English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For  November 30/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
Mary Visits Elizabeth
Luke 01/39-45: In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 29-30/2025
The First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and Its Historical and Theological Dimensions: A Study on the Occasion of the Visit of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to Turkey and Lebanon/Elias Bejjani/November 29/2025
Who is His Holiness Pope Leo XIV?/Elias Bejjani/November 27/2025
Washington Delivers Warning to Lebanon: Israel Will Expand Scope of Attacks
Amani: Tabatabaei's Assassination Will Change the Party's Strategy
Israel Vows to Attack Areas Never Reached Before If Lebanon Doesn't Act
Graham: Maduro Allied with "The Party" to Poison America!
How Pope Leo’s Lebanon visit offers hope at a time of crisis and insecurity
US envoy Morgan Ortagus to stop in Tel Aviv before Beirut for military-focused talks, sources say
Michel Issa: Israel doesn't require US permission to defend itself
In Lebanon's rugged south, the army works to dismantle Hezbollah's fortifications
Hezbollah urges Pope Leo to reject Israeli 'aggression' on Lebanon visit
Hezbollah to join Pope’s reception events in Beirut’s southern suburbs, sources says
Inside Hezbollah’s tunnels: Lebanese army reveals yearlong disarmament work
Can lessons from Northern Ireland and Afghanistan guide Lebanon’s weapons debate?
Hezbollah leader leaves open possibility of new war with Israel, stresses group ‘right to respond’
Silos of Beirut: Autopsy of an Announced Pollution/Makram Haddad/This Is Beirut/November 29/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 29-30/2025
Pope Leo visits Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
Death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses 70,000: Health ministry
Israel says nine more Hamas militants killed in Gaza tunnels as safe passage remains elusive
Ten Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli settlers: Red Crescent
Israel attacked security personnel guarding aid in Gaza: French academic
Ultra-Orthodox military conscription row reignites in Israel
Repaired destroyer, floating base join Iranian Navy: Reports
Ukrainian delegation heads to US for peace talks after lead negotiator’s exit
Ukraine behind attacks on Black Sea tankers
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to visit Macron in Paris on Monday, Elysee says
Ukraine hits two Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tankers with drones in Black Sea
Iran halts power generation at key dam over drought
Syrians mark one year since the fall of Assad under the shadow of Israeli attacks, internal tensions
Syria’s al-Sharaa in Aleppo a year after fall of second city
Trump says airspace above and around Venezuela should be considered closed
Travel chaos fears ease after Airbus intervenes on software fix

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on November 29-30/2025
Why Does No One Object to Having Eight Officially Islamic States but Apparently Cannot Tolerate One Small Jewish State?/Nils A. Haug/Gatestone Institute/November 29, 2025
UN road map for Gaza is littered with uncertainty/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/November 29, 2025
Little substance as COP30 sidesteps key decisions/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/November 29, 2025
Turkiye emerges as key winner from climate summit/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/November 29, 2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 29-30/2025
The First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and Its Historical and Theological Dimensions: A Study on the Occasion of the Visit of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to Turkey and Lebanon
Elias Bejjani/November 29/2025
Abstract
This study presents a concise summary of an in-depth historical and theological examination of the First Council of Nicaea, convened in 325 AD in the city of Nicaea (present-day Iznik) in Turkey. It analyzes the historical, political, and theological contexts that led to its assembly, the decisions issued by the Council, and the profound impact it left on the structure of Christian doctrine and the unity of the Church before major schisms emerged. This study is set against the backdrop of the apostolic visit conducted by His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to Turkey and Lebanon, which included a visit to the historical site of the Council—an event carrying deep symbolic significance in an age marked by ongoing persecution and demographic decline among Christians in the Middle East. The study also examines the situation of Christians in modern Turkey and the ecclesiastical divisions that arose after the Council. It concludes with an evangelical prayer for Lebanon, for Christians in the East, and for the unity of the Churches in the world.
Introduction
The visit of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to Turkey and Lebanon constitutes a significant ecclesial and spiritual event in the realm of ecumenical relations and in the rereading of Christian history. One of the most prominent stops in the papal visit is his pilgrimage to the historic city of Nicaea in Turkey, where the first Ecumenical Council in the history of the Church was held in 325 AD, with the participation of leaders of the Orthodox Church. At the site of the original Council church, a joint prayer service was held, evoking the foundational moment in which the Nicene Creed was born and recalling the unity of faith that once linked the Churches before the schisms. It is worth mentioning that this apostolic visit opened the way for a renewed academic, historical, theological, and ecclesial reflection on the Council of Nicaea, reconnecting the contemporary Church with its early roots at a time when Middle Eastern Christians face demographic collapse and persistent persecution.
I. Historical Background of Christianity Prior to the Council of Nicaea
1. Roman Persecutions of Christians
From its earliest days, the Church endured severe waves of persecution under the Roman Empire, the most notable being:
The persecution of Nero (64 AD): during which Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome.
The persecution of Decius (249–251 AD): an attempt to force Christians to offer pagan sacrifices.
The persecution of Diocletian (303–311 AD): the harshest of all, marked by the burning of churches and Scriptures and the imprisonment of believers.
Christians suffered: imprisonment and executions, torture, confiscation of property,coercion to offer sacrifices to idols. These persecutions formed a crucial backdrop for the development of Christian theology and the shaping of the collective identity of believers.
2. The Edict of Milan (313 AD)
Emperor Constantine the Great and Licinius issued the edict guaranteeing Christians freedom of worship. The Church emerged from secrecy into public life, creating an urgent need to unify doctrine and resolve internal conflicts that had surfaced after the persecution waned.
II. Reasons for Convening the Council of Nicaea (325 AD)
The immediate cause of the Council was the teaching of Arius, a priest from Alexandria, who claimed that Christ was “created” and not equal to the Father in essence. These teachings threatened Church unity and caused widespread divisions. Emperor Constantine called the bishops to an Ecumenical Council to settle this theological dispute and secure unity of faith throughout the empire.
III. The First Council of Nicaea: Location, Participants, and Context
The Council was held in the city of Nicaea in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) between May and June 325 AD, with the participation of 318 bishops from various regions.
Prominent Participants:
St. Athanasius
Hosius of Cordoba
Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria
Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem
Eustathius of Antioch
Spyridon of Trimythous
Nicholas of Myra
Participants came from many countries, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Rome, Cyprus, Israel, North Africa, Armenia, and the Caucasus. It is noteworthy that the Church at that time was united and undivided, rich in liturgical and cultural diversity yet firmly anchored in apostolic faith.
IV. Decisions of the Council and Its Theological Outcomes
1. Affirmation of the Divinity of Christ
The Council declared: Jesus Christ is begotten of the Father before all ages, not created, and consubstantial with the Father. Thus the teachings of Arius were rejected and condemned.
2. The Formulation of the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed. This creed became the cornerstone of Christian doctrine. Its full text reads: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through Him all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried; and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life… And in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church… We confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins…We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
3. Determining the Date of Easter
The Council established a unified method for fixing the date of Easter: the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
V. Ecclesiastical Schisms After the Council of Nicaea
Despite the unity of the Church during the Council, major schisms emerged later:
1. The Chalcedonian Schism (451 AD)
Resulting from disagreements over the nature(s) of Christ between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Churches.
2. The Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople (1054 AD)
Due to doctrinal, theological, liturgical, and political differences.
VI. The Situation of Christians in Modern Turkey
Despite its rich Christian heritage, Turkey witnessed ongoing pressure on its Christian communities since the fall of Constantinople:
1. Conversion of Hagia Sophia into a Mosque
President Erdoğan’s 2020 decision to convert the mother church into a mosque became a clear symbol of the targeting of Christian heritage.
2. Confiscation of monasteries and churches
Especially in Tur Abdin and along the Anatolian coast.
3. Demographic decline
The Christian population fell from 20% at the start of the 20th century to less than 0.3% today.
VII. Geographical Structure of the Church at the Time of the Council
Within the Roman Empire, the Church was organized into major sees: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople (added later). Nicaea was closely tied to the spiritual geography of the earliest centers of the Church.
VIII. Significance of Pope Leo XIV’s Visit to the Site of the Council
The visit carries academic and spiritual dimensions, most notably:
Reviving the memory of the Council and reaffirming Nicene doctrine, Emphasizing unity of faith between Catholics and Orthodox, Rereading Church history before the schisms, Supporting persecuted Christians in the East and Issuing a global call for reconciliation and peace
Conclusion:
A Prayer for Lebanon, for Peace in the East, and for the Unity of Churches and Christians:
Lord Jesus Christ, You who prayed that all may be one, we ask You to grant our Churches the light of unity
and to remove from our hearts every spirit of division. Protect Your children in the East—those who were forced to flee because of violence and persecution, losing their rights and their homelands. Look with mercy upon Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, and Turkey, and restore peace and freedom to their peoples.
May Your Holy Spirit descend upon all the Churches, to bring unity, strengthen faith, and restore to Christians their presence and their mission.
Amen.
NOTE: The information in this study is cited from various documented ecclesiastical, theological, research, and media references.

Who is His Holiness Pope Leo XIV?
Elias Bejjani/November 27/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/11/149615/
The Birth and Roots
His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, into a believing Catholic family dedicated to prayer and Church life. He grew up in a home accustomed to Mass attendance and parish service. His devout mother had a significant influence on his spiritual formation, instilling in him a love for the Church and an attachment to the Word of God from an early age. His Holiness holds both American and Peruvian citizenship (since 2015).
Childhood and the Path of Faith
His childhood was marked by a close attachment to the Church and simple pastoral service. He served as an altar boy in his local parish and participated in activities assisting the poor and marginalized. Signs of a priestly vocation appeared at a young age, and he became attached to the spiritual life and the liturgy, spending long hours in meditation and prayer, which led his parish priest to encourage him to pursue the call to the clergy.
Culture and Academic Credentials
He pursued his higher education at prestigious American Catholic universities, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from Villanova University and a Master of Divinity from the Catholic Theological Union. He studied philosophy and theology, earning advanced degrees in Canon Law (JCL and JCD) from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.
He showed particular interest in the Eastern heritage and the Eastern Churches and became familiar with Oriental spirituality, particularly Maronite spirituality. He is proficient in English as his mother tongue, in addition to Italian and Latin, and has extensive knowledge of biblical Greek and Aramaic.
Deaconate and Religious Order
He was ordained a deacon in the early 1980s, and then chose to join The Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.), a religious order with a contemplative and prayerful nature, where he spent years of religious formation and took his vows. Within the Order, he distinguished himself with his calm and open spirit, and his intellectual and administrative abilities, which led him to assume early teaching, pastoral, and administrative roles. He later served as the Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013.
Positions He Held
Following his religious vows and priestly ordination, he held teaching positions in theological institutes, then progressed to assume:
Prior General of the Augustinian Order (2001–2013).
Monastic responsibilities within his Order and managing pastoral and educational institutions.
Service in South America: He served as a missionary in Peru, where he was the Bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo (from 2015 to 2023) and the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Callao (until 2023).
Subsequently, he joined Church work closely connected to the Vatican Curia, serving as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (from 2023 until his election as Pope). He participated in initiatives to support suffering Churches and dossiers on inter-church and Christian-Islamic dialogue.
Priestly and Administrative Advancements
Priest: June 19, 1982.
Bishop: December 2014.
Archbishop: After years of episcopal service.
Cardinal: He was chosen for this rank on September 30, 2023, due to his theological experience and deep interest in the Middle East, serving as a Cardinal on essential files concerning Eastern affairs, Eastern Churches, and interreligious dialogue.
His Qualities in Pastoral Service
Pope Leo XIV is known for being close to the people, simple in his dealings, and averse to pretense and ostentation. He tends to listen before passing judgment and believes that the Church is a house of healing for the wounded, not an institution of superiority. He also pays great attention to youth and the social and humanitarian role of the Church, blending liturgical conservatism with openness to cultural and spiritual dialogue.
Personal Characteristics
Humility and a clear spirit of prayer
Theological wisdom and ability for profound dialogue
A calm yet firm reformatory vision
Love for peace and building bridges between peoples
A special attachment to Oriental spiritualities and contemplative silence
His Achievements
Establishing initiatives to support the suffering Churches in the Middle East
Promoting Ecumenical and Christian–Islamic Dialogue
Supporting studies of Eastern heritage and Oriental spiritualities
Launching educational programs for youth in several countries
His Election as Pope of the Catholic Church
The American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected Successor of Saint Peter on May 8, 2025, taking the name Leo XIV, in a move that reflected the desire of the Holy See to promote dialogue and peace, support the Churches in the Middle East, and stimulate the process of spiritual and pastoral reform within the universal Church.
The Anticipated Visit to Lebanon and His Spiritual Connection to Saint Charbel
His Holiness Pope Leo XIV is preparing for a historic visit to Lebanon, a visit awaited by the Lebanese due to its spiritual and national importance amid the country's circumstances.
1. Lebanon as a Message During his anticipated visit, the Pope will affirm that Lebanon is not merely a country, but a message founded on freedom, coexistence, and respect for humanity. His speeches are expected to carry messages of support for spiritual, religious, and civil institutions in Lebanon.
2. Supporting Christians in Lebanon His Holiness places great importance on the steadfastness of Christians in Lebanon and their role in protecting the unique Lebanese model. His visit will be an occasion to renew the solidarity of the universal Church with them and to call for the protection of their presence and mission.
3. Annaya and Saint Charbel — A Key Stop in the Visit Program Pope Leo XIV holds a special spiritual relationship with Saint Charbel Makhlouf, whom he considers a “symbol of hope, silence, and prayer in a troubled world.” According to the official program, His Holiness will visit the Monastery of Saint Maron - Annaya to spend time in prayer and contemplation at the tomb of Saint Charbel, seeking his intercession for Lebanon and the world. This stop, although not yet materialized, is considered one of the most prominent points of the anticipated visit because it reflects the depth of the link between the Holy See and Lebanese spirituality.
A Prayer for Christians and Peace in Lebanon
O Lord of peace and mercy, We bow before your greatness and raise Lebanon and its people to you, especially the Christians who carry the roots of faith and the message of witness. Illuminate their hearts with strength from you, Protect them from fear and division, And grant them the courage of steadfastness and the hope of the Resurrection. Bless Lebanon with its mountains, plains, and seas, Spread the spirit of peace throughout its regions, And fill its homes with tranquility and love. By the intercession of Saint Charbel and all the saints, We ask you to heal our blessed country, And that it may transform into a land of light, glory, and coexistence.

