English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 11/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
The Parable of the Slaves and the Master who Entrusted them with Different Amounts Of Money to Invest
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 19/11-28/:"As they were listening to this, Jesus went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, "Do business with these until I come back."But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, "We do not want this man to rule over us."When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, "Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds." He said to him, "Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities."Then the second came, saying, "Lord, your pound has made five pounds." He said to him, "And you, rule over five cities." Then the other came, saying, "Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow." He said to him, "I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest." He said to the bystanders, "Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds."(And they said to him, "Lord, he has ten pounds!") "I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them bring them here and slaughter them in my presence." ’After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem."

Titles For The English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 10-111/2026
Inside Every Human Being There Is a Beast …The true struggle within every human being is between the image of God within them and the distortion of that image/Elias Bejjani/September 9, 2026
To the journalist George Akoury, in regards to the background of his joining the inciters in their street campaign against Alfred Madi/Elias Bejjani/September 08/2026
Link to a distinctive interview with prominent media personality Nadim Koteich from Al Mashhad channel—a fierce discussion regarding Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah, marked by high tension:
US Embassy: Southern Lebanon does not belong to militias or regional parties; the State alone holds the decision on war and peace.
Cumulative Toll of Wars Caused by the Terrorist, Jihadi Hezbollah
Israel-Lebanon Negotiations in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday
US State Department: Hezbollah is an Obstacle to Peace; Diplomatic Engagement Continues Daily
Israel Destroys Ali al-Tahir Tunnels; Joint Statement by Netanyahu and Katz
Southern Lebanon: Israel Announces Destruction of Tunnels in Ali al-Tahir
The "Ali Al-Taher" Earthquake on the Scale of the Rome Talks
France Reveals Agenda for Lebanon Meeting and Calls for Respecting Syria's Sovereignty
Nabatieh Put to the Test: Will the State Secure the Ground Before Fire Consumes It?
No Israeli Messages via Issa; Washington Praises the Lebanese Preference for the State
Constitutional Council Halts Amnesty Law Implementation; Shia Figures Visit the Vatican
Tensions Boil Over at Roumieh Prison Following Stalled Amnesty Law; New Death Adds to Toll
Constitutional Council Suspends Implementation of "General Amnesty Law" No. 70/2026 by Majority Vote
Solar energy is free, but installing panels now comes with specific conditions, fees, and timeframes—what are the details?
Lebanese Army intensifies Nabatieh deployment as report says mission excludes Hezbollah disarmament/David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/September 09/2026
Les impasses institutionnalisées/Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September 10/2026
Institutionalized Impasses/Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September 10/2026
The South’s Catastrophe: Between Hezbollah and Its Partners/Marwan Al-Amin/Nidaa Al-Watan/September 10, 2026
Why US Aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces Should Come with Conditions/David Schenker/Notional Interest/September 09/2026
Countering Hezbollah’s Reconstruction Politics and the Council for South Lebanon/Hanin Ghaddar/The Washington Institute/September 09/2026

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 10-111/2026
25 Years Since 9/11: New York Recalls the Twin Towers in the City's Sky
Netanyahu: Israel Continues to Strike the "Iranian Axis" with Force
Israeli Force Infiltrates the Qunaitra Countryside and Detains Two Individuals
Four Projectiles Strike Two Vessels Near Khasab, Oman
Iran Rebuilds Its Ballistic Arsenal: Underground Tunnels and New Sites
Yemeni Army: We Will Use "All Weapons" to Target Houthi Movements Around Al-Mokha
UN Warns: Escalation in Yemen May Spill Beyond Borders
Yemeni Defense Council: Deterrence Operations Will Not Stop at a Single Front
Saudi Arabia: Houthis Gamble on Terrorism and Must Bear the Consequences
Riyadh Affirms Commitment to Peace and Warns Against Targeting Civilians and Neighboring Countries
US Imposes Sanctions on Entities Supporting Iran's Allies, Including Iraqi Businessmen
US Citizen to Pay $1.43 Million to Settle 39 Potential Sanctions Violations on Iran
UAE: We Hope Algeria's Decision to Sever Diplomatic Relations is Temporary
UAE Foreign Ministry Affirms Appreciation for the "Brotherly Algerian People and Pride in Bilateral Ties"
HUNTER: Terrorist's mom who blamed Canada running for Halton school trustee
Dagalo reportedly moves to withdraw RSF forces from Saudi Arabia

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 10-111/2026
Video Link & text for for a Panel discussion/25 Years After 9/11: NCTC Directors Assess Progress and Remaining Challenges/Christine Abizaid, Matt Olsen, Nicholas Rasmussen/The Washington Institute/September 09/2026
The Looming Terrorist Threats to America/Matthew Levitt/The Washington Institute./September 09/2026
The cruel awakening of 9/11/A quarter century on, we need to understand what happened and what is still happening/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/September 09, 2026
Qatar still hosts Hamas’s top brass, one year after they were targeted/Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow/FDD-Insight/September 09/2026
The Courage to Build Peace/Ahmed Charai/Gatestone Institute./September 9, 2026
Boycotting Jewish Businesses Will Not Create Peace/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/September 10, 2026
Twenty-Five Years Later: The Warnings Still Remain/Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/September 10/2026
A Shift in London’s Policy Toward Israel: Netanyahu’s Hardline Stance Cannot Last/Laura Yammine/Al-Markaziya/September 10/ 2026
The Houthis and Mass Isolation: When Geography Becomes a Prison/Ezzedine Saeed Al-Asbahi/An-Nahar/September 10/2026
Which Middle East Has Ended: The American or the Iranian?/Rafiq Khoury/Independent Arabia/September 10/2026
A Shift in London’s Policy Toward Israel: Netanyahu’s Hardline Stance Cannot Last
Laura Yammine/Al-Markaziya/September 10, 2026
Selected Face Book & X tweets on September 10/2026

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 10-111/2026
Inside Every Human Being There Is a Beast …The true struggle within every human being is between the image of God within them and the distortion of that image
Elias Bejjani/September 9, 2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/151757/
Christian faith teaches us a fundamental truth: the human being was created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26) and was called to live in communion with Him, in love and holiness. Yet, because of the Fall, every person carries within himself a wounded nature. In this wounded nature lies what can be described, in spiritual terms, as an inner “beast”—a force of uncontrolled instincts and desires that emerges when the human person separates himself from God’s grace.
This beast is not an independent power. It is not stronger than the human person by nature. It remains dormant as long as the person lives in humility, generosity, and love, and remains faithful to the gifts and responsibilities entrusted to him by his Heavenly Father.
The beast sleeps when the human being lives according to love, because love is not merely a moral value; love is God Himself:
“God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16).
As long as a person is conscious of his holiness, of his identity as a child of God by grace, and remains faithful to God’s commandments, the inner beast remains restrained. The awareness of standing one day before God’s judgment is essential to Christian life, for Scripture tells us:
“For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Romans 14:10).
On the last day, when God reclaims from the human being the gift of life, the soul will stand alone before Him. At that moment, wealth, power, and earthly achievements lose all value. They remain behind, because:
“For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7).
The only thing a person carries with him is his spiritual provision—his faith expressed through works of love. As Christ says:
“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Revelation 22:12).
According to what this spiritual provision contains, the Lord will either say:
“Well done, good and faithful servant… enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21), or the soul will face separation from God if it is empty of love, mercy, and good works, and filled only with greed, pride, and unrepented sin, where:
“Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).
The inner beast awakens when faith weakens, hope fades, and the human being falls into temptation. At that point, the person returns to the “old self” and abandons the new life given through baptism by water and the Holy Spirit, forgetting the words of Scripture:
“Put off the old man… and put on the new man, which was created according to God” (Ephesians 4:22–24).
When a person distances himself from God, disobeys His commandments, and lives as if God does not exist, the beast within rises and dominates. Sin then becomes not an isolated act, but a way of life, because:
“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
In this light, Jesus presents to us the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16–21). This man was not condemned for being rich, but for believing that his life depended on his possessions. He spoke only to himself and not to God. He trusted his barns, not his Creator. Therefore God said to him:
“Fool! This night your soul will be required of you.”
This parable reveals a deep spiritual truth: the true beast within the human person is the illusion of self-sufficiency and independence from God. When God is removed from the center of life, the human being becomes a slave to money, power, and pleasure. As Jesus teaches:
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
This truth applies not only to individuals, but also to societies and political systems. The crisis of our world—and of Lebanon in particular—is not only political or economic, but spiritual. It is the crisis of humanity that has forgotten God. Therefore Christ’s warning remains timeless:
“What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
In conclusion, the true struggle within every human being is between the image of God and its distortion. Salvation does not come by suppressing the beast through human effort alone, but by returning to God through repentance, grace, and a life rooted in faith and love. For in God alone there is true life:
“But now having been set free from sin… you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life” (Romans 6:22).

To the journalist George Akoury, in regards to the background of his joining the inciters in their street campaign against Alfred Madi
Elias Bejjani/September 08/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157310/
Strange is your stance, my brother George.. I used to believe that you are a journalist in earnest and not one of those who move according to the edicts and instructions of someone, whoever he may be.. Most certainly, your professional, elite, and high-standard journalistic level should have not let you sink into the ranks of the , inciters, and panegyrists. Return to where you must be and let the mouthpieces execute the boss’s edicts.
As for Alfred Madi, the man has his merits and demerits like anyone working in social, political, and public affairs, but in short, he was one of the closest confidants to Sheikh Bashir and one of those who effectively struggled to build his historical legacy of which we are proud.
The fact remains that Madi’s history, present, and the achievements of Alfred Madi are not going to be diminished by a campaign of defamation, childish and street-style insults that do not befit the position of the one who stands behind them, stirs them up, and ordered them…
It is a shame, my dear George, this conduct is a condemned deviation. Regarding it, I say: ‘You lick the rasp and relish in your own blood, because Madi is of you the LF and in you, while the national cause we all struggle for is the same, no matter how distant the current positions became.’
Best regards to you.”.

Link to a distinctive interview with prominent media personality Nadim Koteich from Al Mashhad channel—a fierce discussion regarding Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah, marked by high tension:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poYpyvF2BLo&t=135s
September 10, 2026
(Google translation from Arabic)

US Embassy: Southern Lebanon does not belong to militias or regional parties; the State alone holds the decision on war and peace.
Janoubia/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The US Embassy in Beirut affirmed that the Lebanese people clearly demonstrate, day after day, their preference for Lebanese state institutions over Hezbollah’s weaponry. It added, "Southern Lebanon does not belong to regional entities or militias." The Embassy continued, "The United States commends these communities and supports the Lebanese government in its declared goal of asserting sovereignty—enforced by the Lebanese Army—and ensuring that decisions regarding war and peace remain exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese State." The United States is mediating direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, with Ambassador Michel Issa playing a prominent role in communications between the two sides; he has been meeting with Lebanese officials and political leaders to underscore Washington's support for Beirut's stability and its efforts to establish peace.

Cumulative Toll of Wars Caused by the Terrorist, Jihadi Hezbollah
LCCC /September 11, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Ministry of Health’s Emergency Operations Center announced that the cumulative toll of the wars instigated by the terrorist, Jihadi Hezbollah—an enemy of Lebanon acting in the interests of its Persian mullah masters—has reached 4,383 dead and 12,406 wounded between March 2 and September 10.

Israel-Lebanon Negotiations in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday
Janoubia/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Israeli public broadcaster "Kan" reported that a new round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Italian capital, Rome.

US State Department: Hezbollah is an Obstacle to Peace; Diplomatic Engagement Continues Daily
Al-Markaziya/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
A US State Department official told "Shams" channel that Washington is closely monitoring communications from southern Lebanon, where residents are demanding that their government assert its sovereignty and prevent Hezbollah from launching or stockpiling weapons in their areas. The official praised these communities and expressed support for the Lebanese government's response to their demands. The official stated that "Hezbollah’s weapons have brought nothing but misery and destruction to Lebanon," adding that "Hezbollah remains an obstacle to peace." He urged the Lebanese government to formulate a plan to disarm all Lebanese territory, in accordance with the Tripartite Framework. He emphasized that "the Tripartite Framework is the only roadmap to peace," noting that "diplomatic engagement is ongoing on a daily basis." It was further noted that the new round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon would address the formation of a force to verify the absence of Hezbollah from the pilot areas.

Israel Destroys Ali al-Tahir Tunnels; Joint Statement by Netanyahu and Katz
Al-Markaziya/September 10/2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Israeli army carried out demolition operations in the Ali al-Tahir heights in southern Lebanon, near Kafr Tibnit. A tremor measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale was recorded as a result of the blasts. The Israeli newspaper *Maariv* reported that the intensity of the explosions carried out by the Israeli army in the Ali al-Tahir hills caused the ground to shake in northern Israel. The Israeli army stated that "destroying Hezbollah's infrastructure on the Ali al-Tahir heights completes the establishment of operational control over the area, both above and below ground." The army continued: "Israeli army forces have completed the destruction of underground routes in the Ali al-Tahir heights area, having recently achieved operational control over the heights—both above and below ground." The army added: "On Thursday, following extensive preparatory activity, forces from the 36th Division destroyed underground routes in the Ali al-Tahir heights area—located within the security zone—with the aim of permanently neutralizing the terrorist organization Hezbollah's ability to plan and execute terrorist plots against the citizens of the State of Israel and IDF forces using this infrastructure." It further explained: "The destroyed terrorist infrastructure spanned more than two kilometers. Inside the underground network, forces discovered dozens of Iranian-made missiles, rockets, and drones, as well as machine guns, dozens of anti-tank missiles, and hundreds of mines and explosive devices." The statement reported: "A central command complex belonging to the 'Badr' unit was discovered within the underground infrastructure; it included command and control rooms, weapons storage rooms, and sleeping quarters that enabled operatives to manage combat operations and remain there for extended periods. This constitutes strategic infrastructure constructed over two decades, funded and planned by the Iranian terror regime." Earlier, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority had announced that the Israeli army was preparing to detonate tunnels in the Ali al-Tahir Heights tonight.
https://x.com/i/status/2098120474215494086
https://x.com/AlarabyTV/status/2098128459990028714/video/1
In a related development, the *Yedioth Ahronoth* newspaper reported that the Israeli army is bracing for a response from Hezbollah and is considering various scenarios in reaction to the detonations at Ali al-Tahir Heights. The newspaper added that Israeli forces are preparing to withdraw from the heights while maintaining positions that allow them to retain control over the area. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement on Thursday regarding the planned detonations at Ali al-Tahir Heights in the Nabatieh district of southern Lebanon. The statement noted that, acting on the directives of the Prime Minister and Defense Minister, the Israeli army has now destroyed the underground infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah at Ali al-Tahir Heights, thereby "completing the organization of the security zone in southern Lebanon." The statement added that this strategic infrastructure was built over two decades with funding and planning from Iran, and was intended to serve as a base for occupying the Galilee and for controlling surveillance and fire directed at Metula and Kiryat Shmona.

