English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 11/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
Metthew 07/01-12: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 10-11/2025
Statement of Condemnation for the Massacres Committed by Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s Jihadi Regime in Alawite Areas/Elias Bejjani/March 09/2025
Text & Video: To Hezbollah’s Cymbals and Berri’s Mouthpieces from the Culture of Shoes—Enough Nonsense!/Elias Bejjani/March 07/2025
Army Defuses Tensions in Northern Lebanon Caused by Syrian Coast Unrest
Thousands of Syrians flee to Lebanon after massacres in coastal region
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon to discuss ceasefire in Israel
Youssef Rajji: Lebanese Stability Depends on Syrian Stability
Rajji from Jordan: Syria stability very important for Lebanon stability
Qassem says state in charge of defense but Hezbollah to stay as 'resistance'
Israeli negotiators head to Qatar for Gaza truce talks
Bassil says no religion allows 'bloodbath', calls for unity in Lebanon and Syria
Israel takes captive a wounded Lebanese soldier
Lebanon must 'break free from Iran', Israel FM tells UN envoy
Cautious calm in al-Aqbiyeh after Lebanese-Syrian clash
Port probe back on track as Hajjar axes Oueidat ruling against Bitar
Hezbollah loses its "route" of supplying Iranian funds/Jean Feghali/Nidaa Al-Watan/March 10, 2025
Nawaf Salam: 'We Have to Succeed, or the Situation Will Deteriorate Further'
Lebanese Army Accuses Israel of Killing One Soldier and Abducting Another in South Lebanon
Over 6,000 Syrians and Lebanese Fled to Lebanon from Syria
Official Report Filed Against NGO Kulluna Irada for Destabilizing the National Economy
Kataeb Leader Samy Gemayel Invited to Dar El-Fatwa Iftar
A comparison of IDF and LAF activities in Lebanon post-November 27 ceasefire/David Daoud & Ahmad Sharawi/FDD's Long War Journal/March 10/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 10-11/2025
Iran rejects claims of any involvement in Syria violence
Syria’s government signs breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in northeast
Syria announces end to 'military operation' after mass killings
First "free areas" then states or federal states.../Dr Walid Phares/March 10, 2025
Syrian Defense Ministry Announces Completion of Military Operations Against Assad Loyalists
Israel's halt to food and aid deliveries worsens Gaza conditions
Gaza Ceasefire: The Stalled Agreement Awaits the Outcome of Doha Talks
Israeli team heads to Qatar for Gaza truce talks
Israel’s Smotrich Sets Requirements of Trump’s Plan for Gaza
Hamas Says It Awaits Outcomes of Mediators' Talks on Gaza Ceasefire with Israel
Iraq Turns to Gulf for Alternative to Gas from Iran
Iraq Has No Immediate Alternative to Iranian Energy Imports
More than 30 nations will participate in Paris planning talks on a security force for Ukraine
Secretary of State Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83 percent of agency’s programs gone
Saudi crown prince, US Secretary of State discuss regional developments
Saudi crown prince receives Ukrainian President Zelensky

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on March 10-11/2025
Syria…a Foreign Move, Not Remnants/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
A Just Syria Is Best for All of its Segments/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Targeting Iran’s agents of influence/Ben Cohen/ Jewish News Syndicate/March 10/2025
Recent arrests of Islamic State sympathizers highlight persistent threats to US/Will Selber/FDD's Long War Journal/March 10/2025
The Weaponization of Ambiguity/Charles Elias Chartouni//This Is Beirut/March 10/2025
In Syria: Real Massacres, Phantom Killings, Constant Threats/Alberto M. Fernandez/National Catholic Register/March 10/2025
How long can Israel’s policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity hold?/Jonathan Gornall/Arab News/March 11, 2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 10-11/2025
Statement of Condemnation for the Massacres Committed by Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s Jihadi Regime in Alawite Areas
Elias Bejjani/March 09/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141021/
We strongly condemn the horrific massacres committed by Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s jihadi regime in Alawite areas along the Syrian coast. Hundreds of civilians were brutally executed with no respect for human dignity or basic rights. These crimes add another dark chapter to Syria’s suffering after the fall of the criminal Assad regime.
Our firm opposition to Assad’s oppressive rule does not mean accepting the barbaric and extremist alternative represented by Ahmad Al-Sharaa. He took power through a violent coup and brought even more suffering to the Syrian people. The horrifying executions of Alawite civilians by bearded jihadi fighters, carried out for sectarian reasons, are a dangerous development that cannot be ignored.
Syria is a diverse country with many ethnic and religious communities and cannot be ruled by an Islamist extremist regime that seeks to erase others. Ahmad Al-Sharaa and his jihadi movement, with their long history of terrorism, cannot succeed in imposing their rule on Syria. They are not a legitimate alternative to Assad’s brutal dictatorship.
We strongly denounce these massacres and urge Arab countries and the international community not to support Al-Sharaa’s regime. Iran’s mullahs are directly responsible for this destruction, as they have armed and incited extremist groups, just as they once backed Assad. Their terrorist proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, is sheltering former Assad officials and military officers while continuing Iran’s agenda of chaos and violence.
What happened in northern Syria is a direct result of Iran’s aggressive policies. Its leaders, including Supreme Leader Khamenei, have repeatedly threatened to spread chaos in Syria. The world must take firm action to hold those responsible accountable and prevent further bloodshed. Syria’s stability and the safety of its people must be protected from the forces of terrorism and destruction.

Text & Video: To Hezbollah’s Cymbals and Berri’s Mouthpieces from the Culture of Shoes—Enough Nonsense!
Elias Bejjani/March 07/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/140983/
All we see on social media from the hired mouthpieces, thugs, and degenerates of the Axis of Evil is mindless braying and gutter language like: "What brings you to the master's shoe, slipper, and sandal?"
You miserable souls—when will you learn? Have you not grasped from your endless defeats, destruction, and casualties that this absurd "culture of shoes and sandals" has brought you nothing but disasters, losses, displacement, humiliation, and utter disgrace?
Look at where your blind idol worship—"For the sake of your sandals, O Sayyed!"—has led you.
The Sayyed is gone, along with 171 Hezbollah commanders. The south is gone, as well as the southern suburbs and half of the Bekaa. Your weapons, tunnels, and stockpiles are gone. You surrendered to Israel and were forced to sign a ceasefire agreement—whether you liked it or not. And yet, the only thing that remains… is the sandal.
Calm down, retreat, and stop your pathetic threats, barking, and empty bravado.
In the end, the only cure for you and the cancerous Mullah regime that has infested you is the cure of justice—through trials and accountability for every disaster you have inflicted upon yourselves, Lebanon, and the Lebanese people.

Army Defuses Tensions in Northern Lebanon Caused by Syrian Coast Unrest
Beirut: Nazeer Rida/Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
The Lebanese army defused on Sunday tensions in the northern city of Tripoli sparked by the clashes along the Syrian coast. The army deployed in areas separating Sunni and Alawite neighborhoods in Tripoli overnight on Friday to contain any tensions from the violence in neighboring Syria. Angry protesters had taken to the streets of Tripoli after news broke out over the stabbing of a minor from Syria’s Idlib. Lebanon’s National News Agency later reported that the minor was actually from Lebanon. Soon after, news circulated on social media that Ahmed Bitar, a man from the predominantly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli, was behind the attack. The protesters blocked the Baqqar road leading to Jabal Mohsen, while tensions were high in the Qobbeh neighborhood, as the people called for the arrest of the perpetrator.
The tensions boiled over into a gunfight, sparking panic among the people. The army soon deployed heavily in the area and restored calm. The Supreme Alawite Council warned in a statement that “civil peace and security stability were a red line.” It revealed that Bitar had complied with calls to turn himself over to the authorities. “We fully trust that the security forces will carry out their duties to reveal the circumstances of the crime and uncover the truth,” it said. “Tripoli has been and will continue to be a model of national unity that will shun strife,” it added. A security source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the tensions in Tripoli were stoked by social media posts. No foreign meddling or political incitement were behind them.The army moved quickly to contain the tensions, deploying heavily in Tripoli. Sunni and Alawite figures in the city were contacted to help defuse the tensions and prevent the unrest in Syria from spilling over into Lebanon. Meanwhile, hundreds of Syrian Alawites sought refuge in northern Lebanon to escape the violence along the coast. Security sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Syrians were entering through illegal crossings and heading to predominantly Alawite villages or Jabal Mohsen. No exact figures have been tallied because the people are entering through illegal crossings, they added. Media reports and local sources have said over 10,000 people have entered from Syria in the past three days.

Thousands of Syrians flee to Lebanon after massacres in coastal region
Associated Press/March 10/2025
Thousands of Syrians from the unrest-hit coastal area have fled to neighboring Lebanon, mostly through unofficial crossings, after around 1,000 people were killed there in clashes and massacres, mostly civilians. The U.N. refugee agency said in a statement that according to local authorities, 6,078 people have arrived in about a dozen villages in northern Lebanon's Akkar province fleeing the fighting and mass killings, while arrivals in other parts of the country were still being verified. Lebanon is hosting more than 755,000 registered Syrian refugees, with hundreds of thousands more believed to be unregistered. Since the fall of Assad, the flow had begun to reverse, with the U.N. reporting that nearly 260,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since November, about half of them coming from Lebanon. Syria's interim government on Monday announced the end of a days-long military operation against insurgents loyal to ousted president Bashar Assad and his family in the worst fighting since the end of the 13-year civil war in December. The Defense Ministry's announcement comes after a surprise attack by gunmen from the Alawite community on a police patrol near the port city of Lattakia Thursday spiraled into widespread clashes across Syria's coastal region, during which monitoring groups said hundreds of civilians were killed. Syria's new interim Islamist rulers are struggling to exert their authority across the country and reach political settlements with other minority communities, notably the Kurds of the northeast and the Druze in southern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said 1,130 people were killed in the clashes, including 830 civilians.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon to discuss ceasefire in Israel
Naharnet/March 10/2025
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has begun a visit to Israel, where she will discuss with senior Israeli officials the Lebanon ceasefire, as well as the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701.
"Emphasizing the need to enhance security and stability for populations on both sides of the Blue Line, the Special Coordinator continues to call on all to prevent the establishment of a new status quo and thus to make the solutions envisaged by resolution 1701 a reality," Hennis-Plasschaert's office said.

Youssef Rajji: Lebanese Stability Depends on Syrian Stability
This is Beirut/March 10/2025
Minister of Foreign Affairs Youssef Rajji stressed that “stability in Syria is very important for stability in Lebanon”. He also pointed out that a number of “common issues with Syria need to be addressed, including border demarcation, arms and drug smuggling, and terrorism”.Rajji's remarks came at the close of a meeting of Syria's neighbors held in Jordan on Sunday. He described the speech by Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad el-Chibani as “encouraging”, and expressed hope that these positions would be implemented. Chibani stressed the importance of strengthening joint investment and economic cooperation between Syria and neighboring countries in key areas. He emphasized the desire to pursue the “positive spirit” that prevailed at the meeting, in order to “strengthen joint action for a better future for the region and the world”. Participating states discussed operational cooperation mechanisms to counter terrorism and illicit trafficking of all kinds. The talks also focused on the latest developments in Syria and on efforts to support the Syrian people in rebuilding their country on foundations that guarantee its security, stability and unity. In the aftermath of the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the security and political situation in Damascus has yet to stabilize. Tensions between the various components of society are such that many observers fear a deterioration of the situation on more than one level, at a time when the international community is calling for restraint.

Rajji from Jordan: Syria stability very important for Lebanon stability
Naharnet/March 10/2025
Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji took part in a meeting in Jordan for Syria’s neighbors during which the conferees discussed how to assist the Syrian people in rebuilding their country in a manner that guarantees its unity, sovereignty, security and stability. Rajji stressed that “stability in Syria is very important for stability in Lebanon.”“There are common files with Syria that need to be addressed, including border demarcation, the smuggling of arms and drugs, and the file of terrorism,” Rajji added. He also said the Syrian foreign minister’s statement during the meeting as “encouraging,” hoping it will be put into action.

Qassem says state in charge of defense but Hezbollah to stay as 'resistance'
Naharnet/March 10/2025
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has acknowledged that arms should be exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces to “control security in Lebanon and for defense.”“We are not against them being in charge and we reject the approach of militias and that anyone share the state in protecting its security,” Qassem said in an interview on al-Manar TV. “But we have nothing to do with this matter. We are a resistance -- a resistance against the Israeli enemy -- and we defend our land when the enemy attacks us,” Qassem added. “They are saying that the state can deter the Israeli enemy. Let them show us what they can do against this enemy. We don’t mind that they do the confrontation, but as a resistance we consider Israel to be a threat and an occupier,” Hezbollah’s leader went on to say.
Stressing that “the resistance has the right to continue,” Qassem noted that “it has nothing to do with the state’s administration or with the state’s arms and preserving internal security.”“If some believe that the president’s remarks are targeted against us, we do not consider them as so,” Qassem added. Responding to a question about the Lebanese demands to have the decisions of war and peace in the hands of the state, Hezbollah’s leader said that “so far Israel has started all the wars.”Qassem also noted that Hezbollah retained some of its capabilities despite the latest war with Israel and that it still possesses the ability to use them. “We used them in the appropriate way and reached the (ceasefire) agreement and this capability is still present,” he added.
As for Israel’s continued occupation of five strategic hills in south Lebanon, Qassem said: “How much can you stay in these points? This resistance will not let you stay there. The resistance and the people of the resistance will not allow you to remain. Today there is a chance: the Lebanese state is following up on the matter and we have agreed that it continue that.”“Should the occupation continue, it must be confronted through the resistance, the army and the people,” he added. Addressing Hezbollah’s supporters, he called on them to be “patient” and to “take some rest.”“Usually in wars, there are periods of rest. Now you can rest and be assured that your leadership and resistance and these heroic men who stood in the confrontation are still present,” he said.
Qassem also pointed out that “Hezbollah is always realistic and objective,” because “it acts according to balances and not in a random way.”

