English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 07/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12/42-48: "The Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says to himself, "My master is delayed in coming", and if he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and put him with the unfaithful. That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. But one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded."

Titles For Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 06-07/2026
The Sixth Anniversary of the Beirut Port Explosion By The Terrorist Hezbollah: The Crime of the Century and the Obstruction of Justice/Elias Bejjani/August 04/2026
The 81st Lebanese Army Day: A Shackled Leadership, a Cowardly Authority, and a Homeland Held Hostage by Hezbollah’s Occupation/Elias Bejjani/August 01/2026
Video link & text of an interview with writer and director Youssef Y. El Khoury
Video link and interview transcript with Dr. Zeina Mansour—Lebanese researcher, academic, and writer
Overnight strikes on Burj al-Shemali, Mansouri and Majdalzoun wound 8 people
Israel reports troop deaths as Lebanon talks underway in Rome
UNIFIL says Israel fired 113 projectiles on Lebanon Wednesday
Hezbollah bloc slams authorities 'continued policy of submission and surrender'
No progress on 'pilot zones' amid conflicting reports on captives
What was discussed on third day of Lebanon-Israel talks?
Rights groups decry Israeli killing of journalist Amal Khalil as 'war crime'
Journalist Christina Assi to be honored at International Press Freedom Awards
Hormuz: Iran Wants to Impose its Rules of the Game on Trump/Michel Touma/Levant Time/August 06/2026
Sheikh Naim, the State's Monopoly on Violence Begins at Ali al-Taher/Najib Zwein/Levant Time/August 06/2026
Lebanon-Israel Talks Yield No Results as Issue of Captives, Pilot Zones Top Agenda/Beirut/Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Washington Faces Task of Freeing the 'Framework Agreement' From Hezbollah, Netanyahu's Time-Buying/Beirut: Mohamed Choucair/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Syrian Leadership-Hezbollah Dialogue Efforts Face Hurdles Over War Legacy, Regional Balances/Beirut: Paula Astih/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Will Positive Signals Raise the Prospect of Direct Damascus-Hezbollah Talks?/Souad Jarous/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Lebanon, Syria Activate Security Coordination Against Terrorism, Smuggling/Youssef Diab/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
What is Required of the Governance in Lebanon?/Colonel Charbel Barakat/August 07/2026

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 06-07/2026
Iran, Oman 60-day Hormuz reopening deal announcement imminent: Sources
Trump clashed with Hegseth after feeling ‘misled’ about arms supply amid Iran war: Report
Coalition embodies international recognition of need to protect maritime security, Al-Maliki says
Intelligence indicates Iran, proxies preparing attacks on Saudi Arabia: Senior source
Houthi missile attacks kill 58 Saudi-backed Yemeni govt forces
Houthi attacks wound 11 in Saudi Arabia after deadly strike on Yemen troops
Board of Peace prepares construction contract for stabilization force base in Gaza
Two killed, 13 injured in Jaramana blast, Syria says
Iran Says Close to Hormuz Plan with Oman, but Reopening Depends on US
Iran, US say Strait of Hormuz deal close but one or both would have to back down
Rear Admiral Abdullah bin Salem Alshehri Appointed to Lead Multinational Maritime Coalition
Oil Jumps $3 as Iran Reviews Bill to Ban US, Israeli Vessels from Hormuz
Did Hamas Mislead Israel Over Deaths of its Commanders and Operatives?
Pakistan's Prime Minister, Army Chief to Visit Saudi Arabia

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 06-07/2026
Bribing Hamas Will Not Bring Peace – It Will Finance The Next War/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/August 06, 2026
De la guerre entre les États à la guerre civile/Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/06 Aout/2026
From Inter-State War to Civil War/Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/August 06/2026
Erdogan’s Iraq play: A bigger game than oil/Sinan Ciddi and Bridget Toomey/Washington Examiner/August 06/2026
Syria’s Break With Russia Must Go Beyond Oil/Ahmad Sharawi/Policy Brief-FDD/August 06/2026
The Iran War’s Forgotten Captives: Sailors Trapped in the Arabian Gulf/Peter Eavis and Jenny Gross/The New York Times/August 06/2026
Could a US-Iran deal over Hormuz reshape global shipping and the rules of international trade?/ALEX JAMES/Arab News/August 07/2026
Selected Face Book & X tweets on August 06/2026

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 06-07/2026
The Sixth Anniversary of the Beirut Port Explosion By The Terrorist Hezbollah: The Crime of the Century and the Obstruction of Justice
Elias Bejjani/August 04/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/132851/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2obIBOSX9gA
(Isaiah 33: 01) Woe to you, destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, betrayer, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed.
On the sixth anniversary of the Beirut Port explosion, we look back at August 04/2020—a dark day that witnessed one of the largest non-nuclear catastrophes in modern history. This horrific blast resulted in the deaths of over 200 people, thousands of severe injuries, the displacement of hundreds of thousands, and the transformation of half of Lebanon’s capital into a crippled city overflowing with destruction and ruins.
First: The Criminal Nature of the Cargo and Its Regional Uses
The Beirut port explosion was not a coincidence or mere administrative negligence, but rather the inevitable result of storing about 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate for years without the bare minimum of safety standards or regard for human life. Multiple international and local intelligence and judicial reports have confirmed the following:
The Connection to the Syrian Regime and Hezbollah: Investigations showed that the shipment arriving on suspicious vessels was largely intended for uses beyond the local market. Parts of this ammonium nitrate—similar to materials imported through convoluted methods by the Syrian regime with logistical support from Hezbollah—were used to manufacture the barrel bombs that destroyed Syrian cities and claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians.
International Networks and External Evidence: European investigations and security agencies (particularly in Germany, Cyprus, and Britain) revealed that Hezbollah cells were involved in storing similar explosive materials or linked ammonium nitrate shipments in European countries to carry out terrorist operations, reflecting the cross-border nature of the party’s logistical and financial activities tied to Iran’s Quds Force.
Second: The Course of the Explosion and Evidence of Hezbollah’s Responsibility
Technical data and security testimonies consistently indicate that Hezbollah exercised de facto security and administrative control over the port facilities (specifically Warehouse 12 and its surroundings) through a network of loyal officials, corruption, money laundering, and smuggling operations maintained for years to serve its military and financial power.
When the disaster struck, the threads of truth gradually began to untangle regarding who brought these materials in and who protected their storage, prompting the party to use various methods of intimidation to prevent any uncovering of the facts.
Third: Assassinations and Direct Intimidation to Conceal the Truth
Hezbollah and its security apparatus resorted to a series of direct assassinations and systematic intimidation to silence anyone possessing technical or security information regarding the port and its shipments, most notably:
Assassination of Security and Technical Cadres: Such as the assassination of retired port customs colonel Mounir Abu Rjeili, retired brigadier general Joe Skaff, and photojournalist Joe Bejjani, who was assassinated in cold blood outside his home in the town of Kahaleh after documenting sensitive data related to the site.
Direct Threats to Investigators: Led by prominent Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa, who stormed the Palace of Justice and delivered clear, explicit threats of terror and intimidation to former investigator Fadi Sawan and current Judicial Investigator Judge Tarek Bitar, using the well-known phrase (“Qashtilina,” meaning the removal of the judge by force and coercion).
Obstructing Justice through Force of Arms and Political Vacuum: The party escalated its obstruction of the investigation by refusing to lift immunities, launching political slander and intimidation campaigns, targeting the judiciary continuously, and ultimately freezing the sessions of the judicial investigator through obstructive lawsuits and political-security maneuvers. This completely paralyzed the Lebanese judiciary and protected wanted ministers, deputies, and former security officials affiliated with its axis.
Fourth: The Cry of the Victims’ Families and the National Stance
On this painful anniversary, the Committee of the Families of declarative Beirut Port Explosion Victims holds continuous protests in front of the Emigrant statue and judicial headquarters, raising pictures of loved ones who fell victim to militia-backed crime, negligence, and corruption. These families embody Lebanon’s living conscience, demanding an end to the dominance of weapons and intimidation over the Lebanese judiciary, the completion of investigations with absolute transparency, and the accountability of everyone involved—whether through importation, storage, cover-up, or obstruction.
Conclusion
"Give glad tidings of killing to the killer, even if after a while, and give glad tidings of poverty to the adulterer, even if after a while."
In short, the Beirut port explosion was not a mere accidental incident or natural disaster, but rather a full-fledged terrorist crime resulting from the dominance of an illegitimate weapons system over state capabilities and vital ports. Lebanon cannot rise, nor can a secure and stable future be built, unless the cycle of impunity is broken, the judiciary is freed from the grip of intimidation, and the whole truth is revealed to the public so that every criminal and negligent party receives a just punishment.
The author, Elias Bejjani, is a Lebanese expatriate activist
Author’s Email: Phoenicia@hotmail.com
Author’s Website: https://eliasbejjaninews.com

The 81st Lebanese Army Day: A Shackled Leadership, a Cowardly Authority, and a Homeland Held Hostage by Hezbollah’s Occupation
Elias Bejjani/August 01/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156378/
On the 81st anniversary of the Lebanese Army, a heartfelt salute goes out to the military institution—its ranks and personnel—and a thousand mercies upon the souls of its righteous martyrs who offered their blood as pure sacrifices on the altar of the Land of Cedars.
However, on this national day, no free and sovereign Lebanese can stand idly by without raising their voice high, ringing out like the voice of John the Baptist in the wilderness, to strongly condemn the inaction and cowardice of the political and military leadership that paralyzes the army’s role and prevents it from performing its supreme duty to liberate Lebanon from the Iranian occupation represented by Hezbollah.
From this perspective, today’s congratulations are exclusively for the personnel and soldiers, while it is a scathing indictment—free of complacency, subservience, or blindness—directed at the military leadership, the President of the Republic, and the Council of Ministers.
The Lebanese Army possesses competence, capabilities, and courage, but its role is sidelined and restricted because its political and military leadership remains subservient to the hegemony of the Iranian occupation and its local tools (the Amal-Hezbollah Shiites dualism). This enemy not only targets Lebanon as a whole, but also takes the esteemed Shiites community hostage, abducting it to serve the absurd, hallucinated, and suicidal project of Iran’s mullahs.
Accordingly, all free people in Lebanon and the diaspora are called upon today to:
*Raise their voices in condemnation, using all available local, regional, and international means, against the inaction of both the political and military leadership.
*Demand immediate action from the leadership to either fully perform their constitutional duties to liberate the land, or resign immediately.
As for the poetic, parrot-like glorification of the army, and turning a blind eye to the tutelage and occupation system that shackles it and prevents it from implementing international resolutions and extending state sovereignty over the entirety of the national territory—this is a disgrace, a crime, and an unforgivable sin.
The author, Elias Bejjani, is a Lebanese expatriate activist
Author’s Email: Phoenicia@hotmail.com
Author’s Website: https://eliasbejjaninews.com

Video link & text of an interview with writer and director Youssef Y. El Khoury
An important interview in which deeply and from a critical, sovereign perspective Youssef El Khoury addressed the futile Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, the hesitant and hostage-like stance of the state-that-is-not-a-state dominated by Hezbollah, and its shameless disregard for the fate of our displaced people in Israel and the Lebanese identity of the border Christian villages. It is a state detached from the realities of the ground, promoting the narratives of the banned terrorist Iranian Hezbollah.
The interview was conducted by journalist Walid Freiji from the Lebanese Forces' Voice of Lebanon radio station.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156475/
August 6, 2026
Note: Summarized, transcribed, structured, titled, and formulated by Elias Bejjani with absolute freedom.
Main Headlines of the Key Topics Addressed by Director Youssef El Khoury During the Interview
Rome Negotiations and Their Futility: El Khoury considered the ongoing negotiations between the Lebanese and Israeli sides in Rome to be "pointless" and confusing, because the Lebanese state is negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah while there is no state of war between Lebanon and Israel. He noted that everything happening serves either Hezbollah's interests or the goal of severing Lebanon from Iranian influence.
The Field Reality in the South: El Khoury strongly warned against dangerous geographical changes on the ground, pointing out that the Israeli army is paving roads and infrastructure in the South (such as the Adaisseh and Ali Al-Tahr axes). In his analytical view, this mirrors the 1982 scenario of imposing a buffer zone and solidifying the Israeli presence.
The Plight of the Displaced and Besieged: With sadness and anger, El Khoury touched upon the suffering of the residents and those besieged in the eastern and western sectors and border villages. He criticized the state's failure—operating essentially as Hezbollah's state—to secure a special status for them, and highlighted ongoing warnings regarding the risk of residents not returning and the demographic shift in the region.
Responsibility for Tunnels and the Political System: El Khoury held the Shiite Duo (Amal and Hezbollah), the Lebanese state, and UNIFIL responsible for digging the tunnels and storing weapons. He questioned the absence of the state and affirmed that a large portion of these weapons was used internally rather than to confront Israel.
Statements by Sheikh Naim Qassem: El Khoury criticized the statements made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, including his attack on President Joseph Aoun and his readiness to meet the new leadership in Syria (Ahmed Al-Sharaa). He viewed this as a blatant contradiction given the massive human losses Hezbollah suffered in Syria.
Table of Main Interview Topics
The Futility of Rome Negotiations and Lack of Purpose
El Khoury described the negotiations as useless since they take place between a state not at war with Israel (Lebanon) and an armed faction (Hezbollah) operating outside the state.
He sharply criticized the Lebanese delegation's recent suspension of its sessions in Rome due to ongoing threats and field evacuations (such as in Al-Mansouri).Using facts and evidence, he confirmed that the only gain for the American and Israeli sides from the ongoing negotiations is detaching Lebanon from Iranian influence and alignment.
Field Realities, Road Construction, and the Buffer Zone
El Khoury revealed extensive bulldozing, road construction, and paving operations in southern villages (from Adaisseh through Al-Hamra up to Ali Al-Tahr). He argued that this road paving recalls the 1982 scenario of establishing a "buffer zone" and linking Israeli settlements to southern Lebanon. He warned of the dangers posed by the geographical situation and the continued destruction of border villages.
The Suffering of the Besieged and Christian Villages in the South
El Khoury shed light on the suffering of residents and trapped individuals in the eastern and western sectors, as well as the Druze and Christian border villages. He criticized the lack of any official action to secure a special status for these people, warning of the risk that southern residents may not return and the demographic threats facing Christian villages.
The Tunnels File and System Complicity
He questioned how Hezbollah's massive, jihadist, Iranian-backed terrorist tunnels were built right in front of everyone (the state, the army, and UNIFIL) over the years using massive funds that could have been invested in schools and hospitals. He affirmed that a large part of Hezbollah's Iranian arsenal was never meant for Israel, but rather for internal use, holding the entire political system responsible for covering up this disgraceful and shameful reality.
Hezbollah's Stance and the New Leadership in Syria
El Khoury strongly criticized Sheikh Naim Qassem's attack on President Joseph Aoun, accusing him of acting as a partisan party rather than a unifying figure.
He ridiculed Hezbollah's bizarre readiness to open up and sit with the new leadership in Syria (Ahmed Al-Sharaa), comparing the scale of Hezbollah's losses in its wars with Israel to the colossal losses it sustained in Syria under various contradictory slogans.

