English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News
& Editorials
For January 28/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2026/english.january 28.26.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
I am the true vine, and my Father is the
vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch
that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15/01-08/:"‘I am the
true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that
bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more
fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the
vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit,
because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown
away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the
fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for
whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on January
27-28/2026
The Necessity of Ending Lebanon’s “Battleground” Status and Recognizing
Israel/Elias Bejjani/January 25/2026
Two new miracles attributed to St. Charbel Makhlouf have been reported since the
beginning of 2026/EWTN News/January 27/2026
The village of Hatta, in the Sidon area/Israel-Alma/@Israel_Alma_orgX
Platform/January 27/2026
Syria Thwarts Weapons Smuggling Attempt to Lebanon
Video link – Interview with Dr. Charles Chartouni from “Spot Shot” Youtube
Platform
Video link – Interview with journalist Tony Boulos from “Al-Badeel” Youtube
Platform
Link to a video interview with the Head of the Identity and Sovereignty
Gathering and former minister Youssef Salameh, from the Souriyo Youtube Platform
A YouTube video link commentary by journalist Ali Hamadeh from his YouTube
channel
Report: US ambassador Issa to replace Ortagus in Mechanism meetings
Bassil warns Hezbollah against 'crime' of implicating Lebanon in 'new
destruction'
Israeli strike targets motorbike in Batoulay, killing one person
Two killed in Israeli strike on Kfar Rumman, raising Monday's death toll to
three
Renewed Qatari role in Lebanon reportedly backed by KSA and US
Report: Aoun asks Rajji to abide by official policy after Berri's Baabda visit
Is Lebanon preparing for political negotiations with Israel?
Reports: Lebanon receives positive message after Trump-Sisi call
To Undermine Reform is to Gamble with Lebanon’s Survival!/Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al-Awsat/January
25/2026
The Albanese affair and the American University of Beirut/Makram Rabah/Al
Arabiya English/January 27/2026
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on January
27-28/2026
Iran Protest Death Toll Could Top 30,000, According to Local Health
Officials
Iran’s currency drops to record low against dollar, tracking websites say
US to Conduct Multi-Day Military Exercise in Middle East
Israel’s Netanyahu says it would be a ‘mistake’ to hold elections now
Israel to seek new security deal with the US, FT reports
Armed Gaza Gangs Shift Tactics, Straining Hamas Security
UN Push to Get Hundreds of Thousands of Gaza Children Back to School
Saudi Arabia Reaffirms Supporting the Mission of the Board of Peace in Gaza
Syria Hopes to Hold New Talks with Kurdish Forces
Syria's Sharaa to Make Surprise Moscow Visit Amid Talk of New Ties
Mazloum Abdi: We Will Take Advantage of Truce to Advance Dec. 18 Agreement
Russian Forces Begin Pulling Out of Bases in Northeast Syria
Türkiye Bans Protests in Province Bordering Syria
Iraqi Hezbollah Calls for 'Total War' in Support of Iran amid Coordination
Framework's Refusal
Iraq’s Parliament Delays Presidential Vote
US Blocks Maliki Bid, Sends Sharp Warning to Iran
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published
on January
27-28/2026
Les tectoniques en mouvement/Dr. Charles Chertouni/Citation tirée du site
web de Voici Beyrouth/ 27 janvier 2026
Tectons in motion/Charles Elias Chartouni/This Is Beirut/January 26/2026
All or Nothing in Gaza/Yezid Sayigh/Diwan/Published on Jan 27, 2026
Why Is Saudi Arabia Abandoning Peace?/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/The National
Interest/January 27/2026
Canada must unequivocally support regime change in Iran/Tzvi Kahn/Toronto
Sun/January 27/2026
Iranian Influence Operation Floods X With Anti-Protest Messaging /Max Lesser
&Maria Riofrio/FDD-Policy Brief/January 27/2026
Treasury Sanctions a Hamas-Supporting Nonprofit With Ties to South Africa/David
May & Melissa Sacks/FDD/January 27/2026
Israel’s hostage agony finally ends — but its Gaza mission is far from over
/Mark Dubowitz/New York Post/January 27/2026
Why Are We Following Qatar's Foreign Policy on Iran?/Daniel Greenfield/Gatestone
Institute/January 27/2026
To Undermine Reform is to Gamble with Lebanon’s Survival!/Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al-Awsat/January
27/2026
Selected X tweets fror January 27/2026
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January
27-28/2026
The Necessity of Ending Lebanon’s “Battleground” Status and Recognizing
Israel
Elias Bejjani/January 25/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/151479/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4GdPMkWXbs
As the saying goes, “Once the cause is
known, wonder ceases.” The true tragedy of Lebanon is not merely its security,
economic, or social collapse, but the suicidal persistence in remaining a
perpetual “battleground” and a regional “mailbox.” The core cause of this
national disintegration lies in the absence of faith among Lebanon’s ruling
class: political leaders, party bosses turned corporate oligarchs, hypocritical
Arabists, leftists, and self-proclaimed nationalists. They do not believe in the
concept of the state, nor in Lebanon as a sovereign entity with a distinct role
and mission. More dangerously, they lack the most basic standards of ethics and
genuine patriotism.
The so-called “Resistance” in Lebanon was never a Lebanese project. It was a
façade for cross-border agendas that transformed the country into a hostage.
This tragic farce began in the late 1960s, when criminal and terrorist
Palestinian organizations violated Lebanese sovereignty under the banner of
“liberation.” They were assisted by the so-called “National Movement”—a
coalition of leftists, Arabists, Baathists, and ideologues who harbored
hostility toward Lebanon as a state, a message, and a beacon of freedom—thereby
tearing apart the national fabric.
This was followed by the barbaric Syrian Baathist occupation, which imposed its
tutelage under the same slogans and ushered in one of the darkest eras in
Lebanon’s modern history. Since 2005, the Iranian-backed, sectarian, and
reckless Hezbollah militia has tightened its grip on the Lebanese people,
turning the South, the Suburbs, the Bekaa, and other regions into weapons
depots, tunnel networks, and missile platforms serving the agenda of Tehran’s
mullahs.
The insistence on keeping Lebanon in a permanent state of war with Israel—at a
time when Arab states are negotiating, reconciling, and prioritizing their
national interests—has produced devastating consequences:
The reduction of the state to mere “geography” used for settling the scores of
others, led by Iran, Syria, and the local, regional, and international merchants
of the “Resistance” illusion.
The impossibility of building a stable economy or attracting investment in a
country held hostage by a trigger finger controlled by foreign powers, capable
of igniting a war of total destruction at any moment.
Lebanon’s transformation into a “terrorist island” outside international
legitimacy and the rule of law, depriving it of peace, sovereignty,
independence, and development.
The entrenchment of a culture of death and war that drives Lebanon’s finest
youth into exile, leaving the country to militias, mobs, and political
opportunists.
Transitioning Lebanon into a “normal state” through mutual recognition between
Lebanon and Israel is not an act of treason. On the contrary, it represents the
highest form of patriotism and political realism. The benefits are clear and
tangible:
Finalizing borders and dismantling the fabricated pretexts of the Shebaa Farms
and Kfarchouba Hills, long exploited as an evil & fake tags “Shirt of Uthman” to
justify the persistence of illegal weapons.
Securing safe investment in offshore gas and oil resources and opening the door
to economic, commercial, and tourism cooperation in a region moving toward “zero
problems.”
Ending the so-called “state of war,” thereby stripping all militias of any
claimed legitimacy and restoring exclusive sovereign decision-making to the
Lebanese Army.
Most importantly, halting Lebanon’s role as a “factory of death” and restoring
its historic function as a cultural and civilizational bridge between East and
West.
In conclusion, Lebanon’s recovery of its identity and sovereignty begins with
full border control, strict adherence to international resolutions—including the
latest ceasefire agreement—and the rejection of the false narrative that
“Lebanon must always be the last to sign a peace accord with Israel.” Today,
Lebanese citizens are called upon to break free from political herd mentality
and the worship of “Iscariot” leaders who feast on national humiliation and
Lebanese blood.
Liberating Lebanon from the grip of “Temple Traders” and the culture of
appeasing the strong while shifting loyalties for personal gain requires the
courage to speak a simple truth: we want a homeland, not a battleground; a
state, not a private farm; and a just peace that ends nearly six decades of
deception, false heroism, and revolutionary delusions. The solution lies in
mutual recognition between Lebanon and the State of Israel, Under the auspices
of the United Nations and the international community, Lebanon will return to
being "a land of message, creativity, freedoms and stars," not "a land of
graves."
Two new miracles attributed to St. Charbel Makhlouf have been
reported since the beginning of 2026
EWTN News/January 27/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/151561/
Two new
miracles attributed to St. Charbel Makhlouf have been reported since the
beginning of 2026 — one in the United States and one in Lebanon — each involving
the healing of a woman against all medical expectation.
Revered by the faithful as the “doctor of the sky,” St. Charbel, a Lebanese
Maronite monk and priest, is now associated with more than 30,000 reported
miracles. From his hermitage in the mountains of Lebanon to hospital rooms
across continents, his intercession continues to reach those in need,
transcending borders, cultures, and generations.
Attorney Georgianne Walker, born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1975, reported that
she underwent abdominal surgery in December 2024, which was soon followed by a
serious infection in the lower abdomen. The infection caused severe pain and
persistent anxiety, requiring six weeks of antibiotic treatment. While the
symptoms gradually subsided, the surgical wound remained open, inflamed, and
unhealed. Despite close monitoring by her surgeon and other medical
professionals, the wound showed no improvement. For 10 months, Walker changed
her dressings daily due to continuous bleeding. With no progress, her surgeon
ultimately concluded that a second operation was necessary to remove the
inflamed tissue and scheduled a new surgery. In September 2025, Walker said she
was visited by George Issa, a Lebanese friend who had been healed through the
intercession of St. Charbel Makhlouf three years earlier. Issa brought with him
a small vial of oil associated with the saint and encouraged her to pray for his
intercession and anoint her wound with the oil.
The use of blessed oil has long been an established practice in the Eastern
Christian tradition and continues to this day. In the case of St. Charbel, this
ancient custom remains actively observed. Monks at the Monastery of Saint Maron
in Annaya continue to bless oil using the saint’s relics and distribute it to
the faithful who request his intercession for healing and other graces. Walker
stated that she prayed and applied the oil to the wound, after which it healed
completely. She reported a full recovery and no longer required the scheduled
surgery. She said she believed the healing occurred through the intercession of
St. Charbel and expressed gratitude to both the saint and Issa for what she
described as a life-changing event.
The healing was officially recorded on Jan. 17.
The second reported miracle of the year was recounted by Racha Charbel (no known
relation to St. Charbel) born in 1987 in Jezzine, a mountain town in south
Lebanon. Racha was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 1, 2025, after experiencing
severe back pain. An MRI scan conducted under the supervision of her treating
physician, Dr. Christian Atiya, a specialist in neurosurgery and vascular
surgery, revealed a tumor on the spinal column identified as a meningioma,
measuring 2.3 centimeters in length and 0.3 centimeters in thickness.
According to her physician, the tumor was unresponsive to medication, posed a
risk to the spinal nerves and blood vessels, and could only be treated through
surgical removal. A follow-up MRI was scheduled three months later to monitor
its progression, and a provisional hospital admission date of Jan. 7, 2026, was
set should surgery be required. Racha reported that on the night of Jan. 6, a
picture of St. Charbel was hanging above her bed. She said she placed her hand
on the image and asked for healing before falling asleep.
On the morning of Jan. 7 she returned to the hospital for the repeat MRI. She
was informed that the examination would take approximately 45 minutes and could
take longer if needed. The scan was completed in about 20 minutes and revealed
an unexpected finding: The tumor had completely disappeared.According to Racha,
her doctor told her that there was no medical explanation for the disappearance
and that such a tumor could not vanish without surgical intervention. On Jan.
17, Racha Charbel made a thanksgiving visit to the Monastery of Saint Maron in
Annaya, where she officially registered the healing and submitted the relevant
medical reports. She later stated that the experience marked a turning point in
her life and deepened her faith. The Lebanese saint, a priest and hermit monk of
the Maronite rite, was widely known for intercessions attributed to him by
Catholics, Muslims, and followers of other religions like the Druze. St. Charbel
died on Dec. 24, 1898. He was beatified by Pope Paul VI on Dec. 5, 1965, and was
canonized by the same pontiff on Oct. 9, 1977.
In December 2025, Pope Leo XIV became the first pope to visit St. Charbel’s tomb
during his trip to Lebanon. During the visit, the pope described the saint’s
intercession as “a river of mercy,” recalling in particular the monthly
pilgrimage held on the 22nd of each month in memory of a miracle granted to a
woman named Nouhad El Chami — a devotion that continues to draw thousands of
pilgrims.
https://ewtnnews.com/world/middle-east/st-charbel-two-new-miracles-reported-in-2026
EWTN
News/January 27/2026
The village of Hatta, in the Sidon area
Israel-Alma/@Israel_Alma_orgX Platform/January 27/2026
The village of Hatta, in the Sidon area, is a Shiite village with a mixed
population that includes both Hezbollah and Amal Movement supporters. As in
other Shiite areas that constitute Hezbollah’s social base, the organization use
of civilian infrastructure in the village as a human shield for its military
needs. However, Hatta does not have a homogeneous population that supports
Hezbollah and depends on it.
On 5 January, the IDF struck several weapons depots and military infrastructure
sites in the village. One of the main targets was an underground weapons storage
facility. Prior to the strike, the IDF issued an evacuation warning. On 11
January, the underground site was struck again. This second strike took place
after the Lebanese Army arrived near the site but did not act to dismantle it,
as Hezbollah operatives had gathered around the warehouse. As a result,
according to various reports, a violent confrontation developed between local
Amal supporters—who backed the Lebanese Army—and local Hezbollah supporters. The
confrontation began verbally and escalated into physical violence. The Lebanese
Army intervened and separated the two camps.The current political alliance of the so-called “Shiite duo” (Hezbollah and Amal),
which at times appears unbreakable, does not necessarily reflect day-to-day
relations within the Shiite population between the Amal camp and the Hezbollah
camp—quite the opposite. Nabih Berri plays a dual game: ostensibly a statesman,
but in practice responsible for ensuring that the Amal Movement remains a loyal
partner to Hezbollah. Amal activists have even taken part in fighting against
Israel, and dozens of them have been killed.
As can be seen, Amal supporters in the village of Hatta may be starting to
realize that Hezbollah’s military presence in the village constitutes a problem.
There are other areas containing Hezbollah military infrastructure where the
Shiite population’s support is divided between Amal and Hezbollah. Will Amal
supporters in those areas also reach a similar conclusion?
Syria Thwarts Weapons Smuggling Attempt to Lebanon
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Damascus thwarted on Monday an attempt to smuggle weapons into Lebanon, state
media reported, days after Israel struck several border crossings between the
two countries, saying they were used by Hezbollah.The official SANA news agency
said security forces intercepted the shipment in a car in the Bureij area, near
the border with Lebanon. Quoting a security source, SANA said authorities seized
"nine anti-tank guided missiles, 68 RPG rounds, two 107mm rockets, and five
boxes of ammunition" before raiding the smugglers' hideout in the nearby Nabek
district. Lebanon and Syria share a porous, 330-kilometer (205-mile) border that
is notorious for smuggling. The operation follows Israeli strikes on Wednesday
on four border crossings between the two countries, which the Israeli military
alleged were "used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons". Under deposed president
Bashar al-Assad, Syria was a key node of Iran's so-called "Axis of Resistance"
against Israel and enabled the transfer of weapons and money from Iran to
Hezbollah. The armed group played a crucial role during Syria's civil war,
fighting alongside Assad's forces and helping to keep him in power as he cracked
down on a popular revolt. The new government in Damascus, dominated by the
forces who toppled Assad, has rejected Iranian influence and attempted to cut
off the supply of weapons to Hezbollah. Last month, Syrian authorities said they
had killed a man and arrested four others who were attempting to smuggle
hundreds of landmines to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Under heavy US pressure, Lebanon
has committed to disarming Hezbollah.
Video link – Interview with Dr.
Charles Chartouni from “Spot Shot” Youtube Platform
Urgent call to arrest “Sheikh Naim” on a serious charge – a “military whirlwind”
has reached Beirut – fierce attack on Nabih Berri!
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/151569/
27 January 2026
Political writer and university professor Charles Chartouni said that Lebanon
has entered a new and decisive phase, calling on the Lebanese state to assume
its responsibilities, including arresting Naim Qassem if he is present on
Lebanese territory and cutting off any communication between him and the public.
Chartouni pointed to the absence of the Prime Minister, describing the Lebanese
government as fragmented, and considered that Hezbollah’s positions have been
spread across Lebanese territory for many years and successive eras under the
cover of the army.
He believed that the country is heading toward a scenario of comprehensive war,
noting that “the mechanism has been put in place,” and described the diplomatic
messages exchanged between Abbas Araghchi and Witkoff as “going nowhere.” In a
related context, Chartouni said that Naim Qassem is an “empty mouthpiece,”
considering that the Iranian regime is internally eroding, and that Israel will
seek to deter Hezbollah and prevent it from supporting Iran.