Israeli negotiators head to Qatar for Gaza truce talks
Agence France Presse/March 10/2025
Israel is due to send a delegation to Qatar on Monday for a fresh round of talks on extending a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, after cutting off the electricity supply to ramp up pressure on Hamas. The first phase of the deal expired at the beginning of March with no agreement on subsequent stages that should secure a lasting end to the war that erupted with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. There are still differences over how to proceed, with Hamas calling for immediate negotiations on the next phase, while Israel prefers an extension of phase one. Israeli media said the Israeli delegation will be led by a top official from the domestic security agency Shin Bet. Israel has halted aid deliveries to Gaza amid the deadlock, and on Sunday announced it was cutting off the electricity supply to the territory.
"We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring back the hostages and ensure that Hamas is no longer in Gaza the day after" the war, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said as he ordered the power cut. The move echoed the early days of the war when Israel announced a "complete siege" on Gaza, severing the electricity supply which was only restored in mid-2024. Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanoua said cutting off electricity will impact Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. "The decision to cut electricity is a failed option and poses a threat to its (Israeli) prisoners, who will only be freed through negotiations," Qanoua said in a statement on Monday. The sole power line between Israel and Gaza supplies the Palestinian territory's main desalination plant, and Gazans now mainly rely on solar panels and fuel-powered generators to produce electricity. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are now living in tents across Gaza, where temperatures reach a low of about 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit) at night. Top Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said the Israeli decision "to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine, and water" was a "desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance".
'Long-term truce'
Hamas has repeatedly demanded that the second phase of the truce -- brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States -- include a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a permanent ceasefire and the reopening of border crossings to end the blockade. Spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP that Hamas wanted the mediators to ensure Israel "complies with the agreement... and proceeds with the second phase according to the agreed-upon terms". Former U.S. president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase involving hostage release and the withdrawal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza. U.S. envoy Adam Boehler, who held unprecedented direct talks with Hamas officials in recent days, told CNN on Sunday that a deal could be reached "within weeks" to secure the release of all remaining hostages, not just the five dual Israeli-U.S. nationals, most of who have been confirmed dead. Of the 251 hostages taken during the October 7 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed dead. The U.S. envoy told CNN a "long-term truce" was "real close", but in an interview with Israel's Channel 12 that aired later on Sunday, he said Washington would back any Israeli decision, including a return to war.
'Nothing available' -
In late February, U.S. President Donald Trump had issued what he called a "last warning" to Hamas, threatening further destruction if the group does not release all remaining hostages. An earlier proposal from Trump to expel Palestinians from Gaza prompted Arab leaders to offer an alternative reconstruction plan without displacement. The initial 42-day phase of the truce, which began on January 19, reduced hostilities after more than 15 months of relentless fighting that displaced nearly all of Gaza's 2.4 million people. During this period, 25 living Israeli hostages and eight bodies were exchanged for the release of about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody. The truce also allowed in much-needed food, shelter and medical assistance. After Israel cut off the aid flow on March 2, U.N. rights experts accused the government of "weaponizing starvation". At a U.N. distribution of flour in Jabalia, northern Gaza, Abu Mahmoud Salman, 56, said that with the territory now closed off from fresh supplies, "there is nothing available". "The markets are empty... prices are high, and there is no income. The situation in Gaza is difficult," he told AFP.

Bassil says no religion allows 'bloodbath', calls for unity in Lebanon and Syria
Naharnet/March 10/2025
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has described the recent widespread clashes across Syria's coastal region, during which hundreds of civilians were killed, as a great danger not just to Syria "but to Lebanon as well."Bassil warned Sunday night against divisions in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan and called for unity in the region's countries, praising the level of awareness of Tripoli's residents. Reports that a Syrian minor was stabbed by a Jabal Mohsen resident had sparked tensions and gunfire in Tripoli on Saturday night but calm later returned to the city and tensions were contained. "People in Lebanon protect each other, it's what the Lebanese did during the Israeli war on Lebanon despite all the political disagreements. It is our duty, in the Free Patriotic Movement, to bring people closer to each other at a time when strife is brewing in the region," Bassil said, adding that there are "hidden hands" inciting and dividing, and that these hands can only be confronted with "the awareness of the people."Bassil later posted on the X platform that no religion allows "the terrible crimes" happening in Syria and urged all countries to "stop the bloodbath.""The loss of diversity in Syria is a loss of diversity in Lebanon," Bassil said.

Israel takes captive a wounded Lebanese soldier
Naharnet/March 10/2025
Israel took captive an off-duty Lebanese soldier after he was wounded Sunday in a combing operation in the southern border town of Kfarshouba, the Al-Arabiya TV network reported on Monday. “The captive Lebanese soldier underwent a surgery and is still inside Israel,” the TV network added, noting that the soldier hails from Kfarshouba and was in civilian clothes when he was captured. “The family of the soldier Ziad Shibli has been informed tha an Israeli army force captured him after he was shot and wounded while riding his motorbike on the Halta-Bostra road,” reports said. Seven Hezbollah fighters also remain in Israel’s captivity following the latest war with Israel. A November 27 truce largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war in which Israel sent in ground troops. Israel has continued to carry out periodic strikes on Lebanese territory since the agreement took effect. Israel had been due to withdraw from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops at five locations it deems "strategic". The ceasefire also required Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.

Lebanon must 'break free from Iran', Israel FM tells UN envoy
Naharnet/March 10/2025
Meeting with the visiting U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has stresses the need for Lebanon to free itself from perceived Iranian influence. Saar warned that “Iran is smuggling funds to Hezbollah in Lebanon to rebuild its strength,” adding that “Lebanon has an opportunity to break free from the Iranian occupation,” according to Saar’s office in its readout of the sit-down with Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. During the meeting in Jerusalem, Saar also presented Israel’s position on security matters such as the five occupied posts where the Israeli army remains in south Lebanon, as well as a range of issues related to the implementation of the ceasefire agreement. Israel withdrew its troops from most of south Lebanon in early February, but left soldiers at what it said were key positions inside Lebanon. Lebanese officials say it is a violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that ended the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Cautious calm in al-Aqbiyeh after Lebanese-Syrian clash
Naharnet/March 10/2025
Cautious calm was on Monday engulfing the southern coastal town of al-Aqbiyeh after a clash between Lebanese citizens and Syrian nationals on Sunday, the National News Agency said. According to NNA, the clash erupted after Syrian young men catcalled a young Lebanese woman from the nearby town of al-Bissariyeh, sparking verbal clashes and the blocking of a road. Footage circulated online also showed Lebanese citizens burning tents inhabited by Syrians. NNA said the tensions also involved gunfire.
The army had on Saturday night contained tensions in the northern city of Tripoli after reports said an Alawite man had stabbed a Syrian minor. The tensions come amid sectarian bloodshed in neighboring Syria, where more than 1,000 have been killed in Syria’s coastal Alawite heartland.

Port probe back on track as Hajjar axes Oueidat ruling against Bitar
Naharnet/March 10/2025
State Prosecutor Jamal al-Hajjar has re-allowed security and judicial authorities to cooperate with Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar, revoking ex-prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat’s ruling against him, state-run National News Agency reported on Monday. Oueidat had in January 2023 charged Bitar with "rebelling against the judiciary" and slapped him with a travel ban while also summoning him for questioning. Moreover, Oueidat ordered the release of all suspects detained in connection with the blast, who were eventually allowed to walk free. Oueidat ordered the "release of all those detained over the Beirut port explosion case, without exception" and banned them from travel, the document said. Back then Bitar called Oueidat’s move “a coup against the law,” noting that "only the judicial investigator has the right to issue release orders.”
Bitar had charged several high-level officials, including Oueidat, over the blast. On February 7 this year, Bitar questioned two people. He had resumed his investigation in January, charging 10 people including security, customs and military personnel after a two-year hiatus in the probe into the August 4, 2020 ammonium nitrate explosion that killed more than 220 people, injured thousands and devastated swathes of Lebanon's capital. Security sources initially suggested welding work could have started the fire that triggered the blast, but experts have since dismissed the theory as unlikely and an attempt to shift the blame off high-level failings. The probe stalled two years ago after Hezbollah accused Bitar of bias and demanded his dismissal, and after officials named in the investigation filed a flurry of lawsuits against him. The resumption of work comes with Hezbollah's influence weakened after its recent war with Israel and follows the election of a Lebanese president after a more than two-year vacancy. Prior to February 8, Bitar had questioned defendants over the blast in December 2021. Nobody has yet been held responsible for the blast, one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions.

Hezbollah loses its "route" of supplying Iranian funds
Jean Feghali/Nidaa Al-Watan/March 10, 2025
The road between Tehran and Beirut is no longer "safe and passable" for smuggling money from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to Hezbollah. This road has been cut off, by land and air, and, consequently, the transfer of money has become fraught with danger, and that money has become vulnerable to being exposed and confiscated.
In the last two weeks, two smuggling routes have been exposed, by land and air, the air route via Turkey, but it did not reach its "happy ending", and the money that was being transported in a bag containing two and a half million dollars was seized, and a young man was transporting it, after receiving it from a person coming from Iran, via a Turkish airport.The surprising and suspicious thing about the issue is that the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council tried to "liberate" the bag, saying that the money belongs to it, and that it came from donations. But the aforementioned council did not know that the young man who was carrying the bag of money did not mention in his testimony that the money belonged to the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, which raises the question: Did Hezbollah ask the aforementioned council to declare its “ownership” of the money so that it could obtain it? The “Shiite trio”, not the Shiite duo, is embarrassed this time. Neither the “party” dared to adopt the bag, and certainly the “Amal” movement cannot adopt it, so it resorted to the official Shiite authority, the third party in the trio, whose defense of the bag seems disjointed, as it adopted its ownership three days after it was confiscated, but the disjointedness in this story is that it did not provide any document proving that the money belonged to it and came from donations. Before the scandal of the two and a half million dollar bag was closed, a similar scandal erupted. A car trying to enter Lebanon from Syria through an illegal smuggling crossing, on Lebanon's northern border, was surprised by a Lebanese army checkpoint, which quickly closed in on it, as the car's passengers abandoned their vehicle and fled. During the pursuit of the unknown individuals and the inspection of the car, $4 million was found near it, packed in bags, as the smugglers were unable to escape with the money after being chased. Similar to the "airport bag", a Lebanese businessman close to a prominent northern politician said that the millions were his and that they were part of his wealth from his investments in Syria, asking for the money to be handed over to him. Between the air and land, two main railways were cancelled, leaving Hezbollah with only the Captagon money railway for manufacturing and exporting, but this railway is also on its way to being closed after the factories were destroyed and all smuggling routes were strangled. On June 23, 2016, the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, announced that the party’s budget, weapons, and funds come from the Iranian Republic, and that no law can prevent the arrival of these funds. Is Hezbollah still able to prevent laws?

Nawaf Salam: 'We Have to Succeed, or the Situation Will Deteriorate Further'
This is Beirut/March 10/2025
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam emphasized on Monday evening that a new phase was on the horizon for Lebanon. He stressed the need for the government “to preserve the trust granted to it by both MPs and citizens, which requires daily effort on its part.”
The Prime Minister made these remarks during the iftar reception organized on Monday evening by the Salam Association at the Rotana Gefinor Hotel. Among those in attendance were his wife, Sahar Salam, former Prime Minister Tammam Salam and his wife, Lama. Salam also announced that his government had launched a series of reforms across multiple sectors, as the process of “rescuing the country requires fundamental reforms,” he stated. Furthermore, he spoke about missed opportunities for Lebanon, declaring, “I did not come to this position by chance. I firmly believe there is a real opportunity for the country.” He continued, “Unfortunately, we have missed several opportunities in the past. The first was after the failure to implement the Taif Agreement (in 1989), the second was after the Israeli withdrawal (in 2000), when we hesitated to deploy the Lebanese army in the south, and the third was after the Syrian withdrawal (in 2005).”“Today, a new opportunity is before us,” he continued. “We have a choice: either we succeed, or the situation deteriorates further. I am convinced that this opportunity can bring many benefits, despite the challenges posed by the financial crisis, the repercussions of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict and the unexpected costs of reconstruction.” According to the Prime Minister, the latest estimated reconstruction cost, as per the World Bank, stood at $14 billion, and “it could increase in future assessments.”“This represents an additional burden on the country, but we will face this reality,” the Prime Minister emphasized, adding that Lebanon “is now at the dawn of a state reconstruction phase, focusing on institutions and administrations.”
Regarding the attraction of foreign investments, he stated that this “would require the implementation of significant economic and financial reforms.” However, he added that “the era of international aid is over.” He insisted that the return of investments would only be possible within the framework of a “transparent and independent judicial system.” “This is a colossal undertaking,” he concluded.

Lebanese Army Accuses Israel of Killing One Soldier and Abducting Another in South Lebanon
This is Beirut/March 10/2025
The Lebanese army warns of an upsurge in Israeli aggression after the death of one soldier and the kidnapping of another. ©Official X account of the Lebanese Army
In a statement published Monday on its X account, the Lebanese Army Command provided an update on Sunday's incidents in southern Lebanon, after one soldier was killed and another taken prisoner by Israel. “On Sunday, March 9, after contact was lost with a Lebanese army soldier, investigations revealed that elements of the Israeli forces opened fire on him while he was in civilian clothes in the vicinity of the locality of Kfarchouba, on Lebanon's southern border.” The press release also stated that the soldier, “wounded in the attack,” was then “abducted and taken into the occupied Palestinian territories.”According to the Lebanese army, this new aggression “is part of a series of repeated and escalating attacks by the Israeli army against Lebanese citizens.”
Another soldier “was shot dead on the same day in Kfar Kila, in the Marjayoun region,” the statement added. These acts “come as Israeli violations of Lebanon's sovereignty and security continue unabated”, the army command also denounced at the close of its statement.
Israeli soldiers fire at school
On Monday evening, a group of young people miraculously escaped being shot at by the Israeli army at the Ramiye school in the Bint Jbeil caza. Israeli soldiers left their military post in Ramiyé, to the east of the village, and headed for the eastern entrance. There, they opened fire with their weapons in the direction of the school, which had been transformed by the inhabitants into a service center. Fortunately, no injuries were reported among the young people present.

