrest of missing French-German teenage cyclist
Kurdish PKK fighters destroy weapons at key ceremony
Kurdish separatist fighters in Iraq begin laying down weapons as part of peace
process with Turkey
Titles For
The Latest English LCCC analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources
on July 11-12/2025
The Jubilation in Israel Is Premature/Gershom Gorenberg/The Atlantic/July
11, 2025
Warnings to President Trump on the Future of Gaza/Robert Johnson/Gatestone
Institute/July 11, 2025
‘Submit and All Will Go Well for You’: A Jihadist Summons to Trump/Raymond
Ibrahim/The Stream/July 11/2025
Question: “What does the Bible say about creation vs. evolution?”/GotQuestions.org/July
11/2025
Afghanistan-Iran migration crisis demands urgent action/Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab
News/July 11, 2025
How Turkiye views Azerbaijan-Russia tensions/Dr. Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/July 11,
2025
The Levant’s Post-Rejectionist Challenges/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 12/
2025
The Iran Ceasefire: A Dicey Intermission/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 12/
2025
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 11-12/2025
A Critical Reading of Sheikh Naim Qassem’s Interview with Al-Mayadeen:
Lewdness, Depravity, Illegitimate Usurpation, and Barefaced Iranian Subservience
Elias Bejjani/July 11/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/07/145070/
In a lengthy and revealing interview with Al-Mayadeen TV, Sheikh Naim Qassem,
Deputy Secretary-General of the terrorist, jihadist, and criminal Hezbollah
organization, exposed yet again the extent of the group’s illegitimate
usurpation of the Lebanese state and its absolute subservience to Iran’s
theocratic regime. His statements confirm what many already know: Hezbollah is
nothing more than an armed Iranian proxy—hostile to Lebanon and its
people—operating completely outside the framework of national sovereignty and
legality.
Qassem’s responses throughout the interview reflect a depraved, treacherous
mentality—a Trojan horse mindset that treats Lebanon not as a sovereign nation,
but as a mere playground for Tehran’s local, regional, and global ambitions.
Hezbollah has no regard for the will of the Lebanese people or the authority of
the Lebanese Constitution. The sheer brazenness of Qassem’s rhetoric highlights
the militia’s open contempt for the state, its institutions, and its citizens.
A Shameless Declaration of War
The most appalling moment came when Qassem unabashedly declared that “the Shura
Council of [Hezbollah] met and decided to enter a supporting battle” following
the Hamas-led “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. This is not
just a crude admission of unilateral military action—it is a flagrant slap in
the face of Lebanese sovereignty. How can an armed group make a decision to
enter war, set objectives, and engage in conflict without the consent—or even
consultation—of the legitimate Lebanese government?Such a stance reaffirms that
Hezbollah is not a “state within a state” but rather a “state above the state,”
one that arrogantly overrides all legal and democratic mechanisms. Qassem’s
declaration is effectively an illegitimate declaration of war—one that has
plunged Lebanon into destruction, displacement, and death, with no regard for
the will or welfare of its people.
Absolute Subservience to Iran and the Refusal to Disarm
The heart of the crisis lies in Hezbollah’s complete obedience to Iran. Qassem’s
own words betray this reality. When he speaks of “unity of fronts” and “unity of
objectives,” he is clearly affirming that Hezbollah’s decisions on war and peace
lie not with the Lebanese, but with the Iranian axis. His frank admission—“Yes,
the presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran is fundamental in this matter”—is
not just a nod to strategic coordination; it is a confirmation that Tehran is
the architect, funder, and commander of Hezbollah’s entire agenda. This is not
loyalty to Lebanon. It is total submission to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), which uses Lebanon as a bargaining chip, a battlefield, and a
weapons depot in its broader regional conflicts. Qassem’s interview also exposed
Hezbollah’s disdain for international law and the United Nations. The group
continues to ignore UNSC Resolutions 1559 and 1701, both of which call
explicitly for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and the full
restoration of state sovereignty. His claim that “Lebanon is strong because of
Hezbollah’s weapons, and we will not accept that Lebanon becomes weak” is not
only illogical but deeply dangerous. It reflects an ideology that views the
state’s own legal institutions as weak and irrelevant—an ideology that
undermines any chance of building a modern, strong, and sovereign Lebanon.
Justifying Violations, Defying the State.
Qassem’s attempts to justify Hezbollah’s destabilizing activities are as
outrageous as they are insulting. His claim that “the supporting battle achieved
its goals by alleviating the pressure on Gaza and pushing Israel toward a
solution” is a cynical lie. What Hezbollah’s “support” achieved was widespread
devastation: in the South, in Beirut, in Baalbek—everywhere the Shiite community
lives, a community Hezbollah claims to protect but in reality exploits, holds
hostage, and sacrifices in Iran’s jihadist wars. His rhetoric about “not harming
Lebanon” rings hollow when set against the grim reality of economic collapse,
massive displacement, and thousands of innocent lives lost. These outcomes are
not the price of “resistance”—they are the direct consequences of Hezbollah’s
illegitimate actions and its blind loyalty to Tehran. Even Qassem’s attempts to
downplay the existence of a coordinated “joint operations room” with Iran and
its regional proxies fall apart when he admits that “each arena contributed
according to its own assessments” and again emphasizes Iran’s “fundamental
presence.” This contradiction only reinforces the truth: Hezbollah is executing
a coordinated, regional strategy on Iran’s behalf—completely divorced from
Lebanese interests.
Clinging to Arms: The Open Defiance of Sovereignty
Qassem’s insistence on Hezbollah retaining its weapons is perhaps the most
dangerous aspect of the interview. His statement—“We will confront when we have
a decision to confront… We have two choices, no third: victory or martyrdom. We
have no option called surrender. This is out of the question”—leaves no room for
misinterpretation. This is not defense. It is domination. It is a declaration
that Hezbollah alone will decide Lebanon’s fate. It is a complete rejection of
the basic principle that the use of force must be the exclusive right of the
legitimate state. Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm confirms the existence of a
parallel army, one that undermines the state’s authority and robs Lebanon of its
sovereignty. Qassem’s contempt for UN resolutions and international consensus,
particularly Resolutions 1559 and 1701, exposes Lebanon to sanctions, diplomatic
isolation, and deeper instability. Far from making Lebanon “strong,” Hezbollah’s
weapons render it weak, fractured, and paralyzed. Even worse, Qassem presents
Hezbollah’s arsenal as essential for Lebanon’s survival, as though the national
army and legitimate institutions are incapable of defending the country. This is
an insult to the Lebanese people and a calculated effort to keep the state weak,
dependent, and permanently hijacked.
The Illusion of Power and a Failing Deterrent
Qassem’s claims about Hezbollah’s “strength” and deterrent power collapse under
the weight of reality. Since the ceasefire, assassinations of Hezbollah figures
have taken place almost daily across Lebanon—with not a single retaliatory shot
fired in response. This suspicious silence speaks volumes. It reveals a failed
deterrent. It exposes the myth of Hezbollah’s military prowess. And it raises a
critical question: Who are these weapons really for? Clearly, they are not for
defending Lebanon from external threats. They are for internal control—for
intimidating opponents, suppressing dissent, and maintaining Iran’s grip on the
country.
Conclusion:
Guardianship by Gunpoint
Sheikh Naim Qassem’s interview is not a simple media appearance—it is a chilling
confirmation of Lebanon’s tragic reality: the country lives under the
guardianship of a lawless, Iranian-backed militia that recognizes only the power
of arms and holds the Lebanese state and people in utter contempt. This
interview laid bare Hezbollah’s true agenda: absolute military control,
unwavering loyalty to Iran, rejection of international law, and complete
disregard for the sovereignty, safety, and prosperity of Lebanon. Lebanon cannot
recover—economically, socially, or politically—so long as Hezbollah remains
armed, unaccountable, and subservient to Tehran. The path to peace and statehood
begins with the dismantling of this parallel army and the restoration of full
national sovereignty under the sole authority of the Lebanese state.
A Testimony of
Faith: The Story of the Three Massabki Brothers and Enduring Sacrifices
Elias Bejjani/July 10/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/07/145053/
In the bright pages of history that is filled with faith and sacrifice, shines
the story of the three Massabki brothers: Francis, Abdel Moati, and Raphael. In
Damascus in 1860, they wrote with their blood a powerful testament to spiritual
heroism. These Maronite martyrs, all over sixty years old, refused to abandon
their Christian faith despite threats of death. They became living examples of
what faith means in Christianity, proving that those who kill the body cannot
kill the believing soul. This heroic testimony still resonates today, connected
to similar sacrifices recently witnessed in Damascus, such as the bombing of St.
Elias Greek Orthodox Church.
The 1860 Massacres and an Unwavering Faith
On the night of July 10, 1860, Damascus saw bloody events targeting Christians.
The Massabki brothers, along with many other Christians and Franciscan priests,
sought refuge in a church. But the attackers broke in, demanding they change
their religion. It was then that the brothers' strong faith shone through.
Francis spoke unforgettable words, showing their courage and resolve: "We don't
fear those who kill the body... Our crown awaits us in heaven, and we have but
one soul, which we will not lose. We are Christians and we want to die
Christians."
Francis was a silk merchant known for his good Christian life; he'd never start
work without first visiting the church. Abdel Moati had left trade to teach at
the Franciscan school, while Raphael helped the brother in charge of the
sacristy. This good character and Christian commitment weren't just outward
show; they were deeply rooted in their hearts, allowing them to face death with
unshakeable resolve. The three brothers were killed in the church before the
altar, their blood becoming a living testament to the power of their faith.
The Meaning of Faith in Christianity: "Whoever Acknowledges Me Before Others"
The story of the Massabki brothers clearly shows what faith means in
Christianity. In Christianity, faith isn't just believing intellectually that
God exists. It's a complete and total trust in God, involving surrender to His
will, obedience to His commands, and a readiness to sacrifice for Him. It's a
living, personal relationship with God, built on love and hope.
The Bible verse: "Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge
before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown
before my Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33), highlights the importance of
publicly declaring one's faith. Acknowledging Christ isn't just words; it's a
way of life—a willingness to face challenges and persecution for the truth. This
verse emphasizes a core principle: eternal life is the fruit of this confessed
faith, and witnessing for Christ in this world is the key to being acknowledged
by God in heaven.
Another important verse: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but
cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and
body in hell" (Matthew 10:28), points to the truth that physical death cannot
end spiritual life. For believers, physical death is a doorway to eternal life
with Christ. The Massabki brothers deeply understood this, so they didn't fear
death; instead, they saw it as a path to the crown prepared for them in heaven.
The Continuation of Sacrifice: From the 1860 Massacres to the St. Elias Church
Bombing
Tragic events, such as the bombing of St. Elias Greek Orthodox Church in
Damascus, show that the spirit of persecution for faith has not ended with time.
Despite the significant time gap between the martyrdom of the Massabki brothers
and this horrific crime, there are strong and deep-rooted connections between
them:
Sacred Space as a Target: The Massabki brothers were martyred inside a church.
The same occurred at St. Elias Church, where terrorists stormed the building
while worshippers were inside, and one detonated an explosive belt, killing and
injuring dozens, including children, elderly, and women. In both incidents, a
house of God was turned into a scene of brutal violence against believers.
Targeted Because of Faith: The Massabki brothers paid the ultimate price for
refusing to abandon their faith. In the St. Elias Church bombing, the targets
were Christian worshippers gathered for prayer, confirming that the primary
motive behind the attack was to target the Christian faith itself. Both crimes
aimed to terrorize Christians and force them to abandon their religious
identity.
Continuous Witness: The victims of St. Elias Church, like the Massabki brothers,
made the ultimate sacrifice. They became martyrs for their faith, not
necessarily for verbally refusing to deny Christ, but because they were killed
for being Christians exercising their right to worship. This embodies the
profound meaning of the verse: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body,"
for despite the killing and destruction, faith remains alive and triumphant.
Connected History of Persecution: What happened at St. Elias Church reminds us
of the persecutions that occurred in 1860 and others throughout history. It
confirms that Christian communities in the region continue to face existential
challenges that demand steadfastness and resilience in the face of violence and
extremism.
Ecclesiastical Honor: Saints on the Altar of God
In recognition of their heroic sacrifice, the Catholic Church beatified the
three Massabki brothers. On October 10, 1926, Pope Pius XI declared their
beatification. Then, on October 20, 2024, Pope Francis declared them saints,
placing them on the altar of God.
Today, the Lebanese Maronite Church, along with the entire Catholic Church,
remembers the testimony of these brothers who never abandoned Christ or their
faith in Him. They accepted martyrdom because of their unwavering belief. Their
remains are still kept in the Maronite church in Damascus, serving as a lasting
reminder of their sacrifice and unshakeable faith.
The story of the three Massabki brothers, and the sacrifices of the martyrs of
St. Elias Church, call every believer to reflect on the meaning of true faith
and to be ready to bear witness to Christ in all circumstances, understanding
that the believing soul is stronger than any attempt to destroy it. These
stories highlight that faith is not just a belief, but a life lived and
sacrificed for.
Barrack and Barrot agree to
work for Lebanon's sovereignty and stability
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met Thursday in Paris with French Foreign Minister
Jean-Noël Barrot and they reportedly agreed to “boost cooperation between the
two countries in the Lebanese and Syrian files.”The two sides also expressed
their desire to “work for Lebanon’s sovereignty, stability and reconstruction,”
tackling in this regard “the role of the ceasefire mechanism and UNIFIL’s
forces.”
US and Europol say Hezbollah remains 'a dangerous
organization'
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
The U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Justice, and Europol on July
9-10 convened the fourteenth meeting of the Law Enforcement Coordination Group (LECG)
on countering Hezbollah’s “terrorist and illicit activities,” a U.S. statement
said. “Law enforcement, prosecutors, and financial practitioners from
approximately 30 governments from across the Middle East, South America, Europe,
Africa, Asia, and North America participated in this session,” the statement
added. “The LECG took stock of Hezbollah’s global terrorist and lethal plotting
capabilities, in light of the significant blows the organization has taken over
the past year. LECG participants assessed that Hezbollah remains a dangerous
organization, determined to maintain its overseas footprint, with the ability to
strike with little to no warning against targets around the world,” the
statement warned. LECG members also discussed Hezbollah’s “shaky financial
state” and agreed that Hezbollah “may seek to increase its fundraising and
procurement activities in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and other locales,”
the statement added. The LECG was established by the United States and Europol
in 2014 as “a global forum to improve international coordination with
governments from around the world to counter” what they said are “Hezbollah’s
terrorist and other illicit activities.”
US says still not
distinguishing between Hezbollah's political and armed wings
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
The U.S. has said that its position “has not changed” regarding the designation
of Hezbollah in its entirety as a “terrorist organization,” following recent
remarks in Beirut by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack. “Hezbollah is a designated
terrorist organization, and we do not distinguish between its political or armed
wings,” U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in response to a
reporter’s question. “As Ambassador Barrack said while in Beirut, Lebanon must
utilize this moment to make progress, and that includes progress on disarming
Hezbollah,” she added. “The Lebanese Armed Forces have made progress on
disarming Hezbollah in the south, but there is still more to be done,” Bruce
said. “We do not want to see Hezbollah or any other terrorist group in Lebanon
recover their ability to commit violence and threaten the security in Lebanon or
in Israel,” she stressed. Barrack had said during his visit that “Hezbollah is a
political party, and it also has an armed wing.”“Hezbollah needs to see that
there is a future for them, and that this path is not meant to be only against
them, and that there is an intersection between peace and prosperity for them as
well,” he added.He later said in an interview on LBCI television that “Hezbollah
is a foreign terrorist organization in the world's view, except maybe for
France.”“And here, I think Hezbollah is a political party here, I think they
have thirteen ministers or so. It's a political party. It's also a terrorist
party,” he added. “They mess with us anywhere, just as the President has
established on a military basis, they're going to have a problem with us. They
don't want to have a problem with us,” Barrack said, noting that “patience and
timeliness” are needed in dealing with Hezbollah by the Lebanese themselves.
Israeli drone strike on car in Nmairiyeh kills one and
wounds five
Agence France Presse/July 11/ 2025
An Israeli drone targeted Friday a car on the road between Nmairiyeh and al-Sharqiyeh
in the Nabatieh district, killing one person and wounding five others. Despite a
November ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has kept up its strikes
in Lebanon, hitting suspected Hezbollah targets and occasionally those of its
Palestinian ally Hamas. One man was killed and two others wounded Thursday in an
Israeli drone strike that targeted a motorcycle in the village of Mansouri near
the coastal city of Tyre. On Tuesday, a drone strike hit a car in a nearby
village, killing another man the Israeli military said was involved in
developing Hezbollah's artillery capabilities. The November 27 ceasefire sought
to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of
all-out war that left the group severely weakened.Under its terms, Hezbollah was
to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20
miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations
peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region. Israel was required to
fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five places it
deems strategic.