Washington Delivers Warning to Lebanon: Israel Will Expand Scope of Attacks
Al Modon/November 29, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
Israel has warned the Lebanese government that it will expand the scope of its attacks on "Hezbollah" if Beirut does not take practical steps to curb its movements, according to what the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (Kan) reported, citing political and security circles in Tel Aviv. The Corporation stated that an official message was conveyed to the Lebanese government in recent days via the US Administration, which indicated that the Israeli army is ready to "target areas its attacks have not reached before" within Lebanese territory, should Israel continue to view the state as being remiss in limiting Hezbollah's activity. Reports linked this threatening tone to increasing American pressure regarding the Lebanon-Palestine border file and de-escalation in the north. This information aligns with Israeli political and security assessments that "Hezbollah" continues to strengthen its presence and military capabilities in a number of areas, and that the front with Lebanon is approaching a phase of greater escalation if diplomatic tracks do not translate into tangible results on the ground. In parallel, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation noted that the Israeli army has adjusted its military procedures to accommodate the Pope's scheduled visit to Beirut. Furthermore, Israel's Channel 13 reported that the Israeli army presented plans for a potential military operation in Lebanon to the political level, suggesting that these scenarios are likely to be discussed after the deadline set by US President Donald Trump ends at the end of the year. It added that the narrow ministerial council (the Knesset Cabinet) received plans to intensify fighting in Lebanon, amidst a military approach aimed at preventing Hezbollah's growing power in the coming phase. According to the Channel, assessments within Israel's security and military establishments indicate that Hezbollah will not respond soon to the assassination of Ali Tabatabaei, despite the continued state of alert on the northern front.

Amani: Tabatabaei's Assassination Will Change the Party's Strategy
Al Markaziya/November 29, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
Iran's Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, considered that the method of assassinating Hezbollah's military commander, Haitham Tabatabaei, will lead to a change in the Party's strategic outlook, noting that Tabatabaei is a prominent leader in Hezbollah. He added: "Israel exceeded the ceiling it committed to through the assassination of Tabatabaei," pointing out that "Hezbollah's Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, confirmed that the response to Tabatabaei's assassination is inevitable."

Israel Vows to Attack Areas Never Reached Before If Lebanon Doesn't Act
Al Markaziya/November 29, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation announced that Israel has informed the Lebanese government that it will expand its attacks if it does not act against Hezbollah, stressing that the message to the Lebanese government confirmed that Israel will attack areas it has not reached before due to American pressure.
The Corporation indicated that the Lebanese government was notified via the US Administration in recent days, revealing that the Israeli army adjusted its military procedures to accommodate the Pope's scheduled visit to Beirut. Israel's Channel 13 reported that the Cabinet received plans to intensify fighting in Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah's growing power. It added: "Assessments indicate that the Party will not respond soon to the assassination of Hezbollah's Chief of Staff, Haitham Tabatabaei." It continued: "The army presented plans for a potential military operation in Lebanon to the political level after the end of Trump's deadline at the end of the year." The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation had reported that political and security assessments still indicate Hezbollah is strengthening its presence, and that "assessments confirm the approach of a greater escalation in Lebanon."

Graham: Maduro Allied with "The Party" to Poison America!
Al Markaziya/November 29, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
US Senator Lindsey Graham wrote on his "X" platform account that he appreciates and respects US President Donald Trump's determination to confront drug states in the United States' backyard, especially Venezuela. Graham considered that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been controlling a terrorist state that is poisoning America for more than a decade, and that he forms alliances with international organizations such as "Hezbollah." He added that Maduro is an illegitimate leader, convicted of drug trafficking in American courts, and maintains his authority through a rule of terror.

How Pope Leo’s Lebanon visit offers hope at a time of crisis and insecurity
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/November 29, 2025
BEIRUT: Pope Leo XIV sets foot on Lebanese soil on Sunday in a visit that Lebanese officials describe as “historic in terms of timing and content.” It comes amid fears of a new bloody phase, as the year-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah threatens to unravel. The Pope’s carefully selected three-day itinerary is packed with meetings, including with the president, parliamentarians and ministers, as well as visits to the Monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya and the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa. In addition, he will offer a silent prayer at the site of the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion with survivors and victims’ families, where he is expected to call for justice nearly five years after the blast devastated the surrounding city. He will also visit the Sisters of the Cross Hospital in the Jal El-Dib area, hold a meeting with young people, and preside over a large mass at the Beirut waterfront, to be attended by leaders from various Christian and Muslim communities. Leo’s visit to Lebanon conveys a message for the Lebanese in general, and Christians in particular, that the world cares about them and that the Vatican stands by them in times of ongoing crisis, offering hope and peace. Leo preceded his first visit with a speech in which he said: “Lebanon has suffered enough.” It is no coincidence that the Pope chose the Christian teaching “Blessed are the peacemakers” as his message to the Lebanese. In a statement, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi described the Pope’s visit to Lebanon as “an opportunity to take a fresh look at the host country, in light of the lack of internal and external bridges of trust in Lebanon, which has been left alone to its fate. “This requires highlighting the messages that Pope Leo XIV will convey, confirming that he and the leaders of the Catholic Church stand with Lebanon, where the foundations of coexistence are valued.”
FASTFACTS
FASTFACTS: • Pope Leo XIV’s trip marks the first papal visit to Lebanon since Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
• It comes after a visit to Turkiye that began on Nov. 27.
eo will carry, according to Al-Rahi, “a message of peace and hope, which is urgently needed by the Lebanese people, who have forgotten the essence of their leading role in the Arab Levant region.”This role, he said, is “centred on their model of coexistence and the value of our small, unique country in the hope that it will be accompanied locally by prayer and the taking of decisive national decisions to shoulder the full responsibility that the pope has placed before us.”This will “complete a process that requires establishing Lebanon as a land of dialogue between cultures and civilizations, and of meetings and conferences on human rights and the rights of peoples, without neglecting the priority of embracing the principle of positive neutrality, without which the Lebanese cannot live and which is the fundamental gateway to reminding us of our role and mission, which is greater than narrow political and partisan calculations.”
Al-Rahi said he is counting on the pope’s meeting with young people, because “peace here is not only the end of military war, but also the end of the war within the hearts of an entire generation tired of collapse, emigration and futility, to assure them that they are peacemakers if they decide to stay in their homeland and engage positively with their reality, instead of fleeing from it.”Mohammad Al-Sammak, secretary-general of the National Islamic-Christian Dialogue Committee in Lebanon, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, highlighted the importance of the pope’s visit. The visit “coincides with the Catholic Church’s commemoration of the publication of Nostra Aetate, which opened the Church through the Vatican Council to people of other faiths around the world and changed the image of Catholic Christianity and the essence and foundations of its relations with others, especially with Islam,” he said.
“Christianity no longer meant the only path to salvation, as the Church recognized Islam as a message from God and limited the responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ to the perpetrators of the crime alone, and not to all Jews until the end of time.”
He added: “The pope’s visit will ring an internal bell in Lebanon to play its true role again as the country of the message. It lost this role during the crises it went through, but according to the Vatican, since 1965, it has been qualified to carry this message and has not lost hope in doing so.”Al-Sammak believes “Lebanon’s composition of various sects and denominations and its location in the Middle East qualify it to promote a culture of respect for pluralism and diversity, especially since it is part of the Arab world, as Vatican documents state. Unfortunately, however, for decades Lebanon has been raising slogans that it does not apply. “Nevertheless, the Vatican is not giving up on Lebanon despite its stumbling blocks. We now hope that Pope Leo will give this reality a new impetus in this direction, as he is the spiritual son of Pope Francis, who appointed him to the position of pope after his positions in the US aligned with Pope Francis’s humanitarian policy.”
At the patriarchal headquarters, as in all monasteries and churches, preparations are continuing to welcome the pope. Vatican and Lebanese media showed pictures of the pope displayed on the renovated roads leading to the Presidential Palace and other sites he will visit. Calls were made to the Lebanese to welcome the pope with the Lebanese flag or the Vatican flag, and no others. According to the organizers, 120,000 Lebanese, including thousands of Muslims, registered to participate in the event. Political parties representing Christians urged their followers “not to stay at home but to take to the streets and squares to welcome the pope, to show the whole world that Lebanon has an active Christian presence and a vibrant population.”The leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, Sami Gemayel, said of the visit: “Lebanon must be ready, and all Christians and Lebanese must be present to send a message of openness, peace, love and stability. “Lebanon’s goal is to live in peace, turn the page on bloodshed and tears, and build a homeland where the Lebanese people can enjoy life, so that Lebanon can once again become the Switzerland of the East and a model for the region.”Ibrahim Kanaan, a former member of the Free Patriotic Movement, considers the pope’s visit “a historic opportunity and a gesture with many meanings in light of the critical phase that Lebanon and the region are going through, in which we need all the support we can get, and it is our duty to come together on a national level.”The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, an ally of Hezbollah, said in a statement that the pope’s visit is “important at this time, as it represents a voice for truth in the face of falsehood, which is the result of the barbarism and criminality of the Zionist occupation.”
In a letter to the Vatican, MP Elias Jarada called on the pope to include a visit to southern Lebanon, considering that such a step “would constitute a message of human and spiritual solidarity with the people of the south who are suffering from continuous Israeli aggression.”Jarada said the historic document signed by the late Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in 2019 in Abu Dhabi constitutes “a moral and spiritual framework for rejecting violence and intolerance and affirming the right of peoples to live in safety and dignity.”Leo’s visit to Lebanon, which concludes on Dec. 2, includes various official, religious and popular stops. The Republican Guard Brigade has been tasked with providing security for the pope and his accompanying delegation throughout the visit. The Ministry of Defense suspended the validity of weapons licences in the governorates of Beirut and Mount Lebanon. The official committee organizing Leo’s visit announced that 21 artillery shots would be fired upon his arrival on Sunday.
The chief of staff of the Republican Guard Brigade, Brigadier General Maroun Ibrahim, asked the public to “cooperate with the security services, refrain from bringing flammable materials, and refrain from using drones to take pictures in the area where the pope will be present.”Ibrahim added: “There will be searches at all points surrounding the area where the pope will be present, as well as on the routes he will pass through, and participants in public places near the pope will be subject to searches.”
Rafiq Shalala, director of media at the Presidential Palace, said: “1,350 media professionals from Lebanon and around the world have registered to cover the pope’s visit, including editors, photographers and technicians from Lebanon, other Arab countries and abroad.”The Lebanese government has given employees, schools and universities Monday and Tuesday off as official holidays.
The Internal Security Forces designated the roads that would be closed to traffic and allocated hundreds of buses at specific points to transport people from the areas of Keserwan in Mount Lebanon, Chouf, Bekaa, Jbeil, Batroun, Beirut, Metn and the north and south. According to the organizing committee, the altar on which mass will be celebrated will bear a special logo for the visit, symbolizing what Lebanon represents as a country of crafts, the alphabet, cedar trees, nature, family and resurrection. Pierre Al-Achkar, president of the Lebanese Hotel Owners Association, told Arab News: “There has been an increase in occupancy rates at hotels in Beirut and along the coastline up to Jounieh, with reservations made by those wishing to accompany the pope’s visit. “These reservations have not been affected by Israeli threats or the recent attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut.” Al-Achkar added: “Those who made reservations and came to Lebanon include Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian nationals, as well as foreign journalists, while monks and nuns from neighboring countries stayed as guests at monasteries in Lebanon.”