Video link and interview transcript with Dr. Zeina Mansour—Lebanese researcher, academic, and writer
The Interview ddresses the current grim and occupied reality in Lebanon across all local, regional, and international dimensions. The discussion highlights the absurdities of those practicing politics and governance driven by fluctuating commercial and narcissistic motives.
The New Equation: Land in exchange for weapons—either you give up your weapons and keep your land, or you keep your weapons and lose your land!
Note: Summarized, transcribed, structured, and formulated with absolute freedom by Elias Bejjani
August 6, 2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156463/
Interview conducted by Suroyo TV Lebanon (the Syriac Satellite Channel office)
Key Headlines Highlighted in the Interview
The Beirut Port Blast Tragedy: The paralysis of the judiciary, the absence of accountability, and the turn toward divine justice after losing faith in earthly justice.
The Financial and Economic Collapse: The theft of depositors’ funds and the framing of Riad Salameh as a “scapegoat” under an undeclared financial general amnesty.
The Framework Agreement and the Historical Opportunity: An assessment of the U.S. mediation, the shift toward the “land for weapons” equation, and the path to a peace formula with Israel.
The Turkish and Regional Role: Turkey’s stance as a political and security guarantor, and warnings regarding the dangers of jihadist factions entering through the Syrian border.
U.S. Strategy and the Trump Administration: The economic dimensions, domestic pressures, and Gulf pressures linked to the regional conflict with Iran.
Experimental Zones and Verification Mechanisms: The complexities of disarmament in southern Lebanon and the joint coordination mechanism between the Lebanese and Israeli armies under U.S. sponsorship.
Detailed Content by Sections:
1. The Anniversary of the Beirut Port Blast and the Lebanese Judiciary Crisis
Dr. Zeina described the anniversary of August 4 as a dark day and a stain of shame on the Lebanese system, representing the culmination of Lebanon’s centenary and a repetition of past disasters, likening the blast to a non-nuclear Hiroshima catastrophe. She criticized the performance of the Lebanese judiciary, stating that if Judge Tarek Bitar—or any judge—is unable to work because their hands are tied, they should resign and leave the position to someone else rather than letting the file gather dust in drawers. She pointed out that responsibility for the explosion is collective, involving security and ministerial figures who monitored the file (across the Ministries of Interior, Public Works, Economy, Intelligence, the Army, and General Security). However, parliamentary and ministerial immunities block accountability, turning Lebanon into an unprotected country living under the law of the jungle that forces its people into emigration. She affirmed that the victims’ families have lost faith in earthly justice and are now awaiting divine justice, demanding fair material compensation for their immense losses in lives and breadwinners.
2. The Financial Collapse and Embezzlement of Depositors’ Funds
Dr. Zeina compared what happened to depositors’ funds and the theft of 170 to 180 billion dollars to an “undeclared financial general amnesty,” noting that former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh was made into a sole “scapegoat,” despite the existence of an integrated network behind this grand theft. She noted that an occupied Lebanon relies on deceit, fraud, and trickery across multiple historical milestones—starting from the civil war, through the banking system, down to the storage of tons of ammonium nitrate—all occurring without any actual responsible official being held accountable.
3. The Framework Agreement and Dealing with the Israeli Conflict
Dr. Zeina considered the “Framework Agreement”—despite its flaws and criticisms—to be a historical opportunity and a U.S. mediation effort to escape the historical impasse of Lebanese politics and end an 80-year conflict, stressing the necessity of holding onto it and not sabotaging it. She presented a clear equation based on “land in exchange for weapons,” meaning that whoever wants to reclaim their land must surrender their weapons; otherwise, the Israeli forces will not withdraw, and stability will not return to southern Lebanon and northern Israel (where about 100,000 settlers live, compared to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese along the yellow line). She explained that Israeli ambitions focus primarily on establishing a demilitarized security buffer zone in southern Lebanon and Syria to ensure Israel’s national security and stop the launching of rockets.
4. The Turkish Role and Warnings Against Jihadist Factions via Syria
The discussion addressed the sensitive role played by Turkey as a guarantor of the political and security situation in Damascus, in coordination with Gulf sponsors and Russia, alongside its membership in NATO. Dr. Zeina warned of the grave danger of transitional, jihadist, and takfiri multi-national factions (Chechen, Uzbek, Uyghur, and others) entering under the supervision of Turkish intelligence. She cautioned that any friction between these factions and Lebanese communities in the Bekaa or Akkar could ignite a new civil war and drive the Lebanese to sympathize with Hezbollah once again in order to confront them. She emphasized that President Joseph Ceyroun (Aoun) and the military leadership (headed by Commander Rudolph Haykal) must adopt a firm, unified stance toward achieving a genuine peace agreement and fully restricting and dismantling weapons to prevent the imposition of external solutions or the repetition of time-wasting, dual-stance policies.
5. U.S. Strategy and Regional/International Pressures
Dr. Zeina pointed out that U.S. President Donald Trump faces dual domestic pressures, including economic inflation and rising oil prices driven by fears of the Strait of Hormuz closing, in addition to the midterm elections scheduled for November and his political base’s need for victories. She noted Gulf pressures on the U.S. administration to avoid an open war that would shake the Gulf’s economy and threaten the security of its maritime corridors, alongside military challenges concerning a shortage of defense systems (Patriot) and the protection of deployed regional bases. She affirmed that Trump is not a random or Hollywood-style figure as some portray him, but rather manages well-studied plans to re-engineer global power balances, energy pathways (oil, gas, and green hydrogen), and control over vital chokepoints.
6. Experimental Zones and Disarmament Verification Mechanisms
Dr. Zeina clarified that the most prominent obstacle in the “experimental zones” concerns the verification mechanism to ensure they are entirely free of weapons and Hezbollah elements following their withdrawal and the entry of the Lebanese Army. She explained that the Israeli position is clear, unambiguous, and insists on conducting its own visual and on-the-ground documentation, alongside reports written by senior U.S. officers within the joint coordination room between the Lebanese and Israeli armies, to ensure genuine disarmament and prevent a repeat of past failed agreements.

Overnight strikes on Burj al-Shemali, Mansouri and Majdalzoun wound 8 people
Associated Press/August 06/2026
The Israeli army launched strikes overnight into Thursday on Burj al-Shemali, Mansouri and Majdalzoun, wounding four people. Artillery shelling also targeted the areas of Mansouri, Majdalzoun and Haddatha, the National News Agency said, while troops detonated houses and buildings in Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh.The escalation comes after two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in southern Lebanon in the first Israeli deaths since the implementation of a shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah in June. The Israeli military said Thursday that four other soldiers were seriously wounded. The deaths had been reported by Israeli media a day earlier. An Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the army's policy, said that "an explosion was detonated" when the soldiers entered a site in the village of Majdalzoun and that the nature of the explosive was under review.
There was no immediate statement from Hezbollah. A strike Wednesday on Tebnine killed one person and wounded 12, after Israel issued a call for residents of the village of al-Mansouri to flee — the first such warning Israel has issued in Lebanon for weeks. The Israeli army said it began striking south Lebanon in response to what it described as Hezbollah's violation of the ceasefire. Meanwhile in Rome, Lebanese and Israeli negotiators met to discuss implementation of a June 26 deal under which Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw from areas they occupy in southern Lebanon and allow the Lebanese army to take control, in exchange for Hezbollah's disarmament. Wednesday's talks ended early due to the escalation on the ground. The talks were set to resume Thursday. A shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah has largely held since June 20, but Israeli forces have continued to occupy swaths of southern Lebanon and to carry out periodic airstrikes and shelling inside the Israeli-declared Yellow Zone. The talks in Rome have focused on implementation of "pilot zones" where Israeli forces would withdraw and the Lebanese army would take control. Implementation began last month with an initial pilot zone in an area that wasn't occupied by Israeli forces but had previously sustained Israeli fire. The Lebanese army entered the town of Zawtar al-Gharbieh and some civilians returned, although many came only to find their homes destroyed and left again. A diplomat familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly said earlier this week that Lebanon had asked for the new pilot zone to be either in the town of Khiam or Bint Jbeil. Both areas saw heavy fighting in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war and are currently occupied by Israeli forces.But U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa suggested ahead of the three-day talks that no new pilot zones would be immediately implemented, saying that "moving too quickly risks jeopardizing the very civilians this process is meant to protect."

Israel reports troop deaths as Lebanon talks underway in Rome
Agence France Presse/August 06/2026
Israel reported on Thursday its first military fatalities in southern Lebanon in more than a month, after carrying out fresh strikes despite ongoing U.S.-backed talks in Rome aimed at ending hostilities. The military identified the two reservists, who were killed in combat on Wednesday, as Major Harel Birenstock, 34, and Sergeant Major Tamir Vaknin, 33, of the 2855th Battalion, 55th Brigade. The deaths were the first Israeli fatalities reported in southern Lebanon since June 28. The Israeli strikes, accompanied by the first evacuation warning in weeks, came as the United States led diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon in Rome aimed at putting an end to hostilities, with Beirut seeking Israel's phased withdrawal from the south. "In response to a blatant violation of the ceasefire by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, the IDF has begun conducting precise strikes in southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement, shortly after telling residents to evacuate the town of Mansouri in the south. Lebanese state media said one person died and 11 were wounded in a separate strike. In Rome, Israel requested that the day's talks with Lebanon end three hours early, a source in the negotiations told AFP, saying the head of the Israeli delegation, U.S. ambassador Yechiel Leiter, had blamed alleged "misleading leaks" by the Lebanese side. But the talks were expected to resume on Thursday for a third and final day. In previous U.S.-sponsored talks in June, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a framework deal that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon's south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in test areas known as "pilot zones". This week's negotiations are the seventh round. In its first such warning since June, the Israeli military on Wednesday told the residents of Mansouri: "In light of Hezbollah's violations of the ceasefire agreement, the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to act against it with force.""For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move north," the military's Arabic-language spokeswoman, Ella Waweya, posted on X.The U.N.'s humanitarian agency had said just the night before that more than 800,000 people displaced by earlier fighting in Lebanon had begun heading back home following the recent lull in violence, though more than 360,000 remained displaced.
'Shame, humiliation' -
The town of Mansouri, located around nine kilometers south of Tyre and 10 kilometers north of Israel, and its surroundings were subjected to several Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in recent weeks despite the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel that took hold in June.
The town's municipality told residents on June 22 that they could return, but asked them to avoid the part of the town that fell within Israel's so-called "security zone" in southern Lebanon. The "security zone" designates a strip of territory where Israeli forces continue to operate that runs around 10 kilometers deep inside southern Lebanon along its border with Israel. A U.S. State Department official had told AFP that this week's discussions would "include expanding the pilot zone process, resolving all outstanding border issues, and working on a comprehensive peace and security agreement". As the delegations met in Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani spoke with his counterpart from Iran, Hezbollah's main patron, and called on Tehran to halt the group's operations.Tajani, in a post shortly before the Israeli strikes, voiced hope that the talks would "yield concrete results". Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that the direct negotiations would bring "nothing but shame, humiliation" and successive concessions for Lebanon. Hezbollah has repeatedly rejected the direct talks and refuses to surrender its weapons. Violence in Lebanon has decreased since the Lebanon-Israel deal and the signing in June of a preliminary U.S.-Iran agreement on the Middle East conflict. But Lebanon continued to report intermittent Israeli strikes and shelling, as well as detonations and demolitions in southern villages. Since the war between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in early March, Israel's military has lost 38 soldiers and one civilian contractor.

UNIFIL says Israel fired 113 projectiles on Lebanon Wednesday
Naharnet/August 06/2026
U.N. peacekeepers continue to observe “daily violations of Lebanese airspace and military activities on the ground” and “yesterday’s 113 projectiles launched by IDF (Israeli army) are the highest recorded by UNIFIL since 21 June,” the U.N. force said on Thursday.
“While violence remains significantly lower than in previous months, the overall situation remains fragile. Peacekeepers continue monitoring and reporting developments to the Security Council, maintaining their operational tempo, and engaging with parties to help reduce tensions,” UNIFIL added. “Commitment to Resolution 1701, dialogue and coordination remain essential to de-escalation and key to restoring full stability in south Lebanon,” it said. The Israeli army launched strikes overnight into Thursday on Burj al-Shemali, Mansouri and Majdalzoun, wounding four people.Artillery shelling also targeted the areas of Mansouri, Majdalzoun and Haddatha, the National News Agency said, while troops detonated houses and buildings in Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh. The escalation came after two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in southern Lebanon in the first Israeli deaths since the implementation of a shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah in June. The Israeli military said Thursday that four other soldiers were seriously wounded. The deaths had been reported by Israeli media a day earlier. An Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the army's policy, said that "an explosion was detonated" when the soldiers entered a site in the village of Majdalzoun and that the nature of the explosive was under review. There was no immediate statement from Hezbollah.A strike Wednesday on Tebnine killed one person and wounded 12, after Israel issued a call for residents of the village of al-Mansouri to flee — the first such warning Israel has issued in Lebanon for weeks.

Hezbollah bloc slams authorities 'continued policy of submission and surrender'
Naharnet/August 06/2026
Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc on Thursday condemned what it called Lebanese authorities’ “continued policy of submission, surrender, and humiliating negotiations” with Israel, which is pressing on with its “killing, bombing, bulldozing, and destruction.”Lebanese authorities “are continuing their meetings with enemy representatives in Rome, disregarding all the grave violations and the enemy's failure to adhere to any of the ceasefire obligations,” the bloc lamented, in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.“It seems authorities are determined to adopt a policy of tolerance and good faith toward the enemy despite all its blatant crimes against people and property,” the bloc decried. "In light of all these blatant and scandalous developments, we call on authorities to take decisive action and halt negotiations with the enemy in order to stop the series of concessions that have provided neither security nor peace, and have brought nothing but further losses and the erosion of rights and sovereignty to Lebanon and the Lebanese people," the Loyalty to Resistance bloc urged.

No progress on 'pilot zones' amid conflicting reports on captives
Naharnet/August 06/2026
No progress has been made in the Rome talks regarding the expansion of the so-called pilot zones, especially since the discussion is focused on the political aspect, Baabda Palace sources told Al-Jadeed television on Thursday. “The Lebanese delegation has several plans on this subject, including the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh,” the sources added. “Serious discussions have begun regarding the pilot zones, and the Israeli side requested a presentation of the zones to examine the surrounding geographical and other circumstances,” the sources said. Separately, the sources noted that “there is a positiveness in dealing with the captives' file, and work is underway to involve the International Committee of the Red Cross in the matter.”“The discussion on the captives' file was divided into two parts: the first concerns international law governing prisoners, and the second relates to the exchange of prisoner lists, which is difficult for Lebanon because it does not possess these lists,” the sources added.Moreover, the Baabda sources told Al-Jadeed that Wednesday’s escalation in the south was not raised at the Rome meeting, but rather through the mechanism adopted since October 27.
Sources following up on the negotiations meanwhile told LBCI television that Lebanon is demanding that a distinction be made between prisoners captured during fighting and others when their homes were inspected, adding that the latter should be swiftly released.
The sources added that Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh is one of the proposed pilot zones.As for captives, the sources told LBCOI that “no progress has yet been made on the issue” and that “Israel is raising the issue of Lebanese Jews who went missing in Lebanon” during civil war.

What was discussed on third day of Lebanon-Israel talks?
Naharnet/August 06/2026
A preliminary date for a new round of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel has been set for September 1 and the U.S. side pledged to follow up on the issues of captives and the border with both sides during this period, sources following the negotiations told LBCI television on Thursday, after the two sides concluded the third and last day of the seventh round of talks.“There is no new progress on the pilot zones. Lebanon is insisting on a new zone, while Israel insists on verifying the first two zones,” the sources said.Discussions were meanwhile held as to starting work on drafts for a security agreement concerning the border, its arrangements, and the legal framework for this agreement, whether through the United Nations or the United States, the sources added.“A shortlist of those who will oversee (disarmament in pilot zones) has been reached, and there is a determination to solidify the ceasefire. It was also agreed to resort to the Security Council to seek a new resolution that would establish a U.N. framework for the post-UNIFIL period,” the sources said. As for the file of Israeli-held Lebanese captives, the sources said that what was exchanged were preliminary lists from the Lebanese side concerning prisoners and missing persons, while the Israeli side presented a list of the names of missing and killed Lebanese Jews. “Lebanon insisted on beginning with the release of the first batch of (Lebanese) civilians,” the sources said.
“The Lebanese delegation's main political demand focused on achieving a comprehensive cessation of hostilities, including a halt to detonations, but the Israeli side did not agree to it,” the sources added. Baabda Palace sources meanwhile told Al-Jadeed TV that “a geographical survey of the occupied territory was completed on maps in preparation for preparing a schedule of pilot zones” and that “further discussions have been postponed pending a decision at the political level.”Lebanon for its part reiterated its insistence on a “comprehensive ceasefire” and was promised a response through American mediation, MTV quoted Baabda sources as saying.

Rights groups decry Israeli killing of journalist Amal Khalil as 'war crime'
Agence France Presse/August 06/2026
Rights groups said Thursday that an Israeli attack in south Lebanon that killed reporter Amal Khalil and wounded another journalist earlier this year was an apparent "war crime".
The attack took place in the village of Al-Tiri on April 22, days after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and Hezbollah. Khalil, a 42-year-old reporter for Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, and freelance camerawoman Zeinab Faraj had taken refuge in a building after an Israeli strike hit a vehicle travelling in front of theirs. The building was subsequently attacked, and while Faraj was rescued, Lebanese authorities accused the Israeli army of obstructing efforts to save Khalil while she was still alive. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Lebanese rights group The Legal Agenda on Thursday released the findings of separate investigations into the attack. HRW said the Israeli strikes "included apparently deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, which would make them war crimes". Amnesty decried a "direct attack on civilians which should be investigated as a war crime". Both groups said the Israeli army "knew or should have known" that the pair were civilians, noting Israeli drones were present at the attack site. The Legal Agenda said its investigation found that the Israeli military's actions "constitute war crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law".
The Israeli army at the time said it struck a vehicle "that had departed from a military structure used by Hezbollah", and that "subsequently, the structure from which the individuals had fled was also struck".It denied its forces prevented rescue teams from reaching the area.
Amnesty said the Israeli army told it that "the incident underwent a preliminary review, and relevant lessons were implemented accordingly", adding that it "regrets any harm caused to journalists".Khalil was a veteran correspondent for Al-Akhbar and had consistently reported from south Lebanon, both after Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 by attacking Israel, and during a previous conflict in 2023-2024.According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, "15 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel" in Lebanon since October 2023. That month, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six others were wounded in an Israeli attack, including AFP journalists Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have a leg amputated. In November, Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and videographer Rabih al-Maamari were killed in Tayr Harfa, alongside local contributor Hussein Aqil. In October 2024, Al Mayadeen videographer and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda and Ghassan Najjar and Al-Manar videographer Wissam Qassem were Killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a marked compound housing media workers in Hasbaya. In March 2026, Al-Manar news anchor Mohamad Sherri was Killed in an airstrike in Zuqaq al-Blat, Beirut. Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni and Freelance videographer Mohammad Ftouni were also killed that month in Kfarhouna. Amnesty's Heba Morayef said that "the impunity enjoyed by Israeli forces for the killing of journalists and other civilians in Lebanon over the past three years has enabled the Israeli military to continue with its unlawful air strikes, including direct attacks on civilians".