He also indicated that the upcoming milestones will become clearer during the
visit of the Army Commander to Washington. Chartouni criticized the performance
of the political class, considering that Nabih Berri, Najib Mikati, Walid
Jumblatt, and Fouad Siniora are “looking into how to divide the spoils,”
describing the Lebanese Republic as a “banana republic” ruled by “bandits.”Chartouni revealed serious backstage talk about a possible peace between Lebanon
and Israel, noting that the Army Commander will be officially informed of this,
while alternative options remain on the table and open. He added that Israel is
seeking an economic zone.
Video link – Interview with
journalist Tony Boulos from “Al-Badeel” Youtube Platform
Nawaf Salam must establish
communication with Netanyahu, and Hezbollah will seek Israel’s help to protect
itself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f4arU7JN7w&t=545s
Link to a video interview with the Head of the Identity
and Sovereignty Gathering and former minister Youssef Salameh, from the Souriyo
Youtube Platform
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VMX8pEP18Y
27 January 2026
A strategic reading of the current Lebanese and regional situation, with a focus
on the inevitability of the end of the role and function of the Iran axis and
all its arms, and on the necessity for the Lebanese state to be convinced that
it is a state and to carry out its duties. The crisis of Hezbollah is not only
in its weapons, but in its inability to acknowledge that its era and the Iranian
regime today are threatened, and that what comes after will not resemble what
came before. Head of the Identity and Sovereignty Gathering and former minister
Youssef Salameh, guest on the program “In Full Freedom” (ܒܟܘܠ ܚܺܐܪܘܬܐ) with
journalist Rania Zahra Charbel.
A YouTube video link commentary by journalist Ali
Hamadeh from his YouTube channel
The terrorist, stupid, and detached speech of Naïm Qassem, alienated from
Lebanon and the Lebanese, about reason, human concepts, hypocrisy, obscurantism,
and hostility toward Lebanon. It imposed on all Lebanese leaderships the duty to
denounce and reject it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc5pyzsLBEA
27 January 2026
After the indirect exchange with President Nabih Berri, the speech of Sheikh
Naïm, in which he declares that his party will get involved in the confrontation
between America and Iran, pushes Jumblatt to raise the level of criticism, and
the Free Patriotic Movement announces the divorce. More political forces are
distancing themselves from the party, and harsh reactions are issued against
Sheikh Naïm’s recent positions, the most important of which came from the Druze
leader Walid Jumblatt, who described the positions as irresponsible. The Free
Patriotic Movement announces the final fall of the Mar Mikhael understanding!
War preparations are completed on the American side, and Turkey fears and
expects a strike accompanied by a large wave of Iranian refugees toward its
territory!
Report: US ambassador Issa to replace Ortagus in
Mechanism meetings
Naharnet/27 January 2026
U.S. Ambassador Michel Issa will be the United States envoy to the
ceasefire monitoring committee, replacing American diplomat Morgan Ortagus,
pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper reported Tuesday. The daily said that Lebanon
has been officially notified on Monday that Ortagus' role in the ceasefire
committee has ended.
Bassil warns Hezbollah against 'crime' of implicating
Lebanon in 'new destruction'
Naharnet/27 January 2026
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday strongly criticized
Hezbollah in the wake of Sheikh Naim Qassem’s latest remarks about supporting
Iran. “The basis of the Memorandum of Understanding (between the FPM and
Hezbollah) was to Lebanonize Hezbollah’s choices and weapons through
partnership, state building and defending Lebanon,” Bassil said in a post on the
X platform. “The MoU collapsed with the collapse of these pillars,” Bassil
added.“The unity of arenas and the war of assistance destroyed Hezbollah and
Lebanon and ended the deterrent purpose of the weapons. It’s saddening to
witness today a repetition of the crime of implicating Lebanon in new
destruction instead of neutralizing and protecting it,” the FPM chief went on to
say. Qassem said on Monday that any attack on the group's backer Tehran would
also be an attack on Hezbollah, warning that any new war on Iran would ignite
the region. "We will choose at that time how to act... but we are not neutral,"
he said, adding that "on how we act, these are details that the battle
determines, and we will decide according to the interests at stake." Iran is
Hezbollah's main supporter, providing it with funding and weapons since its
creation in the 1980s.
Israeli strike targets motorbike in Batoulay, killing one
person
Naharnet/27 January 2026
A man was killed Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike on his motorcycle in the
southern town of Batoulay.The Israeli army said it has targeted a Hezbollah
member in the southern town of Deir Qanoun. Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli
artillery shelled the southern border town of Yaroun and drones dropped grenades
and stun bombs on Mays al-Jabal, Dhaira, and Rmeish, also on the border with
Israel. Despite the ceasefire, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it
says are Hezbollah targets and has maintained troops in five south Lebanon
locations it deems "strategic." It has recently intensified its strikes on south
and east Lebanon, killing three people on Monday, and two people on Sunday. More
than 350 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire,
according to an AFP tally of health ministry reports.
Two killed in Israeli strike on Kfar Rumman, raising
Monday's death toll to three
Agence France Presse/27 January 2026
Three people were killed on Monday in Israeli strikes -- one in the southern
city of Tyre and two later in Kfar Rumman near the city of Nabatiyeh.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said the Tyre strike killed Sheikh Ali
Noureddine, "who previously worked at Al-Manar channel as a presenter of
religious programs". Hezbollah's media office said in a statement that
Noureddine was also the imam of Al-Hawsh, in the suburbs of Tyre, calling his
killing a "treacherous assassination". Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos
condemned the strike, saying Israeli attacks "do not spare press and media
personnel". The Israeli army accused Noureddine of having served "as head of an
artillery squad" for Hezbollah in the area, and said the other two killed were
also Hezbollah operatives. Media reports said the other two killed in Kfar
Rumman were a university student and an Egyptian young man, both from the
southern town of Dweir. Despite the ceasefire, Israel has kept up regular
strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets and has maintained troops in five
south Lebanon locations it deems "strategic."The strikes Monday came as
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem spoke in a televised address to supporters at
a solidarity rally for Iran. He said that any attack on Tehran would also be an
attack on Hezbollah, and warned that any new war on Iran would ignite the
region. Hezbollah had called on supporters to gather on Monday in its
strongholds across Lebanon to express support for Iran "in the face of
American-Zionist sabotage and threats". Some supporters in Beirut's southern
suburbs held pictures of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well
as Hezbollah and Iran flags, while also chanting "death to America".
Renewed Qatari role in Lebanon reportedly backed by KSA and
US
Naharnet/27 January 2026
Saudi Arabia has recently decided to change its stance over the Qatari role in
Lebanon and this transformation is linked to an understanding with the U.S. over
a Qatari role in supporting Lebanon financially and politically, a media report
said. The development is also related to the latest rift between Saudi Arabia
and the UAE, especially that Abu Dhabi is “active in the Lebanese arena in a way
opposed to the policies of Riyadh and Doha,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported. “In
this context, Saudi envoy Yazid bin Farhan, who visited Lebanon around two weeks
ago, revealed to a host of politicians that an aid package would soon reach
Lebanon and that there is a Saudi-Qatari agreement over this file,” the daily
said. Political sources meanwhile told the newspaper that “the Saudi stance
stems from Riyadh’s fear of a possible chaos scenario in the Lebanese arena,
which also explains its stance on the war on Iran and its support for Syria’s
stability.”Bin Farhan was also quoted as saying that “the role that Qatar will
play is fully coordinated with Saudi Arabia and is in the service of the same
strategy.”The sources added that this agreement “supports authorities in Lebanon
and encourages them to move forward in implementing the government’s plan in
what relates to both the arms file and reforms.”Qatar had on Monday announced
investments in Lebanon worth hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the
crisis-hit nation's crumbling electricity sector and to continue support for the
Lebanese armed forces and the return home of Syrian refugees. Qatar's minister
of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, announced the
investments by the Qatar Fund For Development after meeting Lebanese leaders in
Beirut. Lebanon has been improving relations with oil-rich gulf countries
following years of tensions over the wide influence that Hezbollah had in the
small nation. Hezbollah was weakened by a 14-month war with Israel, and the
Iran-backed group recently called on Saudi Arabia to open a new era in
relations. For years, Qatar has been seen as a friendly country to Lebanon and a
mediator for domestic and international political crises. Doha is also a key
partner in the consortiums for Lebanon's offshore gas exploration blocks.
Lebanon since late 2019 has been in a historic fiscal crisis after decades of
corruption and mismanagement by the country's ruling class. Al-Khulaifi also
said Qatar will continue it support to the Lebanese army, adding that the
decision comes from Doha's belief "that this institution is the basis for
security and stability in the country."
Report: Aoun asks Rajji to abide by official policy after
Berri's Baabda visit
Naharnet/27 January 2026
In a sign of the growing harmony between President Joseph Aoun and Speaker Nabih
Berri, an agreement to activate diplomatic efforts was put into effect through
the U.N. complaint that was filed by the Foreign Ministry over Israel’s
violations, a media report said. Informed political sources told ad-Diyar
newspaper that the step followed a visit by Foreign Minister Youssef Raji to the
Baabda Palace, during which Aoun asked Rajji to take action to tackle the
continuous Israeli attacks.“He also instructed him to adhere to the general
outlines of the Ministerial Statement and the inaugural (presidential) speech,
and to avoid creating tensions within the Cabinet. This matter had previously
been raised by Berri with Aoun, when he called for the need to ‘rein in’ the
foreign minister, who has been ‘straying from the fold’ and causing
embarrassment to Lebanon's diplomatic position,” the sources added.
Is Lebanon preparing for political negotiations with
Israel?
Naharnet/27 January 2026
As the U.S.-led Mechanism meetings in Naqoura falter -- or prepare to enter a
new phase -- behind-the-scenes political activity involving Lebanon, the U.S.
and Israel is gaining momentum, a media report said. These moves aim to launch
negotiations that “transcend the geographical coordinates of Hezbollah’s
arsenals and tunnels, moving instead toward the level of ‘political surgery’ in
a scenario mirroring the Syrian model,” Lebanon’s al-Joumhouria newspaper
reported on Tuesday. The Americans and Israelis are “dismantling the entire
‘toolkit’ used during the first phase south of the Litani River. They are
pulling ‘life support’ from the Naqoura Mechanism committee, viewing it as a
symbol of the ‘gray model’ that Lebanese officials have long relied on to stall
and buy time, backed by France and UNIFIL,” the daily said. The ready
alternative will be a tripartite framework consisting only of Lebanon, Israel
and the United States, while technical security discussions may continue between
military officers, al-Joumhouria said, adding that “the real, deep negotiations
will take place within a high-level political committee focused on political and
economic interests and partnerships.”Al-Joumhouria also said that the U.S. and
Israel want the tripartite meetings to be held in Europe, with Cyprus as the
most likely option in light of its geographical proximity to both Lebanon and
Israel. “The Americans prefer to rule out France, because they want ‘harsh’
political negotiations with Lebanon, away from the ‘romanticism’ of the French
diplomacy,” the daily added.
Reports: Lebanon receives positive message after Trump-Sisi
call
Naharnet/27 January 2026
Communication took place between the Lebanese and Egyptian presidencies prior to
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s meeting with his U.S. counterpart
Donald Trump at the Davos summit, media reports said. “Al-Sisi was told that
Lebanon is implementing the government’s plan for collecting Hezbollah’s arms
and that Israel has not fulfilled anything of what was agreed on with the
Americans,” diplomatic sources told An-Nahar newspaper. Egypt meanwhile focused
on “the need to understand Lebanon’s situation” and what the state and its
institutions are facing due to the “continued Israeli intransigence,” the daily
said. After the meeting between Trump and al-Sisi, the Lebanese presidency
received an urgent and “positive” message from Cairo and it turned out that
Trump understands the circumstances of the Lebanese government and the
difficulties it is facing, the newspaper added. A statement issued by the
Egyptian president had said that al-Sisi stressed to Trump “the importance of
the U.S. role in halting the attacks and violations against Lebanon’s
sovereignty.”Egyptian diplomatic sources meanwhile said that Cairo is “carrying
out a series of contacts with several countries, especially with the Americans,
with the aim of helping Lebanon and fending off the dangers it is facing.”“Cairo
will spare no effort to benefit from anything that contributes to supporting and
immunizing Lebanon,” the sources added.
To Undermine Reform is to Gamble with Lebanon’s Survival!
Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al-Awsat/January
25/2026
The collapse of a dilapidated building in Tripoli on the 24th of January was a
deeply revealing, harrowing tragedy. It crumbled over its residents, who chose
to remain in their homes because the alternative was life on the streets after
those supposed to protect them neglected their most basic duty. Equally shocking
was the helplessness on display throughout that day. The victims could not be
retrieved, creating a vivid image of institutional paralysis. With the
building’s collapse, broad expectations that the emergence of new authorities
would turn the page on misery and suffering also collapsed.The foremost
challenge, one year into President Joseph Aoun’s term, remains saving Lebanese
lives and averting the existential threat posed by occupation. Another crucial
challenge is achieving a measure of justice after decades of “impunity,” thereby
providing a measure of reassurance to citizens. It has become exceedingly
difficult to claim that the new top brass presents a contrast with the corrupt
establishment that had led the country to hell by covering for the
transgressions of “state-within-a-state” and standing idly by as Hezbollah
dragged Lebanon into the calamitous “support war.”The President’s slogan of
“sovereignty, reform, and peace” was followed by the Prime Minister’s assertion
that “for the first time since 1969, the Lebanese state alone has operational
control south of the Litani.” From Paris, the latter then stressed that: “If
security and safety are not available, investments will not come; and if reform
in the banking sector does not take place, investments will not come either.”
There is, however, a visible chasm between rhetoric and practice, between the
authorities’ performance over the past year and the president’s inaugural speech
and the ministerial statement.
Four hundred and twenty-seven days after the ceasefire agreement (which had been
negotiated by the duo of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah
Secretary-General Naim Qassem, and concluded by Najib Mikati’s government)
merely reiterating the achievements made south of the Litani is not enough.
Lebanon does not have the luxury of time, and full disarmament could alter the
terms imposed by the victor, after there had been references to the return of
the displaced and the release of prisoners, while its “right” to permanently
violate the country is being imposed. That happened before the fall of the
Syrian regime, when this militia’s supply lines were still operational. It is no
longer acceptable to show laxity in the face of the “party’s” refusal to comply
with an agreement it had endorsed. It now announces its refusal to disarm north
of the Litani despite its withdrawal from the south, effectively giving up on
its claims to fighting the Israeli enemy. Why does Hezbollah insist on retaining
weapons while it has failed to do anything in response to the daily attacks on
its militants? Do the authorities not have a duty to take stringent action to
reassure citizens and protect them by taking control of the cantons protected by
these weapons and ending the chokehold that has been imposed on the Shiite
community's social fabric for the sake of Iran’s agenda?
Lebanon’s sovereignty is being undermined, and not only through Israel’s
occupation of the five points and Israel’s no-man’s-land along the edges of
devastated towns. The problem is not limited to military issues or the presence
of non-state actors. The neglect of accountability and the suspension of justice
are also undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty as economic and social reform remains
elusive. The state has been made incapable of acting on its rhetoric through
tangible steps. Providing “security and safety” presupposes, alongside the
urgent task of disarmament, weakening the corrupt establishment's grip on the
economic, financial, administrative, and cultural institutions, using them to
build extra-state loyalties. The state must become the sole reference for
legitimacy, trust, and belonging- that is a crucial step toward achieving
national sovereignty.
The country had embraced illusions: “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web” and
“I bring you the news of victory-” victory for whom? The outcome was a free
fall. The catastrophic “support” war destroyed Hezbollah’s delusions about its
strength and imposed a devastating defeat on the country. Today, the Lebanese
are being asked to coexist with new narratives that market new illusions using
refined language.
In general, high-level state appointments have not deviated from the
spoil-sharing formula of the past, which does not intersect with the needs of
the country and its people at any point. The collapse has not been halted by the
introduction of a few new faces; it is deepening. Every day without
accountability erodes trust further and places additional burdens on the people.
The “audit” has become the key to financial and reforms and must encompass the
banking sector as well as the dungeons of state corruption. To do anything else
is to insist on gambling with the country’s future. Salam’s disclosure of the
IMF’s reservations regarding the draft “financial gap law” should mean
terminating the project. Prioritizing justice must replace the deliberate
substitution of accountability with the contrived notion of a “gap” to protect
perpetrators. The IMF’s remarks cast doubt on the project’s foundations and on
the country’s capacity to implement it. The IMF response concludes with a
request to add a clause allowing for the monetization of gold in the event that
repayment proves impossible. That amounts to denying Lebanon any chance at
recovery and guaranteeing that rights will not be reclaimed so long as this
system remains in place. At this juncture, becoming even more reliant on
indirect taxation is catastrophic. Cutting pensions after the illegal haircut on
deposits is no solution either. The country will not move forward by revamping
corrupt figures and defendants accused of liability in the Beirut port blast.