Southern Lebanon: Israel Announces Destruction of Tunnels in Ali al-Tahir
Riyadh – AlArabiya.net/September 10/2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Israeli military announced on Thursday the destruction of underground routes and infrastructure in the Ali al-Tahir highlands of southern Lebanon, following weeks of military operations in this strategic area near the city of Nabatieh. In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said the army had destroyed Hezbollah infrastructure across the Ali al-Tahir ridge, noting that the operation contributed to "finalizing the organization of the security zone in southern Lebanon." Netanyahu later added that the Israeli military had destroyed what he described as "the largest Iranian military site outside Iran," referring to the tunnel network in the Ali al-Tahir area. Separately, the Israeli military stated that forces from the 36th Division destroyed the underground passages following preparatory work, adding that the destroyed infrastructure spanned more than two kilometers; Israeli sources reported that approximately 1,100 tons of explosives were used to demolish the tunnels in the Ali al-Tahir highlands. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted a video of the operation on his account on the "X" platform. The army statement further noted that—in addition to machine guns, anti-tank missiles, mines, and explosive devices—Iranian-made missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and drones were discovered along the routes. It added that Israeli forces also found a command complex belonging to the "Badr" unit at the site, containing command-and-control rooms, as well as areas for weapons storage and sleeping quarters—details the Israeli army had previously announced last week. Regarding the issue of control, the Israeli army had announced earlier in September that it had achieved "operational control" over the Ali al-Tahir heights and the facilities beneath them; however, Lebanese sources stated that the extent of the Israeli deployment in the area remains unclear. This new operation follows weeks of fighting around the heights, which saw repeated Israeli airstrikes and shelling, as well as drone attacks claimed by Hezbollah, despite a ceasefire that had come into effect in June. In August, Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri had stated that the Lebanese Army was prepared to assume control of the Ali al-Tahir heights, accusing Israel of obstructing this move for internal political reasons. Meanwhile, Washington had proposed handing over the heights to the Lebanese Army as part of broader arrangements to disarm Hezbollah, but the group rejected the proposal, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, Lebanese Army Commander Joseph Aoun emphasized that the time has come for the state to return to the South, asserting that state institutions must stand by the local population and secure the means for their resilience, particularly as calls mount regarding the residents' plight and needs. Separately, Hezbollah MP Ihab Hamadeh stated that Israel is exaggerating the strategic importance of the heights; meanwhile, reports indicated the party’s refusal to hand over the Ali al-Tahir heights to the Lebanese Army, warning that such a handover could pave the way for an Israeli takeover of the site. The Ali al-Tahir heights hold military significance due to their elevated position, overlooking several towns and roads leading to Nabatieh; the ongoing fighting there has made the area a major flashpoint in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire took effect. Israel’s announcement regarding the destruction of tunnels comes as the implementation of the agreement framework between Lebanon and Israel remains stalled, amidst continued Israeli operations in the South and the failure to reach final arrangements regarding an Israeli withdrawal, the deployment of the Lebanese Army, and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

The "Ali Al-Taher" Earthquake on the Scale of the Rome Talks
Nidaa Al-Watan/September 11/2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The time has come for the State to return to the South in full—not in piecemeal fashion. It is time for the Hezbollah militia to understand that its presence within residential neighborhoods is no longer welcome, now that local residents have rejected it, and that the State cannot reclaim its sovereignty while illegitimate weapons—which have devastated both infrastructure and human life—remain in play. The events at Ali Al-Taher represent merely the latest manifestation of this exorbitant cost: in the South, 1,100 tons of explosives brought down the militia and IRGC stronghold—located within tunnels stretching over two kilometers—turning the illusory myth of "steadfastness" into rubble in mere moments. Warning systems registered the blasts as a 4.1-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, while Israeli sources reported the discovery of dozens of Hezbollah fighters' bodies inside the tunnels. This coincided with announcements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz that the Israeli army would remain in the security zone, continue destroying infrastructure, and thwart any Hezbollah attempt to regroup or rebuild its capabilities, asserting control both above and below ground.
A New Round of Negotiations
Amid the staggering scale of the systematic tunnel destruction, attention is turning to Nabatieh. It stands as the ultimate test of the State’s seriousness in reclaiming its decision-making authority and sparing the region from suffering the full brunt of total devastation. As the eighth round of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel approaches—scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation—discussions will focus on forming a force to verify the absence of Hezbollah from designated zones. Meanwhile, amidst Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s expressed desire during a working visit to Cyprus to hold a trilateral meeting with his Cypriot and Lebanese counterparts, Nabatieh is receiving serious official attention due to fears it could turn into another "Ali al-Taher." President Michel Aoun clearly stated during a Cabinet session that the appeals from the residents of Nabatieh, Tyre, and Arabsalim had reached the State, affirming its support for them and declaring that "the time has come for the State to return to the South." Prime Minister Najib Mikati has also promised civil and developmental support to complement the presence of the Army and security forces.
The deployment of the Army in Nabatieh—initiated by a presidential decision and backed by the Shiite political leadership, specifically Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri—is set to expand to other villages in the Nabatieh, Tyre, and Zahrani districts, according to *Nidaa Al-Watan*. This decision is primarily political rather than merely a security measure. The move has been met with palpable relief among local residents; welcoming statements indicate that the local community desires the State’s authority exclusively, following the failure of external agendas—agendas for which the people of the South paid a heavy price. These included the consequences of the Palestinian expansion following the 1967 *Naksa* (setback) and the resulting Israeli occupation, followed by the South’s use as a platform for Iranian influence—developments that led to the destruction and leveling of more than half of the region's towns and the displacement of approximately 300,000 Shiite southerners. Amidst ongoing calls for the state to assert its authority, there is a determined effort to ensure the success of the preparatory conference in Paris aimed at supporting the army. A promising early sign of this success is US participation; this development compels the state to take further measures in Nabatieh and the South to demonstrate to the Arab and international communities its resolve to extend its sovereignty over all its territories.
The US Embassy’s statement underscored the obvious: that "the Lebanese people demonstrate daily their preference for Lebanese state institutions over Hezbollah’s weapons," and that southern Lebanon "does not belong to regional actors or militias." The Embassy affirmed that the United States commends these communities and supports the Lebanese government in its declared goal of asserting sovereignty—enforced by the Lebanese Army—and ensuring that decisions regarding war and peace remain exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state.
As the Vatican continues to closely monitor the Lebanese situation in all its dimensions, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reaffirmed the Holy See’s steadfast and unwavering support for Lebanon and for the State’s efforts to exercise sovereignty over its entire territory.
In this context, the head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, MP Samy Gemayel, asserted that "the problem does not lie in the decisions or intentions regarding the extension of state authority and the exclusive possession of arms by the state; rather, we question the government on the implementation of these decisions and await answers."
**Street Mobilization**
Concurrently, concerns have arisen regarding the mobilization of the street under the guise of seemingly legitimate demands, while political agendas—driven by those who have suffered setbacks—lurk ​​in the background. Political sources speaking to *Nidaa Al-Watan* highlighted the dangers of what is being orchestrated on the street, noting a convergence between Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement, and leftist "Resistance-aligned" parties to mobilize the public using socio-economic slogans that mask clear political objectives. While acknowledging the legitimacy of the demands made by retirees and public sector employees, the sources argued that mobilizing the street—following the "Ali Al-Taher" incident and the waning influence of Hezbollah and Iran—falls under the category of a "legitimate demand masking an illegitimate agenda." They indicated that the primary goal is to pressure President Aoun and the government to abandon negotiations and to attempt to alter the political landscape. Since they cannot openly demonstrate for political causes—given the public revulsion toward their policies and their dragging of Lebanon into war for the sake of the Iranian regime—they have chosen to hide behind legitimate socio-economic grievances. Their aim is to pressure Aoun, Salam, and the government, and to stir up unrest on the streets, following the defeat they suffered in the Ali Al-Taher incident. US Sanctions
The US Department of the Treasury has imposed new sanctions on companies and individuals supporting Hezbollah. These include Abdallah Hamieh, Hussein Ibrahim, Ghaith Hussein Wehbe, and Mervat Jamil Zahr El-Din, as well as the firms "Youssef Ibrahim Mansour & Partner for Money Exchange" and "Gold Pro SARL," both linked to Hamdi Zahr El-Din. The Treasury noted that operatives from the Quds Force are collaborating with Hezbollah officials to transfer funds to Lebanon for the purchase of weapons and the manufacturing of equipment.
Restoring Vital Facilities
Meanwhile, the state is taking another step toward restoring vital facilities and their functions—this time through the Port of Beirut. With the laying of the foundation stone for the expansion of the port’s container terminal—at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Minister of Public Works and Transport Fayez Rassamni, Port of Beirut Director General Marwan Nefi, and CMA CGM Group Chairman Rodolphe Saadé—Lebanon is opening a new window to the world and taking a practical step in the long process of restoring the port's role.
Salam stated, "The expansion of the container terminal is of particular importance, as it increases the port's capacity and reduces vessel waiting times, thereby enhancing its competitiveness." For his part, Minister Rassamni said, "Our ambition is for the Port of Beirut to regain its standing among global ports and to operate seven days a week in accordance with the highest security and safety standards; today, we are moving from diagnosing the problem to building the solution." At the start of the Cabinet session, President Aoun had highlighted a positive development that instills great hope in the Lebanese people: the laying of the foundation stone for the Port of Beirut expansion. He remarked, "This is a promising sign for all, and we hope it will be followed by further steps in the same direction." "The Minister of Energy briefed us on positive data regarding electricity, which we should capitalize on." During the Cabinet session held at Baabda Palace, the Council approved a draft law prohibiting real estate sales in areas occupied by the Israeli army and ratified the appointment of members to the Competition Council within the National Competition Authority. It also decided to dedicate a session to examining the waste management file and its various aspects in order to address the issue. On the judicial front, the Constitutional Council issued Decision No. 10/2026, suspending the implementation of Law No. 70/2026—which concerns granting a general amnesty and exceptionally reducing the duration of certain sentences—following a challenge filed by MPs from the "Strong Lebanon" bloc.

France Reveals Agenda for Lebanon Meeting and Calls for Respecting Syria's Sovereignty
Riyadh – AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The French Foreign Ministry announced that the upcoming meeting on Lebanon in Paris next week aims to address the needs of the Lebanese Army and assess the security situation in southern Lebanon. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Al Arabiya/Al Hadath that the meeting—scheduled for September 17 in Paris—will also discuss coordination among the various parties involved in supporting the Lebanese Army; France will co-chair the meeting alongside Jordan and Lebanon. Lebanese Army Commander Joseph Aoun had received an invitation from his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to participate in this preliminary meeting, which serves as a precursor to the international conference in support of the Lebanese Army. This preparatory meeting follows the postponement of the international conference—originally scheduled for March 5 in Paris—due to the outbreak of war against Iran, the subsequent regional escalation, and the resumption of hostilities in Lebanon. Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated that more than ten member states are prepared to contribute resources and personnel to a new military and civil mission aimed at providing advice and training to Lebanese forces. Regarding Syria and Israeli strikes on its territory, the French Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that Paris calls for respect for international law and Syria's demarcated borders, reaffirming France's commitment to "restoring Syria's full sovereignty" and respecting all its constituent groups. The spokesperson also noted that France welcomed the dissolution of the SDF, as it paves the way for peace and economic recovery in Syria, adding that France—like the United States—is committed to the implementation of the January agreement between the SDF and the Syrian government. Regarding the economic aspect, he stated that a number of French companies are prepared to participate in Syria's reconstruction and the revival of its economic activity. This development follows the announcement by Mazloum Abdi—formerly the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and an advisor to the Syrian president—regarding the dissolution of the SDF, the Kurdish Autonomous Administration, and all affiliated military and civilian entities, confirming their full integration into Syrian state institutions. The decision has been met with international and regional acclaim, with the move being hailed as a step toward strengthening Syrian state unity and consolidating its institutions.

Nabatieh Put to the Test: Will the State Secure the Ground Before Fire Consumes It?
No Israeli Messages via Issa; Washington Praises the Lebanese Preference for the State
Constitutional Council Halts Amnesty Law Implementation; Shia Figures Visit the Vatican
Al-Markaziya/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
In the South, the question is no longer whether Israeli escalation will expand, but rather where it might stop and who has the power to prevent it from reaching Nabatieh. The city, currently standing in the eye of the storm, has become the focal point of extensive official, security, and diplomatic activity—driven by fears that the "Ali Taher" scenario could repeat itself there on a much larger scale. Official assessments converge on the likelihood that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will pursue further escalation, influenced by electoral calculations that do not exclude the Lebanese border. While the State affirms it will not abandon Nabatieh and its people—preparing to bolster the presence of its institutions and agencies in the South—Washington has clearly declared its support for the State’s authority and the exclusive right to decide on war and peace, even as the Israeli army continues its bombardment and destruction in the region. In the background, the issue of the State’s exclusive control over arms has returned to the forefront, raising political questions that go beyond mere statements and resolutions to the core issue of implementation capacity—before the South faces an "Ali Taher 2" scenario or worse. Similarly, the general amnesty file has resurfaced after the Constitutional Council decided to suspend the law previously passed by Parliament—a law that had been challenged by MPs from the "Strong Lebanon" bloc. Further Escalation: Nabatieh has surged to the forefront of official Lebanese attention, sparking a flurry of activity, diplomatic efforts, and contacts aimed at protecting the city and sparing it from a disastrous fate. In this context, an official Lebanese source indicated to *Al-Markaziya* that "Lebanon has not received—through [US Ambassador] Michel Issa—any Israeli messages regarding intentions to escalate." According to the source, assessments suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading toward further escalation, driven by electoral calculations and the approaching date of October 27. It is evident that he is waging his election campaign using the blood and homes of the Lebanese people; thus, the consistent position has been that any intransigence by any party in rejecting the Lebanese state project would ultimately align with Netanyahu’s calculations and ruthlessness. The source added that security and military meetings, as well as diplomatic and international contacts, are underway in an attempt to avert the destruction or displacement that could befall the Nabatieh region—particularly following...
The situation in Ali al-Tahir was the result of weeks of stubbornness and the rejection of offers for the Lebanese Army to take control of the area.
Washington Commends: Amidst official insistence on deploying forces in Nabatieh, a statement from the US Embassy today highlighted that "the Lebanese people demonstrate daily their preference for Lebanese state institutions over Hezbollah’s weapons," noting that southern Lebanon "does not belong to regional actors or militias." The Embassy stated that the United States commends these communities and supports the Lebanese government’s declared goal of asserting sovereignty—enforced by the Lebanese Army—and ensuring that decisions regarding war and peace remain exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state.
Security Forces: Interior Minister Ahmed Al-Hajjar met in his office with the Director General of the Internal Security Forces (ISF), Major General Raed Abdullah. They discussed the country's security situation, measures taken to maintain order, and steps to bolster the security presence, particularly in the south. Preparations for the upcoming preparatory meeting for the international conference to support the Army and the ISF—scheduled to be held in Paris this September—were also addressed.
The State Will Not Abandon Its People: Additionally, Al-Hajjar spoke by phone this morning with the Mayor of Nabatieh, Abbas Fakhr El-Din, to check on the city’s conditions, its affairs, and the well-being of its residents. Al-Hajjar affirmed that the state would not abandon its people and that the presence of state institutions and agencies in the city—foremost among them the ISF, alongside Ministry of Interior departments and municipalities—would be strengthened immediately upon the completion of renovation work on the Government Serail. He noted that bolstering the security presence is a national responsibility at this stage, ensuring the protection of citizens and the uninterrupted functioning of administrative and service-related operations.
The Council of the South: Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam received the head of the Council of the South, Hashem Haidar, accompanied by a delegation from the Council. Prime Minister Salam emphasized that "the Council of the South—as an entity affiliated with the Prime Minister's Office—fulfills its role in meeting the needs of citizens in the South, in coordination with the Council for Development and Reconstruction. This serves as a cornerstone for ensuring that all resources are directed toward serving the people of the South without exception." Following the meeting, Haidar stated: "We presented Prime Minister Salam with the 'White Hands' book, which documents the Council’s achievements between 2020 and 2025. Discussions also covered the measures the Council is currently implementing in southern villages—specifically regarding school renovations and enabling displaced persons to return—to allow the academic year to begin normally. We have already commenced repairs on the majority of schools and are working to complete the renovation of all schools in the South, alongside providing other services, particularly debris removal and infrastructure rehabilitation."
Vatican Support: Regarding the international response to the situation in Lebanon, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reaffirmed the Vatican’s steadfast and unwavering support for Lebanon and its backing of the State’s efforts to exercise sovereignty over its entire territory. During a meeting with a group of prominent Lebanese Shiite figures—including Sheikh Mohammad Ali Al-Hajj Al-Amili, Dr. Wajih Kansouh, journalist Jad Al-Akhawi, and Sayyed Ali Al-Amin—His Eminence expressed the Vatican’s openness to all Lebanese components and its commitment to positive engagement with the diverse figures and currents within the various sects, including the Shiite community. Cardinal Parolin expressed optimism regarding a promising future for Lebanon, voicing hope for its deliverance and recalling Pope John Paul II’s phrase, "A New Hope for Lebanon." For its part, the group thanked the Vatican for the role it has played in supporting Lebanon and its people during the current crisis, as well as for backing the State’s negotiating efforts to secure a safe and stable situation along Lebanon’s border with Israel, facilitate the return of displaced persons to their villages, and ensure the necessary conditions for living.
Enduring Dignity.
The Kataeb’s Question: Regarding the current situation, the head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, MP Samy Gemayel, affirmed that "the problem does not lie in the decisions and intentions concerning the extension of state authority and the exclusive possession of arms by the state; rather, we question the government regarding the implementation of these decisions and await answers." He added, "We ask the government: when will the exclusive possession of arms become a reality on the ground, allowing us to close this file and focus on building a better future for our children?" In a press conference, Gemayel noted that "we are on the verge of dangerous security developments in the region and in the South; the issue of the tunnels is not a myth but a reality. Our goal is to protect the Lebanese people from 'Ali Taher' 2, 3, and 4, and from 'Ali Taher' in other Lebanese regions." He stated, "Just as we previously warned of the repercussions of war before it broke out, today we warn against its expansion; all measures must be taken to prevent the spread of destruction, shelling, and Israeli attacks." Gemayel emphasized, "Driven by our concern for this authority, we raise these questions and call on the State to honor its promises. We ask: What have you done? What will you do? And what is the timeline for implementing your decisions?" He considered that "civil peace is threatened because there are those who rebel against State decisions; we must either submit to this rebellion or confront it, and the State cannot submit to it." He concluded by saying, "If the State fails to do its job, this war could expand; in that event, the United States and Israel would negotiate with illegitimate forces at the expense of the State and all Lebanese people." **Explosions:** On the ground, warplanes conducted raids on Al-Mansouri, and the Israeli army carried out systematic demolition operations targeting homes and infrastructure in the town—located south of Tyre—concurrently with artillery shelling. Recently, new methods have been employed to demolish homes and residential neighborhoods without direct ground access; drones are used to drop barrels containing high explosives onto rooftops before detonating them. Since midnight, the town of Al-Mansouri and its outskirts have witnessed over ten massive explosions, causing powerful shockwaves felt by residents of Tyre and surrounding villages. The Israeli army also executed a major demolition in the Al-Dabsh area, west of Mays al-Jabal, destroying a waste-sorting plant as well as several homes and industrial and agricultural facilities. Additionally, further demolition operations were carried out in the towns of Houla, Mays al-Jabal, and Bani Hayyan.
**Suspension of Amnesty Law:** In a separate development, following a challenge filed by MPs from the "Strong Lebanon" bloc, the Constitutional Council issued Decision No. 10/2026, suspending the implementation of Law No. 70/2026, which concerns the granting of a general amnesty and the exceptional reduction of certain prison sentences.
**Budget Session:** On the economic front, and prior to an afternoon Cabinet session in Baabda to discuss the 2027 budget, the President of the Republic emphasized that the success of the Public Procurement Authority in its duties is a fundamental prerequisite for restoring the confidence of donor institutions and friendly nations, noting that public procurement governance is an integral part of the economic and financial recovery plan. President Aoun called upon the head and members of the Commission to regard themselves as the first line of defense for public funds, noting that their success in this mission is integral to the Lebanese state’s recovery of its institutional health and to the uncompromising fight against corruption that has already begun.