Over 6,000 Syrians and Lebanese Fled to Lebanon from Syria
This is Beirut/March 10/2025
Akkar Governor Imad al Labaki revealed that the Disaster Management Room in Akkar recorded around 1,476 displaced families (6,078 individuals) from Syria, including 40 Lebanese families and 1,184 Syrian families. In an interview with the National News Agency, Labaki addressed the issue of displacement from Syria to Akkar, stating that "The recent crisis, which occurred about ten days ago, along with previous crises, led to a significant influx into the Akkar plain and parts of the Dreib area.” “Most of the displaced are Alawites, along with some Lebanese families who crossed through illegal routes and settled in Alawite villages in mosques and houses," he added. mHe noted that municipal presidents had raised concerns and reached out to him. He further stated that he had contacted the United Nations, various organizations, the Lebanese Red Cross, and the Disaster Management Room. A detailed report by the Red Cross, in collaboration with municipal officials, revealed the scale of the displacement, summarized as follows:
Total Families: 1,476 (1,184 Syrian and 40 Lebanese)
Total Individuals: 6,078
Main Towns Affected: Talbira, Talhamira, Al-Masoudiyeh, Al-Abboudiyeh, Al-Samaqiyah, Hakr Al-Dahri, Al-Aridah, Al-Haysah, Dahr Al-Qanbar, Eastern Tal Abbas, Al-Rihaniyah, Ain Al-Zayt, Al-Hawshab, Al-Daghleh, and Barbara.
The governor noted that the displaced families are currently housed in schools, halls, abandoned buildings, and private homes. He further stated that he will be meeting with the Alawite towns officials on Tuesday. Mr. Labaki reassured that the security situation remains stable for the time being, posing no immediate danger, after learning from municipal officials that most of the displaced fled fearing for their lives. “We requested lists of individuals present in their areas, whether by name or number. However, most people fear registering their names because they fled a certain situation and came to face another,” he added. He mentioned that plans were underway to collaborate with UNDP, the Lebanese Red Cross, and the World Food Program to provide support. In the meantime, efforts would focus on distributing essential items such as mattresses, blankets, and food, with water and cleaning supplies scheduled for distribution starting Tuesday.

Official Report Filed Against NGO Kulluna Irada for Destabilizing the National Economy
This is Beirut/March 10/2025
Lawyers Bashir Aazan, Charles Assaad, and Jocelyne Karam filed an official report with the Court of Cassation against the NGO Kulluna Irada and its associates, accusing them of conducting a political campaign aimed at undermining the national economy.
According to the case file submitted to Attorney General Jamal Hajjar at the Court of Cassation, the association, which was initially authorized to operate in the agricultural, industrial, artisanal, and energy sectors, allegedly shifted toward political activity, jeopardizing the national economy, undermining confidence in Lebanese financial markets, and causing depositors to lose their money. The lawyers conclude that "the actions of Kulluna Irada fall under Articles 296, 297, 316, and 319 of the Penal Code." They call on the relevant judicial authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the association’s members and all accomplices, to trace their sources of funding and take the necessary legal measures. According to the plaintiffs, Kulluna Irada has been actively undermining confidence in Lebanon’s economy since 2021 through social media and the press. The NGO is accused of spreading false claims about bank failures and urging citizens to withdraw their deposits urgently, allegedly to trigger panic and destabilize the financial sector. The lawyers also contend that the organization pressured the government to halt Eurobond payments, a move they argue accelerated the depreciation of the national currency. The case file also reveals that the association allegedly used covert funding, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, to fuel a smear campaign against the banking system instead of investing in the sectors for which it was originally licensed. The lack of transparency regarding its members' identities and the allocation of funds further raises suspicions about its activities, which the plaintiffs liken to those of "secret organizations."

Kataeb Leader Samy Gemayel Invited to Dar El-Fatwa Iftar
This is Beirut/March 10/2025
MP and leader of the Kataeb Party Samy Gemayel was invited on Monday by the Mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Abdellatif Derian, to take part in the Ramadan iftar, scheduled for March 15 at Dar el-Fatwa, in the presence of the President of the Lebanese Republic, General Joseph Aoun. The invitation was handed to him on Monday by the President of the Islamic Center for Studies and Media, Judge Khaldoun Araymet (affiliated to Dar el-Fatwa), during a meeting attended by Kataeb MP Salim Sayegh. At the end of the meeting, Judge Araymet praised Gemayel's stance during the parliamentary session devoted to the debate on confidence, saying that “these positions contribute to strengthening national unity and nation-building.”

A comparison of IDF and LAF activities in Lebanon post-November 27 ceasefire
David Daoud & Ahmad Sharawi/FDD's Long War Journal/March 10/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141052/
The state of ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, which went into effect on November 27, 2024, has now officially expired. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has withdrawn from almost all areas occupied in south Lebanon during the conflict with Hezbollah and, per the terms of the ceasefire agreement, handed them over to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
However, with the approval of the United States, the IDF seems set to remain for an indefinite time in five strategic points in south Lebanon even after the deadline for Israeli withdrawal. The posts are located at a hill near Labbouneh, across from the Israeli border town of Shlomi; the Jabal Blat peak, across from Zarit; a hill across from Avivim and Malkia; a hill across from Margaliot; and a hill across from Metula.
The IDF’s insistence on remaining in these five points stems from Lebanon’s inaction against Hezbollah. Under the ceasefire’s terms, the IDF was supposed to withdraw from areas occupied in south Lebanon during the conflict with Hezbollah in tandem with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) deploying to those areas. Simultaneously, Lebanon would be responsible for removing Hezbollah from all Lebanese territory south of the Litani River by disarming its members and dismantling its infrastructure in that region. The deal further requires Lebanon to secure its borders against the entry of arms, provisions, or personnel to Hezbollah to prevent the group’s regeneration.
Yet, save for deploying the LAF to south Lebanon, Lebanon has failed or is refusing to act on the rest of the obligations under the deal. Hence, the extension, at Israel’s insistence, of the ceasefire from January 26 until February 18 to give the Lebanese government additional time to demonstrate enforcement of the ceasefire’s terms.
Some anti-Hezbollah Lebanese circles have argued that the LAF is disarming Hezbollah “in secret.” However, we assess that this assertion lacks credibility. First, Lebanese state inaction is the purpose for Israel’s extension of its stay. Second, this narrative originated with and is being promoted by highly partisan sources, including the anti-Hezbollah Janoubia.
What can be detected with virtual certainty, however, is a consistent attempt by Lebanon and the LAF to give the impression they are implementing the terms of the ceasefire deal. Invariably, these actions have followed an exceptional Israeli action against Hezbollah, implicitly—or explicitly, according to some IDF statements—highlighting Lebanon’s failure or refusal to act against the group. These actions taken by LAF have not had any considerable impact on Hezbollah and, in many cases, do not appear to have been explicitly targeting the group. Many enforcement actions seem to have targeted criminal elements in possession of weapons in areas dominated by Hezbollah.
For example, on January 2, 2025, the IDF stated that its airstrikes that day against Hezbollah infrastructure and launchers only occurred after notifying LAF, which failed to deal with the matter. After the LAF’s failure to abide by its obligations under the ceasefire was highlighted, Lebanon claimed to have detained and thoroughly inspected an Iranian Mahan Air flight at Beirut International Airport. However, upon closer inspection, this report turned out to be untrue—presumably reflecting an attempt by Beirut to cover its prior inaction.
On February 12, 2025, Lebanese authorities barred an Iranian Mahan Air flight from landing in Beirut and imposed a temporary ban on Iranian airlines. However, this development only came after the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee warned that Iranian civilian flights were using Beirut’s airport to resupply Hezbollah. The ban was initially set to expire on February 18—the scheduled date for Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon and an end of the state of war between the two countries—but was extended indefinitely only after the United States warned Lebanon that the IDF could target incoming Iranian flights.
We have compiled a comprehensive list of Israeli and Lebanese activities after the onset of the November 27 ceasefire. While many of these actions occurred on the same date, the two countries and their respective armed forces did not coordinate or conduct them in tandem.
Main Takeaways
Israeli operations:
The IDF has conducted extensive operations in Lebanon since November 27. Most have consisted of detonation operations of seized Hezbollah weaponry and materiel and the demolition of ostensibly civilian infrastructure in Lebanese locales near the Lebanon-Israel frontier line (the Blue Line). If Israeli assertions about the nature of IDF activities are accurate, they demonstrate the extent to which Hezbollah had entrenched itself among civilian locales bordering northern Israel and the Lebanese state and how the LAF had permitted this decades-long build-up.
Israel also conducted periodic airstrikes against Hezbollah activity and infrastructure deeper in Lebanon, including within the group’s strongholds in the Beqaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, and on the Lebanon-Syria border. These strikes demonstrated the group’s continued operations in Lebanon, and Beirut’s unwillingness to restrain Hezbollah or implement its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 or the ceasefire deal on November 27, 2024.
LAF operations:
The LAF has fallen far short of Lebanon’s obligations under Resolution 1701 and the November 27 ceasefire agreement. There is no evidence—from LAF statements or independent reporting—that the LAF or Beirut has undertaken any significant action against Hezbollah. The LAF has not seized any significant military equipment, weapons, or other materiel from the group, nor is there evidence it has dismantled any of Hezbollah’s infrastructure above or below the Litani River. This is in sharp contrast to LAF’s open declarations of seizing and dismantling the infrastructure and weapons of other armed groups in Lebanon, like the PFLP-GC.
To the extent that LAF has taken control of any infrastructure in south Lebanon that reports have alleged belong to Hezbollah, the reporting indicates Hezbollah was first permitted to withdraw its weapons from the facilities.
While LAF has engaged in relatively extensive operations to destroy ordnance in areas under Hezbollah’s sway, there is no evidence it seized these weapons from Hezbollah before destroying them. Instead, LAF statements do not specify the precise ownership of these arms, which, in any case, were destroyed after being located in open fields—not in houses or compounds, like in the IDF’s operations.
Furthermore, the pictures the LAF or Lebanese media have released of weapons seizures demonstrate a sharp contrast between the quality of arms seized by the LAF and those belonging to Hezbollah that were confiscated and destroyed by the IDF. The weapons taken by LAF appear to be aged ordnance and rockets and low-quality small arms, including outdated rifles that seem more suited for hunting than military applications.
In a handful of instances, LAF reported seizing weapons in areas where Hezbollah predominates, namely in the Beqaa Valley. However, per LAF statements, these seizures appear to have occurred incidentally in the course of arrests of individuals wanted for other crimes and after the fact rather than having been the primary objective. Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence that the individuals detained are linked to Hezbollah or that their arms belong to the group. Armed Shiite clans involved in criminal activities also operate in these areas. While they have links to Hezbollah and a cooperative relationship with the group, they are not under its command.
Lebanon’s posture on Hezbollah:
Beirut, its officials, and its state apparatuses continue to demonstrate a traditional unwillingness to confront Hezbollah.
The LAF’s deployment in south Lebanon and any reported takeovers of Hezbollah posts have occurred only with—and as a result of—Hezbollah’s permission. On December 5, 2024, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem effectively said the group had agreed to withdraw north of the Litani River. The LAF has not asserted the Lebanese state’s authority in defiance of Hezbollah’s wishes, and Hezbollah has made clear it has no intention to disarm north of the Litani River.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has said that the “important thing now is to ensure Israel’s withdrawal” from south Lebanon, which would end the current state of war and prevent Israel from resuming hostilities without a prior armed attack by Hezbollah. “As for Hezbollah’s weapons,” said Aoun, “this will be [addressed] as part of solutions agreed upon by the Lebanese.” In other words, Aoun signaled a return to Lebanon’s old position of resolving the question of Hezbollah’s arms through internal dialogue and consensus. Such an effort would include Hezbollah’s input as an influential component of Lebanese politics and society, with over 85% support among Lebanese Shiites.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also said that the fate of Hezbollah’s weapons “north of the Litani River […] is a Lebanese matter to be resolved at the [domestic] negotiation table regarding discussions over a [national] defense strategy.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is also signaling an unwillingness to confront Hezbollah. In forming his government, Salam stressed that he bowed to the country’s political realities—including overwhelming Shiite support for Hezbollah—and thus included only ministers acceptable to all political parties. Salam also said he took the Shiite community’s sense of being “wounded” from the recent war with Israel into consideration while forming his government. On the matter of his Cabinet policy statement, he refused to definitively say whether it would include a now-traditional pro-“resistance” clause, which Hezbollah has used in the past to justify its private arsenal and activities. Salam did say the policy statement would comply with Resolution 1701 and the Taef Agreement but also seemed to suggest Lebanon had already fulfilled its obligations under these instruments by merely deploying the LAF to south Lebanon. He made no mention of their requirement to disarm all militias, including Hezbollah.
The comprehensive list of IDF and LAF activities after the onset of the November 27 ceasefire follows (downloadable):
*David Daoud is senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.
**Ahmad Sharawi is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on Iranian intervention in Arab affairs and the Levant.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/03/analysis-a-comparison-of-idf-and-laf-activities-in-lebanon-post-november-27-ceasefire.php

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 10-11/2025
Iran rejects claims of any involvement in Syria violence
Agence France Presse/March 10, 2025
Iran's foreign ministry on Monday rejected media reports accusing the country of involvement in the latest violence in Syria, which has left hundreds killed. "This accusation is completely ridiculous and rejected, and we think that pointing the finger of accusation at Iran and Iran's friends is wrongly addressed, a deviant trend, and a hundred percent misleading," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei in a weekly press briefing.

Syria’s government signs breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in northeast
AP/March 10, 2025
DAMASCUS: Syria’s interim government signed a deal Monday with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, including a ceasefire and the merging of the main US-backed force there into the Syrian army. The deal is a major breakthrough that would bring most of Syria under the control of the government, which is led by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group that led the ouster of President Bashar Assad in December. The deal was signed by interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The deal to be implemented by the end of the year would bring all border crossings with Iraq and Turkiye, airports and oil fields in the northeast under the central government’s control. Prisons where about 9,000 suspected members of the Daesh group are also expected to come under government control. Syria’s Kurds will gain their “constitutional rights” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades under Assad. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war will return to their homes. The deal also says all Syrians will be part of the political process, no matter their religion or ethnicity. Syria’s new rulers are struggling to exert their authority across the country and reach political settlements with other minority communities, notably the Druze in southern Syria. Earlier Monday, Syria’s government announced the end of the military operation against insurgents loyal to Assad and his family in the worst fighting since the end of the civil war. The Defense Ministry’s announcement came after a surprise attack by gunmen from the Alawite community on a police patrol near the port city of Latakia on Thursday spiraled into widespread clashes across Syria’s coastal region. The Assad family are Alawites. “To the remaining remnants of the defeated regime and its fleeing officers, our message is clear and explicit,” said Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hassan Abdel-Ghani. “If you return, we will also return, and you will find before you men who do not know how to retreat and who will not have mercy on those whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent.”Abdel-Ghani said security forces will continue searching for sleeper cells and remnants of the insurgency of former government loyalists. Though the government’s counter-offensive was able to largely contain the insurgency, footage surfaced of what appeared to be retaliatory attacks targeting the broader minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islam whose adherents live mainly in the western coastal region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said 1,130 people were killed in the clashes, including 830 civilians. The Associated Press could not independently verify these numbers. Al-Sharaa said the retaliatory attacks against Alawite civilians and mistreatment of prisoners were isolated incidents, and vowed to crack down on the perpetrators as he formed a committee to investigate. Still, the events alarmed Western governments, who have been urged to lift economic sanctions on Syria. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement Sunday urged Syrian authorities to “hold the perpetrators of these massacres” accountable. Rubio said the US “stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities.”