Aoun: Decision of arms monopoly has been taken and won't be
reversed
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
President Joseph Aoun said Friday that the decision of monopolizing arms has
been taken and won't be reversed, praising Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri for
his efforts. Aoun said he appreciated Berri's role in "promoting stability,
supporting state rebuilding initiatives, and upholding the principle of state
authority, including the monopoly on arms." Hezbollah says it has ended its
armed presence near the border with Israel, but is refusing to disarm in the
rest of Lebanon before Israel withdraws from five overlooking border points and
ends its almost daily airstrikes on Lebanon. Earlier this week, U.S. envoy Tom
Barrack met with Lebanese leaders in Beirut, saying he was satisfied with the
Lebanese government's response to a proposal to disarm Hezbollah. "The decisions
of war and peace fall under Cabinet's jurisdiction," Aoun said, urging for
unity. He added that Lebanon currently wants peace and not normalization with
Israel. "Peace is the state of no war and this is what is important for us in
Lebanon at the present time," Aoun was quoted as telling visitors on Friday. He
added that "the matter of normalization (with Israel) is not included in
Lebanon’s current foreign policy." The United States has been calling on Lebanon
to fully disarm Hezbollah, and Lebanese authorities sent their response to
Washington's demand this week. The response was not made public, but Aoun stated
that Beirut was determined to "hold the monopoly over weapons in the country".
The implementation of this move "will take into account the interest of the
state and its security stability to preserve civil peace on one hand, and
national unity on the other", hinting that Hezbollah's disarmament will not be
done through force. Hezbollah, a powerful political force in Lebanon, is the
only non-state actor to have officially retained its weaponry after the end of
Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990, as parts of southern Lebanon were still
under Israeli occupation at the time. The Lebanese group was heavily weakened
following its year-long hostilities with Israel, which escalated into a
two-month war in September.
President Aoun rules out normalization with Israel
Agence France Presse/July 11/ 2025
President Joseph Aoun ruled out Friday normalization between Lebanon and Israel,
which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon. Aoun's statement is the first
official reaction to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar's statement last week
in which he expressed his country's interest in normalizing ties with Lebanon
and Syria. Aoun "distinguished between peace and normalization", according to a
statement shared by the presidency. "Peace is the lack of a state of war, and
this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of
normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy," the
president said in front of a delegation from an Arab think tank. Lebanon and
Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with
Damascus saying that talks of normalization were "premature". A Lebanese
official, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, told AFP
that Aoun was referring to a return to the 1949 armistice between the two
countries, signed after the first Arab-Israeli war. The official said Lebanon
"remains committed to the 2002 Arab peace initiative," which offers peace
between Israel and Arab states in exchange for its withdrawal from territories
it has occupied since 1967. "No one, not the Americans or the Arabs, have raised
to us normalization with Israel," they added. The president called on Israel to
withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was
required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire
seeking to end its war with Hezbollah. Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon
"obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally
recognized borders". According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull
its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers from the border
with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers as the only armed
parties in the area.
Diplomats say US won't back
a new Israeli war on Lebanon
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
Although it is allowing Israel to carry on with its low-intensity attacks in
Lebanon, the U.S. does not seem inclined to “encourage or cover a new all-out
war on Lebanese soil,” influential diplomats told An-Nahar newspaper.
“Washington is delicately engineering the post-Iran war period and this has been
manifested in Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington,” the
diplomats added, in remarks published Friday. The report comes as the U.S. looks
into Lebanon’s response to the U.S. paper submitted by its envoy Tom Barrack,
who said that he was “unbelievably satisfied with the response.”
Barrack is expected to return to Lebanon in around two weeks after an expected
visit to Israel.
'Shared goal, different
approach': Geagea says Aoun fears of civil war 'excessive'
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
Lebanese Forces Leader Samir Geagea has again criticized President Joseph Aoun
for his leniency toward Hezbollah as he urged for restoring Lebanon's
sovereignty and the state's decision-making capacity to address challenges in
the war and crisis hit country. In a statement Thursday, Geagea said he shares
the same goal of building a state with Aoun but they have a different approach
toward Hezbollah's disarmament. "The President's fear of a potential civil war
is excessive," Geagea said, arguing that the state's efforts to apply laws, the
constitution, and international agreements would not lead to civil war. The
Christian leader said "there is no state without authority", stressing that
Hezbollah's weapons are undermining any genuine opportunity for Lebanon to
liberate its occupied territories and rebuild its ties with Arab and
international countries. "All countries are clearly stating that as long as the
decisions are in the hands of (Hezbollah leader) Sheikh Naim (Qassem), no one
will offer assistance to Lebanon," he said.
Syria denies reports about
escalatory steps against Lebanon
Naharnet/July 11/ 2025
Reports circulating about the Syrian government's alleged intention to take
escalatory steps against Lebanon are unfounded, a source from Syria's Ministry
of Information told the state-run Al-Ekhbariya TV on Friday. The source
emphasized that the Syrian government considers the issue of Syrian detainees in
Lebanese prisons a top priority and is committed to resolving it swiftly through
official channels between the two countries. Unnamed sources later told LBCI
televisions that "families of Syrian detainees held in Lebanon’s Roumieh Prison
are planning protest movements starting from the Tadamon neighborhood in
Damascus toward the Jdeidet Yabous–Masnaa crossing, aiming to block traffic
coming from Lebanon." "In addition to the protest at Jdeidet Yabous, a sit-in is
planned at the Jousieh border crossing, with calls circulating for similar
action at the Arida crossing as well," the sources added. The Istanbul-based
Syria TV had earlier reported that Syrian interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa has
threatened diplomatic and economic escalation against Lebanon over what Damascus
considers disregard from Beirut toward the Syrian detainees file. Damascus is
“mulling gradual escalation choices against Lebanon starting by the freezing of
some security and economic channels,” the TV network quoted unnamed sources as
saying. The Syrian sides is also considering a reevaluation of joint border
security cooperation, the closure of border crossings and the imposition of
restrictions on the entry of Lebanese cargo trucks, the sources said.
The sources also expressed concern that there might be a full closure of the
border crossings with Lebanon over the coming days, noting that Syrian Foreign
Minister Asaad al-Shaibai will visit Beirut within days to discuss the file of
Syrian detainees. A Lebanese judicial source said in March that Lebanon was
ready to repatriate about one third of the more than 2,000 Syrian detainees in
its overcrowded prisons. The announcement came as Lebanon and Syria sought a new
start in bilateral ties after the December fall of longtime Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad. "There are more than 700 Syrian detainees and convicts whose
files are finalized and who meet the conditions for extradition," the source
told AFP at the time, without specifying when the process could be completed. In
January, Lebanon's then-caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati visited Damascus
and met with al-Sharaa. The two leaders agreed that the Syrian prisoners should
be repatriated. According to a security source, there are "more than 2,100
Syrian detainees" in Lebanon's prisons, many of whom are awaiting trial. Syrians
represent about 30 percent of Lebanon's prison population, the source
added.Hundreds of them, accused of "terrorism" or related offenses including
attacks on Lebanese forces, have been brought before military courts. Other
Syrian detainees are held for alleged membership in jihadist or armed groups
that were opposed to Assad.An Islamist-led offensive toppled him last December.
One prisoner, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that he, like many
others, was arrested "on political grounds."The prisoner said he was part of the
rebel Free Syrian Army, one of the main opposition factions during the country's
13-year civil war made up of mostly army defectors and other opponents of the
Assad governments.The security source said that prisoners, Lebanese and
foreigners alike, were experiencing harsh conditions. "Lebanese and foreign
prisoners live in difficult conditions due to limited food rations and medical
services, the economic crisis in Lebanon, and overcrowding in their cells," said
the source. In February, dozens of Syrian detainees in a Lebanese prison
launched a hunger strike to demand a resolution for their cases following
Assad's fall. Lebanon also hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, according to
the authorities, about half of whom are registered with the United Nations. They
fled the neighboring country during the war that broke out after the Assad
government's repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
LBCI sources: Families of
Syrian detainees plan protests at Lebanon-Syria border crossings
LBCI/July 11/ 2025
Families of Syrian detainees held in Lebanon’s Roumieh Prison are planning
protest movements starting from the Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus toward the
Jdeidet Yabous–Masnaa crossing, aiming to block traffic coming from Lebanon,
sources told LBCI.
In addition to the protest at Jdeidet Yabous, a sit-in is planned at the Jousieh
border crossing, with calls circulating for similar action at the Arida crossing
as well.
Lebanon announces new BDL Deputy Governors
LBCI/July 11/ 2025
The Cabinet has announced the new Deputy Governors for the Banque du Liban (BDL),
who are Wassim Mansouri, Makram Bou Nassar, Salim Chahine, and Gaby Chinozian.
It was also declared that the head of the National Commission for the Forcibly
Disappeared is Judge Joseph Samaha.
Cabinet appoints Maher Shaaito as Lebanon's new Financial
Prosecutor
LBCI/July 11/ 2025
The Lebanese Cabinet has appointed Judge Maher Mohammad Shaaito as the country's
new Financial Public Prosecutor. Born in 1973 in Deyrintar, a town in the
southern district of Bint Jbeil, Shaaito is married to Mona Mahdi and is the
father of two sons, Wissam and Ibrahim. He has a brother and sister living
abroad. Shaaito studied law at the Lebanese University–Branch I, graduating in
1993 with the second-highest rank in his class. He joined the Judicial Institute
in 1994 and graduated in 1997. In the same year, he was appointed as a sole
judge in the Deir El Qamar court and later that year as a criminal judge in
Beirut. In 2003, Shaaito became a public prosecutor in Mount Lebanon. He was
named president of the Beirut Indictment Chamber in 2017. From 2018 to 2021, he
also served as a member of the Higher Judicial Council.
Parliament prepares immunity vote: Will political shield
protect MP George Bouchikian?
LBCI/July 11/ 2025
A critical phase has begun in the legal proceedings involving MP and former
Minister George Bouchikian, with the matter now officially in the hands of
Parliament. The case began when Justice Minister Adel Nassar submitted a formal
request to the Parliament seeking permission to prosecute Bouchikian. The
request was accompanied by a memorandum from Lebanon's top public prosecutor
outlining the nature of the offense, the time and place of the suspected crime,
and a summary of the evidence that requires urgent judicial action. The request
was placed on the desk of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has now taken
procedural steps by convening a special session on Friday that brought together
the Bureau of Parliament and the Administration and Justice Committee. Following
that meeting, a joint decision was made to form a smaller subcommittee tasked
with reviewing the evidence. The subcommittee has two weeks to submit its
findings in a report that will assess whether the evidence merits lifting
Bouchikian's parliamentary immunity or whether political motives may be
influencing the case. Once the subcommittee's report is submitted, the matter
will be referred to the entire Parliament, which will vote on it in its next
scheduled session. A simple majority is required to lift immunity—defined as
half of the members present plus one, with a quorum of at least 65 MPs. For
example, if 80 lawmakers attend the session, at least 41 must vote in favor of
lifting immunity for the motion to pass. All eyes are now on the Parliament to
see whether it will allow the judiciary to proceed or whether, once again,
political considerations will override judicial accountability.
New chapter on Syrian refugee return: Lebanon launches first coordinated return
of Syrian refugees
LBCI/July 11/ 2025
For the first time since the Syrian crisis began in 2011, Lebanon has taken
concrete steps toward resolving the longstanding issue of Syrian displacement.
In early July, the country launched the first phase of a coordinated voluntary
return plan for Syrian refugees, supported by the United Nations. The plan,
developed in full coordination with both Lebanese and Syrian authorities,
includes financial incentives and logistical support for refugees choosing to
return to Syria. Social Affairs Minister Haneen Sayed revealed to LBCI that each
registered Syrian refugee will receive $100 before departure, while families
will be given an additional $400 upon arrival in Syria. Transportation costs
will be fully covered, and border crossing fees will be waived. For example, a
family of six would receive $600 in Lebanon and $400 after reaching Syria,
totaling $1,000. According to LBCI's sources, the initiative is being supported
by Qatar, which is not only financing the effort but also backing early recovery
and infrastructure rehabilitation projects in Syria to help ensure a minimum
level of stability for returnees. The Lebanese Social Affairs Ministry aims to
return between 200,000 and 400,000 refugees throughout 2025. To date,
approximately 15,000 individuals have registered to participate. The first stage
will focus on refugees living in camps in the Bekaa Valley and along the Litani
River—areas marked by dire humanitarian conditions. According to UNHCR, Lebanon
currently hosts around 1.4 million Syrian refugees, with around 200,000 living
in these camps. The initiative marks a significant shift in international
policy. For years, the United Nations declined to support mass returns to
Syria, citing concerns over potential reprisals. However, current U.N.
assessments now consider the conditions adequate for what is being termed a
"supported voluntary return." Domestically, the Lebanese government has
demonstrated a rare level of political alignment on the issue. A
ministerial committee, led by Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri and comprising
officials from the ministries of justice, interior, foreign affairs, defense,
and social affairs, holds weekly meetings to oversee implementation. Lebanon's
General Security Directorate is actively involved in facilitating the return
process. Though the plan may not signal the end of Lebanon's refugee crisis, it
is widely seen as a critical first step. Built on coordination, support, and
voluntary participation rather than coercion, the program offers a new path
forward—and the first real glimpse of hope in more than a decade.
Lebanon, Syria at odds: Syrian detainees in Lebanon top
priority for Damascus
LBCI/July 11/ 2025
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has threatened diplomatic and economic
escalation against Lebanon over what he described as continued neglect of the
issue of Syrian detainees held in Lebanese prisons. According to several
unofficial Syrian media outlets, Damascus is reportedly considering a series of
gradual measures, including suspending certain security and economic channels,
closing border crossings, and imposing restrictions on the movement of Lebanese
trucks. However, other Syrian media sources have denied any intention by the
Syrian government to take escalatory steps against Lebanon. Amid the conflicting
reports, an official Syrian position emerged, affirming that the fate of Syrian
detainees in Lebanon is a priority for Damascus and should be resolved swiftly
through formal bilateral channels. While the Syrian government has clarified its
stance, sources suggest that Syrian Foreign Minister Assad Al-Shibani, who
postponed a previously scheduled visit to Beirut due to the Iranian-Israeli
conflict, is now conditioning his visit on tangible progress in the detainees'
case and a formal decision by Lebanese authorities to release the prisoners.
According to information obtained by LBCI, Syria expects the Lebanese government
and judiciary to make concrete advancements in resolving the matter before it
agrees to high-level talks or dispatches a delegation to Beirut. On the Lebanese
side, government sources point to an earlier goodwill gesture, Prime Minister
Nawaf Salam's visit to Syria, during which the detainee file was discussed with
Syrian officials. Both sides had agreed on the need to engage in direct dialogue
to review the status of the detainees. However, Lebanese officials argue that a
blanket release of all detainees is not legally feasible. Some cases qualify for
release, while others do not, and a thorough legal review is required to assess
each file. The sources confirm that a joint Lebanese-Syrian committee was
established to follow up on the matter. Yet, they note that the Syrian side has
yet to take any initiative through this committee or show a willingness to hold
coordination meetings.
As a result, Lebanon remains cautious and insists that any further steps must be
based on a transparent legal framework and the Justice Ministry's established
plan for handling all detainees in Lebanese prisons. Beirut is holding firm on
moving forward through the joint committee, emphasizing a structured and lawful
approach to addressing the issue.
If Lebanon doesn’t ‘hurry
up and get in line’ everyone around them will, US envoy Tom Barrack tells Arab
News
Ephrem Kossaify/Arab News/July 11, 2025
NEW YORK CITY: “If Lebanon doesn’t hurry up and get in line, everyone around
them will,” US Special Envoy Tom Barrack warned on Friday as he discussed the
potential transformation of Hezbollah from an Iran-backed militant group into a
fully political entity within Lebanon.His message underscored the growing
American impatience with political inertia in the country, and the mounting
pressure for a comprehensive realignment in the region. Answering questions from
Arab News about Hezbollah’s future, sectarian dynamics and Lebanon’s economic
collapse, Barrack described a delicate path forward for a country long paralyzed
by factional politics. Central to the conversation is the disarmament of
Hezbollah’s military wing, which is classified by Washington as a foreign
terrorist organization, and the potential for its reintegration into the country
as a purely political party.