Salvation can only come from addressing the root causes that precipitated the
tyranny of weapons and led to collapse and defeat
The Albanese affair and the American University of Beirut
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya English/January 27/2026
https://english.alarabiya.net/views/2026/01/27/the-albanese-affair-and-the-american-university-of-beirut-
Every few years, Lebanon’s public sphere rediscovers “freedom of expression”
with the enthusiasm of a seasonal virtue. It is invoked passionately, defended
loudly, and mourned theatrically – until it becomes inconvenient. Then it is
quietly reclassified as a risk, a liability, or a “process issue,” deferred to
committees, vetting mechanisms, and legal caveats that arrive only once outrage
has already done its work. The recent controversy surrounding Francesca Albanese
and the American University of Beirut fits squarely within this pattern. What is
striking is not the dispute itself, but the sudden shock it produced among
people who otherwise live quite comfortably with the routine disciplining of
speech. As if this were the first time expression had been filtered, managed, or
constrained in the name of compliance.
This, plainly, is what freedom of expression looks like once it becomes
relative. In response to the uproar, AUB clarified that no event featuring
Albanese had been scheduled and then canceled. Rather, the university stated
that, as a private institution operating under Lebanese law and a US charter, it
is legally required to vet all invitees against US sanctions lists. Since
Albanese is reportedly listed on the Specially Designated Nationals registry,
AUB rightly argued that it could not legally host her without exposing itself –
and its staff – to serious legal risk.
One may object to the politics behind such sanctions, and many should. But
pretending these constraints do not exist, or that institutions can simply
ignore binding legal frameworks when moral urgency demands it, is either naïve
or willfully dishonest. Law, unlike outrage, does not yield to hashtags. Yet the
deeper problem is not legal constraint. It is selective indignation.
The sudden mobilization around Albanese contrasts sharply with the near silence
that accompanied the very public attack on Professor Bashar Haydar not long ago
– an episode that raised equally serious questions about academic freedom,
dignity, and permissible speech. That incident passed with minimal collegial
reckoning or institutional soul-searching. No anguished emails circulated. No
broader reflections followed.
This asymmetry matters. Because once outrage becomes episodic – activated only
when the cause is internationally visible, media-friendly, or ideologically
affirming – it stops being outrage and turns into performance. And once freedom
of expression is defended only when it is safe to defend, it ceases to be a
principle at all. Some have tried to sidestep this contradiction by arguing that
US funding is now so scarce, so diminished, that abiding by US legal and
political considerations is therefore futile or unnecessary. This claim, too,
collapses under scrutiny.
AUB does not operate within a US legal framework merely to secure funds. It
operates within it as part of a broader soft-power model – one that, for all its
flaws, has historically allowed the university to function as a pluralistic
space in a deeply illiberal region. This model has enabled people sharply
critical of US foreign policy, Israeli power, and Western hegemony to teach,
research, and publish at AUB, provided they meet academic and professional
standards.
To dismiss this framework as irrelevant while continuing to benefit from its
protections, prestige, and latitude is not resistance. It is convenience
masquerading as principle. The same applies to the moral theatrics surrounding
funding. Those who denounce “blood money” while continuing to build careers
within institutions sustained by it are not practicing ethical courage. They are
outsourcing their discomfort. No one is compelled to accept funding they claim
is morally intolerable. Refusal is an option – just not a cost-free one.It is
easy to denounce power while cashing its checks. Easy to celebrate courage while
delegating its price to “the institution.” And especially easy to rediscover
freedom of expression only when it flatters one’s politics. This is not an
indictment of a single university, nor a demand for heroic martyrdom. It is a
call for intellectual honesty. Either freedom of expression is a value worth
defending consistently, even when it is uncomfortable and constrained – or it is
a rhetorical ornament we deploy when convenient. Our students are not confused.
They are watching carefully. They see how principles are celebrated in theory
and negotiated in practice. They observe how silence is rationalized, how
outrage is timed, and how moral clarity is selectively activated. Perhaps the
real lesson they are absorbing is not about freedom of expression itself, but
about its limits – limits defined less by law than by willingness. And silence,
as always, remains a choice.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on January
27-28/2026
Iran Protest Death Toll Could Top 30,000, According to Local Health Officials
Kay Armin Serjoie, Roxana Saberi,
and Fatemeh Jamalpour/ Time/January 25/2026
https://time.com/7357635/more-than-30000-killed-in-iran-say-senior-officials/
As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8
and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told
TIME—indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll. So many people were
slaughtered by Iranian security services on that Thursday and Friday, it
overwhelmed the state’s capacity to dispose of the dead. Stocks of body bags
were exhausted, the officials said, and eighteen-wheel semi-trailers replaced
ambulances. The government’s internal count of the dead, not previously
revealed, far surpasses the toll of 3,117 announced on Jan. 21 by regime
hardliners who report directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
(Ministries report to the elected President.) The 30,000 figure is also far
beyond tallies being compiled by activists methodically assigning names to the
dead. As of Saturday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it
had confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,031 more. TIME has been
unable to independently verify these figures. The Health Ministry’s two-day
figure roughly aligns with a count gathered by physicians and first responders,
and also shared with TIME. That surreptitious tally of deaths recorded by
hospitals stood at 30,304 as of Friday, according to Dr. Amir Parasta, a
German-Iranian eye surgeon who prepared a report of the data. Parasta said that
number does not reflect protest-related deaths of people registered at military
hospitals, whose bodies were taken directly to morgues, or that happened in
locales the inquiry did not reach. Iran’s National Security Council has said
protests took place in around 4,000 locations across the country. “We are
getting closer to reality,” Dr. Parasta said. “But I guess the real figures are
still way higher.”That appears to be the reality implicit in the government’s
internal figure of more than 30,000 deaths in two days. A slaughter on that
scale, in the space of 48 hours, had experts on mass killing groping for
comparisons. “Most spasms of killing are not from shootings,” said Les Roberts,
a professor at Columbia University who specializes in the epidemiology of
violent death. “In Aleppo [Syria] and in Fallujah [Iraq], when spasms of death
this high have occurred over a few days, it involved mostly explosives with some
shooting.”The only parallel offered by online databases occurred in the
Holocaust. On the outskirts of Kyiv on Sept. 29 and 30, 1941, Nazi death squads
executed 33,000 Ukrainian Jews by gunshot in a ravine known as Babyn Yar.In
Iran, the killing fields extended across the country where, since Dec. 28,
hundreds of thousands of citizens had assembled in the streets chanting first,
for relief from an economy in freefall, and soon for the downfall of the Islamic
regime. During the first week, security forces confronted some demonstrations,
using mostly non-lethal force, but with officials also offering conciliatory
language, the regime response was uncertain. That changed during the weekend
commencing Jan. 8. Protests peaked, as opposition groups, including Reza
Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former shah, urged people to join the throngs,
and U.S. President Donald Trump repeated vows to protect them, though no help
arrived. Witnesses say millions were in the streets when authorities shut down
the internet and all other communications with the outside world. Rooftop
snipers and trucks mounted with heavy machine guns opened fire, according to
eyewitnesses and cell phone footage. On Friday, Jan. 9, an official of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned on state television to anyone venturing
into the streets, “if … a bullet hits you, don’t complain.”
It took days for the reality to penetrate the internet blackout. Images of the
bloodied bodies trickled out via illicit Starlink satellite internet
connections. The task of counting the dead was hampered, however, because the
authorities had also cut off lines of communications inside Iran. The first firm
information came from a Tehran doctor who told TIME that just six hospitals in
the capital had recorded at least 217 protester deaths after Thursday’s assault.
Health care workers in Iran estimated at least 16,500 protesters had been killed
by Jan. 10, according to an earlier report by Dr. Parasta in Munich. Friday’s
update built on that research, he said. “I am genuinely impressed by how quickly
this work was pulled together under extremely constrained and risky conditions,”
said Paul B. Spiegel, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University International
School of Health. Like Roberts, he expressed wariness of extrapolating from the
figures provided by hospitals. Roberts, who traveled into war zones to research
civilian death rates in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo, said, “the
30,000 verified deaths are almost certainly an underestimate.”The emergence of the Ministry of Health numbers appears to confirm that—while
underscoring the stakes for both Iranians and a regime that, in 1979, came to
power when a sitting government was confronted by millions of people demanding
its downfall.
On Friday, Jan. 9, Sahba Rashtian, an aspiring animation artist, joined friends
on the streets in Isfahan, a city in central Iran famous for its beauty. "Before
anyone started chanting," a friend told TIME, "Sahba was seen collapsed on the
ground. Her sister noticed blood on her hand.”Sahba died on an operating table at a nearby hospital. She was 23. “She always
joked about her beautiful name,” her friend said. “She’d laugh and say, ‘Sahba
means wine, and I am forbidden in the Islamic Republic.’”At the burial, the friend said, religious rites were barred, and Rashtian’s
father wore white. “Congratulations,” he told mourners, according to the
friend. “My daughter became a martyr on the path to freedom.”
Iran’s currency drops to record
low against dollar, tracking websites say
Reuters/January 27, 2026
DUBAI: Iran’s currency dropped to a record low of 1,500,000 rials to the US
dollar on Tuesday, according to Iranian currency tracking websites, weeks after
protests sparked by the rial’s dwindling value rocked the country. The rial has
lost about 5 percent of its value over the course of this month, according to
data from the currency tracking website Bonbast.com. Iran’s newly appointed
Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said on Tuesday that “the foreign
exchange market is following its natural course.”What began as protests on
December 28 over economic hardship in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar quickly morphed
into the worst legitimacy crisis for Iran’s clerical establishment as it spread
across the country with protesters demanding a political change.Security forces
crushed the unrest, which abated earlier this month, with the bloodiest
crackdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Subsidy reform
Amid the protests, the government had introduced a subsidy reform, replacing
preferential currency exchange rates for importers with direct transfers to
Iranians to boost their purchasing power for essential goods. Iran’s First
Vice President Mohammadreza Aref defended the policy on Monday, saying
corruption had made preferential rates ineffective in tackling inflation for
basic goods, and that the new system aimed at stabilising the foreign exchange
rate. Monthly inflation for households has continued to rise, with year-on-year
inflation reaching 60 percent for the period December 21 to January 19,
according to figures released by the Statistical Center of Iran on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s online economy has been battered by an Internet blackout
imposed since January 8 and still largely in place. A government spokesperson
said on Tuesday that while the government prefers free Internet access, security
considerations required maintaining restrictions.
US to Conduct Multi-Day
Military Exercise in Middle East
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
The United States on Tuesday announced a major multi-day Air Force exercise in
the Middle East, as Washington and Tehran face off over Iran's deadly crackdown
on anti-government demonstrations. The announcement came a day after the US
military said the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group had arrived in the Middle
East, dramatically boosting American firepower in the region. The exercise will
"demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower
across" the Middle East, the US Air Force component of Central Command, which is
responsible for American forces in the region, said in a statement. No date or
exact location for the exercise were released. The protests in Iran started in
late December, driven by economic grievances, but turned into a mass movement
against the ruling authorities, with huge street demonstrations for several days
from January 8.A US-based rights group said Tuesday it had confirmed the deaths
of over 6,000 people in protests, adding that it was investigating over 17,000
more potential deaths.President Donald Trump had repeatedly warned Iran that if
it killed protesters, the United States would intervene militarily, and also
encouraged Iranians to take over state institutions, saying "help is on the
way." But he pulled back from ordering strikes earlier this month, saying Tehran
had halted more than 800 executions under pressure from Washington.
Israel’s Netanyahu says it
would be a ‘mistake’ to hold elections now
Reuters/January 28, 2026
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he and Secretary of
State Marco Rubio had “solved a tremendous problem in conjunction with Syria,”
although he didn’t provide details. Trump’s comments, which were made
during an interview on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show,” came hours after he
spoke to Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa.Washington has been engaged in
shuttle diplomacy to reach a lasting ceasefire and political resolution between
the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — once its top ally in Syria — and
Sharaa, now its favored partner in the country.
Israel to seek new security deal
with the US, FT reports
Reuters/January 27, 2026
Israel is preparing for talks with the Trump administration on a new 10-year
security deal, seeking to extend US military support even as Israeli leaders
signal they are planning for a future with reduced American cash grants, the
Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Gil Pinchas, speaking to the FT before
stepping down as chief financial adviser to Israel’s military and defense
ministry, said Israel would seek to prioritize joint military and defense
projects over cash handouts in talks that he expected to take place in the
coming weeks. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a Reuters
request for comment outside regular business hours. “The partnership is more
important than just the net financial issue in this context ... there are a
lot of things that are equal to money,” Pinchas told the FT. “The view of this
needs to be wider.”Pinchas said pure financial support — or “free money” —
worth $3.3 billion a year, which Israel can use to purchase US weapons, was
“one component of the MOU (that) could decrease gradually.”In 2016, the US and
Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years
through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in
grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped to
“taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Armed Gaza Gangs Shift Tactics, Straining Hamas Security
Gaza/Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
For months, a proliferation of armed gangs in Gaza was widely seen as a looming
threat to Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2007 after seizing it by
force following a bitter split with Fatah in the wake of Hamas’s victory in the
2006 legislative elections.
As time passed, however, those expectations faded, as the gangs proved
disorganized, fragmented, and incapable of mounting a sustained challenge.
Abu Shabab gang
The most prominent armed gang was led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a Palestinian whom
the Hamas-run authorities had previously detained on criminal charges. After his
release from prison at the start of the war in October 2023, he became free to
operate. He gradually gained notoriety for seizing and looting humanitarian aid,
working with relatives and friends. He later formed an armed group that spread
in areas under Israeli control east of Rafah in southern Gaza. Israel, over
time, placed hopes on Abu Shabab’s gang as the first group to emerge and expand,
eventually attracting dozens and then a limited number of hundreds of fighters,
in what was seen as a potential challenge to Hamas. Efforts were made not only
through the looting of aid arriving via the Kerem Shalom crossing, but also
through skirmishes carried out by the gang against gunmen from families opposed
to Hamas. These included gunfire and attacks on public and other facilities
aimed at asserting the group’s presence. Hamas confronted these practices on
each occasion, with fatalities reported on both sides. The biggest losers,
however, were members of families that aligned themselves with the gang and were
targeted by Hamas fire as a deterrent. This approach succeeded in several cases
before the most recent ceasefire. It intensified afterward, when Hamas attacked
other clans and families, killing, wounding, and arresting dozens, in what it
described as a deterrent message to anyone attempting to cooperate with Israel.
For short periods, Abu Shabab’s gang was accused of taking part in the abduction
of Palestinians by Israel, including Hamas activists, but this was not proven.
In some cases, it later emerged that Israeli special forces had carried out
those operations. The gang was also accused of responsibility for killing
Palestinians heading to US-run aid distribution centers, though accounts of
those incidents were contradictory.
Other gangs
During the same period, other armed gangs emerged in different areas, including
the group led by Hossam Al-Asatal south of Khan Younis, Rami Helles’s gang east
of Gaza City, Ashraf Al-Mansi’s group in the north of the strip, and, most
recently, the gang led by Shawqi Abu Nseira northeast of Khan Younis. These
groups adopted various names such as “Counterterrorism” and “Popular Forces.”Abu
Shabab was later killed unexpectedly while attempting to mediate a family
dispute east of Rafah. Leadership of his group subsequently passed to his
deputy, Ghassan Al-Dahini, described as the “mastermind, organizer, and de facto
leader” of the Abu Shabab gang. Following Abu Shabab’s killing, his group lost
much of its already limited influence and carried out no significant new
activities or skirmishes, particularly after the ceasefire. Some of its members
fell into Hamas ambushes and were killed or arrested. Hamas also struck the
gangs led by Helles and Al-Mansi and attempted to target Al-Asatal’s group,
while no action was taken against the most recently formed gang led by Abu
Nseira.The Helles and Al-Mansi gangs, operating east of Gaza City and in the
north, respectively, tried to assert themselves through minimal clashes.
More recently, however, the Helles gang adopted a new tactic, killing several
Gazans who approached the so-called yellow line in the Shujaiya and Tuffah
neighborhoods, and forcing residents of a residential block in Tuffah to
evacuate at Israel’s request. This marked a new development in the group’s
methods.
These moves appear to have prompted Hamas, late Sunday into Monday, to set an
ambush for members of that gang on the outskirts of Gaza City. Details remain
unclear, but the “Radea (Deterrence)” force of Gaza’s armed factions’ security
apparatus said it had thwarted a “hostile security operation” and inflicted
casualties.Rami Helles, the gang’s leader, confirmed in a Facebook post that one
of his fighters, Raad Al-Jamal, had been killed, without providing details. Some
sources said Al-Jamal was among the earliest gunmen to join the group. The gang
appears to have attempted to prove itself by assassinating a Hamas activist, as
other gangs had done, but its members were caught in the ambush. All of the
gangs, since their formation, have operated on the ground in the service of
Israel by entering booby-trapped houses and tunnels to detect explosives.This
has led to the killing and wounding of some of their members, a practice later
confirmed by Israeli media, which reported that the Israeli army relied on them
because of the frequency of ambushes faced by its forces.