Journalist Christina Assi to be honored at International Press Freedom Awards
Agence France Presse/August 06/2026
AFP journalist Christina Assi, who lost a leg in an Israeli strike while reporting from the Lebanese border, will be honored at the International Press Freedom Awards, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. In October 2023, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six others were wounded, including AFP journalists Assi and Dylan Collins, while covering the conflict near the Israeli border. An independent AFP investigation concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area inside Israel.
"Despite being the most well-documented attack on journalists by Israel on record, nearly three years on, no one has been held accountable," the CPJ said in a statement announcing the honorees ahead of the November 19 event in New York. "Since the attack, Assi has campaigned for justice for Abdallah's killing, advocated for journalist safety, and supported a rehabilitation program for people with similar life-altering injuries."Two strikes hit the group of journalists in quick succession as they were working near the border village of Alma al-Shaab. AFP's findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. Other journalists who will be honored alongside Assi include Hungary's Szabolcs Panyi, who investigated former prime minister Viktor Orban, and Colombia's Estefany Rodriguez, who was detained by U.S. immigration officers while working in March. Myanmar's Sai Zaw Thaike, a photojournalist with the independent Myanmar Now outlet, who was arrested in 2023, while covering the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, will also be decorated. Carlos Dada, the Salvadoran journalist who co-founded El Faro, Central America's first digital newspaper, will receive the 2026 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. "This year's awardees exemplify the determination and courage of journalists worldwide," said CPJ Chief Executive Jodie Ginsberg. "They have endured targeting, imprisonment, exile, and surveillance for simply reporting the news. It is an honor to recognize their commitment to documenting the truth."

Hormuz: Iran Wants to Impose its Rules of the Game on Trump
Michel Touma/Levant Time/August 06/2026
The Iranian mullah regime, and more specifically the radical faction represented by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, continues to seek control over the Strait of Hormuz crisis by dictating its own terms and sidelining the United States from ongoing negotiations—indeed, outright denying Washington any role in the emerging solution. To achieve this goal, Tehran's decision-makers negotiated the proposed settlement exclusively with the Sultanate of Oman, taking care to insist that no dialogue is taking place with the US. Even more strikingly, pushing its arrogance and open contempt for the American president even further, the Iranian regime declared on Wednesday morning that 'the agreement with Oman has been postponed due to threats made by the United States.'
Tehran is thus dealing with the US Administration as a 'victor'—not only seeking to impose its own rules of the game, but deliberately treating its 'enemy' in a humiliating manner, interpreting President Donald Trump's hesitations and wavering as a sign of weakness it intends to exploit.
In this context, the local outlet al-Janoubiya, which reflects the Lebanese Shia opposition movement hostile to Hezbollah, is reporting information drawn from the Iranian press that once again confirms the existence of a rift within the Iranian regime—and, more notably, reveals that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been sidelined from the ongoing negotiations.
Indeed, a senior source at Iran's Foreign Ministry stated on Wednesday that 'no visit by the Foreign Minister or the Speaker of Parliament (the principal Iranian negotiators) is planned to Pakistan or Qatar' (the main mediators between the US and Iran).
At the same time, al-Janoubiya also reports that a senior figure within the regime's radical wing allegedly declared that if Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian submits his resignation once again, it will be accepted immediately.
This atmosphere within Iran surrounding the negotiations over the management of the Strait of Hormuz, and Tehran's stubborn insistence on keeping the US out of any solution, cast serious doubt on the solidity and credibility of the agreement the regime has negotiated with Oman.
An authorized Iranian source stressed on Wednesday evening that the Iran-Oman agreement 'does not mean the Strait of Hormuz will become safe' and 'does not mean the strait will be fully reopened'!
In practical terms, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi indicated that evening that the agreement negotiated with Oman involves 'a different management model from the one that has been in place for sixty years.' The spokesman further specified that, at Tehran's request, the Sultanate is prepared to change 'the entry and exit corridors for commercial vessels.' The question now is whether President Trump will accept the rules of the game as defined by the regime's radical wing—especially given that, at the same time, the Houthis, the Pasdaran's Yemeni allies, continue to escalate their campaign in the Red Sea against Saudi Arabia.
The Houthi spokesman announced on Wednesday evening that the militia had targeted 'a Saudi oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden with a ballistic missile.'Earlier in the day, a British source had also reported an attack off the coast of Yemen against a commercial vessel.
These attacks came after President Trump had declared in the afternoon that he would hold Iran responsible for any Houthi attack against Saudi ships.
In any case, Minister Araghchi stressed, in the context of the talks with Oman, that any agreement with the sultanate regarding the Strait of Hormuz will need to be approved by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Yet the Iranian president declared late in the evening that "contact with the Supreme Leader is extremely difficult at this stage"…
The Lebanese file
It was against this particularly murky backdrop, fraught with unpredictable consequences, that the second day of the seventh round of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel took place on Wednesday, in a more positive atmosphere than the day before.
This was announced late in the day by sources close to Baabda, who indicated that the discussions had resulted in the formation of three committees tasked with political, military, and border demarcation issues between the two countries.
It is on this last point that the most notable progress has been recorded. The Baabda sources noted that the Lebanese delegation presented a detailed and well-documented study on the subject, and the American representative paid tribute to the position put forward by the Lebanese side in this regard.
The other subject discussed between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations was the identification of a third party that would be responsible for ensuring the absence of any Hezbollah militia presence in the pilot zones evacuated by the IDF and taken over by the Lebanese army.
Israel is said to oppose a role for France in this regard. However, observers note that the Italian Foreign Minister held a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, and separately, a senior Italian officer met in Beirut with the chief of staff of the Lebanese army — fueling speculation that Italy could be chosen as the third party tasked with ensuring strict compliance with the terms of the framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel.
In any case, Wednesday afternoon's session was adjourned ahead of schedule, at the request of the American delegation, "due to developments on the ground," a State Department official said early in the evening.
Bkerké backs negotiations with Israel
To close this diplomatic chapter, it should be noted that following its monthly meeting held at Bkerké — as customary, every first Wednesday of the month — the assembly of Maronite bishops issued a communiqué in which the prelates expressed their full support for the negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, under American auspices, with the aim of achieving a "full withdrawal of the Israeli army from South Lebanon and the return of residents to their villages (…)". Significantly, the Bkerké communiqué explicitly stresses that the path of negotiations with Israel being pursued by the Lebanese authorities must continue "away from attempts to tie this process to foreign agendas" — a barely veiled allusion to the Iranian regime's desire to take control of the South Lebanon card. On the ground in South Lebanon, Wednesday, August 6, 2026 was a deadly day. It began with the explosion of an improvised device in the village of Majdel Zoun, in the Tyre district. The blast killed two and wounded seven in the ranks of the Israeli army, one of them critically. Following this explosion, the IDF issued a communiqué strongly accusing Hezbollah of having violated the ceasefire in Lebanon and announcing that retaliatory strikes would be carried out in the South. In fact, a drone attack was carried out against the town of Tebnine, killing one person and wounding 12 others. At the same time, the forces of the Hebrew State announced that they had destroyed an underground infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in the village of Srebbine (Bint Jbeil district), where significant quantities of weapons and ammunition were seized.

Sheikh Naim, the State's Monopoly on Violence Begins at Ali al-Taher
Najib Zwein/Levant Time/August 06/2026
Before anything else, Sheikh Naim, you must understand that all Lebanese are paying today for your political recklessness, your blind submission to Iran, and your unilateral decisions that dragged Lebanon into wars neither its people nor its State chose or approved.
Those who brought the country to this tragic reality and allowed the Israeli occupation to return to parts of Southern Lebanon are not those striving today to save the country. They are those who submitted to Iran’s orders and unilaterally declared war, outside the framework of the State, its institutions, and its sovereign decision-making. Those who threw the South into an open confrontation and exposed the Lebanese people to destruction and displacement are the ones who dragged Lebanon into a war serving the Iranian project, not those who are now working to pull the country out of its crisis and restore its institutions. Those striving to save what remains of the homeland are President General Joseph Aoun and the Prime Minister, who are working to restore the State’s sovereign authority over national decision-making and to pull Lebanon out of the cycle of wars.
A clear example is the President’s proposal to place the Ali al-Taher hill under the control of the Lebanese Army, a proposal that you rejected even though it had been accepted by the Israeli side. The question today is not about the strategic importance of the hill, as that is beyond dispute. The real question is why you refuse to hand it over to the Lebanese Army.Is it because it constitutes the highest observation point overlooking vast areas of Southern Lebanon, giving whoever controls it a decisive advantage in surveillance and the direction of fire? Is it because its military infrastructure, fortifications, and tunnel network represent years of strategic investment, making its transfer to the Lebanese Army the loss of one of your most important assets on the battlefield? Or is the real reason that handing it over to the Lebanese Army would, in practice, amount to acknowledging the principle that the State alone should possess arms, and that military decision-making belongs exclusively to the legitimate authorities? Whatever the answer, the paradox remains striking. If the choice is between handing the site over to the Lebanese Army or seeing it destroyed by Israel, how can the Israeli option be regarded as the lesser evil? And how can the destruction of a Lebanese position by the enemy be preferable to placing it under the authority of the Lebanese Army? You should not lose sight of one fundamental fact, Sheikh Naim: you lead an armed militia operating outside the framework of the Lebanese State’s legitimacy. No speech and no campaign of accusations of treason can alter that reality. The State’s exclusive right to bear arms is not merely a political slogan. It is a sovereign and constitutional principle from which there can be no turning back, and it will ultimately be implemented, however long it takes.
Finally, the direct negotiations undertaken by the Lebanese State, in accordance with its sovereignty and national interest, are not a concession. They are an instrument for restoring rights and the least costly path toward liberating territory, securing the release of prisoners, and rebuilding what the wars imposed on Lebanon in the service of projects unrelated to the national interest have destroyed.

Lebanon-Israel Talks Yield No Results as Issue of Captives, Pilot Zones Top Agenda
Beirut: Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
The third round of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Rome ended without tangible progress, as Lebanon pressed for concrete steps to implement the so-called framework agreement.
Lebanese officials acknowledge that any breakthrough will take time and require sustained negotiating effort. The talks unfolded amid continued Israeli escalation in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese delegation made clear that cementing the ceasefire was the immediate priority, alongside securing phased Israeli withdrawals from southern areas — the essential gateway to any further implementation of the agreement.
Captives
Sources familiar with the talks said the process remained difficult and that the seventh round produced no clear results, apart from reviving discussions on the land border. They told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Rome sessions were divided into three parallel tracks: military, political, and legal-border. The format was designed to address technical and political issues simultaneously, with the issue of captives taking center stage. Lebanon faces a major obstacle: there is no official, complete list of prisoners or missing persons. Some disappeared during the war, while others are known to be held by Israel, including civilians and Hezbollah members. Lebanon called for a clear distinction between civilians detained from their villages and homes, whose immediate release it demanded, and Hezbollah captives. The sources described the issue as complex but said the current round had brought a more positive approach. Work is underway to involve the International Committee of the Red Cross in line with humanitarian standards and international law. Zawtar al-Sharqiya proposed after Khiam and Bint Jbeil rejected. The proposed pilot zones also dominated the political track. Lebanon again demanded full compliance with the ceasefire, while negotiations continued for a third straight day over new areas to test the agreement’s implementation mechanism. The Lebanese delegation proposed Zawtar al-Sharqiya after Israel rejected earlier proposals involving Khiam and Bint Jbeil. The talks, however, ended without a final agreement. Zawtar al-Sharqiya had already been listed as a pilot zone in the previous round, alongside Froun and Srifa. So far, Israel has withdrawn only from Zawtar al-Gharbiya.
The verification mechanism remains unresolved
The sides also continued discussions over who would monitor and verify implementation in the pilot zones.
No final formula has been agreed upon.
The sources said some countries had been ruled out, including the United States, while others, including Italy, were under consideration.
Government pushes southern recovery plan
Alongside the negotiations, the Lebanese government is pressing ahead with efforts to accelerate recovery in the south. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam chaired a meeting to review return and recovery efforts. Salam was briefed on the latest work in southern areas, particularly progress in survey operations and field measures. He also reviewed the temporary crossing project in Qaaqaiyat al-Jisr, which will reconnect the Nabatieh and Bint Jbeil districts. He instructed the relevant authorities to speed up the project, citing its importance in easing movement, supporting the return of residents to their villages and restoring economic and social ties between the two areas. The move reflects the state’s effort to match the negotiating track with action on the ground, reinforce stability and support the gradual return of life to southern Lebanon.

Washington Faces Task of Freeing the 'Framework Agreement' From Hezbollah, Netanyahu's Time-Buying
Beirut: Mohamed Choucair/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Hezbollah has found little response from Lebanon's political forces to Secretary-General Naim Qassem's call for dialogue and now appears increasingly isolated. A Lebanese cabinet source told Asharq Al-Awsat that any party genuinely seeking engagement with its political opponents would not simultaneously escalate political attacks against President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
According to the source, Hezbollah has found virtually no support for its campaign against the two leaders, including from its ally, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has instead been working to improve relations with both. While many members of Berri's parliamentary bloc reportedly view the proposed Framework Agreement as a waste of time and resources, they are instead placing their hopes on the still-suspended Iranian-US Memorandum of Understanding, pending the resumption of negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
The source said Qassem's call for dialogue has effectively been ignored by Hezbollah's opponents as long as the group continues to insist on retaining its weapons and rejects placing all arms exclusively under state control.
Hezbollah, the source added, continues to act as though its unilateral decision to support Gaza and Iran, and to independently determine questions of war and peace, did not trigger a political and security upheaval in Lebanon, while refraining from responding to ongoing Israeli violations and attacks.
The source also noted that Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the explosion in the southern Lebanese town of Majdal Zoun, which killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others after they entered a booby-trapped house.
The decision may have been made on Berri's advice, the source suggested, unlike Hezbollah's earlier claim of responsibility for launching six rockets in retaliation for Israel's assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, despite Qassem's earlier pledge that Hezbollah would not intervene on Iran's behalf.
The source questioned whether the group would maintain its current policy of denying Israel a pretext for escalating its military operations.
In the same context, the cabinet source said Hezbollah has refused to comment publicly on the explosion, while a source within the Shiite Duo, the alliance of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, did not rule out the possibility that Israel itself was behind the incident. The cabinet source expressed hope that Hezbollah would continue to exercise restraint.The source argued that both Israel and Hezbollah are seeking to buy time, albeit for different reasons. Israel, the source said, is using military pressure on Lebanon to buy time until the October 27 Knesset elections, without offering concessions that would facilitate implementation of the Framework Agreement. Lebanese officials accuse Israel of obstructing its implementation, although Washington has so far appeared to understand Lebanon's position. That assessment could change, however, if the United States increases pressure on Israel to produce a breakthrough following the seventh round of negotiations, hosted in Rome for the second time. Lebanon is pinning its hopes on direct intervention by President Donald Trump to achieve such a breakthrough. By contrast, Hezbollah continues to pursue what the source described as a strategy of patience, refraining from responding to Israeli violations despite Qassem's warning that the situation would not be allowed to return to what it was before March 2. The party views the seventh round of negotiations as another exercise in buying time, a position that aligns with some lawmakers affiliated with Berri.
They argue that progress should be measured by a timetable for Israeli withdrawal and the expansion of "pilot areas" under Lebanese Army deployment to include occupied towns and villages, provided that the ceasefire and cessation of hostilities are firmly established to allow displaced residents to return home. Hezbollah, however, is said to be placing all of its political bets on Iran, treating the Iranian-US memorandum as a preferable alternative to the Framework Agreement, which many of its lawmakers have openly called to scrap. The source questioned whether Hezbollah and Israel would continue buying time for opposing strategic objectives or whether US intervention could break the current deadlock in the Rome II negotiations. Trump, the source noted, had promised President Aoun during their meeting in Washington that the United States would provide full support for implementing the Framework Agreement as the only viable path to separating Lebanon's political track from Iran's and preventing the country from remaining hostage to both sides' delaying tactics.The source also argued that Qassem's renewed call for dialogue is itself another means of buying time. Otherwise, the source asked, what purpose does the initiative serve while Hezbollah simultaneously attacks Aoun and Salam and has largely cut off communication with its political opponents, including many former allies who distanced themselves after the group's intervention in support of Gaza and Iran?
The source recalled that Hezbollah had previously pledged to turn the page on past disputes to facilitate a new political dialogue, but said such talks appear futile as long as Qassem insists on maintaining his current positions while expecting others to negotiate on that basis, without acknowledging that Lebanon's involvement in regional conflicts fundamentally altered the country's political and security landscape. According to the source, Qassem's attacks on Aoun and Salam reflected his frustration over the government's decision to withdraw the accreditation papers of Mohammad Reza Sheibani, Iran's ambassador-designate to Lebanon. Hezbollah had reportedly hoped a compromise would allow Sheibani to assume his post before August 25, when the courtesy entry visa granted to him upon arrival at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport expires.
The source added that Hezbollah had already suspended direct dialogue with Aoun, relying instead on occasional contacts through presidential adviser Brigadier General André Rahal, despite assigning MP Hassan Fadlallah responsibility for presidential relations—a role previously handled by Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc. No meeting has taken place between Aoun and Fadlallah, the source said, adding that the latter instead launched political attacks against the president, effectively closing the door to reviving dialogue.
As a result, Aoun now holds Hezbollah responsible for the breakdown in communications, arguing that any party seeking dialogue should refrain from making accusations against the head of state. The source said Hezbollah's campaign has only deepened its political isolation by pushing most Lebanese political forces to rally behind Aoun. The party, the source added, miscalculated in assuming that pressure on the president would persuade him to reverse the government's decision regarding Sheibani's accreditation or ignore the Cabinet's ban on Hezbollah's military and security activities. Lebanon's disputes, the source concluded, cannot be resolved through political pressure but only through dialogue guided by the country's national interest. The question remains whether Hezbollah and Netanyahu will continue to buy time, or whether US pressure will push the Rome II talks toward implementation measures that restore momentum to the Framework Agreement as the only viable path for leading Lebanon out of its crises.