Syria announces end to 'military operation' after mass killings
Associated Press/March 10, 2025
Syria's interim government on Monday announced the end of a days-long military operation against insurgents loyal to ousted president Bashar Assad and his family in the worst fighting since the end of the 13-year civil war in December. The Defense Ministry's announcement comes after a surprise attack by gunmen from the Alawite community on a police patrol near the port city of Lattakia Thursday spiraled into widespread clashes across Syria's coastal region, during which monitoring groups said hundreds of civilians were killed. Syria's new interim Islamist rulers are struggling to exert their authority across the country and reach political settlements with other minority communities, notably the Kurds of the northeast and the Druze in southern Syria. "To the remaining remnants of the defeated regime and its fleeing officers, our message is clear and explicit," said Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hassan Abdel-Ghani. "If you return, we will also return, and you will find before you men who do not know how to retreat and who will not have mercy on those whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent."Abdel-Ghani said that security forces will continue searching for sleeper cells and remnants of the insurgency of former government loyalists. Though the government's counter-offensive was able to largely contain the insurgency, footage surfaced of what appeared to be retaliatory attacks targeting the broader minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islam whose adherents live mainly in Syria's western coastal region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said 1,130 people were killed in the clashes, including 830 civilians. The Associated Press could not independently verify these numbers. The interim government is made up of members of Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led a lightning insurgency in December that overthrew Bashar Assad, ending over half a century of his family's dictatorial rule. The Assad family are Alawites. Interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said the retaliatory attacks against Alawite civilians and mistreatment of prisoners were isolated incidents, and vowed to crack down on the perpetrators as he formed a committee to investigate the incident. Abdel-Ghani says the security forces will allow the committee "the full opportunity to uncover the circumstances of the events, verify the facts, and rectify wrongdoings."Still, the footage of houses in several neighborhoods set on fire and bloodied bodies laid on the streets alarmed Western governments, who have been urged by Al-Sharaa to lift economic sanctions on Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement issued Sunday urged Syrian authorities to "hold the perpetrators of these massacres" accountable. Rubio said the U.S. "stands with Syria's religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities."Thousands of Syrians from the coastal area fled to neighboring Lebanon, mostly through unofficial crossings. The UN refugee agency said in a statement that according to local authorities, 6,078 people have arrived in about a dozen villages in northern Lebanon's Akkar province fleeing the fighting, while arrivals in other parts of the country were still being verified. Lebanon is hosting more than 755,000 registered Syrian refugees, with hundreds of thousands more believed to be unregistered. Since the fall of Assad, the flow had begun to reverse, with the UN reporting that nearly 260,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since November, about half of them coming from Lebanon.

First "free areas" then states or federal states...
Dr Walid Phares/March 10, 2025
People who woke up after October 7 (after decades of Jihadi massacres and oppression of communities and nations in the Middle East), and those before them who woke up after 9/11, are finally aware of the strategic threat of Jihadism and are prescribing solutions, including new "states" here and there. The populations of these "proposed states" have been suffering for decades, some for centuries. All solutions should be considered, but for now, what is needed are policies to protect these populations, even before they are given states. There need to be "free areas" wherever these threatened populations are under a direct menace of ethnic cleansing. First "free areas" then self determination. States or larger federal states comes after securing these communities first.

Syria announces the end of a military operation against Assad-linked gunmen in a coastal region
Associated Press/March 10, 2025
Syria's interim government on Monday announced the end of a days-long military operation against insurgents loyal to ousted president Bashar Assad and his family in the worst fighting since the end of the 13-year civil war in December.
The Defense Ministry's announcement comes after a surprise attack by gunmen from the Alawite community on a police patrol near the port city of Lattakia Thursday spiraled into widespread clashes across Syria's coastal region, during which monitoring groups said hundreds of civilians were killed. Syria's new interim Islamist rulers are struggling to exert their authority across the country and reach political settlements with other minority communities, notably the Kurds of the northeast and the Druze in southern Syria. “To the remaining remnants of the defeated regime and its fleeing officers, our message is clear and explicit,” said Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hassan Abdel-Ghani. “If you return, we will also return, and you will find before you men who do not know how to retreat and who will not have mercy on those whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent.”Abdel-Ghani said that security forces will continue searching for sleeper cells and remnants of the insurgency of former government loyalists. Though the government's counter-offensive was able to largely contain the insurgency, footage surfaced of what appeared to be retaliatory attacks targeting the broader minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islam whose adherents live mainly in Syria's western coastal region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said 1,130 people were killed in the clashes, including 830 civilians. The Associated Press could not independently verify these numbers. The interim government is made up of members of Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led a lightning insurgency in December that overthrew Bashar Assad, ending over half a century of his family's dictatorial rule. The Assad family are Alawites. Interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said the retaliatory attacks against Alawite civilians and mistreatment of prisoners were isolated incidents, and vowed to crack down on the perpetrators as he formed a committee to investigate the incident. Abdel-Ghani says the security forces will allow the committee “the full opportunity to uncover the circumstances of the events, verify the facts, and rectify wrongdoings.”Still, the footage of houses in several neighborhoods set on fire and bloodied bodies laid on the streets alarmed Western governments, who have been urged by Al-Sharaa to lift economic sanctions on Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement issued Sunday urged Syrian authorities to “hold the perpetrators of these massacres” accountable. Rubio said the U.S. “stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities.”Thousands of Syrians from the coastal area fled to neighboring Lebanon, mostly through unofficial crossings. The UN refugee agency said in a statement that according to local authorities, 6,078 people have arrived in about a dozen villages in northern Lebanon's Akkar province fleeing the fighting, while arrivals in other parts of the country were still being verified. Lebanon is hosting more than 755,000 registered Syrian refugees, with hundreds of thousands more believed to be unregistered. Since the fall of Assad, the flow had begun to reverse, with the UN reporting that nearly 260,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since November, about half of them coming from Lebanon.

Syrian Defense Ministry Announces Completion of Military Operations Against Assad Loyalists
Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
A Syrian military operation against loyalists of ousted former President Bashar al-Assad has been completed, the defense ministry said on Monday. Hassan Abdul Ghany, the defense ministry spokesperson, said in a statement on X that public institutions were now able to resume their work and provide essential services. "We are paving the way for life to return to normal and for the consolidation of security and stability," he said. He added that plans were in place to continue combating the remnants of the former government and eliminate any future threats.
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa vowed on Sunday to hunt down the perpetrators of the violent clashes and said he would hold to account anyone who overstepped the new rulers' authority. Al-Sharaa's office also said it was forming an independent committee to investigate the clashes and killings carried out by both sides. Abdul Ghany added that the security forces would cooperate with the investigation committee, offering full access to uncover the circumstances of the events, verify the facts and ensure justice for the wronged. "We were able to absorb the attacks from the remnants of the former regime and its officers. We shattered their element of surprise and managed to push them away from vital centers, securing most of the main roads," he said. Syrian security sources said over the weekend more than 300 of their members had been killed in clashes with former army personnel owing allegiance to Assad in coordinated attacks and ambushes on their forces that began on Thursday. Syria's state news agency SANA reported on Sunday that a mass grave had been discovered near Qardaha, Assad's hometown, containing the bodies of recently killed security forces. The attacks spiraled into revenge killings when thousands of armed supporters of Syria's new leaders from across the country descended to the coastal areas to support beleaguered forces of the new administration.

Syria’s Neighboring Foreign Ministers Call for Lifting Sanctions and Reconciliation
Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Syria's top diplomat and his counterparts from neighboring countries Sunday called for the lifting of Western-led sanctions on Syria and post-war reconciliation. The foreign ministers of Türkiye, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon made their remarks alongside Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani following a meeting in the Jordanian capital Amman.They come following days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists to ousted President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's coastal province. Some rights groups say hundreds of civilians, mostly Alawite, were killed in revenge attacks after the fighting broke out. The Associated Press could not independently verify those numbers. The United States and Europe have been hesitant to lift sanctions on Syria before there is a clear political transition that is democratic and inclusive of Syria’s minorities and civil society. At the same time, the country desperately needs money to rebuild after years of war and pull millions out of poverty. The United Nations estimates that some 90% of Syria’s population lives in poverty. “We are protecting all components of the Syrian people, and we do not discriminate between them. We will not allow the repetition of the tragedies of the Syrian people,” said al-Shibani. Syria's new authorities under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa have struggled to convince the United States and Europe to lift sanctions to start rebuilding the country after 13 years of war and reconcile with the Kurds in the northeast and Druze in the south to exert state authority across the country. The weekend's violence appears likely to stymie attempts to remove sanctions in the immediate future. The US and UN released statements condemning the killing of civilians, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for Damascus to hold the perpetrators accountable. Also on Sunday, al-Sharaa announced the formation of a committee tasked with investigating the violence in coastal communities, including “violations against civilians” and another one tasked with “maintaining civil peace.”Al-Sharaa said in a video statement that the outbreak of violence was part of “attempts by remnants of the former regime, with foreign parties behind them, to create new strife and drag our country to a civil war, with the goal of dividing it and destroying its unity and stability.”He said the country’s new authorities “will not tolerate the remnants of Assad who committed crimes against our army forces and state institutions” and promised to “hold accountable with all firmness and without leniency anyone who was involved in the blood of civilians or harmed our people.”
It remained to be seen whether those measures will succeed in calming the situation and reassuring both Syrians and the international community. Syria's neighbors fear that the country's pulverized economy and internal tensions could impact their own stability. “Stability in Syria requires dialogue with the country's various components,” said Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein at a joint news conference. The foreign ministers were critical of what they said was foreign intervention in the region after Israeli troops conducted military operations in southern Syria and seized a UN buffer zone that divides Syria from the Golan Heights, which Israel seized and annexed in 1967. On Sunday, the Israeli commanding officers visited and assessed the buffer zone. Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan welcomed the “historic” meeting and called for cooperation to decrease tension in Syria, and said he alongside others will work against sleeper cells belonging to the extremist ISISI group and affiliates of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party in Syria and Iraq. “This is a regional problem. Regardless of our ideals we should all combat ISIS as well as the PKK, they are both terrorist entities,” he added. Iraq's foreign minister warned that ISIS sleeper cells are growing in numbers. “We need to take the initiative first in exchanging views and information about (the ISIS group's) latest operations and especially their expansion not only on the Syrian borders with Iraq and Jordan but also their expansion in the Syrian land,” said Hussein.

Israel's halt to food and aid deliveries worsens Gaza conditions
Nidal al-Mughrabi/CAIRO (Reuters) /March 10/2025
Israel's suspension of goods entering Gaza is taking a toll on the Palestinian enclave, with some bakeries closing and food prices rising, while a cut in the electricity supply could deprive people of clean water, Palestinian officials said. The suspension, which Israel said was aimed at pressuring militant group Hamas in ceasefire talks, applies to food, medicine and fuel imports. The U.N. Palestinian refugees agency UNRWA said the decision to halt humanitarian aid threatens the lives of civilians exhausted by 17 months of "brutal" war. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people were dependent on aid, it said. Hamas describes the measure as "collective punishment" and insisted it will not be pushed into making concessions at the discussions. Abdel-Nasser Al-Ajrami, head of the Gaza bakers' union, told Reuters that six out of the 22 bakeries still able to operate in the enclave had already shut after they ran out of cooking gas. "The remaining bakeries may close down in a week or so should they run out of diesel or flour, unless the crossing is reopened to allow the goods to flow," he said. "The 22 bakeries were not enough to meet the needs of the people, with six of them shutting down now, that would increase the demand for bread and worsen the condition," he added. Israel last week blocked the entry of goods into the territory in a standoff over a truce that has halted fighting for the past seven weeks.
The move has led to a hike in prices of essential foods as well as of fuel, forcing many to ration their meals. Displaced from her destroyed house and living in a tent in Khan Younis, 40-year-old Ghada al-Rakab said she is struggling to secure basic needs. The mother of six bakes some goods for her family and neighbours, sometimes renting out a clay makeshift oven for a symbolic price. "What kind of life are we living? No electricity, no water, no life, we don't even live a proper life. What else is left there in life? May God take us and give us rest," al-Rakab said.
'ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH RISKS'
Israel's onslaught on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians since October 2023, according to Gaza health officials, left most of its people destitute and razed much of the territory to the ground. The war was triggered by a Hamas-led cross-border raid into southern Israel in which militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. In Israel's latest punitive measure, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Sunday he had instructed the Israel Electric Corporation not to sell electricity to Gaza in what he described as a means of pressure on Hamas to free hostages. Israel already cut power supply to Gaza at the war's start but this move would affect a wastewater treatment plant presently supplied with power, according to the Israeli electricity company. The Palestinian Water Authority said the decision suspended operations at a water desalination plant that produced 18,000 cubic meters of water per day for the population in central and southern areas of Gaza Strip. Mohammad Thabet, the spokesperson of the Gaza power distribution plant, told Reuters the decision will deprive people in those areas of clean and healthy water. "The decision is catastrophic, municipalities now will be obliged to let sewage water stream into the sea, which may result in environmental and health risks that go beyond the boundaries of Gaza," Thabet said. He said there was not enough fuel to operate stand-by generators in desalination and sewage plants. All the aid supplies being distributed by the Palestine Red Crescent are dwindling and it is having to ration remaining supplies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies told Reuters. "If it is possible to find the basics like eggs and chicken, the prices have rocketed and are out of reach for the majority of people in Gaza. One of our colleagues in Gaza spent the whole day on Friday trying to find some chicken to feed his children and was unsuccessful," IFRC spokesperson Tommaso Della Longa said. It is also concerned that a lack of medical supplies and medicines may impact the treatment of patients at its mobile health clinics, ambulance service and a field hospital.
MEDIATORS TRY TO SALVAGE TRUCE
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since January 19 under a truce, and Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. But the truce's initial 42-day stage has expired and Hamas and Israel remain far apart on broader issues including the postwar governance of Gaza and the future of Hamas itself. Underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire, an Israeli airstrike killed one Palestinian in the Bureij camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said. There was no immediate Israeli comment. Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, and the U.S. are trying to salvage the ceasefire deal. They held talks with Hamas leaders and are set to receive Israeli negotiators in Doha on Monday. Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua told Reuters on Monday the group was committed to the original phased agreement and expected mediators to "compel" Israel to begin talks on implementing the second stage. Phase two is intended to focus on agreements on the release of remaining hostages and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Israel demands Hamas free the remaining hostages without beginning phase two negotiations.