More dangerous tactics
Within the span of a month, the armed gangs shifted to what Palestinians
described as “dangerous” tactics after carrying out two assassinations targeting
officers in the Hamas-run security services and prominent activists in the
movement’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, near their homes. An investigation
by Asharq Al-Awsat found that the first assassination, on Dec. 14, 2025,
targeted Ahmed Zamzam, an officer in the Internal Security Service, in the
Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. It was carried out by gunmen belonging to
Shawqi Abu Nseira’s gang. The second, on Jan. 12, targeted Mahmoud Al-Asatal,
the head of investigations in the Hamas-run administration in Khan Younis. That
attack was carried out by gunmen linked to Hossam Al-Asatal’s gang. Al-Asatal
was a relative of the victim, though his clan had disowned him since he formed
his gang in September. Field sources said both operations followed prolonged
surveillance of the targets. The change in tactics raised questions about its
rationale. Field sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that, unlike older gangs, Abu
Nseira and Hossam Al-Asatal displayed greater loyalty to Israel, operated more
boldly, spoke fluent Hebrew with Israeli media, and presented themselves as
potential alternatives to Hamas’s rule in Gaza.According to the sources, the
gunmen who carried out the two assassinations were equipped with small
body-mounted cameras to document the operations, and some of the weapons used
were pistols fitted with silencers.
This pointed clearly to Israeli support, which other gangs did not receive due
to their failure to demonstrate real impact. Multiple field sources also said
members of these gangs had obtained new Israeli weapons, including anti-armor
munitions, for the first time since Israel began providing them with support,
food, and some light arms.
Shifting factors
The ability of these gangs to carry out two assassinations within a month
prompted further scrutiny. Asharq Al-Awsat verified through several sources that
both Abu Nseira and Al-Asatal had been senior officers in the Palestinian
Authority’s security services and possessed significant experience. The sources
said Al-Asatal had received specialized training for years with Israel’s Mossad
after being recruited by the Shin Bet, and had been assigned to work outside
Palestine. He later took part in the assassination of Qassam Brigades leader
Fadi Al-Batsh, an engineer who was not widely known within the group and had
been receiving specialized training in Malaysia to develop drones and rockets.
Al-Batsh was killed in April 2018 in an operation in which Al-Asatal
participated alongside local agents working for the Mossad. Hamas later
succeeded in luring Al-Asatal through one of his brothers, an officer in the
Internal Security Service, arresting him and issuing a death sentence against
him. Sources said Al-Asatal and Abu Nseira possessed broader military thinking
than others. Al-Asatal had held the rank of major in the Preventive Security
Service, while Abu Nseira served as a major general in the Palestinian police.
By contrast, Rami Helles held the rank of junior officer in the Presidential
Guard, as did Ashraf Al-Mansi, who served as a conscript in the same force. Abu
Shabab had not belonged to any Palestinian security service, while his deputy,
Ghassan Al-Dahini, had served in the National Security Forces. The experience of
Al-Asatal and Abu Nseira, including the former’s recruitment and extensive
training by Israeli intelligence and the latter’s past imprisonment by Israel,
enabled them to target active Hamas members, particularly newly recruited Qassam
Brigades fighters, and recruit them to their side.
Al-Asatal recently announced that a member of the Qassam Brigades’ elite unit in
Jabalia had joined his forces, prompting the man’s family to deny he had been
part of the elite unit. Hamas sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that he had been
recently recruited and worked as a courier between some leaders, transporting
funds, and collecting donations from abroad for charitable projects for
displaced people. He was the grandson of one of Hamas’s founders in Jabalia. The
activities of these two gangs have increasingly troubled Hamas from a security
standpoint, as Israel continues to intensify its intelligence efforts to carry
out assassinations whenever conditions allow. This has prompted Hamas to raise
its alert level and strengthen personal security for its officers and leaders to
guard against further assassination attempts, Asharq Al-Awsat has learned. Hamas
and its security services have issued internal security directives urging
leaders and members to remain vigilant, vary their routes, carry appropriate
weapons to repel any attack, and abandon mobile phones to reduce tracking amid
Israeli assistance to the gangs. They were also instructed to monitor any
suspicious movements by individuals believed to be surveilling them and to take
countermeasures accordingly.
UN Push to Get Hundreds of Thousands of Gaza Children Back
to School
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
The United Nations announced Tuesday a major push to get hundreds of thousands
of children across the war-scarred Gaza Strip back to school.
Since the start of the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel,
nearly 90 percent of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed and more
than 700,000 school-aged children have been left unable to access formal
education, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF. "Almost two and a half
years of attacks on Gaza's schooling have left an entire generation at risk,"
agency spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva, AFP reported. UNICEF was
now dramatically scaling up its education initiative in the Palestinian
territory, Elder said, in what he described as "one of the largest emergency
learning efforts anywhere in the world". The organization currently supports
more than 135,400 children receiving education at over 110 learning spaces in
Gaza -- many of them in tents, he said.But it now aims to more than double that
number to include more than 336,000 children this by the end of this year, and
to get all school-age children back in in-person learning in 2027. UNICEF is
working on the project with the Palestinian education ministry and the UN agency
supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which before the war was providing
schooling to around half of Gaza's children. UNICEF would need $86 million for
its education program in Gaza this year -- "roughly what the world spends on
coffee in an hour or two", Elder pointed out. Getting children back to school
"is not a 'nice to have'. It is an emergency", he insisted. He highlighted that
"before this war, Palestinians in Gaza had some of the highest literacy rates in
the world". "Today that legacy is under attack: schools, universities, and
libraries have been destroyed, and years of progress erased," he said.Elder also
stressed that learning in Gaza was "lifesaving". "These centres provide safe
spaces in a territory that is often inaccessible and dangerous," he pointed out,
adding that they also connect children to health, nutrition and protection
services, as well as clean toilets and places to wash hands -- "something too
many children in shelters simply don't have".The push to scale up access to
education comes as aid groups have managed to bring more supplies into the
besieged territory since a fragile US-backed ceasefire took effect last October.
UNICEF said that it had managed to bring in more than 4,400 recreational kits
and 240 School-in-a-Carton kits, containing things like pencils, pens, chalk,
exercise books, and geometry sets. And it said it expected the total number of
kits brought in to surpass 11,000 by the end of the week, with nearly 7,000
others in the pipeline for coming weeks.
Saudi Arabia Reaffirms Supporting
the Mission of the Board of Peace in Gaza
Asharq Al Awsat/27 January/2026
Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime
Minister, chaired the Cabinet session held in Riyadh on Tuesday. At the outset
of the session, the Crown Prince briefed the Cabinet on the message he received
from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of the Kingdom of Bahrain, which addressed
relations between the two brotherly countries.The Cabinet reviewed current
regional and international developments, reaffirming the Kingdom’s commitment to
supporting the mission of the Board of Peace in Gaza as a transitional authority
to end the conflict, facilitate reconstruction, and pave the way for security
and stability for the countries and peoples of the region, SPA reported.In a
statement to the SPA following the session, Saudi Minister of Media Salman Al-Dossary
said the Cabinet commended the participation of the Kingdom’s delegation in the
World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, highlighting the progress
made in achieving Saudi Vision 2030 goals. The Cabinet also welcomed the
Kingdom’s hosting of the WEF Global Collaboration and Growth Meeting, scheduled
for April 22–23, reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s role in promoting global economic
stability and strengthening communication between developed and developing
economies to address shared global challenges. The Cabinet expressed
appreciation for the patronage of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman
bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of the third edition of the Global Labor Market Conference
in Riyadh, praising the resulting agreements aimed at empowering the workforce,
utilizing artificial intelligence, and building sustainable ecosystems.
Furthermore, the Cabinet commended the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief
Center (KSrelief) for launching its 2026 plan, which comprises 422 humanitarian
projects globally, reflecting the Kingdom’s steadfast approach to providing aid
and assistance to those in need. The Cabinet reviewed several reports on
completed and ongoing projects and programs within the comprehensive development
process. It praised the rapid progress of the Housing Program, which
successfully raised the citizen homeownership rate to 66.2% by the end of 2025,
with the number of beneficiaries exceeding one million. The Cabinet also
emphasized that more than 700 international companies have chosen Saudi Arabia
as their regional headquarters, reflecting the Kingdom’s achievements in
infrastructure and its attractive business environment. The Cabinet deemed the
opening of the new expansion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and
the inauguration of Al-Jouf International Airport as two important pillars for
expanding air connectivity, improving the passenger experience, and keeping pace
with economic and developmental progress in line with the National Transport and
Logistics Strategy under Saudi Vision 2030.
Syria Hopes to Hold New Talks with Kurdish Forces
Asharq Al Awsat/27 January/2026
The Syrian government hopes to hold a new round of talks with the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces, possibly later on Tuesday, to spell out how the force
would merge into the central state, a senior Syrian government official said.
Syria's government and the SDF have been locked in a year-long dispute over
whether and how Kurdish civilian and military institutions, which have operated
autonomously in northeast Syria for a decade, would integrate into the
Damascus-based government. After a deadline to merge passed at the end of
2025 with little progress, Syrian troops seized swathes of northern and eastern
territory from the SDF in a rapid turn of events that has consolidated Syrian
President Ahmed al-Sharaa's rule.The two sides signed a sweeping integration
deal on January 18 but have yet to hammer out the details, Reuters reported.
The Syrian official said that would be the aim of the upcoming meeting, which
he said would be held "with US support". Washington has been engaged in shuttle
diplomacy to reach a lasting ceasefire and political resolution between the SDF
- once its top ally in Syria - and Sharaa, now its favoured partner in the
country. The official declined to say where exactly the meeting would take
place but said it would be inside Syria and likely in a neutral location -
neither Damascus nor the remaining Kurdish-held cities of the northeast. The
spectre of resumed fighting between the two sides still looms over the talks,
with Syrian government troops amassed around a cluster of Kurdish-held cities in
the north, where Kurdish fighters are reinforcing their defensive lines. The
two sides agreed to a ceasefire that was extended on Saturday until February 8.
Syria's Sharaa to Make Surprise Moscow Visit Amid Talk of New Ties
Moscow: Raed Jaber/Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will arrive in Moscow on Wednesday for talks
with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian media reported, in a surprise
visit that comes amid rapid shifts in Russia’s military posture in northeastern
Syria. The reports said Sharaa would hold talks with Putin, but did not provide
further details. The Kremlin confirmed the visit on Tuesday, saying Putin would
meet Sharaa in Moscow on Wednesday. It said the two presidents were expected to
discuss the state and prospects of bilateral relations across various fields, as
well as the current situation in the Middle East. A Syrian source in Moscow told
Asharq Al-Awsat that Sharaa may ask Putin to hand over several “second- and
third-tier figures who have direct links to attempts to inflame tensions along
Syria’s coast.” The visit comes just two days after Moscow carried out an urgent
withdrawal of its forces and equipment from Qamishli airport, prompting
observers to link the two developments. Russian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat
that the evacuation was carried out at Damascus’ request after government forces
expanded their control over areas in northeastern Syria. The source said there
was “no longer a need for a Russian presence in this region.”
The reports on the Russian withdrawal from northeastern Syria coincided with
field accounts by foreign correspondents describing heightened activity in the
area, including the removal of military vehicles, armored units, and troops,
which were transferred to the Hmeimim airbase. A Syrian security source on
Syria’s western coast said Russian military vehicles and heavy weapons had been
moved from Qamishli to the Hmeimim airport over the past two days.
Correspondents in the coastal region documented intensified movements of Russian
convoys over the past few days, most of which were carrying sealed crates. A
Reuters correspondent saw Russian flags still flying at Qamishli airport, along
with two aircraft bearing Russian markings on the runway. Russia has maintained
a limited presence at Qamishli airport since 2019, smaller than its deployment
at its airbase and naval facility on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. In recent
months, however, Moscow significantly reinforced its presence at Qamishli,
deploying radar systems and missile defense units, and transferring a large
number of vehicles and helicopters from Hmeimim to the airport.The move had been
widely seen as a sign of plans for a long-term Russian presence there.
Attention was also drawn to the fact that the Russian pullout was not limited to
Qamishli airport, but also included positions in Hasakah province, which has
seen security tensions between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic
Forces. According to sources at the Russian airbase in Hmeimim, some of the
withdrawing forces were redeployed to western Syria, while others were to return
to Russia. Russian sources did not rule out that developments in northeastern
Syria would be at the top of the agenda during the talks, particularly in light
of Moscow’s swift response to Damascus’ request to withdraw from the area. The
discussions are also expected to cover bilateral cooperation in various fields,
as well as ongoing talks on restructuring the Russian presence at the Hmeimim
and Tartous bases on new terms that serve the interests of both sides.
They may also include follow-up discussions, previously launched at the military
level, on Russia’s assistance to Syria in rehabilitating the Syrian army, along
with logistical requirements for maintaining military equipment, most of which
is Russian-made.The two sides have exchanged several visits at the level of
their defense ministries in recent months. Sources said the visit could lay the
groundwork for “new arrangements in relations between Moscow and Damascus, after
both sides showed a willingness in recent months to overcome points of
disagreement and establish foundations for cooperation in various fields.”Sharaa
last visited Moscow in mid-October, when he met Putin for the first time. Their
talks lasted about 2.5 hours. At the time, Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Alexander Novak said the discussions covered several areas, most notably
humanitarian issues, as well as energy, transport, health care, and tourism.
“Syria needs to rebuild its infrastructure,” Novak said after the talks, adding
that Russia was capable of providing support in this area. He revealed that the
two sides discussed prospects for cooperation in other fields, including
cultural and humanitarian areas, tourism development, and health care. He noted
that Damascus had expressed interest in obtaining Russian wheat and medicines.
Novak added that Moscow and Damascus agreed to hold a joint intergovernmental
commission meeting in the near future.
Mazloum Abdi: We Will Take
Advantage of Truce to Advance Dec. 18 Agreement
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said
efforts had been underway for some time to reach a ceasefire, noting that the
current truce was implemented “at the request of the US military.” “We are ready
to implement the agreement in the near term, and there is understanding on many
issues,” Abdi said in remarks to the Kurdish Ronahi TV channel. “We will use the
truce period to make tangible progress on the Dec. 18 agreement.”He explained
that, under the agreement, government forces would not enter Kurdish-majority
areas, while SDF institutions would be integrated into state institutions.He
added that Damascus had been asked not to enter the city and had agreed,
expressing hope that the commitment would be upheld. Abdi said any solution for
Kobani and Qamishli must also include Ras al-Ayn and Afrin. Abdi said
negotiations with Damascus were continuing under international sponsorship, with
the involvement of the United States at political and military levels, as well
as French President Emmanuel Macron. He stressed that the talks should not be
considered a final agreement, adding that international efforts to de-escalate
would succeed as long as Damascus honored its commitments and no “unacceptable”
conditions were imposed. He said the SDF remained ready to implement the Dec. 18
agreement with Damascus within a short period, noting that names had been
proposed for the posts of deputy defense minister and governor of Hasakah,
though no final list had yet been agreed.
Meanwhile, the SDF said on Monday that heavy clashes had erupted with Syrian
government-affiliated factions southeast of Kobani, after attacks launched at
dawn. The fighting continued, particularly in the town of Jalbiya, amid
reinforcements including tanks and armored vehicles and intensive Turkish drone
activity. Syria’s Defense Ministry accused the SDF of violating the ceasefire
and launching more than 25 drone attacks on army positions around Kobani.
Russian Forces Begin Pulling Out of Bases in Northeast
Syria
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Russian forces have begun pulling out of positions in northeast Syria in an area
still controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces after the group
lost most of its territory in an offensive by government forces. Associated
Press journalists visited one base next to the Qamishli airport Tuesday and
found it guarded by SDF fighters who said the Russians had begun moving their
equipment out in recent days. Inside what had been living quarters for the
soldiers was largely empty, with scattered items left behind, including workout
equipment, protein powder and some clothing.
Ahmed Ali, an SDF fighter deployed at the facility, said the Russian forces
began evacuating their positions around the airport five or six days ago,
withdrawing their equipment via a cargo plane. “We don’t know if its destination
was Russia or the Hmeimim airbase,” he said, referring to the main Russian base
on Syria’s coast. “They still have a presence in Qamishli and have been
evacuating bit by bit.”There has been no official statement from Russia about
the withdrawal of its forces from Qamishli. Russia has built relations with the
new central Syrian government in Damascus since former President Bashar Assad
was ousted in December 2024 in a rebel offensive led by now-interim President
Ahmad al-Sharaa - despite the fact that Moscow was a close ally of Assad.
Moscow’s scorched-earth intervention in support of Assad a decade ago turned the
tide of Syria’s civil war at the time, keeping Assad in his seat. Russia didn’t
try to counter the rebel offensive in late 2024 but gave asylum to Assad after
he fled the country. Despite having been on opposite sides of the battle lines
during the civil war, the new rulers in Damascus have taken a pragmatic approach
to relations with Moscow. Russia has retained a presence at its air and naval
bases on the Syrian coast.Al-Sharaa is expected to visit Moscow on Wednesday and
meet with Putin. Fighting broke out early this month between the SDF and
government forces after negotiations over a deal to merge their forces together
broke down. A ceasefire is now in place and has been largely holding. After the
expiration of a four-day truce Saturday, the two sides announced the ceasefire
had been extended by another 15 days. Syria's defense ministry said in a
statement that the extension was in support of an operation by US forces to
transfer accused ISIS militants who had been held in prisons in northeastern
Syria to detention centers in Iraq.