“It’s a great question,” Barrack said when asked by Arab News whether the US
administration would consider delisting Hezbollah if it gave up its weapons.
“And I’m not running from the answer but I can’t answer it.”He acknowledged the
complexity of the issue and pointed out that while Washington unequivocally
labels Hezbollah as a terrorist group, its political wing has won parliamentary
seats and represents a significant portion of Lebanon’s Shiite population,
alongside the Amal Movement.
Barrack framed Hezbollah as having “two parts” — a militant faction, supported
by Iran and designated as a terrorist entity, and a political wing that operates
within Lebanon’s parliamentary system. He stressed that any process for the
disarmament of Hezbollah must be led by the Lebanese government, with the full
agreement of Hezbollah itself.
“That process has to start with the Council of Ministers,” he said. “They have
to authorize the mandate. And Hezbollah, the political party, has to agree to
that.
“But what Hezbollah is saying is, ‘Okay, we understand one Lebanon has to
happen.’ Why? Because one Syria is starting to happen.” This push for unity,
Barrack added, comes amid shifting regional dynamics, especially in the wake of
what he described as US President Donald Trump’s “bold” policies on Iran.
“Everyone’s future is being recycled,” he said, suggesting a broader
recalibration was underway in the Middle East, from the reconstruction of Syria
to potential new dialogues involving Israel. “So Hezbollah, in my belief,
Hezbollah, the political party, is looking and saying logically, for our people,
the success of Lebanon has to collate the Sunnis, the Shias, the Druze
Christians all together. Now is the time. How do we get there? Israel has to be
a component part of that.”
Barrack indicated that the US had facilitated behind-the-scenes talks between
Lebanon and Israel, despite the former’s legal prohibition against direct
contact.
“We put together a negotiating team and started to be an intermediary,” he said.
“My belief is that’s happening in spades.”At the heart of any deal will be the
question of arms; not small sidearms, which Barrack dismissed as commonplace in
Lebanon, but heavy weaponry capable of threatening Israel. Such weapons, he
said, are “stored in garages and subterranean areas under houses.”A disarmament
process, he suggested, would require the Lebanese Armed Forces, an institution
he described as widely respected, to step in, with US and other international
backing. “You need to empower LAF,” he said. “Then, softly, with Hezbollah, they
can say, ‘Here’s the process of how you’re going to return arms.’ We’re not
going to do it in a civil war.” But the capacity of Lebanese authorities to
execute such a plan remains in question. Barrack lamented the country’s failing
institutions, its defunct central bank, a stalled banking resolution law, and
systemic gridlock in parliament.
On Monday, the envoy said he was satisfied with the Lebanese government’s
response to a proposal to disarm Hezbollah, adding that Washington was ready to
help the small nation emerge from its long-running political and economic
crisis.
“What the government gave us was something spectacular in a very short period of
time and a very complicated manner,” Barrack said during a news conference at
the presidential palace in Beirut.Later, however, during an interview with
Lebanese news channel LBCI, when asked whether the Lebanese politicians he had
been dealing with were actually engaging with him or simply buying time, Barrack
said: “The Lebanese political culture is deny, detour and deflect.
“This is the way that it’s been for 60 years, and this is the task we have in
front of us. It has to change.”Asked whether the US was truly satisfied with the
Lebanese government’s plan of action, he said: “Both (statements) are true,”
referencing his comments in praise of Beirut’s leadership, while simultaneously
criticizing this legacy of “delay, detour and deflect.”
He added: “They’re satisfied with the status quo — until they’re not. What
changes? What changes is they’re going to become extinct.”Still, Barrack
expressed a note of cautious optimism. “I think this government is ready,” he
said. “They’re standing up to the issues. We’re not being soft with them. We’re
saying, you want our help? Here it is. We’re not going to dictate to you. If you
don’t want it, no problem — we’ll go home.”
Barrack made it clear that the time for delaying tactics might be running out.
“It’s a tiny little country with a confessional system that maybe makes sense,
maybe doesn’t,” he said. “Now is the time.”
Turning to Syria, Barrack said that the lifting of US sanctions on the country
marked a strategic “fresh start” for the war-torn nation, but emphasized that
the United States is not pursuing nation-building or federalism in the region.
He described the Middle East as a “difficult zip code at an amazingly historic
time,” and said the Trump administration’s removal of sanctions on May 13 was
aimed at offering the Syrian people “a new slice of hope” following over a
decade of civil war.
“President (Trump)’s message is peace and prosperity,” Barrack said, adding that
the policy shift is intended to give the emerging Syrian regime a chance to
rebuild. “Sanctions gave the people hope. That’s really all that happened at
that moment.”
Barrack clarified that the original US involvement in Syria was driven by
counter-ISIS operations, and not aimed at regime change or humanitarian
intervention.
However, he acknowledged that the region is entering a new phase. “We’re not
there to build a nation. We’re there to provide an opportunity, and it’s up to
them to take it,” he said.
He reaffirmed Washington’s position against a federal model for Syria, saying
the country must remain unified with a single army and government.
“There’s not going to be six countries. There’s going to be one Syria,” he said,
ruling out the possibility of separate Kurdish, Alawite, or Druze autonomous
regions.
The statement comes amid renewed tensions between Kurdish groups and the central
Syrian government, particularly over the future of the US-backed Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF).
The Pentagon has requested $130 million in its 2026 budget to continue
supporting the SDF.
“SDF is YPG, and YPG is a derivative of PKK,” Barrack noted, referring to the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist organization by both
Turkey and the US. “We owe them [the SDF] to be reasonable… but not their own
government.”
He emphasized that the US is not dictating terms but would not support a
separatist outcome: “We’re not going to be there forever as the babysitter.”
Barrack confirmed that the US is closely monitoring the announcement that the
first group of PKK fighters had destroyed their weapons in northern Iraq — a
move he described as “generous” and potentially significant. “This could be the
first step towards long-term resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkiye,” he
said, but cautioned that questions remain about the SDF’s ongoing ties to PKK
leadership. “They (the SDF) have to decide: Are they Syrians? Are they Kurds
first? That’s their issue.”The ambassador said the ultimate vision includes
gradual normalization between Syria and Israel, potentially aligning with the
spirit of the Abraham Accords. “Al-Shara has been vocal in saying Israel is not
an enemy,” Barrack said. “There are discussions beginning — baby steps.”He added
that regional actors including Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey would also need
to take part in a broader normalization process. Barrack stressed that the
current US strategy offers a narrow but real chance at stability. “There is no
Plan B,” he said. “We’re saying: here’s a path. If you don’t like it, show us
another one.”The ambassador said the US is ready to assist but is no longer
willing to serve as the “security guarantor for the world.”
“We’ll help, we’ll usher. But it’s your opportunity to create a new story,” he
said.
Hezbollah Caught in
Criminal Acts: So What Is the State Doing?
Dr. Ali Khalifeh/Nidaa Al-Watan/July 11/ 2025
(Free translation from Arabic by: Elias Bejjani)
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/07/145117/
What did the Egyptian state do with the Muslim Brotherhood, who crafted and
popularized their slogan “Islam is the solution,” coercing people against the
will of God Himself, while targeting national security and terrorizing the
peaceful? It prosecuted their leaders, imprisoned them, and refused to succumb
to their blackmail. Tunisia and Algeria did the same. So did the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan in different contexts, all facing similar existential
challenges that threatened the state’s very foundations and its ability to
fulfill its full responsibilities without fragmentation or compromise.
Except in Lebanon…
Except when it comes to the so-called “Hezbollah.” In politics, Hezbollah—an
illegal organization under Lebanese law—now has MPs representing it in
Parliament, ministers sharing executive authority, heads of public departments
and directorates, and deans of army regiments and university faculties.
In public education, under the guise of “freedom of education,” the state turns
a blind eye to what goes on in Hezbollah-affiliated schools: ideological
indoctrination, brainwashing, the distortion of childhood, suppression of
freedoms, and the violation of human dignity—all through subjugating minds and
loyalties to the will of a shadowy, grim, angry man. A man who falsely claims
divine authority, prophecy, infallibility, and absolute righteousness.
In economics and finance, outside any legal or regulatory framework, Hezbollah
has established networks for money laundering disguised as lending institutions,
prostitution rings, temporary (pleasure) marriage (mut‘ah) arrangements, and
business enterprises that attract international sanctions.
Culturally, ever since Hezbollah emerged and spread, Lebanon has endured decades
of famine in creativity: women reduced to shrouded commodities, artistic
expression emasculated, beauty shunned, happiness criminalized, suffering
romanticized, and death glorified as the ultimate joy.
Worse still, Hezbollah’s top leadership and spokespersons regularly issue
statements that clearly constitute criminal acts against the state, its
sovereignty, and national security. These include incitement to civil strife,
dragging the country into wars, and endangering Lebanon’s Shiite community by
once again pushing them toward catastrophe—ripping them from their society and
national identity to forcibly insert them into Iran’s sphere of influence.
Hezbollah circumvented UN Resolution 1701 and is now working to sabotage the
Barak Plan, aiming to retain the remnants of its arsenal for the next proxy
confrontation on Iran’s behalf—at Lebanon’s expense and that of all Lebanese. It
is also attempting to capitalize on the results of its failed “support war” to
revive its justification for keeping arms under the pretext of occupied
territories.
The exclusive possession of weapons by the Lebanese state is a national
necessity before it is an international demand. Lebanese officials must not wait
for an official foreign request to do their duty—whether it’s fulfilling the
constitutional oath, enforcing the authority of the Council of Ministers as the
executive power, or upholding the rule of law and legitimacy. They must move
immediately to hold Hezbollah leaders and members accountable in court,
prosecute them for their criminal acts, and imprison them.
Lebanon's president reveals
the country's stance on relations with Israel
BASSEM MROUE/AP/July 11, 2025
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon has no plans to have normal relations with Israel at the
present time, and Beirut’s main aim is to reach a “state of no war” with its
southern neighbor, the country’s president said Friday. President Joseph Aoun’s
comments came as the Trump administration is trying to expand the Abraham
Accords signed in 2020 in which Israel signed historic pacts with United Arab
Emirates and Bahrain. In May, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said during a
visit to France that his country is holding indirect talks with Israel to
prevent military activities along their border from going out of control. Talks
about peace between Israel and Syria have increased following the ouster of
President Bashar Assad from power in December.Aoun added in comments released by
his office that only the Lebanese state will have weapons in the future, and the
decision on whether Lebanon would go to war or not would be for the Lebanese
government. Aoun’s comments were an apparent reference to the militant Hezbollah
group that fought a 14-month war with Israel, during which it suffered major
blows including the killing of some of its top political and military
commanders. Hezbollah says it has ended its armed presence near the borer with
Israel, but is refusing to disarm in the rest of Lebanon before Israel withdraws
from five overlooking border points and ends its almost daily airstrikes on
Lebanon. Earlier this week, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met with Lebanese leaders in
Beirut, saying he was satisfied with the Lebanese governments response to a
proposal to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s weapons have been one of the principal
sticking points since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. Since then,
Hebzollah fought two wars with Israel, one in 2006, and the other starting a day
after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered
the war in Gaza. The Hezbollah-Israel war, which ended with a U.S.-brokered
ceasefire in November, left more than 4,000 people dead in Lebanon and caused
destruction estimated at $11 billion. In Israel, 127 people, including 80
soldiers, were killed during the war. “Peace is the state of no war and this is
what is important for us in Lebanon at the present time,” Aoun was quoted as
telling visitors on Friday. He added that “the matter of normalization (with
Israel) is not included in Lebanon’s current foreign policy.”Lebanon and Israel
have been at a state of war since 1948.
Lebanon... Waiting at the
Train Station
Mustafa Fahs/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 12/ 2025
In his masterpiece “The Train Passed by” Mahmoud Darwish writes:
"I had been waiting on the sidewalk.
Travelers were rushing to their daily lives
....and I
continued to wait."
In Lebanon, we are waiting collectively: Lebanon’s state and its people, its
sects and parties, its individuals and groups are all waiting together, but for
what? To this question, answers diverge. Each side has a different
interpretation, singing their own distinct tune. The most difficult question,
however, remains whether we have already missed the train.
What Lebanon’s ruling political class and its elites have failed to grasp is
that Tom Barrack does not represent a charity. He is the American president’s
envoy, here to convey the terms offered by the world’s only superpower. He and
his country are busy addressing many concerns. They have no time to waste on
this political class, which, in turn, cannot afford to dither and does not have
the leverage to impose terms of its own. After years of corruption and strategic
and political mismanagement, Lebanon, both as a state and a people, is now being
hostage, forced to wait until further notice.
As we await Tom Barrack’s return to Beirut and his administration’s responses to
the Lebanese government's comments on the terms that the US has proposed (and
with it whether Lebanon has an opportunity to catch up with the changes and make
the new East train) Lebanon’s issues are becoming increasingly complicated. To
overcome our crisis, the nature of some groups must change, others must correct
course, and a third cluster must moderate their ambitions.
Whether that happens depends on regional dynamics that both shape Lebanon’s
political landscape and are shaped by it. Iran’s acquiescence is pivotal to
determining whether Hezbollah becomes a purely political party. A domestic
process is needed to transform the party and compel it to adopt a political
identity, and neither seems inevitable or forthcoming. As for the remaining
factions, they still seem incapable, at least for now, of putting their behind
the development of a framework for a functional state.
Tom Barrack may be the latest visitor or envoy to arrive in Lebanon, but he
comes from a family that had been among the first to board the long and distant
train of migration from the country to the US. It is a journey that the Lebanese
had been embarking on decades before the establishment of their modern state,
and one they continued to make after their independence and liberation,
particularly during periods of civil conflict, foreign tutelage, upheaval, and
economic and political crises. The seats of the Eastern trains and boats in its
ports were filled with migrants.
And now, after the "fatal support" that ended the "resistance" era, Tom Barrack
has blown the whistle to announce the departure of a new train. The Lebanese are
left with a choice: depart or return.
As for us- those who have remained and continue to wait at this train station-
we are faced with two options: either we bid farewell to those who have chosen
to take the path of our fathers and grandfathers and leave, or we welcome those
returning aboard a new train. They come with unfamiliar faces, as well as ideas
and projects once deemed unacceptable that recent shifts have made inevitable.
More alarmingly, boarding the train back to this impossible East is a daunting
task. We must load it with painful regional transformations and arduous domestic
reforms. Worse still, we are neither ready to board it nor protected from it.
Its promises are seductive but costly, and the train track is riddled with
traps. The real crisis is that some find hoping to be straightforward, while
others refuse to do so altogether. These dilemmas may offer the ruling class-
our sectarian and partisan leaders- an excuse to evade domestic responsibilities
under the pretext of “foreign threats.”
To return to the introduction, Mahmoud Darwish resumes his portrait of the
travelers:
"They went about their day, to their notebooks, to their postponed appointments,
to a homeland that resembles a song... and I am still waiting."
Amid this anticipation, boarding the train may well be a gamble, but refusing to
do so would be akin to suicide. We are at the final station; we have one last
opportunity, with all its risks and possibilities. Will we manage to make a
decision before we miss the train?
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on July 11-12/2025
All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis
Reuters/July 12, 2025
LONDON: Commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting
increasingly desperate messages on public channels to avoid being attacked by
the Houthi militia in Yemen. One message read “All Crew Muslim,” some included
references to an all-Chinese crew and management, others flagged the presence of
armed guards on board, and almost all insisted the ships had no connection to
Israel. Maritime security sources said the messages were a sign of growing
desperation to avoid attack, but were unlikely to make any difference. Houthi
intelligence preparation was “much deeper and forward-leaning,” one source said.
Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the group said
was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war. A lull this year ended when
they sank two ships last week and killed four crew. Vessels in the fleets of
both ships had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year. “Seafarers are the
backbone of global trade, keeping countries supplied with food, fuel and
medicine. They should not have to risk their lives to do their job,” the
Seafarers' Charity.