Gaza Ceasefire: The Stalled Agreement Awaits the Outcome of Doha Talks
Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Israel is due to send a delegation to Doha on Monday for a fresh round of talks on extending a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, after cutting off the electricity supply to ramp up pressure on Hamas.The first phase of the truce ended on March 1 with no agreement on subsequent stages that could secure a permanent end to the war, but both sides have since refrained from resuming full-scale fighting. There are still significant differences over the terms of a potential second phase of the truce, which has largely halted the violence that raged since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Hamas has repeatedly called for immediate negotiations on the next phase, while Israel prefers an extension of the current one. Israel has halted aid deliveries to Gaza amid the deadlock, and on Sunday announced it was cutting off the electricity supply in a bid to force Hamas to release hostages. "We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring back the hostages and ensure that Hamas is no longer in Gaza the day after" the war, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said as he ordered the power cut. The move echoed the early days of the war when Israel announced a "siege" on Gaza, severing the electricity supply which was only restored in mid-2024. The sole power line between Israel and Gaza supplies the Palestinian territory's main desalination plant, and Gazans now mainly rely on solar panels and fuel-powered generators to produce electricity. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are now living in tents across Gaza, where temperatures reach a low of about 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit) at night. Top Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said the Israeli decision "to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine, and water" was a "desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance".
'Long-term truce'
Hamas has repeatedly demanded that the second phase of the truce -- brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States -- would include a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a permanent ceasefire, and the reopening of border crossings to end the blockade. Spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP that Hamas wanted the mediators to ensure Israel "complies with the agreement... and proceeds with the second phase according to the agreed-upon terms".Former US president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase involving hostage release and the withdrawal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza. Hamas representatives met mediators in Cairo over the weekend, a Hamas statement said. US envoy Adam Boehler, who held unprecedented direct talks with Hamas officials in recent days, said on Sunday that a deal could be reached "within weeks" to secure all remaining hostages. Of the 251 hostages taken during the October 7 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed dead. Boehler told CNN there could be "a deal where they can get all of the prisoners out, not just the Americans". There are five Israeli-US nationals among the hostages, four of whom have been confirmed dead. On CNN, the US envoy said a "long-term truce" was "real close", while in an interview with Israel's Channel 12 that aired later on Sunday, he said Washington would back any Israeli decision, including a return to war.
'Nothing available'
An earlier proposal from Trump to expel Palestinians from Gaza prompted Arab leaders to offer an alternative reconstruction plan without displacement. The initial phase of the truce, which began on January 19, reduced hostilities after more than 15 months of relentless fighting that displaced nearly all of Gaza's 2.4 million people. During this period, 25 living Israeli hostages and eight bodies were exchanged for the release of about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody. The truce also allowed in much-needed food, shelter and medical assistance. After Israel cut off the aid flow on March 2, UN rights experts accused the government of "weaponizing starvation". At a UN distribution of flour in Jabalia, northern Gaza, Abu Mahmoud Salman, 56, said that with the territory now closed off from fresh supplies, "there is nothing available"."The markets are empty... prices are high, and there is no income. The situation in Gaza is difficult," he told AFP. Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, while Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,458 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from both sides.

Israeli team heads to Qatar for Gaza truce talks
AFP/March 10, 2025
JERUSALEM: Israel’s negotiating team left for Qatar Monday for talks aimed at extending the fragile Gaza ceasefire, after Israel cut the Palestinian territory’s electricity supply to ramp up pressure on Hamas. Ahead of the negotiations, Israel disconnected the only power line to a water desalination plant in Gaza, a move Hamas denounced as “cheap and unacceptable blackmail.” The first phase of the truce deal expired on March 1 with no agreement on subsequent stages that should secure a lasting end to the war that erupted with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. There are differences over how to proceed — Hamas wants immediate negotiations on the next phase, but Israel prefers extending phase one. Hamas accused Israel of reneging on the ceasefire deal, saying in a statement Monday Israel “refuses to commence the second phase, exposing its intentions of evasion and stalling.”An Israeli official familiar with the negotiations told AFP the country’s team had left for Doha. Media reports said the delegation was led by a top official from the domestic security agency Shin Bet.
Israel has halted aid deliveries to Gaza amid the deadlock, and said Sunday it was cutting the electricity supply. “We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring back the hostages and ensure that Hamas is no longer in Gaza the day after” the war, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said.
The move echoed the early days of the war when Israel announced a “complete siege” on the Palestinian territory, severing the electricity supply which was only restored in mid-2024. Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif Al-Qanoua said Israel’s move will impact its hostages still held in Gaza. “The decision to cut electricity is a failed option and poses a threat to its (Israeli) prisoners, who will only be freed through negotiations,” Qanoua said in a statement on Monday. Germany and Britain both criticized Israel over its latest decisions. Germany foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said Gaza was “again threatened with a food shortage” and that cutting off electricity was “unacceptable and not compatible with (Israel’s) obligations under international law.”British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s official spokesman told reporters: “We’re deeply concerned by these reports and urge Israel to lift these restrictions.”The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority also slammed Israel, calling the move an “escalation in the genocide” in Gaza. The sole power line between Israel and Gaza supplies its main desalination plant, and Gazans now mainly rely on solar panels and fuel-powered generators to produce electricity. Hundreds of thousands now live in tents across Gaza, where temperatures currently reach a night-time low of about 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit).
Top Hamas official Izzat Al-Rishq called Israel’s decision “to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine, and water” a “desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance.”Gaza residents told AFP the electricity cut will only worsen their situation. “The decision to cut off electricity is proof of a war of extermination,” Dina Al-Sayigh said from Gaza City. “The occupation never stops killing Palestinian civilians, whether by bombing, missiles or by starvation.”Hamas has repeatedly demanded that the second phase of the truce — brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States — include a comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a permanent ceasefire and the reopening of border crossings to end the blockade.
Spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP Hamas wanted the mediators to ensure Israel “complies with the agreement... and proceeds with the second phase according to the agreed-upon terms.”Former US president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase involving hostage releases and the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.
US envoy Adam Boehler, who has held unprecedented direct talks with Hamas, told CNN Sunday a deal could be reached “within weeks” to secure the release of all remaining hostages, not just the five dual US-Israelis, most of whom have been confirmed dead. Of the 251 hostages taken during the October 7 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed dead. Boehler told CNN a “long-term truce” was “real close,” but later Sunday he told Israel’s Channel 12 that Washington would back any Israeli decision, including a return to war. In late February, US President Donald Trump issued what he called a “last warning” to Hamas, threatening further destruction if it does not release all remaining hostages. The initial 42-day phase of the truce, which began on January 19, reduced hostilities after more than 15 months of relentless fighting that displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people. During phase one, 25 living Israeli hostages and eight bodies were exchanged for about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody. The truce also allowed in much-needed food, shelter and medical assistance. Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, while Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,467 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from both sides.

Israel’s Smotrich Sets Requirements of Trump’s Plan for Gaza
Tel Aviv/Asharq Al Awsat/Nazir Magally/March 10, 2025
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Sunday the formation of parliament pressure groups in both Israel and the United States to work on implementing US President Donald Trump's plan to take over the Gaza Strip and remove Palestinians from the enclave. The announcement came while Israel continues to carry out a massive expansion of settlements in the West Bank. “Just to give you an idea -- if we remove 10,000 people a day, seven days a week, it will take six months,” Smotrich told an event in the Israeli parliament. “If we remove 5,000 people a day, it will take a year. Of course, this is assuming we have countries willing to take them, but these are very, very, very long processes.” The far-right minister also said that the government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, is working to establish a “migration administration” that will oversee the displacement of Palestinian residents from the Gaza Strip. According to Smotrich, this administration would be backed by a lobby that includes deputies from the coalition and opposition parties and works in partnership with the Yesha Settlement Council. “This is not just another plan, it is a potential for historic change,” he added. At the same time, the minister admitted that the logistics for his plan are complicated, “because we have to know who is going to which country.”
For her part, Israeli Minister of Settlement and National Missions MK Orit Strock said the removal of the security threat from Gaza cannot be achieved “except through a voluntary migration plan.”Strock, a member of Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party, added, “Even if we defeat Hamas as a civilian and military government, as long as we do not allow the majority of the population to emigrate, we will not remove the threat.”Also at the event in Parliament, the head of the Yesha settlement council and the head of the Binyamin settlement council, Yisrael Gantz, said, “There is no difference between Hamas in Gaza and Hamas in Judea and Samaria – anyone who participates in or encourages terrorism cannot stay here. This is not just a security issue, but an existential necessity.”He added, “Israel is going through a historic moment – we have an American president who encourages us to think outside the box. We don’t need more proposals, we need to start implementing! It’s time for the government to take real steps to implement Trump’s vision.”On Sunday, the head of the colonial Israeli settlement of Ariel, built on Palestinian land in the central West Bank, has announced a plan to construct 11,000 new housing units for Jewish settlers. The Jerusalem municipality also announced another expansion project. Meanwhile, the Ynet news website said Samaria Council head Yossi Dagan met Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior Middle East advisor, in Washington. The website said the meeting was part of a series of discussions Dagan and his team are currently conducting in the US capital. It said their goal is to build coalitions in support of settlement activity in the West Bank and to educate and promote understanding within the Trump administration, Congress and the Senate about the importance of applying sovereignty to the West Bank now.

Hamas Says It Awaits Outcomes of Mediators' Talks on Gaza Ceasefire with Israel
Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Hamas said on Monday that it is showing flexibility in talks with mediators and is awaiting the outcome of efforts from Egypt, Qatar, and the United States in negotiations with Israel. "We have dealt flexibly with the efforts of the mediators and (US President Donald) Trump's envoy, and we await the results of the anticipated negotiations, holding the occupation accountable for the agreement and moving to the second phase”, a Hamas statement read. It added, according to Reuters, that the “negotiations conducted with the Egyptian and Qatari mediators and Trump's envoy are focused on ending the war, withdrawal, and reconstruction. Hamas concluded saying that Israel’s statements about plans to resume fighting in Gaza and the decision to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip are all failed choices that pose a threat to the prisoners.

Iraq Turns to Gulf for Alternative to Gas from Iran
Baghdad: Hamza Mustafa/Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Baghdad said on Saturday it had not officially received the United States’ decision to rescind a waiver that had allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity. The Trump administration rescinded the waiver on Saturday as part of President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran, a State Department spokesperson said. The decision to let Iraq's waiver lapse upon its expiration "ensures we do not allow Iran any degree of economic or financial relief," the spokesperson said, adding that Trump's campaign on Iran aims "to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program and stop it from supporting terrorist groups." For Iraq, the end of the waiver "presents temporary operational challenges," said Farhad Alaaeldin, foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. "The government is actively working on alternatives to sustain electricity supply and mitigate any potential disruptions," Alaaeldin told Reuters. "Strengthening energy security remains a national priority, and efforts to enhance domestic production, improve grid efficiency and invest in new technologies will continue at full pace." Trump initially granted waivers to several buyers to meet consumer energy needs when he reimposed sanctions on Iran's energy exports in 2018, citing its nuclear program and what the US calls its meddling in the Middle East. His administration and that of Joe Biden repeatedly renewed Iraq's waiver while urging Baghdad to reduce its dependence on Iranian electricity. The State Department spokesperson reiterated that call on Saturday. "We urge the Iraqi government to eliminate its dependence on Iranian sources of energy as soon as possible," the spokesperson said. "Iran is an unreliable energy supplier."The Iraqi government acknowledged that ending the import of gas from Iran without ready alternatives will lead to the collapse of the electricity grid during the hot summer season. An Iraqi government spokesman said in a statement that "dialogue between Baghdad and Washington will continue as both sides realize the importance of Iraq as a main factor of stability in the region."Iraq has been fully committed to the waiver and it had set a long-term strategy to achieve independence in the energy sector, he went on to say, while highlighting financial reform enacted by Baghdad and efforts to bolster transparency according to international standards. The government is looking at the worst-case scenario in various fields, including energy, and has started to hold intense meetings to overcome any electrify crisis, he added. Meanwhile, the parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee said Iraq will seek alternatives, including turning to the Gulf, to secure fuel for its power plants. Another parliamentary committee has warned that the energy sector will collapse during the summer when temperatures soar. Spokesman for the Oil and Gas Committee Ali Shaddad said on Sunday that the government will turn to the Gulf for gas. The problem is that the electricity ministry had built power plants in Iraqi provinces that only operate on gas. The stations located in Basra operate on gas and oil, which has helped keep energy generation in the province stable, he revealed. The prime minister himself is following up on the completion of a gas pipeline from Basra. The energy ministry has been working on the project for 30 days already and it will be completed within 120, he added.
Iraq produces 27,000 megawatts of electricity through plants that mostly operate on gas. Production occasionally drops to 17,000 megawatts. The total production does not meet the country’s daily needs, which is 40,000 megawatts.
Dr. Ihssan Shmary, professor of strategic and international studies at Baghdad University, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US decision to rescind the waiver is a precursor to gradually start imposing sanctions on Iraq.
He said the sanctions will cover entities, institutions and even some figures. The US decision effectively confirms that the administration does not distinguish between Iran and Iraq and it sees the former as a card to impose its maximum pressure policy on the latter, he stressed. The decision has greater political rather than technical implications, especially since the next decisions may alter the balances of power in Iraq, he explained. On the alternative to gas from Iran, he said efforts should be exerted to boost the electricity connection with Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom can also help develop Iraq’s energy sector and connect it to the Gulf, he said.