US envoy Morgan Ortagus to stop in Tel Aviv before Beirut for military-focused talks, sources say
LBCI/29 November/2025
Western sources told LBCI on Friday that U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus will head to Tel Aviv next week before arriving in Lebanon, adding that discussions with the Israeli side will focus on military issues.

Michel Issa: Israel doesn't require US permission to defend itself
Naharnet/29 November/2025
The new United States ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, has stated that Israel "does not require the permission of the United States" to defend itself. "Israel assesses its own security needs and will take whatever measures it deems necessary to protect its citizens," the ambassador told Israel's Haaretz newspaper. Issa added that the administration in Washington is in full contact with the Lebanese government and is "strongly urging them to implement their own historic decision to disarm Hezbollah."According to the new ambassador, the U.S. commitment to this decision "is essential for restoring the authority of the Lebanese state and safeguarding the country's future." He added that "disarming Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in Lebanon, as well as ending Iran's proxy activities more broadly, is a key step to ensuring peace in Lebanon and across the region."Issa declined to comment on the likelihood of diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon, or on the possible outlines of such a process. In response to a question about the United States' goals and priorities in Lebanon, the new ambassador said the administration is focused on achieving "a durable peace between Lebanon and Israel and supporting Lebanon's sovereignty."He added that the administration is also working to secure "a peaceful and prosperous future for Lebanon through strengthening commercial opportunities for Americans in Lebanon and with Lebanese partners." Issa had told MTV that the Lebanese Army has tangibly expanded its deployment in the South and has actually started destroying Hezbollah's military infrastructure, adding that the army must continue to remove arms across Lebanon in line with the government's decisions. Issa also said that negotiations between Lebanon and Israel are necessary for a permanent peace, noting that the two sides are willing to engage in U.S.-mediated talks when the circumstances become appropriate. He also noted that the U.S. assistance for the Lebanese army and security forces will continue.

In Lebanon's rugged south, the army works to dismantle Hezbollah's fortifications
Agence France Presse/29 November/2025
Deep in a rugged valley of southern Lebanon, a cave complex offers a small picture of the subterranean infrastructure Hezbollah relied on near the Israeli border, along with the difficult task the country's army faces as it seeks to disarm the group. Roughly 100 meters (330 feet) long, the complex in the Zibqin area, outfitted with electrical power and ventilated shafts, likely served as a command center and contained a smattering of abandoned equipment including first-aid kits and military jackets.
Weapons there had already been confiscated by the army. A group of AFP correspondents were shown the Hezbollah position during an embed with the Lebanese Army -- the first such trip since a ceasefire was reached between Israel and the group a year ago. Since then, the military has deployed around 10,000 troops to the area south of the country's Litani River, where they have swept through the countryside looking for weapons, command centers and infrastructure belonging to the Iran-backed armed group. "Over the past year, no evidence was presented to me of any weapons entering the area south of the Litani after the army's deployment," General Nicholas Tabet, who is helping oversee the operation, told journalists. But even if the group has been unable to smuggle more arms into the area, the land was already awash with weapons and combat equipment.The army told journalists it has seized around 230,000 items -- including weapons, ammunition, rocket launchers and missiles -- during search operations over the past year.
Truce violations
Under heavy U.S. pressure and fearing expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah, which emerged badly weakened from more than a year of hostilities with Israel.According to a government-approved plan, Lebanon's army is working to dismantle Hezbollah military infrastructure south of the Litani River -- some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border -- by the end of the year, before tackling the rest of the country. Hezbollah has largely resisted pressure from the government and outright refused to lay down its arms. Meanwhile, Israel has kept up frequent strikes on Lebanon, mainly saying it has been targeting Hezbollah, which it accuses of rearming. On Sunday, Israel assassinated the group's top military commander -- sparking fears that the already fragile truce was increasingly shaky. Hezbollah on Friday said it reserved the right to respond to the killing of the commander at a time of its choosing. With tensions riding high as fears of another war simmer, the Lebanese Army said it was working to complete their mission. A military spokesman requesting anonymity said that "part of the weapons and ammunition that are confiscated is placed in secure warehouses for later destruction at specific sites."Weapons and ammunition that are still usable are confiscated by the military and then added to their own stockpiles for potential later use, the spokesman added.In a statement posted by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Thursday evening, the peacekeeping force said it continued to find "illegal weapons" in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL said its forces also recorded over 10,000 air and ground violations of the truce in the past year.Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz earlier this week warned there would be "no calm" in Lebanon if Israel's security was not guaranteed.

Hezbollah urges Pope Leo to reject Israeli 'aggression' on Lebanon visit
Agence France Presse/29 November/2025
Hezbollah on Saturday urged Pope Leo XIV to reject Israeli "injustice and aggression" against Lebanon, in a message to the pontiff who arrives in Beirut this weekend. Hezbollah emerged heavily weakened from more than a year of hostilities culminating in two months of open war with Israel that began when the Iran-backed group started cross-border attacks against Israel over the Gaza war. A ceasefire a year ago was supposed to end the hostilities but Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, mainly saying it is targeting Hezbollah operatives and sites, and has maintained troops in five southern Lebanon locations it deems strategic. Under heavy U.S. pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, the government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, a move the group has rejected."We in Hezbollah take advantage of the occasion of your auspicious visit to our country Lebanon to reaffirm from our side our commitment to coexistence," read Hezbollah's message to the pope, published on the group's social media channels on Saturday. But it also affirmed the group's commitment to "standing with our army and our people to face any aggression and occupation of our land and our country," adding that what Israel "is doing in Lebanon is unacceptable ongoing aggression.""We rely on your holiness' stance in rejecting the injustice and aggression our nation of Lebanon is subjected to at the hands of the Zionist invaders and their supporters," the statement added. In a speech on Friday, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem welcomed Leo's upcoming visit to Lebanon, saying he had tasked members of the group with delivering a letter to the pontiff that would also be published in the media. He insisted his group has respected the November 2024 ceasefire and called for an end to persistent Israeli strikes on the country. "Do you expect there to be a war later? It's possible at some point, yes, that possibility exists," Qassem said, referring to increased fears in Lebanon of a renewed, broader war. After visiting Turkey, Leo is due to arrive in Lebanon on Sunday for a three-day trip that includes an open-air mass at Beirut's waterfront which organizers expect to draw 120,000 people, as well as an interreligious meeting in the city center. Qassem said Friday that "we welcome this visit at this pivotal moment, and we pray that the Holy Father will contribute to spreading peace in Lebanon, liberating it, ending the (Israeli) aggression, and standing by it and by the oppressed, as we have always known him to do."

Hezbollah to join Pope’s reception events in Beirut’s southern suburbs, sources says
LBCI/29 November/2025
Sources told LBCI on Saturday that Hezbollah will take part in the popular ceremonies welcoming the Pope through events organized by the Mahdi Scouts during his passage through Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Inside Hezbollah’s tunnels: Lebanese army reveals yearlong disarmament work
LBCI/29 November/2025
CNN’s team entered a Hezbollah tunnel alongside a large group of foreign, Arab, and Lebanese media during a tour organized by the Lebanese army south of the Litani River. The visit was not simply a tour marking one year since the ceasefire agreement, but a decision by the army, backed by the presidency and based on earlier recommendations from the ceasefire monitoring committee. Over the past year, the Lebanese army quietly worked to implement the agreement, dismantling Hezbollah installations and collecting weapons and ammunition. Its silence stemmed from a desire to avoid local provocation, but that discretion also exposed its efforts to skepticism and to Israeli media propaganda. One military official said the army “paid a high price for its silence.”The media tour came just weeks before the end of the army’s first phase of operations south of the Litani River and its full control of the sector. As part of the tour, journalists were taken into a tunnel similar to 177 others the army has dealt with over the past year. The army also provided figures, maps, images, and footage revealed for the first time, documenting more than 30,000 operations and the seizure of 230,000 weapons and ammunition pieces, including 566 rocket launchers. It also reported shutting down 11 crossings along the Litani River. The documented observations and field evidence counter Israeli propaganda and demonstrate the army’s ability to continue implementing the plan to restrict weapons, despite Israeli threats of launching a war to undermine Hezbollah’s military capabilities. The roughly 40-minute walk through valleys to reach one of the Hezbollah tunnels the army seized in Wadi Zibqin illustrated the challenges of its mission in rugged, forested terrain. Discovering such installations is made more difficult by limited resources and the harsh conditions facing soldiers. Some were killed while dismantling military structures and tunnels. The tour brought the army’s efforts into public view after months of being shown only to the ceasefire monitoring committee and U.N. forces. It also sent a clear signal about the need to support the military institution and give it the space and time to complete its plan, despite Israeli threats. The effort now requires additional media tours, particularly for American outlets, to clearly present the army’s work to decision-making centers and reinforce the ongoing implementation of dismantling Hezbollah’s military capabilities.

Can lessons from Northern Ireland and Afghanistan guide Lebanon’s weapons debate?
LBCI/29 November/2025
"The UK is working closely with other friends of Lebanon to promote stability, security, and prosperity. Peace and political solutions are key steps to achieving that," Hamish Cowell, the British ambassador to Lebanon, said in a post on X following his meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
For Cowell’s country, the United Kingdom, there is experience in pursuing political solutions rather than relying on military ones. This experience dates back to the late 1960s, when Northern Ireland sank into an internal conflict between two communities with opposing identities: loyalists seeking unification with the Republic of Ireland, and unionists determined to remain part of the United Kingdom. The war was not ended by a military campaign or by a decisive victory for one side. Instead, it concluded with a political agreement known as the Good Friday Agreement, based on the recognition by both sides that in a conflict spanning three decades, there was no absolute winner or loser, and that consensus was the only path to disarmament. The agreement included clear guarantees for each side to enter the political process without fear for their existence or identity. Accordingly, the Irish Republican Army voluntarily handed over its weapons, along with opposing groups, once politics — not battle — became the guarantee. The opposite occurred in Afghanistan. The United States attempted to enforce disarmament by force, overthrowing the Taliban, besieging its fighters, and building a new army and political system. Without an internal agreement and without the Taliban’s acceptance of a political framework, once foreign forces withdrew, weapons returned to the forefront, and the Taliban regained power. The differences between these examples and Lebanon are significant. Lebanon’s circumstances differ radically from Northern Ireland: Hezbollah’s regional role extends beyond the state, the military struggle is external against Israel rather than internal, and Israel’s military superiority is decisive. Likewise, the Afghan case is unlike Lebanon or Ireland: the Taliban were never part of a consensual local political system; they were an armed movement facing foreign occupation, and later returned to power after the state left behind by Washington collapsed. From these experiences, one principle emerges: weapons cannot be removed by force or imposed solutions from outside. Even if disarmed by such means, lasting peace will not result. “Healthy” disarmament must be built on internal consensus, in a form that includes all parties without excluding anyone, where the weapon holder is convinced that the weapon is no longer necessary or effective. From this perspective, Cowell’s messages — and those of the international community — are clear: any solution regarding weapons in Lebanon, and any future roadmap, must proceed through politics, not force. Israel must understand this, even with its military advantage.