Syrian Leadership-Hezbollah Dialogue Efforts Face Hurdles Over War Legacy, Regional Balances
Beirut: Paula Astih/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem’s announcement in his latest appearance that the group was ready to hold a public meeting with the Syrian leadership “at a time deemed appropriate by both sides” has opened the door to questions about the background to the position. It came after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said earlier in public remarks that he had no objection to sitting down with Hezbollah for talks if doing so served the interests of Syria and Lebanon. The statements are significant because they come amid repeated remarks by US President Donald Trump about a role the government in Syria could play in dealing with Hezbollah’s weapons. Hezbollah took part in the Syrian war from 2012 and for many years in support of the former government, engaging in bloody confrontations with Syrian rebel factions that today form the backbone of the new Syrian leadership. In his latest remarks, Qassem said he hoped “Syria succeeds in establishing justice, remains united and drives the enemy from its territory,” adding that “a stable Syria supports Lebanon, just as a stable Lebanon supports Syria.”
Indirect contacts
The positions of al-Sharaa and Qassem appear to be a direct result of active regional mediation aimed at bridging the gap between the two sides. Political writer Dr. Qassem Kassir, who closely follows Hezbollah’s position, pointed to “continued efforts by regional countries to open channels of communication between the new Syrian leadership and Hezbollah.”Kassir told Asharq Al-Awsat that “indirect contacts have in fact taken place between the two sides over the past six months to calm tensions and try to find common ground for confronting shared challenges, foremost among them Israeli expansion in the region.”Kassir said, “What Sheikh Qassem proposed was a response to these efforts, particularly at this stage, when pressure is increasing on the Syrian leadership to intervene in Lebanese affairs, whether militarily, in security matters, or politically.”He said, “Conditions may have become more suitable for a public meeting between the two sides, particularly after the positions expressed by al-Sharaa and Qassem, with only the timing of the meeting left to be determined.”
Negotiating with the principal
Dr. Brigitte Khair, a former United Nations diplomat, said Qassem’s position toward the Syrian leadership was “linked to Tehran’s position and decision, as he implements Iranian orders.”She said his announcement that he was ready to meet and hold talks with the Syrian leadership confirmed that Hezbollah felt besieged and in crisis, particularly amid repeated US talk of assigning al-Sharaa to deal with Hezbollah’s weapons in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, as well as the failure of all attempts to smuggle weapons and drugs through the Syrian border.“That is why we see it trying to escape forward,” she said.
Avoiding an open confrontation
Dr. Maher al-Tamran, a Syrian political writer and researcher, said: “It is not easy to read Hezbollah’s announcement of its readiness for dialogue with the new Syrian leadership separately from the major transformations that have swept through the region.”“What is happening is not a reconciliation between two identical projects, but an attempt by each side to understand and deal with the new reality,” he said. “Damascus wants to establish the image of a state that controls its own decisions and sovereignty, while Hezbollah is trying to adapt to a phase in which it has lost an important part of the environment that gave it strategic depth and a broad presence in Syria.”Al-Tamran told Asharq Al-Awsat: “When Qassem announces Hezbollah’s readiness for dialogue, this reflects an awareness that continuing the confrontation with the new Damascus may not be a realistic option.”“The group, which relied for many years on a strategic relationship with the former Syrian government, now finds itself facing a new authority with a different vision of the nature of the state and its foreign relations.”“Opening channels of dialogue can therefore be understood as an attempt to reduce risks, prevent the political dispute from turning into an open confrontation and preserve some room for influence at a time when regional influence is being redrawn.”Al-Tamran said that “despite the importance of opening the door to communication, the path will not be easy because there are deep issues that cannot be easily overcome, most notably weapons, sovereignty, the legacy of the war and regional balances.”“Dialogue may therefore produce understandings on the border, preventing escalation and regulating political relations, and perhaps reshape Syrian-Lebanese relations on new foundations.”

Will Positive Signals Raise the Prospect of Direct Damascus-Hezbollah Talks?
Souad Jarous/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Prospects for talks between Syria’s new leadership and Lebanon’s Hezbollah remain limited despite public statements from both sides expressing openness to dialogue, analysts said. Any meeting would have to take place through official Lebanese channels, under a prearranged agenda and in coordination with the Lebanese authorities, conditions that do not currently exist.“The Syrian government has repeatedly stressed that its relations with Lebanese parties must go through the Lebanese authorities and their legitimate channels,” academic and politician Kamal Abdo told Asharq Al-Awsat.Relations between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah are strained over the group’s weapons and its role in the war with Israel, Abdo said.Ties between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah would therefore need to improve before Damascus could normalize relations with the group. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that there was no objection to a public meeting with the Syrian leadership when both sides considered the timing appropriate. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in June that he would not oppose talks if they served Lebanon’s interests and safeguarded Syrian interests. Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also said during a visit to Lebanon in early July that Syria would not take sides between Lebanese parties if the interests of both countries required a meeting with Hezbollah, despite the group’s past support for Bashar al-Assad. Military analyst Rashid Hourani said Damascus could agree to talks at a level of representation it would determine, but only if it believed a meeting would benefit both Syria and Lebanon. He said Syria also opposed negotiations between Lebanon and Israel taking place under military pressure that would allow Israel to impose its conditions. Weakening Lebanon in the face of Israel would also weaken Syria, he said, adding that previous methods of confrontation were no longer effective. The main Syrian priority in any talks would be ending weapons and drug smuggling across the Syrian-Lebanese border, Abdo said. Hezbollah is unlikely to surrender its influence over the border, which serves as its only overland weapons supply route through Syria. Damascus, however, regards Hezbollah’s weapons as an internal Lebanese issue for Beirut to address. Abdo said Hezbollah’s main concern was the possibility of Syrian military intervention in Lebanon under US and Arab pressure, despite repeated Syrian assurances that it had no intention of intervening. He also described Qassem’s statement as carrying a veiled warning that any Syrian intervention in Lebanon over Hezbollah’s weapons could spread instability into Syria.Hourani said possible talks would focus on two areas. The first would involve Syrian security demands, including an end to Hezbollah’s attempts to reconnect with networks along the border, particularly in Homs and Tartous, and the disclosure of weapons depots the group received from the former government inside Syria.The second would concern Hezbollah’s acceptance of Lebanese state authority, including restricting weapons to the state, enabling the Lebanese army to perform its duties and deploying it across the full Syrian-Lebanese border. Hourani said Hezbollah’s willingness to meet the Syrian government reflected weakness and an attempt to survive as it faced tighter controls on the Syrian-Lebanese and Syrian-Iraqi borders, declining supplies and growing Syrian leverage. Those pressures could push Hezbollah to accept the Syrian approach, even temporarily, he said.

Lebanon, Syria Activate Security Coordination Against Terrorism, Smuggling
Youssef Diab/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Security ties between Lebanon and Syria are shifting rapidly from sporadic contacts to a more structured coordination as both countries confront growing threats along their shared border.The change was underscored on Wednesday when a high-level Syrian security delegation visited Lebanon’s Interior Ministry for talks focused on direct intelligence-sharing and closer field coordination against networks smuggling weapons, drugs and people. The meeting followed limited and intermittent cooperation on smuggling and illegal crossings and came as Syrian authorities tightened security after thwarting attempts to move weapons into Lebanon.
Border security
Border control, counterterrorism, cross-border crime and the smuggling of weapons and drugs dominated talks between Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmed al-Hajjar and the Syrian delegation.The two sides also discussed ways to strengthen coordination between the relevant security agencies in both countries. Al-Hajjar met Syrian Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs Brigadier General Mulham al-Shantout. The visit followed a series of security measures by Syrian authorities along the Lebanese border, including the seizure of weapons shipments intended for Lebanon. Syria also closed the Abboudiyeh crossing on Lebanon’s northern border for what it described as logistical reasons, adding urgency to efforts to tighten control over crossings and curb smuggling.
Direct information-sharing
Al-Hajjar said the meeting addressed cooperation, coordination and information-sharing between Lebanese and Syrian security agencies, as well as stronger ties between the two interior ministries. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the talks focused on securing border crossings, preventing weapons and drug smuggling and combating the illegal movement of people and goods. The two sides discussed completing the reopening of land crossings, particularly at Abboudiyeh and Arida, as well as Syrian measures to facilitate the return of displaced Syrians. Al-Hajjar said the Syrian side had shown “a high level of responsiveness” on all the issues raised.
Clear communication channels
Al-Hajjar said the two sides agreed to establish a clear, well-organized communication mechanism between the Lebanese and Syrian interior ministries to ensure that cooperation goes beyond formal discussions. “I will personally follow up on this matter, particularly regarding information-sharing between the two sides,” he said. “In the past, the Syrian side would seize weapons and drugs and the matter would be reported in the media,” he added. “Now, we have begun coordination and information-sharing and have started defining the responsibilities of both the Lebanese and Syrian sides. The two countries will share security information obtained by either party.” He said weapons and drug smuggling took up a significant part of the meeting and would be followed up through high-level coordination.
Regular security meetings
The meeting lasted about three hours.In a statement afterward, Lebanon’s Interior Ministry said the talks covered relations between the two ministries, ways to develop them and steps to strengthen coordination in the shared interests of both countries and their peoples. The participants reviewed security cooperation and stressed the need for direct communication channels and information-sharing, particularly in counterterrorism, to confront common security threats. The two sides reaffirmed the importance of continuing the plan to return displaced Syrians under existing frameworks and through coordination among the relevant authorities. They discussed cooperation at border crossings, coordination against the smuggling of drugs, weapons and people, and the need to intensify joint field efforts against cross-border crime.At the end of the meeting, Lebanon and Syria agreed to maintain contact, strengthen coordination and hold regular meetings to follow up on the agreements reached.

What is Required of the Governance in Lebanon?
Colonel Charbel Barakat/August 07/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156486/
The problem of the Lebanese, both in governance and in the streets, remains identical. Despite all the changes and events taking place across the Middle East, they continue to act based on reaction and addressing immediate issues without establishing a long-term plan or strategy that looks toward the future of the nation and its components within this region.The problem of the Lebanese is that they inherited a country large enough to build a fully integrated state, bringing together various minorities that were somewhat ostracized in the neighborhood yet coexisted naturally. They possess a history of acceptable cooperation that yields prosperity whenever they become convinced of their shared destiny—a destiny summarized by stepping away from the policy of regional axes and insisting on national sovereignty and independence without meddling in crises that will reflect negatively on them.
Historically, the Arabists' attachment to Nasserist policy was a natural outcome of Lebanon joining the Arab League in 1945. This forced the country to adopt causes outside its daily issues—causes that contradicted the interests of the Lebanese people in general and specifically the faction that confronted the regime. This facilitated the dominance of the Nasserist movement, pushing the country toward confrontation and destabilization during the 1958 events. Those events were driven by the interests of Egypt and President Nasser’s regime, which was affected by the Beirut port becoming an alternative to the Suez Canal after its nationalization in 1956, leading to the war with France and Britain. That development directly opposed the interests of the Sunnis of Beirut, who had flourished by focusing on the port as a trade hub between Europe and the Gulf.
Meanwhile, attachment to the global Left led to blind support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and all its actions, which ultimately triggered the 1975 war. Kamal Joumblatt’s alignment with these organizations served only to strip the Druze of their natural role in leading the Mountain—despite having been among the founders who built and defended it. When the Maronites hesitated and feared making decisions independent of Syrian directives in 1982, the country returned to a cycle of violence. This allowed the Shiites—instead of choosing good neighborliness with Israel to protect themselves and Lebanon—to charge toward the Iran of the Mullahs and align with the Assad regime, bringing catastrophe and ruin upon themselves and Lebanon.
Today, the Americans, who are shaping the future, threaten the collapse of Sykes-Picot, which effectively means the fall of Greater Lebanon. But who will guarantee the survival of the Shiites, who left themselves no ally except the dying regime of the Mullahs in Iran? How will the Druze cope while facing discrimination inside Syria, having shed much blood to preserve their freedom of belief within the forest of Sunni-Shiite extremism in the region—where Neo-Ottoman hardliners and their offshoots have taken control in Damascus? What about the moderate Sunnis who are open to progress, cooperation, and looking toward the Emirati model to resolve issues and focus on trade—will their role fade, allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to dominate Sunni areas starting from Tripoli with the help of Erdogan’s Turkey and the Damascus group? And will Christian movements demanding a return to a form of the Mutasarrifate become more prominent?
Lebanon today suffers from a chaos of political proposals, especially in the age of social media, which airs dirty laundry before clean laundry and often drives people apart rather than together. Nevertheless, Lebanon remains a recognized state with borders and principles that were once considered a model for managing pluralistic societies worldwide—its system and laws even taught at international universities, particularly where cross-cultural issues arise. This is why Pope John Paul II called it a "living laboratory for human cooperation among civilizations." However, officials' lack of moral courage and clear, comprehensive vision—compounded by the greed and selfishness left in their souls after fifty years of occupations—makes their actions appear indecisive, lacking the boldness needed to reclaim the country and determine its future.
Here lies the primary responsibility of the Shiites, who were dissolved into Iranian imperial expansionist schemes and dreamed of leading the entire region, if not the Islamic world, with all its capabilities. Instead, like some Sunnis remnants of Ottoman rule and the caliphate theory, they sold out their country, villages, and collective memories woven over generations, exchanging them for the role of an agent or soldier in the new Persian imperial army—flattered by the history of Darius the Great or Khosrow Anushirwan, listening only to the directives of the Wali al-Faqih.
The Israelis attempted to give the Shiites of Lebanon what the Lebanese state could not allow (a form of federalism)—namely, undisputed control of the South. Their sole condition was that the border between the two countries remain sacred and inviolable. Yet they failed to appreciate the offer and fell into the trap of the "Palestinian Cause" and its offshoots. Instead of striving to improve the conditions of the people in the South and protecting the borders against any aggression, Iranian orders dictated digging trenches, fortifying homes, and preparing for repeated wars with this neighbor without restraint, dreaming that Iran would remain ready to support them even if it cost their displacement across the globe.
Greater Lebanon will fall, lamented by many, unless its leaders rise from their stupor and cease licking their own blood off the blade. The world will not wait forever, and the opportunity before them is as clear as day. The Shiites, in particular, must produce a new leadership calling for a return to the embrace of the state and the surrender of weapons as a gesture of good faith. They must then explicitly demand a permanent, unconditional peace with Israel prior to any withdrawal or reconstruction. Peace is what guarantees withdrawals, reconstruction, and long-term economic planning. Only then can whoever leads the state in Jerusalem rest easy regarding the northern front, accepting a truce, peace, a gradual return to the land, and renewed cooperation with a neighbor that seeks to maintain stability in this region and return it to the broader Lebanese fold—a fold capable of accommodating all cultures and experiences, regardless of past rejections or mistakes, provided there is genuine remorse and a commitment to moving past them.
When free Shiites rise and take control of the suffering, displaced southern streets that endure all forms of oppression, Lebanon will regain self-confidence, recovering part of its strength and initiative. The world is ready to assist when we know what we want, but it refrains from extending a hand while watching us commit daily suicide, indifferent to the consequences of political stupidity and emotional obedience to the highest bidder.
Nations are not built on wishes; they are built through action, thought, vision, and the determination to rise and recognize the path to salvation. Lebanese, unite behind what is right and reject the wrongs that have distorted our path and image. Focus on the salvation of Lebanon so it can regain its senses, cooperate with its neighbors clearly and without discrimination, and prevent anyone from using its territory to spread hatred or export terrorism. This country must be sacred, protected by the hearts of its people, remaining a beacon of cooperation, prosperity, work, and success.
What is required of the governance, therefore, is not to accommodate lawbreakers, but to support those who confront them. What is required of the army is not to stand by as a bystander while the country is destroyed, but to exercise its right to defend the people, prevent opportunists, stand as a strong barrier protecting institutions, arrest security disruptors, dismantle destructive cells, and bring their leaders to trial. Only then can the government present its proposals and solutions to major powers, demonstrating that it knows how to confront challenges and maintain control. Otherwise, meetings and agreements are useless, erased in an instant by the actions of out-of-control youths on motorcycles or groups in rigged caves.
Lebanon will not die as long as there are those who read events with sharp insight and deep understanding rather than naivety. Neighboring countries will recognize their boundaries if the government takes a firm stance, knows how to defend its people's right to security and stability, and leaves no room for anyone to use its territory to attack others or shelter subversives from any side.
A Lebanon that is free in its decision-making, steadfast in its neutrality, and capable of preventing cross-border aggression can break free from this cycle. It can reconcile first with itself, then with its neighbors and the rest of the world, building friendships in every direction. This does not require entering alliances or blocs, as the country's fabric naturally prevents bias and protects it from repeating the mistakes of the past.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 06-07/2026
Iran, Oman 60-day Hormuz reopening deal announcement imminent: Sources
Al Arabiya English/Published: 06 August ,2026
Iran and Oman have agreed on a framework for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a senior source told Al Arabiya English on Thursday, amid a lull in the fighting. An announcement could be made within days, the source said. However, the agreement reached between Tehran and Muscat still requires approval from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.The proposed Hormuz agreement would last 60 days with an aim to resume maritime traffic, the source told Al Arabiya English, stressing that the 60-day deal sought to break stalemate and start technical talks.As per the source, vessels entering the Strait of Hormuz would use the shipping lane closest to Iran while vessels leaving the strait would use the shipping lane closest to Oman.As for the mine clearance, regional sides could take part in the process procedures, the source notes.The source also told Al Arabiya English that indirect talks were taking place between Washington and Tehran through mediators, adding that the talks have entered their final stages.The source revealed that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently held two phone calls with Pakistan’s army chief Asmi Munir and that Araghchi was expected to visit Islamabad this weekend or early next week.
Pakistani officials were expected to brief Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the latest developments in the negotiations between the US and Iran, the source noted. Pakistan has acted as a mediatior in the conflict that has spilled over to the Gulf states due to Iranian attacks.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Munir will visit Saudi Arabia on August 6-8, the nation’s foreign office said on Thursday. A high-level delegation will accompany both officials, the statement added, noting that Sharif is expected to meet with MBS.