Iraq Has No Immediate Alternative to Iranian Energy Imports
Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Iraq has no immediate alternatives to compensate for the energy imported from Iran, which will cause a significant problem in providing enough electricity to meet domestic consumption, especially in the summer, three energy officials said on Sunday. "Government has started to implement urgent measures to reduce the impact of the US decision on Iraq power supply," one senior electricity ministry official told Reuters. The Trump administration rescinded a waiver on Saturday that had allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, as part of President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran, a State Department spokesperson said.

More than 30 nations will participate in Paris planning talks on a security force for Ukraine
John Leicester/The Associated Press/March 10, 2025
Military officials from more than 30 nations will take part in Paris talks on the creation of an international security force for Ukraine, a French military official said Monday. Such an international force would aim to dissuade Russia from launching another offensive after any ceasefire in Ukraine comes into effect. The long list of participants in Tuesday's discussions will also include Asian and Oceania nations that will join remotely, the French official said. The international makeup of the meeting offers an indication of how broadly France and Britain — which are working together on plans for the force — are casting their net as they aim to build what the French official described as a coalition of nations “able and willing” to be part of an effort to safeguard Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.The French military official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the blueprint for the force that is shrouded in secrecy and the Paris talks that will consider it. The force being envisaged by France and Britain would aim to reassure Ukraine and deter another large-scale Russian offensive after any ceasefire, the official said. It could include heavy weaponry and weapons stockpiles that could be rushed within hours or days to aid in Ukraine’s defense in the event of a Russian attack that shatters any truce, the official said. The French-British blueprint will be presented to military officials from more than 30 nations in the first part of Tuesday’s talks, the official said. The talks’ second part will include “more precise and concrete” discussions where the participants will be invited to say whether and how their militaries might be able to contribute, the official said. “It’s not, ‘This is what we need,’” the official said. “It’s more, ‘What are you bringing to the pot?’”The official stressed, however, that the ultimate decision on whether nations take part in the force would be taken at a political level, by government leaders. Chiefs of staff — or, in Canada’s case, their representative — from nearly all of the 32 nations of the NATO military alliance will attend the Paris discussions. Three NATO nations will be absent. They are Croatia and Montenegro, which were invited but didn't respond, and the United States, the official said. The official said the United States wasn't invited because European nations want to demonstrate that they can take responsibility for a large part of the post-ceasefire security framework for Ukraine. Also attending will be the chiefs of staff of Ireland and Cyprus and a representative from Austria — all nations that are not NATO members but are in the European Union. Australia and New Zealand, which are Commonwealth nations, as well as Japan and South Korea, will listen into the talks remotely, the official said. Ukraine will be represented by a military official who is also a member of the country’s security and defense council.

Secretary of State Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83 percent of agency’s programs gone
AP/March 11, 2025
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old US Agency for International Development and he would move the 18 percent of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department. Rubio made the announcement in a post on X, in one of his relatively few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from US foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams. Rubio thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid. In another final step in the breakup of USAID, the Trump administration on Monday gave USAID staffers abroad until April 6 to move back to the United States if they want to do so on the government’s tab, according to a USAID email sent to staffers and seen by The Associated Press. Staffers say the deadline gives them scant time to pull children from school, sell homes or break leases, and, for many, find somewhere to live after years away from the United States.President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign assistance funding and a review of all of the tens of billions of dollars of US aid and development work abroad. Trump charged that much of foreign assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
Rubio’s social media post Monday said that review was now “officially ending,” with some 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs eliminated.
Those programs “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio wrote.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18 percent of programs we are keeping ... to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he said.
Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally funded programs illegal, saying such a move requires Congress’ approval.
USAID supporters said the sweep of the cuts made it difficult to tell what US efforts abroad the Trump administration actually supports.
“The patterns that are emerging is the administration does not support democracy programs, they don’t support civil society ... they don’t support NGO programs,” or health or emergency response, said Andrew Natsios, the USAID administrator for Republican former President George W. Bush.
“So what’s left”?” Natsios asked.
A group of former US diplomats, national security figures and others condemned what it said was an opaque, partisan and rushed review process and urged Congress to intervene.
“The facts show that life-saving programs were severely cut, putting millions of people in allied countries at risk of starvation, disease and death,” while giving Russia, China and other adversaries opportunities to gain influence abroad as the US retreats, the group, the US Global Leadership Coalition, said. The Trump administration gave almost no details on which aid and development efforts abroad it spared as it mass-emailed contract terminations to aid groups and other USAID partners by the thousands within days earlier this month. The rapid pace, and the steps skipped in ending contracts, left USAID supporters challenging whether any actual program-by-program reviews had taken place. Aid groups say even some life-saving programs that Rubio and others had promised to spare are in limbo or terminated, such as those providing emergency nutritional support for starving children and drinking water for sprawling camps for families uprooted by war in Sudan. Republicans broadly have made clear they want foreign assistance that would promote a far narrower interpretation of US national interests going forward.The State Department in one of multiple lawsuits it is battling over its rapid shutdown of USAID had said earlier this month it was killing more than 90 percent of USAID programs. Rubio gave no explanation for why his number was lower.
The dismantling of USAID that followed Trump’s order upended decades of policy that humanitarian and development aid abroad advanced US national security by stabilizing regions and economies, strengthening alliances and building goodwill. In the weeks after Trump’s order, one of his appointees and transition team members, Pete Marocco, and Musk pulled USAID staff around the world off the job through forced leaves and firings, shut down USAID payments overnight and terminated aid and development contracts by the thousands. Contractors and staffers running efforts ranging from epidemic control to famine prevention to job and democracy training stopped work. Aid groups and other USAID partners laid off tens of thousands of their workers in the US and abroad. Lawsuits say the sudden shutdown of USAID has stiffed aid groups and businesses that had contracts with it totaling billions of dollars. The shutdown has left many USAID staffers and contractors and their families still overseas, many of them awaiting back payments and travel expenses to return home. The administration is offering extensions on the 30-day deadline for staffers to return, but workers are skeptical enough USAID staffers remain on the job to process requests.
In Washington, the sometimes contradictory orders issued by the three men — Rubio, Musk and Marocco — overseeing the USAID cuts have left many uncertain who was calling the shots and fueled talk of power struggles.
Musk and Rubio on Monday, as Trump had last week, insisted relations between the two of them were smooth.
“Good working with you,” Musk tweeted in response to Rubio’s announcement.

Saudi crown prince, US Secretary of State discuss regional developments
Arab News/March 10, 2025
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday evening. Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia earlier on Monday ahead of crucial talks with Ukraine aimed at ending three years of conflict with Russia.
They reviewed relations between the two countries and opportunities to enhance and develop them in various fields, the Saudi Press Agency reported. They also discussed the latest regional and international developments, exchanged views on them, as well as efforts made toward achieving security and stability, SPA added. The reception was attended by Mike Waltz, US President Donald Trump’s national security advisor. On the Saudi side, Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Defense and Saudi ambassador to Washington, Princess Reema bint Bandar, were also in attendance. The top US diplomat is in Jeddah ahead of the talks with Ukrainian officials expected on Tuesday, leading a delegation that also includes Waltz.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also arrived in the Kingdom on Monday.

Saudi crown prince receives Ukrainian President Zelensky
Arab News/March 10, 2025
RIYADH: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Saudi Press Agency reported early Tuesday. The president arrived ahead of talks between Ukrainian officials and Saudi and US representatives, due to take place on Tuesday. The crown prince reiterated in a meeting the Kingdom’s keenness and support for all international endeavors and efforts aimed at resolving the Ukrainian crisis and achieving peace. Zelensky expressed his thanks and appreciation for the Kingdom’s efforts, commending its pivotal role in the Middle East and the world. Senior Saudi and Ukrainian officials attended the meeting. Earlier, Zelensky was received at King Abdulaziz International Airport by the Deputy Governor of Makkah Region Prince Saud bin Mishaal bin Abdulaziz and other officials. Ukrainian and US officials will meet in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to seek a way out of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, was also received by the crown prince.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on March 10-11/2025
Syria…a Foreign Move, Not Remnants
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
The criminal military attacks seen in Syrian coastal regions last Thursday cannot be attributed to the remnants of the Assad regime alone. These men who did not fight when the criminal Assad had been in the Presidential Palace in Damascus would not fight now, with Bashar in Moscow.
We cannot claim that the operations had been planned internally by separatists, as there is no real popular support for such plans in coastal areas. In fact, these parts of the country, including the Assad family's stronghold, were among the first to celebrate the regime's collapse. Accordingly, this was a foreign operation carried out by gangs tied to certain states and militias, such as Hezbollah. A month ago, according to sources familiar with the region, there had been intelligence on meetings to coordinate sabotage attacks in Syria.These meetings took place in countries neighboring Syria, with elements of regime remnants, officials from a regional state, and Hezbollah members taking part. Statements by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, which led to a public spat between Iran and Türkiye, also point in this direction. "Tehran has paid a heavy price to maintain its influence in Iraq and Syria, and the costs it has paid are far greater than the gains it has made," Fidan said. He added that "Iran’s foreign policy, with its ties to regional proxies, poses significant risks," calling on Tehran to abandon its "policy of monopolization in the Middle East."
Tehran hit back by calling Fidan’s remarks "brazen" and accusing Türkiye of turning a blind eye to the "hidden American and Israeli hand in the region’s developments," warning that his claims were "gravely mistaken."
So, was the Turkish minister mistaken? Absolutely not. A distinguished diplomat from the region tells me that Türkiye "sensed that a dangerous Iranian and Israeli plan to undermine Syria was being plotted, and thus chose to ring the alarm through Minister Fidan’s statements."
And so, what happened in Syria’s coastal region is a foreign conspiracy to achieve one of the following objectives. The first, if the plan succeeds and the coast is militarily isolated, is fragmenting the newly emerging regime’s control over Syria and turning the coast into a warzone.
The goal, here, would be to destabilize and weaken the new order in Syria, imposing new realities on the ground by forming a militia that mirrors Hezbollah. There is even talk, in some circles, of plans to establish an Alawite Hezbollah in coastal towns and cities. The second objective, in the event that the first fails, would be to push a new "victimhood" campaign that demands protection for minorities in Syria. That is, to call for international intervention and thereby prevent them from lifting the sanctions that had been imposed on Syria during the reign of the criminal Assad.
Achieving either objective would mean suspending the progress being made in Syria. For this reason, genuine Arab support for Syria is essential today. Decision-makers in Damascus must be mindful of this scheme, and the best way to foil it is to assert state authority through the rule of law and just governance, not revenge and retribution. To do so, Syria needs not only a government of competent individuals but also a competent state. The Syrian state must move faster in implementing reforms, ensure stability, and make full use of the Arab support it has received, all while remaining patient and treading wisely.

A Just Syria Is Best for All of its Segments
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/March 10/2025
Anyone in Beirut observing the developments unfolding in Syria will be gripped by fear. It is very dangerous to try to turn back the hands of time. The collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime was a major shock that surprised his allies and opponents alike. In Syria, some refuse to believe that the time of the regime is over. Outside Syria, some refuse to recognize that Syria has chosen its fate and are insisting on pursuing a path that would lead it back to bloodshed.
Syria’s fate does not concern it alone. This is a lesson that was learned in the second decade of the 21st century. When instability erupts in Syria, it will be difficult to keep it confined to the country’s borders. The infighting between the Syrians fuels tensions in neighboring countries and creates waves of displaced people. If the anxious Syria is a problem, then a fearsome Syria is a tragedy for its people and surroundings. Blowing up the situation in Syria is no less dangerous than the ouster of Saddam Hussein. The region may not be able to contain the fallout from such a development.
The most dangerous thing that can happen to a country is for those in power to exploit the fears of its various segments the way the Assad regime did. Under the regime, might held sway over justice and equality. The constitution was manipulated to suit anyone in the ruling regime. Parliament convened only to applaud the ruler. People were left to suffer in regime prisons and at the hands of cruel mafia practices. My profession has taught me to be fearful of major developments from which there can be no turning back. I grow concerned when the man who held all the threads, fates and destinies is no longer in power. I grow concerned when an army that had long held the ground and turned the country into a prison is no more. I grow concerned when the leaders of security agencies leave behind them piles of corpses and a series of mass graves.
I grow fearful of the ire of the people when they react to barbaric acts that can be traced to simmering hatred. I grow fearful when people fall victim to parties that have sold them delusions, and who eventually refuse to acknowledge defeat, so they embark on adventures that threaten their safety and perhaps their own existence. I am afraid of foreign players who have been awaiting these opportunities to pounce on the new Syria. Israel is acting as though Syria is an open arena, not an independent nation. It speaks about the security of the Druze and has hinted about the Kurds. These statements may be concealing an Israeli desire to blow up and divide Syria, or at least push it to live on the edge of wars between its various segments.
Others are dreaming of reclaiming whatever influence they lost in Syria through any means necessary. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's decision to form an independent investigation committee to look into the developments along the coast helps thwart the goals of the parties that were seeking to exploit the situation to make it seem that this was a war between different segments.
Concerned questions have been posed by the Druze, Kurds and Alawites in recent weeks. The truth is that the only answer to these questions is that there can be no other solution in Syria besides the establishment of a Syrian state that accepts everyone. Blowing up the situation in Syria will be a tragedy for itself and its neighbors. Drowning Syria in a war of segments will alarm Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Türkiye and regional countries. Key to Syria’s stability is the establishment of a state that fits all of its segments and that is built on justice and equality under the rule of law. Any return to the past must be limited to learning from it to guarantee that the same mistakes will not be committed. In wake of Assad’s ouster, the new Syria managed to avert a major collapse that could have resulted in endless bloodshed. President Sharaa acted realistically and focused on returning Syria to its Arab family and paving the way for existence under the constitution and rule of law. He sought to give the impression that Syria’s main concern was restoring stability, reconstruction, and building a normal country away from a model that goes against its foundations and unity. He gave the impression that the new Syria does not want to export its model and infiltrate the maps of its neighbors. The current bloodshed gave the impression that the conflict in Syria never stopped on the inside and in the region. Any foreign attempt to turn back the hands of time will lead to an escalation in the war of roles inside Syria and around it.
Syria has always been an anxious country. For 60 years, it never managed to reclaim the Golan Heights that are occupied by Israel. It never managed to become a normal state on the inside. It was unnerved by Türkiye's Erdogan and its Islamist leanings and NATO alliance. It was fearful of Iraq under Saddam, Jordan's moderation and the international umbrella that protects it, and Lebanon that had escaped Syrian hegemony.
The anxious Baathist Syria turned into a country that sparked alarm in others when it began to collect cards that it could use to manipulate the security and stability of its neighbors. It became an even greater source of alarm when it transformed into an arena for Iran and its militias.
The solution lies in Syria returning to Syria. A return to a normal state that safeguards unity and guarantees respect to differences through coexistence and under the rule of law. Only a normal state can close the chapter of the anxious and alarming Syria. A just Syria is the best home for its segments.