Türkiye Bans Protests in Province Bordering Syria
Asharq Al Awsat/27 January/2026
Turkish officials in the southeastern Mardin province bordering Syria on Monday
announced a six-day ban on gatherings following an outpouring of anger over an
offensive against Kurdish fighters across the border. Türkiye's Kurdish
community has denounced the government's support for a Syrian offensive against
a semi-autonomous northeastern region under Kurdish control. During a protest to
denounce the operation last week, over 1,000 people attempted to breach the
border crossing into Syria from the town of Nusaybin.The ban on gatherings in
Mardin is in place until Saturday evening.
"With the exception of events deemed appropriate ... any action intended to be
carried out in open spaces (gatherings, marches, press conferences, hunger
strikes, sit-ins, the setting up of stands, the pitching of tents, the
distribution of leaflets/brochures, the posting of posters/banners, etc.) is
prohibited," the Mardin governorate said in a statement.Türkiye's pro-Kurdish
DEM party had called a protest on Tuesday in Nusaybin, which is across the
border from the Syrian city of Qamishli. The call came despite the ceasefire
currently in effect in northern Syria. Türkiye already banned outdoor gatherings
in Diyarbakir, the main city in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, between
Friday and Monday evening.The Turkish government has launched a peace process
with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but the clashes in northern
Syria threaten to derail negotiations.
Iraqi Hezbollah Calls for 'Total War' in Support of Iran
amid Coordination Framework's Refusal
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Secretary-General of Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi called on
Sunday so-called "mujahideen" fighters to prepare for "total war" in support of
Iran amid the rising tensions between Tehran and the United States. Officials
acknowledged the arrival of a US aircraft carrier to the region Monday.
President Donald Trump ordered the carriers to move to the Middle East as he
threatened military action over Iran's crackdown on nationwide protests. The
entire region is mired in a tense waiting game to see if Trump will
strike.Kataib Hezbollah sat out from Israel's 12-day war on Iran in June that
saw the US bomb Iranian nuclear sites. The hesitancy to get involved shows the
disarray still affecting Iran's self-described “Axis of Resistance” after facing
attacks from Israel during its war on Hamas in Gaza. Al-Hamidawi's call was the
first by Iran-aligned factions in Iraq in wake of the latest tensions, while the
Baghdad government and majority of political parties have kept silent. Baghdad
is embroiled in the process of forming a new government and naming a new prime
minister. In a statement, al-Hamidawi called on "mujahideen across the land to
prepare for total war in support of" Iran that has "for over four decades stood
by the weak, without discrimination over sect, race or color." He said "Zionists
across the earth are trying to destroy Iran", calling on members of the Axis to
support it with whichever means they can. "We affirm to the enemies that the war
on Iran will not be a picnic; rather, you will taste the bitterest forms of
death, and nothing will remain of you in our region," he declared. Washington
had previously designated as terrorist four Iraqi armed factions, including
Kataib Hezbollah. It accused Iran of supporting "these militias in planning or
facilitating attacks" across Iraq. The US has for months been pressuring Iraqi
authorities to limit the possession of weapons to the state and bring under
control armed factions that operate independently of the armed forces and that
have carried out attacks against Washington's interests in Iraq. Meanwhile, an
official source in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework distanced the coalition
from al-Hamidawi's statement. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, the source said the
Kataib Hezbollah's "behavior and statements at this time are inappropriate and
only further complicate the situation in Iraq." "Political forces in Iraq are
preoccupied with the formation of a new government that has several problems to
deal with, including the dire economy," added the source on condition of
anonymity. "The government is not prepared to join any war with any party," it
stressed. It doubted that al-Hamidawi's call to fight will be heeded by other
factions "because they are aware that they cannot confront the US, just as they
were aware during the 12-day war that they did not join."The majority of the
factions prefer to stand on the sidelines than join a war that may perhaps
destroy or weaken them, it went on to say. Moreover, the Coordination Framework
leaderships refuse to embroil Iraq in a new war, it added.
Iraq’s Parliament Delays Presidential Vote
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Iraq's parliament postponed the election of the country's president on Tuesday
to allow Kurdish rivals time to agree on a candidate. The parliament delayed the
session, the official INA press agency reported, without saying whether a new
date had been agreed. The agency reported earlier that speaker Haibat al-Halbousi
received requests from Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), to postpone the vote to
"allow both parties more time" to reach a deal. By convention, a Shiite holds
the powerful post of prime minister, the parliament speaker is a Sunni and the
largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd. Under a tacit agreement between
the two main Kurdish parties, a PUK member holds the Iraqi presidency, while the
president and regional premier of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is selected
from the KDP. But this time the KDP named its own candidate for Iraq's
presidency: Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein. Once elected, the president
will then have 15 days to appoint a prime minister, expected to be former
premier Nouri al-Maliki. On Saturday, the Coordination Framework, an alliance of
Shiite parties with varying ties to Iran that holds a parliamentary majority,
endorsed Maliki. But his nomination appeared to stoke concern in Washington. The
75-year-old shrewd politician is Iraq's only two-term premier (2006-2014) since
the 2003 US invasion. Seen as close to Iran, Maliki left power in 2014 following
heated pressure from Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on
Sunday against a pro-Iranian government in Iraq. An Iraqi source close to the
Coordination Framework told AFP that Washington had conveyed that it "holds a
negative view of previous governments led by former prime minister Maliki."In a
letter, US representatives said that while the selection of the prime minister
is an Iraqi decision, "the United States will make its own sovereign decisions
regarding the next government in line with American interests." Another Iraqi
source confirmed the letter, adding that the Shiite alliance had still moved
forward with its choice, confident that Maliki could allay Washington's
concerns. Iraq has long been a proxy battleground between the US and Iran, with
successive governments negotiating a delicate balance between the two foes.
Iraq's new premier will be expected to address Washington's longstanding demand
that Baghdad disarm Tehran-backed factions, many of which are designated
terrorist groups by the US.
US Blocks Maliki Bid, Sends
Sharp Warning to Iran
Asharq Al Awsat/January 27/2026
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bid to return to power has stalled
abruptly after the US delivered blunt warnings against the formation of a
government seen as entrenching Iranian influence, raising the prospect that his
nomination could collapse altogether.According to sources, Washington objected
to the current trajectory of government formation, arguing it reflects an
Iranian rejection of a potential deal aimed at averting an imminent
confrontation, and signaling that a Maliki-led government would face isolation.
Asharq Al-Awsat obtained the text of a US letter presented at a meeting of the
Shiite Coordination Framework late on Monday, in which Washington rejected the
mechanisms used to nominate the prime minister-designate and other senior posts,
just two days after Maliki was put forward as the candidate of the largest
parliamentary bloc.
The letter came two days after Maliki was named as the candidate of the largest
parliamentary bloc for the premiership. A source said a senior Coordination
Framework leader received a surprise call from US officials early on Monday,
during which Washington objected to the continued Iranian dominance over the
government formation process. A senior figure in Maliki’s State of Law coalition
acknowledged that the US letter had shaken his candidacy and made a third term
extremely difficult. Questions had already been raised over whether the
Coordination Framework, the country’s largest Shiite alliance, had received US
signals opposing Maliki before his nomination was announced on Saturday, or
whether Washington’s position hardened only after reports emerged of Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei’s blessing for Maliki’s bid.
Details
In the early hours of January 26, a Shiite leader received a US call informing
him that Washington views the Coordination Framework’s push to form an
Iran-backed government as disregarding local and regional concerns and deepening
suspicions of sustained Iranian influence in Iraq, exposing the country to risks
and sanctions. The letter said that Washington “will consider it a government
under malign control, and reserves the right not to engage with it.”Caretaker
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also received a call from US Secretary of
State Marco Rubio, warning that a government dominated by Iran would be unable
to put Iraq’s interests first or shield the country from regional conflicts.
Sudani, who had mobilized his political and governmental influence in pursuit of
a second term, ultimately stepped aside in favor of Maliki and publicly
described him as “the strongest man.” However, the terms of that arrangement
remain unclear. US diplomatic activity intensified on Monday evening when US
envoy Tom Barrack told Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masoud Barzani that “a
government installed by Iran will not succeed, whether for the aspirations of
Iraqis or Syrians, or for an effective partnership with the United
States.”Barrack’s reference to Iraqis and Syrians echoed Maliki’s past positions
on political change in Damascus, where he was a strong ally of President Bashar
al-Assad. Following Barzani’s call with Barrack, Iraqi political forces
announced the postponement of a Tuesday parliamentary session to elect a
president. The delay is widely believed to reflect opposition to Maliki,
disrupting a deal that would have seen a Barzani-backed candidate elected
president. Kurdish sources said the postponement came at Kurdish request after
Barrack warned Barzani that pushing through a presidential election as part of a
deal leading to Maliki’s appointment would antagonize Washington. They added
that Barzani had “taken a step back” after reportedly agreeing with Maliki on
government formation two months ago.
A stormy meeting
On the evening of January 26, the Coordination Framework convened at the
headquarters of the Islamic Virtue Party, where a Shiite leader conveyed the
contents of the US letter regarding the future government. The meeting exposed a
rift between factions calling for caution and a review of Maliki’s nomination,
and others insisting on pressing ahead and ignoring external objections.
Tensions escalated to the point of shouting, and the dispute reportedly turned
physical. One participant was quoted as saying loudly, “We will not listen to
the objections of any external party. This phase requires a strong Maliki.”
“What we remember about Maliki” According to the letter read out at the meeting,
the US administration supports Iraqi leaders’ commitment to steering the country
away from conflict. While the selection of the prime minister-designate and
other senior posts is a sovereign Iraqi decision, Washington said it would make
its own sovereign choices regarding engagement with the next government in line
with US interests. The letter said the United States focuses on interests rather
than individuals, but that a viable partnership requires an Iraqi government
that weakens Iran-backed terrorism, dismantles militias, places dangerous
weapons under state control, and ensures that US-designated terrorist groups are
excluded, particularly those that defy Iraqi disarmament decisions. Such a
government, the letter said, would allow Washington to work constructively for
the benefit of both Iraqis and Americans.
It also urged Iraq to form an inclusive government representing all components
of society, to maintain its current openness to regional partners, and to avoid
a return to periods marked by sectarian polarization, regional tension, and
isolation. The letter warned that Maliki’s nomination risks reviving memories of
his previous governments, which are viewed negatively in Washington and the
region, at a time when Iraq is seeking a new era of stability, prosperity, and
security through a mutually beneficial partnership with the United States.
The contents of the letter could not be independently verified with US sources.
However, a Coordination Framework leader described it as “a new and decisive
position by the US administration.”
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on January
27-28/2026
Les tectoniques en mouvement
Dr. Charles Chertouni/Citation tirée du site web de Voici Beyrouth/ 27 janvier
2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/151557/
Dr Charles Chertouni/Citation tirée du site web de Voici Beyrouth/ 27 janvier
2026
Les tensions géopolitiques sur les différentes scènes internationales sont en
plein bouleversement et semblent loin de se stabiliser. Aucune des crises n’a
encore trouvé de solution durable, et elles peuvent, à tout moment, se raviver,
alors que la diplomatie hésite et n’a pas encore fixé de cap précis. Ce climat
d’incertitude stratégique et politique est intenable et ne peut perdurer face
aux enjeux en lice. Le dénouement de ces situations est essentiel, tant aux
niveaux national que régional et international.
Les conflits non résolus au Moyen-Orient (Liban, Syrie, Gaza, Irak), au
Venezuela et au Groenland illustrent des dynamiques chaotiques persistantes, qui
menacent la sécurité internationale dans un environnement global en état de
crise. Les mécanismes de régulation internationale se sont progressivement
affaiblis, en raison de la remise en question des consensus stratégiques
consécutive à l’émergence de nouvelles mouvances totalitaires et de leurs
équivalents sur la scène géopolitique.
La crise de l’alliance transatlantique met particulièrement en lumière les défis
stratégiques croissants : ceux de la culture politique dans les démocraties
occidentales, de l’exploitation des migrations massives par les islamismes de
tout acabit, ainsi que du retour des politiques de subversion bolcheviques et de
leurs variantes contemporaines. Il est urgent de redéfinir les repères
politiques et moraux sur des bases consensuelles afin de réduire les divergences
qui affectent les différents contextes géostratégiques.
La crise du Groenland a agi comme un révélateur et un précurseur des
négociations politiques nécessaires pour aborder les crises persistantes au sein
de l’OTAN, ainsi que les chocs civilisationnels et culturels qui secouent les
démocraties occidentales. Elle a également eu des répercussions sur les crises
affectant la Communauté européenne et les Nations unies. Les lignes de fracture
géopolitiques évoluent, tout comme leur impact sur les cultures et les
institutions politiques, tant au niveau national qu’international. Les crises en
cours ne peuvent être comprises sans établir un lien entre leur évolution, les
divergences normatives et intellectuelles, et leurs implications stratégiques.
La fin des grands récits de l’ordre bipolaire, ainsi que l’effondrement de l’ère
post-guerre froide, expliquent l’émergence de crises teintées de nihilisme
politique, de tendances totalitaires et des contradictions d’un ordre mondial de
plus en plus dysfonctionnel. L’émergence du populisme et le retour à « l’âge des
extrêmes » ne sont pas le fruit du hasard ; ils illustrent de manière aiguë la
déliquescence de l’ère post-guerre froide et l’apparition d’un environnement
chaotique où « nommer et délimiter » devient une tâche complexe. Le volontarisme
politique de Donald Trump reflète les vides accumulés d’un ordre mondial en
déclin et ses multiples conséquences.
Le Venezuela constitue un exemple frappant des conséquences de l’effritement de
l’ordre étatique, à la croisée du terrorisme, de la criminalité organisée et du
retour du totalitarisme. La dernière offensive contre le chavisme est un effort
tardif qui aurait dû être entrepris plus tôt afin de prévenir des tragédies à
travers les Amériques et d’anticiper le retour de scénarios propres à la guerre
froide. Les dynamiques de démocratisation ont pris du retard face aux nouvelles
réalités apparues après la chute du communisme et de ses narrations.
Se dégager d’un régime criminel est une entreprise complexe, qui exige d’éviter
les pièges de la guerre civile et les dangers d’un chaos latent. Négocier avec
un groupe criminel pose de sérieux problèmes, car sa principale préoccupation
demeure la survie au pouvoir. En dehors de cet agenda, toutes les autres
questions deviennent accessoires, voire inexistantes. Trouver des solutions à
ces dilemmes est une tâche ardue, ce qui explique les blocages prolongés.
La configuration du Moyen-Orient suit un schéma similaire, dans lequel les
enjeux liés à l’islamisme, les retournements stratégiques et les rivalités entre
puissances chiites et sunnites éclairent les évolutions politiques en cours. Le
Liban demeure un État otage, instrumentalisé par le régime islamique de Téhéran
et servant de base à une stratégie de déstabilisation poursuivie après
l’effondrement des « plateformes opérationnelles intégrées ».
Bien que difficile à cerner, cette stratégie vise à relancer des scénarios de
chaos généralisé, de guerre civile et d’instabilité endémique. Le gouvernement
libanais a démontré son incapacité à surmonter les obstacles d’une politique
dysfonctionnelle et à traiter les divergences idéologiques qui ont marqué son
histoire contemporaine. Les questions d’extraterritorialité politique et
militaire témoignent d’une crise persistante de la légitimité nationale.
La nouvelle équation géostratégique redéfinit les paramètres de résolution des
conflits et ajuste ses principes autour de la nécessité d’une paix négociée avec
Israël, d’une nouvelle ingénierie constitutionnelle et d’une réforme de la
gouvernance. Ces trois principes sont interdépendants si le Liban souhaite
restaurer sa souveraineté et retrouver son statut d’État fonctionnel. La
confusion entre légitimités concurrentes, extraterritorialités
institutionnalisées et affaiblissement de l’État constitue un obstacle majeur. À
défaut, la souveraineté libanaise sera difficilement protégeable sans un soutien
stratégique américain.
Le renversement du régime Assad par un mouvement djihadiste en voie de
restructuration représentait une initiative audacieuse, mais incertaine.
Toutefois, l’occupation de Damas n’a pas suffi à conférer une légitimité à ce
groupe rebelle, qui s’est rapproché du centre et a cherché à s’aligner sur les
mandats stratégiques des États-Unis. Bien que significatif, ce repositionnement
n’a pas répondu aux préoccupations des grandes minorités religieuses et
ethnonationales, n’a pas, à ce stade, permis de contrôler les groupes
terroristes réfractaires, de sanctuariser son autonomie politique et
opérationnelle face à la politique de puissance turque, ni d’engager Israël sur
la base de la nouvelle configuration géostratégique.
La situation dans le nord-est de la Syrie, marquée par le démantèlement de
l’État proto-kurde, demeure instable et pourrait raviver des sentiments
irrédentistes et relancer la guerre civile. Le contrôle militaire susceptible
d’étendre cette dynamique vers de nouveaux extrêmes comporte de nombreux risques
et menace inévitablement la paix civile ainsi que la reconstruction de l’État
syrien. La surveillance de cette situation est essentielle afin d’éviter des
projections démesurées.