Trump clashed with Hegseth after feeling ‘misled’ about arms supply amid Iran war: Report
Al Arabiya English/06 August ,2026
US President Donald Trump reportedly expressed frustration over being misled about munition availability for the Iran war, lashing out at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a cabinet meeting last week, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The clash took place last week on the sidelines of the cabinet meeting at Camp David. According to the report, which cited two people familiar with the discussions, Trump told Hegseth that he had thought the munitions issue “had been fixed.”But according to one of the sources, the shortages, particularly in long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors, have been part of the reason Trump pulled back from launching additional massive strikes against Iran in recent days.Earlier this week, the president said that he was calling off what could have been a massive attack on Iran amid renewed tension. “In the first month of fighting alone, the US fired off more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems,” the report said. WaPo added that the US “also used more than 1,300 of the Army’s tactical ballistic missiles in the initial weeks of fighting, one US official reportedly said. The ATACMs stockpile — a short-range missile also in demand by Ukraine — is drained to the extent that there’s basically none left.”The report claimed that after Trump confronted Hegseth, the latter defended himself and blamed his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, for the shortages and for not ensuring Trump was fully apprised of the issue. “This is 100 percent fake news. Literally never happened. And President Trump has the utmost confidence in Secretary Hegseth,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was quoted as saying in response to questions from The Post. “Secretary Hegseth did not mislead anyone about our munitions posture, and he did not blame Deputy Secretary Feinberg. These claims about depleted stockpiles, internal disagreements, the Secretary’s position on Iran … are equally fictional,” the report also quoted Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell as saying.
US has massive amounts of ‘munitions’ Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, underscored that the US had “massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,” while slamming whom he described as “leakers.”He added that large amounts were being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed while defense companies were building the “largest” number of plants and factories in our country’s history. The “leakers of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought! President DJT.”

Coalition embodies international recognition of need to protect maritime security, Al-Maliki says
Arab News/August 06, 2026
RIYADH: The creation of the Multinational Maritime Defense Coalition reflected international recognition of the threats facing maritime security and freedom of navigation, Saudi Arabia’s Defense ministry said on Thursday. It also embodied a collective responsibility to protect maritime corridors and global economic interests, the ministry’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki, said. His comments came after the coalition was formed last week with the aim of protecting international shipping and energy supply routes in ‌the Red Sea region after Houthi attacks and threats. Al-Maliki said that the region and the world were facing real and emerging threats and that every nation had the right to take whatever military or political measures it deemed necessary to protect its interests and address these threats. He said that there was ongoing coordination among Red Sea littoral states to enhance the security of maritime corridors and safeguard shared interests. Al-Maliki said that the Kingdom, drawing on its experience within the Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen, had achieved significant success in neutralizing maritime threats — including countering drones, fast attack boats and naval mines. He said that maintaining maritime security was a collective responsibility that extended beyond littoral states to encompass all nations that benefited from the security and stability of maritime corridors. Protecting international shipping lanes and oil tankers was a fundamental pillar of global economic stability, he said. Al-Maliki said that terrorist acts or threats targeting maritime security impacted the entire international community, necessitating enhanced international cooperation and coordination to counter them.

Intelligence indicates Iran, proxies preparing attacks on Saudi Arabia: Senior source
Al Arabiya English/07 August ,2026
There is “credible intelligence” that suggests Iran-backed proxies and the IRGC are preparing to attack Saudi Arabia, a senior Saudi source told Al Arabiya English late Thursday. The Saudi source said there were “multiple credible intelligence reports” indicating coordination between Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to prepare attacks against Saudi Arabia.The source said the reports were particularly alarming as they come while the Kingdom continues efforts to promote de-escalation and peaceful solutions, with negotiations moving in a positive direction.Saudi Arabia will not hesitate to take all necessary measures to respond to any aggression, the source added.This comes shortly after Iraqi sources said they had information indicating that armed factions intend to launch drone attacks against “neighboring countries with drones within 48 hours.”Potential attacks may target civilian and energy facilities, including critical infrastructure, airports, and ports, the Saudi source said. According to the Saudi source, some of the intelligence gathered includes observations of missiles and drones being repositioned in preparation for potential simultaneous attacks. On US-Saudi cooperation, the source said coordination remains “very strong” at all levels, including between the two militaries.

Houthi missile attacks kill 58 Saudi-backed Yemeni govt forces
AFP/August 06, 2026
DUBAI: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis killed at least 58 government troops in missile and drone attacks on Thursday, a military source said, in one of the deadliest days of the country’s civil war in four years. The attacks come as Yemen is increasingly drawn into the US-Israeli war with Iran, with the rebels stepping up attacks against both government forces and neighboring Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and supporter of the internationally recognized Yemeni government. The attacks killed at least 58 government troops and injured dozens, according to the military source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Medical sources had earlier spoken of 38 dead.Yemen has become a new front in the Middle East war that has grown around the US-Israeli battle against Iran. A military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Thursday’s attacks on troop camps was the worst in Yemen since 2022.
Yemen’s defense ministry said in a statement that its armed forces would respond to the attacks “at the appropriate place and time.” The escalation spilled across the border on Thursday, with Saudi officials saying Houthi attacks wounded 11 civilians in the southern Najran region.

Houthi attacks wound 11 in Saudi Arabia after deadly strike on Yemen troops
Arab News/August 07, 2026
RIYADH: The Saudi-led Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen said Friday that 11 civilians were wounded in a Houthi attack on the southern border region of Najran, a day after the Iran-backed group launched its deadliest assault on government forces in Yemen since 2022.
The Joint Forces Command of the coalition said the civilians were injured late Thursday when projectiles fired indiscriminately by the Houthis struck civilian areas in Najran. The wounded included seven Saudi citizens, a Yemeni, two Egyptians and a Pakistani national. Among the Saudis were a woman and a four-year-old child who suffered second-degree burns, according to coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al-Malki. Al-Malki accused “Houthi terrorists” of deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in violation of international humanitarian law, adding that coalition forces would continue taking “all deterrent measures” to protect civilians from further attacks. The border strike came hours following a large-scale Houthi missile and drone assault on military camps in the Marib and Hadramout governorates. At least 58 government soldiers were killed and dozens wounded in the attacks, according to local sources cited by AFP, making it the deadliest strike against Yemen’s internationally recognized government forces since 2022. The coalition reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s support for Yemen’s internationally recognized government and expressed condolences to the families of those killed, while wishing those injured a speedy recovery. The attacks underscore a sharp deterioration in Yemen’s security situation after the country’s long-running conflict became entangled in the wider regional confrontation last month. The Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, abandoned a fragile truce with the Saudi-backed government after welcoming an Iranian aircraft into Sanaa, triggering a new cycle of hostilities. The group later declared a maritime blockade of Saudi ports and began targeting Saudi-linked shipping. Last month, Houthi fighters also killed 16 government-aligned troops south of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, according to medical officials. Yemen has been devastated by more than a decade of conflict since the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, sparking a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Although a UN-brokered truce reached in 2022 significantly reduced fighting, the latest attacks have raised fears that the conflict is entering a new and more dangerous phase.

Board of Peace prepares construction contract for stabilization force base in Gaza
Arab News/August 06, 2026
GAZA: The US-backed Board of Peace is preparing its first contract to build a military outpost for an international stabilization force in Gaza, proposed under Washington’s postwar road map for the enclave, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. The project involves building a temporary base for an initial contingent of 150 troops. Moroccan personnel are expected to form the first deployment, although the legal framework governing the force has yet to be completed, the report said. Last week, US President Donald Trump announced a deal for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza. According to that, the ISF would be deployed to Gaza after the completion of a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops.The construction contract is expected to be awarded to Arkel International, a Louisiana-based engineering firm that has previously carried out projects for the US government in Iraq.
A Board of Peace official said that several contracts were in the final stages of preparation but none had yet been finalized. “One prospective contract concerns facilities to support the international stabilization force, which will assist in implementing the road map’s security and governance arrangements,” the person said. But Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the US-backed plan. He said that Israeli forces would not pull out until after Hamas had disarmed and that his government had submitted amendments after receiving the initial draft. Israel’s security cabinet last week approved the deployment of an international stabilization force as part of a limited pilot program in the Rafah area but it remains unclear whether Israel has concluded the required legal agreement with the Board of Peace that would allow the force to deploy. Israel controls more than 60 percent of Gaza, including territory behind the so-called Yellow Line and additional restricted zones. The Board of Peace official told The Guardian that the planned military base would lie within 60 percent Israeli-controlled territory.

Two killed, 13 injured in Jaramana blast, Syria says
Reuters/06 August ,2026
Two people were killed in an explosion in a city on the outskirts of Syria’s capital Damascus on Thursday night, according to the country’s health ministry. In a statement carried by state news, the ministry added that 13 others were injured in the vehicle explosion.A minibus taxi exploded in the predominantly Druze area of Jaramana outside Damascus. A security source told the state-run Ekhbariya TV that the blast was caused by an explosive device planted on a vehicle, citing preliminary information.

Iran Says Close to Hormuz Plan with Oman, but Reopening Depends on US
Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Iran and Oman have agreed a route for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and were finalizing arrangements for jointly managing the strategic waterway, Tehran said Wednesday, even as fresh security incidents highlighted continued risks for regional shipping. The agreement would be a step towards reopening the key energy route, but official sources briefing Iranian media stressed that any easing still hinged on Washington ending its own naval blockade of Iran's ports, AFP reported. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted Tehran is keen for a deal to reopen Hormuz, but Iran has denied this and said it will instead make arrangements with its neighbor across the strait, Oman. "The geographical coordinates of the route envisaged by the two sides have been agreed upon and, if certain third parties do not obstruct the process, the joint statement of the two countries, containing the main considerations and points of agreement, is also in the final review and drafting stage," Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, according to state news agency IRNA. According to the report, Baqaei told journalists that talks with Oman were moving forward, but that even if an understanding was reached, it would not mean that the strait had become safe for all passing vessels. "The factors making the Strait of Hormuz insecure still exist on the part of the United States, particularly the naval blockade and other aggressive and threatening actions against Iran and its interests," he said. Highlighting the risks, the captain of an oil tanker reported hearing two explosions while transiting the strait, nine nautical miles (17 kilometers) southeast of Kumzar, Oman, Britain's maritime security agency UKMTO said on Wednesday. The crew and vessel were safe. Before the war, Hormuz carried around a fifth of the world's oil and LNG exports, and prices have repeatedly surged since the dispute over the waterway erupted, piling economic and political pressure on Washington. US Vice President JD Vance acknowledged American frustrations with the pace of diplomacy with Iran, saying negotiations would take time because of divisions within the country's leadership."It's going to be messy and it's going to take some time to get there," Vance told Fox News in an interview broadcast Wednesday. "The reality... is that number one, the Iranians are extraordinarily difficult people. Number two, they have a fractured system," he said. After imposing an effective blockade on the strait, Iran has insisted ships take a route that hugs the Iranian coast. Many vessels have instead chosen to take a southern route, close to Oman on the opposite side of the strait, occasionally coming under fire.Iran wants to control the strait and charge tolls, powers it did not exercise before the war and a development that the US would fiercely oppose. In what has become a regular pattern, Trump last week threatened to hit Iran "very hard,” potentially with attacks against civilian infrastructure, only to pull back, hinting a deal was near.
But Iran's foreign ministry denied negotiations were taking place with Washington.

Iran, US say Strait of Hormuz deal close but one or both would have to back down
Associated Press/August 06/2026
Iran said Wednesday it is in the "final stage" of drafting an agreement with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. President Donald Trump has said a deal could be announced this week. That could potentially reopen the critical waterway, ease pressure on the world economy and help bring an end to the war. But the agreement is likely to be contingent on the U.S. lifting its blockade on Iran's ports. The Trump administration has previously ruled out any deal that would cement Iran's grip over the strait, which would amount to a major loss for the U.S. and a break with global norms. Iran has insisted on some measure of control over the strait, saying it will not go back to being an open international waterway, as it was before the war. The U.S., along with Israel, launched the war on Feb. 28, citing various goals including toppling Tehran's government and ending its nuclear program. Those have not been achieved, and the conflict has devolved into a fight over the strait as Iran's assertion of control and attacks on shipping have ground traffic to a near halt. Closure of the strait, through which a fifth of the world's traded oil and natural gas once passed, has driven up the price of fuel and basic goods, roiling the global economy. Trump is also under mounting pressure to end an unpopular war ahead of U.S. congressional elections. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said that the agreement with Oman is in the "final stage" of drafting, and that a joint statement will be issued "if certain parties do not obstruct this process," apparently referring to the U.S. Regional officials tell AP negotiators have finalized a draft. Iranian and Omani negotiators have finalized the draft deal to reopen the strait and await final approval from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, two regional officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Khamenei is believed to have been wounded in the war's opening strikes and has not been seen in public since then. The officials, who were briefed on the negotiations, portrayed the potential deal as a temporary solution to the dispute over the strait. They said it is tied to an agreement reached between the U.S. and Iran in June that aimed at ending the fighting and reopening the waterway but ultimately collapsed. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said the potential deal will pave the way for the U.S. and Iran to resume negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program. Earlier, they had said the potential agreement would have ships enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman. Service fees would be charged for providing security and preserving the maritime environment, the officials said.
The U.S. has said it is strongly opposed to any arrangement that would see Iran charge fees.
Trump said a deal to reopen the strait is close
Trump was asked on Tuesday evening by reporters about a report on the Axios news site that an announcement on the strait could be made on Wednesday. "It could happen. Tomorrow or the next day," Trump said. "A lot of progress has been made." Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Wednesday that it can seem like the U.S. is not making progress in Iran, describing the effort to end the war as "messy" and that "it's going to take some time"Vance said in an interview that aired in the evening on Fox News Channel that the Iranians are "extraordinarily difficult people" and that efforts to try to resolve the war sometimes require moving backward before moving forward. Also on Wednesday, oil prices initially eased but later inched up. Brent crude, the international standard, was around $80 per barrel — still well below the levels it hit at the height of the conflict. In recent days, Trump has alternately threatened massive strikes and voiced support for diplomatic efforts.
Attacks on regional shipping continue
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed Wednesday they had fired ballistic missiles toward a Saudi oil tanker on the Red Sea off the Saudi port of Yanbu, without providing evidence. There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia. A vessel sailing in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen reported a loud explosion that happened in close proximity, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Wednesday, adding that the crew was safe. The Houthis claimed to have fired a ballistic missile at another Saudi oil tanker. A recent escalation between the rebels and Saudi Arabia threatens to reignite Yemen's civil war, which pitted the Houthis against a Saudi-led coalition supporting the country's government.In July, the Houthis announced they were closing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that leads to the Red Sea for Saudi-linked shipping. That puts additional pressure on international shipping since the Red Sea became a key alternative route for Saudi oil exports during the war.

Rear Admiral Abdullah bin Salem Alshehri Appointed to Lead Multinational Maritime Coalition
Ghazi al-Harthi/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
As part of the continued implementation of the foundational arrangements for the Multinational Maritime Defense Coalition, the Ministry of Defense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced the appointment of Rear Admiral Abdullah bin Salem Alshehri as Commander of the Coalition, a newly established Saudi-led alliance aimed at strengthening maritime security in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. Alshehri brings more than 32 years of military and leadership experience to the role, having held a series of senior command and operational positions within the Royal Saudi Naval Forces. His previous assignments include serving as Head of the Royal Saudi Naval Forces Planning, Budget and Force Development Authority, directing the Naval Supervision and Follow-up Office in the Kingdom of Spain, and overseeing the Sarawat Project, which involved the construction of five combat ships for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces. Throughout his career spanning more than three decades, Alshehri has played a prominent role in international defense cooperation and multinational military coordination, experience expected to strengthen his leadership of the coalition as additional countries continue to seek membership.He also served as Secretary of the Steering Committee for the Executive Agreement between the Saudi and Spanish Ministries of Defense, and participated in the planning and command of numerous joint naval operations, missions, and exercises. His expertise spans command and control, operational planning, and multinational military cooperation. Alshehri holds a Master's degree in Defense Policy and International Security from the Complutense University of Madrid, as well as a Master's degree in Human Resource Systems Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in the United States.
He has also completed advanced leadership programs in Higher Strategic Leadership in the United Kingdom, Command and Staff studies at Spain's Center for National Defense Studies (CESEDEN), and advanced operations training in France. During his military career, he has been awarded numerous decorations, badges, and medals.