Hezbollah leader leaves open possibility of new war with Israel, stresses group ‘right to respond’
The Arab Weekly/November 29/2025
“Do you expect a war later? It’s possible sometime. Yes, this possibility is there, and the possibility of no war is also there,” Qassem said. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the Lebanese army’s efforts to seize Hezbollah weapons in the country’s south were “inadequate.”Hezbollah supporters hold images of late former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and current leader Naim Qassem at a ceremony held by Hezbollah to commemorate the first anniversary of Hassan Nasrallah’s killing by Israel, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon,  Hezbollah supporters hold images of late former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and current leader Naim Qassem at a ceremony held by Hezbollah to commemorate the first anniversary of Hassan Nasrallah’s killing by Israel, on the outskirts of Beirut, Leba. The head of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said on Friday it retained the right to respond to Israel’s killing days ago of its top military commander and left open the possibility of a new conflict with Israel. Naim Qassem spoke in a televised address as fears grew in Lebanon that Israel could escalate its bombardment of the country to compel Hezbollah to relinquish its arsenal across the country, which the group has repeatedly rejected.
Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s top military commander Haytham Ali Tabtabai in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on November 23 sharpened those worries. Qassem called the killing of Haytham Ali Tabtabai “a blatant aggression and a heinous crime”, adding that his group had “the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that”.He said the group would “set the timing” for any retaliation, and said threats of a broader air campaign had no impact on the group – but that renewed war was possible. “Do you expect a war later? It’s possible sometime. Yes, this possibility is there, and the possibility of no war is also there,” Qassem said. He noted, however, that a wider conflict may still be avoided “because Israel is weighing its options, and America is weighing its options as well”. Qassem insisted that the Iran-backed group has respected the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities with Israel, calling for an end to persistent Israeli strikes on the country. The Hezbollah leader lauded Tabtabai’s role in helping the Houthis in Yemen until 2024 and in fighting ‘takfiris’ in Syria, earlier. He said the chief of staff of Hezbollah’s armed forces was in a meeting with four of his aides “to prepare for future actions” when he was struck. Tabtabai was the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since the truce, during which Israel has kept up strikes and said it has targeted numerous members of the group. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps called for “revenge” after Tabtabai’s killing. Qassem did not explicitly say what the group’s position would be in a new war but said Lebanon should prepare a plan to confront Israel that relies on “its army and its people.”Qassem also said he hoped Pope Leo’s upcoming visit to Lebanon “will play a role in bringing about peace and ending the (Israeli) aggression.”
Lebanon is under growing pressure from both Israel and the United States to more swiftly disarm Hezbollah and other militant groups across the country. Moments after Qassem’s speech ended, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the Lebanese army’s efforts to seize Hezbollah weapons in the country’s south were “inadequate.”“Hezbollah continues to manipulate them and work covertly to maintain its arsenal,” Adraee said in a post on X. But Hezbollah has said it is unwilling to let go of its arms as long as Israel continues its strikes on Lebanese territory and its occupation of five points in the country’s south.

Silos of Beirut: Autopsy of an Announced Pollution
Makram Haddad/This Is Beirut/November 29/2025
While reports pile up on the table of the Council of Ministers, Ici Beyrouth went in undercover, returned to the foot of the gutted silos and questioned scientists and doctors in order to understand what is still polluting the capital’s air, what risks local residents are running, and why decontamination is stalling. On 4 August 2020, Beirut exploded a first time, in a flash of ammonium nitrate, debris and shattered glass. Since then, the city has continued to explode in a muffled way: in the bronchi of the inhabitants, in the lungs of the children of Karantina, in the gutted silos that spit back out heat, smoke and dust.
Last Thursday, the file came back onto the table of the Council of Ministers at the Grand Serail. On the agenda, around twenty items… and, between two routine chapters, the intervention of the Minister of the Environment, Tamara el-Zein. She presented to her colleagues a topographical and environmental study commissioned from the National Council for Scientific Research on the port silos: weakened structure, pockets of fermenting grain that continue to give off heat and fumes, clearly identified environmental and structural risks. Rather than announcing a schedule of works, the executive chose the well-known path of Lebanese crises: the creation of a committee tasked with “proposing the necessary measures”. Political result: one more committee. Concrete result: on the ground, it is still the local residents who serve as particle sensors.
What are we still breathing around the silos?
What one breathes around the port cannot be reduced to a bad smell of burnt wheat. It is a multi-layered mixture. First, the dust of the ruins: fragments of concrete, stripped-off paint, metals and ageing construction materials. The shock wave of 2020 pulverised a section of the city; the dust fell back down on the facades, balconies and streets. At each gust of wind, part of this solid cloud rises back into the air. Next, the cereals stuck in the cells. Thousands of tons of damaged wheat and corn have never been completely removed. Soaked with water and then heated, these grains behave like a vertical compost: they ferment, give off heat and can, at certain moments, catch fire. These plumes of smoke have already been seen reappearing above the port, before the collapse of entire sections of the silos. Third layer, more invisible: the microscopic flora that thrives on this rotten wheat. Specialists in environmental health and mycology describe this type of environment – warm, humid, confined – as ideal for the development of fungi such as *Aspergillus* or *Penicillium*. Their spores, a veritable “living dust”, detach themselves from the grains, mix with the mineral particles and travel with the wind well beyond the port enclosure. Finally, there remain the intermittent fumes, coming from the fermentation and from sources of combustion inside the cells. On site, the teams describe the same picture: persistent heat, acrid odours, occasional clouds. Around the silos, the air is therefore not only laden with memory: it is saturated with a stubborn cocktail of dust, spores and fumes.
Lungs on the front line
In the short term, this mixture translates into symptoms that the inhabitants of the neighbouring districts know by heart: stinging in the eyes, scratchy throat, dry cough, headaches, tightness in the chest. Asthmatics and patients already suffering from chronic respiratory diseases describe flare-ups of symptoms at each episode of strong odour or visible smoke. Fine particles penetrate deep into the airways and worsen pre-existing pathologies. But the most insidious component, pulmonologists and allergists emphasise, is the biological dimension. Fungal spores coming from mouldy grains, inhaled in a repeated way, can trigger respiratory allergies, asthma attacks, infections in vulnerable people, as well as irritations of the skin and eyes. “The question is not whether a massive toxic cloud is going to suddenly descend on Beirut, but what small repeated aggressions over years do to the lungs of the most vulnerable: children, elderly people, respiratory patients,” analyses pulmonologist and allergist Carole Youakim, who follows this type of profile at Mount Lebanon Hospital. For her, the pollution around the silos looks like a health iceberg: “Each resurgence of odours, each visible plume of smoke, is the emerged part. Underneath, there are months of micro-exposure that do not make the front page, but that we see very clearly in consultation,” she insists. On top of this respiratory burden is superimposed a psychological burden. For the inhabitants of the devastated districts, each smoke above the port, each smell of burning, is a brutal return to 4 August. Post-traumatic stress, anxiety, insomnia add to the weight of the particles. The same populations are taking the hits on two fronts.
Why decontamination is stalling
On the technical level, Lebanon is not facing a scientific enigma. Engineers, urban planners and specialists in hazardous waste have already sketched out the broad outlines of a plan. It would first be a matter of treating the grains as a real health risk: evacuating them gradually, under confinement and with strict protections for workers, instead of letting them ferment in the concrete. Then of securing and demolishing in a controlled way the most unstable sections of the silos, limiting as much as possible the dispersion of dust towards the neighbouring districts. Finally, of cleaning up the soils, managing the rubble and installing sensors measuring continuously the quality of the air around the port, with public data. The political dimension remains: what should be done with this concrete carcass? Preserving part of it as a memorial to 4 August, yes, but not at the price of prolonged exposure of local residents. For the moment, between ministries passing the buck to one another, interests around the future of the port and the State’s chronic paralysis, the file is moving forward at the pace of commissions and communiqués. The latest scientific report acknowledges environmental and structural risks, the official response boils down to the creation of one more committee. The city, for its part, cannot be content with waiting for the next meeting report. In 2020, the entire world discovered the port of Beirut in a fraction of a second, in a flash of ammonium nitrate. In 2025, the capital continues to breathe what is left of it, in slow motion, in a cloud of particles and spores that nobody films. As long as the State contents itself with creating committees while the inhabitants serve as free air filters, one question will remain hanging over the silos: in Lebanon, what is really destined to rot on the spot – the wheat, the concrete… or public health?

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 29-30/2025
Pope Leo visits Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
The Associated Press/29 November/2025
Pope Leo XIV visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on Saturday at the start of an intense day of meetings and liturgies with Turkey’s religious leaders and a Mass for the country’s tiny Catholic community. The head of Turkey’s Diyanet religious affairs directorate showed Leo the soaring tiled dome of the mosque and the Arabic inscriptions on its columns, as Leo nodded in understanding.The Vatican had said Leo would observe a “brief minute of silent prayer” there, but it wasn’t clear if he had. The imam of the mosque, Asgin Tunca, said he had invited Leo to pray but the pope declined. Speaking to reporters after the visit, Tunca said he had told the pope that the mosque was “Allah’s house.”“It’s not my house, not your house, (it’s the) house of Allah,” he said. He said he told Leo: “‘If you want, you can worship here,’ I said. But he said, ‘That’s OK.’”“He wanted to see the mosque, wanted to feel (the) atmosphere of the mosque, I think. And was very pleased,” he said. Leo was following in the footsteps of his recent predecessors, who all made high-profile visits to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, as it is officially known, in a gesture of respect to Turkey’s Muslim majority. Leo removed his shoes and walked through the carpeted mosque in his white socks. Past popes have also visited the nearby Hagia Sophia landmark, once one of the most important historic cathedrals in Christianity and a United Nations-designated world heritage site. But Leo left that visit off his itinerary on his first trip as pope. After the mosque visit, Leo held a private meeting with Turkey’s Christian leaders at the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mor Ephrem. In the afternoon, he was expected to pray with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew, at the patriarchal church of Saint George. He will end the day with a Catholic Mass in Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena for the country’s Catholic community, who number 33,000 in a country of more than 85 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslim. Leo had prayed with these Christian leaders on Friday in Iznik, at the site of the A.D. 325 Council of Nicaea, the highlight of his trip. The occasion was to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the council, the unprecedented meeting of bishops that produced the creed, or statement of faith, that is still recited by millions of Christians today. Standing over the ruins of the site, the men recited the creed. Leo urged them “to overcome the scandal of the divisions that unfortunately still exist and to nurture the desire for unity.”Such unity, he said, was of particular importance at a time “marked by many tragic signs, in which people are subjected to countless threats to their very dignity.”The Nicaea gathering took place at a time when the Eastern and Western churches were still united. They split in the Great Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope, and then in other splintering divisions. But even today, Catholic, Orthodox and most historic Protestant groups accept the Nicaean Creed, making it a point of agreement and the most widely accepted creed in Christendom. As a result, celebrating its origins at the site of its creation with the spiritual leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches and other Christian representatives marked a historic moment in the centuries-old quest to reunite all Christians.

Death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses 70,000: Health ministry
AFP/29 November/2025
The health ministry in Gaza on Saturday said more than 70,000 people have been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted more than two years ago. The milestone comes as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire largely holds, but with both sides accusing the other of violating the terms of the deal.
In a statement, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll from the war had risen to 70,100. The ministry said that since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, 354 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire. Two bodies arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours, the ministry said, one of which had been recovered from beneath the rubble. It noted that the spike from the last death toll was due to the fact that the data relating to 299 bodies had been processed and approved by the authorities. Despite the ceasefire, the Palestinian territory remains in a deep humanitarian crisis. The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people. On that day, militants abducted 251 people into Gaza. At the start of the latest ceasefire, militants were holding 20 living hostages and 28 bodies of deceased captives. Hamas has since released all the living hostages and returned the remains of 26 dead hostages. In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.

Israel says nine more Hamas militants killed in Gaza tunnels as safe passage remains elusive
The Arab Weekly/November 29/2025
“Thus far, over 30 terrorists who attempted to flee the underground terror infrastructure in eastern Rafah have been eliminated,” said the Israeli army. Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement through the “pursuit, The Israeli army said on Friday it had found the bodies of nine Palestinian militants recently killed in its attempts to dismantle the tunnel network in the southern Gaza Strip. During operations in eastern Rafah, soldiers “located nine additional terrorists who had been eliminated in the underground terror infrastructure”, the army said in a statement. “Thus far, over 30 terrorists who attempted to flee the underground terror infrastructure in eastern Rafah have been eliminated.”Multiple sources said on Thursday that negotiations were under way regarding the fate of dozens of Hamas fighters holed up in southern Gaza’s tunnels, beneath areas under Israeli military control.
On Wednesday, Hamas called on mediating countries to pressure Israel to allow safe passage, the first time the Islamist group had publicly acknowledged the situation. The US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with Egypt, Turkey and Qatar as mediators, entered into force on October 10. Under its terms, the Israeli army withdrew behind the so-called Yellow Line within the Gaza Strip, a boundary marked on the surface with yellow concrete blocks. The Hamas militants are in tunnels located on the Israeli-controlled side of the Yellow Line. A source from one of the mediating countries confirmed on Thursday that the United States, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar have been discussing “with the aim of reaching a compromise that would allow Hamas fighters to leave the tunnels behind the Yellow Line near Rafah”. “The current proposal would grant them safe passage to areas not under Israeli control, helping to ensure this does not become a friction point that leads to further violations or the collapse of the ceasefire,” the source added. A prominent Hamas member in Gaza said that the group estimated their number to be between 60 and 80. On this subject, an Israeli government spokesman said earlier this month that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “is not allowing safe passage”. Analysts say Hamas and its allies in Gaza have run out of bargaining chips with the release of Israeli hostages and the return of most deceased captives. At the start of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, militants were holding 20 living hostages and 28 bodies of deceased captives. Hamas has since released all the living hostages and returned the remains of 26 dead hostages. In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.The last two hostages’ bodies still in Gaza are those of Israeli Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak. In its statement on Wednesday, Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement through the “pursuit, liquidation and arrest of resistance fighters besieged in the tunnels of Rafah”. The ceasefire remains fragile, with Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the terms, while the Gaza Strip remains in a deep humanitarian crisis. The Gaza war was sparked by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people. Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 69,799 people. according to the Hamas health ministry, which says that since the ceasefire came into effect, 352 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.