Gaza's largest functioning hospital facing
disaster, medics warn, as Israel widens offensive
David Gritten - BBC News/July 11,
2025
A fuel shortage threatens to shut down life-saving services at Nasser hospital
[Reuters]
Doctors have warned of an imminent disaster at Gaza's largest functioning
hospital because of critical shortage of fuel and a widening Israeli ground
offensive in the southern city of Khan Younis. Nasser Medical Complex was forced
to stop admitting patients on Thursday, when witnesses said Israeli troops and
tanks advanced into a cemetery 200m (660ft) away and fired towards nearby camps
for displaced families. The forces reportedly withdrew on Friday after digging
up several areas. Medical staff and dozens of patients in intensive care remain
inside the hospital, where the fuel shortage threatens to shut down life-saving
services. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. However, it
said on Friday morning that an armoured brigade was operating in Khan Younis to
dismantle "terrorist infrastructure sites" and confiscate weapons> It has
previously issued evacuation orders for the areas around the hospital. Children
queuing for supplements killed in Israeli strike in Gaza, hospital says. Gaza
truce talks reportedly stall despite second Netanyahu-Trump meeting. A witness
told the BBC that Israeli tanks accompanied by excavators and bulldozers
advanced from the south of the cemetery near Nasser hospital on Thursday. The
tanks fired shells and bullets as they moved into an area, which was previously
farmland, and several tents belonging to displaced families were set on fire,
the witness said. Video footage shared online showed a plume of dark smoke
rising from the area.
The witness added that Israeli quadcopter drones also fired towards tents in the
Namsawi Towers and al-Mawasi areas to force residents to evacuate. Another video
showed dozens of people running for cover amid as gunfire rang out.
One or two civilians standing near the hospital's gates were reportedly injured
by stray bullets. Medical staff inside Nasser hospital meanwhile sent messages
to local journalists expressing their fear. "We are still working in the
hospital. The tanks are just metres away. We are closer to death than to life,"
they wrote. On Friday morning, locals said the Israeli tanks and troops pulled
out of the cemetery and other areas close to the hospital. Staff at Nasser
hospital said they were assessing if they could resume admitting patients. On
Wednesday, they warned that the hospital was very close to a complete shutdown
due to a critical fuel shortage. They said electricity generators were expected
to function for one additional day despite significant efforts to reduce power
consumption and restrict electricity to only the most critical departments,
including the intensive care and neonatal units. If the power went out
completely, dozens of patients, particularly those dependent of ventilators,
would "be in immediate danger and face certain death", the hospital added. An
Israeli military official told Reuters news agency on Thursday that around
160,000 litres of fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities
had entered Gaza since Wednesday, but that the fuel's distribution around the
territory was not the responsibility of the army. There is a shortage of
critical medical supplies, especially those related to trauma care. During a
visit to Nasser hospital last week, the Gaza representative of the World Health
Organization (WHO) described it as "one massive trauma ward". Dr Rik Peeperkorn
said in a video that the facility, which normally has a 350-bed capacity, was
treating about 700 patients, and that exhausted staff were working 24 hours a
day. The director and doctors reported receiving hundreds of trauma cases over
the past four weeks, the majority of them linked to incidents around aid
distribution sites, he added.
"There's many boys, young adolescents who are dying or getting the most serious
injuries because they try to get some food for their families," he said. Among
them were a 13-year-old boy who was shot in the head and is now tetraplegic, and
a 21-year-old man who has a bullet lodged in his neck and is also tetraplegic.
On Friday, 10 people seeking aid were reportedly killed by Israeli military fire
near an aid distribution site in the nearby southern city of Rafah. The Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented.
Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, a senior Hamas commander was among eight people who
were killed in an Israeli air strike on a school sheltering displaced families
in Jabalia, a local source told the BBC. Iyad Nasr, who led the Jabalia al-Nazla
battalion, died alongside his family, including several children, and an aide
when two missiles hit a classroom at Halima al-Saadia school, according to the
source. Another Hamas commander, Hassan Marii, and his aide were reportedly
killed in a separate air strike on an apartment in al-Shati refugee camp, west
of Gaza City. It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a
new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal could be just days away, after
concluding his four-day trip to the US. Before flying back from Washington on
Thursday night, he told Newsmax that the proposal would supposedly see Hamas
release half of the 20 living hostages it is still holding and just over half of
the 30 dead hostages during a 60-day truce. "So, we'll have 10 living left and
about 12 deceased hostages [remaining], but I'll get them out, too. I hope we
can complete it in a few days," he added. However, a Palestinian official told
the BBC that the indirect negotiations in Qatar were stalled, with sticking
points including aid distribution and Israeli troop withdrawals. The Israeli
military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on
southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and
251 others were taken hostage. At least 57,762 people have been killed in Gaza
since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Iran expels half a million Afghans in 16-day stretch since
recent conflict with Israel, UN says
Nick Paton Walsh, Masoud Popalzai and Sarah El-Sirgany, CNN/July 11, 2025
More than half a million Afghans have been expelled from Iran in the 16 days
since the conflict with Israel ended, according to the United Nations, in what
may be one of the largest forced movements of population this decade. For
months, Tehran has declared its intention to remove the millions of undocumented
Afghans who carry out lower-paid labor across Iran, often in tough conditions.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said 508,426 Afghans have
left Iran via the Iranian-Afghanistan border between June 24 and July 9. A
startling 33,956 crossed Wednesday and 30,635 on Tuesday, after a peak of 51,000
on Friday, ahead of a Sunday deadline from Iran for undocumented Afghans to
leave. The deportations – part of a program Iran announced in March – have
radically increased in pace since the 12-day conflict with Israel, fueled by
unsubstantiated claims that Afghans had spied for Israel prior to and during the
attacks. Scant evidence has emerged to support claims of Afghan migrants
assisting Israel has emerged, leading critics to suggest Iran is simply
fulfilling a long-held ambition to reduce its illegal Afghan population and
focusing internal dissent on a vulnerable minority. Conditions for returnees are
stark, with temperatures as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees
celsius, with reception centers on the Afghanistan border struggling. Mihyung
Park, chief of mission for the UN’s international organization for migration,
told CNN on Tuesday, “There are thousands of people under the sun - and you know
how hot Herat can be. It is quite dire. Last week was quite massive.”Park said
half of the year’s returnees had arrived since June 1, with 250,000 in one July
week. “Last week it was about 400 unaccompanied, separated children – that is a
lot,” she added. Footage from the Islam Qala border crossing shows hundreds of
migrants awaiting processing and transport, often in the punishing summer Afghan
heat. Many have lived for years in Iran, often in semi-permanent conditions
despite lacking documentation, and found their lives uprooted in minutes in the
recent crackdown. Bashir, in his twenties, said in an interview in Islam Qala, a
border town in western Afghanistan, that he was detained by police in Tehran and
whisked to a detention center. “First, they took 10 million tomans (about $200)
from me. Then they sent me to the detention center where I was kept for two
nights and they forced me to pay another 2 million ($50). In the detention
center they wouldn’t give us food or drinking water. There were around 200
people there, and they would beat us up, they would abuse us,” he said. Parisa,
11, was standing with her parents as she described being told she could not
attend her school again this year, heralding her family’s deportation. Schooling
for girls in Afghanistan is restricted under the Taliban. “We spent six years in
Iran before they told us to apply for the exit letter and leave Iran,” she said.
“We did have a legal census document, but they told us to leave Iran
immediately.” The abrupt rise in deportations and claims of Afghans spying has
attracted international condemnation. The UN’s special rapporteur to
Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, posted on X at the weekend: “Hundreds of Afghans &
members of ethnic & religious minorities detained #Iran accused of ‘espionage.’
Also reports of incitement to discrimination & violence in the media labelling
Afghans & minority communities as traitors & using dehumanising language.”“We’ve
always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and
naturally illegal nationals must return,” Iran’s government spokesperson Fatemeh
Mohajerani said on July 1, according to Reuters.
State media has also aired footage of an alleged Afghan “spy” for Israel
confessing to working for another Afghan who was based in Germany. “That person
contacted me and said he needed information on certain locations,” the alleged
spy claims. “He asked for some locations, and I provided them. I also received
$2,000 from him.” The report did not identify the alleged spy or provide
evidence to support the claim. State media has also released footage of Tehran
police rounding up migrants, who the correspondent identified as mostly Afghans,
with its officers in pursuit of suspects across open fields. Potential deportees
are moved onto buses and forcibly marched off the vehicles to an unknown
destination. The state television correspondent in the footage asks one Tehran
employer of the alleged illegal migrant: “Why did you hire the Afghan? It’s
against the law.” The alleged employer replies, “I know! But I have to pay them
so they can go back. They want to go and (are) waiting to get paid.”
EU pressing Israel to improve Gaza humanitarian situation, top diplomat says
Danial Azhar/Reuters/July 11, 2025
KUALA LUMPUR - The European Union is seeking ways to put pressure on Israel to
improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, its top diplomat said, as member
states weighed action against Israel over what they see as potential human
rights violations. The EU's diplomatic service on Thursday presented 10 options
for political action against Israel after saying it found "indications" last
month that Israel breached human rights obligations under a pact governing its
ties with the bloc. In a document prepared for EU member countries and seen by
Reuters, the options included major steps such as suspending the EU-Israel
Association Agreement - which includes trade relations - and lesser steps such
as suspending technical projects. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on
Friday the options were prepared in response to member states that wanted
stronger pressure on Israel to rectify the suffering of civilians in Gaza's now
21-month-old war. "Our aim is not to punish Israel in any way," she said after
meeting with Asian foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, amid growing
global jitters arising from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff offensive. "Our
aim is to really improve the situation on the ground (in Gaza), because the
humanitarian situation is untenable." EU members have voiced concern over the
large number of civilian casualties and mass displacement of Gaza's inhabitants
during Israel's war against Hamas militants in the enclave, and alarm about
restrictions on access for humanitarian aid. Kallas said on Thursday Israel had
agreed to expand humanitarian access to Gaza, including increasing the number of
aid trucks, crossing points and routes to distribution hubs.
She also said negotiations with the U.S. on a trade deal to avoid high tariffs
threatened by Trump were ongoing, and stressed that the EU did not want to
retaliate with counter-levies on U.S. imports. Trump has said the EU could
receive a letter on tariff rates by Friday, throwing into question the progress
of talks between Washington and the bloc on a potential trade deal. "We have of
course possibilities to react, but we don't want to retaliate. We don't want a
trade war, actually," Kallas said.
Exclusive: Israel and Palestine to join high level Brussels meeting despite
tense EU relations
Shona Murray/Euronews/July 11, 2025
The ministers for foreign affairs of Palestine and Israel will be in the same
meeting as part of the EU-Southern Neighbourhood ministerial meeting on Monday
14 July in Brussels, diplomats and officials have told Euronews. The meeting
aims to deepen the EU’s cooperation with Israel as well as nine other southern
partners including Syria and Libya. It’s the first time both sides will be
represented at high level in Brussels since Hamas October 7th terror attacks and
subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza. The two sides meet frequently at the
United Nations but this setting is a more intimate high-level forum, and comes
in the week when EU member states are considering taking measures against Israel
for its war in Gaza and violence by Israeli Settlers in the West Bank. Senior
Israeli and Palestinian officials confirmed to Euronews that Gideon Saar and Dr.
Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s foreign affairs
ministers would participate in the meeting. Syria’s foreign minister from the
newly installed government, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, is also due to attend. “We
would like for us as Palestinians to speak for ourselves at this meeting and
send a message to Europeans about the humanitarian crisis for Palestinians and
ask that they take measures against Israel,” a Palestinian official told
Euronews. “We will also explain the deteriorating financial situation for the
Palestinian Authority as Israel continues to withhold €8.2 billion shekels
(€2.1bn) from tax revenues.”“We want to push for elections for Palestinian
people and find a political solution to our situation,” the official added. The
meeting was initially scheduled to take place in June, but the Commission had to
postpone the date due to the situation in Gaza. It comes at a time of difficult
relations between the EU and Israel following the country’s blockage of food
from entering into Gaza and after Palestinian health officials and witnesses
alleged recent shootings by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians headed for
humanitarian aid sites. The EU 27 foreign ministers are also scheduled to
examine a set of ten options on July 15th following a review of the EU-Israel
Association Agreement which revealed that Tel Aviv had breached the agreement’s
Article 2 due to its actions in Gaza. The proposals, which are listed with their
legal basis and the procedure to adopt them, include suspending the “entire”
EU-Israel Association Agreement, halting political dialogue with Israel, or
barring Tel Aviv's access to EU programs, all of which require unanimity among
27 member states. But the Southern neighbourhood ministerial meeting also takes
place following the announcement on Thursday that the EU and Israel had agreed
to a "significant" improvement of humanitarian aid access into Gaza. The EU’s
Southern Neighbourhood partnership derives from the 1995 Barcelona Declaration
which committed to turn the Mediterranean into “an area of dialogue, exchange
and cooperation, guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity”, according to an
official Commission document. It involves ministers and other representatives
from all 27 EU countries as well as 11 Arab countries of the Mediterranean
including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya.
Israeli strike on U.S. non-profit clinic kills at least 15 in Gaza
Paul Godfrey/United Press International/July 11, 2025
At least 15 Palestinians were killed, including 10 children and two women, in an
Israeli airstrike as they waited in line outside the clinic of a U.S.-health
non-profit in central Gaza. The attack on Thursday came as families gathered
awaiting the opening of the facility in Deir Al Balah to access treatment for
malnutrition, infections, chronic illnesses and other conditions, Project HOPE
said in a post on X. "Project HOPE's health clinics are a place of refuge in
Gaza where people bring their small children, women access pregnancy and
postpartum care, people receive treatment for malnutrition, and more. Yet,
innocent families were mercilessly attacked as they stood in line waiting for
the doors to open," said Project HOPE President and CEO Rabih Torbay. "This is a
blatant violation of international humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that
no one and no place is safe in Gaza, even as cease-fire talks continue. This
cannot continue." No Project Hope staff were on site, but the group said it had
suspended the operation of its Altayara clinic until further notice as a
precautionary measure. The facility, which was closed at the time, sustained
damage to the front of the building and the entrance. Footage circulating
online, which the BBC said had checked out as genuine, shows several adults and
small children on the ground outside, some apparently dead and others with
severe injuries. The nearby al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital confirmed 10 children had
died, but gave the total number killed as 17. Al Aqsa director Eyad Amawi said
the hospital had received at least 30 injured people, but that there were more
who had been taken to field hospitals. The Israel Defense Forces said it had
been targeting an unnamed Hamas fighter who had participated in the Oct. 7,
2023, attacks on Israel but had launched a review of the incident following
reports that a number of people had been injured. "The IDF regrets any harm to
uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible," it
added. The Washington Post said that it had seen CCTV footage that appeared to
show the strike comprised a single missile aimed at two men who were walking
near the people gathered outside the clinic, who were also caught in the blast.
"They used a munition with high fragmentation, optimized to kill squad-sized
elements of troops in the open, and not ideal for targeting in a crowded street
with civilians, including women and children, adjacent," former U.S. Air Force
Special Operations targeting expert and former Pentagon chief of civilian harm
assessments told the paper. At least 51 other people died in Israeli strikes
Thursday, including five killed when tents in the southern al-Mawasi area of the
strip were hit by a drone, the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said. The deadly
attacks came as three days of talks in Washington between Israeli President
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration and leaders on Capitol Hill on a
cease-fire in Gaza wrapped up without a breakthrough and Netanyahu flew back to
Israel. However, Netanyahu did not close the door on a possible deal coming out
of indirect negotiations with Hamas in Qatar that began Sunday, telling Newsmax
that he was hopeful of getting a 60-day cease-fire agreement that would see 10
living hostages released within days.
Israel says Iran could reach enriched uranium at a nuclear
site hit by US
ELLEN KNICKMEYER and TARA COPP/Associated Press/July 11/2025
WASHINGTON — Israel believes deeply buried stocks of enriched uranium at one
Iranian nuclear facility hit by the U.S. military are potentially retrievable, a
senior Israeli official said. And the agency that built the U.S. “bunker buster”
bombs dropped on two other nuclear sites said Thursday that it is still waiting
for data to be able to determine if those munitions reached their targets. Both
developments widen the views on the damage from last month's strikes, when the
United States inserted itself in Israel's war in a bid to eliminate the threat
of Iran developing a nuclear weapon. Iran says its program is peaceful.
President Donald Trump is adamant that the U.S. strikes “obliterated” the three
Iranian nuclear facilities it targeted. International assessments and an initial
U.S. intelligence assessment have been more measured, with the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency saying in a preliminary report that the strikes did
significant damage to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not destroy
them. CIA Director John Ratcliffe has since told skeptical U.S. lawmakers that
American military strikes destroyed Iran’s lone metal conversion facility, a
setback to the nuclear program that would take years to overcome, and that the
intelligence community assessed that the vast majority of Iran’s amassed
enriched uranium likely remains buried under the rubble at Isfahan and Fordo.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.