La situation à Gaza est liée à la rupture entre le régime islamique de Téhéran
et le Hamas. Ce dernier constitue un obstacle à une transition pacifique et à
l’établissement d’un gouvernement fonctionnel sur un territoire contrôlé durant
deux décennies par une organisation terroriste. En l’absence d’une telle
transition, la guerre pourrait ressurgir. Les ambiguïtés du Qatar, de même que
l’agenda du gouvernement islamiste d’Ankara, ne contribuent guère à l’émergence
d’une nouvelle dynamique. Le nombre d’intervenants, porteurs de politiques de
puissance et d’agendas concurrents, complique également la situation. Aborder la
question de Gaza constitue une étape préalable à la résolution du conflit
israélo-palestinien dans son ensemble.
La défaite de l’Iran et la neutralisation de ses mandataires sont essentielles
pour réduire les dynamiques de sabotage que ce régime promeut. L’Irak représente
un axe incontournable dans la mise en œuvre d’une stratégie d’endiguement.
Historiquement, l’Irak a servi de vecteur à la stratégie impériale iranienne ;
il est désormais temps de l’aider à reconstruire son autonomie politique et à
consolider sa structure fédérale comme modèle à suivre.
Cet examen vise à éclairer les dynamiques opérationnelles, à comparer leurs
similarités et à analyser leurs différences. Si nous échouons à comprendre les
dynamiques sous-jacentes, ainsi que leurs références idéologiques et
stratégiques, les chances de résoudre ces crises et de favoriser la paix seront
compromises, rendant les perspectives de paix presque inconcevables.
Tectons in motion
Charles Elias Chartouni/This Is Beirut/January 26/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/151557/
Geopolitical tensions on the various international stages are in full turmoil
and seem far from stabilizing. None of the crises have found a sustainable
solution yet, and they can, at any moment, revive, while diplomacy hesitates and
has not yet set a specific course. This climate of strategic and political
uncertainty is unstable and cannot endure in the face of the issues at hand. The
solution to these situations is essential, both at the national, regional and
international levels.
The unresolved conflicts in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iraq),
Venezuela, and Greenland illustrate persistent chaotic dynamics that threaten
international security in a global crisis environment. International regulatory
mechanisms have gradually weakened, due to the questioning of strategic
consensus following the emergence of new totalitarian movements and their
counterparts on the geopolitical scene.
The crisis of the transatlantic alliance highlights in particular the growing
strategic challenges: those of political culture in Western democracies, the
exploitation of massive migrations by Islamisms of all-out, and the return of
Bolshevik subversion policies and their contemporary variants. It is urgent to
redefine political and moral benchmarks on a consensus basis in order to reduce
the differences that affect different geostrategic contexts.
The Greenland crisis has acted as an eye-opener and precursor to the political
negotiations necessary to address the ongoing crises in NATO, as well as the
civilization and cultural shocks that shake Western democracies. It has also had
an impact on the crises affecting the European Community and the United Nations.
Geopolitical fracture lines are evolving, as do their impact on cultures and
political institutions, both at the national and international levels. Ongoing
crises cannot be understood without linking their evolution, policy and
intellectual differences, and their strategic implications.
The end of the great narratives of the bipolar order, as well as the collapse of
the post-cold war era, explain the emergence of tinted crises of political
nihilism, totalitarian tendencies and contradictions of an increasingly
dysfunctional world order. The emergence of populism and the return to the "age
of extremes" are not the result of chance; they sharply illustrate the delicacy
of the post-cold war era and the emergence of a chaotic environment where
"naming and delimiting" becomes a complex task. Donald Trump's political
volunteerism reflects the accumulated emptiness of a declining world order and
its many consequences.
Venezuela is a striking example of the consequences of the friction of state
order, at the crossroads of terrorism, organized crime and the return of
totalitarianism. The latest offensive against Chavism is a late effort that
should have been undertaken earlier to prevent tragedies across America and
anticipate the return of Cold War scenarios. The dynamics of democratization
have lagged behind the new realities emerged after the fall of communism and its
narratives.
Getting rid of a criminal regime is a complex undertaking, which requires
avoiding the traps of civil war and the dangers of latent chaos. Negotiating
with a criminal group poses serious problems as their primary concern remains
survival in power. Outside this agenda, all other issues become accessories,
even non-existent. Finding solutions to these dilemmas is a daunting task, which
explains the extended blockages.
The configuration of the Middle East follows a similar pattern, in which the
issues related to Islamism, strategic reversals, and rivalries between Shia and
Sunni powers shed light on the ongoing political developments. Lebanon remains a
hostage state, instrumentalised by the Islamic regime of Tehran and serving as
the basis of a destabilization strategy following the collapse of the
"integrated operational platforms".
Although difficult to identify, this strategy aims to revive scenarios of
widespread chaos, civil war and endemic instability. The Lebanese government has
demonstrated its incapability to overcome the obstacles of dysfunctional
politics and to address the ideological differences that have marked its
contemporary history. Issues of political and military extraterritoriality
indicate a persistent crisis of national legitimacy.
The new geostrategic equation redefines the parameters for conflict resolution
and adjusts its principles around the need for a negotiated peace with Israel,
new constitutional engineering, and governance reform. These three principles
are interdependent if Lebanon wishes to restore its sovereignty and restore its
functional statehood. The confusion between competing legitimacy,
institutionalized extraterritorialities and weakening of the state constitutes a
major obstacle. By default, Lebanese sovereignty will be difficult to protect
without US strategic support.
The overthrowing of the Assad regime by a restructuring jihadist movement
represented a bold, yet uncertain initiative. However, the occupation of
Damascus was not enough to confer legitimacy to this rebel group, which moved
closer to the center and sought to align itself with US strategic mandates.
Although significant, this repositioning has not addressed the concerns of large
religious and ethnic minorities, has not, at this point, allowed to control
refractory terrorist groups, sanctify its political and operational autonomy
against the politics of Turkish power, nor engage Israel on the basis of the New
geostrategic configuration.
The situation in northeastern Syria, marked by the dismantling of the
proto-Kurdish state, remains volatile and could revive irredent sentiments and
reignite the civil war. Military control likely to extend this dynamic to new
extremes carries many risks and inevitably threatens civil peace and the
reconstruction of the Syrian state. Monitoring this situation is essential in
order to avoid excessive projections.
The situation in Gaza is linked to the breakup between the Islamic regime of
Tehran and Hamas. The latter is an obstacle to a peaceful transition and the
establishment of a functional government on a territory controlled by a
terrorist organization for two decades. In the absence of such a transition, war
could reborn. Qatar's ambiguity, as well as the agenda of the Islamic government
in Ankara, do little to the emergence of a new dynamic. The number of
stakeholders, power policies and competing agendas, also complicates the
situation. Addressing the Gaza issue is a step ahead of resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole.
Defeating Iran and neutralizing its agents is key to reducing the sabotage
dynamics this regime promotes. Iraq is an essential focus in implementing a
mitigation strategy. Historically, Iraq has served as a vector for Iran’s
imperial strategy; now it is time to help it rebuild its political autonomy and
consolidate its federal structure as a role model.
This examination aims to shed light on operational dynamics, compare their
similarities and analyze their differences. If we fail to understand the
underlying dynamics, as well as their ideological and strategic references, the
chances of resolving these crises and promoting peace will be compromised,
making prospects for peace almost inconceivable.
All or Nothing in Gaza
Yezid Sayigh/Diwan/Published on Jan 27, 2026
Implementing Phase 2 of Trump’s plan for the territory only makes sense if all
in Phase 1 is implemented.
Commenting on the formation of a Palestinian technocratic committee that is
tasked with administering Gaza, a “regional diplomat” quoted in the Financial
Times on January 13 said, “We need to show they can deliver.” This is the wrong
answer. It is the Board of Peace set up and headed by President Donald Trump to
oversee Gaza, along with all countries that voted in favour of United Nations
Security Council Resolution 2803 approving Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza
last November, that have the obligation to ensure the conditions enabling the
Palestinian committee to deliver.
Both Trump’s plan for Gaza and his much-vaunted Board of Peace are everything
their critics and detractors say about them. As Sara Roy writes, the exclusion
of Palestinians as political agents with any control over decisionmaking
deprives them of the right to determine their own future. “The best they can
hope for is to exchange self-determination for construction projects and accept
apartheid in place of genocide.” Looking at a range of “day after” plans for
Gaza put forward by Western agencies with no Palestinian involvement, Nur Arafeh
and Mandy Turner conclude that they all enable “disaster capitalism: the
establishment of a governance structure that denies Palestinians political
agency and control over their future; a process of land grabbing, resource
extraction, and reconstruction profiteering; and the imposition of security
arrangements to enforce the conditions necessary for sustained political and
economic control by Israel and its allies.” The bizarre arrangement for Gaza has
moreover gained global significance by birthing an even grander Board of Peace
that appears designed to displace the UN.
The need for a frank and thorough debate among Palestinians about how they got
here, and how they should pursue their struggle for freedom going forward, is
urgent. But for now, an immediate starting point is to mobilize political
pressure on those assigning themselves trusteeship over Gaza to create
conditions for the Palestinian technocratic committee to acquire a meaningful
presence on the ground and deliver effective administration and basic services
to its population.
There are four primary conditions. First and foremost, the entire civilian
service delivery apparatus needs to be protected from Israeli attacks. It will
be unable to function if Israel claims the right to attack any service delivery
location, infrastructure facility, or individual government personnel on the
grounds that it is attacking Hamas members or facilities. The Ukrainian
government has maintained civilian service delivery despite four years of
Russian attacks, but only thanks to massive financial and military assistance
from NATO countries. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG),
as it is formally known, will have to do without this kind or level of support.
The heavy guns it needs are for the Board of Peace, and especially Trump
himself, to bring direct and sustained political pressure to bear on the Israeli
government to ensure it allows the NCAG to fulfil its mandate without Israeli
attacks.
It follows, second, that all parties must accept the fact that the NCAG has
absolutely no hope of setting up an effective administrative structure without
employing thousands of public service providers—including teachers and health
workers, water, sanitation, and electricity workers, municipal administrators,
and other civil servants—who worked under the previous Hamas government. The
Palestinian Authority and its dominant Fatah movement in the West Bank ordered
the thousands of Gazans on their payrolls to stay home following the 2007 Hamas
takeover of Gaza, and simply cannot fill the gap anymore. A large majority of
the NCAG’s personnel on the ground will necessarily have to come from the
existing cadre of civil servants, therefore, and Israel cannot be allowed to
claim the right to vet, let alone assassinate, any of them. Along with this, UN
agencies and international aid organizations must be allowed to regain full
operational capacity and resume service delivery throughout Gaza, as they have
always borne a significant share of this role.
Third, the NCAG must be able to import machinery, fuel, and other goods such as
medication, water filters, and so on in order to restore basic civilian services
and to start repairing and rebuilding schools, hospitals, and housing, as well
as reviving local markets. The task is mammoth. Israel has damaged or destroyed
more than 90 percent of Gaza’s homes, twenty-two of thirty-six hospitals,
thousands of schools and all twelve universities, and around 89 percent of water
and sanitation facilities and waste disposal systems—only 1.5 percent of
agricultural land is currently both useable and accessible. The estimated 61
million tons of rubble will take many years to clear, not least due to
unexploded ordnance, contaminated materials, and human remains. Trump’s 20-point
plan asserted that the Gaza population would be able to move freely in and out
of the Strip and promised full aid and the entry “of necessary equipment” to
rehabilitate infrastructure and remove rubble and open roads—all “immediately”
upon implementation of the ceasefire in October 2025—which Israel continues to
block. Trump and the Board of Peace must now deliver on these commitments.
Even then, the viability of Trump’s approach to restoring peace and security to
Gaza, and to rebuilding it, requires expanding the NGAC’s zone of territorial
control to the entirety of Gaza. This means finally deploying the International
Stabilization Force (ISF) that was supposed to put boots on the ground
immediately following the ceasefire agreement. There is no sign of this,
although American sources privately expect an announcement “in two weeks.” ISF
deployment constitutes the fourth primary condition for the success of the NCAG.
The flaws of Trump’s plan and his Board of Peace are many and dangerous, but for
this very reason, the above four conditions form a necessary agenda for
political action and leverage. The Arab and European states involved in talks
about Phase 2, which are being asked to provide peacekeepers and fund
reconstruction, must act with urgency if they are to salvage the peace plan.
Failure to do so defeats the whole purpose of forming the NCAG, and endangers
the entire process going forward—leaving Gaza a hellhole for years to come.
This article is a slightly modified version of an article that first appeared at
Yezid Sayigh’s Substack, which can be accessed at: https://sayighyezid.substack.com.
**Yezid Sayigh/Senior Fellow, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle
Why Is Saudi Arabia Abandoning Peace?
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/The National Interest/January 27/2026
In the last few months, Riyadh has turned away from US-aligned partners in the
Middle East.
In the last few months, Riyadh has turned away from US-aligned partners in the
Middle East. Saudi Arabia is undergoing a major regional realignment, abandoning
the pursuit of an integrated Middle East with a thriving knowledge economy and
dusting off the kingdom’s old rhetoric against Zionism and in favor of the
Muslim Brotherhood. Last week, Saudi Arabia went as far as lobbying President
Donald Trump to spare the Iranian regime, Riyadh’s archrival since 1979.
This followed Saudi Arabia’s parting ways with the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
over Yemen. The Saudi air force struck Emirati assets and paved the way for its
Yemeni allies—mainly the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al-Islah—to expand southward
toward Aden. But that was only one piece of the Saudi realignment puzzle. In
Sudan, Riyadh abandoned the Quad Plan it had signed on, which stipulated that
the two warring generals—Abdul-Fattah al-Burhan, the chief of the Sudanese Armed
Forces (SAF), and Muhammad Daglo “Hemedti”, the leader of the Rapid Support
Forces (RSF)—cease fire and hand over the country to civilian leaders.Saudi
Arabia said it would be funding Burhan’s purchase of $1.5 billion worth of
Pakistani weapons, in violation of a global embargo on exporting arms to Sudan.
Burhan is a holdover from Omar al-Bashir’s Muslim Brotherhood regime. Bashir
hosted late Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden when the former planned his attacks
on US embassies in Kenya and Nairobi and on the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden.
Like Hemedti, Burhan is under US sanctions and is allied with the Sudanese
Islamic Movement and its militias. Riyadh’s anger flashed over Israel’s
recognition of Somaliland and took out its venom on the UAE, accusing the two
countries of implementing a “Zionist project” that aims at partitioning Arab and
Muslim countries to weaken them and dominate them.
Since the accession of King Salman Abdul-Aziz and his son Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman (MBS) to power in 2015, Riyadh has presented itself as a reformer.
Islam was reinterpreted away from the fundamentalism that had dominated Saudi
Arabia for decades. Normalization with Israel seemed inevitable, with a small
caveat that Israel should guarantee only “a pathway” to a Palestinian state. In
other words, Saudi recognition of Israel did not even have to wait for the
establishment of a Palestinian state.
But suddenly, MBS reversed course. Saudi columnists, all of whom print the
government’s views, started arguing that normalization between Muslims and Jews
is impossible unless one side changes its views and converts to the religion of
the other. An editorial in the daily Al-Riyadh stated: “Wherever Israel is
present, there is ruin and destruction. [Israel] pursues policies that disregard
international law, do not recognize human rights, and do not respect the
sovereignty of states or the integrity of their territories, while working to
exploit crises and conflicts to deepen divisions.”
Saudi media not only badmouthed Israel, but also America, a move
uncharacteristic of Islamist governments, such as Qatar and Turkey, which try to
praise their ties with America while bashing the Jewish state, hoping to split
the two allies.
Thus, Saudi pundits went after the United States itself. “Trump’s doctrine
represents an era characterized by violent and direct intervention based on
exploiting technological and informational superiority to impose a new political
reality that aligns with [his] right-wing populist ideology,” wrote Rami Al-Ali
in Okaz.
Saudi realignment in policy—distancing itself from the UAE, normalizing
relations with Israel, and cozying up to Qatar and Turkey—and in media, as seen
in Saudi talk shows and editorials, is unmistakable. The question is why.
The most probable answer would be domestic failure. With four years until the
deadline for MBS’s Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia is still far from transforming its
economy from oil rents to knowledge. In 2025, oil activities contributed around
40–45 percent of Saudi GDP, compared to about 22 percent in the UAE.
Reliance on oil foreshadows trouble in a country with a fast-growing population
and a world where energy prices are declining. Riyadh needs to sell oil at
around $96 per barrel to balance its budget, but the price averaged $65 in 2025,
forcing the Saudi deficit to balloon to around $65 billion. Economic prosperity
has been the foundation of the Saudi social contract. When shaken, the Saudi
government itself will start facing sociopolitical headwinds, and the only way
Arab and Muslim governments know how to deflect popular anger over domestic
issues is to brandish their Islamist and anti-Zionist credentials, and this is
exactly what Saudi Arabia started doing in the past few weeks.
If Saudi Arabia continues on this pathway, it will progressively start sounding
like Qatar and Turkey, and a few years down the road, like Islamist Iran. Turkey
and Qatar have perfected talking from both sides of their mouth, on one hand
praising their strategic alliance with America, and on the other hand bashing
the West and its system of liberal democracy. In doing so, they often find
themselves in the same ditch with anti-American powers such as Russia, China,
and the BRICS bloc.
It has not helped that Washington has maintained strong ties with Ankara and
Doha, despite their firebrand anti-Western rhetoric and their support of the
Muslim Brotherhood. This may have convinced the Saudis, who started eradicating
jihadi Islam from their ranks after 9/11, that they can get away with using
Islamism as a tool to project influence outside their borders, as long as
violent Islamism stays away from America and Americans.