Ten Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli settlers: Red Crescent
AFP/29 November/2025
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that 10 Palestinians were injured on Saturday in clashes with Israeli settlers near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. “Ten injuries during settler attacks in the Khala’il al-Luz area south of Bethlehem, including one injury from live ammunition, and nine injuries from beatings,” the rescue service said in a statement. The Israeli army said in a joint statement with the police that its forces “were dispatched to the outskirts of Bethlehem, following a report of a violent confrontation between Israeli civilians and Palestinians.”The clashes involved “stone hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene, as well as gunfire in the area toward the Palestinians,” the statement said. To halt the clashes, Israeli forces employed “crowd dispersal methods” and declared a “closed military zone in the area,” the military said. “Several Israeli civilians were injured but refused medical treatment,” the statement added. Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war. It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas coming into effect last month. Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them militants, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures. At least 44 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.

Israel attacked security personnel guarding aid in Gaza: French academic
Arab News/November 29, 2025
LONDON: A French academic has said he witnessed Israel enabling the looting of aid trucks in Gaza. Jean-Pierre Filiu spent more than a month in the Palestinian enclave from December 2024, which formed the basis for his book “A Historian in Gaza,” which was published this month in English. The professor of Middle East studies at France’s Sciences Po university was able to avoid detection by Israel despite a ban on international media entering Gaza. He claims in the book to have witnessed attacks by the Israeli military on aid convoys and their security staff guarding them from looters.
His testimony backs UN claims that attacks on police in Gaza by Israel aided looters at a time when mass hunger threatened much of the enclave. An internal UN memo described the approach as “passive if not active benevolence” toward looters. In one incident Filiu described in the book, 66 trucks carrying aid into Gaza from the Kerem Shalom border crossing, which were being guarded by Hamas, came under attack by Israel. “It was one night and I was … a few hundred metres away. And it was very clear that Israeli quadcopters were supporting the looters in attacking the local security (teams),” Filiu wrote, adding that the attack killed “two local notables as they sat in their car, armed and ready to protect the convoy.” In all, 20 trucks were then left unguarded and ransacked. “The (Israeli) rationale (was) to discredit Hamas and the UN at that time … and to allow (Israel’s) clients, the looters, to either redistribute the aid to expand their own support networks or to make money out of reselling it in order to get some cash and so not depend exclusively on Israeli financial support,” Filiu said. In another incident, he described an attack by Israel on a route opened for aid groups to avoid areas where looting was rife. “The World Food Programme was trying to set up an alternative route to the coastal road and Israeli bombed the middle of the road … It was a deliberate attempt to put it out of action,” he told The Guardian, adding that “anything that stood before” in Gaza has been “erased, annihilated” by the war that began in October 2023. Around 70,000 Palestinians are believed to have been killed, with much of the enclave’s infrastructure destroyed. “Any successful counterinsurgency anywhere over history … has to balance the military operation with some kind of political campaign to win hearts and minds,” he said. “(Israel) didn’t even pretend to do that in Gaza at any time, (but) Gaza is probably the place on Earth where Hamas is the most unpopular because in Gaza they know Hamas (and) don’t have any illusions about the reality of Islamist domination and the brutality of its rules.”He added: “I’ve always been convinced that (the war in Gaza is) a universal tragedy. It’s not one more Middle Eastern conflict. “It’s a laboratory of a post-UN world, of a post Geneva convention world, of a post-declaration of human rights world, and this world is very scary because it’s not even rational. It’s just ferocious.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted Israeli backing of the Popular Forces, an anti-Hamas group known to have looted aid.

Ultra-Orthodox military conscription row reignites in Israel
AFP/29 November/2025
A new draft law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose support is crucial for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, has sparked uproar in Israel, with the opposition denouncing it as a special privilege for “draft-dodgers.”Under a ruling established at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948, men who devote themselves full-time to studying sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto pass from mandatory military service. But this exemption has come under mounting scrutiny from the rest of Israeli society - particularly when tens of thousands of conscripts and reservists are mobilized on several fronts, despite the fragile truce halting the war in Gaza. The ultra-Orthodox make up 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population. Keeping ultra-Orthodox parties on board is key to the survival of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, and their opposition to mandatory military service proposals sparked a mass rally in Jerusalem in October. Two ultra-Orthodox parties rejected a draft bill in July that would have seen an increasing number of ultra-Orthodox men enlisted each year, and financial penalties for those who refuse to comply. On Thursday, a new draft was put forward by Boaz Bismuth, the chairman of parliament’s cross-party foreign affairs and defense committee, which rolls back significantly from the previous text. The new proposal includes only minimal penalties for ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers, notably a ban on travelling abroad or obtaining a driving licence. It also lowers enlistment quotas and facilitates exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men who study in religious seminaries known as yeshivas.
Lawmakers will debate the text on Monday.
The center-right Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper ran a front-page headline on Friday reading “Conscription on paper only,” denouncing “an obvious fraud.”“The new ‘conscription’ law will not recruit anyone,” it read. Bismuth has called the bill “balanced” and “responsible.”
‘Contemptible politics’
The ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party quit the government in July over the previous draft conscription bill, and now Netanyahu’s coalition only holds 60 out of 120 seats in parliament. Ministers from the other main ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, resigned from the cabinet over the issue, though the party has not formally left the coalition. Shas is now threatening to bring down the government if Netanyahu fails to grant the exemptions he had promised the ultra-Orthodox parties in 2022 when forming the coalition. The decades-old de facto exemption was challenged at the Supreme Court level in the early 2000s, since when successive Israeli governments have been forced to cobble together temporary legislative arrangements to appease the ultra-Orthodox, who are the makers and breakers of governments. The opposition has slammed the latest draft bill, believing it is too soft, and is vowing to bring it down. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called the text an “anti-Zionist disgrace” on X, denouncing the “contemptible politics of the corrupt and the draft-dodgers.”“This law is a declaration of war by the government on the reservists,” said former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is expected to run against Netanyahu in elections due by November 2026. In June 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the state must draft ultra-Orthodox men, declaring their exemption had expired.The government has also been forced to cut certain subsidies to yeshivas, much to the chagrin of the ultra-Orthodox parties.
‘Flagrant inequality’
Only two percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews respond to conscription orders according to the military, which has created units specifically for them. There are around 1.3 million ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, and roughly 66,000 men of military age currently benefit from the exemption, a record number according to local media reports. On November 19, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the government was required to present an effective proposal for conscripting the ultra-Orthodox. The ruling notes that the “flagrant inequality” created by their exemption has “worsened significantly” with the war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. It also says ultra-Orthodox conscription fills a “real security need” as the army requires about 12,000 soldiers to fill its ranks. The court did not set a deadline for the adoption of a conscription law, but only for a debate on the issue in parliament.

Repaired destroyer, floating base join Iranian Navy: Reports
Reuters/29 November/2025
The Sahand destroyer, which capsized during repairs last year, has been recommissioned into the Iranian Navy along with the Kurdistan floating base, Iran’s state media reported on Saturday.The move is aimed at “strengthening naval combat capability, expanding strategic reach and enhancing access to international waters,” the English-language Press TV said. Sahand, an Iranian-built stealth destroyer, was first launched in December 2018. It is equipped with a helicopter deck, torpedo launchers, anti-aircraft and anti-ship guns, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, and electronic-warfare systems, said the broadcast. It sank last year in the shallow Gulf waters after being briefly repositioned. According to the Tehran Times daily, it is named after the “Sahand-class Alvand” frigate that sank in a 1988 confrontation with the US Navy in the Gulf. As a floating base, Kurdistan can provide rescue and relief, accommodate the heaviest helicopters, and support three destroyers on a three-year, around-the-world mission without needing to dock for fuel, state TV said. The Maritime Executive, a US-based industry publication, reported in May that the Kurdistan was converted from a 33-year-old crude-oil tanker operating under the Iranian flag since 2019, and includes a helipad likely intended for helicopter and UAV operations. It is expected to perform a similar role to Makran, another former crude-oil tanker converted at a shipyard west of Bandar Abbas. Iran has developed a large domestic arms industry under international sanctions and embargoes that restrict weapons imports. It launched its first locally made destroyer in 2010 as part of an effort to overhaul navy equipment dating largely to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In 2021, the Iranian Navy ship Kharg sank after catching fire in the Gulf of Oman during a training mission, with no casualties reported.

Ukrainian delegation heads to US for peace talks after lead negotiator’s exit
Reuters/29 November/2025
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to the United States to continue talks on an agreement to end Russia’s war. Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation after the previous lead negotiator, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, resigned on Friday hours after anti-corruption detectives searched his apartment. Zelenskyy said he expected that the results of previous meetings with the US in Geneva, which took place last weekend, would now be “hammered out” on Sunday.
Those meetings allowed Ukraine to present a counter-offer to proposals laid out by US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv almost two weeks ago. “Rustem delivered a report today, and the task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. Yermak told the New York Post hours after his resignation that he was “going to the front.”“I am an honest and decent person,” he said. Ukraine is facing significant pressure from Washington to agree to the terms of a peace deal while Zelenskyy finds himself in the most difficult political and military situation since the early days of Russia’s invasion in 2022. Political blowback from a $100 million energy sector corruption scandal has seen two ministers and now the president’s right-hand man ousted. Meanwhile, Russia is making incremental gains on the frontline and Ukrainian cities suffer hours of blackouts every day due to a rolling bombardment of its power grid. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is in one of the most difficult moments in its history, but promised his people in a dramatic address last week that he would not betray the country.

Ukraine behind attacks on Black Sea tankers
Agence France Presse/29 November/2025
Ukraine was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers in the Black Sea that it believed were covertly transporting sanctioned Russian oil, a Ukrainian security source said. The two tankers, the Virat and the Kairos, were rocked by explosions in Turkey's coast late Friday, according to the Turkish transport ministry. One of the two was struck again early Saturday, the ministry said. "Modernized Sea Baby naval drones successfully targeted the vessels," a source in Ukraine's SBU security service told AFP. It shared a video that purported to show sea drones gliding towards the two ships, before sparking explosions.

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to visit Macron in Paris on Monday, Elysee says
Reuters/29 November/2025
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday, Macron’s office said, as the Ukrainian leader finds himself in the most difficult political and military situation since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
The two leaders will discuss “the conditions of a just and durable peace,” following talks in Geneva and the American peace plan, the Elysee Palace said in a statement on Saturday. Zelenskyy was last in Paris on November 17.

Ukraine hits two Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tankers with drones in Black Sea
Reuters/29 November/2025
Ukrainian naval drones hit two sanctioned tankers in the Black Sea as they headed to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, an official said on Saturday, as Kyiv tries to pile pressure on Russia’s vast oil industry.The two oil tankers identified as the Kairos and Virat were empty and sailing to Novorossiysk, a major Russian Black Sea oil terminal, the official at the Security Service of Ukraine told Reuters. Naval drones could be seen speeding toward hulking tankers followed by powerful explosions that caused fires on the vessels, video footage shared by the official showed.
Reuters could not independently verify the identity of the tankers in the clips or the location and date of the footage. Video shows that after being hit, both tankers sustained critical damage and were effectively taken out of service. This will deal a significant blow to Russian oil transportation," the official said in a written statement.Ukraine has been attacking Russian oil refineries for months, using long-range aerial drones to strike far behind the front lines of Moscow’s full-scale war against Ukraine. The strikes on the tankers represent a different kind of attack. kraine has repeatedly called on the West to take real action against Russia’s so-called "shadow fleet," which Kyiv says is helping Moscow export large quantities of oil and fund its war in Ukraine despite Western sanctions. he fleet of hundreds of often aging, unregulated vessels came to prominence after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, bypassing Western sanctions aimed at reducing Russia’s oil revenue.
Ships are on sanctions list
Naval drones are uncrewed speed boats packed with explosives that sail toward their targets before detonating. hey played a prominent role in Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the Black Sea, helping to push back Russia’s large fleet of warships. he 274-meter-long tanker Kairos suffered an explosion and caught fire on Friday while en route from Egypt to Russia, Turkey’s Transport Ministry said. The crew was evacuated by rescue boats while efforts to extinguish the fire continued, it said. he Virat was reportedly struck some 35 nautical miles offshore, further east in the Black Sea, the ministry said. he Virat was attacked again on Saturday morning by unmanned vessels, sustaining minor damage to its starboard side above the waterline, the Turkish ministry also said, adding that the vessel was in a stable condition and the crew in good health. oth the Kairos and Virat are on a list of ships subject to sanctions imposed against Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to LSEG data. he Ukrainian official did not say when the Ukrainian strikes took place. here was no public comment from Russia.