Much of Iran's enriched uranium is believed deeply buried at the third site,
Isfahan, the senior Israeli official said. The U.S. used B-2 stealth bombers to
target the Fordo and Natanz sites. The official spoke to reporters on condition
of anonymity to share Israeli assessments that had not been made public. Israel
believes Iran's enriched uranium was distributed in the three sites and had not
been moved, the Israeli official said. Nuclear and nonproliferation experts have
warned that Iranians could have moved the stockpiles somewhere safer as Israeli
strikes pounded Iran last month and expectation grew that the U.S. military
might join in.
The enriched uranium at Isfahan could potentially be retrieved by Iranians but
reaching it would take a very difficult recovery effort, the Israeli official
said. Trump and other administration officials have rebuffed suggestions that
the June 22 U.S. strikes did anything short of wiping out the nuclear sites.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said they were “destroyed.” Two officials
from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which spent decades designing the
GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs specifically to destroy Iran’s
facilities, said they still did not know yet if the munitions had reached the
depths the bombs had been engineered for. Those officials spoke on the condition
of anonymity to provide additional details on the bombs that had not been
previously announced. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in an interview
published Monday said the U.S. airstrikes so badly damaged his country’s nuclear
facilities that Iranian authorities still have not been able to access them to
survey the destruction. Pezeshkian added in the interview with conservative
American broadcaster Tucker Carlson that Iran would be willing to resume
cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog but cannot yet commit to allowing its
inspectors unfettered access to monitor the sites. “We stand ready to have such
supervision,” Pezeshkian said. “Unfortunately, as a result of the United States’
unlawful attacks against our nuclear centers and installations, many of the
pieces of equipment and the facilities there have been severely damaged.”Rafael
Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said late last month
that the three Iranian sites with “capabilities in terms of treatment,
conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important
degree.” But, he added, because capabilities remain, “if they so wish, they will
be able to start doing this again.” He said assessing the full damage comes down
to Iran allowing in inspectors.
“Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared, and there
is nothing there,” Grossi said.
Report links Israel's Mossad to 2020 assassination of top
Iranian nuclear scientist
Euronews/July 11/2025
New details have emerged about the 2020 assassination of senior Iranian nuclear
scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which Tehran blamed on Israel's Mossad spy agency.
Israel has never publicly claimed responsibility, including during or after the
flare-up in hostilities between the two countries in June. However, the latest
Jerusalem Post report has claimed that Fakhrizadeh was first shot while sitting
in his vehicle on 27 November 2020. Believing he might still survive, operatives
continued to fire at him after he exited the car and attempted to flee. He died
shortly thereafter, according to an Israeli newspaper. The new information
appears to support Iran's official account of events as made public by Major
General Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
Shamkhani said at the time that Fakhrizadeh was killed by a remote-controlled
machine gun linked to a satellite system. Israeli intelligence sources later
confirmed that a weapon matching that description - a US-made M240C 7.62mm
machine gun - was smuggled into Iran in parts and assembled over eight months by
a Mossad team of roughly 20 operatives.
The gun was reportedly mounted in a blue Zamyad pickup truck parked along Imam
Khomeini Street in Tehran and operated remotely to minimise risk to
Fakhrizadeh's wife, who was travelling with him at the time of the
assassination.
A second vehicle equipped with cameras is said to have been used to confirm the
scientist's identity moments before the ambush. The claims could not be
independently verified. Fakhrizadeh, long regarded by Western and Israeli
intelligence as a central figure in Iran's nuclear programme, was declared a
"martyr" by Iranian authorities and given a state funeral. According to Iranian
sources, the Mossad had considered targeting Fakhrizadeh as early as 2009, under
then-director Meir Dagan, but internal debate over the feasibility of such an
operation reportedly delayed any action. By 2020, Fakhrizadeh's operational role
may have become more replaceable, but his strategic importance and access to
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were reportedly undiminished. His killing is widely
believed to have set back Iran's nuclear ambition by months or even years, while
enhancing Israel's covert operational and intelligence capabilities.
New dates set for UN Palestinian statehood conference co-chaired
by France and Saudi Arabia
Arab News/July 11, 2025
NEW YORK: An international conference organized and co-chaired by Saudi Arabia
and France to discuss Palestinian statehood that was postponed last month has
been rescheduled for later this month. “The two-state solution ministerial
conference will resume on July 28 and 29; details will be shared shortly,”
diplomats confirmed to Arab News on Friday. Originally scheduled for June 17-20,
the event, officially titled the High-Level International Conference for the
Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the
Two-State Solution, was postponed after Israel launched its 12-day military
operation against Iran on June 13. The event, convened by the UN General
Assembly, will take place at the UN headquarters in New York. The aim is the
urgent adoption of concrete measures that will lead to the implementation of a
two-state solution and end decades of conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians. At the time of the postponement last month, French President
Emmanuel Macron said the conference was being put back for logistical and
security reasons but insisted it would be held “as soon as possible.”
The delay did not “call into question our determination to move forward with the
implementation of the two-state solution,” he added. Macron is expected to
officially announce French recognition of a Palestinian state during the event.
This week, he urged UK authorities to do the same. Palestine is officially
recognized by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states. It holds observer status within
the organization but is denied full membership. Speaking during a preparatory UN
meeting in May, Manal Radwan, a counselor at the Saudi Foreign Ministry, said
the conference comes at a moment of “historic urgency” in which Gaza was
“enduring unimaginable suffering.” She said Saudi Arabia was honored to stand
with the other nations committed to diplomatic efforts to bring “real,
irreversible and transformative change, to ensure, once and for all, the
peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.”
Netanyahu sets out red lines for lasting end to war in Gaza
Agence France Presse/July 11/2025
Israel is ready to negotiate a lasting deal with Hamas to end the Gaza war when
a temporary halt to hostilities begins, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
on Thursday. But Netanyahu said the Islamist militants must first give up their
weapons and their hold on the Palestinian territory, warning that failure to
reach a deal on Israel's terms would lead to further conflict. His comments as
Gaza's civil defense agency said eight children -- killed as they queued for
nutritional supplements outside a health clinic -- were among 66 people who died
in Israeli strikes across the territory Thursday. The U.N. children's agency
said one victim was a one-year-old boy who according to his mother had uttered
his first words only hours earlier. Efforts to secure a 60-day halt in the
21-month war have dominated Netanyahu's talks with U.S. President Donald Trump
in Washington. Indirect negotiations have been taking place between the two
sides in Qatar, and the militants have agreed to free 10 of the 20 hostages
still alive in captivity since the October 7, 2023 attack which sparked the war.
Sticking points include Hamas' demand for the free flow of aid into Gaza and
Israel's military withdrawal from the territory. It also wants "real guarantees"
on a lasting peace, the group said. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said
"progress has been made" but admitted in an interview with Austrian newspaper
Die Presse that ironing out "all complex issues" would likely take "a few more
days."There was no agreement on the number of Palestinian prisoners to be
released in exchange for hostages, he told the newspaper. He said that
"initially, eight hostages are to be released, followed by two more on the 50th
day" of the 60-day ceasefire. "Additionally, 18 bodies of hostages are to be
handed over," he was quoted as saying. Saar said a lasting ceasefire would be
discussed but added: "There are still major differences, especially regarding
the question of how Hamas will be prevented from controlling Gaza after the
war."He said Israel was ready to grant Hamas leaders safe passage into exile.
'Fundamental conditions' -
Netanyahu, who is under domestic pressure to end the war as military casualties
mount, said disarming and neutralising Hamas were "fundamental conditions" for
Israel. "If this can be achieved through negotiations, great," he said. "If it
cannot be achieved through negotiations within 60 days, we will have to achieve
it through other means, by using... the force of our heroic army." Senior Hamas
official Bassem Naim told AFP that it would not accept "the perpetuation of the
occupation of our land" or Palestinians being herded into "isolated enclaves" in
the densely populated territory. The group was particularly opposed to Israeli
control over Rafah, on the border with Egypt, and the so-called Morag Corridor
between the southern city and Khan Yunis, he added. Israel announced this year
that the army was seizing large areas of Gaza to be incorporated into buffer
zones cleared of their inhabitants. Naim said the group also wanted to end the
delivery of aid by a U.S. and Israel-backed group, a system which has seen
scores of people killed while seeking food rations.
Blood and screams -
The Palestinian territory's civil defence agency said eight children were among
17 people killed in an Israeli strike outside a medical clinic in Deir el-Balah
in central Gaza. "The ground shook beneath our feet and everything around us
turned into blood and deafening screams," said Yousef Al-Aydi, who was in the
queue for nutritional supplements when he heard a drone approaching then a
blast. Rabih Torbay, the head of U.S. medical charity Project Hope which runs
the facility, called it "a blatant violation of humanitarian law". Israel's
military said it had struck a Hamas militant in the city who had infiltrated
Israel during the 2023 attack and that it "regrets any harm to uninvolved
individuals". Overall, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least
57,762 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of
the conflict. Hamas' October 2023 attack led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most
of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. A total
of 251 hostages were seized in the attack. Forty-nine are still held in Gaza,
including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s defense minister plans to relocate displaced
Palestinians to restricted area in southern Gaza, Israeli media reports
Agencies/July 11/2025
Israel’s defense minister said he told the military to advance plans for what he
called a “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza,
according to reports in Israeli media. In a briefing to reporters Monday, Israel
Katz said the zone would initially house some 600,000 displaced Palestinians who
have been forced to evacuate to the Al-Mawasi area along the coast of southern
Gaza, multiple outlets who attended in the briefing reported. Palestinians who
enter the zone will go through a screening to check that they are not members of
Hamas. They will not be allowed to leave, Katz said, according to Israeli media.
Eventually, the defense minister said the entire population of Gaza – more than
2 million Palestinians – will be held in the zone. Katz then vowed that Israel
would implement a plan, first floated by US President Donald Trump, to allow
Palestinians to emigrate from Gaza to other countries. Israeli politicians,
including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have eagerly supported the
emigration plan, despite no country publicly expressing any willingness to take
part. At a White House dinner with Trump Monday, Netanyahu said, “We’re working
with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to
realize what they always said, that they want to give the Palestinians a better
future, and I think we’re getting close to finding several countries.”
Katz said the zone for displaced Palestinians will be run by international
bodies, not the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israeli media reported. The IDF
would secure the zone from a distance, Katz said, in a plan that appears to
imitate the aid distribution mechanism of the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). GHF operates the distribution sites, but the IDF
surrounds them militarily. It’s unclear what bodies would agree to participate
in Katz’s plan, especially since most international organizations refuse to take
part in GHF’s distribution sites due to serious concerns about impartiality and
the safety of the Palestinian population. Hundreds of Palestinians have been
killed trying to approach the distribution sites since they began operating a
month ago, according to health officials in Gaza and the United Nations. A
spokesman for Katz has not responded to repeated requests for comment. Asked
about the plan at a press conference on Tuesday evening, IDF spokesman Brig.
Gen. Effie Defrin said the military “will present several options to the
political echelon.”“Every option has its implications. We will act according to
the directives of the political echelon,” Defrin added. On Tuesday, British
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK opposes the new plan, just as it
opposed GHF. “I’m surprised at the statements that I’ve seen from Mr. Katz over
the last 24 hours,” Lammy told a parliamentary committee. “They run contra to
the proximity to a ceasefire that I thought we were heading towards.” Lammy
added that he does not recognize the plan “as a serious context in which the
people of Gaza can get the aid and support that they need at this time.”In a
statement Tuesday, Hamas said that Israel’s “persistent efforts to forcibly
displace our people and impose ethnic cleansing have met with legendary
resilience. Our people have stood firm in the face of killing, hunger, and
bombardment, rejecting any future dictated from intelligence headquarters or
political bargaining tables.”Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, said
Katz’s plan amounts to the forcible transfer of a population in preparation for
deportation. Both of these are war crimes, Sfard told CNN. “If they are done on
a massive scale – whole communities – they can amount to crimes against
humanity,” Sfard said, dismissing the notion that any departure from Gaza could
be considered voluntary. “There is no consensual departure. There is no
voluntary departure. People will flee from Gaza because Israel is mounting on
them coercive measures that would make their life in Gaza impossible,” he said.
“Under international law, you don’t have to load people on trucks at gunpoint in
order to commit the crime of deportation.”A senior diplomat from the United Arab
Emirates, considered one of the key countries in any plan for post-war Gaza,
said removing Palestinians from the enclave would be unacceptable. “The UAE has
publicly and categorically rejected the forced displacement of Palestinians…our
public position and our private position is that we reject the forced
dislocation of any Palestinians from the territory now to rebuild Gaza,” Lana
Nusseibeh told CNN. Qatar, which is now hosting proximity talks between Israel
and Hamas, also rejected the deportation of Gaza’s population. “We have said
very clearly we are against any forced relocation of Palestinians, or any
relocation of Palestinians outside their land,” Majed Al Ansari, spokesman for
the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday.
Trump threatens 35 per cent tariffs on Canada on Aug. 1 in letter posted online
Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press/July 11, 2025
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose 35 per cent
tariffs on Canadian imports on Aug. 1 in a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney
posted on social media Thursday night, evidently setting a new date for
bilateral negotiations between the two countries. Canada and the United States
had committed to working on a new economic and security agreement with a July 21
deadline for a deal. The boosted tariff pressures call into question progress
toward the initial time frame. Carney posted on social media later that
throughout trade negotiations the Canadian government has "steadfastly defended
our workers and businesses." "We will continue to do so as we work toward the
revised deadline," he said referencing Aug. 1.Trump sent correspondence to a
handful of countries this week outlining higher tariffs they'll face if they
don’t make trade deals by the start of August. Most of the countries — except
Brazil — had been bracing for the return of Trump's looming so-called
"reciprocal" tariffs this week. Trump pushed the deadline for those duties until
Aug. 1 to give more time to negotiate trade deals. Canada was not subject to
those tariffs and it's not clear why Trump sent the letter as the deadline for
negotiations had not passed. In the letter, Trump said if Canada works to stop
the flow of fentanyl into the United States he may consider a tariff adjustment.
Carney noted that Canada has made "vital progress to stop the scourge of
fentanyl in North America." He said "we are committed to continuing to work with
the United States to save lives and protect communities in both our countries."
In his correspondence to Carney, Trump also pointed to supply management in the
dairy sector, repeating his inaccurate claim about Canada putting 400 per cent
tariffs on American dairy farmers. The president said the trade deficit with
Canada is a threat to the American economy and national security. Carney pointed
to efforts in building a "one Canadian economy" and strengthening relationships
around the world. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on social media that
Canada has long been a trusted friend and partner to the United States and the
tariffs are an unjustified attack on the Canadian economy. "Conservatives stand
ready to do everything we can to secure the best deal for Canada by the July 21
deadline the Prime Minister has set," Poilievre said. "Our country stands
united." Trump declared an emergency at the northern border in order to use the
International Economic Emergency Powers Act to slap Canada with 25 per cent
tariffs in March, with a lower 10 per cent levy on energy and potash. He
partially paused the duties a few days later for imports under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico
Agreement on trade. It is unclear whether there'd be any carve-out for imports
compliant with the continental trade pact in Trump's latest tariff threats.
There are additional tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles, as well as a
plan to introduce tariffs on copper, also on Aug. 1.
The letter also pointed out that Canada had responded with retaliatory tariffs
after Trump first imposed the duties. It said if Canada raises its duties, the
United States will add an additional 35 per cent. The increased tariff comes as
a new report from a New York-based think tank questioned the drug trafficking
rationale of Trump's tariffs on Canada, saying the data shows the vast majority
of fentanyl seizures are linked to the southern border. The Manhattan Institute
analyzed newly released data on fentanyl and heroin seizures made in the 50 U.S.
states and Washington, D.C., from 2013 to 2024, with a focus on the last two
years. The report released earlier this month found that about 99 per cent of
the pills and 97 per cent of the powder were found along the border with Mexico.
It found that large fentanyl seizures along the Canadian border were rare. "The
main takeaway is that all indications are that the vast majority of fentanyl
consumed in the United States arrived via the southwest border with Mexico,"
co-author Jonathan Caulkins said Thursday.
"Quantities coming from Canada are negligible."