Targeting Iran’s agents of influence
Ben Cohen/ Jewish News Syndicate/March 10/2025
The British government unveiled an important new measure to combat influence originating from Tehran. Now it has to get to work enforcing it.The British government unveiled an important new measure to combat influence originating from Tehran. Now it has to get to work enforcing it.
The sight of Israeli fighter jets flying low and loud over the funeral in Beirut last month of the eliminated Hezbollah terrorist chieftain Hassan Nasrallah was certainly gratifying. But I’ll wager that I’m not the only observer who wishes that the Israeli pilots had actually dropped a few bombs on the whole wretched spectacle.
Among the thousands of Hezbollah supporters in attendance were a few dozen activists from Western countries, some of whom were questioned by their respective police forces upon their return. According to a list compiled by the Middle East Media Research Institute, their number included Canadian passport holders Charlotte Kates and Khaled Barakat of the now-proscribed terrorist organization Samidoun, which raises support for the motley crew of Palestinian rapists and murderers held in Israeli jails; Irish activists Tadhg Hickey and Tara O’Grady, two leading lights of their country’s influential antisemitic, pro-Hamas lobby; and the heads of the ultra-Stalinist, deeply antisemitic American Communist Party in the form of Jackson Hinkle and Christopher Helali.
Since Israel demurred from getting rid of these people when it had the chance (perhaps prudently), it falls to law-enforcement agencies in their own countries to deal with them. And by that, I mean isolating them completely from the public square and, if necessary, imprisoning them as accessories of a terrorist organization whose bloody global imprint extends from Bulgaria to Argentina to other lands where Hezbollah has carried out violent attacks at the behest of its Iranian paymasters.
I want to focus on the British presence at Nasrallah’s funeral because last week the British government unveiled an important new measure to combat Iranian influence. While the measure regrettably falls short of classifying the Tehran regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, it does elevate Iran and its British assets to the highest tier of the UK’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme. Anyone acting on Iran’s behalf will be deemed a security threat and therefore obliged to register with the scheme. Failure to do so will incur a prison sentence of up to five years.
That brings into the frame some of the worst enemies of the British Jewish community, like the former Parliament members George Galloway and Chris Williamson. Having been turfed out of the ruling Labour Party, the two men now lead what is functionally a national socialist organization calling itself the Workers Party of Britain. Both are regular contributors to the Iranian state propaganda outlet Press TV—a wholly owned subsidiary of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)—where Williamson anchors a sinister discussion show pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories titled “Palestine Declassified.”
His sidekick on the show is a failed Scottish academic named David Miller, who was fired from the University of Bristol over his continued harassment of Jewish students. It’s easy to dismiss Miller as the clown who sent the distinguished historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore, the author of a recent book on Jerusalem, a page from Wikipedia intended to counter his argument about Jewish indigeneity, accompanied by an “Aha! Gotcha!” post on X. Sadly, there are those who take Miller seriously and listen to his arguments, which become more screechingly antisemitic with every post, every broadcast appearance and every article. ns is the contention that Jewish anti-Zionists are really Zionists. He asks preposterously, “[H]ow many Jewish martyrs have there been in the past 140 on the path to liberate Palestine from Zionism? How many Jews have engaged in military action against Zionist targets in that period?” Another is his repeated characterization of the Chabad-Lubavitch religious movement, which is regarded with affection by observant and non-observant Jews alike, as a “genocidal cult.” Moreover, Miller’s adoration of the Palestinians and their murderous cause is mirrored by his contempt for a genuinely persecuted population, like the Kurds, whom he denies constitute a nationality, and the Ukrainians, whose plight under constant Russian bombardment elicits a teenage cheerleader’s enthusiasm from him.
Miller also attended Nasrallah’s funeral, posing as a “journalist,” and was duly questioned by the British police on his return from Beirut. His actual reportage was limited to fawning posts on X and appearances on Press TV because it’s pretty much the only broadcaster willing to platform his ravings.
The new rules in the United Kingdom will, it is to be hoped, remove the veneer of “independence” shrouding Miller and his co-thinkers—who include Asa Winstanley, an antisemitic propagandist for the U.S. outlet “Electronic Intifada”—and reveal them for what they are: assets of the Iranian mullahs. They also provide a road map for further moves to curb both Iran’s propaganda agents and hired thugs, like the two Romanians who one year ago stabbed an Iranian opposition journalist outside his home in London, who carry out the regime’s orders on foreign soil.
But if any of that is to happen, then the British government must follow through on enforcement. If Miller fails to register as an Iranian agent, then he should be arrested and charged accordingly. Even without incarceration, there is a case to be made for shuttering his channels of communication, such as his website and his social-media presence, with the outside world. Free speech does not extend to treason and never has, including in the United States, where the First Amendment affords protections that don’t exist in Europe. Nor does it include incitement to violence. When Miller talks about “liquidating” or “dismantling” Zionism, as he does frequently, one has to remember that his Iranian sponsors regard that phrase as a license for terrorist actions against Jewish targets around the world.
Ultimately, the United Kingdom has to decide whether it will tolerate Iranian state media outlets exploiting their presence as “journalists” to spread misinformation and propaganda on behalf of Tehran. Press TV operated a London office for nearly 15 years before dissolving as a limited company under British law in 2021, according to the country’s own records. Yet it still operates a studio there, where Williamson and Miller record their programming. Press TV’s broadcasts are still available on some cable networks or through an app that can be freely downloaded. As an enemy broadcaster and one designated by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Press TV should be blocked online and removed from all social-media platforms, including X, which is owned by the same individual, Elon Musk, tasked with flushing out the U.S. government’s bureaucracy.
Such inconsistencies are harmful to us and readily exploited by them. As we deliberate whether are technically at war with Iran, Iran eagerly wages war on us through its media channels, its regional proxies, and through—as the two aerial attacks on Israel last year demonstrated—its own armed forces. Our response must be sharp and merciless at all levels.
**Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and director of FDD’s rapid response outreach, specializing in global antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Middle East/European Union relations.
Read in Jewish News Syndicate

Recent arrests of Islamic State sympathizers highlight persistent threats to US
Will Selber/FDD's Long War Journal/March 10/2025
In the early morning hours of January 1, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran from Houston, drove his rented truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 and injuring more than 50. In the more than two months since Jabbar’s attack, American law enforcement officials have detained two men charged with conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State in Brooklyn and Minneapolis, respectively, illustrating persistent propaganda and recruitment efforts by jihadist groups.
According to the FBI, Jabar converted to Islam in 2022 and began following extremists in 2024. He likely began advanced surveillance of the attack site in October 2024. While details are limited, the FBI reports that Jabbar arrived in New Orleans on October 30, a day before Halloween, likely to see Bourbon Street crowded as it would be on January 1. Jabbar video recorded himself riding a bike on Bourbon Street, almost certainly conducting route surveillance of his future attack site. In the footage, he appears clean-shaven and is wearing glasses.
Less than two weeks later, Jabbar returned to the site, then sporting a beard, no glasses, and longer, unkempt hair, suggesting potential training in counter-surveillance techniques. On November 10, he left Houston for New Orleans by train and returned the same day by bus, possibly utilizing pre-deployment Afghan training that emphasizes frequently changing avenues of approach. Regardless of where or how he was trained, Jabbar employed surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques in the run-up to the attack.
A little over a month later, on December 30, Jabbar rented a truck in Houston and drove to New Orleans. He arrived at a rental home on Mandeville Street, less than 3 miles from Bourbon Street, at approximately 10 pm. After unloading his truck, Jabbar parked his vehicle on Royal Street, less than 2 miles from the attack site, and began placing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at multiple locations on Bourbon Street. After deploying his last IED at 2 am, Jabbar conducted his domestic terror attack an hour later. Jabbar was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police after driving his truck into the crowd.
According to the FBI, Jabbar intended the IEDs to wreak absolute havoc on the streets of New Orleans. However, law enforcement officials said the former American soldier used the wrong device to detonate the explosives. Had Jabbar not made this mistake, the detonated bombs would have been akin to throwing multiple hand grenades into a busy street.
While the FBI is confident Jabbar acted alone, in October 2024, law enforcement officials arrested Said Anas in Houston, where Jabar resides, for providing material support to the Islamic State. Approximately 200,000 Muslims live in Houston, making it the largest Muslim population in Texas. As of 2024, Texas has the fifth-largest Muslim population in the United States. Additionally, Houston’s proximity to the southern border makes it a key point of interest for the Islamic State. For example, in June 2024, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified 400 immigrants brought to the United States through an IS-affiliated human smuggling network.
In late February, law enforcement officials detained a Tajik national, Mansuri Manuchekhri, for conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State. Manuchekhri, who had overstayed a non-immigrant tourist visa he obtained in June 2016, was detained after his ex-wife, a Bronx exotic dancer, called the New York State terror hotline and expressed concern that Manuchekhri would “commit acts of violence.”
On February 27, law enforcement officials detained Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan, 22, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State. According to the criminal complaint, Hassan is originally from Kenya and lived in Amarillo, Texas, before moving to Minneapolis. In late May 2024, the New York City Police Department Intelligence & Terrorism Bureau notified the FBI that Hassan had posted content supportive of Shabaab, Al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa. The FBI then conducted an investigation revealing numerous online posts by Hassan supporting the Islamic State and Jabbar’s Bourbon Street attack, leading to his February 27 arrest.
On December 10, 2024, Hassan tried unsuccessfully to board a flight to Somalia at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. He was turned away because he lacked the required documents. Two weeks later, Hassan attempted to catch a flight to Ethiopia in Chicago but missed his flight after law enforcement officials interviewed him at length.
Law enforcement investigations point to Jabbar, Manuchekhri, and Hassan likely being radicalized online, and they may have been influenced by domestic Islamic State and Al Qaeda sympathizers within their local communities. The January attack on New Orleans and the more recent arrests, along with identified jihadist-affiliated border crossings last year, indicate the United States remains at risk from domestic terror threats.
**Will Selber is a retired Middle East Foreign Area Officer who deployed for over four and half years to Iraq and Afghanistan. Will is a contributor to the Bulwark and the co-founder of Grumpy Combat Veteran.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/03/january-attack-recent-arrests-of-islamic-state-sympathizers-highlight-persistent-threats-to-us.php

The Weaponization of Ambiguity
Charles Elias Chartouni//This Is Beirut/March 10/2025
The international political scene is marred by uncertainties, and political actors are navigating their courses amidst the imbroglios of an unraveling world order. This state of endemic instability seems to promote the politics of ambiguity and their inherent weaponization. President Trump, with his conventional insinuations and intentional ambivalence, steers his way amidst the thicket of international crises. Vladimir Putin, while steadily positioning himself behind the total war template, emits clashing signals related to the finalization of a peace agreement and the resumption of the Cold War rhetoric.
Ukraine’s geopolitical quandaries have yielded two consecutive wars that question its survival and ability to normalize its existence. Israel’s successful counteroffensive strategy engages the future negotiations with a great deal of skepticism. The Palestinians were never successful in establishing their political autonomy and engaging the Israelis on the basis of moral reciprocity. The military defeat of Hezbollah didn’t lead to a critical retrospection and a reconsideration of the political narrative and its geo-strategic implications. Therefore, Lebanon finds itself trapped once again within aporetic dilemmas and unable to define its future political choices. Syria’s political and security dilemmas unveil its inability to deal with its ethno-national lingering questions through circumvention, denial and sectarian violence.
The unraveling of the “integrated military fronts,” the endemic crisis of legitimacy and the debunking of the Islamic revolution myths have not yet induced the Iranian autocracy to question the relevance of its internal politics and strategic choices. These outlined examples epitomize the features of a tormented world order and its volatility and disinclination towards democratic conflict resolution and nomothetic governance.
President Trump's governance should be defined on a continuum extending between the domestic and the international political realms. His subversive political agenda aligns badly with the tempo and the regulations of a procedural republic. The rehabilitation of bipartisanship and the diplomatic neutrality of an activist presidency with a vocal partisan agenda are requested when the public decision-making is set in motion. The cognitive dissonance doesn’t seem to adapt to a working democracy. The challenging attitude in Ukraine is shrouded in ambiguity, and Donald Trump has to dispel his personal and operational ambiguities if this conflict is to see a viable ending. His distancing from Russia and his unbiased positioning are essential in setting the peace process. The conflation between the transatlantic security imperatives and the dubious affinities with Vladimir Putin and their shadowy intonations is unequivocally detrimental.
The Russian president is manifestly impervious to negotiated conflict resolution and aligns with raw power politics. Eroding the capabilities of Ukraine and subscribing to the dictates of a Russian autocrat is quite hazardous, undermines the regional and international security, and sets Europe and the transatlantic alliance on a major conflict trajectory. The conflict in Ukraine is far-reaching in scope and aims at destabilizing the European community and questioning its philosophical and strategic predicates. Transactional diplomacy can never separate from the normative and political considerations that should frame it from end to end. Political expediency can never dispense with principled commitments. The outcome of the potential negotiations should secure Ukraine’s national rights and the consented territorial trade-offs requested by Russia. The limitations on Ukraine’s national sovereignty are unlikely to survive the tests of future conflicts.
The Israeli counteroffensive has set a new and irreversible dynamic that remodeled the regional strategic and political landscapes. It offers for the first time the chance of negotiated conflict resolution throughout the Near East and its regional collaterals. The withering of the Iranian power politics radius awaits the creation of viable geopolitical settlements, the twilight of radical Islamism in both Shiite and Sunnite variants and the reformation of political systems in Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian Territories and the Iraqi federation towards democracy and federalism.
Otherwise, the irredentism of Hamas and Hezbollah and the rekindling of Sunnite-Shiite animosity are preparing the ground for the expanded chaos and the return of imperial political rivalries. The fractious Palestinian political scenery and its institutionalized dependencies, the rising civil war in Syria and its devastating impact on internal concord, incremental liberalization and normalization, the fragmented political landscape in Lebanon, the hovering domination politics and the power politics reinvestments are putting at stake the future of civil peace throughout the region. The new political dynamics are of good omen if they inspire and elicit reformist undertakings based on paradigmatic shifts and alternative political cultures that put an end to the bitter legacy of a failed modernity and its disastrous consequences.