Iran halts power generation at key dam over drought
AFP/29 November/2025
Iranian authorities on Saturday stopped electricity production at one of the country’s biggest dams due to a marked decrease in the reservoir’s water levels, state media reported. “Due to the drop in the Karkheh Dam reservoir level, its power plant’s units were removed from the production circuit,” Amir Mahmoudi, the head of the dam and its power plant said, according to state news agency IRNA. He added that the water was subsequently released from the lower valves of the dam to meet the needs of people living downstream.He said that the reservoir behind the dam is currently holding about one billion cubic meters of water, adding that “the current water level is 180 meters, which is 40 meters lower than the natural operating level” for electricity production. The Karkheh Dam is one of the biggest earthen dams in the world and the largest in Iran and the Middle East, according to IRNA. Built on the Karkheh River, it is located 22 kilometers (14 miles) northwest of the city of Andimeshk in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. The development comes as the country faces one of its most severe droughts since records began six decades ago. Iranian media have in past weeks reported that precipitation levels had decreased by about 90 percent this year, compared with the long-term average. Water levels at reservoirs supplying many provinces have fallen to record lows, with residents holding prayers for rain in different cities over the past several weeks. Iranian authorities have also launched cloud seeding operations to induce rainfall and resorted to cutting off water supplies periodically to manage consumption. Iran, a largely arid country, has for years suffered chronic dry spells and heat waves, which are expected to worsen with climate change.

Syrians mark one year since the fall of Assad under the shadow of Israeli attacks, internal tensions
The Arab Weekly/November 29/2025
Mass rallies took place in Damascus and other major Syrian cities including Aleppo, Homs, Iblib, Tartus and Latakia. The demonstrators condemned the Israeli attack on Beit Jin, southern Syria, which killed 13 people, holding banners that read “Beit Jin makes us proud” and “stop Israeli attacks”.
Demonstrators across Syrian cities celebrated on Friday the first anniversary of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime under the shadow of Israel’s military attacks and the country’s own internal tensions. Crowds marched to condemn the deadly Israeli attacks on the south of the country during rallies intended to mark one year since the start of the radical Islamist offensive that toppled the former ruler. The demonstrators condemned the Israeli attack on Beit Jin, southern Syria, which killed 13 people, holding banners that read “Beit Jin makes us proud” and “stop Israeli attacks”.Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa had called on Thursday for Syrians to “go down to the squares” to commemorate the moment his radical Islamist-led coalition launched an offensive from their Idlib stronghold in northwest Syria that culminated in the toppling of Assad just 11 days later.
Mass rallies took place in Damascus and other major Syrian cities including Aleppo, Homs, Iblib, Tartus and Latakia, with regime loyalists chanting in support of Sharaa and Islamism. “After we were victorious against Bashar al-Assad, we will be victorious against Israel,” 29-year-old teacher Batul Imad al-Din said in Damascus.Technician Bassel Azizieh said he was “here in support of my state, the state that represents me and the entire Syrian people without exception”. Since coming to power, Sharaa has been staunch in his insistence on a centralised, unitary Syria while facing calls for federalism for the mutli-ethnic, multi-confessional country. Azizieh said they “also came down to pay our respects to the martyrs of the Israeli aggression” on Beit Jin.The rallies came days after protests in Latakia and several Alawite-majority areas denouncing repeated abuses targeting the minority community, which Assad hails from.
Sharaa said on Thursday that protesters had “legitimate demands”, emphasising the importance of “national unity” and reiterating his rejection of federalism amid doubts about the self-discipline of the regime troops amid manifestations of ethnic and sectarian strife. For now the most immediate challenge the country faces consists in Israel’s continued incursions into the country’ south. Thirteen people were killed in an Israeli raid in southern Syria on Friday after clashes in a village where Israel said its troops came under fire during an operation allegedly conducted to arrest Islamist militants it accused of involvement in “terrorist plots”.The Israeli military said six soldiers were wounded, three of them severely, by militant fire during the raid in the village of Beit Jinn. Syria’s foreign ministry denounced “the criminal aggression” of the Israeli army in the village of Beit Jin, adding that such acts aim to “ignite the region” in conflict. “This is a war crime,” it said in a statement on Friday. The casualty tolls suggest the Israeli raid spiralled into one of the deadliest since President Bashar al-Assad was toppled a year ago. Israel frequently bombed Syria when it was ruled by Assad and stepped up its military operations in the country after he was ousted, citing goals that include keeping militants away from the border. The Israeli military said its troops had gone on an operation to detain suspects belonging to Jama’a Islamiya, a Muslim Brotherhood-related Lebanese Islamist group which fired rockets at Israel from Lebanon during the Gaza war. The military described the raid as part of routine operations in the area in recent months.
Syrian state news agency SANA, which reported 13 people killed and dozens wounded, said Israeli forces shelled Beit Jinn at 3:40 am (0140 GMT) and Israeli troops had entered the village. Residents confronted the Israeli forces, which responded, leading to “violent clashes”, it added. The Israeli military said “armed terrorists” fired on its troops, and they responded with fire “along with aerial assistance”.“A number of terrorists were eliminated,” it said. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said Israel would not allow “terrorism and terrorist elements to entrench themselves on our borders”, and that three people suspected “of involvement in terrorist plots” had been arrested on Friday.
The Israeli military accused them of planting improvised explosive devices and “planning future attacks on Israel including rocket fire”. Syria’s foreign ministry said the Israeli attack killed more than ten civilians including women and children, damaged property and forced residents to flee their homes, accusing Israel of committing a “full-fledged war crime”‌ and warning the strikes threatened security and stability in the region. Walid Akasha, a local official in Beit Jinn, denied there were any terrorist factions there. “We’re a peaceful, civilian population, farmers. We have a legitimate right to defend ourselves. We didn’t attack them first, they came onto our land,” he said. Akasha said seven people had been taken from the village in an earlier raid in June, since when they had received no news about them. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the account of the June arrests.
Syrian and Israeli officials have met a half-dozen times for US-brokered talks on a security deal to bring stability to the border region but negotiations have been frozen since September. Israel has voiced deep suspicion of Syria’s new government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander, and has said it wants a demilitarised southern Syria. Sharaa has said Syria does not pose a threat to any state. Israeli military action in Syria has included several interventions with the declared aim of protecting members of Syria’s Druze minority, notably during violence in Sweida province in July that pitted Sunni Muslim Bedouin fighters and government forces against Druze fighters. Israel has moved troops and military equipment past a 1974 buffer zone and into southern Syria, including the strategic surveillance point of Mount Hermon.

Syria’s al-Sharaa in Aleppo a year after fall of second city
Al Arabiya English/29 November/2025
President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Saturday as the country marks a year since a lightning offensive that eventually toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December. The alliance, led by al-Sharaa, entered Aleppo on November 29 last year and swiftly took control of Syria’s second city. “Aleppo was reborn, and with its rebirth, all of Syria was reborn. In moments like these, a new history for all of Syria was being written, through Aleppo and its proud citadel,” al-Sharaa said on Saturday, addressing a crowd of hundreds from outside the city’s famous monument. Shortly afterwards, he appeared at the top of the citadel’s tower near a huge Syrian flag. Aleppo was an early venue for anti-Assad demonstrations in 2011 that spiralled into civil war. For four years the city was divided between a government loyalist sector in the west - with most of the population - and the opposition in a small zone in the east. The Syrian government was accused of dropping barrel bombs from helicopters and other aircraft onto oppositions areas, while the opposition fighters fired rockets into government territory. Ally Russia came to al-Assad’s assistance in September 2015, helping government forces to lay siege to the opposition zone by cutting off its last supply route. Al-Assad’s forces reclaimed complete control of the city on December 22, 2016 when a final convoy of the opposition and civilians left eastern Aleppo. Al-Sharaa’s forces launched their lightning offensive on November 27 last year.
They went on to seize Damascus on December 8, toppling al-Assad and ending more than half a century of his family dynasty’s iron-fisted rule.with AFP

Trump says airspace above and around Venezuela should be considered closed
Reuters/29 November/2025
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety,” but gave no further details as Washington ramps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government. “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. US officials contacted by Reuters were surprised by Trump’s announcement and unaware of any ongoing US military operations to enforce a closure of Venezuelan airspace. The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment and the White House did not provide any further explanation. Venezuela’s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump’s post.
Massive military buildup in Caribbean
David Deptula, a retired lieutenant general who commanded a no-fly zone over northern Iraq in 1998 and 1999, said Trump’s announcement raises more questions than it answers. Imposing a no-fly zone over Venezuela could require significant resources and planning, depending on the goals of the airspace closure, he said. “The devil’s in the details,” Deptula said. The Trump administration has been weighing Venezuela-related options to combat what it has portrayed as Maduro’s role in supplying illegal drugs that have killed Americans. The socialist Venezuelan president has denied having any links to the illegal drug trade. Reuters has reported that options under US consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro, and that the US military is poised for a new phase of operations after a massive military buildup in the Caribbean and nearly three months of strikes on suspected drug boats off Venezuela’s coast. Trump has also authorized covert CIA operations in the South American country. Maduro, in power since 2013, has contended that Trump is seeking to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt. Trump told military service members earlier this week that the US would “very soon” begin land operations to stop suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers. The streets of Caracas were largely quiet on Saturday morning, though some people braved rain to go shopping. Maduro and high-ranking officials in his government, some combination of whom appear almost daily on state television, have decried US imperialism in their recent comments, but do not single out Trump by name, as the Venezuelan government may be trying to de-escalate tensions, according to security and diplomatic sources. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously been the focus of Venezuelan government ire, but even references to him have decreased in recent weeks. The US boat bombings have led to stepped-up surveillance by authorities in the remote northeastern state of Sucre, with increased patrols by security agencies and ruling-party supporters stoking fear among locals, four residents and one recent visitor said. GPS signals in Venezuela have also been affected in recent weeks amid the US buildup. Trump’s announcement on Venezuela’s airspace followed a warning last week from the US Federal Aviation Administration that major airlines faced a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over Venezuela due to a “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around” the country. Venezuela revoked operating rights for six major international airlines that had suspended flights to the country after the FAA warning.