Tensions Boil Over at Roumieh Prison Following Stalled Amnesty Law; New Death Adds to Toll
Al-Markaziya/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
Conditions inside Roumieh Prison are deteriorating as a new death adds to the toll among inmates, coinciding with a halt in the implementation of the amnesty law and rising anger and tension within the facility. Recent developments have sparked outrage among prisoners, driven by ongoing complications surrounding the amnesty law and the fact that it has failed to improve their living conditions.  In a development signaling a potential record rise in prison fatalities in Lebanon, the "Families of Prisoners in Lebanon" committee announced the death of an inmate from Building D at Roumieh Central Prison. In a statement distributed to the press today, the committee reported that 44-year-old Syrian detainee Ahmed Mustafa Al-Hamad passed away at Hariri Hospital in Beirut. His health had deteriorated during his 44-month detention at Roumieh—held without trial—as severe overcrowding and a lack of medical care took a physical and psychological toll. The families' committee condemned the unethical manner in which the relevant authorities handled the incident. The prisoner's body remained in the morgue for three days before his family—who had arrived to visit and check on him—learned of his death by chance; only then did hospital administration inform them that the detainee had passed away three days earlier. According to sources, the deceased prisoner had not suffered from serious health issues prior to his detention, but his condition deteriorated months after his imprisonment; symptoms of illness began to appear recently, yet he went for a long period without undergoing any serious medical examinations. Eventually, due to an inability to eat normally for three months—caused by severe vomiting—he was transferred to a hospital in the capital, where tests revealed he was suffering from cancer.
The Prisoners' Families Committee expressed disappointment over attempts by political factions to obstruct the general amnesty law—which was enacted primarily for humanitarian reasons—and appealed to the Constitutional Council to expedite its implementation to save prisoners' lives. The committee stated that every day of delay could result in the loss of another detainee's life, given the harsh detention conditions prisoners face in Lebanon. Notably, this marks the third death recorded among detainees in less than a month since Parliament passed the general amnesty law on August 12.

Constitutional Council Suspends Implementation of "General Amnesty Law" No. 70/2026 by Majority Vote
Janoubia/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Constitutional Council of the Lebanese Republic issued Decision No. 10/2026 on September 10, 2026, suspending the implementation of Law No. 70/2026, which concerns the granting of a general amnesty and the exceptional reduction of certain sentences. The decision followed a session presided over by Council President Judge Tannous Mechleb and attended by the following judge-members: Aouni Ramadan, Ahmed Akram Baasiri, Albert Sarhan, Riad Abu Ghida, Fawzat Farhat, Michel Tarazi, Elias Mashrakani, and Mireille Najm; Vice President Judge Omar Hamza was absent due to illness. After deliberating on the challenge filed against Law No. 70/2026, the Council decided—by a majority vote—to suspend the implementation of the contested law. It was also decided to officially notify the President of the Republic, the Speaker of Parliament, and the Prime Minister of this decision, and to publish it in the Official Gazette.

Solar energy is free, but installing panels now comes with specific conditions, fees, and timeframes—what are the details?
Janoubia/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Ministries of Interior and Municipalities; Public Works and Transport; and Energy and Water have established a unified framework to regulate the installation of solar energy systems with a production capacity of less than 1.5 megawatts. This framework is set out in a joint decision defining the application process, technical and administrative requirements, and the timeframes for obtaining approval. According to the decision issued on September 9, 2026, the applicant must submit a request to install panels to the relevant municipality—or to the *Qaimaqam* (district commissioner) in towns lacking a municipality. The application must be accompanied by required documents, including statements signed by a structural engineer and an electrical or electromechanical engineer registered with the Order of Engineers, alongside specific engineering documents and forms. If panels are to be installed on the building's common areas, the application must include a plan showing the installation site and the allocation of roof space among owners. It also requires approval from the owners' association—or from 75% of the owners if no association exists—while safeguarding the rights of all owners. Furthermore, the property owner's consent is required if the applicant is a tenant or occupant of the property. The decision outlines technical specifications for rooftop installations: the maximum height of the panels must not exceed 3 meters above the top roof level for buildings under 15 meters in height, and 4.5 meters for buildings exceeding 15 meters in height. The decision also prohibits the installation of panels over the stairwell enclosure. For ground-mounted installations, the height of the panels' upper surface must not exceed two meters, and the height of the lower surface must not exceed 40 centimeters above ground level; furthermore, the panels must be tilted at an appropriate angle to capture sunlight. The decision stipulates that exceeding these specified dimensions and heights reclassifies the panels as metal structures subject to the provisions of the Building Law and applicable regulations. Regarding timelines, the decision mandates that the municipality or *Qaimaqam* (district governor) rule on the application within 15 days of its registration or the submission of all required documents. In the event of a rejection, the applicant must be notified of the reasons. If no response is issued within the specified timeframe, the application is deemed automatically approved, and the applicant is entitled to commence installation work after paying the required municipal fees. Additionally, the decision prohibits granting approval for properties where construction work has been halted due to building violations or other reasons, unless the violation is removed or regularized in accordance with established procedures. Upon completion of the installation, supervising engineers must submit a final certificate confirming the system's operational readiness and compliance with public safety standards. The decision assigns the Internal Security Forces and municipal police the responsibility of enforcing compliance and addressing violations arising from installations that do not meet these provisions. It also requires the approval holder to complete the installation within one year of receiving notification of the approval; otherwise, the approval becomes void, unless a new application is submitted through the proper channels. If you wish, I can also rephrase this in the style of a fast-paced news site, featuring a punchier introduction and a more engaging headline.

Lebanese Army intensifies Nabatieh deployment as report says mission excludes Hezbollah disarmament
David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/September 09/2026
The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is reinforcing its presence in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh after several days of intensified Israeli military operations. Lebanon’s Al Modon newspaper reported that the step followed coordination among Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, as well as discussions between Aoun and LAF Commander General Rodolphe Haykal. Official sources told the outlet that LAF would reinforce its existing positions in Nabatieh in an effort to contain Israeli escalation and avoid further attacks. They stressed, however, that “the objective is to reinforce LAF’s deployment, not to begin a [Hezbollah] disarmament process or make the city weapons-free.”
Other Lebanese outlets independently confirmed that the LAF was intensifying its activity in Nabatieh, though none independently reported that Hezbollah’s disarmament had been excluded from the mission. Al Jadeed, a privately owned Lebanese television channel based in Beirut, said the LAF was preparing to station troops at several fixed points inside the city while increasing patrols through its neighborhoods. An-Nahar likewise reported an expanded Army presence and regular patrols. In addition, Elnashra noted that the intensified patrols were intended to reassure residents worried that Israeli forces might advance toward Nabatieh after taking nearby Ali al Taher Ridge.
Later on September 8, the LAF clarified that reports describing the activity as the beginning of a new deployment were inaccurate. Army units, it said, were already present throughout Nabatieh and other southern areas outside of Israeli control before the current escalation. The LAF said it had instead “intensified its missions” in several areas “to reassure residents.” It did not describe those intensified missions as a disarmament operation.
The June 26 Trilateral Framework Between the United States of America, the State of Israel, and the Republic of Lebanon, however, directly links the LAF’s assumption of full security responsibility to Hezbollah’s disarmament. Lebanon committed to restore an exclusive state monopoly over armed force, completely and verifiably disarm non-state armed groups, dismantle their military infrastructure, and ensure groups retain no military or security role or capability anywhere in Lebanon. Israeli forces are to withdraw progressively as those Lebanese commitments are implemented and verified.
The framework created limited “pilot zones” to implement that bargain. The document’s Security Annex, which was not initially published but L’Orient-Le Jour authenticated, sets out four steps in sequence: legal measures against unauthorized armed personnel and destruction or disabling of non-state weapons and military infrastructure; third-party verification of that clearance; qualified LAF units assuming and maintaining sole operational control to prevent renewed non-state armed activity; and reconstruction. The Annex says the LAF will lead implementation, with success measured by verified disarmament and dismantlement, and separately commits the LAF to take “necessary operational measures” to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups.
American and Lebanese officials described the pilot zones accordingly when implementation began. A US official told Reuters on July 20 that the LAF would clear Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure, conduct verified clearance operations, and secure the areas against Hezbollah’s military return. A Lebanese official told Al Jazeera three days later that the zones were intended to become “completely free of weapons and any military activity or manifestations.”
One of those zones is Zawtar al Gharbiyeh, a town in Nabatieh District. The LAF announced on July 21 that its troops had begun deploying there through the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, the mechanism established to coordinate implementation between Israel and Lebanon. Al Modon reported on September 8 that about 80 additional soldiers had arrived in Zawtar al Gharbiyeh and that the LAF force there was expected to grow to roughly 180 personnel.
Available public evidence does not show that the LAF has completed the framework’s weapons-clearance or verification stages in Zawtar al Gharbiyeh. Reuters reported on July 29 that establishing the first pilot zone there had required weeks of US-brokered negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and that the Framework still lacked an agreed timetable and verification mechanism.
During an August 20 visit, This Is Beirut reported that soldiers waved its reporters’ black Audi with tinted windows through the main LAF checkpoint without checking the occupants’ identities or inspecting the vehicle. Two vehicles immediately ahead of it, including a van, also passed without identification checks. An LAF intelligence source familiar with the operation told the outlet that the LAF regarded its primary responsibilities there as disposing of unexploded ordnance, clearing rubble, and assisting residents rather than prioritizing Hezbollah’s disarmament. A local source residing in Zawtar al Gharbiyeh told the outlet that he could identify no case in which the LAF had dismantled a Hezbollah weapons depot or military infrastructure there.
A separate This Is Beirut report quoted an LAF officer who said that troops had been ordered to establish checkpoints, control access to Zawtar al Gharbiyeh, and prevent residents from bringing weapons or military equipment into the town. The officer nevertheless said that the LAF “lacks the mandate to confront Hezbollah” because it receives its mandate from Lebanon’s political authorities. If Hezbollah obstructed a disarmament operation, he said, troops at the scene could not independently challenge the group and would instead report the matter through the chain of command for the government to determine how to respond. A senior officer in the command responsible for the area later described the LAF’s approach more directly. Speaking to CNN from Zawtar al Gharbiyeh, LAF Colonel Raja Amer said the “final objective” was exclusive Lebanese state authority inside the pilot zone.
CNN Arabic identified Amer as the deputy commander of the LAF’s South Litani Sector, the LAF command covering the area south of the Litani River.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond asked why the LAF was not entering homes and confiscating weapons. Amer said doing so required a full LAF deployment, “full recovery of the south,” and an Israeli ceasefire. The colonel then cautioned against “doing things in violence against our own people.” Asked whether Lebanon’s history of civil war explained the LAF’s reluctance to act aggressively against Hezbollah, Amer said, “We will do this slowly” and “in a reasonable way.” Asked whether preventing another civil war was a central Army responsibility, Amer answered, “For sure,” adding, “That is something from the pillar of the thinking of the army. Who will fight the children of this country?” He nevertheless said that the LAF would not accept illegal activity.
That position predates the pilot-zone experiment. On March 2, the Lebanese Cabinet prohibited all Hezbollah military and security activity, ordered the group to surrender its weapons, directed security agencies to take immediate measures against violations and arrest offenders, and instructed the LAF to begin “immediately and firmly” implementing its plan to establish state control over weapons north of the Litani River, “using all means” necessary to ensure implementation.
Five days later, Lebanese Army Commander-in-Chief General Rodolph Haykal publicly defined the considerations that would govern the LAF’s response. He said that Israeli attacks were obstructing implementation but also noted that LAF decisions would be calibrated to safeguarding Lebanon, national unity, internal stability, and the military institution itself. The solution was “not solely a military one,” Haykal said, and required parallel political and official action. He identified ending Israeli attacks and strengthening the LAF as the two fundamental pillars of a solution.
Haykal subsequently continued to elevate avoiding internal conflict among the LAF’s priorities. On April 21, he called civil peace “the strongest weapon” for protecting Lebanon. In his May 22 order to troops, he again described civil peace and national unity as among the country’s principal safeguards. No coercive nationwide campaign to seize Hezbollah’s arsenal followed the March 2 decision by the Lebanese Cabinet to prohibit the group’s military and security activity.
Lebanon’s political leadership has adopted the same approach. Even while announcing the Lebanese Cabinet’s March 2 decision, Prime Minister Salam said, “We do not seek a confrontation with Hezbollah.” Six days later, he reiterated that the cabinet’s decision “must be implemented,” but when asked how, he again answered, “We are not seeking a confrontation with Hezbollah.”
President Aoun has likewise treated the state monopoly over arms as a settled objective while reserving its implementation for political dialogue. He has said that the decision to establish exclusive state control over weapons has already been taken and that the remaining issue is how to implement it. Aoun said that process would proceed through bilateral dialogue between the presidency and Hezbollah “away from force,” without a fixed deadline, because civil peace was a “red line.”
Hezbollah has explicitly rejected disarmament. Secretary-General Naim Qassem said on June 17 that “any project to disarm us will not pass.” After the framework was signed, he specifically rejected linking Israeli withdrawal to disarming Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, calling the formula “a very dangerous proposal that crosses all red lines.”
**David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.