Canadians have pointed to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data that shows a
minuscule volume of fentanyl is seized at the northern border. The RCMP have
said there is little to no evidence to support that claim that Canadian fentanyl
is spreading in the United States. The Trump administration has dismissed that
justification and has maintained that Canada poses a large fentanyl threat. The
Manhattan Institute report said its analysis "contradicts views — such as those
used to justify certain tariffs — that treat the flows across the southern and
northern borders as being comparably important.""Imagine someone who tried to
pinch pennies by getting a friend to drive him to the airport whenever he took a
luxury cruise. Or imagine a dieter who used artificial sweetener in his coffee
whenever he ordered cheesecake for dessert," the report said. "The U.S. effort
to try to solve its fentanyl problem by focusing on the northern border with
Canada is similar."The report said that before the United States can act to
counter fentanyl trafficking, it must understand how it works. It found that 32
times as much powder and 78 times as many pills were seized in counties along
the Mexican border as in those counties sharing the land border with Canada.
Caulkins, a professor at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, said when
it comes to fentanyl, Canada and the United States "are in the same boat." Both
countries are beset by high overdose death rates from synthetic opioids
manufactured outside their borders.
— With files from Dylan Robertson in Ottawa
Iran confirms arrest of missing French-German teenage cyclist
RFI/July 11, 2025
France's prime minister has called on Iran not to "persecute innocent people"
after Tehran announced it had arrested young Franco-German cyclist Lennart
Monterlos, who disappeared in the country on 16 June. The French foreign
ministry had previously expressed concern over the fate of 18-year-old Lennart
Monterlos who disappeared in Iran on 16 June, while on a cycling trip from
Europe to Asia. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told French newspaper Le
Monde on Thursday that an "official notification" about Monterlos had been sent
to the French embassy in Tehran. He said Monterlos "has been arrested for
committing an offence". France and a number of other countries have urged their
nationals not to go to Iran because of the risk of detention. In an interview
with broadcaster LCI on Thursday evening, French Prime Minister François Bayrou
urged Iran not to "persecute the innocent who are sometimes unaware of the risks
they face". The French foreign ministry, which has accused Iran of pursuing a
deliberate policy of detaining foreigners to use as bargaining chips, said it
was in contact with Iranian authorities about the case and was also speaking
with the teenager's family.
Kurdish PKK fighters destroy weapons at key ceremony
Associated Press/July 11, 2025
Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long
insurgency in Turkey began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony
Friday in northern Iraq, the first concrete step toward a promised disarmament
as part of a peace process.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, announced in May it would disband and
renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after
PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul
since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally
disband and disarm. Öcalan renewed his call in a video message broadcast
Wednesday, saying, "I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not
weapons." In Turkey, Devlet Bahceli, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
nationalist ally who initiated the peace process, welcomed the development.
"Starting today, members of the separatist terrorist organization have begun
surrendering their weapons in groups, marking historic developments that signal
the end of a dark era," Bahceli said in a written statement. "These are
exceptionally important days for both Turkey and our region." Bahceli, who has
traditionally maintained a hardline stance against the PKK, had surprised
everyone in October when he suggested in parliament that Öcalan could be granted
parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the PKK.
The ceremony took place in the mountains outside the city of Sulaymaniyah in
northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region. The state-run Iraqi News Agency
reported that "the process will take place in stages, with a group of party
members initially laying down their weapons ;symbolically.'" The disarmament
process is expected to be completed by September, the agency reported. The PKK
has long maintained bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish forces have
launched offensives and airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and have set up bases
in the area. Scores of villages have emptied as a result. The Iraqi government
in Baghdad last year announced an official ban on the separatist group, which
has long been prohibited in Turkey. Journalists were not allowed at the site of
Friday's ceremony. An Iraqi Kurdish political official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that about 30
fighters took part in the ceremony, which took place in the presence of a
representative of the Turkish intelligence service and representatives of the
Kurdish regional government, Iraq's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, and the
Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party, a pro-Kurdish party in Turkey. PKK
officials previously said that in order to continue the disarmament process,
they want to see Turkey take steps to end "the regime of isolation" imposed on
Öcalan in prison and to allow integration of former militants into the political
system.
Kurdish separatist fighters in Iraq begin laying down
weapons as part of peace process with Turkey
STELLA MARTANY and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA/Associated Press/July 11, 2025
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq — Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has
waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey began laying down their weapons in a
symbolic ceremony on Friday in northern Iraq, the first concrete step toward a
promised disarmament as part of a peace process. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party,
or PKK, announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict,
ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah
Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his
group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm. Öcalan
renewed his call in a video message broadcast Wednesday, saying, “I believe in
the power of politics and social peace, not weapons.”
Dozens of fighters took part in a ceremony
Most journalists were not allowed at the site of Friday’s ceremony.
The PKK issued a statement from the fighters laying down their weapons, who
called themselves the “Peace and Democratic Society Group,” saying that they had
disarmed “as a gesture of goodwill and a commitment to the practical success” of
the peace process.
“We will henceforth continue our struggle for freedom, democracy, and socialism
through democratic politics and legal means,” the statement said. The ceremony
took place in the mountains outside the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s
semiautonomous Kurdish region. The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that
“the process will take place in stages, with a group of party members initially
laying down their weapons symbolically.” The disarmament process is expected to
be completed by September, the agency reported. An Iraqi Kurdish political
official said about 30 fighters took part in the ceremony, in the presence of a
representative of the Turkish intelligence service and representatives of the
Kurdish regional government, Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party and the
Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, a pro-Kurdish party in Turkey. The
official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly. Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus said the initial
disarmament step had proceeded “as planned,” but cautioned that the process was
far from complete. “There’s still a long way to go in collecting many more
weapons,” Kurtulmus said. “What matters is ending the armed era in a way that
ensures weapons are never taken up again.”
The official noted that the Turkish parliament was close to setting up a
commission to oversee the peace process.
Turkey welcomes the disarmament
In Turkey, Devlet Bahceli, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nationalist ally who
initiated the peace process, welcomed the development. “Starting today, members
of the separatist terrorist organization have begun surrendering their weapons
in groups, marking historic developments that signal the end of a dark era,”
Bahceli said in a written statement. “These are exceptionally important days for
both Turkey and our region.”Bahceli, who has traditionally maintained a
hard-line stance against the PKK, had surprised everyone in October, when he
suggested in parliament that Öcalan could be granted parole if he renounced
violence and disbanded the PKK. The PKK has waged an armed insurgency against
Turkey since 1984, initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the
southeast of the country. Over time, the objective evolved into a campaign for
autonomy and rights for Kurds within Turkey. The conflict between militants and
state forces, which has spread beyond Turkey’s borders into Iraq and Syria, has
killed tens of thousands of people. The PKK is considered to be a terrorist
organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Previous peace
efforts between Turkey and the PKK have ended in failure - most recently in 2015
-- leading to the resurgence of violence. The PKK has long maintained bases in
the mountains of northern Iraq, where Turkish forces have launched offensives
and airstrikes and have set up bases in the area. Last year, Iraq’s government
announced an official ban on the separatist group, which has long been
prohibited in Turkey. Scores of villages have emptied as a result of the
violence. Displaced Kurdish Iraqis have voiced hopes that this peace process
will finally allow them to go home. Officials have spoken of a five-part peace
process with the PKK, with the first phase being the political initiative
launched by Bahceli, followed by Ocalan’s message in February urging the PKK to
abandon the armed struggle. The next two steps would focus on legal
reintegration of the PKK fighters and long-term healing and reconciliation
efforts. PKK officials previously said that in order to continue the disarmament
process, they want to see Turkey take steps to end “the regime of isolation”
imposed on Öcalan in prison and to allow integration of former militants into
the political system.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on July 11-12/2025Selected Tweets for 08 July/2025
The Jubilation in Israel Is Premature
Gershom Gorenberg/The Atlantic/July 11, 2025
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of
the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign
up for it here. In Israel, the war is over, and not over at all. In the two
weeks since the cease-fire with Iran, praise for the Israeli military has been
nearly unanimous within the country. Opposition politicians spoke of “clear” and
“stunning” accomplishments by the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad
intelligence agency. That some Iranian missiles evaded Israel’s defenses has
largely faded from the news. Operationally, the Israeli campaign was indeed
impressive. For 12 days, the Israeli air force ruled Iranian skies without
losing a single plane. Any euphoria, however, is premature and discordant. Iran
has not vanished as an enemy. And the routine state of affairs to which Israel
has returned is not peacetime, but continuing war in Gaza. One reason to avoid
triumphalism is that the war’s effect is still not clear and could in the long
run be the opposite of what Israel seeks. Precisely how much damage Iranian
nuclear installations sustained from the Israeli bombing and the brief, fierce
U.S. attack remains the subject of conflicting assessments. Meir Litvak, of Tel
Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, told me that “if Israel’s
goal was to completely destroy the entire nuclear project, it has not
succeeded.” As a result, Litvak stressed, “the danger now is redoubled”: Iran
will most likely rebuild its facilities, and its motivation to develop a nuclear
weapon will have increased.
This fits a historical pattern: Israeli words and deeds have played a role in
the long cycle of escalation and counter-escalation with Iran. Anti-Semitism
runs deep within the Iranian regime’s ideology, and opposition to Israel’s
existence is among the Islamic Republic’s core principles. But how that
principle translates into policy has varied over time and in response to
regional events.
Raz Zimmt, an Iranian-studies specialist also at Tel Aviv University, wrote late
last year that Israeli attacks on Iranian proxies and covert operations inside
Iran had led some in Tehran to view Israel “not only as an illegitimate entity
that must be wiped off the map, but also as a growing menace” to Iran’s national
security. Zimmt cited the 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a prominent
Iranian nuclear scientist, and an explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility the
following year as having possibly “triggered Tehran’s decision to increase its
uranium enrichment,” first to 20 percent, then to 60 percent.
Indeed, one reason conflicts escalate is that each side sees its actions as
unavoidable responses to the other’s aggression. From an Israeli perspective,
the clandestine efforts over many years to keep Iran from creating a bomb were
reasonably understood as defensive moves against an extreme danger. The risk
that Israel’s actions could actually push Iran’s leaders to accelerate its
nuclear program has been strikingly absent from Israeli public debate.
What Iran will do now that Israel and the United States have unleashed their
firepower on its nuclear sites remains to be seen. But here is one clue:
President Masoud Pezeshkian has approved a law that ends cooperation with the
International Atomic Energy Agency and bars United Nations inspectors from
Iran’s nuclear facilities. This move suggests the possibility that Iran will
push past threshold status and become an overt nuclear power. If that happens,
the June war may well be remembered as another escalatory step.
That danger is all the greater because Iran’s conventional deterrents against
Israel failed. The presence of heavily armed Iranian proxies did not dissuade
Israel from striking: Lebanese Hezbollah stayed on the sidelines when Israel
launched its attack on Iran. Nor did Iran’s ballistic-missile arsenal prevent
the Israeli onslaught. Iranian missiles did exact a price: 28 Israelis were
killed, the last four just before the cease-fire took effect on June 24. Some
15,000 have been evacuated from their homes. For much of the public, the full
extent of the destruction does not yet seem to have sunk in, partly because the
military censor has prohibited publishing the location of direct hits. In one
case, the censor banned a Haaretz culture columnist’s piece about strolling
through smashed Tel Aviv streets. Friends told me of arriving at a familiar spot
for the first time after the cease-fire and being stunned by the sight of
buildings ripped open by a blast. U.S. researchers used satellite data to
determine that five Israeli military bases had been damaged by direct hits; this
assessment could be cited in the Hebrew media only because it appeared first in
The Telegraph in Britain.
Still, neither the missiles nor any other Iranian capability effectively
discouraged the Israeli campaign—further reason that Iran’s leader may seek a
nuclear deterrent instead.
Perhaps the most salient reason that celebration feels out of place is that the
war with Hamas has now lasted more than 50 times longer than the war with Iran
did.
Israel’s successes in Iran throw its Gaza policy into sharp relief. Israel’s
intelligence services were able to penetrate Iran deeply. Its air force
precisely struck missile sites. Mossad agents reportedly launched drones and
missiles from inside the country. Israeli intelligence claimed to have solid
information that Iran intended to complete the process of building a nuclear
bomb. On October 7, 2023, by contrast, Israel was caught unaware by an enemy of
small numbers, with unsophisticated weapons.
Since the start of the Gaza war, a majority of Israelis have demanded an
investigation into what went wrong. But one obvious answer is that attention is
a limited resource, and its apportionment to Iran and Hezbollah, in preference
to Hamas and the Palestinian issue near at hand, mirrored Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s worldview.
More than 30 years ago, as he began his ascent to power, Netanyahu published a
book called A Place Among the Nations. In it, he dismissed what he called the
“theory of Palestinian centrality.” Palestinian claims, in his description, were
a propaganda tool of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Criticism of
Israeli rule of the West Bank and Gaza was based on the false “myth of ‘Israeli
expansionism.’”
Aside from minor adjustments, Netanyahu has remained consistent in this
worldview, and he has led Israel for most of the past 16 years. One implication
of his vision has been that Israel could safely manage its conflict with the
Palestinians in part by maintaining the split between Hamas rule in Gaza and
Fatah control of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Another corollary
was that the greatest danger to the nation lay farther away.
Had Israel been as prepared for Hamas as it was for Iran, the Israeli army and
air force could have struck Hamas’s Nukhba commandos at their assembly points on
October 7 before they entered Israel. In all likelihood, the conflict would have
been much shorter. Not only would the loss of life on the Israeli side and the
taking of hostages have been prevented, but the death toll in Gaza would likely
be far less.
The war with Iran allowed Netanyahu to focus national attention again on the
distant enemy, but only briefly. Gaza will not go away. The extent to which
Israeli civilians pay attention to the death of Palestinians and the damage or
destruction of most of the buildings there depends largely on what news sources
they choose. But the names and faces of Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting
are impossible to avoid. Early Tuesday in Israel—Monday night in Washington—the
top headline on Israeli news sites was not Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump, or
his sycophantic nomination of the president for the Nobel Peace Prize. It was
the death of another five soldiers, in Beit Hanoun, at the northern end of the
Gaza Strip.
The “root of our problems in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian issue,”
the retired general Shlomo Brom, the former head of strategic planning for the
Israeli general staff, told me. The Gaza war has put that back at the top of the
Israeli and world agenda, whether or not the Netanyahu government acknowledges
it. In strictly military terms, Brom told me, the war “passed the point of
diminishing returns” for Israel many months ago. “The main reason that the war
continues,” he said, is the “question of the day after, of who will rule Gaza,
which our government refuses to address.”
The deal now being discussed between Israel and Hamas will not settle that
issue, according to most reports. It would inaugurate a 60-day cease-fire and
secure the release of half of the 20 living Israeli hostages Hamas is believed
to still hold.
In the most optimistic case, those two months would allow for negotiations that
could finally bring an end to the war. That would mean allowing some form of
Palestinian or other Arab government to administer Gaza and begin
reconstruction. And then, just possibly, the long-postponed conversation in
Israel about the moral and human cost of the war might begin. Until that time,
the moment will not have come to break out the champagne, or even to sigh in
relief.
Warnings to President Trump on the Future of Gaza
Robert Johnson/Gatestone Institute/July 11, 2025
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21747/trump-gaza-future
The Trump administration is being sent early warnings of the priorities of its
possible "partner," Qatar, for the future of the Gaza Strip.
"His Excellency" Mohammed al-Rumaihi, Qatar's former ambassador to the United
States, and former Minister of Municipality and Environment, noted on July 5
that he is concerned about "keep[ing] the Palestinian cause alive – and its
people," and slammed Israel: "No major capital—neither Beijing, nor Moscow, nor
Washington—has labelled the Gaza campaign as 'systematic killing,' let alone
moved to punish Israel under Chapter VII of the UN Charter."
You are not left to guess which side of the conflict he is on.
Meetings currently appear to be underway to create a possible "consortium" of
Arab and Muslim nations to govern the Gaza Strip – basically leaving in place
many of the same radical Islamic adherents of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,
of which it is an offshoot, as before -- most likely to make sure that Israel
can be attacked again in the future as many times as necessary to ensure its
extinction.
"Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran." — Udi
Levy, former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency, who dealt with
economic warfare against terrorist organizations, Ynet, April14, 2024.
President Donald Trump -- whose initial instincts are often perfect until
"advisors" try to talk him out of them – originally suggested an American-built
"Riviera" on the Gaza Strip. Combined with a military base, it would greatly
serve the interests of the United States as well as Israel – similarly to how
the US stations the forward HQ of Central Command and Air Forces Central Command
at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to protect the oil-rich peninsula. American
forces at Al-Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East, effectively
serve as Qatar's private air-force. Qatar might even have snookered some US
bureaucrats into thinking that they are doing the US a favor by allowing its
troops to be there.