Saudi Arabia is going down a road that will be trouble for America. Washington
needs to be aware of the ongoing change, lest one day America wakes up and
starts asking again: Why do they hate us?
About the Author: Hussain Abdul-Hussain
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/why-is-saudi-arabia-abandoning-peace
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at The Foundation for the Defense
of Democracies (FDD). He focuses on the Gulf region and Yemen. Hussain earned a
degree in History and Archeology from the American University of Beirut, after
which he worked as a reporter and later managing editor at Beirut’s The Daily
Star. In Washington, Hussain helped set up and manage the Arabic satellite
network Alhurra Iraq, after which he headed the Washington Bureau of Kuwaiti
daily Alrai. Hussain has worked as a visiting fellow with Chatham House and has
written for The New York Times and The Washington Post. Follow him on X: @hahussain.
Canada must unequivocally support regime change in Iran
Tzvi Kahn/Toronto Sun/January 27/2026
There’s a blackout affecting countless Iranians. No, not the internet blackout
in the Islamic Republic, which has shut down the web across the country as
millions of protesters swarm the streets. It’s the intellectual blackout in
Ottawa, which has yet to voice explicit support for the Iranian people’s call
for regime change in Tehran. The silence is deafening. To be sure, the Canadian
government has issued statements. It has commended “the bravery of the Iranian
people” and condemned “the killing of protestors.” But Ottawa has stopped short
of endorsing the uprising’s goal: uprooting the Islamic Republic. Even amid
reports of thousands of casualties, Canada offers little more than platitudes.
What explains this hesitation? It’s likely because the unrest in Iran refutes
core assumptions about the regime that Canadian leaders have long embraced.
First and foremost, the protests indicate that diplomacy alone will not lead to
fundamental change in Tehran. This premise guided Canadian policy as far back as
2015, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau endorsed the fatally flawed nuclear
deal that effectively preserved the bulk of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Portrayed accord as triumph of diplomacy
At the time, Trudeau portrayed the accord as a triumph of diplomacy. That
conviction didn’t change when Tehran used the agreement’s robust sanctions
relief to fund its terrorist proxies across the Middle East, including Hamas and
Hezbollah. It didn’t change when protests broke out in Iran in 2017, 2019, and
2022, which the regime suppressed with bloodshed. It didn’t change when Iran
shot down Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 in 2020, killing all 176
people on board, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents. It
didn’t change when Iran violated the nuclear deal, ultimately putting Tehran on
the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability at the start of 2025.Even in the
aftermath of last June’s 12-Day War that left Iran’s nuclear facilities
debilitated by American and Israeli airstrikes, the new prime minister, Mark
Carney, asserted that “an opening for diplomacy” had emerged. Ottawa still
sought another agreement that would have provided Tehran an economic lifeline at
a moment of unprecedented weakness.
Tehran never had any intention of meaninful reform
But the Iranian people have long understood that Tehran never had any intention
of meaningful reform. In the current protests, as in previous rounds, Iranians
have urged the regime to direct the country’s resources to their own country,
not Gaza and Lebanon, a clear rejection of Tehran’s foreign aggression.
Ottawa has yet to grasp this reality even as the regime once again displays its
true colors by slaughtering protesters. Carney still seems flatfooted,
apparently unable to believe that an opening for constructive diplomacy has
never existed. Ultimately, Canada must recognize that true change will only
emerge through the collective efforts of the Iranian people. They seek
democracy, not a new deal. But Tehran will never provide it, because it
contravenes the regime’s core Islamist identity. It’s possible that the Islamic
Republic, through bloody force, will survive the current protests. But the
uprising has planted the seeds of the regime’s eventual fall. Iran will never be
the same. The revolt has wholly discredited the Islamic Republic. It has
accentuated the failure of Tehran’s economic and environmental policies. It has
shown that Iranian women will never accept the mandatory hijab. Most of all, it
has debunked the always dubious notion that moderates reside in the regime.
All of these developments point to the fragility of a government that lacks the
will to advance a prosperous vision for Iran. Canada must exploit this
fragility. A new Canadian policy supporting regime change would constitute not a
pipe dream, but a long-overdue acknowledgment of facts on the ground. Iranians
seek to know where Western countries stand in one of the most defining struggles
of the contemporary Middle East. Ottawa should stop blacking out the truth and
embrace the Iranian people’s cause.
*Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow and senior editor at the Foundation for Defense
of Democracies. Follow him on X @TzviKahn.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/canada-support-regime-change-iran
Read in Toronto Sun
Iranian Influence Operation Floods X With Anti-Protest
Messaging
Max Lesser &Maria Riofrio/FDD-Policy Brief/January 27/2026
Following weeks of intense protests against the ruling regime across Iran’s 31
provinces, Tehran is continuing to flood social media with bots, turning social
media into a tool of domestic repression. The Center on Cyber and Technology
Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has identified an
influence operation likely linked to the regime that delegitimizes dissent,
intimidates protesters, and reinforces regime narratives. While the network pays
lip service to the enormous economic hardships currently facing Iranians, amid a
collapsing currency and soaring food prices, it frequently demonizes the
protests as unlawful riots. A small minority of posts take an even harsher tone.
Some label protesters as “seditionists” and include calls for rioters to be “put
in their place.” A smaller subset uses more aggressive language, referring to
protesters as “thugs,” and a limited number advocate extreme punitive measures,
including calls for execution. Other posts blame foreign adversaries,
principally the United States and Israel, for domestic unrest.
A Hybrid Network of Bots and Humans
The coordinated network includes at least 289 accounts on X that post identical
Persian-language content within one minute of each other. Additional accounts
post identical content asynchronously, suggesting the broader network is likely
larger. The network’s behavior suggests a hybrid model combining automated
posting with human operation. Most coordinated activity occurred in replies
rather than original posts, suggesting an effort to hijack conversations and
suppress dissent within broader discussions. Accounts in the network also
frequently replied to one another’s posts, which manufactures inauthentic
engagement and creates a sense of organic consensus.Accounts in the network
frequently paired posts with coordinated hashtags such as #ShutUpTrump and
references to the son of the deposed Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, as a “Zionist.”
Posting identical hashtags in coordinated bursts can artificially boost
visibility in platform ranking and trending algorithms, amplifying regime
narratives at scale. The network appears to be based in Iran, as indicated by X
transparency features and the sharp decline in activity following nationwide
internet shutdowns on January 8.
While individual posts generally received limited engagement, a small number of
posts reached a wider audience, including one tweet that received nearly 3,000
likes and more than 50,000 views. In total, content posted by the network
generated more than 18 million views and over 800,000 likes across over 30,000
posts
The Online Wing of the Regime’s All-Volunteer Paramilitary of Repression
The network appears to be linked to the Basij — the volunteer paramilitary force
operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Basij Cyberspace
Organization oversees online psychological operations intended to counter
domestic dissent. Most accounts post content branded with Basij logos, and one
explicitly self-identifies as a Basij member. A key component of this apparatus
is MATNA, a Basij subdivision responsible for producing and distributing
ideological content across social media platforms. Another unit, Shamsa,
coordinates disinformation campaigns and trains operatives to identify, harass,
and discredit regime critics online. Most accounts amplify graphics with Shamsa
or MATNA’s logos and reuse hashtags posted on their associated Telegram
channels.
The United States Should Sanction Key Personnel from the Basij, Shamsa, and
MATNA
To further counter the regime’s repression tactics, Washington should expand
previous sanctions targeting Basij cyber leadership to include key personnel
from its digital entities like Shamsa and MATNA.
Moreover, the leading social media platform X recently replaced the Iranian flag
emoji with the pre-1979 monarchy flag. If the platform intends to support the
Iranian people, it should pair such symbolic changes with enforcement actions by
investigating regime-linked, coordinated activity, and removing accounts that
violate its policies on manipulation and spam. **Max Lesser is a senior analyst
on emerging threats at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD’s) Center
on Cyber and Technology Innovation, where Maria Riofrio is a research assistant.
For more analysis from the authors and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on
X @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research
institute focusing on foreign policy and national security.
Treasury Sanctions a Hamas-Supporting Nonprofit With Ties
to South Africa
David May & Melissa Sacks/FDD/January 27/2026
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/01/26/treasury-sanctions-a-hamas-supporting-nonprofit-with-ties-to-south-africa/
“The South African government does not have any relationship with Hamas.” The
South African ambassador to Qatar, Ghulam Hoosein Asmal, made this claim in 2024
despite having met with a delegation from the Popular Conference for
Palestinians Abroad (PCPA).
On January 21, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the PCPA, a senior PCPA
official, and six other nonprofits for supporting Hamas. Asmal might want to
revisit the 2024 letter of appreciation he received from the Hamas-supporting
nonprofit before claiming that South Africa has no ties to the Iran-backed
terrorist group. He might also recall that South Africa hosted Hamas delegations
in 2015, 2018, 2023, and 2024 for an anti-Zionist conference that was attended
by PCPA and officials from the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
Treasury Designates Hamas-Linked Nonprofits
Treasury responded to “Hamas’s insidious practice of operating behind civilian
organizations” by designating six nonprofits for supporting Hamas’s military
operations. Treasury also sanctioned the PCPA and senior PCPA official Zaher
Birawi (though not the EuroPal Forum that he heads), stating that the group
serves as part of Hamas’s international outreach and that Hamas assisted with
funding for the PCPA’s inaugural meeting. Treasury noted the PCPA’s involvement
in the flotilla campaign to “break Israel’s security cordon around Gaza.”
Treasury previously sanctioned Hamas individuals involved in the PCPA, while
Israel sanctioned the PCPA in 2021.
PCPA’s South African Angle
Asmal, Pretoria’s envoy in Doha, met with PCPA representatives, including Hisham
Abu Mahfouz and Ziad Al Aloul, in the Qatari capital in January 2024. The PCPA
delivered a letter of appreciation to Asmal offering gratitude for his country’s
lawfare campaign against Israel. Asmal responded by thanking the PCPA for its
encouraging words. On the same day as his meeting with the PCPA, Asmal met with
a delegation of the families of Palestinian terrorists killed, wounded, or
imprisoned by Israel for their offenses.
A PCPA delegation including Mahfouz and Al Aloul traveled to South Africa in May
2024 to participate in an anti-Zionist conference at which Birawi spoke. Members
of the ruling ANC, of which Asmal is a member, attended the conference as well.
At the conference, the then-South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor was
spotted rubbing elbows with Emad Saber, Hamas’s representative to South Africa.
Saber previously appeared on a PCPA panel in Istanbul in 2019.
The South Africa-Hamas Nexus
South Africa’s relations with Hamas extend well beyond Asmal’s meeting with the
PCPA. Just 10 days after Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, Pandor spoke
with Hamas’s leader to discuss aid delivery to Gaza.
South Africa also hosts a network of organizations with apparent ties to Hamas.
At the center of this web is Ebrahim Gabriels, the leader of Al-Quds Foundation
of South Africa. Gabriels is a former leader of the Muslim Judicial Council —
the president of which has declared “,We are all Hamas,” — and the Al-Aqsa
Foundation of South Africa. Treasury sanctioned the Al-Aqsa Foundation and its
South African branch in 2003 for supporting Hamas. Similar sanctions for support
of Hamas were imposed on the Al-Quds Foundation — though not its South African
branch — in 2012.
Additional Hamas Targets
While the sanctions announcement was a welcome development, Treasury should
consider designating other individuals and entities for operating on behalf of
Hamas. These should include Ebrahim Gabriels and Emad Saber, as well as the
PCPA’s Hisham Abu Mahfouz, Mohammed Mushanish, and Ziad Al Aloul. Treasury could
also update the Al-Quds Foundation’s listing on the Specially Designated
Nationals list to include the group’s South African branch or specifically
designate the Al-Quds Foundation of South Africa for being controlled by, and
acting on behalf of, Hamas.
The United States should also warn South Africa about its diplomats being overly
cozy with individuals linked to a U.S.-designated terrorist group. The State
Department should consider investigating the extent to which South Africa’s
diplomatic corps may maintain ties to other Hamas-linked individuals and
entities.
*David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Melissa Sacks is a senior research
analyst. For more analysis from the authors and FDD, please subscribe HERE.
Follow David on X @DavidSamuelMay. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington,
DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and
foreign policy.
Israel’s hostage agony finally ends — but its Gaza mission
is far from over
Mark Dubowitz/New York Post/January 27/2026
On Monday, the recovery of the body of Israeli Master Sgt. Ran Gvili — the last
remaining hostage held in Gaza — marked a defining moment in its war against
Hamas.
It fulfilled a sacred national vow for the Jewish state.
And it delivered a stark message to Israel’s enemies: This is a nation whose
resolve, unity and credibility should never be doubted.
Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer, was home recovering from a broken shoulder
when sirens pierced the dawn on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ignoring his injury, he rushed to Israel’s southern border, where he killed more
than a dozen Hamas terrorists before falling in battle.
His body was dragged into Gaza, along with dozens of Israelis seized in the
massacre.
While Hamas ultimately returned most of the hostages under President Donald
Trump’s Gaza framework, it withheld Gvili’s remains — a final act of cruelty.
So Israel hunted them down.
Working through the weekend, IDF units fused intelligence, surveillance and
ground operations to pinpoint a northern Gaza cemetery. Under threat of sniper
fire, soldiers and forensic teams excavated the site until they uncovered
Gvili’s body and made a positive identification. “There are no more hostages in
Gaza,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced to the Knesset, dramatically
removing the yellow ribbon pin he has worn in solidarity with the families of
the missing. Then came the pledge: “The other missions, we shall also fulfill.”
Israel, he said, is “now at the threshold of the next stage: Dismantling Hamas’
military capabilities and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.”“The next stage,” he
emphasized, “is not reconstruction.”That means dismantling Hamas, demilitarizing
Gaza, and permanently eliminating the terror threat — goals embedded in Trump’s
20-point peace plan.
The world should take Israel at its word.
This is a country that mobilized its citizen army on an unprecedented scale,
fought house-to-house through Hamas’ booby-trapped strongholds and absorbed
staggering losses.
A nation willing to sacrifice this much will not accept half-measures, cosmetic
victories or temporary fixes.
Nor should it.
Yet Hamas still demands a full Israeli withdrawal and renewed access to the
outside world via the Gaza-Egypt border, clinging to the illusion that it can
survive, regroup and strike again.
That fantasy must be crushed.
Trump on Monday made it clear he’s on the same page as Israel in that regard.
“Now we have to disarm Hamas,” he stated after Gvili’s body was recovered.
Yet Hamas itself pointed to Gvili’s mournful homecoming as evidence that it’s
ready to play a role in “facilitating the work” of Gaza’s new transitional
government.
This cannot happen.
Its call to be involved with Gaza’s new government represents a dangerous bid
for the terrorist organization’s survival under a new name.
No one in Washington should be fooled.
The United States should not grant these vicious terrorists who perpetrated the
worst murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust any say in Gaza’s
future.
Trump must not allow these killers a chance to slyly dodge disarmament by
integrating itself into the administration of Palestinian technocrats now tasked
with running the strip.
Additionally, the regional mediators — Qatar, Egypt and Turkey — must stop
indulging Hamas and start confronting it.
In so doing, they should reassess their own reflexive hostility toward Israel
and recognize the region’s emerging reality: Israel is now the Middle East’s
preeminent military and moral power. Trump and his administration deserves
credit for making hostage recovery a strategic priority. But Washington must
also remain clear-eyed: Hamas’ promises to help rebuild and govern Gaza are
worthless.
A jihadist organization whose core mission is Israel’s destruction cannot be a
partner in peace. This is not a symmetrical conflict — and any diplomatic
framework that pretends otherwise is doomed. The foundation of a lasting
settlement must be Israel’s existential security: Hamas dismantled, Gaza
demilitarized, and Iran’s terror networks and nuclear and ballistic missile
programs crushed.
Not eventually. Permanently.
Israel will achieve these goals — with America’s support, or without it. Anyone
of sound conscience should help deliver them. Or at the very least, should stand
aside.
*Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
https://nypost.com/2026/01/26/opinion/israels-hostage-agony-finally-ends-but-not-its-gaza-mission/
Read in New York Post
Why Are We Following Qatar's Foreign Policy on Iran?
Daniel Greenfield/Gatestone Institute/January 27/2026
From Syria to Gaza to Iran, Qatar is hijacking the Trump administration.
Syria's Al Qaeda regime is massacring Kurds to free imprisoned ISIS terrorists,
state sponsors of Hamas in Turkey and Qatar are being named to boards running
Gaza and thousands of democracy protesters are being massacred in Iran while Al
Jazeera defends the regime.
This isn't American foreign policy, but it is Qatar's foreign policy.
[A]s thousands die in Iran after empty promises of support, there is a bigger
picture here of institutional capture by a tiny and powerful Islamic terrorist
state.
There is a consistent throughline here and it isn't America First, it isn't
"isolationism", it isn't Israel and it isn't MAGA, but it very much is Qatar
along with its Islamist allies: Turkey and Iran. And this throughline has an
ominous similarity to Obama's New Middle East policy and the way that it
consistently empowered Islamist takeovers and protected Iran's Islamist terror
regime.