Travel chaos fears ease after Airbus intervenes on software fix
AFP/29 November/2025
Fears of days of travel chaos across Europe and the world eased on Saturday after plane manufacturer Airbus intervened rapidly to implement a software upgrade it had said was immediately needed on some 6,000 of its A320 planes. he announcement by Europe’s top plane manufacturer late Friday that the planes could not fly again until the switch was made followed an incident in the United States and raised concerns that hundreds of planes would need to be grounded for long periods. ut several leading European airlines said there had been minimal or no cancellations as a result, although there were indications the situation was more problematic in Latin America and Asia. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury acknowledged that the fix “has been causing significant logistical challenges and delays” but added its operators were working around the clock to ensure the required updates “are deployed as swiftly as possible to get planes back in the sky.”“I want to sincerely apologize to our airline customers and passengers who are impacted now. But we consider that nothing is more important than safety,” he wrote on Linkedin. irbus had instructed its clients Friday to take “immediate precautionary action” after a technical malfunction on board a JetBlue flight in October exposed that intense solar radiation could corrupt data critical to the flight controls.
‘Far fewer’ than feared’
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot told BFMTV television that the aircraft manufacturer had been able to correct the defect “on more than 5,000 aircraft” on Friday and during the night from Friday to Saturday. e indicated that the number of aircraft requiring more prolonged servicing could be much lower than the 1,000 originally feared. “According to the latest information I have... it would seem that there would be far fewer A320s that would be impacted in a more prolonged way by the software change.”“We had evoked the possibility of a thousand aircraft. It seems that we are now only talking about a hundred,” he added.Produced since 1988, the A320 is the world’s best-selling aeroplane. Airbus sold 12,257 of the aircraft by the end of September compared with the sale of 12,254 Boeing 737s. Air France told AFP it would be able to “transport all of its customers” on Saturday with the exception of flights on its Caribbean regional network. Air France had cancelled 35 flights on Friday. German airline Lufthansa added for its stable of carriers that “most of the software updates were completed overnight and on Saturday morning,” with no flight cancellations expected but isolated delays not excluded. Budget airline giant EasyJet indicated that it had not cancelled any flights, as the work on all its A320s was complete.
‘Quite fast’
French Economy Minister Roland Lescure also told BFMTV that “for the vast majority of these aircraft,” the software update “can be done remotely, it is quite fast.”
On October 30, a JetBlue-operated A320 aircraft encountered an in-flight control issue due to a computer malfunction. he plane suddenly nosedived as it travelled between Cancun in Mexico and Newark in the United States, and pilots had to land in Tampa, Florida. S media quoted local firefighters saying that some passengers were injured. JetBlue, a budget carrier, said Saturday it was doing everything to minimise disruption to passengers. espite the Thanksgiving holidays, the impact in the US was limited with American airlines still favoring homegrown Boeings over Airbus. United Airlines said Saturday’s flights was proceeding as normal, while American Airlines said only four aircraft had been grounded. n India, the aviation ministry said on Saturday that 68 aircraft still required updating, representing 20 percent of the country’s fleet affected by the problem. olombian airline Avianca said 70 percent of its fleet had been impacted and warned of “significant disruptions in the next 10 days,” suspending ticket sales until December 8. n the Philippines, local carriers Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific were offering refunds or rebooked tickets after grounding at least 40 domestic flights on Saturday.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on November 29-30/2025
Why Does No One Object to Having Eight Officially Islamic States but Apparently Cannot Tolerate One Small Jewish State?
Nils A. Haug/Gatestone Institute/November 29, 2025
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22072/tolerate-one-small-jewish-state
Jewish have been rooted to Israel (Zion) for nearly 4,000 years....
Israel's immediate enemy is violent extremist Islam -- particularly the brand espoused by ideological offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Qatar, Syria and Iran. Their worldview seems to be that "Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword."
The world is not just getting less safe for Jews. It is also rapidly becoming less safe for Christians, Hindus and Muslims deemed by other Muslims not Muslim enough. Unfortunately, many in the West appear not to believe that yet. Meanwhile, the doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood are being spread throughout Europe and Canada, and most recently in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, the heart of America, and Australia.
"To place any religion beyond criticism just because some Muslims may feel offended is to ignore, as Salman Rushdie puts it, 'the battle against fanatical Islam, which is highly organised, well-funded, and which seeks to terrify us all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, into cowed silence'." — Quadrant,, September 16, 2025.
When the Third Reich pushed people into gas showers, or during the massacres of October 7, 2023, no one asked the victims if they were "rightist," "leftist," or "centrist." For the Jews, Christians and other "infidels," although many seem not to believe it yet, the choice is all or nothing: either survival or elimination. In this respect, Zionism – the safety of Israel – is the for persecuted Jews, the only sanctuary.
If Jews are to be criticized for defending their minute piece of real estate on Earth, so be it: they hold the moral high ground; their critics and enemies do not.
On November 10, 2025, Israel's President Isaac Herzog unapologetically stated that Zionism is "the national liberation movement of the Jewish people; a return to an indigenous homeland after millennia of persecution.
On November 10, 2025, Israel's President Isaac Herzog unapologetically stated that Zionism is "the national liberation movement of the Jewish people; a return to an indigenous homeland after millennia of persecution."
This statement follows the response of his father, Chaim Herzog (then Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations) in 1975 to an antagonistic UN General Assembly on its shameful resolution that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination":
"Zionism is nothing more – and nothing less – than the Jewish people's sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name."
These two assertions 50 years apart, from father and son -- both serving as presidents of Israel in their times -- could not make any clearer: Israel is the rightful and eternal ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Any notion to the contrary must therefore be considered a "direct assault on the Jewish people's identity, history, and fundamental right to self-determination."
Much of the world nevertheless seems eager to believe lies about Israel being a "racist," "apartheid," "genocidal" and the domain of oppressor settler-colonialists -- despite the inconvenient fact that the Jews fought colonialism, administered by the British, and still being inflicted, although at least now, mercifully, from afar.Jews have been rooted to Israel (Zion) for nearly 4,000 years, backed by a promise in Genesis 15:18 that God made to the ancient fathers of all Jews: Abraham:
"On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.'"
(New King James translation)
Muslims have been around only since the exploits of Mohammed -- who died in 632 AD. All the same, there seem to have been some extraordinary efforts to predate events and ascribe an Islamic identity to Jesus (Qur'an 3:52), who died well before 632 AD, and even to the Jewish patriarch, Abraham:
"Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was one inclining toward truth, a Muslim [submitting to Allah]. And he was not of the polytheists."
(Qur'an 3:67, Sahih International translation)
What is accurate is that Abraham, like other Jews, was not a polytheist.
Theodore Herzl, in 1897, in Switzerland, at the First Zionist Congress, founded modern political Zionism, after seeing how easily France could betray its Jews during the false charges of treason in court-martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was unjustly sent to prison for five years.
At the time, Herzl saw a similar scapegoating of Jews as prevail today:
Jews were being persecuted in Western Europe for being Jews, particularly in Germany and Austria as well as in England and France.
Many Jews in Eastern Europe were persecuted, particularly in Russia.
Few world leaders endorsed the idea of a Jewish state. German Kaiser Wilhelm II supported the idea for a few weeks, possibly as a way of ridding Germany of Jews, but backed out as soon as the Ottoman Empire rejected the idea.
Eventually, 50 years after the 1897 Zionist Congress, the United Nations voted for the creation of the Jewish state. Herzl's dream became a reality: the age-old prayer, "Next year in Jerusalem," became a reality. It is this reality that much of the world now seeks to destroy.
"We are not interlopers. We are not colonizers. We are not strangers to the land of Israel. The land of Israel and the people of Israel stand together. It's part of the same equation, and they can't be separated," stated Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter.
It would be considered laughable for the natives of any other country to be asked to defend their right to exist; why are Jews expected, after almost 4,000 years on the land, to explain their rights to Israel being their homeland? Nevertheless, many politicians in today's societies keep trying to put Jews on the defensive as they never would if their own countries' "right to exist" were questioned. Does anyone ask if Germany has a right to exist? Or Kazakhstan?
The late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel stated in 1978 that, over many thousands of years, "the Jew has been at the mercy of a society in which persecuting him first and murdering him later has at times led to sainthood or power."
It is for this reason that Zionism is essential to the Jewish people, Wiesel continued:
"There was a time when the Jews of Germany were told: We have nothing against you, our resentment is directed solely against the Jews of Poland, who refuse to be assimilated. Later the Jews of France were told: You have nothing to fear, our measures are aimed only at German Jews, they are too assimilated. Later the Hungarian Jews were reassured: We are not interested in you but in your coreligionists in France; they are making trouble there...
"It was all a lie, and now we know it. They meant all of us, everywhere and always."
To live in Israel as a Zionist is, Wiesel said, "a badge of honor."
The land of Israel has been at the core of Jewish identity ever since each of the twelve tribes were allocated specific lands of their own. To the early Israelites, now Jews, their land meant everything. Canadian Rabbi Tzvi Freeman wrote:
"In Biblical Israel, every citizen was landed. If you were a descendant of one of the twelve tribes, you owned a plot of land. If you sold it, it came back to you—or to your inheritors—on the jubilee year, which occurred every 50 years. You were tied to the land and the land was tied to you. Inheritance of land was through the paternal line—just as tribal affiliation is patrilineal."
In view of today's uncomfortable reality that jihadists do not seem even slightly interested in disarming or giving up murdering Jews, it appears that a strong and secure Israel will come only through a dynamic policy of self-defence -- one that will be able to meet those striving for the country's elimination with determination. Israel's immediate enemy is violent extremist Islam -- particularly the brand espoused by ideological offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Qatar, Syria and Iran. Their worldview seems to be that "Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword." In other words, a totalitarian and overbearing force, merging state, politics, and religion under a militant theocracy subject to Sharia law, any contravention of which might mean death.
The world is not just getting less safe for Jews. It is also rapidly becoming less safe for Christians, Hindus and Muslims deemed by other Muslims to be not Muslim enough (such as here, here and here). Unfortunately, many in the West appear not to believe that yet. Meanwhile, the doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood are being spread throughout Europe and Canada, and most recently in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, the heart of America, and Australia.
Jihadist conquest, which commenced some 600 years ago, continues endlessly. Quadrant noted:
"To place any religion beyond criticism just because some Muslims may feel offended is to ignore, as Salman Rushdie puts it, 'the battle against fanatical Islam, which is highly organised, well-funded, and which seeks to terrify us all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, into cowed silence'."
Nazi ideology is also making a comeback – as witnessed by the global platform afforded Nick Fuentes -- "Hitler," he said, was "very, very cool" -- by Carlson Tucker, who asked Fuentes no challenging questions. In early November, in Australia, a neo-Nazi cohort was granted permission to demonstrate outside the New South Wales parliament. The West's radical leftist-Islamist crowd grows ever-more vociferous and aggressive in their criticism of "Zionism" – supposedly a politically correct euphemism for Israel and Jews.
Israel's former Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, wrote in his November 2025 letter of resignation:
"One hundred generations of Jews dreamed of living in a time when the Jewish people would have a sovereign state. Four generations were blessed to realize this dream. With this privilege comes a sacred responsibility: to secure this dream for future generations."
Author and educator Rabbi Uri Pilichowski wrote:
"The State of Israel was politically stablised to be the final place of refuge, where no Jew would ever have to flee again. Israel is a Jewish issue because it will be the place that all Jews will eventually flee to when their current country begins to persecute them."
Why does no one seem to mind having eight officially Islamic states (Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) and 18 states where Islam is the state religion (Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Qatar, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates), and one officially Anglican State, England, but apparently cannot tolerate one small Jewish state?
There is no place, in an existential conflict over Israel and its people, for a "right wing," "left wing" or "centrist" Israel. When the Third Reich pushed people into gas showers, or during the massacres of October 7, 2023, no one asked the victims if they were "rightist," "leftist," or "centrist." For the Jews, Christians and other "infidels," although many seem not to believe it yet, the choice is all or nothing: either survival or elimination. In this respect, Zionism – the safety of Israel – is the for persecuted Jews, the only sanctuary.
The Jewish nation will overcome all obstacles thrown at them. "Together we will do it," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged. "And with God's help, together we will win."As the leaders in the West increasingly lose their moral compass and kneel to appease the radical Jew-haters in their midst, the Jews, after millennia of persecution and prejudice, go to Israel, their rightful homeland for peace, safety, and sanctuary. If Jews are to be criticized for defending their minute piece of real estate on Earth, so be it: they hold the moral high ground; their critics and enemies do not.
**Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive, Document Danmark, Zwiedzaj Polske, Schlaglicht Israel, and many others.
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UN road map for Gaza is littered with uncertainty
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/November 29, 2025
Combing through UN Security Council Resolution 2803, I began to question whether it is the case of the international community purposefully coming together to achieve the elusive objective of at last resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or just another mirage? The proposal’s first aim is to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza and then outline a path for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is vague on details and deadlines.
Admittedly, the success of the mediators to “encourage" Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire deserves praise, even if long overdue. Yet, since the truce came into force at the beginning of October, at least 340 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers have been killed, which can hardly suggest that Gaza is more secure or that its population should be convinced by what the international community has to offer.
At the end of the day, this resolution, as many before it in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will be judged by results, not by its good intentions. The plan’s vagueness about its objectives or the path to achieving them leaves too many doubts about the political will and readiness to invest the diplomatic, intellectual, and physical resources needed to translate them into reality. To start from the end, there is no ironclad pledge of a two-state solution, but instead it sets out a series of conditions that, if fulfilled, may be “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
Hardly a convincing incentive, as it suggests that even if the Palestinian Authority is reformed and Gaza’s redevelopment gets underway, Palestinian self-determination “may” lead to a process which could “maybe” lead to a Palestinian state. To make things worse, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet colleagues have repeatedly said that they will never agree to a Palestinian state, while those who voted for this resolution offered no serious condemnation of the Israeli leadership for its intransigence.
There is also a justified concern that the UN resolution, in departing from custom, fails to mention previous resolutions on the issue, thereby denying it the historical context and legal framework established by the UN in its efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Failure to mention resolutions such as 242 and 338, which are seminal for the notion of peace based on “land for peace,” leaves open to doubt whether this is the defining principle of a future agreement as understood by the authors of this resolution. Moreover, unlike Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned the construction and expansion of settlements — one of the biggest, if not the major obstacle to a lasting peace — there is no mention of this in Resolution 2803. Continuity and consistency are essential for resolving such a prolonged and stubborn conflict, and they are missing on this occasion.
One of the particularly disturbing aspects of this UN effort — unwittingly, but more likely intentionally — is the removal of the agency of the Palestinians to determine their future. Creating a Board of Peace is one thing but leaving it with no clear mandate is entirely different, especially since there is no clear pathway to empowering a Palestinian leadership. There is no clear pathway to empowering a Palestinian leadership.
Much of the language regarding the responsibilities of the board is that of a transitional administration, which facilitates the establishment of another transitional body, a Palestinian technocratic committee from the Gaza Strip, responsible for the day-to-day running of the territory’s civil service and administration. Palestinians are highly suspicious of words such as “interim” and “transitional,” and for good reason, as they have seen in the past that such terms bring them no closer to their aspirations to an independent state — and in many cases offers no improvement in their human or civil rights in the meantime. In a world saturated with crises and other challenges, there is a risk that as the situation becomes relatively calm, attention will turn elsewhere, leaving Palestinian statehood once again an unfulfilled aspiration.
And then there is the urgency of establishing an International Stabilization Force, with powers to stabilize the security environment in Gaza, including “the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.” Hamas is adamant in opposing its disarmament, and in any case, it is an open question whether it will give up all weapons. This aspect is a major deterrent for Arab and Muslim countries from sending troops to join this operation, as it may result in a confrontation with Hamas and other militant groups, and possibly with Israeli troops as well. With such a small population and a politically explosive situation, being part of such an operation has serious operational risks that might also become reputational ones, domestically and internationally. To make this resolution a success, the UN Security Council must move rapidly to address the lack of clear timetables for Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza, ensuring security on both sides of the border, and supporting Palestinians as they reform their institutions, and unifying the West Bank and Gaza under one governing body elected by the people of both territories.
Despite its faults, the UN proposal could de-escalate the security situation in Gaza and allow reconstruction to begin. However, regrettably, the resolution completely ignores the situation in the West Bank. More positively, the shift in Washington’s position over the past few months about the future of Gaza and the possibility of Palestinian self-determination is significant. It has gone a long way, and this should not be discounted. Therefore, it was important that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reminded President Donald Trump during his recent visit to Washington that there must be a clear path toward a two-state solution to advance the US leader’s aspiration to expand the Abraham Accords. It was a timely reminder that translating the UN resolution into regional peace and security requires an end to fudging or delaying the Palestinian issue, while moving with a clear timetable towards a two-state solution.
**Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg

Little substance as COP30 sidesteps key decisions
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/November 29, 2025
COP30 in Belem, Brazil, was marketed as the moment when global climate diplomacy would finally move from promises to delivery. Instead, it revealed how the world can gather 80,000 people in the Amazon, produce pages of decisions, announce dozens of initiatives, and still walk away without the one thing that matters: a credible plan to cut emissions fast enough to maintain warming near 1.5 C. Despite a record-setting year in which global temperatures hit 1.55 C above pre-industrial levels, the summit again became a study in delay. Essential decisions were postponed, watered down, or outsourced to future work programs. For a process now three decades old, this pattern raises a difficult question: Why do these meetings keep coming up short when the problem grows more dangerous every year?
The clearest measure of underperformance lies in the numbers. By the time COP30 ended, 119 countries had submitted new climate plans for 2035. Together they account for 74 percent of global emissions, but their proposals reduce emissions by less than 15 percent of what is needed by 2035 to keep 1.5 C within reach. Put differently, countries promised only one-quarter of the reductions required for even a 2 C world, and a tiny slice of what is needed for 1.5 C. The UN had already warned that the world remains on track for 2.3-2.8 C of warming even if every new pledge is fulfilled. That projection alone should have forced countries into uncomfortable but necessary decisions. It did not. The political failure was most visible in the fight over fossil fuels. Early momentum behind a global road map to transition away from coal, oil, and gas attracted more than 80 supporting countries, from the EU to small island states, and even such unexpected voices as Australia and South Korea. But opposition from China, India, Russia, and others ensured that any reference to fossil fuel phase-out vanished from the final text. The Brazilian presidency’s proposed “global mutirao,” intended as the centerpiece of the summit’s outcome, sidestepped the root cause of warming altogether.This omission matters because previous summits had at least included language recognizing the need to shift away from fossil fuels. Leaving that out at COP30 signals a retreat from the ambition built since Paris. Moreover, the summit’s main negotiated outcome will get the world nowhere near the 1.5 C pathway, particularly when the words “fossil fuels” do not appear once in the final package. The summit’s host tried to compensate. Brazil announced that it would independently draft global roadmaps on fossil fuels and deforestation in partnership with willing countries. These will be presented at COP31. But outsourcing core climate decisions to coalitions of the willing is itself a mark of failure. The UN process exists precisely because climate action cannot depend on voluntary clubs. In another indicator of failure, countries adopted a package of 59 indicators meant to track global progress, but the list emerged only after a last-minute overhaul by the Brazilian presidency. Most of the scientifically grounded proposals prepared over two years were replaced, leaving behind a sort of “Rube Goldberg,” overly complicated arrangement that many negotiators considered unworkable.
Finance more broadly suffered a similar fate. The highly anticipated “Baku to Belem road map” that was supposed to explain how the world will mobilize $1.3 trillion annually for climate action by 2035 was barely discussed and ultimately only “noted” in the final decision. For vulnerable countries facing rising debt, weaker currencies, and shrinking aid budgets, such an outcome signals that the growing financing gap will remain largely unaddressed. COP30 demonstrated what happens when key priorities are buried under procedural caution.
The complete absence of the US from COP30 affected the dynamics in the room as well. With Washington reversing climate policies at home and declining to send even a symbolic delegation, traditional negotiating patterns shifted. China filled the void, but in ways that hardened divisions. Beijing promoted its clean technology exports, yet joined others in blocking stronger multilateral commitments on fossil fuels, complicating its role as the world’s biggest supplier of low-carbon solutions.
If there was one domain where COP30 did deliver, it was symbolism. The Amazonian setting brought attention to nature, Indigenous activism, and the broader need for fairness in climate action. Over 2,500 Indigenous participants attended, and Brazil launched a long-term forest finance facility with $6.7 billion in initial pledges. But even these wins came with limits: Indigenous groups, despite their numbers, had limited access to the negotiating spaces that mattered most, while fossil fuel-linked delegates outnumbered them more than four to one in the main venue. This imbalance reflects a deeper issue: those most affected by climate extremes often have the least influence over global decisions. Nowhere is this more evident than in North Africa and the broader Sahel. These regions face some of the fastest warming on Earth, about 1.5 times the global average, along with recurring droughts, more intense heatwaves, and accelerating desertification. Countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger all confront rising water scarcity, falling agricultural yields, and expanding food insecurity. Yet their negotiating power remains limited. When countries with the most severe climate impacts cannot shape decisions that determine their survival, the legitimacy of the system weakens. Worse yet, COP30’s decisions on adaptation indicators, finance, and resilience barely mentioned contexts of fragility or conflict, even though Sahelian and Horn of Africa countries sit at the intersection of climate stress and political volatility. The Belem Declaration’s focus on hunger and poverty failed to acknowledge displaced or conflict-affected people, even though many reside in some of the most climate-exposed environments in the world. The outcome of COP30, therefore, reflects something bigger than one disappointing summit. It is the next iteration of a pattern: a global process hoping that incrementalism will somehow solve a problem that is accelerating. Each year countries ask for more time, more consultations, more reviews. Meanwhile, global emissions continue to rise, and millions face perilous conditions. Clearly, the world does not suffer from a shortage of knowledge or tools; it suffers from a shortage of political courage. Repeated summitry without meaningful results is wasteful and erodes trust. Communities in climate-exposed regions cannot wait on slow-drip diplomacy that seems more focused on managing disagreements than preventing catastrophe. They need clear commitments, faster finance, and real accountability, none of which COP30 provided in sufficient measure. The challenge heading into COP31 is simple: Produce outcomes that match the scale of the threat. That requires confronting the core drivers of warming, creating predictable finance for adaptation and resilience, and elevating the voices of those living with the harshest consequences. COP30 predictably demonstrated what happens when these priorities are buried under procedural caution and political red lines.
Hafed Al-Ghwell is senior fellow and program director at the Stimson Center in Washington and senior fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. X: @HafedAlGhwell

Turkiye emerges as key winner from climate summit
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/November 29, 2025
The COP30 summit in Brazil brought a climate deal agreed in overtime last week. However, the real winner of the event may have been Turkiye, which emerged, unexpectedly, as the surprise host of COP31. Many people expected that Australia would host the conference next year following a powerful bid with multiple Pacific Island nations. This would have been the first time the Asia Pacific had held the summit since COP13 in Indonesia in 2007. However, the Australia and Pacific Island bid was defeated by Turkiye, which staked a claim to hosting the summit after it was sidestepped in a deal a few years ago which allowed the UK to host COP21 in Glasgow. Until the last moment in Brazil last week, neither Ankara nor Canberra backed down in their applications, and as the location is decided by consensus, a compromise deal was ultimately required that will see Antalya host the event, with Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen becoming COP31 president-designate. The Australian government claims this is a good result for the country. This is not least as the powers of the COP presidency are wide ranging, including those of managing the COP31 negotiations, appointing co-facilitators, preparing draft texts, and issuing the final decision. Moreover, as part of the Turkiye-Australia compromise deal, there will be a pre-summit meeting next year to be held in the Pacific. This will be designed to allow small island and low-lying coastal states in the region to promote their agenda around the need for urgent climate action. The news about Turkiye aside, COP30 provided little in the way of political drama. The mood was more defined by disappointment over the wider terms of the last-minute deal. Concerns particularly center around the failure to deliver a so-called road map for ending fossil fuel use. This would have been built from the commitment at COP28 in Dubai that the world must “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.” In Brazil, more than 80 nations called for such a road map for the ending of fossil fuels, including the 39 small island and low-lying coastal states across the world which form the Alliance of Small Island States. Yet, the COP30 final agreement includes no such plan. This led to Colombia seeking — after the closing gavel — to object to the deal, which should be agreed by consensus, claiming that their concerns had not been recognised by COP30 chair Andre Correa do Lago.
A similar scenario played out at COP29 in Azerbaijan last year. Then, it was India which was incandescent at the deal being passed through so quickly, claiming that Global South nations were not allowed to voice dissent.
Fast forward one year to the conclusion of COP30, however, and India — on behalf of the so-called BASIC countries group of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China — had a different stance. It praised do Lago’s chairing, a relatively rare voice of support for his work as exhausted delegates sought a final deal in the overtime period.
As part of the Turkiye-Australia compromise deal, there will be a pre-summit meeting next year to be held in the Pacific. Overall, the COP30 outcome underwhelmed, rather than met expectations. This was true even though a complete collapse of the talks was avoided which had appeared a possibility as the summit went into overtime. Part of the reason for the disappointment is that COP30, like COP15 in Paris, and COP26 in Glasgow, had high importance attached to it. This is not least given that Brazil also chaired the G20 last year which meant it had an unusual two-year window of opportunity to shape outcomes.
With Turkiye now belatedly assuming the hosting of COP31 — this decision was scheduled to be decided last year at COP29 — that nation and Australia’s energy minister have little time to prepare. So, it will require a remarkable, Herculean effort for there to be major breakthroughs in Antalya, and perhaps in Ethiopia for COP32. This despite the diminishing window of opportunity for policymakers to meet the goals of the Paris deal. Key reasons why COP talks are becoming harder to conclude successfully include the changing macro-external context, which Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Simon Steil called ”stormy political waters.” This includes growing geopolitical divisions that go well beyond Global North-Global South schisms to include the rise of intensifying battle between fossil fuel producers and consumers. Moreover, there are few, if any, quick wins left now amid a wider breakdown in the previous international consensus that had existed about tackling climate change. There is also growing tension within the world community between those who produce fossil fuels, and the now almost triple digit number of countries that want to see a clearer road map toward ending the fossil energy era.This issue almost caused COP30 to collapse last weekend, just as at last year’s summit in Azerbaijan. At the meeting, it was not only India that complained; there was also a last-minute walk from the Alliance of Small Island States.
Taken together, COP30 was a disappointment for many nations, notwithstanding the major challenges it faced. While Turkiye is a key winner, it now faces the huge task of organizing COP31 next year with little lead time for such a huge event.
**Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

Selected Face Book & X tweets for November 28/2025

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