Trump's original idea of a US "Riviera" in Gaza, stems from an "America First"
point of view, may be the most constructive way to successfully deter further
military engagement for the United States in the Middle East.
At the moment, however, it is crucial not to allow Qatar, Egypt or any Arab
state to get anywhere near Gaza. "His Excellency" al-Rumaihi from Qatar is
clearly telling you so.
"His Excellency" Mohammed al-Rumaihi, Qatar's former ambassador to the United
States, and former Minister of Municipality and Environment, noted on July 5
that he is concerned about "keep[ing] the Palestinian cause alive – and its
people," and slammed Israel:
"No major capital—neither Beijing, nor Moscow, nor Washington—has labelled the
Gaza campaign as 'systematic killing,' let alone moved to punish Israel under
Chapter VII of the UN Charter."
You are not left to guess which side of the conflict he is on.
He goes on to suggest "political engagement.... in negotiation rooms and policy
forums."
Gosh, why didn't anyone ever think of that?! Unfortunately -- one supposes
deliberately -- al-Rumaihi, does not mention what "political engagement" means.
Does it mean negotiations, as in the calamitous Oslo Accords, which legitimized
the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership, committed the Palestinians to
no further terrorism, and, as there were no mechanisms to enforce compliance,
which they violated almost immediately? Does it mean elections, as in the 2006
election that brought the terrorist group Hamas to power in the Gaza Strip? What
al-Rumaihi seems to mean is that endless talking at least serves to keeps his
ball in play and delays the possibility of the "wrong" outcome -- one that will
"punish Israel."
Qatar has, after all, invested roughly up to $1.8 billion in Hamas since
Palestinians elected it to govern the Gaza Strip in 2006. Qatar's leaders are
also, through their Al Jazeera broadcasting empire, the primary mouthpiece for
the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the font of all the radical Islamic
terrorist groups. Its motto is:
"Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad
is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
The Trump administration would do well to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a
Foreign Terrorist Organization. Such a message might slow down the supporters of
terrorism, or at least take some of the fun out of it for them.
Qatar, therefore, may understandably feel obligated to protect its client Hamas,
as it successfully did for Afghanistan's Taliban, another of its beneficiaries.
Qatar "helpfully" mediated in talks between the Taliban and the US -- probably
to make sure that the Taliban won -- as it did. The Taliban's victory over the
US, under the auspices of US President Joe Biden's unceremonious surrender and
the US forces' flight, left the Taliban in control of Afghanistan, and swiftly
rolling back all the advances, especially for women's rights, that the US took
20 years to build.
Meetings currently appear to be underway to create a possible "consortium" of
Arab and Muslim nations to govern the Gaza Strip – basically leaving in place
many of the same radical Islamic adherents of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,
of which it is an offshoot, as before -- most likely to make sure that Israel
can be attacked again in the future as many times as necessary to ensure its
extinction.
The extremely tempting short-term view would be that Qatar's involvement in Gaza
would not only save the US much of the expense of rebuilding the enclave, but
also include a sweetheart deal: enormous contracts, presumably paid for by
Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, to some of the real estate developers
negotiating the arrangement.
The long term view, unfortunately, could not be darker for Israel and the US.
Both countries could soon find themselves once again caught in the middle of the
inevitable blow-up when, Qatar, the world's largest sponsor of terrorism and
Hamas's long-term patron, protects its clients in the Gaza Strip as devotedly as
it protected the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It is no secret that Qatar has been the major funder of effectively every
Islamic terrorist group, including ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Taliban.
According to Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency,
who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, "Qatar is at
the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran."
Qatar's pattern seems to be supporting radical Islamic terrorist groups, then
offering to "mediate" between them and countries trying to persuade them not to
be terrorist groups. Qatar is hardly a neutral negotiator. According to the
Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI):
"Qatar has sustained the Taliban terrorist organization for years, hosted their
leadership in Doha, and enabled them to take over Afghanistan's democratically
elected secular government of Ashraf Ghani in 2021, during which 13 American
soldiers were killed."
Egypt has also been mentioned as one of the possible countries to be included in
this "consortium." There is probably no surer way to preserve the continuation
of a terrorist state in Gaza than to have Egypt once again resume its bonanza of
overseeing tunnels under the border between Israel and Egypt, to smuggle weapons
and possibly terrorists back into Gaza, then sit by to watch Israel attacked
again in a few years.
President Donald Trump -- whose initial instincts are often perfect until
"advisors" try to talk him out of them – originally suggested an American-built
"Riviera" on the Gaza Strip. Combined with a military base, it would greatly
serve the interests of the United States as well as Israel – similarly to how
the US stations the forward HQ of Central Command and Air Forces Central Command
at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to protect the oil-rich peninsula. American
forces at Al-Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East, effectively
serve as Qatar's private air-force. Qatar might even have snookered some US
bureaucrats into thinking that they are doing the US a favor by allowing its
troops to be there.
A high priority for Israel is having Hamas release all 50 of the hostages it is
still holding -- 20 possibly alive and the rest deceased. Trump could expedite
their release by informing Qatar that unless they are all set free in one week,
the US will move its forces from Al-Udeid to the territory of a solid ally, such
as the United Arab Emirates. What about the forward HQ of Central Command on the
Gaza Strip?
Qatar's leaders know full well that If the US ever were to relocate its forces
from Qatar, according to John Mirisch, chief policy officer of the
Israeli-American Civic Action Network, it is Qatar that has "everything to
lose."
"The ultimatum would include the U.S. revoking Qatar's non-NATO ally status
(which never should have been granted in the first place); it would include
sanctions on Qatar, such as freezing Qatari assets and personal sanctions on
Qatar's royal family, including those who own palatial mansions in Bel Air; it
would include the threat of shutting down and moving CENTCOM's Al-Udeid airbase,
perhaps to Bahrain or Saudi Arabia; it would include banning Al-Jazeera, which
has already been banned in a number of countries, as well as in the Palestinian
Authority."
Trump's original idea of a US "Riviera" in Gaza, stems from an "America First"
point of view, may be the most constructive way to successfully deter further
military engagement for the United States in the Middle East.
At the moment, however, it is crucial not to allow Qatar, Egypt or any Arab
state to get anywhere near Gaza. "His Excellency" al-Rumaihi from Qatar is
clearly telling you so.
**Robert Johnson is based in Europe and the Middle East
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‘Submit and All Will Go Well for You’: A Jihadist Summons
to Trump
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/July 11/2025
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2025/07/11/submit-and-all-will-go-well-for-you-a-jihadist-summons-to-trump/
Amid the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, a prominent Egyptian sheikh is now
calling on Donald Trump to follow “guidance.”
In a video message, Sheikh Mustafa al-‘Adawi issued the following summons:
A message to Trump, the great [one] of America: Peace to whoever follows
guidance. Submit and all will go well for you. Submit and God will reward you
twice. If you wield authority, you will be held accountable. Know, Mr.
President, that you will die and be resurrected alone. You will be held
accountable and punished — so do righteous deeds… God granted you kingship, and
He alone can withdraw it. Do not be deceived by being a king or president —
those before you have died. Where is Johnson? Where is Nixon? Where is Kennedy?
They all passed away and were buried. Do not be deluded by military funerals or
flowers on graves. Know that your deeds will be exposed one day. You are on the
path of arrogance. And the Lord of Glory said: ‘He created you from weakness,
then made after weakness strength, then after strength, weakness and white
hair.’ So submit and all will go well for you — God will reward you twice.
On the surface, these words may seem like philosophical reflections worthy of a
Marcus Aurelius — urging an aging Trump to repent, cease wrongdoing in the
Middle East, and follow spiritual guidance before meeting his Maker.
But make no mistake: beneath the veneer of piety lies a thinly veiled jihadist
threat — specifically, the age-old ultimatum to embrace Islam or face
consequences.
Direct Threat
I know this because the sheikh’s exact phrasing — particularly “Peace to whoever
follows guidance” and “submit and all will go well for you” — has a long,
documented history in the annals of Islamic expansionism. I first analyzed this
formulaic language over two decades ago, when Osama bin Laden repeatedly
employed it in his communiqués to the West (see The Al Qaeda Reader, 2007).
Just like Sheikh al-‘Adawi today, bin Laden began and ended his threats with the
same phrase: “Peace to whoever follows guidance.” To the average Western reader,
this may have seemed like a benign or even conciliatory gesture — an invitation
to mutual understanding. But embedded within such messages were accusations,
grievances, and promises of violent retribution; or, in the literal words of bin
Laden: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” and “Just as you bomb, so shall
you be bombed.”
The pattern was clear: Follow our guidance or face war.
In reality, this phraseology traces directly back to the prophet of Islam
himself. In 628 AD, after uniting most of Arabia through conquest, Muhammad sent
a letter to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius:
“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. From Muhammad, the
Messenger of God, to Heraclius, the Roman emperor. Peace to whoever follows
guidance. Submit and all will go well for you.”
The Arabic phrase “aslam taslam” is a linguistic pun, which can most literally
be translated as “submit, have peace” or “submit, be safe.”
Heraclius refused. What followed was jihad — as enshrined in Koran 9:29 — and
the Islamic conquest of nearly two-thirds of the then-Christian world: Egypt,
North Africa, Syria, and Spain.
Second Verse, Same as the First
This is the context behind the seemingly innocuous phrase now being lobbed at
Trump. For Muslims steeped in their own history, this is not metaphorical. Trump
is being cast as the modern Heraclius, the current “Roman Emperor,” and the West
once again finds itself in the crosshairs.
Here’s what many in the West fail to understand:
Islam and peace are not synonyms. While both “Islam” and the Arabic word for
peace, salam, derive from the same root — s-l-m — only salam means “peace.”
Islam (aslam) means “submission.” In Islamic doctrine, peace comes only after.
The message is never simply ‘live and let live.’ It’s a structured process:
First issue the call to Islam. If rejected, war is not just justified but
mandated. This formula — call, reject, fight — is rooted in the behavior of
Muhammad himself, and thus eternally valid for his followers.
The phrase has powerful religious and rhetorical weight. When modern Muslim
leaders invoke “Peace to whoever follows guidance,” they are consciously echoing
Muhammad. To Muslim ears, it signals not moderation, but alignment with sacred
precedent.
In the West, this phrase continues to deceive. Many interpret it as a poetic
call for coexistence. But within the Islamic world, its meaning is understood —
and its implications are deadly. The fact that some translators are today
rendering “aslam taslam” as “convert to Islam or else” is a sign of growing
awareness, even if their critics accuse them of not literally translating the
phrase.
The takeaway? When Muslim preachers tell you “submit and all will go well for
you,” they mean it. Just ask Heraclius. Or Trump.
And the next time someone parrots the claim that “Islam means peace” — as
President George W. Bush infamously did after 9/11 — remember the truth: Islam
means submission. Peace comes only afterward — if at all.
Question: “What does the Bible say about creation vs.
evolution?”
GotQuestions.org/July 11/2025
Answer: It is not the purpose of this answer to present a scientific argument in
the creation vs. evolution debate. The purpose of this article is to explain
why, according to the Bible, the creation vs. evolution debate even exists in
its present form. Romans 1:25 declares, “They exchanged the truth of God for a
lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is
forever praised. Amen.”
A key factor in the state of the creation vs. evolution debate is that the
majority of scientists who believe in evolution are also atheists or agnostics.
There are some who hold a form of theistic evolution. Others take a deistic view
of God, believing He exists but is not involved in the world, and everything
proceeds along an uninterrupted, natural course. Many genuinely and honestly
look at the data and arrive at the conclusion that evolution better fits the
data. However, the dominant narrative in this discussion is that evolution is,
somehow, incompatible with both the Bible and faith in God.
It is important to realize that some scientists who hold to belief in evolution
also believe in God and the Bible without seeing one or the other as
contradictory. However, the vast majority of evolutionary scientists hold that
life evolved entirely without any intervention of a higher being. Modern
theories of evolution, in practice, are almost entirely a naturalistic science.
There are spiritual drivers behind some of these positions. For atheism to be
true, there must be an alternate explanation—other than a Creator—for how the
universe and life came into existence. Although belief in some form of evolution
predates Charles Darwin, he was the first to develop a plausible, natural source
for the process of evolution: natural selection. Darwin once identified himself
as a Christian, but, as a result of some tragedies that took place in his life,
he later renounced the Christian faith and the existence of God.
Darwin’s goal was not to disprove God’s existence, nor did he see his theory as
doing so. Unfortunately, that is how his ideas have been promoted by those
looking to enable atheism. One reason many believers today resist modern
evolutionary theory is that it so often comes packaged with a forced, atheistic
worldview. Evolutionary scientists likely would not admit that their goal is to
give an alternate explanation of the origins of life and thereby to give a
foundation for atheism. And yet, according to the Bible, that is one reason the
theory of evolution is approached in the way we see today.
The Bible tells us, “The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1;
53:1). The Bible also proclaims that people are without excuse for not believing
in a Creator God. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible
qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being
understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans
1:20). According to the Bible, anyone who denies the existence of God is a fool.
Foolishness does not imply a lack of intelligence. By necessity, evolutionary
scientists are brilliant intellectually. Foolishness indicates an inability to
properly apply knowledge. Proverbs 1:7 tells us, “The fear of the LORD is the
beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”
Atheists who support evolution frequently mock creation and/or intelligent
design as unscientific and not worthy of scientific examination. In order for
something to be considered a “science,” they argue, it must be “naturalistic.”
Creation, by definition, is beyond the rules of the natural world. Since God
cannot be tested, so the argument goes, creation and/or intelligent design
cannot be considered science.
Strictly speaking, evolution cannot be observed or tested any more or less than
intelligent design, but that does not seem to be an issue with non-believing
evolutionists. As a result, all data is filtered through the preconceived,
presupposed, and pre-accepted worldview of naturalism, without alternate
explanations being considered.
Neither the origin of the universe nor the origin of life can be directly tested
or observed. Both creation and evolution require a level of faith to be
accepted. We cannot go back in time to observe the origin of the universe or of
life in the universe. Those who adamantly reject creation do so on grounds that
would logically force them to reject evolution as well.
If creation is true, then there is a Creator to whom we are accountable.
Evolution, as often presented today, is an enabler for atheism. Evolution gives
atheists a basis for explaining how life developed apart from a Creator God. As
such, modern theories of evolution serve as a substitute “creation story” for
the religion of atheism. The Bible is clear: God is the Creator. Any
interpretation of science that attempts to remove God from involvement with
origins is incompatible with Scripture.
Afghanistan-Iran migration crisis demands urgent action
Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/July 11, 2025
Amid the ongoing conflict in the region, Iran and Afghanistan are grappling with
a severe migration crisis. Since the beginning of the year, 1.2 million Afghan
migrants have been deported from Iran back to Afghanistan, placing an immense
burden on a country already struggling with poverty, instability and limited
resources. Neighboring Iran and Afghanistan are bound by centuries of shared
history. Their peoples are connected by cultural, linguistic and religious ties.
From the days of the Persian Empire to the modern era, the two nations have
moved between unity and divergence, particularly after the 1979 Iranian
Revolution. For decades, what is now Afghanistan was considered part of the
greater Persian Empire, a legacy that is still visible in their shared
identities.
The formation of distinct nation states brought about formal borders; however,
the bonds remain strong, shaped by common heritage and geographical proximity.
These ties have made migration between the two countries both natural and
frequent. The presence of Persian-speaking communities, especially the Hazara
minority, and an open border have long facilitated Afghan movement into Iran,
whether for work, refuge or as a transit country to Turkiye and Europe.
After 1979, Iran began using Afghan migrants as a source of low-cost labor,
particularly in construction. This trend deepened following the Taliban’s return
to power in 2021, creating another large wave of Afghan displacement.
Then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi came from the migrant-heavy region of
Mashhad. Under his leadership, Tehran took a more regulated approach to Afghan
migration. His government launched one of the country’s largest-ever
registration campaigns, providing temporary residency to some 2.5 million
undocumented Afghans and building a centralized identification system to better
manage their presence.
But these steps, however ambitious, could not withstand the geopolitical turmoil
that erupted last month. Amid an intensifying war with Israel, including missile
strikes and attacks on its nuclear facilities, Iran ordered Afghan migrants to
leave the country, beginning on June 6. Within days, tens of thousands had fled
or were forcibly deported. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
more than 30,000 Afghans were deported every day during the Iran-Israel
conflict.