Les impasses institutionnalisées
Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September 10/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157383/
Les contradictions de l’État libanais ne peuvent plus être comptabilisées, car elles sont aporétiques, elles sont celles d’un État qui ne se reconnaît pas comme tel et qui défère ses responsabilités à des extraterritorialités de fait. Le paradoxe tient au fait que ledit État préfère s’en remettre aux impondérables d’un contexte régional volatile plutôt que d’en référer à la constitution qui est à la source de sa légitimité. C’est à partir de ces prémisses que l’État libanais se projette dans une diplomatie de haute mer alors que les éléments premiers de l’existence étatique font défaut.
Il a fait défaut en signant la trêve de 2024 instrumentalisée par le Hezbollah afin de se réorganiser, reconstituer son arsenal et reprendre les attaques qui sont à l’origine de la guerre de 2026. La reprise des hostilités aurait été impossible si l’État libanais s'était acquitté de ses obligations statutaires au lieu de servir de couverture à la nouvelle stratégie de déstabilisation du pouvoir iranien. L’État s’est intentionnellement dessaisi de sa souveraineté en concédant au Hezbollah la nouvelle latitude opérationnelle et en lui fournissant la couverture pseudo-juridique dont il a excipé.
L’effondrement du processus hypothétique de pacification est un acte délibéré cautionné par un État qui peine à s’assumer et à défendre ses lettres de créance. Quels que soient les faux prétextes évoqués, ils peuvent difficilement justifier ses défaillances et celles des nouveaux responsables qui ont coché tous les indicateurs d’une gouvernance en état de faillite effective. Les pétitions de principe invoquées tout au long du nouveau parcours n'aboutissent ni à des politiques alternatives, ni à la suggestion de leur possibilité. Les raisons qu’on peut énumérer sont multiples. Elles comprennent notamment la peur, les restrictions idéologiques, la soumission aux rapports de force, quoique fragilisés. Elles incluent également le refus d’aborder la question de la pacification des frontières avec l’État d’Israël, ainsi que l’état de guerre qui a engendré sept décennies de conflits ouverts, se nourrissant de toutes les dynamiques passées ou futures.
Ceci est d’autant plus inquiétant que l’État libanais, au lieu de se départir des prémisses idéologiques qui ont soutenu ces conflits, les a reprises à son propre compte. Cela s'est produit malgré le fait qu’elles contredisaient totalement les stipulations des accords contractés et compromettaient les chances d’une paix impérative. Bien au contraire, ils ont servi de prétexte à de nouvelles dynamiques guerrières qui ont détruit les conditions mêmes d’une paix réelle. Comment s’extraire de cet engrenage infernal dès lors que la dynamique étatique semble s’étioler au point de départ? Celui d’une quête volontaire de paix, de rejet des préjugés idéologiques qui ont servi de justificatif à des conflits pérennisés et aux fossilisations qui en ont résulté?
Ces considérations s'accompagnent des difficultés d'un désordre régional que l'on peine à dénouer. Ces difficultés surviennent tant que la politique impériale du régime islamique iranien continue de nourrir l'illusion de la restauration du statu quo ante et de la réhabilitation des plateformes opérationnelles intégrées. Le pari sur les élections américaines, la perpétuation de l’état d’instabilité, la propulsion des guerres civiles et leur institutionnalisation et la poursuite de la radicalisation idéologique ont fini par induire des mimétismes. Ces derniers ont conduit à des contre-radicalisations de tous bords, à la fragilisation de l’ordre régional déjà éprouvé, et à la création de nouvelles polarisations structurées autour d’un pôle sunnite émergent (Arabie saoudite, Turquie, Pakistan).
On peut difficilement imaginer des scénarios réalistes de résolution des conflits et de modération en l’absence d’un rapport de force inédit. Le renforcement du pouvoir d’arbitrage des États-Unis, seuls habilités à créer les conditions d'une dynamique de paix réaliste fondée sur la recherche négociée de solutions à des conflits pérennisés, est incontournable. Autrement, le régime iranien est non seulement imperméable aux schémas de conversion, mais il est résolument déterminé à saboter tous les virages qui remettent en question sa volonté de puissance, réduisent son périmètre d’influence, et bloquent ses ambitions impériales. Le retour des puissances régionales s’est effectué, les lignes de clivages internationales ont réémergé et les sociétés régionales sont renvoyées à leurs anachronismes et aux impasses d’un ordre régional profondément désarticulé.
Les remaniements du paysage géostratégique ouvrent la voie à des choix alternatifs et à des réaménagements des architectures sécuritaires dans une région en pleine convulsion. La politique de subversion iranienne a perdu son exclusivité. Cette situation a ouvert la voie à des dynamiques conflictuelles et à des réalignements géopolitiques. Nous avons dorénavant affaire à des dynamiques mutantes qu'il serait judicieux de scruter scrupuleusement si l'on souhaite parvenir à des rééquilibrages systémiques et mettre fin aux vides sécuritaires tant convoités par les impérialismes musulmans en concurrence.
https://icibeyrouth.com/articles/1342138/les-impasses-institutionnalisees

Institutionalized Impasses
Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September 10/2026
(Translated from French by GPT)
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157383/
The contradictions of the Lebanese state can no longer be quantified, because they are aporias; they are those of a state that does not recognize itself as such and delegates its responsibilities to de facto extraterritorialities. The paradox lies in the fact that the said state prefers to rely on the imponderables of a volatile regional context rather than referring to the constitution, which is the source of its legitimacy. It is from these premises that the Lebanese state projects itself into a high-seas diplomacy while the primary elements of state existence are lacking.
It failed by signing the 2024 truce, which was instrumentalized by Hezbollah to reorganize, rebuild its arsenal, and resume the attacks that originated the 2026 war. The resumption of hostilities would have been impossible had the Lebanese state fulfilled its statutory obligations instead of serving as a cover for the Iranian regime's new destabilization strategy. The state intentionally divested itself of its sovereignty by granting Hezbollah new operational latitude and providing it with the pseudo-legal cover it invoked.
The collapse of the hypothetical pacification process is a deliberate act endorsed by a state that struggles to assume responsibility and defend its credentials. Whatever false pretexts are evoked, they can hardly justify its failures and those of the new officials who have checked every indicator of a governance in a state of effective bankruptcy. The petitio principii invoked throughout this new path lead neither to alternative policies nor to the suggestion of their possibility. The reasons that can be enumerated are multiple. They include fear, ideological restrictions, and submission to power dynamics, however weakened. They also include the refusal to address the issue of border pacification with the State of Israel, as well as the state of war that has generated seven decades of open conflicts, feeding on all past or future dynamics.
This is all the more worrying since the Lebanese state, instead of breaking away from the ideological premises that supported these conflicts, has taken them over on its own account. This occurred despite the fact that they totally contradicted the stipulations of contracted agreements and compromised the chances of an imperative peace. On the contrary, they served as a pretext for new warlike dynamics that destroyed the very conditions of a real peace. How can one escape from this infernal machinery when state dynamics seem to wither away at the very starting point? That of a voluntary quest for peace, of rejecting the ideological prejudices that have served as justification for perpetuated conflicts and the resulting fossilisations?
These considerations are accompanied by the difficulties of a regional disorder that is hard to unravel. These difficulties persist as long as the imperial policy of the Iranian Islamic regime continues to nourish the illusion of restoring the status quo ante and rehabilitating integrated operational platforms. The gamble on the American elections, the perpetuation of instability, the propulsion of civil wars and their institutionalization, and the pursuit of ideological radicalization have ultimately induced mimetisms. The latter have led to counter-radicalizations of all kinds, the weakening of an already tested regional order, and the creation of new polarizations structured around an emerging Sunni pole (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan).
It is difficult to imagine realistic conflict-resolution and moderation scenarios in the absence of an unprecedented power balance. The strengthening of the arbitration power of the United States—the sole entity empowered to create the conditions for a realistic peace dynamic based on the negotiated search for solutions to perpetuated conflicts—is inescapable. Otherwise, the Iranian regime is not only impermeable to conversion schemes, but is resolutely determined to sabotage any turns that challenge its will to power, reduce its sphere of influence, and block its imperial ambitions. The return of regional powers has taken place, international cleavage lines have re-emerged, and regional societies are sent back to their anachronisms and the impasses of a profoundly disjointed regional order.
The reshuffling of the geostrategic landscape paves the way for alternative choices and the readjustment of security architectures in a region in full convulsion. Iran's subversion policy has lost its exclusivity. This situation has paved the way for conflicting dynamics and geopolitical realignments. We are henceforth dealing with mutant dynamics that it would be wise to scrutinize scrupulously if we wish to achieve systemic rebalancing and put an end to the security vacuums so coveted by competing Muslim imperialisms.

The South’s Catastrophe: Between Hezbollah and Its Partners
Marwan Al-Amin/Nidaa Al-Watan/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Ali Al-Tahir Hill has fallen. And with it—following the fall of Khiam, Bint Jbeil, and other areas of the South—the peddler of illusions and the purveyor of destruction, death, and occupation has once again been exposed. With the fall of Ali Al-Tahir, the scope of the Israeli occupation has expanded, while a reality more dangerous than the occupation itself comes to light day by day: Hezbollah is prepared to see Israel occupy Lebanese territory rather than see that land handed over to Lebanese state legitimacy. It has become clear that the primary adversary of Hezbollah’s agenda is Lebanese state legitimacy. Any step the state successfully achieves—whether sparing Lebanese land from Israeli occupation, reclaiming occupied territory, or securing the release of detainees—is viewed by the "Party" as an achievement that must be undermined and trivialized. This is because it validates the equation: "When the state succeeds, Hezbollah’s very *raison d'être* is threatened." This is Hezbollah’s stance—unmistakably clear. But what of the others? What of the two parties capable, each from its own position, of playing an effective role in sparing the South and its people further destruction and death, and in preventing Israel from expanding its occupation? Specifically, this refers to Lebanese state legitimacy—encompassing both its political and military institutions—and Speaker Nabih Berri. To date, the Lebanese legitimate authority continues to view the events unfolding in the South as a mere spectator—as if the situation did not concern it—effectively ceding to Hezbollah the right to treat the South and its people as private property to be managed according to the party's own calculations and decisions. A recent example of this is the incident at the Ali al-Tahir hill; the State took no action even when Hezbollah refused to hand the hill over to the Army—a move that could have prevented its occupation. The hill was left to Hezbollah, ultimately resulting in its seizure by the Israeli army. Herein lies the paradox that the Lebanese authorities can no longer ignore: how can one expect a positive response to the State’s demand for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory while simultaneously refusing to assert sovereignty over that very land? Restoring sovereignty is not achieved through statements or political posturing, but by demonstrating the will to exercise authority across the entire territory. Any hesitation in this regard not only weakens the State but leaves the South exposed to two forces: illicit weaponry on one side and Israeli occupation on the other. Speaker Nabih Berri, too, is complicit in the ongoing tragedy facing the South and its people, as well as in the expansion of the occupation. What is the value of maintaining a united front with Hezbollah if it comes at the cost of losing the South entirely? What matters more: Shiite political unity or the lives and livelihoods of the people of the South? And what is the worth of such unity if the possibility of Shiites returning to their villages is extinguished? Speaker Berri is well aware that the relentless carnage in the South will not cease as long as Hezbollah persists in its current course of action. He also understands that an Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction will remain unattainable as long as the party retains its arsenal. By securing political cover for Hezbollah and maintaining a united front with the group—under these same conditions—Berri becomes a partner in cementing the consequences of these choices. While Hezbollah bears direct responsibility for this catastrophe and its expansion, it does not stand alone in this regard; ceding the sovereignty of legitimate authority to Hezbollah constitutes an act of partnership, just as providing it with political cover does.