Oil Jumps $3 as Iran Reviews Bill to Ban US, Israeli Vessels from Hormuz
Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Oil prices rose by more than $3 a barrel on Thursday on news that an Iranian parliament committee is reviewing a bill that would ban US and Israeli vessels from the Strait of Hormuz and fine violators up to a fifth of the value of their cargo. Brent crude futures gained $3.09, or 3.89%, to $82.54 a barrel by 12:37 p.m. EDT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures rose $2.49, or 3.31%, to $77.71, Reuters reported. An Iranian lawmaker said a parliament committee is reviewing a preliminary bill to ban US, Israeli and other vessels deemed hostile from the Strait of Hormuz, and fine violators of the proposed restrictions up ⁠to 20% of ⁠cargo value, according to Fars news agency. "Crude traders remain focused on the US/Iran agreements, and the longer the delays, the more prices will fade back to the upside," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. Before the Iran conflict began in late February, about one-fifth of global daily oil and liquefied natural gas supplies flowed through the Strait of Hormuz. Elsewhere, a major oil refinery in Russia's Yaroslavl region was on fire after a big Ukrainian drone attack and emergency services are working to put out the blaze, Mikhail Evrayev, the regional governor, said on Thursday.

Did Hamas Mislead Israel Over Deaths of its Commanders and Operatives?
Gaza/Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
On Aug. 2, an Israeli drone fired two missiles at a vehicle carrying three Palestinian members of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing. All three were killed, along with a civilian passing nearby. Social media accounts quickly claimed that a senior Qassam commander had been targeted. Some of the accounts were Israeli, while others were run, directly or indirectly, by Israeli intelligence, according to a Haaretz report published during the Gaza war. The early speculation centered on Nafez Sobeih, a Qassam commander. It later emerged that the strike had killed his son, Jalal, and two senior operatives traveling with him.
Security officials from Palestinian factions believed the strike may have been aimed at drawing out information about the elder Sobeih’s whereabouts and establishing whether he had been inside the vehicle. Israeli media went further, describing Sobeih as the Qassam Brigades’ new commander. Palestinian sources have neither confirmed nor denied that claim. The episode unfolded amid growing talk that Hamas has been trying to deceive Israel over the fate of commanders and senior operatives targeted in assassination attempts.Throughout the war, the Israeli military has repeatedly announced that prominent figures had been killed, only for some of them to later emerge alive. One such case occurred on July 26, when the Israeli military said it had killed Hamam Eid, a Qassam engineer involved in the manufacture and development of drones. The strike had taken place a day earlier. Eid, however, had survived. His family announced his death the following day, saying he had succumbed to his wounds. Hamas field sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that similar incidents had become increasingly common, with the Israeli military declaring commanders and senior field operatives dead while they were still alive. The sources pointed to at least two separate cases in which Israel said it had targeted commanders from the Beit Hanoun and Shati battalions. Both were later found to be alive. On July 14, the Israeli military said it had killed Yamen Obeid, an officer in the Hamas-run government whom Israel accused of serving as a Qassam operative.
Obeid had been wounded, not killed. His family announced his death 11 days later. The Hamas field sources said Israel had recruited informants to remain inside hospitals and verify the identities of the dead and wounded, particularly senior commanders and operatives targeted in strikes. They also said Israel continued to use technological surveillance tools to monitor the phones of operatives’ relatives and friends in an effort to establish whether the targets had survived. Several informants were arrested and admitted that their mission was to confirm the deaths of senior figures targeted in Israeli strikes, the sources said.
One was arrested inside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Medical Complex after trying to examine casualty lists and determine whether Qassam commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad had been killed in a strike in mid-May.
‘They were not wounded at all’
Palestinians inspect the site of a destroyed building as smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike targeting Izz al-Din al-Haddad in the Al Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 15 May 2026 EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
The Israeli blog Abu Ali Express, which publishes security reports on Israeli military operations in Gaza, has highlighted the army’s statements on Hamam Eid and Yamen Obeid, both of whom were later found to have died from their wounds rather than in the initial strikes.
A Haaretz investigation published in February 2022 said the blog was linked to the Israeli military’s Southern Command and received funding and sensitive information from it.
The blog has acknowledged that Hamas members were, in many cases, reported dead by Gaza social media accounts and the Israeli military, only to later emerge alive. Some died afterward. The pattern may point to an effort by Hamas to persuade Israel that an assassination had succeeded, allowing the intended target to continue operating under reduced intelligence scrutiny. “Some field commanders whom the Israeli military said it had assassinated are still alive,” a Hamas field source told Asharq Al-Awsat. “Some were wounded in strikes and recovered. Others were not wounded at all.”
An ‘undeclared’ war
The source described one case from June, when an apartment in a Gaza City neighborhood was bombed. Two or three days later, the Israeli military announced that it had killed a senior field commander holding an important post in the Qassam Brigades’ Gaza Brigade.
The target had survived without injury and remains alive, the source said.Palestinians walk past the rubble of residential buildings destroyed during the war, at Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, August 5, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
There were other similar cases in which the Israeli military still largely believes it eliminated its targets, the source added. The source also cited the case of a Qassam engineer who worked on electronic circuit boards used in drones, missiles and other weapons. The engineer and his family were targeted in a 2025 strike that killed several relatives. Israel announced that he had been assassinated. He had survived.Israeli intelligence discovered the truth about three months later, and he was then killed in a second attack.After the first strike, the engineer’s family and close associates were deliberately told that he had died in an effort to protect him, the source said. But he was later seen by mistake at an undisclosed location, allowing Israeli forces to track him down and kill him. The sources said the war had repeatedly played out as a hidden intelligence battle, including over the locations of Israeli hostages.

Pakistan's Prime Minister, Army Chief to Visit Saudi Arabia
Asharq Al Awsat/ 06/August 2026
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir will visit Saudi Arabia from Thursday to Saturday. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said that "although the visit comes amid escalating tensions in the Gulf, it carries significance that extends beyond the current crisis and short-term considerations."The visit will be the third since the outbreak of the US-Iran war in the region in late February this year. Prime Minister Sharif has already made two visits to Saudi Arabia within the span of a month, accompanied by the Chief of Army Staff and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. The first visit took place on March 12, during a period of heightened tensions marked by Iranian attacks targeting Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, and Jordan. The second came on April 14, during the ceasefire between the United States and Iran, when Sharif led a high-level delegation on a regional tour that also included Qatar and Turkey. The upcoming talks will mark the eighth round of consultations between the two countries, following seven rounds held last month. Those engagements also included Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi's visit to Saudi Arabia at the beginning of last month and Saudi Arabia's announcement last week appointing Dr. Rajeh Al-Buqami as its ambassador to Pakistan, reflecting growing political and security coordination between the two countries.

The Latest LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 06-07/2026
Bribing Hamas Will Not Bring Peace – It Will Finance The Next War
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/August 06, 2026
Instead of insisting that Hamas dismantle its terrorist infrastructure without conditions, international mediators now appear to be discussing a plan to pay terrorists to hand over some of their weapons and enroll them in "rehabilitation" programs.
The proposal rests on two assumptions, both of which are dangerously flawed. The first is that Islamist terrorists can be persuaded to abandon jihad (holy war) in exchange for money. The second is that those who surrender weapons will genuinely renounce terrorism.
Haniyeh's response was unequivocal. "Our principle is Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea," he declared, making clear that Hamas preferred its jihad against Israel over airports, economic development, and billions of dollars in international investment.
The obstacle was never Israel. The obstacle was Hamas. The terrorist group consciously chose war over prosperity. It preferred rockets to an airport and seaport, tunnels instead of factories, assault rifles instead of jobs, and jihad instead of economic development. Hamas rejected all these projects because it refused to abandon its ideological commitment to destroying Israel.
Anyone still claiming that October 7 was caused by economic hardship should listen to Haniyeh's admission. Hamas had a choice. It deliberately chose terrorism.
"Gaza had a genuine chance to become the crown jewel of the Palestinian people, a truly compelling model of prosperity and self‑rule." — Palestinian political analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.
According to Palestinian sources, Hamas has already begun distributing rifles to its operatives under the guise of "personal ownership." The purpose is evidently to ensure that weapons remain in the hands of Hamas members even if the group formally agrees to disarm.
Any Hamas member who receives thousands of dollars for surrendering one rifle can easily purchase another weapon through the group's extensive smuggling networks. In fact, Hamas may simply hand over obsolete weapons while using international aid money to acquire newer and more sophisticated firearms. The proposal therefore risks becoming an internationally financed rearmament program for Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
The notion that Islamist terrorists can be "rehabilitated" through financial incentives is equally detached from reality. Jihadists do not become peace activists because they receive a paycheck. Organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and ISIS are driven by ideology and religious extremism. For them, armed jihad is a divine obligation. No rehabilitation seminar can erase decades of indoctrination.
No terrorist organization should receive financial rewards for surrendering weapons that it should never have possessed in the first place.
The message sent by such proposals is disastrous. It tells terrorists everywhere that if they accumulate enough weapons and inflict enough bloodshed, the world will eventually pay them to surrender some of their arsenal.
The only acceptable outcome remains the same one envisioned before negotiations began: Hamas must unconditionally dismantle itself as both a military and political organization. Its weapons should be confiscated, not purchased or "stored." Its ideology of jihad should never be rewarded with cash. Anything less will not bring peace and security -- it will simply finance the next war.
Instead of insisting that Hamas dismantle its terrorist infrastructure without conditions, international mediators now appear to be discussing a plan to pay terrorists to hand over some of their weapons and enroll them in "rehabilitation" programs.
A recent report that US President Donald J. Trump's Board of Peace is considering paying Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip thousands of dollars in exchange for surrendering their rifles should alarm anyone who genuinely seeks peace and security in the Middle East.
If true, the proposal represents a dangerous retreat from the original objective of Trump's September 2025 peace plan: the complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and the unconditional disarmament of Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Instead of insisting that Hamas dismantle its terrorist infrastructure without conditions, international mediators now appear to be discussing a plan to pay terrorists to hand over some of their weapons and enroll them in "rehabilitation" programs.
According to KAN, Israel's Public Broadcasting Corporation, the internationally funded program would offer thousands of dollars to Gaza residents, including Hamas members, for each surrendered firearm, particularly Kalashnikov assault rifles. Participants would also be required to renounce violence and undergo future monitoring.
The proposal rests on two assumptions, both of which are dangerously flawed. The first is that Islamist terrorists can be persuaded to abandon jihad (holy war) in exchange for money. The second is that those who surrender weapons will genuinely renounce terrorism.
Hamas itself has already demonstrated why both assumptions are false. The answer came directly from the group's slain leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
In 2020, Haniyeh publicly revealed that his group had rejected an offer worth $15 billion in development projects for the Gaza Strip. The package reportedly included an airport, a seaport, industrial zones, massive economic projects, and the lifting of restrictions imposed by Israel and Egypt. The only condition was that Hamas dismantle its military infrastructure, surrender its weapons, and integrate its fighters into civilian institutions.
Haniyeh proudly admitted that Hamas rejected the offer.
"We want a port in Gaza," he said, "but as a right and not in exchange for our political principles or disarmament."
He explained that Hamas had been asked to "dissolve our military factions... retire our weaponry... and dissolve the capability of Gaza for self-rule."
Haniyeh's response was unequivocal. "Our principle is Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea," he declared, making clear that Hamas preferred its jihad against Israel over airports, economic development, and billions of dollars in international investment.
If Hamas rejected $15 billion before its October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel because it refused to abandon terrorism, why would anyone believe that paying individual Hamas members a few thousand dollars today would produce a different outcome? It will not.
For years, Hamas supporters have argued that violence resulted from poverty, unemployment, and the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh himself demolished that argument. His own words showed that the Gaza Strip had opportunities for unprecedented economic development that would have turned it into the Singapore of the Middle East.
The obstacle was never Israel. The obstacle was Hamas. The terrorist group consciously chose war over prosperity. It preferred rockets to an airport and seaport, tunnels instead of factories, assault rifles instead of jobs, and jihad instead of economic development. Hamas rejected all these projects because it refused to abandon its ideological commitment to destroying Israel.
Anyone still claiming that October 7 was caused by economic hardship should listen to Haniyeh's admission. Hamas had a choice. It deliberately chose terrorism.
"Gaza's development was blocked because the terror Islamist group turned the territory into a fortress of violence, tunnels, rockets, smuggling, and radicalization," commented Palestinian political analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib. "Gaza had a genuine chance to become the crown jewel of the Palestinian people, a truly compelling model of prosperity and self‑rule."
Another recent report makes the proposal to pay thousands of dollars to Palestinian terrorists in exchange for their rifles even more troubling.
According to Palestinian sources, Hamas has already begun distributing rifles to its operatives under the guise of "personal ownership." The purpose is evidently to ensure that weapons remain in the hands of Hamas members even if the group formally agrees to disarm.
As one Palestinian source bluntly stated, "Hamas will not disarm. Period."
That single sentence should end any illusion surrounding the proposed buyback program. Even if Hamas agrees to "store" some heavy weapons under the Board of Peace's latest roadmap, it would continue to possess tens of thousands of automatic rifles. Those rifles are more than enough to launch another October 7-style massacre.
The terrorists who invaded southern Israel on October 7 did not require tanks or fighter jets. They murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals using Kalashnikov rifles, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, and explosives. Hamas does not need heavy weapons to massacre civilians. Allowing Hamas to retain small arms means allowing it to preserve its ability to murder again.
The latest buyback proposal also ignores a fundamental reality about Islamist terrorist organizations. Money does not moderate jihadists; it strengthens them.
Any Hamas member who receives thousands of dollars for surrendering one rifle can easily purchase another weapon through the group's extensive smuggling networks. In fact, Hamas may simply hand over obsolete weapons while using international aid money to acquire newer and more sophisticated firearms. The proposal therefore risks becoming an internationally financed rearmament program for Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
The notion that Islamist terrorists can be "rehabilitated" through financial incentives is equally detached from reality. Jihadists do not become peace activists because they receive a paycheck. Organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and ISIS are driven by ideology and religious extremism. For them, armed jihad is a divine obligation. No rehabilitation seminar can erase decades of indoctrination.
The Board of Peace originally demanded what should have been obvious from the outset: complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip. Somehow, this clear objective has gradually evolved into discussions about "storing" weapons, buying them back, and paying terrorists for partial compliance. There is only one word to describe this shift: capitulation.
No terrorist organization should receive financial rewards for surrendering weapons that it should never have possessed in the first place.
The message sent by such proposals is disastrous. It tells terrorists everywhere that if they accumulate enough weapons and inflict enough bloodshed, the world will eventually pay them to surrender some of their arsenal.
The only acceptable outcome remains the same one envisioned before negotiations began: Hamas must unconditionally dismantle itself as both a military and political organization. Its weapons should be confiscated, not purchased or "stored." Its ideology of jihad should never be rewarded with cash. Anything less will not bring peace and security -- it will simply finance the next war.
**Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
**Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22773/bribing-hamas
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.