In Syria: Real Massacres, Phantom Killings, Constant Threats
Alberto M. Fernandez/National Catholic Register/March 10/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141077/
COMMENTARY: The mostly Christian small towns and villages located only a few miles away from where Alawite Muslims were slaughtered in recent days seem to have been untouched by the violence so far, contrary to some online reports.
Christians are the most persecuted religious group on the planet. More than a dozen die each day for their faith. Although the deadliest place of all for Christians has been and still is Nigeria, some online observers might have concluded, erroneously, that last week it was Syria.
The overthrow of the longtime Assad dictatorship to power only three months ago brought an Islamist government to power in Damascus that has struggled to address the country’s many problems.
On March 6, a new problem arose: a deadly insurgency. Assad regime remnants, which were mostly drawn from the country’s Alawite religious minority, rose up on that day, killing government soldiers and police, civilians and even motorists on the highway who had the wrong license plates. Assad’s supporters targeted cars with “Idlib” governorate license plates because that region is where the opposition Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) political organization ruled until December 2024.
The interim government rushed in forces, some being ambushed along the way by insurgents as the authorities fed in even more troops to quell the uprising. Leading the Alawite rebels were former officers of the disbanded Assad army, some of them war criminals and drug dealers. The government troops included not only Syrians, but tough foreign jihadist fighters, Uyghurs and Chechens, and units that had an unsavory reputation as little more than bandits, rapists and mercenaries used by Turkey against Syrian Kurds in the north.
By the morning of March 8, reputable reports suggested at least 100 dead on each side; by the end of the day, the number had climbed to 1,000 presumed dead. Some recent reports speak of several thousand dead. It is, mostly, Muslim-on-Muslim violence, a bloody Alawite Muslim insurgency suppressed with brute force by the Sunni Muslim authorities who rule Syria. Government troops, at least some of them, responded to the insurgency with their own savagery, killing entire families of Alawites, mostly civilians, moving from town to town and village to village.
ACI Mena, the Register’s sister news agency in the Middle East, reported the first Christian deaths in the conflict on March 8, an Armenian father and son killed on the highway and a young man shot dead in his apartment. On March 9, Syrian Christian activist Ayman Abdel Nour claimed that up to eight Christians may have been killed in the conflict.
Eight people dead may seem like a small number, but it is a disaster for a dwindling, rightfully skittish Syrian Christian community. It is a tiny percentage of the several thousand presumed dead. Details of every Christian martyr’s death are lacking, but several seemed to have been killed by chance, while others may have been targeted because they were Christians. As of this writing, the Wadi al-Nasara (literally “Valley of the Christians”) region of mostly Christian small towns and villages, only a few miles away from the site of the slaughter of Alawites, seems to have been untouched by the violence.
Syria’s Christian leaders have called for peace, reconciliation and an end to the killing.
On March 7, the Latin Bishop of Aleppo, Hanna Jallouf, issued a statement “supporting the Syrian state” against those who seek to destabilize the country and do her ill, a reference to the Assad loyalists. On March 8, the country’s patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and Greek Catholic Churches issued a rare joint statement strongly condemning “any act that threatens civil peace” but also condemning “the massacres targeting innocent civilians.”
In contrast to the reality on the ground and the careful words of the Syrian Christian religious leadership, the online clamor has gone in different directions, making it appear as if what has been happening in Syria was “Christians and Alawites being massacred,” if not just a “massacre of hundreds of Christians.” European anti-immigration commentator Peter Imanuelsen (@PeterSweden7), with almost 900,000 followers, asked on @X “why is mainstream media ignoring Christians being slaughtered by the regime in Syria?” His plea was reposted by Elon Musk (219 million followers). The initial tweet had 58 million views.
Instead of a bad-enough reality where a bloody insurgency by pro-Assad Alawite Muslims led to brutal repression and ethnic cleansing against them by anti-Assad Sunni Muslims now in power (with some Christians killed in the crossfire), online influencers presented a misleading image of an anti-Christian pogrom that did not really exist.
Why did they do that? Some are influencers who traffic in outrage and lies. Others are genuine Christians who care for their brethren worldwide but may not fully understand the facts on the ground.
Deceptive online voices amplifying this distorted image of hundreds of Christians being killed in Syria also include supporters of Iran, of the Syrian Kurds opposed to the Damascus government, supporters of Israel, anti-Islamists and pro-Russian voices supporting the overthrown Assad regime. A false claim from a pro-Iranian site in English that the Syrian government had killed a Christian mayor received almost 400,000 impressions.
On the other hand, partisans of Turkey and Qatar, the patrons of the Islamist Damascus government, have tended to play down the massacres completely, emphasizing instead the provocations of the Assad bitter-enders and the hypocrisy of the West when it comes to “minorities.”
And yet while the death toll of Christians in Syria was grotesquely and dangerously exaggerated, there were also real videos of radical Islamists and Jihadists making bloodthirsty claims.
One Algerian Islamist on TikTok claiming to be in Syria called for an end to the Alawites (calling them by an older, pejorative term, Nusayri, meaning “Little Christian”) and then the Christians themselves. It was just one man making threats, but there were also real videos of government troops killing Alawites or boasting of killing them. Syrian government supporters in the diaspora joined in the ghoulishness. Syrian Christians may not have been targeted directly nor slain in large numbers, but the voices of extremism, the threats and the intolerance, were all too real.
By March 9, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa personally called anti-Assad Alawite journalist Hanadi Zahlout, who lost three brothers in the massacre at Jableh, to express his condolences and promised to hold the perpetrators accountable. Al-Sharaa announced an investigative commission made up of jurists to investigate the events and to punish the guilty.
Veteran Syria observers will be appropriately skeptical, remembering the Assad regime announcing commissions to investigate this or that outrage as a way of covering up crimes and deflecting popular opinion. Many will hope things will be different this time.
**Alberto M. Fernandez Alberto M. Fernandez is a former U.S. diplomat and a contributor at EWTN News.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/in-syria-real-massacres-phantom-killings-constant-threats

How long can Israel’s policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity hold?
Jonathan Gornall/Arab News/March 11, 2025
LONDON: It was a moment that almost no one in the international community saw coming. On Saturday, during a routine meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Qatar’s ambassador to Austria delivered a surprise statement that added a dramatic new dimension to the ongoing Gaza peace talks in Doha. The State of Qatar, Jassim Yacoub Al-Hammadi announced, was calling for “intensified international efforts” to bring all Israeli nuclear facilities “under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and for Israel to join the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear state.”
The move, in the words of the director of the globally respected and independent Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI), which has kept tabs on the world’s nuclear weapons and the states that possess them since 1966, “came out of a clear blue sky.” There was no immediate response from Israel. But it seems certain that the Israeli delegation that was en route to Doha on Monday for a fresh round of talks, was taken surprise by a diplomatic ambush seemingly designed to introduce another bargaining chip into the negotiations.
Israel has never formally admitted possessing nuclear weapons, but its nuclear capability has been an open secret for decades.
According to SIPRI’s latest assessment, published last year in its 2024 Yearbook, by the start of last year nine states possessed approximately 12,121 nuclear weapons, of which more than 9,500 were considered available for immediate use — and Israel was most definitely one of those nine states.
Israel’s estimated stockpile of 90 warheads is not large, certainly not when compared with Russia’s 4,380 and America’s 3,708. If SIPRI’s carefully researched assessment is correct, only North Korea, with 50 warheads, has fewer nuclear weapons than Israel.
SIPRI’s assessment is that Israel has about 90 warheads, capable of being delivered anywhere within a maximum radius of 4,500 km by its F-15 and F-16I aircraft, its 50 land-based Jericho II and III missiles, and by about 20 Popeye Turbo cruise missiles launched from submarines. But the size of Israel’s stockpile is irrelevant when set against the damage it could do, especially when its only likely target is Iran, which currently lacks the ability to retaliate — or to strike first — with nuclear weapons. SIPRI concedes that, when it comes to Israel’s stockpile, “all figures are approximate and some are based on assessments by the authors.” Israel, it adds, “continues to maintain its longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity, leaving significant uncertainty about the number and characteristics of its nuclear weapons.” That ambiguity extends to Israel’s only official stated position on nuclear weapons, which it has repeated since the 1960s, that it “won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.”
That, says SIPRI, is simply dissembling. Israeli policymakers, it says, “have previously interpreted ‘introduce nuclear weapons’ as publicly declaring, testing or actually using the nuclear capability, which Israel says it has not yet done.”
That, of course, raises the question of whether Israel’s nuclear weapons are home-grown or not. If not, the obvious supplier would be America.
But in 1979 reports emerged that a US satellite had detected the telltale double flash of a nuclear detonation over the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Africa and Antarctica, raising the possibility that Israel had collaborated in a nuclear test with the apartheid-era South African government.
“Israel's nuclear capacity has always been a really quite strange phenomenon of Middle Eastern geopolitics,” said Dan Smith, Director of SIPRI.
“All five of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, each of which has nuclear weapons, are referred to in the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the nuclear weapon states and so are bound by the Treaty. “Outside of the treaty, Israel, Pakistan and India never signed up for it, and North Korea did sign up for it, but then withdrew before developing its nuclear weapons. “So, the three states that are nuclear armed, but not part of the NPT, all make explicit that they have nuclear weapons, and of course this is the point of a deterrent. “The idea is, ‘You may not know exactly what hell I will rain down upon you, but you know I will rain down hell.’
“But Israel has come up with something different. It’s clear that they do have nuclear weapons, but they have never formally acknowledged it and in Israel it is not talked about.” Israel has always taken extreme steps to protect its nuclear secrets.
“Israelis are scared,” said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London’s Institute of Middle East Studies, who served in the Israeli army for six years in the 1980s. “Even if you believe it is a good idea to restrict Israel’s behavior and make sure it doesn’t do anything stupid, you are scared to act because you know they will abduct you and put you in jail. Israel is very tough on those who reveal its secrets.” This was precisely the fate that befell Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician and peace activist, in 1986.
After Vanunu revealed details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper, he was ensnared in the UK by a female Mossad agent posing as an American tourist. She persuaded him to accompany her to Rome, where he was kidnapped by other Mossad agents and spirited back to Israel on board an Israeli navy ship. Vanunu was charged with treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison, much of which he spent in solitary confinement. Released in April 2004, he remains under a series of strictly enforced restrictions, which prevent him from leaving Israel or even speaking to any foreigner. “We all believe that Israel has a nuclear capability,” said Bregman. “The fact that it found it necessary to catch Vanunu and put him in jail, and continues to impose strict limitations on him, just proves that it has probably got it.”
In its annual report last June, SIPRI reported that Israel was upgrading its plutonium-production reactor at Dimona, and modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
Smith thinks that, in seeking to bring Israel’s nuclear capability into the open and have it subjected to international scrutiny, Qatar is pursuing an agenda backed by the wider region. “Israel’s nuclear monopoly has always been a huge irritant in geopolitics in the region for every other power, and at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Review Conference (held at UN headquarters in New York) the state parties agreed on the notion of a Middle East nuclear-weapons-free zone. “For the Arab states, that was a major issue. For the US and some of the Europeans it was just something to agree to in order to keep everybody happy. Nobody really seriously expected they were going to force Israel to give up the nuclear weapons that it hasn’t formally acknowledged. “But Qatar, I think, is now expressing that urge to bring Israel into the framework of a non-nuclear Middle East.”
This is, he believes, likely to be a serious attempt to introduce the issue of Israel’s nuclear arsenal into the Gaza talks.
“I take Qatari foreign policy very seriously,” he said. “I don’t think that they are into gestures or grandstanding. They take seriously the idea which has been written into the Qatari constitution that they are a state with a mission to try to spread peace in their region and in the world. “The shaky ceasefire in Gaza was a product of a huge amount of effort by Qatar, among others. It’s not the first time they have been able to play that kind of role, so they strongly see themselves in this kind of mediating, bridge-building role. “I don’t know what their assessment is, how they calculate this as being a good time to launch this initiative. But I take it seriously because it’s them.”
Israel is believed to have twice come close to wielding, and perhaps actually using, its nuclear weaponry. In 2017 a claim emerged that, on the eve of the Arab-Israeli war in 1967, Israel had been on the cusp of unleashing a “demonstration” nuclear blast designed to intimidate its enemies in the event that it appeared it might lose the war and be overrun. The plan was revealed in interviews with retired general Itzhak Yaakov, conducted by Avner Cohen, an Israeli American historian and leading scholar of Israel’s nuclear history, and published only after Yaakov’s death.
It was not the last time Israel reportedly came close to bringing nuclear disaster to the region. In 2003 Cohen revealed that during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it appeared that Israeli forces were about to be overrun, then Prime Minister Golda Meir had authorized the use of nuclear bombs and missiles as a last-stand defense.
This doomsday plan, codenamed Samson, was named after the biblical strongman who, while captured by the Philistines, pulled down their temple’s pillars, killing himself and his enemies. And the shadow of an Israeli-triggered nuclear calamity continues to haunt the region. In its 2024 report SIPRI noted that in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 “several Israeli policymakers and commentators — including a minister who was later suspended from the cabinet — suggested that Israel should use nuclear weapons against Hamas fighters in Gaza.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-governmental organisations in 100 countries that promotes implementation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, welcomed Qatar’s initiative.
“As Israel’s nuclear arsenal is an open secret, it is long past time that its nuclear facilities are subject to international safeguards,” said Susi Snyder, ICAN’s Program Coordinator. “Joining the NPT should be a first step followed by Israel and other countries in the region joining the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the proposed Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction. “Eliminating Israel’s nuclear weapons and ensuring that no other state in the Middle East ever acquires such weapons will be vital for the long-term security of all people in the region. “Without disarmament, true peace will remain elusive.”