Why US Aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces Should Come with Conditions
David Schenker/Notional Interest/September 09/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157387/
The only way to dismantle Hezbollah is to create the right incentives for the Lebanese government.
When I served as assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs during the first Trump administration, I spent much of my time trying to disabuse my French counterparts of their reflexive inclination to bail Lebanon out of its self-inflicted financial crisis. Instead of participating in another failed Paris donor conference, the administration pressed for conditionality, making US support for an IMF program and the disbursement of cash contributions contingent on Beirut implementing meaningful economic reforms. Seven years on, Lebanon has yet to embrace significant reform and the economic morass continues. Still, Washington’s approach—requiring tangible actions in return for billions of dollars of aid—remains the correct policy. The United States should take the same approach to military assistance to Lebanon. In June, Lebanon committed in negotiations with Israel, mediated by Washington, to disarming (and dismantling) the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah. Beirut’s signing of the Trilateral Framework agreement was a brave decision. Yet, regrettably, early indications suggest that—like so many previous pledges on economic reform—Lebanon is failing to meet its obligations. President Donald Trump says his administration has “concrete plans” to help the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) disarm Hezbollah. Before he obligates funds, he would be well advised to wait and see if the LAF shows any sign that it intends to carry out the mission.
Predictably, France isn’t waiting. Despite Beirut’s disarmament inertia, Paris is poised to hold yet another donor conference for Lebanon. On September 17, President Emmanuel Macron will host a preparatory session for a later meeting to raise funds to support the LAF and the state’s Internal Security Forces. The French initiative aims to strengthen these institutions’ operational capabilities and sustainability by providing equipment and training. A key objective is to provide the LAF with the capacity to deploy to the south and take over from the Israeli military forces that currently occupy Lebanese territory. Macron is right that the LAF needs help. The military is short on cash, can’t meet payroll, and is struggling to find gas money to fuel vehicles. Yet the main reason for LAF underperformance is not insufficient resources. Rather, the problem appears to be a matter of will. Either Beirut hasn’t issued clear guidance to the LAF, or the military isn’t following orders. Both scenarios bode poorly for the disarmament project.
This lack of will has been on clear display in Zawtar al-Gharbiya, the first pilot zone under the framework. Israeli forces withdrew from Zawtar in late July. Under the terms of the agreement, the LAF deployed to secure the area and prevent the return of Hezbollah personnel and assets. While the LAF reportedly has uncovered some arms caches, the Lebanese press is reporting that the army is not checking vehicles, and that Hezbollah-affiliated ambulances and personnel had been allowed to re-enter the town, including the militia’s local military representative.
Regrettably, additional funding, equipment, and training will not make the LAF carry out its duties in Zawtar. The LAF is sidestepping its obligations to avoid conflict with Hezbollah. While fear of the militia is understandable, the consequences of the LAF shirking its duties are considerable. If the Zawtar pilot zone doesn’t succeed, Israel is unlikely to withdraw from additional zones, and the framework’s envisioned process will stall. Ultimately, to end the Israeli presence in Lebanon and de-escalate the conflict, Beirut is going to have to compel the LAF—which ostensibly is answerable to the government—to do its job. To be sure, Lebanon isn’t the only side falling short of expectations. Israeli officials, perhaps motivated by electoral considerations, talk brashly about digging into Lebanese positions for a long-term stay, as though the two sides didn’t just sign an agreement that envisions Israel’s departure. And there are almost daily Israeli military operations against Hezbollah terrorists or weapons caches, sometimes killing civilians in the process, reminding Lebanese that the ceasefire seems to exist in name only. Still, while Israeli actions may be unhelpful, LAF inaction in the pilot zones, if it persists, will ultimately prove the end of the framework agreement.
While France may be looking to underwrite a recalcitrant LAF, the Trump administration shouldn’t be offering additional support to an institution actively undermining its efforts to change the status quo in Lebanon. Since 2006, Washington has provided nearly $3 billion to the LAF to strengthen the force’s capabilities in preparation for this very moment. To encourage Beirut and the LAF to seize this rare opportunity to assert state sovereignty, the administration should make clear to Lebanon that its performance to date in the pilot zones is inadequate and inconsistent with the obligations the government undertook. Washington should be explicit that additional US funding for the LAF will be contingent on performance. Proposed legislation—the Lebanon Sanctions, Stabilization, and Support Act—is a strong signal from Congress that it would endorse a tough-love approach by the administration. This bill conditions US support for the LAF on the military’s execution of government directives regarding Hezbollah and its weapons. It also demonstrates a keen awareness of Beirut’s long track record of unfulfilled commitments. The Trump administration has invested significant diplomatic capital in the Lebanese-Israel talks. Barring a change in the Lebanese approach to the pilot zones, however, the Trilateral Framework will lose all momentum and wither. It’s not clear that conditioning US military assistance will compel Lebanon to reverse course; the approach hasn’t worked on economic reforms. But Washington can’t—and shouldn’t—bankroll Beirut’s indecision. Whether on the economy or on disarming Hezbollah, the United States cannot help the Lebanese government if it doesn’t help itself.
About the Author: David Schenker
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/why-us-aid-to-the-lebanese-armed-forces-should-come-with-conditions
*David Schenker is the Taube senior fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics. Confirmed by the Senate on June 5, 2019, he served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs through January 2021. In that capacity, he was the principal Middle East advisor to the secretary of state and the senior official overseeing the conduct of US policy and diplomacy in a region stretching from Morocco to Iran to Yemen, with responsibility for 18 countries, the Palestinian Authority, and Western Sahara.

Countering Hezbollah’s Reconstruction Politics and the Council for South Lebanon
Hanin Ghaddar/The Washington Institute/September 09/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157379/
Hezbollah and Amal are already manipulating where donor funding goes and who gets credit for reconstruction, so Washington and its partners should coordinate ways to bypass them before the country’s wider reconstruction effort begins in earnest—starting with the first batch of “pilot zones.”
In recent weeks, U.S. policy toward Lebanon has been narrowly focused on the process of disarming Iran-backed Hezbollah, as called for in the June trilateral framework agreement. Less attention has been paid to postwar reconstruction, another critical element of the agreement. Early indications suggest that Beirut’s current approach to this undertaking could wind up strengthening rather than marginalizing Hezbollah, since the government is apparently relying on the Council for South Lebanon (CSL)—an institution closely associated with Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, the head of the Amal Party and Hezbollah’s chief political ally—to manage much of the process.
To avoid that outcome and establish a model for how Lebanon should address Hezbollah, reconstruction, and international aid, authorities must focus on coordinating the right approach in the first two southern “pilot zones” created under the framework agreement, in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh and Froun. Yet two major concerns have already surfaced: (1) Hezbollah disarmament efforts undertaken by the Lebanese Armed Forces are failing to meet the requirements set by the agreement, and (2) the nascent reconstruction model taking shape in the south could help Hezbollah regain popular support. With the bulk of its finances focused on rebuilding its shattered military infrastructure, Hezbollah cannot provide the same level of local services it has in the past, so it is counting on deep access to Lebanese state institutions and Berri’s political circle to revive its image. CSL is a primary instrument in this regard, and the government is already tasking it with some reconstruction-related activities. This could present major policy problems—ones that international donors cannot solve simply through stronger auditing.
The Council’s Exceptional Status
Created in 1970 to address development and reconstruction needs in the south, CSL received unusual financial and administrative autonomy at a time when much of the area was beyond effective state authority due to widespread Palestinian militant operations. For instance, it was exempted from public accounting laws and from prior review of its operations by the Court of Audit. This exceptional status survived the departure of most Palestinian armed factions after Israel’s 1982 invasion.
CSL then became closely associated with Amal and Berri. For example, under leases reportedly dating back to 1985, the council has rented its large headquarters in the Chiyah suburb of Beirut from the “Amal Association for the Deprived.” The cumulative rental payments have exceeded $20 million over thirty-five years. This is just one of countless ways in which Amal and Hezbollah both control and benefit from the CSL. They choose where the council’s funding is spent, who the specific beneficiaries are, and how much is allotted. Giving a terrorist group and its political allies stewardship over such decisions is hardly a model for marginalizing Hezbollah, let alone for launching responsible postwar reconstruction or preventing future wars.
Where Does the Money—and Political Credit—Go?
Since the 2024 ceasefire agreement with Israel, Lebanon’s preliminary reconstruction efforts have depended on two financing sources. The first is the World Bank’s Lebanon Emergency Assistance Project (LEAP), a $1 billion framework established with an initial $250 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The Lebanese government’s Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR)—not the Council for South Lebanon—is formally responsible for all LEAP components under the supervision of the prime minister and relevant ministries. For now, LEAP is focused on financing projects like rubble removal and the restoration of public infrastructure and services; it does not fund compensation to individuals affected by the war or reconstruction of private homes. Yet much of its initial financing has been allocated to CSL, not CDR.
The second financing source is the Lebanese state. Since August 2025, Beirut’s allotments to CSL have reached approximately $132 million, including a parliamentary allocation of roughly $90 million in December. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has also assigned direct functions to CSL, including damage assessment, purchases of prefabricated housing, and repairs to partially destroyed homes in the pilot zones. Yet recipients are typically given the impression that their new prefab homes are gifts from Berri, Amal, and, by extension, Hezbollah rather than assistance from the central government.
This raises two questions that should concern every prospective donor: Who will actually manage the country’s wider-scale reconstruction once the money reaches Lebanon? And even if this funding reaches its intended beneficiaries, who will receive the political credit for delivering it? The scale of these projects will be relatively huge. In March, the World Bank’s Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment estimated the direct physical damage from the fighting in 2023-24 alone at approximately $7.2 billion, while total recovery and reconstruction needs were around $11 billion. These figures do not account for the additional destruction caused by renewed conflict with Israel this year.
If Hezbollah manages to direct significant portions of this money toward rebuilding its image through CSL and municipal institutions, it may regain much of its footing in the longer term. This could mean winning more votes in future elections, solidifying its power within the state, and rebuilding its military strength.
An example from this summer illustrates the deeper political problems raised by the current approach. In July, Public Works Minister Fayez Rasamny and CSL president Hashem Haidar participated in a reconstruction meeting with municipal representatives from Nabatiyah, other southern locales, and the Western Bekaa district. The chosen venue was not a government building, however, but Amal’s headquarters in Jinah. Moreover, the meeting was convened by Amal’s central municipal office and Hezbollah’s municipal affairs apparatus. Such arrangements show why CSL does not even need to transfer money directly to Hezbollah for the militia to benefit politically. So long as Lebanese state funds pay for housing, compensation, and infrastructure through institutions politically controlled by Amal, and so long as Hezbollah’s municipal and political networks coordinate local reconstruction, both parties can cement their position as intermediaries between citizens and the state.
Repeating the Mistakes of 2006?
The risks become clearer when one recalls the aftermath of the 2006 war. At the time, Iran financed the compensation of local communities damaged by that conflict (particularly Shia areas in the south), while Arab states funded much of Lebanon’s overall reconstruction. Crucially, Hezbollah and Amal were the local intermediaries in both cases, influencing contractors, municipalities, and the public narrative. Many residents credited Hezbollah, not Gulf capitals, with their country’s reconstruction. Washington seemed to recognize this problem by February 2007, when the Treasury Department designated the Hezbollah construction arm Jihad al-Binaa because the terrorist group was using it to support “its own construction needs as well as to attract popular support through the provision of civilian construction services.”
Today, Iran is under major financial pressure and cannot come to Hezbollah’s rescue again. But if the international community and the Lebanese state decide to fully fund reconstruction while allowing Amal and Hezbollah-affiliated bodies to remain the public face of these efforts, then the result will be the same: an empowered Hezbollah. This is the same reason why these groups have insisted since 2014 that the Finance Ministry remain under Shia political control, even though Lebanon’s constitution does not assign that portfolio to a specific sect. Holding sway over this ministry enables them to influence the transfer of parliamentary budget allocations on reconstruction and beyond.
Policy Recommendations
If done properly, reconstruction can rebuild trust between a government and its citizens. If done wrong, it strengthens malign actors and sets the stage for the next round of conflict. It is in America’s interest to make sure Beirut takes the former path.
Washington does not need to pledge direct funding for civilian reconstruction in order to influence this process—it can exert a great deal of leverage indirectly. Most notably, the United States is the World Bank’s largest shareholder and has wide voting representation, veto powers, and its own executive director on the IBRD board. This gives it a big say in decisions like the bank’s initial $250 million tranche to Lebanon—which was a loan, not a U.S. grant. LEAP still has $750 million left to allocate, so Washington should call for clear conditions on who handles that money at all stages of the process. In doing so, it can steer the Gulf states and European partners toward using the same safeguards. These standards should include the following:
Use a state-led delivery system. Washington should insist that any additional financing allotments designate the Council for Development and Reconstruction as the implementer, with relevant Lebanese ministries (e.g., Public Works, Education, Energy) as partners. All foreign assistance must be clearly channeled through the Lebanese state—crucially, under unambiguous rules that prevent Amal and Hezbollah from serving as intermediaries. The Council for South Lebanon may provide basic local information to facilitate the work of other authorities, but it should not be given reconstruction funds or permitted to approve beneficiaries, select vendors, or certify completion.
Remove political gatekeeping. Independent teams should build an initial register of war-damaged sites using satellite data from the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS-L), site inspections, and door-to-door inventories. Residents should also be able to register by a listed telephone number or at accessible local centers, without a municipal or party referral. Eligibility rules should be published, with priority placed on urgent humanitarian needs rather than political affiliation.
Make procurement traceable from tender to payment. CDR should use public electronic tendering for all reconstruction projects, with clear standards, prices, and requirements. Payments should be based on milestones and plans, and every project should have a public record that identifies beneficial owners, subcontractors, project locations, contracts, progress, and payments.
Create one verification system for every funding source. The Lebanese government should partner with donors to establish a reconstruction transparency and verification body that can cover foreign-financed projects. This entity would monitor the entire process and represent the government, major donors, and Lebanese civil society simultaneously. The World Bank’s LEAP already includes a potential model system wherein verification is conducted by engineering and audit companies, and reports are delivered to the government, funders, and public.
Sequence reconstruction aid. Basic civilian assistance should not depend on Hezbollah’s full disarmament, which will be a difficult long-term challenge in many locales. Emergency shelter, home repairs, rubble removal, and the reestablishment of essential services should proceed right away—but only as long as local political parties, militia actors, and so forth are excluded from decisions regarding eligibility, contracts, and payments. For larger non-emergency projects, donors may require operational preconditions—for example, barring nonstate weapons at project locations, requiring Hezbollah disarmament in specified areas, and sequencing aid allotments on successful implementation of pilot zones. Full reconstruction could then happen in areas effectively clean of Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure.
This is not a corruption problem per se—the main concern is not whether houses are actually built or contractors are paid fairly, since Hezbollah and Amal likely have an interest in performing such tasks capably. Rather, authorities should be most concerned about who benefits politically from this activity. If CSL continues to receive and administer government funds, Hezbollah will be the beneficiary. In that scenario, the international community would be rebuilding southern Lebanon while inadvertently helping Hezbollah rebuild itself—and setting the stage for future rounds of war and reconstruction in the process.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/countering-hezbollahs-reconstruction-politics-and-council-south-lebanon
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute’s Rubin Program on Arab Politics.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 10-111/2026
25 Years Since 9/11: New York Recalls the Twin Towers in the City's Sky
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
In the skies above New York, the image of the Twin Towers reappeared once again—this time without smoke or rubble, rendered instead by thousands of lights mapping their outlines over the city's harbor. It was a poignant scene commemorating the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, coinciding with a quarter-century since one of the most shocking moments in modern American history. The art installation, titled "2977 Lights Over New York Harbor," utilized 2,977 light units, referencing the number of people who lost their lives in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The lights rose gradually into the harbor sky before taking the shape of the Twin Towers at dimensions mirroring their original size, briefly returning one of New York's most prominent skyline landmarks to its place for a few hours.
The display was more than just a visual showcase of technology; it was the fruit of collaboration with members of the community affected by the attacks, including victims' families, survivors, and members of rescue and first response teams. Presented free to the public, the event focused on reflection, unity, and the preservation of memory.
Twenty-five years later, the events of 9/11 remain powerfully present in the American consciousness. According to the Associated Press, the impact of that day is no longer a singular experience shared by Americans in the exact same way, but has instead become a varied legacy shaped by age, personal experience, and where each individual lived through those events and their aftermath. For families of victims, survivors, firefighters, police officers, and paramedics, the anniversary is not merely a date on the calendar, but a part of daily life. Meanwhile, for the millions of Americans born after 2001, 9/11 has become a historical event known through books, schools, photographs, and the testimonies of those who lived through that day. In its new coverage, the Associated Press revisits the testimonies of several of its journalists who were in New York during the attacks. Journalist Karen Matthews recalls the moment she was preparing to drop her young daughter off at school before an ordinary morning turned into an extraordinary day, while photographer Richard Drew documented scenes that later became among the most enduringly associated with the attacks. Photographer Amy Sancetta, who was in New York to cover a sports tournament, recounts how her assignment that day transformed into documenting one of the city's worst disasters, before finding herself engulfed in a cloud of dust and debris following the collapse of one of the towers. The attacks not only left thousands dead and injured, but also transformed the face of the United States. Homeland security systems were reshaped, travel and airport procedures tightened, and new counterterrorism policies emerged, while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq left political, social, and military impacts that extended for many years. In the aviation sector specifically, the attacks led to radical changes, including the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, stricter screening of passengers and baggage, reinforced cockpit doors, and new restrictions on carry-on items.
However, the impact of 9/11 extended beyond security and politics. The attacks left long-term humanitarian and psychological effects on victims' families, rescue workers, and survivors, while also influencing American societal views on security, immigration, and relations among diverse communities.
As a quarter-century passes, a new question arises: How can the memory of 9/11 be preserved for a generation that did not live through the attacks? Recent polls cited by the Associated Press reveal that about half of adult Americans still consider 9/11 one of the most important historical events in their lives, with some 90% viewing the attacks as having left a significant impact on the United States. However, younger generations view the event from a greater temporal distance, with many born after the attacks and learning about them through education, documents, and testimonies. Consequently, initiatives that preserve memory take on special importance.
In Washington, recent days saw commemoration ceremonies attended by President Donald Trump, while the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History displayed a collection of rare artifacts related to the attacks, including personal items recovered from the World Trade Center site and United Airlines Flight 93. In New York, the 2,977 lights were more than an artistic display; they transformed into a symbol of thousands of lost lives and an attempt to restore the image of the towers to the city's memory. As the towers formed in the sky and then faded away, the message carried by the display remained clear: the city's shape and generations may change, but the memory of 9/11 endures in New York and across the United States twenty-five years later.