Iran is home to more than 6 million Afghans, the vast majority of whom are
undocumented and living in precarious conditions. Tehran’s sudden crackdown was
reportedly driven by rising security fears, particularly suspicions that some
undocumented Afghans may be involved in espionage. Iranian state media reported
the arrests of Afghan nationals accused of spying for Israel during last month’s
12-day conflict.
Many Afghans deported from Iran find themselves returning to a country in an
even worse condition than they left
This adds to the anti-Afghan sentiment in Iran, which has been growing for
years. Afghans are frequently portrayed as economic burdens, with public
discourse increasingly dominated by xenophobic claims and accusations that they
“steal Iranian jobs.” These combined pressures have resulted in the alarming
consequence of 450,000 Afghans being deported from Iran since early June.
Behind these headline numbers is a growing humanitarian emergency that raises
serious concern. Humanitarian agencies warn of an unfolding catastrophe.
Afghanistan, already struggling with entrenched poverty and severe climate
shocks, is ranking 181st out of 193 on the UN’s Human Development Index. It is
simply not equipped to absorb such a large number of people.
Returnees have no homes and are suffering from extreme famine and poor health.
Many are suffering from heat exhaustion and malnutrition. In response, the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched a
$30 million emergency appeal to support returnees at border points, such as
Islam Qala, and transit centers. So far, only 10 percent of the appeal has been
funded. In response, the Taliban-led government has called on Tehran to organize
returns with dignity, urging it to take into consideration the country’s limited
capacity.
In such a difficult and complex situation, many Afghans deported from Iran find
themselves returning to a country in an even worse condition than when they
left, especially for women. Afghanistan, facing deep economic and humanitarian
challenges, lacks the capacity to absorb the growing number of returnees on its
own. This is no longer just a bilateral issue between Iran and Afghanistan — it
is a regional crisis that demands coordinated action from Gulf countries,
Central Asian states and global humanitarian actors, who should step up with
increased humanitarian aid, temporary asylum quotas and basic support such as
food, shelter and medical assistance. Addressing this humanitarian emergency
requires a shared regional effort to ease the burden on both the Afghan people
and the Afghan state, ensuring the stability of a region already under severe
strain.
• Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator and an adviser to private clients
between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council. X: @Moulay_Zaid
How Turkiye views Azerbaijan-Russia tensions
Dr. Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/July 11, 2025
In recent days, relations between Azerbaijan and Russia have entered a new phase
of unprecedented tension due to several incidents and shifting geopolitical
dynamics in the South Caucasus. These tensions hold significant implications not
only for Baku and Moscow, but also for Turkiye, a close ally of Azerbaijan and a
country that has long walked a fine line in its relations with Russia, despite
being a NATO member.
Ankara’s response to the escalating tension between Baku and Moscow seems to be
strategically measured. Turkiye has urged restraint from both sides and
expressed its concern over the broader instability in the South Caucasus.
However, beneath these calls for calm lie well-calculated foreign policy
considerations based on Turkiye’s regional ambitions and relations with both
sides. Understanding how Ankara perceives the tensions between Baku and Moscow
and what it means for its foreign policy in the region is important.
The tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan have been simmering beneath the
surface for some time but have peaked recently. Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020
Nagorno-Karabakh war has fueled its ambitions and encouraged President Ilham
Aliyev, who has been in power since 2003, to pursue a foreign policy that is
less reliant on Moscow.
Three significant events have led Russia to lose its previously held influence
on Azerbaijan and the broader South Caucasus: Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh
victory, the prolonged war in Ukraine, and its loss of a key ally in Syria.
These developments have also shifted the balance of power in the South Caucasus,
with Azerbaijan positioning itself as a more autonomous actor, Armenia repairing
its ties with both Ankara and Baku, and Turkiye filling the vacuum created by
the diminishing Russian and Iranian influence.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, returning from a visit to Azerbaijan
last week, said to reporters aboard his flight that Turkiye’s “greatest wish” is
to ensure these “unfortunate incidents” do not lead to “irreparable damage” in
Baku-Moscow relations. His statement reflected Ankara’s cautious approach that
aims to maintain its close strategic relationship with both countries.
Turkiye’s relationship with Azerbaijan is often described as “one nation, two
states” due to the cultural and political bonds between them. During the 2020
war, Turkiye offered support to Azerbaijan, although only doing so carefully to
avoid provoking Russia directly.
On the other hand, Turkiye and Russia, despite having differences on some
regional issues, have maintained a balanced relationship. They have found ways
to compartmentalize their ties, from energy cooperation to arms purchases, such
as Turkiye’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile system, despite Western
countries’ unease. The compartmentalized nature of their relationship was
cemented through the close personal ties between Erdogan and President Vladimir
Putin.
The tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan have been simmering beneath the
surface for some time but have peaked recently
Given this personalized and interest-oriented relationship, Turkiye cannot pick
a side in this situation. Rather, it can rely on its relationship with both
sides to avoid any instability in the South Caucasus that may threaten its
regional goals. To maintain the status quo, Turkiye is now pushing for a peace
deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. On Thursday, Aliyev and Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Abu Dhabi, a meeting that could be considered a
turning point for the balances in the South Caucasus.
There are also reports that Turkiye is working on a tentative agreement with
Armenia and Azerbaijan on the long-debated Zangezur Corridor, which — if
concluded — would mark a watershed moment in the region. Ankara views the
corridor as part of a “geoeconomic revolution,” in the words of Erdogan.
Unsurprisingly, this corridor is viewed with concern by both Russia and Iran,
which fear being sidelined.
Meanwhile, some former Azerbaijani officials have publicly called for the
establishment of a Turkish military base in Azerbaijan. While no official
confirmation has been forthcoming, such statements signal that Baku is seeking
to bolster its military capabilities and infrastructure, most likely with
Turkish support. This will certainly annoy Moscow; however, Turkiye is likely to
be careful not to appear too assertive.
Unlike Western countries — which seem to view the Baku-Moscow tensions as an
opportunity to further isolate Russia and bring Azerbaijan closer to the Western
sphere — Turkiye prefers a balancing act that avoids isolating Russia and
prevents Azerbaijan from taking bolder steps. This is because Ankara sees there
is too much at stake to risk a complete rupture between Baku and Moscow. Unlike
the West, Turkiye is more focused on economic integration in the South Caucasus,
which is not only part of its neighborhood but also a geopolitical corridor
vital to its interests.
I assume Ankara is also well aware that, despite the rhetorical escalation and
retaliatory actions, Azerbaijan and Russia are unlikely to completely sever
their ties. Their economic and regional interdependence requires maintaining
relationships despite mutual suspicion and distrust. Also, what we see is that
much of the tension is largely influenced by the personalities of the two
leaders.
Certainly, incidents such as last December’s shooting down of an Azerbaijani
civilian plane by Russia, which killed 38 people, and tit-for-tat arrests have
exposed deep-seated tensions that will not be easily repaired. However, the past
shows that severe rifts can be overcome. For example, consider the 2015 incident
when Turkiye downed a Russian military jet near the Syrian border.
Turkish-Russian bilateral relations hit rock bottom in the wake of the incident,
but within a year the two sides had restored ties and even launched the Astana
peace process for Syria. A similar trajectory could emerge between Baku and
Moscow, with current tensions giving way to a pragmatic detente.
• Dr. Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkiye’s
relations with the Middle East. X: @SinemCngz
The Levant’s Post-Rejectionist Challenges
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 12/ 2025
The voice of rejectionism, despite coming to us from beneath the rubble, has not
stopped trying to convince us of its victory. The fact is that turning the page
on this rejectionism- its regimes, its militias, and all its defeated
self-proclaimed victors- is the only shift unfolding in the region that could be
considered an achievement. Hezbollah and its political allies in Lebanon are now
seeking to obstruct this achievement, at staggering costs they will likely be
borne by the entire country.
It seems that another voice, that of the camp opposed to the rejectionists,
sounds like a bald man boasting about his neighbor’s hair as it tries to
persuade us that it has triumphed. Within this frame, an extremely optimistic
and rosy picture is being painted and sweeping assumptions that do not hold up
to scrutiny are being made. In one instance, our claims to victory are
underpinned by the notion that “President Trump doesn’t want wars;” at others,
we are promised that a miraculous transition, from the hell of ideology to the
paradise of technology, is imminent. Some have also suggested that normalization
with Israel is heading straight our way, bringing peace to the earth and turning
wars into a thing of the past.
Whatever one thinks of him, however, Trump is no miracle worker, if there are
any in this world. As for technology, it is not this magic that has been placed
above ideology such that we all receive it equally. As for normalization- and
this writer has long been an enthusiastic supporter of peace and everything that
springs from it- it is not as straightforward as it has been made out to be.
Yes, the Arab and Islamic rejectionists have been resoundingly defeated, and
this is a necessary condition for making any meaningful progress on any of the
fronts involved. However, it is just as clear that the Israeli rejectionists,
the camp of Benjamin Netanyahu and the religious right, have won a resounding
victory. That is not good news to anyone: besides their horrific record in Gaza
and settlement expansion in the West Bank, the Israelis have continued to slam
every door to peace, any and every peace. That is, the most profound source of
regional conflict, the Palestinian question, will not be resolved through a
settlement, regardless of the concessions offered to reach it. Some may argue
that this struggle has lost much of its momentum and potency, and that it has
therefore become more difficult for others to utilize it for their own ends. All
of that is true.Nonetheless, it would be misguided to assume that it has
evaporated or been erased with the help of a "handful of dollars," and that the
problem has thereby been solved. Taking this approach amounts to stockpiling
time-bombs- whose explosive potential is compounded by resentments, bitterness,
and neglect- that will eventually blow us all to pieces.
The proposals leaked from deliberations regarding Syria are not any more
reassuring to those seeking a stable and durable peace. Beyond its domestic
issues, some powers, like Türkiye, seem tempted to invest in Syria’s instability
or even to exacerbate and broaden the unrest.
These issues and others allow us to say that, in terms of its negative
achievements, the Israeli Prime Minister's “new Middle East” prophecy came true:
the Axis and its influence have been eliminated. In terms of its positive
achievements- what it has managed to add, that is, the foundations for
alternatives it has laid- everything “new” the Israelis have introduced amounts
to extraneous and putschist frameworks that has no ground to stand on nor a
segment of society to rely on, even if it can inevitably attract collaborators,
followers, and those who are captivated by power.
More consequential than Israel’s actions, however, is the inaction of the Levant
itself, which has hobbled the shift currently underway and raises concerns in
the longer term.
The triumphant and optimistic rhetoric we have been hearing might turn out to be
a veil over answers to the existential questions confronting the region and the
conditions and configurations of our countries. Indeed, this moment of sweeping
change has not been met by any effort to anticipate or keep up with it. One need
only consider the domestic affairs and communal dynamics in the countries of the
Levant to conclude that sleeping on silk offers no protection.
What preparations has the region made for a post-rejectionist world? Can we, in
any Levantine country, expect the transformation of our governance structures-
that, as has already happened in Syria- to be a seamless process that is not
driven by vengeance? What sorts of ideas are currently being deliberated in
public debates about this existential juncture and our future?
The fact is that the devastation we have seen over the decades, coupled with the
fact that our countries’ national fabrics had been frail to begin with, means
that additional effort will be needed to fix things, and we have made almost
zero effort. Iraq has yet to initiate such a testing process, but it is not
difficult to foresee its results if this test is ever taken. Lebanese politics,
in turn, seems confined to the proposals that US Envoy Tom Barrack brings with
him, while Syrian politics has essentially been reduced to figures of the money
currently coming in or expected to soon. These are, of course, not trivial
issues, especially not for the immediate and foreseeable future. However, the
existential crisis awaits us is much bigger, and it presents a far more internal
and political challenge. As for denying this crisis- which would, to an extent,
be to drown in a cup of water- it reflects a shared culture that binds us
together: the rejectionists deny their defeat, and their adversaries deny their
existential crisis.
The Iran Ceasefire: A Dicey Intermission
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 12/ 2025
The recent attack by Israel and the US on parts of Iran’s nuclear project has
already been dubbed by some commentators as the 12 Day War.
However, that cut-off time was chosen by Tehran to back a claim that Iran
managed to fight twice as long as Arab states led by Egypt did in the Six Days
War of 1967.
In fact, with varying degrees of intensity and a diversity of locations, this
war started more than four decades ago when the new revolutionary authorities
raided the Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran and handed it over to PLO leader
Yasser Arafat on a visit as special guest of Ayatollah Khomeini. A few months
later the new revolutionary regime repeated the exercise by raiding the US
Embassy and seizing its diplomats hostages.
Under international law a nation’s diplomatic mission or embassy is part of its
sovereign territory and an armed attack on it regarded as causus belli (a cause
of war). A year later the US retaliated when President Jimmy Carter ordered a
badly planned violation of Iranian territory, confirming the existence of a
state of war between the two countries.
Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq provided a parenthesis in which both Israel and
the US shipped arms and intelligence to Tehran against Saddam Hussein’s regime
in Baghdad.
The war with Israel was resumed when Tehran started creating proxy mini armies
in Lebanon and to fish for potential mercenaries among various Palestinian armed
groups.
By the early 1980s Tehran, allied with the Assad regime in Damascus, had turned
Lebanon into a battleground against the US and Israel.
In the 1990s Tehran started a low intensity war against US forces in Iraq while
through proxies pursuing a war of attrition against Israel, wars that continue
to this day.
All that needs to be re-stated to show that the recent flare-up has deeper
reason than a concern about Iran building a nuclear arsenal, something which all
directors general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from Hans
Blix to Muhammad Al-Baradei and Rafael Grossi have repeatedly said they cannot
confirm. To be sure the famous one percent in risk theory requires to take the
possibility of a dangerous foe acquiring the ultimate weapon very seriously,
something that all US presidents since Bill Clinton have done with various
attempts at “containing” Iran, all to no avail. Does that mean that the current
regime in Tehran is totally unlikely to temporarily give up the potentially
military dimension (PMD) of its nuclear project?Judging by remarks by many
figures within the regime, more recently by President Masoud Pezeshkian and in
an oblique way by “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei the answer could be a cautious:
no. The regime has hinted that it is ready to consider freezing the PMD of the
project, something which it denies exists, in exchange for four concessions from
the US and its allies, including Israel. The first is to let the regime keep a
straight face and proclaim a magnificent victory against the Great Satan and its
little companion. This is what Tehran is already doing both at home and, with
help from anti-US and anti-Israel circles, across the globe. The second demand
is to abolish, not merely suspend or lift, all sanctions imposed on Iran. The
third demand is for the US and allies to commit themselves to never devise or
support a regime change scheme against Iran. That means severing relations with
dozens of Iranian opposition outfits.
Tehran’s fourth demand may be the hardest for any American administration to
even contemplate accepting: Accepting the Islamic Republic’s right to “export”
its model of governance, its Islamic values and its campaign for “global
justice” just as the US does by propagating its values. In other words, Tehran
says: Let us do what we please and we promise not to make the bomb that we have
always said we never intended to build.
That message was obliquely transmitted through Tucker Carlson’s exclusive
interview with President Pezeshkian: Let us boast about a great military victory
and we shall let you claim a great diplomatic victory by returning to
negotiations.
The ceasefire declared by President Donald Trump has injected an intermission in
a deadly drama that started almost half a century ago. During the intermission
three clocks will be tick.
The first is that of Khamenei’s physical and political life, both of which
though shaken still appear tenable.
The second clock is that of mid-term election in the US that could transform
President Trump into a lame-duck president if Elon Musk’s new political Tesla
manages to rob the Republicans of just six seats in the Congress and two or
three in the Senate. At the same time Benjamin Netanyahu’s numerous political
enemies in Israel may eventually manage to bring him down. Thus, regime insiders
believe it is imperative to prolong the current ceasefire, even through
negotiations, until the two big clouds shaped like Trump and Netanyahu disappear
like morning mist. Finally, the third clock that is ticking is that of swelling
anger among Iranian people at what more and more of them see as an historic
failure combined with unprecedented humiliation and hardship.
The current ceasefire is a dicey intermission in a war that started almost half
a century ago and seems nowhere near coming to an end.
To sum up, this was the message in Tasnim, organ of the Revolutionary Guard,
last Tuesday: The (current) political situation doesn’t have only two sides:
steadfastness and surrender. The third side is change of course which means
giving the enemy a victory it didn’t win with war.