De la guerre entre les États à la guerre civile
Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/06 Aout/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156471/
https://icibeyrouth.com/articles/1340762/de-la-guerre-entre-les-etats-a-la-guerre-civile
L’échec de la diplomatie concernant l’Iran et le Liban n’est pas dû au hasard ou à l’imprévoyance de l’administration américaine. Celle-ci a d'ailleurs tout mis en œuvre pour réussir une sortie négociée des dynamiques conflictuelles intentionnelles initiées par l’Iran dès le 7 octobre 2023. La raison de l’échec est simple à scruter dans la mesure où le conglomérat iranien n’est pas prêt à se dessaisir de sa politique impériale au profit d’une diplomatie de résolution des conflits.
Le seul objectif des négociations menées de manière erratique est celui de protéger sa survie, de récupérer sa latitude manœuvrière à tous égards, de poursuivre la stratégie de militarisation des conflits à outrance, de faire payer à la communauté internationale les frais de ses guerres et leurs effets destructeurs, et de maintenir ses verrouillages au sein de l’Iran afin de casser à tout moment toute opposition et toute velléité libertaire. Sachant que la société iranienne est depuis des décennies en rébellion ouverte contre un régime meurtrier qui doit sa survie à la terreur à l’intérieur, et à la sape de la paix civile et la menace sur les plans régional et international.
Ce qui surprend, ce sont les œillères idéologiques de certaines analyses. Ces analyses s’installent dans le déni des réalités et justifient un régime manifestement opposé à la quête négociée de la paix, au nom d’une idéologie de conquête explicitement affichée par une dystopie meurtrière et ses acteurs. Les projections logistiques intermédiaires du côté américain et les manœuvres de diversion du régime iranien ne sont pas de nature à dérailler une dynamique conflictuelle hautement stratégique.
En proclamant l’échec présomptif des États-Unis, ces analyses ne font que marteler l’idée de la guerre remportée par l’Iran et la nécessité d’en prendre acte. Or, l'état de la question est loin de valider des préjugés idéologiques qui tendent à court-circuiter toute analyse exhaustive des enjeux en lice. Le régime iranien a été défait sur le plan militaire et sa volonté d’en découdre ne fait que trahir son exaspération vis-à-vis d’une réalité qui lui échappe de manière résolue.
La réactivation des plateformes opérationnelles qu’il avait créées, la politique des bombardements indiscriminés qui a visé l’ensemble des pays du Golfe, le Proche et Moyen-Orient, la poursuite de la terreur d’État tant à l’intérieur qu’à l’extérieur du pays, et le refus de se soumettre au droit international pour ce qui a trait à la gestion des voies de navigation mondiale, réitèrent sans ambages ses visées impériales. Elles témoignent aussi de son rejet catégorique des règles de la vie internationale et de sa posture résolument agonistique.
La négociation dans son cas ne correspond à strictement rien. Elle ne sert qu'à préserver ses marges de manœuvre, prolonger les hostilités, jouer les échéances électorales aux États-Unis, creuser les divisions au sein de l’alliance transatlantique, provoquer des réalignements stratégiques et alimenter les clivages idéologiques dans les démocraties occidentales. Nous sommes de part et d’autre dans un schéma de guerre par attrition et bien loin d’un scénario de résignation que rien ne justifie.
Les intentions du régime sont hautement affichées, mais son triomphalisme est loin d’être acquis. La stratégie des États-Unis, en alternant les frappes militaires et la diplomatie, envoie un message explicite au régime iranien : la cessation de la guerre passe par des accords stratégiques et sécuritaires négociés, ratifiés et dûment appliqués selon un calendrier de convenance commune.
Le cynisme et l’arrogance de la dictature iranienne reflètent un état d’esprit qui gagnerait à être cassé moyennant une politique d’érosion évolutive et concluante. Toute politique inspirée par des comparaisons fallacieuses avec les conflits de la guerre froide et ceux de l’après-guerre est déplacée, comme elle passe outre les bouleversements géopolitiques et géostratégiques et leurs incidences sur les architectures sécuritaires régionales.
Toute idée de retrait qui profiterait au régime iranien ne peut qu’alimenter la politique revancharde d’une dictature déterminée à reconstituer ses défenses stratégiques. Elle lui permet aussi d'exploiter les rivalités des blocs idéologiques, de tirer parti des pourrissements conflictuels et de s'inscrire dans la logique des conflits gelés adoptés par la dictature russe, laquelle s’est recomposée autour de ces blocages stratégiques. Or, les États-Unis ne peuvent sous aucun rapport opérer un retrait unilatéral qui bénéficierait à une dictature islamique, dont le caractère belliciste et les visées expansionnistes ne sont plus à démontrer.
Toute analyse qui entend établir des équivalences fonctionnelles entre les deux pays relève de la mystification idéologique. Reste à savoir que la stratégie à adopter est à redéfinir de manière continue afin d’assurer l’atteinte des objectifs intermédiaires et de les relier à ceux qui visent la chute du régime. Le train actuel des négociations n’est pas uniquement dysfonctionnel mais entièrement faussé par l’absence d'un protocole juridique et normatif commun aux deux régimes.
Le Liban, quant à lui, demeure otage de la politique impériale iranienne et de ses relais domestiques. La stratégie du sabotage délibéré mise en œuvre par le Hezbollah ne fait que reprendre les priorités posées par le régime iranien qui désormais dirige en direct l’action militaire du Hezbollah. Elle s’est réarticulée sur la base des “plateformes opérationnelles intégrées” jadis théorisées par Qassem Suleimani. Les réunions qui se tiennent à Rome pour la mise en application des stipulations de l’accord-cadre sont dénoncées, d’ores et déjà, par le Hezbollah. L’exécution de cet accord par le Hezbollah, qui bute sur son refus de coopérer avec l’armée libanaise, est d’ores et déjà compromise, cette dernière effectuant une lecture sélective de l’accord-cadre, alors que la guerre se poursuit au Sud-Liban. Les équivoques du pouvoir exécutif à cet endroit vont inévitablement rejaillir sur la crédibilité de l’État libanais ainsi que sur les conditions de la paix civile dans le pays. La politique de déstabilisation régionale du régime islamique iranien se poursuit à partir d’un axiome de base, celui du sabotage de la paix domestique et de la prolifération des guerres civiles comme gage de survie de la politique impériale. Quels que soient les impondérables logistiques et stratégiques, il n’est plus question de rétablir le statu quo ante. L’anéantissement du régime islamique iranien est désormais impératif.

From Inter-State War to Civil War
Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/August 06/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156471/
(Translated from French)
The failure of diplomacy regarding Iran and Lebanon is not due to chance or the lack of foresight of the American administration. In fact, it has made every effort to succeed in a negotiated exit from the intentional conflictual dynamics initiated by Iran since October 7, 2023. The reason for the failure is simple to scrutinize: the Iranian conglomerate is not ready to relinquish its imperial policy in favor of a conflict-resolution diplomacy. The sole objective of the erratically conducted negotiations is to protect its survival, to recover its room for maneuver in all respects, to pursue the strategy of over-militarizing conflicts, to make the international community pay the costs of its wars and their destructive effects, and to maintain its lockdowns within Iran to crush at any moment any opposition and any libertarian impulse. Knowing that Iranian society has been in open rebellion for decades against a murderous regime that owes its survival to terror at home and to the undermining of civil peace and threats on the regional and international levels. What is surprising are the ideological blinders of certain analyses. These analyses settle into the denial of realities and justify a regime that is manifestly opposed to the negotiated quest for peace, in the name of a conquest ideology explicitly displayed by a murderous dystopia and its actors. The intermediate logistical projections on the American side and the diversionary maneuvers of the Iranian regime are not such as to derail a highly strategic conflictual dynamic.
By proclaiming the presumptive failure of the United States, these analyses only hammer home the idea of a war won by Iran and the need to acknowledge it. However, the state of the question is far from validating ideological prejudices that tend to short-circuit any exhaustive analysis of the stakes at hand. The Iranian regime has been defeated militarily, and its desire to fight only betrays its exasperation with a reality that is resolutely slipping away from it.
The reactivation of the operational platforms it had created, the policy of indiscriminate bombing that has targeted all the Gulf countries, the Near and Middle East, the pursuit of state terror both inside and outside the country, and the refusal to submit to international law regarding the management of global shipping lanes, unequivocally reiterate its imperial ambitions. They also testify to its categorical rejection of the rules of international life and its resolutely agonistic posture.
Negotiation in its case corresponds to strictly nothing. It serves only to preserve its room for maneuver, prolong hostilities, play with electoral deadlines in the United States, deepen divisions within the transatlantic alliance, provoke strategic realignments, and fuel ideological cleavages in Western democracies. We are, on both sides, in a pattern of war by attrition and far from a scenario of resignation that nothing justifies.
The regime's intentions are highly displayed, but its triumphalism is far from being achieved. The United States' strategy, by alternating between military strikes and diplomacy, sends an explicit message to the Iranian regime: the cessation of the war requires negotiated, ratified, and duly applied strategic and security agreements according to a schedule of common convenience. The cynicism and arrogance of the Iranian dictatorship reflect a state of mind that would benefit from being broken through a policy of evolutionary and conclusive erosion. Any policy inspired by fallacious comparisons with the conflicts of the Cold War and those of the post-war period is misplaced, just as it ignores geopolitical and geostrategic upheavals and their impact on regional security architectures.
Any idea of a withdrawal that would benefit the Iranian regime can only fuel the revanchist policy of a dictatorship determined to rebuild its strategic defenses. It also allows it to exploit the rivalries of ideological blocs, take advantage of the festering of conflicts, and subscribe to the logic of frozen conflicts adopted by the Russian dictatorship, which has reconstituted itself around these strategic blocks. However, the United States cannot, under any circumstances, carry out a unilateral withdrawal that would benefit an Islamic dictatorship, whose warmongering character and expansionist aims no longer need to be demonstrated. Any analysis that intends to establish functional equivalences between the two countries is a matter of ideological mystification. It remains to be known that the strategy to be adopted must be continuously redefined to ensure the achievement of intermediate objectives and to link them to those that aim for the fall of the regime. The current train of negotiations is not only dysfunctional but entirely skewed by the absence of a legal and normative protocol common to both regimes.
Lebanon, for its part, remains a hostage to Iranian imperial policy and its domestic relays. The strategy of deliberate sabotage implemented by Hezbollah only takes up the priorities set by the Iranian regime, which now directly manages Hezbollah's military action. It has been rearticulated on the basis of the "integrated operational platforms" once theorized by Qassem Soleimani. The meetings held in Rome for the implementation of the stipulations of the framework agreement are already being denounced by Hezbollah. The execution of this agreement by Hezbollah, which stumbles over its refusal to cooperate with the Lebanese army, is already compromised, as the latter is performing a selective reading of the framework agreement while the war continues in South Lebanon. The ambiguities of the executive power in this area will inevitably reflect on the credibility of the Lebanese state as well as on the conditions of civil peace in the country. The regional destabilization policy of the Iranian Islamic regime continues from a basic axiom: that of sabotaging domestic peace and proliferating civil wars as a guarantee for the survival of imperial policy. Whatever the logistical and strategic imponderables, there is no longer any question of restoring the statu quo ante. The annihilation of the Iranian Islamic regime is now imperative.

Erdogan’s Iraq play: A bigger game than oil
Sinan Ciddi and Bridget Toomey/Washington Examiner/August 06/2026
There is an easy way to read Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to host Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al Zaidi in Ankara on July 28, and to call the visit “historic”: as an energy story, a pipeline story, a story about barrels and stakes. That reading is not wrong, but simply incomplete.
For two decades, Turkey’s dealings with Baghdad focused on strategizing against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — a separatist Kurdish entity intent on seceding territory from Turkey, conducting cross-border raids, and maintaining a network of bases holding no fewer than 4,000 Turkish troops across Erbil, Duhok, and Nineveh. That narrow, security-first relationship is being folded into something much more expansive, and Iraq’s Kurds are not reassured: a courtship of Baghdad, quietly encouraged by Washington’s own envoy Tom Barrack, to the region is widely felt in Kurdish circles to come at their expense.
None of this is happening in isolation. It fits a template Ankara has been running since 2024: rapprochement with Cairo, a defense framework with Riyadh, and coordination with Islamabad that a growing number of analysts now describe as an emergent Sunni-majority bloc. Erdogan has paired that outreach with a two-decade buildup across Africa, where Turkey’s embassy count has nearly quadrupled since 2002, and drone sales, military academies, and scholarships have built the kind of durable loyalty a single arms contract cannot. Iraq, hoping to leverage its geographic position as an economic and trade asset rather than a security liability, is eager to engage. And Washington, intending to wrest Iraq from Iran’s sphere of influence, is eager to support an expanded relationship between Baghdad and Ankara. Aside from Kurdish issues, Iraq’s historic importance centers on oil, including the over-50-year agreement that governs oil exports via the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline, which transports crude from Kirkuk to Turkey’s Mediterranean Ceyhan port. The pipeline is Iraq’s primary alternative to the Persian Gulf, which usually carries more than 90% of Iraq’s oil exports.
Shortly after Zaidi’s visit, Baghdad and Ankara reached a one-year extension on the ITP agreement, which expired on July 27. The interim deal enables exports of up to 750,000 barrels per day, only half of the pipeline’s capacity despite Ankara’s hopes to utilize the pipeline fully. Following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq’s exports to Ceyhan have not exceeded 200,000 bpd due to production constraints. The two countries are negotiating a broader deal that would encompass a lasting pipeline agreement and a resolution of Ankara’s $1.5 billion arbitration loss for permitting Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region to export oil via the pipeline without Baghdad’s permission.
Erdogan also confirmed that Turkish Petroleum has taken a 15% stake in BP’s Kirkuk redevelopment consortium, a project intended to boost crude production and associated gas capture in major northern Iraqi oil fields.
None of this is incidental. Since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sharpened the case for alternative export routes, Ankara has pursued Turkey as a corridor bypassing both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al Mandeb, and equity in the ground gives Turkey a producer’s stake rather than a landlord’s fee.
Layered atop the pipeline sits the “Iraq Development Road,” a roughly $17 billion rail-and-highway corridor linking Iraq’s Grand Faw port to the Turkish border and onward into Europe, Baghdad’s self-styled “third river.” The project, though launched three years before Zaidi emerged in Baghdad’s political scene, is part of the new prime minister’s vision of Iraq as a regional hub and enables Ankara’s bid to become a key transit state between Asia and the West. Transportation and infrastructure projects related to the Iraq Development Road featured heavily in the five agreements signed during Zaidi’s visit, but not without drama. At one point, Zaidi had to order the minister of transport, Wahab al Hassani, to sign one such deal. Reportedly, Hassani and his allies from Iran-aligned factions in Iraq are concerned that these agreements between Iraq and Turkey could come at the expense of Iran’s status as a regional connection point. Taken together, the equity stake and the corridor point past a bilateral relationship altogether, toward Erdogan’s real objective: a Turkey positioned not simply as a regional power but a global one — built, in no small part, on the same anti-Israel alignment that led Ankara to suspend trade with Jerusalem in 2024 and now anchors its courtship of Sunni and African capitals alike. While integrating Iraq more deeply with its neighbors to reduce reliance on Iran is an important American objective, Baghdad can’t fall prey to another domineering neighbor.
*Sinan Ciddi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he directs the Turkey program.
*Bridget Toomey is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing on Iranian proxies.