Netanyahu: Israel Continues to Strike the "Iranian Axis" with Force
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Thursday that Israel has destroyed Iran's nuclear capabilities twice, warning that Tehran is once again attempting to rebuild its capabilities with the aim of producing a nuclear weapon. In a video address, Netanyahu added that US President Donald Trump announced that Iran is once again seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon, considering this assessment to be "correct." The Israeli Prime Minister also affirmed that Iran "will not possess a nuclear weapon" as long as he serves as Prime Minister, noting that Israel continues to strike what he described as the "Iranian axis" with full force.
Furthermore, Netanyahu stated that Israel has destroyed the Shaqif mountain range in southern Lebanon and is currently working to address the Ali al-Tahir mountain range, referring to ongoing military operations. Later in a joint statement, Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the Israeli army has destroyed Hezbollah’s underground infrastructure in the Ali al-Tahir range, noting that the operation "completed the organization of the security zone in southern Lebanon."
In the same context, a senior Israeli military official stated, "If Iran intervenes and responds to what is happening in Lebanon, it will receive a heavy blow," according to Channel 15. Meanwhile, the Israeli army spokesperson announced that in the coming hours, the army will carry out a series of planned airstrikes and detonations on the Lebanese front, with explosion sounds expected across the region, particularly focusing on the central Upper Galilee, the Hula Valley, and the Golan Heights.
Israel has been waging a war on Lebanon since March 2 of last year, following Hezbollah's launch of rockets toward northern Israel, during which Israeli forces occupied several towns in southern Lebanon. A ceasefire was announced on June 20 of last year, following which the frequency of Israeli targeting in southern Lebanon decreased.

Israeli Force Infiltrates the Qunaitra Countryside and Detains Two Individuals
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
An Israeli force infiltrated the town of Al-Rafid in the rural Qunaitra countryside of southern Syria late Thursday, carrying out an operation that resulted in the detention of two individuals, according to AlArabiya’s correspondent. The correspondent stated that the Israeli force entered the town with several military vehicles before detaining two people, with no immediate information available regarding their identities or the reasons for their detention. It remains unclear how long the Israeli force remained inside the town, or whether the operation involved house raids or military deployment in other areas of the Qunaitra countryside. The infiltration comes amid ongoing Israeli military movements in southern Syria, particularly in Qunaitra Governorate and areas near the Golan Heights. The Qunaitra countryside has witnessed past incursions and movements by Israeli forces amid frequent Syrian objections to these operations as violations of Syrian sovereignty. These field movements have also coincided with persistent tensions regarding the Israeli military presence in the area, while Damascus demands the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Syrian territory.
No immediate Israeli comment was issued regarding the latest operation in Al-Rafid or the nature of the mission carried out by the force, and no information was available regarding the fate of the two individuals reported detained by AlArabiya’s correspondent. This development occurs as parts of southern Syria remain a hub of security and military tension amid fears that repeated movements could lead to further escalation on the ground.

Four Projectiles Strike Two Vessels Near Khasab, Oman
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) announced on Thursday that four unidentified projectiles struck two vessels near Khasab in the Sultanate of Oman, causing a fire on one of them, while the condition of the second vessel remains unclear.
According to Reuters, the British agency stated that the incident occurred about four nautical miles west of Khasab, in an area close to the Strait of Hormuz. The agency added that the master of another vessel in the area reported seeing the projectiles strike the two ships from a position about six nautical miles to their north. UKMTO reported that four unidentified projectiles hit the vessels, triggering a fire aboard one. No immediate information was available regarding the extent of the damage or injuries among crew members, nor was the condition of the second vessel clarified. The agency did not disclose the names of the two ships, the flags they fly, the type of projectiles used, or the party that launched them. The incident comes amid escalating tensions in the region's shipping lanes at a time when the Strait of Hormuz holds special importance for global shipping traffic and energy supplies. Khasab is located in Oman's Musandam Governorate, overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most strategic maritime corridors. UKMTO monitors developments concerning vessel security in the region and issues warnings to commercial shipping regarding potential incidents and hazards. To date, available information is limited to the agency's report of the two vessels being struck by four projectiles and a fire breaking out on one of them, without identifying the source of the attack or the party responsible.

Iran Rebuilds Its Ballistic Arsenal: Underground Tunnels and New Sites
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
According to a report published by The Wall Street Journal, knowledgeable US officials stated that Iran has resumed ballistic missile production using stockpiled components, alongside the resumption of work at underground facilities. According to the US officials, Iran is currently focusing on assembling new missiles from existing components, in lower quantities than it produced before the war. They noted that despite intensive strikes targeting Iranian missile sites and industrial facilities during the early phase of the war, Tehran is working on assembling liquid-fueled missiles—which require fueling prior to launch—alongside solid-fueled missiles that can be stored ready for use. Intelligence information indicates activity at a number of underground facilities, including the Khojir missile facility southeast of Iran, while Tehran is also establishing new underground assembly sites to minimize the likelihood of future strikes. For his part, a White House official did not directly confirm whether Iran has resumed ballistic missile production, but stated that Iran's nuclear facilities were "completely destroyed" and its military capabilities "severely damaged." The official added that Iran is "now weaker than at any time," emphasizing that President Donald Trump "will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."Meanwhile, US Department of Defense (Pentagon) spokesperson Sean Parnell stated that the United States has "destroyed up to 90% of Iran's industrial base for drones, ballistic missiles, and naval capabilities," noting that this has significantly impaired Tehran's ability to launch missiles and drones. However, a US official stated that Iran may have resumed production at low rates following an initial agreement with the Trump administration in mid-June, which opened the door for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and launching talks to end the war. According to the official, Tehran was able to assemble at least 200 missiles from available components, per The Wall Street Journal. Jim Lamson, a visiting researcher at King's College London and former CIA analyst specializing in Iranian military affairs, stated that prior to the war, Iran stockpiled components including complete warheads, missile airframes, and guidance and control systems. He pointed to older photos and videos published by Iran showing large numbers of these components lined up inside underground facilities. He added that the volume of new production depends on remaining stockpiles and the number of underground facilities still operational, estimating the number could range from "hundreds of missiles, and perhaps thousands."Iran consumed a portion of its ready-use missile inventory during the war, prompting it to scale back its attacks, though it still retains substantial missile capability.
Iranian Arsenal Comprises Thousands of Ballistic Missiles
Tal Inbar, a senior analyst at the US Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, estimated that Iran's arsenal still comprises thousands of ballistic missiles. Inbar said that believing Iran would not rebuild its missile capabilities would be "extremely naive," noting that the halt in strikes allows Tehran to repair damaged infrastructure, purchase new components from other countries, and store them in facilities. The United States and Israel launched thousands of strikes against missile production sites, storage warehouses, and launchers during the early stages of the war, inflicting heavy damage on Iran's missile program. The naval blockade also complicated the import of certain components and materials required for solid propellant production. However, Iran exploited the summer lull to rebuild its military capabilities, operating on the belief that the ceasefire might not hold for long.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated in April that Iran's missile program was "practically destroyed" and that Tehran no longer possessed the capability to produce new missiles. However, satellite imagery indicates that Iran is working to rebuild various facilities—from bridges and roads to missile production sites—at a pace alarming to Israeli officials, according to previous reports. Tehran has also reopened tunnel entrances at missile bases that had collapsed due to US and Israeli airstrikes, while Israeli military estimates suggest that weapons stored inside these underground facilities may have remained largely preserved. Despite reconstruction efforts, Iran faces significant challenges in restoring its capacity for large-scale missile manufacturing. The roots of Iran's missile program trace back to the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, amid Tehran's lack of a modern air force. Over time, missiles became one of the main pillars of Iran's deterrence strategy. Previously, Iran demonstrated its ability to rebuild its missile program following the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025. Despite Israeli targeting of the missile program, Tehran managed to rebuild its stockpiles faster than expected, prompting Israel to warn of a potential need to launch fresh strikes before the end of the year. Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iranian strategy at Sciences Po in Paris, stated that the ability to rebuild the missile program appears faster and more dispersed than the nuclear program, explaining that Iran established this complex infrastructure primarily in anticipation of attempts to target and destroy it.

Yemeni Army: We Will Use "All Weapons" to Target Houthi Movements Around Al-Mokha
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Thursday that they will begin using "all weapons" to eliminate any Houthi military movements in areas surrounding Al-Mokha, as government forces commenced repositioning and strengthening their deployment along the western coast amid rapidly evolving field developments across several combat fronts. In a statement, the Yemeni Armed Forces called on civilians to avoid using the Taiz-Al-Mokha road until further notice and to stay away from Houthi gatherings, personnel, and vehicles in the area. This came as the Deputy Chairman of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council, Team Leader (General) Tariq Saleh, directed armed forces on the west coast to reorganize their ranks in light of recent field developments along combat axes with the Houthis. Saleh stated that his directives also included establishing an alternative command center in a secure location to regroup forces and organize operations. In the field, sources reported that government forces began repositioning along the western coast, noting that the armed forces deployed reinforcements from the city of Mokha toward the Dhubab area in Taiz Governorate. Meanwhile, Yemeni government forces shelled Houthi military reinforcements making their way from Sana'a Governorate, passing through Fardat Nehm and the Al-Jawf intersection toward combat fronts north of Marib Governorate.
A military source told AlArabiya/AlHadath's correspondent that the Yemeni Armed Forces' warplanes and artillery targeted Houthi reinforcements in the Madghal area, destroying several combat vehicles and killing and wounding a number of the group's personnel on board.

UN Warns: Escalation in Yemen May Spill Beyond Borders
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net / September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, warned that the current escalation in the country could have consequences extending beyond Yemeni borders unless contained, calling on the Houthis to halt their attacks and return to the path of dialogue. Grundberg's remarks came during an emergency session of the UN Security Council regarding developments in Yemen, amid a recent surge in military operations on multiple fronts. The UN envoy stated that Houthi attacks have resulted in the death of civilians, including children, pointing to the growing humanitarian fallout of the escalation. He revealed that approximately 11,400 families have been displaced across Yemen due to Houthi attacks, highlighting the expanding human toll of military operations. Grundberg emphasized the necessity of halting the attacks, stating that the UN will continue dialogue with relevant parties in an attempt to exit the current path of escalation. He also warned that "the current phase will not remain within Yemeni borders if the escalation is not contained," referring to the risk of the confrontations spilling over into the region. These warnings coincide with intensifying fighting across several Yemeni governorates in recent days, marked by mutual attacks between the Houthis and forces loyal to the internationally recognized government. Government forces announced military operations across multiple fronts, including Marib, Taiz, Al-Hodeidah, Al-Jawf, and Al-Bayda, reporting the recapture of positions and the thwarting of Houthi infiltration attempts. Several fronts also witnessed airstrikes and artillery shelling targeting Houthi positions. Alongside these field warnings, the UN envoy stressed that Yemen's future must be shaped through "comprehensive dialogue," emphasizing ongoing diplomatic efforts to prevent the country from sliding into a more dangerous phase. The UN seeks to keep channels of communication open despite the escalation, while the call for an emergency Security Council session reflects international concern over recent developments. Growing displacement and civilian casualties place additional pressure on the political and humanitarian tracks, while Grundberg warns that failing to contain the escalation could once again turn the Yemeni crisis into a source of instability reaching beyond the nation's borders.

Yemeni Defense Council: Deterrence Operations Will Not Stop at a Single Front
AlArabiya.net: Oussam Salem / September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
Yemen's National Defense Council affirmed on Thursday evening that any "incidental" field advance by the Houthis will not grant them the right to impose a fait accompli by force. It stressed the state and armed forces' capability to regain the initiative and continue what it described as "deterrence operations" across various fronts. This came during a meeting chaired by Rashad Al-Alimi, Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, which discussed recent military developments, particularly in the western coastal area of Taiz Governorate and the repositioning of forces in the region. The Council stated that the battle is not about a single site, district, or front, but rather a "comprehensive national battle" to restore state institutions and assert sovereignty over all Yemeni territory. It added that Houthi attempts to turn any temporary field gain into a permanent political or geographic reality "will not succeed." The Defense Council affirmed that the deterrence operations launched by the armed forces will not be restricted to a specific front or area, and that forces will address perceived sources of threat and Houthi movements across various operational theaters, in accordance with military estimates, rules of engagement, and international humanitarian law. It called on citizens in operational zones to comply with the instructions of the armed forces and competent authorities, and to stay away from Houthi positions, movements, gatherings, and ammunition depots. The Council also held the Houthis responsible for the repercussions of the recent escalation, affirming that the state will press forward with its operations until the threat facing Yemen and the region is ended. Regarding the maritime file, the Council stressed that Yemen's defense of Bab el-Mandeb, its coasts, islands, and territorial waters is also tied to freedom of navigation, maritime security, and global trade stability. It called on the Security Council, permanent member states, Red Sea littoral states, and international partners to prevent Bab el-Mandeb, Yemeni coasts, and islands from becoming "blackmail cards" or platforms to threaten international navigation. Furthermore, the Council condemned recent Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, considering that using Yemeni territory to launch attacks against the Kingdom also harms the interests of the Yemeni people. It emphasized the interconnectedness of Yemeni and Saudi security, highlighting the importance of the partnership between the two countries and the support provided by the Kingdom to the Yemeni state and people.

Saudi Arabia: Houthis Gamble on Terrorism and Must Bear the Consequences
Riyadh Affirms Commitment to Peace and Warns Against Targeting Civilians and Neighboring Countries
Riyadh - AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
Saudi Arabia affirmed that the Houthi militia continues to gamble on "terrorism and violence," warning against ongoing attacks and threats to the security of the Kingdom and the region. It stressed that it will not hesitate to take necessary measures to deter any aggression. During an emergency UN Security Council session on Yemen, Saudi Arabia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Wasil, stated that "those who choose the path of violence must bear the consequences." He added that the Houthis have targeted civilian sites in Saudi Arabia, viewing these attacks as an extension of a hostile approach based on targeting civilians and attempting to impose a fait accompli by force. Al-Wasil pointed out that targeting civilians and threatening neighboring countries "cannot be a path to peace," stressing the need to halt threats directed at international navigation. The Saudi representative warned of the danger of continued support provided to the Houthis, asserting that the international community cannot turn a blind eye to this backing amid ongoing escalation. He noted that the Houthis have met international community messages with further escalation, accusing them of rejecting peace initiatives and persisting with attacks that threaten the security of the Kingdom and the region. At the same time, Al-Wasil stressed that Saudi Arabia has chosen peace throughout the Yemeni crisis and has continued to support the efforts of UN Special Envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg to reach a political settlement.
Yemeni Warning Regarding Bab el-Mandeb
For his part, Yemen's representative to the United Nations warned of the dangers of Houthi control over Bab el-Mandeb, affirming that protecting this maritime strait is not solely a Yemeni matter, but an issue of international and regional security.
Speaking before the Security Council, the Yemeni representative stated that the Houthis continue to target civilians and threaten navigation in the Red Sea, accusing the group of attempting to impose a new reality in the region through military escalation. He added that the Yemeni government has "prioritized peace over war" and exercised restraint over past years, affirming that it will nevertheless continue to fulfill its duty in protecting the Yemeni people and state institutions. The Yemeni representative called on the Security Council to condemn Houthi military escalation, warning of the implications that ongoing threats in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb hold for regional and international security and shipping traffic. These Saudi and Yemeni statements came during an emergency UN Security Council session to discuss developments in Yemen, amid escalating military operations and growing warnings over the widening scope of confrontation. UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg told the Council that Houthi attacks resulted in civilian casualties, including children, and displaced around 11,400 families across Yemen. The UN envoy called on the Houthis to halt their attacks, stressing that the UN will continue dialogue to emerge from the escalation path, and that Yemen's future must be shaped through inclusive dialogue. He also warned that the repercussions of the current phase may not remain within Yemeni borders if the escalation is not contained. In this context, Saudi Arabia stressed that the option of peace does not mean overlooking attacks, confirming that it will take necessary measures to deter them, and that those who cling to violence as a method "must bear the consequences."