Iranian protesters are being massacred, and Hamas and Al Qaeda are being propped
up, not because it serves our national interests, but because it serves Qatar's
Jihadist agenda.
Qatar's foreign policy objectives have been consistent and clear. It elevates
and props up Islamic Jihadists and then offers its services in 'negotiating'
with them. That means bringing an Al Qaeda affiliate to power in Syria, bringing
the Taliban to power in Afghanistan through a fake deal during the first Trump
administration, helping Hamas maximize its gains from Oct 7, and preserving the
Islamic terrorist regime of the Ayatollahs that it is allied with in Tehran.
Whatever their agendas are, there is little doubt about what they've done and
who benefits. What ISIS couldn't accomplish in Syria with suicide bombings, it
managed to pull off by putting Al-Jolani, now Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in a suit, and
the world watched while ISIS terrorists were sprung from their jails, much as
the Taliban had freed Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists after Qatar masterminded a
deal with the Taliban that, much like Hamas, they were never going to keep.
This isn't MAGA, it's not America First, it's Obama sneaking back in wearing a
red cap. And the same domestic and foreign enemies who were behind that one are
behind this one too. The question of Israel is a distraction from the real
subject, the one that we're not talking about, of why we're propping up Al Qaeda
and Iran, and what it really means about who's in control of foreign policy.
The real question is why are we supporting Islamic terrorists and who's calling
the shots?
The Trump administration is not the first administration to be torn apart by
malicious factions, and the best evidence of that is how different Trump's great
foreign policy in Asia, Europe and Latin America is from his policy in the
Middle East. The president is being badly served by infiltrators acting on
behalf of special interests, and it's time to clean Qatar out of MAGA.
Rather than learning our lesson from 9/11, we let Qatar control our policy. And
the only question is how many have to die this time before we take back our
foreign policy from the terrorists?
From Syria to Gaza to Iran, Qatar is hijacking the Trump administration. Iranian
protesters are being massacred, and Hamas and Al Qaeda are being propped up, not
because it serves American national interests, but because it serves Qatar's
Jihadist agenda.
From Syria to Gaza to Iran, Qatar is hijacking the Trump administration.
Syria's Al Qaeda regime is massacring Kurds to free imprisoned ISIS terrorists,
state sponsors of Hamas in Turkey and Qatar are being named to boards running
Gaza, and thousands of democracy protesters are being massacred in Iran while Al
Jazeera defends the regime.
This isn't American foreign policy, but it is Qatar's foreign policy.
The White House's foreign policy in the Muslim world is now virtually identical
to Qatar's foreign policy apart from Israel. And as thousands die in Iran after
empty promises of support, there is a bigger picture here of institutional
capture by a tiny and powerful Islamic terrorist state.
Viewed in isolation, the refusal to intervene in Iran might be mistaken for a
determination to concentrate on America and China, but that does not explain why
the Trump administration has dedicated time and prestige to propping up the Al
Qaeda leader of Syria to the point of helping him out by releasing and importing
ISIS terrorists to America.
Nor does it explain a convoluted plan for Gaza in which a top Qatari official
supportive of Hamas and notorious for his alleged links to spying operations
using ex-CIA agents [is appointed] to the 'Gaza Executive Board' and the entire
plan to reconstruct Gaza. It's certainly not helping Israel, which has been
vocal in opposing Qatar and fellow Hamas state sponsor Turkey from playing a
role.
Nor does it even begin to explain why we're negotiating with the Taliban to go
back into Afghanistan with a U.S. military presence for 'counterterrorism'
purposes when the terrorists whom we're negotiating with, much as in Syria, are
the ones in charge of the country.
There is a consistent throughline here and it isn't America First, it isn't
'isolationism', it isn't Israel and it isn't MAGA, but it very much is Qatar
along with its Islamist allies: Turkey and Iran. And this throughline has an
ominous similarity to Obama's New Middle East policy and the way that it
consistently empowered Islamist takeovers and protected Iran's Islamist terror
regime.
If we're not intervening in Iran because we're non-interventionists, why are we
intervening then on behalf of Islamists everywhere from Syria to Gaza? Much as
under Obama, who chose to intervene in Libya and Egypt, but not in Iran, the
consistent pattern here is one of propping up Islamists, whether through
intervention or non-intervention, with inconsistent rationalizations.
Iranian protesters are being massacred, and Hamas and Al Qaeda are being propped
up, not because it serves our national interests, but because it serves Qatar's
Jihadist agenda.
Qatar's foreign policy objectives have been consistent and clear. It elevates
and props up Islamic Jihadists and then offers its services in 'negotiating'
with them. That means bringing an Al Qaeda affiliate to power in Syria, bringing
the Taliban to power in Afghanistan through a fake deal during the first Trump
administration, helping Hamas maximize its gains from October 7, and preserving
the Islamic terrorist regime of the Ayatollahs that it is allied with in Tehran.
The MAGA revolution jettisoned much of the 'foreign policy blob' that Qatar had
spent billions cultivating through investments in institutions like 'Brookings',
and what replaced it was a refreshing breath of common sense in some arenas, but
by the second term, the National Security Council and elements of the Pentagon
had been poisoned by Koch appointees allied with Soros organizations, which were
in turn intertwined with Iranian foreign agents.
Qatar may have lost its original foreign policy blob, but it replaced it with a
more ramshackle collection of businessmen with special access and special
interests who echoed the same old Obama foreign policy of propping up Islamists
while pretending they were something new.
The style was different, but the substance has proven to be the same.
President Trump's foreign policy is good globally, when it confronts China,
demands more responsibility from NATO, and challenges Latin American Marxist
dictatorships, but that is the official State Department foreign policy as
implemented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. When it comes to the Middle East,
however, there is a rogue foreign policy that has little in common with America
First or Trump, but looks a whole lot like Obama's old policies.
When it came to the Middle East, foreign policy was outsourced to shady
operators like Tom Barrack and Steven Witkoff, who were seen as having a better
handle on the region because they had done business there. No one ever got
around to vetting their actual interests.
Whatever their agendas are, there is little doubt about what they've done and
who benefits.
What ISIS couldn't accomplish in Syria with suicide bombings, it managed to pull
off by putting Al-Jolani, now Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in a suit, and the world watched
while ISIS terrorists were sprung from their jails, much as the Taliban had
freed Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists after Qatar masterminded a deal with the
Taliban that, much like Hamas, they were never going to keep.
The path to Al Qaeda's Syria hegemony was paved with 'Ambassador' Tom Barrack
lecturing on the importance of allowing the Sunni Islamists to consolidate
control over Syria. This was obviously in the interests of Turkey's Islamist
terrorist regime, which was obsessed with crushing the Kurds, and of Qatar's
Jihadist ambitions, but it has never been explained why any of this is in our
interest any more than the Islamist takeovers of Egypt, Libya and other nations
in the region had become the objective of our foreign policy under Obama.
There are areas around the world where an America First policy couldn't be any
clearer, but that is not remotely true in the Middle East, where our foreign
policy is wildly inconsistent. Indeed, the best way to understand our foreign
policy in the Middle East is that Qatar has gotten its way on everything except
Israel, where it only gets 60% of its way, and is scrambling to do away with it.
Much of the current hysteria about Jews and Israel among MAGA influencers can be
understood as a Qatari campaign to consolidate its control over foreign policy
in the region.
Leftists, libertarians and members of the woke right who shared little except
hostility toward America fused together into their own ideological blob in which
Tucker Carlson can interview anti-Trump UN officials like Jeffrey Sachs and
Muslim dictators, while Robert Malley, Obama's disgraced Soros Iran negotiator
whose scandal involving the mishandling of classified information was covered up
by the Biden administration, can stop by to be interviewed by a veteran of a
Soros pro-terrorist site at American Conservative, a 'conservative media' outlet
which had also claimed that creating a 'Palestinian' state was in America's
national interest.
This isn't MAGA and it's not America First; it's Obama sneaking back in wearing
a red cap. And the same domestic and foreign enemies who were behind that one
are behind this one too.
The question of Israel is a distraction from the real subject, the one that
we're not talking about, of why we're propping up Al Qaeda and Iran, and what it
really means about who's in control of foreign policy. No amount of fulminating
about the vanished 'neoconservatives', a group that only exists in the editorial
section of the Washington Post, by the guilty can distract us forever.
The real question is why are we supporting Islamic terrorists and who's calling
the shots?
Iran and Gaza are a fault line. They mark the fracture between America First and
Qatar. Qatar has won and lost battles over the air strikes on Iran and Gaza, but
now it's winning the war on both. And that's bad news not just for Iranian
protesters or Israel, it's bad news for America.
Al Qaeda's consolidation of control over Syria will cost us, as will the
survival of the Iranian regime. American foreign policy had two points,
defeating terrorists and keeping the Persian Gulf clear, and the Qatar First
foreign policy is wrecking both of our interests in the region.
While the Pentagon chases phantom ISIS encampments, Jihadists in suits are once
again taking power as they did under Obama's Middle East, and it won't be long
before we pay the price once again as we did back then and after Qatar
negotiated a deal with the Taliban.
The Trump administration is not the first administration to be torn apart by
malicious factions, and the best evidence of that is how different Trump's great
foreign policy in Asia, Europe and Latin America is from his policy in the
Middle East. The president is being badly served by infiltrators acting on
behalf of special interests, and it's time to clean Qatar out of MAGA.
Before the Islamic terrorists being unleashed by our Qatari foreign policy don't
just kill 3 Americans in Syria, as they recently did, but once again kill 3,000
Americans in the United States. Qatar harbored Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the
mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
Rather than learning our lesson from 9/11, we let Qatar control our policy. And
the only question is how many have to die this time before we take back our
foreign policy from the terrorists?
**Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz
Freedom Center. Reprinted by kind permission of the Center's Front Page
Magazine.
Follow Daniel Greenfield on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22231/qatar-foreign-policy-iran
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
To Undermine Reform is to Gamble with Lebanon’s
Survival!
Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al-Awsat/January 27/2026
The collapse of a dilapidated building in Tripoli on the 24th of January was a
deeply revealing, harrowing tragedy. It crumbled over its residents, who chose
to remain in their homes because the alternative was life on the streets after
those supposed to protect them neglected their most basic duty. Equally shocking
was the helplessness on display throughout that day. The victims could not be
retrieved, creating a vivid image of institutional paralysis. With the
building’s collapse, broad expectations that the emergence of new authorities
would turn the page on misery and suffering also collapsed.
The foremost challenge, one year into President Joseph Aoun’s term, remains
saving Lebanese lives and averting the existential threat posed by occupation.
Another crucial challenge is achieving a measure of justice after decades of
“impunity,” thereby providing a measure of reassurance to citizens. It has
become exceedingly difficult to claim that the new top brass presents a contrast
with the corrupt establishment that had led the country to hell by covering for
the transgressions of “state-within-a-state” and standing idly by as Hezbollah
dragged Lebanon into the calamitous “support war.”
The President’s slogan of “sovereignty, reform, and peace” was followed by the
Prime Minister’s assertion that “for the first time since 1969, the Lebanese
state alone has operational control south of the Litani.” From Paris, the latter
then stressed that: “If security and safety are not available, investments will
not come; and if reform in the banking sector does not take place, investments
will not come either.” There is, however, a visible chasm between rhetoric and
practice, between the authorities’ performance over the past year and the
president’s inaugural speech and the ministerial statement.
Four hundred and twenty-seven days after the ceasefire agreement (which had been
negotiated by the duo of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah
Secretary-General Naim Qassem, and concluded by Najib Mikati’s government)
merely reiterating the achievements made south of the Litani is not enough.
Lebanon does not have the luxury of time, and full disarmament could alter the
terms imposed by the victor, after there had been references to the return of
the displaced and the release of prisoners, while its “right” to permanently
violate the country is being imposed.
That happened before the fall of the Syrian regime, when this militia’s supply
lines were still operational. It is no longer acceptable to show laxity in the
face of the “party’s” refusal to comply with an agreement it had endorsed. It
now announces its refusal to disarm north of the Litani despite its withdrawal
from the south, effectively giving up on its claims to fighting the Israeli
enemy. Why does Hezbollah insist on retaining weapons while it has failed to do
anything in response to the daily attacks on its militants? Do the authorities
not have a duty to take stringent action to reassure citizens and protect them
by taking control of the cantons protected by these weapons and ending the
chokehold that has been imposed on the Shiite community's social fabric for the
sake of Iran’s agenda?
Lebanon’s sovereignty is being undermined, and not only through Israel’s
occupation of the five points and Israel’s no-man’s-land along the edges of
devastated towns. The problem is not limited to military issues or the presence
of non-state actors. The neglect of accountability and the suspension of justice
are also undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty as economic and social reform remains
elusive. The state has been made incapable of acting on its rhetoric through
tangible steps. Providing “security and safety” presupposes, alongside the
urgent task of disarmament, weakening the corrupt establishment's grip on the
economic, financial, administrative, and cultural institutions, using them to
build extra-state loyalties. The state must become the sole reference for
legitimacy, trust, and belonging- that is a crucial step toward achieving
national sovereignty.
The country had embraced illusions: “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web” and
“I bring you the news of victory-” victory for whom? The outcome was a free
fall. The catastrophic “support” war destroyed Hezbollah’s delusions about its
strength and imposed a devastating defeat on the country. Today, the Lebanese
are being asked to coexist with new narratives that market new illusions using
refined language.
In general, high-level state appointments have not deviated from the
spoil-sharing formula of the past, which does not intersect with the needs of
the country and its people at any point. The collapse has not been halted by the
introduction of a few new faces; it is deepening. Every day without
accountability erodes trust further and places additional burdens on the people.
The “audit” has become the key to financial and reforms and must encompass the
banking sector as well as the dungeons of state corruption. To do anything else
is to insist on gambling with the country’s future.
Salam’s disclosure of the IMF’s reservations regarding the draft “financial gap
law” should mean terminating the project. Prioritizing justice must replace the
deliberate substitution of accountability with the contrived notion of a “gap”
to protect perpetrators. The IMF’s remarks cast doubt on the project’s
foundations and on the country’s capacity to implement it. The IMF response
concludes with a request to add a clause allowing for the monetization of gold
in the event that repayment proves impossible. That amounts to denying Lebanon
any chance at recovery and guaranteeing that rights will not be reclaimed so
long as this system remains in place. At this juncture, becoming even more
reliant on indirect taxation is catastrophic. Cutting pensions after the illegal
haircut on deposits is no solution either. The country will not move forward by
revamping corrupt figures and defendants accused of liability in the Beirut port
blast. Salvation can only come from addressing the root causes that precipitated
the tyranny of weapons and led to collapse and defeat
Selected X tweets fror January
27/2026
Ambassador Tom Barrack
Productive phone call this evening with his excellency Masoud Barzani to discuss
the situation in Syria and the importance of maintaining the ceasefire and
ensuring humanitarian assistance to those in need, especially in Kobani. On
Iraq, the U.S. position remains clear: a government installed by Iran will not
be successful, neither for Iraqi or Syrian aspirations for a brighter future,
nor for an effective partnership with the United States.
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff
Yesterday was a historic day.
The last remaining hostage in Gaza, Officer Ran Gvili, has been returned home to
his family in Israel. He went out on October 7 to save lives, and yesterday he
returned to rest in peace in Israel. Now, ALL 20 living hostages and all 28
deceased hostages in Gaza have now been returned to their families – a
monumental, historic feat that few thought was possible. It’s thanks to the hard
work of so many, but especially @POTUS, who works tirelessly for peace. This
closes a painful chapter for many, and paves the way for a new future that can
be defined by peace, not war, and prosperity, not destruction. It’s a new day in
the Middle East, and President Trump, myself, and the entire team are committed
to sustained peace and prosperity for all in the region.
Keir Starmer
The Holocaust stands as one of the darkest stains on humanity: the systematic
murder of six million Jews, each one an individual life extinguished by a hatred
that sought to erase the entire Jewish people. As we mark Holocaust Memorial
Day, we confront that truth directly, because remembrance is the first defence
against denial, distortion and prejudice. Together, we look back and challenge
antisemitism wherever it appears. And ensure that ‘never again’ is a promise we
uphold, not just a phrase we repeat.
Hanin Ghaddar
https://www.mtv.com.lb/news/1647403
This is INSANE! Lebanese MTV reports that Hezbollah arrests a Lebanese soldier (LAF)
after stopping a truck full of weapons to Hezbollah - coming from Syria. What’s
more insane is that they released the soldier after negotiations with the LAF!
Yes! YOU READ THAT RIGHT! And no one got arrested. No one! And no arms
confiscated on the spot. What!??
Tom Harb
So under what capacity is the head of the Lebanese army, General Rudolph Haykal,
heading to DC next week ? To beg for aid while Hezbollah plays judge, jury, and
jailer on Lebanese officers? The army should be disarming militias, not watching
them act like a parallel state.
Gad Saad
Death of the West by Suicidal Empathy.
My lecture last week at the Tel Aviv International Salon. Many thanks to
@JNS_org for having shared the clip with me. I'll be posting the Q&A period
separately. And eventually, I'll be posting the entire event on my YouTube
channel and podcast. Many thanks to @FleurHassanN for hosting the event.
https://x.com/i/status/2016025136760070442
Please watch & share.