Syria’s Break With Russia Must Go Beyond Oil
Ahmad Sharawi/Policy Brief-FDD/August 06/2026
Syria’s current leaders and Russia once stood on opposite sides of the battlefield. Yet since the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s longtime ally during the Syrian civil war, the government of President Ahmad al-Sharaa has relied heavily on Russia to meet Syria’s critical energy needs. In May, Russian oil deliveries to Syria reportedly reached roughly 60,000 barrels a day, all transported aboard U.S.-sanctioned vessels. Now Damascus appears prepared to loosen that dependence.
Reuters reported that the Syrian government agreed to “drastically reduce imports of Russian oil” after Washington made the issue part of negotiations for removing Syria from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism — the last major American sanctions regime still imposed on the country. Pulling Syria out of Russia’s sphere of influence would be an important step in aligning it more closely with American goals, especially after the diplomatic engagement and sanctions relief that the United States has extended to Damascus over the past year. Moscow has long used Syria’s economic dependence to preserve its foothold in the country. But reducing that dependence will not, by itself, remove Russia’s influence over the country. Russia still retains access to its two principal military facilities on Syria’s coast, the naval facility at Tartus and Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia.
Syria’s Economic Relationship With Russia
Domestic energy production in Syria has been limited since the fall of the Assad regime. Domestic oil production stands at around 35,000 barrels per day, while national demand has reached 150,000 barrels per day. That gap gave Moscow an opening, and Russia became Syria’s principal foreign energy supplier.
Russia has supplied Syria with approximately 16.8 million barrels of oil in 2025, covering approximately two-fifths of Syria’s estimated daily requirements and exceeding the country’s production by nearly two to one. In March 2025, Russia delivered diesel to Syria aboard the sanctioned tanker Prosperity. Days later, two additional sanctioned tankers, Aquatica and Sakina, offloaded Russian oil at Syria’s Baniyas port in Western Syria. The most recent identifiable delivery involved the Russia-flagged AKHILL, a U.S. sanctioned tanker that arrived at Baniyas on July 22.
Syria’s dependence on Moscow has also extended to grain stolen from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine. In April, a Russian bulk carrier loaded 27,400 tons of wheat in Crimea before docking and unloading at Tartus.
Growing Russian-Syrian Military Cooperation
While Moscow’s current military relationship with Damascus is not comparable to the extensive relationship between the Assad regime and Russia, both countries have actively worked on sustaining a Russian military presence in the country. Arab media reports have claimed that the Syrian Ministry of Defense is transforming the Hmeimim Air Base into a training facility for the Syrian army staffed by Russian advisers. The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Moscow had begun sending cargo ships from Russia to Syria to resupply the airbase, where it has retained hundreds of personnel.
Sharaa has remained deliberately ambiguous about the future of Russia’s military presence. In his latest interview with the Qatari-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera, the Syrian leader said negotiations over the bases were still ongoing but acknowledged that Damascus had agreed to preserve Russia’s “deployment at Hmeimim Air Base and part of the base in Tartus.”
Washington Should Press Syria to Further Break With Moscow
Washington has shown some ambivalence about pressuring Damascus over its growing ties with Moscow.
Some members of Congress, however, have expressed concern that was reflected in the House National Defense Authorization Act report language directing the Pentagon to examine options for reducing Russia’s military presence in Syria. Although Damascus is seeking to reduce its dependence on Russian oil, Washington should also press Syria to stop purchasing grain seized from Ukraine. The United States should make clear that Syrian entities purchasing from, or otherwise materially supporting, Russian actors involved in the war against Ukraine could themselves face U.S. sanctions.
*Ahmad Sharawi is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Ahmad and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on X @FDD. Follow Ahmad on X @AhmadA_Sharawi. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Iran War’s Forgotten Captives: Sailors Trapped in the Arabian Gulf
Peter Eavis and Jenny Gross/The New York Times/August 06/2026
Trapped on a commercial ship anchored four miles off Iran’s coast, about two dozen merchant seamen are entering their fourth month of living under the watch of Iranian guards.
Iran seized the vessel, the MSC Francesca, as it tried to pass through the Strait of Hormuz on April 22. Its sailors are from Montenegro, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries. All are far from home.They have no idea when they might be released and have had very little contact with the outside world.The sailors “have no means of communication except every several days 30 minutes of internet,” a person familiar with conditions on the Francesca wrote.
The crew members of the Francesca are a subset of a much larger group of sailors in harm’s way in the Middle East. The attacks by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28, followed by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, immediately stranded some 1,500 ships and nearly 20,000 sailors, according to the International Maritime Organization. Many ships have sailed out of the Arabian Gulf, dashing through the strait when conditions have allowed. Roughly 6,000 sailors remain stranded, the maritime organization said. They live in peril, carrying out maintenance, lookouts and checks on cargo, with no safe way home.
Iran has enforced its claim of control over the strait with attacks on ships, drawing American retaliation. On Monday, a cargo ship, the Greek-owned Minoan Pioneer, was hit near Oman and one of the crew members was missing, according to the International Maritime Organization. And the conflict has broadened throughout the region.The pace of passages through the Strait of Hormuz has recently slowed to just over a dozen a day, a fraction of the prewar average of around 130 ships a day. Civilian seafarers rarely have to work on the front line of armed conflict. But that is what has happened to these sailors in the Middle East, sometimes with deadly consequences. Since the Iran war began, 17 sailors have been killed in 64 attacks around the Strait of Hormuz. Most of the deaths have been the result of Iranian strikes, but three mariners died after the US Navy struck a ship in June. The Houthi militia in Yemen has targeted vessels in the Red Sea, and last week, two ships caught fire after an explosion at an Egyptian port. The Francesca sailed into the Arabian Gulf on Feb. 22. It is owned by the Geneva-based MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, the world’s largest container shipping company. Some of the Francesca’s sailors had boarded the ship weeks earlier, according to a list of the crew members reviewed by The New York Times. MSC has not commented on the case and did not respond to requests for comment.
Founded in 1970 by Gianluigi Aponte, an Italian ship captain, MSC today has more than 1,000 container ships that transport goods from one continent to another, sailing on 300 trade routes. Aponte, worth over $50 billion, according to Bloomberg, last year transferred ownership of MSC to his son and daughter, Diego and Alexa Aponte.
In 2022, MSC surpassed the Danish giant Maersk to become the biggest container shipping company after a pandemic-era boom. Flush with cash, the company expanded its fleet and business lines, buying hospitals and ports and a high-speed rail company in Italy.
Despite being in one of the world’s most volatile regions, the Strait of Hormuz had been a busy, crucial and relatively conflict-free trade route. Every month, thousands of ships passed through the strait, and one-fifth of the world’s oil supply depended on it. That has changed drastically. Attacks by Iran have prompted ship operators to avoid the strait.Representatives for mariners have said the ship operators should not attempt passage until it is clearly safe to do so.“Trade is important, but we shouldn’t be risking the lives of innocent people,” Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, said in an interview. The Francesca sails under the maritime flag of Panama, which has led negotiations to free the vessel and its crew, in accordance with convention.
“There has been some improvement in the situation,” Ginette Testa, Panama’s ambassador to the International Maritime Organization, said on July 21. She said she could not comment further or give any details that could compromise ongoing negotiation efforts.
Two sailors, both Croatians, have been released from the Francesca, according to Croatia’s foreign affairs ministry. A government spokesman said he could not comment further because of the sensitivity of the matter. The seafarers on board the Francesca were treated well and had sufficient access to food, said Romano Peric, a coordinator for the Croatian seafarers union, who was in regular touch with the families of the two Croatians before their release. At first, they had fairly regular access to their phones, but use was later restricted, he said.
In Switzerland, where MSC is based, “diplomatic channels are being used” to secure the release of the Francesca, a Swiss government spokesman, Pierre-Alain Eltschinger, said last week, declining to elaborate. On the same day Iran seized the Francesca, it took another container ship, the Epaminondas, which is being held in waters near the Francesca, according to satellite data from Tanker Trackers. The Epaminondas is part of MSC’s fleet under a leasing agreement, and sails under the Liberian maritime flag.
Several sailors from the Epaminondas have been released, according to the Philippines’ Department of Migrant Workers. The Filipino sailors underwent medical and psychological assessments “after their difficult experience,” the department said in a statement.
“The seafarers feel absolutely abandoned, absolutely unprotected,” Mohamed Arrachedi, the coordinator of the International Transport Workers’ Federation for the Arab world and Iran, said of the sailors stranded in the Arabian Gulf. He added that their finances, sleep and mental health have been affected by the ordeal.Some of the sailors stuck in the Arabian Gulf, with limited food availability, say they eat just rice and lentils once a day, Arrachedi said.
One sailor said he was sleeping in his clothes so he could easily evacuate if his vessel was hit.
Crew members can ask to be taken off their ships and transported to nearby ports to be flown home. But such evacuations are rare partly because they require the cooperation of immigration authorities in nearby countries, said Helen Sampson, a professor emeritus at Cardiff University who has studied the work conditions of mariners. Many crew members are on short-term contracts and may be reluctant to refuse a dangerous voyage out of fear that they will be blacklisted by employers, Sampson said. “They know that if they seem to cause any sort of trouble on board at all, they won’t get another contract,” she said. “So for a seafarer to object or demand repatriation while they’re on a ship, that’s pretty much going to be the end of their career at sea.” Before the two MSC ships were seized in April, nearly 30 vessels had already been attacked, including, just days earlier, a container ship owned by MSC’s French rival, CMA CGM.The fates of the Francesca and the Epaminondas remain unclear. Natasha Brown, a spokeswoman for the International Maritime Organization, said on Monday that the Francesca and the Epaminondas remained in Iranian waters with seafarers on board. “Discussions are ongoing among relevant parties for their release but are complicated by the wider geopolitical conflict,” she said. After the ships were seized in April, the navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said that two vessels had traveled “without the necessary permits,” according to a statement shared by a semiofficial Iranian news agency.The statement said the ships had been directed toward Iran’s coast. According to the maritime firm Tanker Trackers, the ships remain in Iranian waters.
**The New York Times

Could a US-Iran deal over Hormuz reshape global shipping and the rules of international trade?
ALEX JAMES/Arab News/August 07/2026
LONDON: Negotiations are now underway between the US, Iran, and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and while the agreement’s precise shape remains unknown, it seems at least one side will land responsibility for managing what has, until now, been an international waterway. From a legal and practical perspective, any such deal raises huge questions, not least what it means for the continuity of international law, what it means for other trading chokepoints, and what it means for the inflationary pressures heaping themselves on world economies.Richard Barnes, professor of international law at the UK’s University of Lincoln, who specializes in freedom of navigation and the international law of the sea, was unequivocal when asked about the legal merits of any deal that should emerge.
“There is no clear or plausible basis in international law for one or both of Iran or the US to adopt a management regime for the strait that imposes charges or permits boarding and inspections of transiting ships,” he told Arab News.
“All ships enjoy the right of transit passage through the strait. Under the law of the sea ships enjoy freedom of navigation. Coastal states can introduce rules related to safety, including traffic schemes, but such laws shall not discriminate between foreign ships nor have the practical effect of denying, hampering or impairing the right of transit passage.”
The law to which Barnes is referring is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS, adopted in 1982 and enforced since 1994, Article 38 of which provides a right of unimpeded “transit passage” through more than 100 straits worldwide, Hormuz included.
However, there does appear to be a caveat. Neither the US nor Iran are parties to UNCLOS, raising questions around just how bound they are by the treaty. Regardless, Barnes said both parties are bound under customary international law — a general and consistent practice accepted as legally binding.Donald Rothwell, professor of international law at Australian National University, told Arab News that despite 170 countries being parties to the convention, the fact that neither Iran nor the US are signatories meant there was scope for something.
“Iran and the US could argue that they are effectively opting out of the accepted law of the sea as it has applied to the Strait of Hormuz and creating their own distinct regime for the waters of the strait,” Rothwell said. “Oman is a party to UNCLOS so legally its position does not provide it as much flexibility as Iran and the US. Ultimately, the issue is whether the majority of countries in the international community who are UNCLOS parties will accept any alternate regime to manage the strait.”Barnes said any unilateral or bilateral agreements between the US and Iran to “manage” the strait would not be binding on third states, particularly considering the context surrounding the issue. “Management here means not subjecting vessels to harm or control by the US or Iran and is effectively a form of extortion; it may be dressed up in language that suggests that shipping should pay for the costs of local regulation, but this is disingenuous.”Should the pending Iran-US deal include provisions concerning the management of the strait by either one, or both of the parties, Barnes and Rothwell agreed that there would likely be “considerable resistance because of the precedent it may set.”
FASTFACTS
• The Strait of Hormuz is the only maritime gateway connecting the Gulf to the open ocean.
• Around 20m barrels of oil — about a quarter of global seaborne oil trade — pass through it each day.
• Bordered by Iran and Oman, the strait is just 33km wide at its narrowest point.
Nonetheless, logistics firms are being inundated with requests for contingency measures in the case of further geopolitical flashpoints.
“Between Ukraine, Gaza, and now this situation in the Gulf, the level of anxiety in global supply chains has skyrocketed, and it does not help that there is not all that much trust in either side when it comes to Hormuz,” one freight forwarder told Arab News.
But the forwarder stressed that while supply chains crave continuity, they can adapt — “just look at how quickly we normalized transits around Africa, or how we got goods moving during the pandemic lockdowns” — and there are alternatives, to an extent, to Hormuz.
One operator to have shown this is DHL, which early in the Iran conflict activated a range of contingency routes across air, ocean and road, with the clear objective of maintaining connectivity into and out of the region without relying on a single alternative.
A spokesperson for the company told Arab News: “In air freight, more cargo for the Gulf Cooperation Council area has been routed towards Muscat and Riyadh, providing additional capacity away from affected airspace. From there, cargo is trucked to its final destination within the GCC. “In ocean freight, cargo has been discharged at alternative ports and gateways, including Sohar, Salalah and Khorfakkan, as well as Red Sea gateways in Saudi Arabia such as Jeddah. From these ports, onward distribution is supported through the regional road networks.” Much of this was made possible by the willingness of the GCC countries to cooperate and cut through some of the bureaucracy that otherwise may have inhibited cross-border flows, with a haulage operator telling Arab News that government support had been critical. The DHL spokesperson said that the road network across the GCC remains operational, and that cross‑border trucking was continuing to play a “critical role,” although other forwarders have suggested that these alternatives are “stopgaps at best” and the ships need to return. Should a deal materialize, reportedly set to be an interim 60-day agreement, it does not look likely that maritime traffic will swiftly return to the waterway, with exporters and their freight forwarding partners less than confident about the longevity of any truce between the sides.
One freight forwarder active in the region told Arab News that “when it comes to shipping of containers, it is a simple decision, avoid Hormuz,” noting that they would continue to use the alternative routes that they had developed.
And lawyers remain concerned about the looming deal, with Barnes describing the potential of a bilaterally imposed toll system as “a threat to the existing rules,” adding that the world would have to sit back and “see how this plays out.”
A spokesperson for the UN’s International Maritime Organization told Arab News: “This is an evolving situation, and we are unable to comment on the latest statements.”
Iran’s ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz exposed a deeper vulnerability at the heart of the global economy.Edward Fishman, a former US State Department official and author of “Chokepoints,” told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Wednesday that the assumptions underpinning three decades of globalization were beginning to unravel.He said the international economic system would need to adapt to reduce the risk of other strategic supply chain chokepoints being exploited by rival states. “Fundamentally, what we have is that we embraced a globalized economy back in the 1990s when we thought there would not be any meaningful geopolitical competition. But as we’ve seen in the past decade … we’re seeing that the geopolitical foundations of globalization have totally crumbled,” he said.
“And so I think the return of geopolitical competition against this backdrop of continued economic integration has led to proliferating economic warfare and more and more weaponization of chokepoints all around the world. I think this will only continue until we have a fundamentally reshaped global economic system.”

Selected Face Book & X tweets on August 06/2026
Hiba Nasr
On the Lebanese Israeli talks in Rome: Presidential sources told my colleague
@mahahoteit The negotiations were delayed today by one hour due to U.S.-related reasons.Three parallel tracks are underway: the military delegation, the political delegation, and the legal delegation, which is handling the issue of land border demarcation. The legal delegation discussed exclusively the issue of prisoners.The military discussions were limited to establishing common reference concepts—technical talks aimed at agreeing on military terminology and technical definitions. On the prisoner track, one aspect concerns the provisions of international law, while the other involves the exchange of lists. This is particularly complex for the Lebanese side, as any potential prisoners are considered missing persons by Lebanon. There is a move to separate the cases of Lebanese civilians held by Israel from those of Hezbollah prisoners, with each file to be handled independently.
The atmosphere surrounding the prisoner track is positive. On the political track, discussions focused on the challenges associated with each of the proposed pilot zones, and Lebanon presented several options. Lebanon reaffirmed its commitment to renewing the ceasefire.

Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו
Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I mourn the fall of Maj. (res.) Harel Birnstock z"l and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Tamir Vaknin z"l, who fell in battle in southern Lebanon.
Harel and Tamir were among our finest sons, brave fighters who reported for reserve duty and fought with valor to protect the residents of the north and the State of Israel.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families who have lost what was most precious to them, and wish a full recovery to our fighters who were wounded in that same incident.
May the memory of our heroes be blessed and eternally cherished in the heart of the nation.

Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער
I was pleased to address a special meeting at Ecuador’s National Assembly during my visit to Quito - the first visit by an Israeli Foreign Minister to Ecuador in 44 years.Thank you to Chair of the National Assembly @etorrescobo, Israel Friendship Group Chair @AndresCastillo
 and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair @Lucia_Jaramillo for the warm welcome and friendship.Israel and Ecuador face common challenges. By deepening cooperation in counterterrorism, innovation, agriculture and trade, we are strengthening the partnership between our countries for the benefit of both our peoples.

Ted Cruz
https://x.com/tedcruz/status/2085113776224051437/video/1
The Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy is not hidden. They put it in writing: destroy Western civilization “from within.”On The @WillCain Show, I exposed the American operation behind the Red-Green Alliance - and how Islamists and communists are taking over the Democrat Party.They have the same enemies: America, Western Civilization, capitalism, and the Constitution.

اسرائیل به فارسی@IsraelPersian
Prime Minister Netanyahu: Today we heard that the Commander of the IRGC, Vahidi, explicitly stated the Islamic Republic's intention to continue developing nuclear weapons, as he himself said "continuing." Well, as Prime Minister of Israel, I am determined to continue. Determined to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.
And I want to make this clear - President Trump, our great friend, is the greatest friend we have had in the White House. And the United States, our great ally, and everyone understands this; we greatly appreciate our joint efforts with the United States against Iran's nuclear ambitions.I also want to make this clear - the existence of Israel is not negotiable. With an agreement or without it, I am determined, we are all determined, to do whatever is necessary to ensure our security and our future.

Gad Saad
My family and I escaped execution in Lebanon because Islam wanted to kill us. My parents were kidnapped by Fatah and were severely mistreated. Our home in Beirut was stolen by Palestinian Muslims. My wife's family escaped Lebanon because Islam wanted to kill them. Her ancestors escaped the Armenian genocide because Islam wanted to kill them. My grandparents escaped Syria because Islam wanted to kill them. My brother-in-law's family escaped Alexandria (Egypt) because Islam wanted to kill them. My family and I are leaving Montreal because Islam wants to kill us (the number of threats that I've received forced me to take a two-year leave from my home university). I'm moving to @olemiss/@umdeclaration to defend American liberties and freedoms from ideological threats. @LibyaLiberty, a vile Islamist who despises Jews, is now "reporting" me to my new institution because I dare criticize Islam. Imagine the chutzpah. I will NEVER stop defending the West from the dangers that it faces. Long live the United States.

Israel Foreign Ministry
The Wall Street Journal chose to write about Christians in Israel. The @WSJ took radical voices and extreme cases and turned it into the face of an entire country, while ignoring nearly 200,000 Christians whose lives tell the opposite story.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee
@WSJ should have contacted me about Christians in Israel. I am one. Been coming here since 1973. Israel is ONLY country in region where Christian population has grown from 34K to almost 200K. @IsraelMFA just appointed a full Ambassador to the Christian world
@GeorgeDeek . No other nation has done that. There are occasional but rare instances of thugs spitting at Christians in the Old City. It's repulsive & condemned by @IsraeliPM
@IsraelPresident & @IsraelinUSA Happened recently at Armenian Church. @israelpolice
arrested 6 ppl who did it. The perps didn't get away with it. Christians work, worship, & pray freely here. They serve in the @IDF
as high-ranking officers. I go to church here every week w/o a problem. I visit with Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians regularly. Occasional challenges? Sure. In NY, kippa-wearing Jews get spat on & viciously attacked. No one blames the entire US for behavior of a few criminals. I've been throughout the Middle East & know of no place where there is much religious diversity as there is in Israel. @Israel
protects Christian Holy sites & Muslim Holy sites just as they do Jewish Holy sites. I hope
@WSJ will do a bit more research in the future if they do a story about religious freedom in the Holy Land.