US Imposes Sanctions on Entities Supporting Iran's Allies, Including Iraqi Businessmen
US Citizen to Pay $1.43 Million to Settle 39 Potential Sanctions Violations on Iran
Riyadh - AlArabiya / September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The US Department of Treasury announced new sanctions on Thursday targeting entities that support Iran's allies in the Middle East, including Iraqi businessmen. The Treasury Department stated that a US citizen agreed to pay $1.43 million to settle civil liability for 39 potential violations of Iran sanctions between 2019 and 2021. Additionally, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Treasury issued an advisory to whistleblowers seeking information on illicit financing support for Iran, according to Reuters. The US Treasury announced sanctions on networks supporting Hezbollah in Iraq and Lebanon, including sanctions on four leaders and members of Kata'ib Hezbollah (or Iraqi Hezbollah) and Iraqi businessmen for supporting military procurement linked to the Quds Force. The department stated that the Quds Force uses front companies and oil revenues to transfer funds to exchange houses, with Quds Force operatives working alongside Hezbollah officials to funnel money to Lebanon. The ministry explained that a network of currency exchangers transferred hundreds of millions of dollars from the Quds Force to Hezbollah in 2025, adding: "Hezbollah used the funds transferred from Iran to purchase weapons and manufacture equipment." The new sanctions fall under the US Treasury's "Economic Pariah Operation," first announced on August 24, which aims to cut off revenues used by Tehran to fund wars, develop missiles, carry out cyberattacks, and support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

UAE: We Hope Algeria's Decision to Sever Diplomatic Relations is Temporary
UAE Foreign Ministry Affirms Appreciation for the "Brotherly Algerian People and Pride in Bilateral Ties"
Riyadh: AlArabiya.net/September 10, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
Following Algeria's diplomatic decision to sever relations with the UAE, the UAE Foreign Ministry looks forward to this decision being temporary, in a way that preserves fraternal bonds between the two brotherly peoples, according to a statement issued by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The UAE affirmed its appreciation for the "brotherly Algerian people and its pride in the bonds connecting the two peoples, particularly the members of the Algerian community residing in the country and visitors, as well as its keenness to maintain, enhance, and build upon these ties and shared interests." In a related context, the UAE statement noted that "in light of the decision by the brotherly People's Democratic Republic of Algeria to sever its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, the UAE affirms its appreciation for its relations with all countries, and its constant keenness to develop and enhance them in a manner that serves mutual interests and promotes understanding, cooperation, and prosperity."Algeria had officially severed its diplomatic relations with the UAE following what it termed "the exhaustion of all means to preserve bilateral relations," according to an official government statement published by the Algeria Press Service.

HUNTER: Terrorist's mom who blamed Canada running for Halton school trustee
There is little doubt that her son, Abdulrahman El-Bahnasawy, from Mississauga, was a deeply troubled young man.
Brad Hunter/Toronto Sun/September 09/ 2026
His mom shamelessly declared that charges against convicted terrorist Abdulrahman El-Bahnasawy were “fabricated.”
To Dr. Khadiga Metwally, it was all Canada’s fault that her psycho son had designs on Islamic State-style martyrdom in New York City. Boy-o’s nutty plan was to unleash carnage and bloodshed on Manhattan landmarks such as the subway and Times Square.
The problem was, his terror pen pal was an undercover FBI agent.
A smorgasbord of excuses
He pleaded guilty in March 2019 to seven counts of terrorism and was sentenced to 40 years in a U.S. federal prison. In a rambling email to The Toronto Sun in 2019, the distraught mom offered a smorgasbord of excuses for her boy.
But never mind that.
Metwally is now running to be a trustee for the Halton District Board of Education in Milton Wards 1 and 2. In a campaign form she filled out for Milton Today, she said one of her pillars is “Timely mental-health support is also essential; personal family experience has shown me the value of early understanding, compassionate support, and appropriate intervention.
‘Manipulated by the FBI with the help of RCMP’
There is little doubt that her son, Abdulrahman El-Bahnasawy, from Mississauga, was a deeply troubled young man. And, as mom suggested in 2019, maybe he didn’t get the treatment he needed.
“My son was arrested by all unfair reasons… (he was) manipulated by FBI with the help of RCMP,” the candidate wrote the Sun in 2019.
“They manipulated him by ‘hyper’ talking while he was manic and wasn’t under treatment.”
She added: “Then (he) was arrested from the family car during our vacation visit to New York City. My son had only his bag and a few clothes. Nothing to threat(en) anybody.”
Oh, my.
The RCMP? “Dirty” for ensnaring her boy. But the proof is in the pudding, right? Ramadan would be celebrated by butchering diners in Big Apple restaurants and concert-goers.
He wanted to ‘create the next 9/11’
The U.S. Department of Justice said at the time of the wannabe terrorist’s conviction: “El-Bahnasawy acquired bomb-making materials and helped secure a cabin within driving distance of New York City to use for building explosive devices and staging the NYC Attacks.”
Her ambitious son stated he wanted to “create the next 9/11” and, in a bit of terror one-upmanship, he aimed to unleash attacks worse than the 2015 massacres in Paris and Brussels. That was just “online chatting,” his mother said, adding he was “off his meds.”
At his trial in the Big Apple, his lawyers argued that El-Bahnasawy was a mentally ill drug addict. And it is a proven fact that terrorists prey upon the unbalanced.
CAMH documents released to the Sun by the mother at the time characterized the family as Kuwaiti. El-Bahnasawy claimed in the docs that he was forced by his parents to enrol at an Islamic school even though at the time he didn’t identify as Muslim.
Well-educated, moderate Muslim family
He said the school was where he became radicalized. However, the docs said he came from a well-educated, moderate Muslim family.
Doctors assessing El-Banhasawy said, “this [jihad] is not an unusual path through which young people become involved in extreme political violence.”
While El-Banhasawy was initially incarcerated at United States Penitentiary (USP) Allenwood in Pennsylvania, his violent vibes were a long way from ebbing. On Dec. 7, 2020, he severely attacked and stabbed two corrections officers. One of the officers lost an eye.
Today, his prison home is just about as bleak as it can get: Following the stabbing in the Keystone State, El-Banhasawy was transferred to the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX Florence). AKA Supermax.
Poses an ‘extreme danger’
The move is permanent, and officials say he poses an “extreme danger” to prison staff. Thank God he was pinched in the United States. In Canada, a small army of judicial activists and faculty lounge types would be desperately fighting for his freedom.
Not having a single issue with unleashing him on the rest of us.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun

Dagalo reportedly moves to withdraw RSF forces from Saudi Arabia
Sudan times/September 9, 2026
Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, has reportedly decided to withdraw thousands of RSF personnel deployed in Saudi Arabia as part of the Arab coalition, according to sources cited by Darfur24. The reported decision has not yet been publicly confirmed by the RSF leadership or the Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS). Sources familiar with the deployment told Darfur24 that Dagalo remained committed to the withdrawal despite attempts by several coalition members to persuade him to reconsider. According to the report, RSF commanders in Saudi Arabia have already begun preparations for the move, with troops withdrawing from some forward positions and regrouping at two camps while awaiting a response from the Arab coalition leadership. Darfur24 said consultations were under way among coalition members in an effort to convince Dagalo to reverse the decision.
The RSF has participated in Arab coalition operations connected to the Yemen conflict since 2017. Its personnel were initially deployed in southern Yemen before some units were subsequently stationed in Dhahran and Najran in Saudi Arabia. After Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023, representatives of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF reportedly held discussions with the Arab coalition command over the status of their respective contingents. According to Darfur24’s sources, coalition officials told both sides that their personnel would continue to be treated as Sudanese forces irrespective of the conflict between them inside Sudan. The report said more than 70 RSF personnel had been killed and hundreds wounded during operations along the Saudi-Yemeni border over the past three years. Around 5,000 RSF personnel are currently believed to be deployed in Saudi Arabia, according to the sources, although that figure has not been independently verified. Some personnel are reportedly reluctant to leave because of salaries and financial benefits associated with the deployment, with Darfur24’s sources claiming that payments for some members exceed $5,000 per month. The report also raised the possibility that some RSF personnel could refuse the withdrawal order and join Sudanese army contingents stationed elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, although its sources described that scenario as unlikely. If the withdrawal proceeds, Darfur24 reported that some of the forces could ultimately be redeployed to neighbouring countries, including South Sudan or Ethiopia. Neither the RSF nor TASIS had publicly confirmed the reported withdrawal at the time of publication.

The Latest LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 10-111/2026
Video Link & text for for a Panel discussion/25 Years After 9/11: NCTC Directors Assess Progress and Remaining Challenges
Christine Abizaid, Matt Olsen, Nicholas Rasmussen/The Washington Institute/September 09/2026
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/25-years-after-911-nctc-directors-assess-progress-and-remaining-challenges
Part of a series: Counterterrorism Lecture Series
or see Part 1: U.S. Efforts against Terrorism Financing: A View from the Private Sector
Three top former counterterrorism officials look back on a quarter-century of combating the global terrorist threat, discussing how their setbacks and successes can help Washington fill gaps in its current CT approach.
On September 8, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with three former directors of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC): Christine Abizaid, Matt Olsen, and Nicholas Rasmussen. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.
Christine Abizaid (NCTC Director, 2021-24)
In late 2021, the terrorism landscape was ideologically and geographically diverse and highly individualized, with actors mobilized through their own networks and means. Al-Qaeda was present from Southeast Asia to West Africa, the Islamic State (IS) and its branches were observed globally, and the terrorist threat from Iran was to become increasingly acute over time. Meanwhile, that year’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the increased focus on adversarial competition were raising questions about how the United States should characterize global terrorist threats—and how well its counterterrorism architecture could meet those threats.
Two years later, Hamas’s October 7 attacks shifted the CT landscape, with ideologically diverse groups applauding the organization while IS and al-Qaeda sought to capitalize on the momentum of the assault by increasing their recruiting efforts. In their eyes, the incident seemed to reaffirm the effectiveness of terrorism as a tool to bring about strategic goals.
Stretching further back to 9/11, the United States has successfully dismantled major terrorist networks—including the transnational threat posed by groups like al-Qaeda—and demonstrated exceptional interagency coordination in defense of the homeland. Yet questions persist over how to remedy the underlying causes of terrorism in order to prevent groups from exploiting individuals with grievances. Over the years, government entities like the U.S. Agency for International Development engaged in various intervention efforts toward meeting this strategic objective, but longer-term commitments and investments are required.
Today, much of the threat has shifted to lone actors inside the United States. While American law enforcement is experienced at targeting organized groups with a center of gravity, lone actors pose a different challenge due to their diffused nature, extensive use of online networks, and other factors. To understand which prevention strategies will be most effective in countering this threat, authorities may need to take a bottom-up approach that leans on state and local law enforcement.
Another threat that has dominated the Trump administration's counterterrorism agenda is narcotics. To be sure, this problem is significant and can benefit from lessons learned in the CT realm, such as using highly networked, intelligence-led operations to identify and attack vulnerabilities. Yet this is not a terrorism problem.
Matt Olsen (NCTC Director, 2011-14)
Various incidents from previous decades show the progress and gaps in the U.S. counterterrorism approach. While 2011 saw the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden, authorities were unable to prevent a bomber from boarding Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009, underscoring the NCTC’s struggles with thwarting plots using pieced-together intelligence. Yet the NCTC also notched many successes during this period, including the capture of the Libyan militia leader responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi—a major intelligence coup that proved interagency coordination could bring such perpetrators to justice in the United States.
Elsewhere, Iranian-sponsored terrorist and proxy networks have long been a dominant threat on the CT landscape, and that threat has only increased since the onset of this year’s war. The regime has a history of planning lethal attacks against U.S. officials, and such plots may intensify in the coming months and years due to the war and the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Authorities must therefore maintain focus on Iran-sponsored terrorism to minimize these threats.
Another crucial aspect of today’s threat landscape is a common understanding of the challenge that lone actors pose to law enforcement. Individual actors are becoming radicalized more quickly and in more insular ways; they also have increasing access to military-grade weapons inside the United States. Such actors can cause significant harm without triggering a preventive response from the current U.S. counterterrorism apparatus. While the Trump administration believes antifa and left-wing domestic extremism pose a particular threat to the homeland, individuals from both the far right and far left continue to be radicalized.
A longer-term CT challenge is early intervention, which entails addressing underlying grievances on a global scale. These efforts require a strong commitment to partnerships with—and investments in—developing countries, which would help authorities get to the roots of radicalization. As the threat landscape evolves, such partnerships will be key to avoiding missed inflection points like the rise of IS in 2014, which the United States failed to forecast.
Nicholas Rasmussen (NCTC Director, 2014-17)
A decade ago, the terrorist landscape saw a major shift with the rise of IS and its wide use of foreign fighters. Once the creation of the “caliphate” was declared, Americans and other nationals began traveling to conflict zones in the Middle East to join the group or carry out activities on its behalf, including inside the United States. In response, the policy and operational sides of the U.S. counterterrorism apparatus had to work in tandem to disrupt this unique threat. Looking back, however, the NCTC framed its objectives too broadly at the time, creating the expectation that the fight against terrorism would have an endpoint instead of defining it as an enduring condition that needs to be mitigated perpetually.
The current trendline—characterized by an increasingly decentralized threat landscape that includes lone actors—can be attributed in large part to the online environment, which has allowed for a commingling of different extremist ideologies and an expansion in the “surface area” of terrorist threats. While CT officials were able to physically map out networks in the past, the online space has become far more complex, and the CT community has failed to keep up. More recent events—including the October 7 attacks, the Gaza war, and the Iran war—have contributed further unknowns to the threat landscape and may act as catalysts for additional extremist activity.
Finally, while transnational narcotics organizations pose a significant threat to U.S. national security, the Trump administration’s categorization of certain groups as “narco-terrorists” and its use of kinetic action as the tool of first choice may be counterproductive. Such an approach could hurt partner cooperation in the Western Hemisphere, resulting in less effective U.S.-led counternarcotics efforts.
This summary was prepared by Maya Chaovat. The Policy Forum series is made possible through the generosity of the Winkler Lowy Foundation.

The Looming Terrorist Threats to America
Matthew Levitt/The Washington Institute./September 09/2026
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/looming-terrorist-threats-america
Faced with brain drain, ideological distortion, and a wavering strategic focus, U.S. counterterrorism officials are being asked to do more with less today than their predecessors post-9/11.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, the U.S. counterterrorism community still must stop threats to the United States—but with fewer resources, additional responsibilities, and new threats. Directing the counterterrorism community to do more with less is a recipe for disaster.
After al-Qaeda’s September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Washington built an extensive counterterrorism bureaucracy to guide the U.S. response to the threat of al-Qaeda specifically and terrorism more broadly. This enterprise proved highly effective tactically, foiling attacks and disrupting terrorist networks. Strategically, it was less successful: more people are radicalized toward violent extremism today than in 2001, creating a more diverse and globally dispersed terrorist threat.
Those U.S. tactical successes came at an unsustainable cost. According to one study, from fiscal year 2002 to 2017, the United States spent 16 percent of its discretionary budget on counterterrorism, totaling $2.8 trillion, or an average of $186.6 billion annually over 15 years. Over time, both Democratic and Republican administrations grasped the need to end “forever wars” budgeting for a more sustainable long-term counterterrorism posture and share the burden of combating groups like al-Qaeda.
In 2017, the first Trump administration explicitly reordered the U.S. prioritization of international threats, placing counterterrorism behind strategic competition with China and Russia and threats from Iran and North Korea. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis framed the priorities in 2018, “Great Power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of U.S. national security.” But the first Trump team did little to shift resources to match this declared shift in priorities. The Biden administration also didn’t do much to budget limited resources against those emerging threats, as well as other challenges like pandemics and climate change.
The changes that followed, first implemented under the first Trump administration and then continued under the Biden administration, amounted to a tectonic shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy. Instead of the old model in which America took the lead in fighting terrorism around the world while asking allies and partners to join in, we now have a “partner-led, U.S.-enabled” model in which America merely supports partners who take the lead combating terrorism closer to their borders.
This shift was long overdue, but focusing only on terrorists with the current intent and capability to attack the U.S. homeland or Americans abroad is highly risky. For example, Somalia’s al-Shabab terrorist group seemed not to threaten the homeland, until it did. The same is true for the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and extremist groups in Africa like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin. With thousands of operatives and the ability to raise tens of millions of dollars through kidnap-for-ransom plots, al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates in Africa have both the motive and the money to quickly pivot to targeting U.S. interests, should they so decide. Worse: just when the United States needs better and timelier intelligence to forecast coming threats, the U.S. military is redeploying from places like Niger and Nigeria.
The issue isn’t just shrinking U.S. capacities but wavering U.S. focus. In May, the White House released its counterterrorism strategy, which sees today’s terrorist threats through distorting ideological glasses. According to the Trump strategy, today’s threats come from “legacy Islamist terrorists” like Islamic State and al-Qaeda, violent left-wing extremists, and narco-terrorists and transnational gangs. The strategy addresses Iran and its proxies sporadically throughout the document, but its absence from this list of “major types” of terrorist threats stands out given that it was produced in the middle of a war with Iran. To be sure, the threat from far-left extremism has risen, but not as much as some make out. Yet the Trump strategy lacks a concurrent appreciation of the threat of far-right extremism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, all extremist-related murders in the United States in 2024 were committed by right-wing extremists.Today, some counterterrorism professionals have been reassigned to immigration enforcement; other fine agents have been removed from their assignments for investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, leading to a “brain drain” from counterterrorism agencies. About 300 FBI agents have left the bureau since Trump’s second term began. Meanwhile, incoming intelligence and law enforcement officials have reportedly had to pass loyalty tests.Finally, the Trump administration’s decision to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations is drawing funds and personnel away from actual terrorism cases. The cartels are a threat to the United States, of course, but they need not be reclassified as terrorists to be a priority. Better to beef up the Drug Enforcement Administration’s capabilities than to pull counterterrorism resources away from the actual counterterrorism mission. The U.S. intelligence community is being tasked to better forecast tomorrow’s terrorist threats just as it is losing expertise and gaining peripheral responsibilities. Jihadist groups in Africa may not be targeting the homeland today, but they could tomorrow. America faces serious threats from both far-left and far-right groups here at home, and Iranian agents and proxies have intensified their international terrorist plots, including in America. On counterterrorism, America is now experiencing not only “a failure of imagination” (as the 9/11 Commission famously invoked that frame) but also of policy and leadership. Today, ideology is trumping data when it comes to assessing the most pressing terrorist threats to the country. We are not safer for it.
**Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of its Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. This article was originally published on the Just Security website.

The cruel awakening of 9/11/A quarter century on, we need to understand what happened and what is still happening
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/September 09, 2026
I remember the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. But perhaps you do not. So let me tell you what happened, and what should have been learned. It was a perfect late summer morning in Washington; in the 70s, no humidity. I was in my office, television tuned to a news channel.
A little before 9 a.m., there were live reports that American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the World Trade Center in New York City minutes earlier. The plane had flown through a clear blue sky into the North Tower. Flames and smoke were billowing from a hole between the 93rd and 99th floors. My phone rang. “Accident or terrorism?” asked a friend and former Pentagon official. I said I hoped it was an accident. Then, at 9:03, we watched in horror as United Airlines Flight 175 was used as a missile to strike the WTC’s South Tower. Now we knew. On the floors above the impact, where the heat was extreme and the smoke poisonous, people began falling or jumping to certain death. Cameras caught this. That nightmare image is seared into my memory.Then, at 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon, just outside the nation’s capital.
At 9:59, the South Tower collapsed. The North Tower would follow at 10:28.
At 10:37, CNN reported a fourth plane was down. This was United Airlines Flight 93, which had been headed for a target subsequently assessed to be the Capitol or the White House. We would later learn that Todd Beamer, a 32-year-old account manager from New Jersey, had tried a seatback phone; a credit card problem misrouted his call to Lisa Jefferson, a customer service supervisor for the airphone company.After a brief exchange about what was happening, the two strangers said the Lord’s Prayer together. He asked her to tell his wife, pregnant with their third child, that he loved her.
He left the line open, and she heard him say to other passengers: “Are you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.” They fought their way to the cockpit where Ziad Jarrah, a Lebanese al-Qaeda member, was at the controls. At 10:03, their plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The death toll for the day was just under 3,000, including 343 New York City firefighters. Nineteen al-Qaeda members believed they died as martyrs waging jihad.
Two people I’d known were murdered that morning. A woman I’d been close to when I lived in Africa was on the 89th floor of the South Tower. And Barbara Olson, a lawyer and commentator I’d chatted with days earlier, was aboard Flight 77; she called her husband, then the U.S. solicitor general, from the plane. In the days that followed, all commercial air traffic was grounded. Americans feared more attacks were coming. On Sept. 16, from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden issued a statement on Qatar’s state-owned Al Jazeera network denying involvement in the attacks. However, in a video released a few weeks later, he said: “God has blessed a group of pioneering Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America.” And in a video released three years later, he claimed responsibility outright.
A U.S. raid killed him in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011. His successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, died in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul in 2022. Americans have not suffered another mass-casualty attack on the homeland directed from abroad. That’s no small achievement.
But al-Qaeda lives. Its richest wing is Al-Shabaab, based in Somalia and tactically allied with the Houthi rebels of Yemen – proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, long designated by both Republican and Democratic administrations as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Today, al-Qaeda’s de facto leader is Saif al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces officer last reported living in Tehran. As the conflict between Iran’s theocrats and the U.S. has escalated, he’s rumored to have returned to Afghanistan — which President Biden handed back to the Taliban five years ago last month. I find it astonishing that the current mayor of New York City, in seven years of 9/11 statements, has never said plainly who attacked us and why. Since 2019, Zohran Mamdani has marked almost every anniversary with a post on X in wording that barely changes. The 2023 version:
“Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 22 years later, the death hasn’t stopped. We mourn our neighbors who died that day. The hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed. The unknown millions injured & displaced. In their memory, we work toward a better world.”
Note: New Yorkers “died.” Not murdered. Missing entirely: al-Qaeda jihadi perpetrators. And he adds that a higher death toll followed, implying that the U.S. is to blame.
Mr. Mamdani also sat for an interview with Hasan Piker, a streamer who in 2019 said that America deserved 9/11. For months Mr. Mamdani wouldn’t condemn the remark. Pressed at a 2025 debate, he called it “objectionable and reprehensible.”
Faced with a July petition from some victims’ families asking him to stay away from this year’s commemoration, Mr. Mamdani vowed to attend and called Sept. 11 a “horrific terror attack.” But by whom and for what goal?
In 1983, self-proclaimed jihadis attacked Americans in Beirut; in 1993, they attacked the WTC for the first time; in 1996 Tehran’s proxies attacked Americans in Saudi Arabia; in 1998, al-Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa; in 2000, al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in Yemen.
Despite all this and more, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Americans took a peace dividend and a holiday from history.
Ten years later, the attacks of 9/11 woke us. The challenge now is to stay awake and do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves.
**Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a columnist for The Washington Times, and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.

Qatar still hosts Hamas’s top brass, one year after they were targeted
Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow/FDD-Insight/September 09/2026
One year ago today, Hamas officials in Qatar narrowly escaped death. On September 9, 2025, Israel launched an airstrike on a Hamas meeting in Doha. The strike failed to wipe out Hamas’s upper ranks. But it was an explosion that rocked the Middle East. It brought the Persian Gulf into the war. And it blew apart the pretense that Qatar had been a neutral arbiter since October 7, 2023.  Among the Hamas officials targeted in the Israeli strike were the group’s then-Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, and senior politburo members Mohammed Darwish and Mousa Abu Marzouk. This trio has resided in Qatar since the group established a terrorist headquarters there in 2012. It’s time for America to demand their extradition.
For more than a decade now, the Qataris have played the roles of arsonists and firefighters in the Middle East. The regime is a top financial and political patron for Hamas. And then, when conflict erupts (as it has in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2023), the Qataris swoop in to negotiate. For reasons that never quite made sense, the United States government has allowed for this insane arrangement to continue.
Admittedly, there was a moment in 2024 when it looked like Qatar was prepared to expel Hamas officials at the Biden administration’s request. But that was not to be. Somehow, Qatar convinced Washington (and Israel) that its sponsorship of the terrorist group granted it leverage in the effort to get the Israeli hostages out of Gaza. As it turns out, it was only the Israeli strike last year that convinced Doha to finally demand their release.
The most obvious candidate for extradition is Khaled Meshal, who is facing federal terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions evasion charges in the United States. Meshal has resided in Qatar since 2012, serving first as Hamas’s political chief before becoming the group’s de facto foreign minister in 2021. The U.S. Treasury Department designated Meshal in 2003 for “supervising assassination operations, bombings and the killing of Israeli settlers.” He was also an architect of the October 7, 2023, mass slaughter in Israel.
Al-Hayya has been a member of Hamas since its founding in 1987. In July, Hamas elected him the head of its political bureau. He succeeded 10/7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in Gaza in October 2024. Al-Hayya played a central role in planning the October 7 massacre. Documents recovered in Gaza indicate that he liaised with a senior Iranian commander in Lebanon in July 2023 to solicit help during “the first hour” of Hamas’s October assault.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, another founding member of Hamas, settled in Qatar in 2012. In 2004, a federal grand jury indicted Marzouk and two co-defendants for helping to “illegally finance terrorist activities in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” At the time, the U.S. government considered Marzouk, who was then based in Syria, to be “a fugitive from justice.”
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad and Muhammad Darwish, the head of Hamas’s consultative Shura Council, are also good candidates for extradition. Both are senior figures in Hamas’s decision-making apparatus. Similarly, Husam Badran is a longtime Hamas politburo member based in Qatar. He allegedly oversaw multiple suicide bombings in Israel, including one in 2001that claimed the life of an American citizen. He then spent nearly a decade in Israeli prison before he was released in 2011.
The U.S. doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Qatar, which means that Doha isn’t legally obliged. Diplomatically, however, the move is a no-brainer. Qatar is a Major Non-NATO Ally and has cooperated with U.S. authorities before to apprehend traffickers and fraudsters. Failure to cooperate with authorities this time would confirm what skeptics of Qatar have long suspected — that the emirate is a Hamas patron, not an impartial negotiator. The Trump administration has made meaningful progress in Gaza. If Washington is serious about advancing its 20-point plan for Gaza, it should press Qatar — a sitting member of the Gaza Board of Peace — to extradite these figures. And the list should widen. U.S. authorities should also investigate the crimes and current whereabouts of Hamas officials like Nizar Awadallah, Izzat al-Rishq, and Sami Abu Zuhri. All are believed to have transited through Qatar. They may be laying low there right now.The regime in Qatar will undoubtedly oppose such a move from Washington. But this a move that the White House needs to make. One year after the failed Israeli strike on Qatar, Hamas continues to operate with impunity there. When the group finally begins to understand that its immunity is gone, Washington can finally help broker and end this war. That end is long overdue.
*Jonathan Schanzer is executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies where Natalie Ecanow is a senior research analyst. Follow Jonathan on X @JSchanzer and Natalie @NatalieEcanow.

The Courage to Build Peace
Ahmed Charai/Gatestone Institute./September 9, 2026
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22851/the-courage-to-build-peace
Diplomacy without leverage produces declarations, not settlements. Peace without enforcement merely postpones the next war. But military power without a political destination condemns nations to an endless cycle of destruction.
A ceasefire alone will not be enough. Any durable settlement must address Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, Russia's long-term security concerns, the security of Europe, reconstruction, sanctions and credible mechanisms for verification. No peace can endure if it rests on humiliation, the denial of sovereignty or the permanent insecurity of either nation. Peace will not endure because former enemies suddenly trust each other. It will endure when security makes renewed conflict dangerous and shared prosperity makes cooperation more valuable than war.
A ceasefire alone will not be enough. Any durable settlement must address Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, Russia's long-term security concerns, the security of Europe, reconstruction, sanctions and credible mechanisms for verification. No peace can endure if it rests on humiliation, the denial of sovereignty or the permanent insecurity of either nation. Pictured: Emergency workers at a residential building in Kyiv that was damaged by a Russian drone strike on September 3, 2026. (Photo by Vladyslav Musiienko/AFP via Getty Images)
In 1748, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, published The Spirit of the Laws, one of the foundational works of modern political thought. The French philosopher, whose ideas influenced constitutional democracies far beyond France, wrote in a Europe repeatedly devastated by rivalry and war.
He offered a proposition whose relevance has survived nearly three centuries: "The natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace." Nations that trade, he explained, become mutually dependent: one has an interest in buying what the other has an interest in selling.
Yet security arrangements cannot by themselves reconcile two wounded societies. Peace must acquire economic foundations strong enough to survive changes of government, political crises and the temptations of revenge.
Montesquieu was not naïve. He did not believe commerce could abolish ambition or the appetite for power. His insight was practical: when nations develop shared interests, peace becomes more than a moral aspiration. It becomes an economic and political necessity.
As war continues to consume Russia and Ukraine, the world must rediscover that insight. Not as a substitute for security. Not as a denial of history. And not as peace at any price. But as the foundation of a larger truth: wars are ended by agreements; lasting peace is built by interests.
The exact human cost of this conflict may remain unknown for years. Credible estimates suggest that between 500,000 and 600,000 soldiers and civilians may already have been killed. The number killed, wounded or missing may approach two million. Millions have fled their homes.
Behind these statistics are fathers and sons who will never return, children growing up beneath air-raid sirens, families divided by borders and battle lines, and communities losing the generations that should have built their future. This suffering has a name, a face and a place at millions of dinner tables where someone is now missing. The economic cost is also devastating, though different on each side. Ukraine has suffered the destruction of homes, factories, ports, roads and energy infrastructure. Direct physical damage exceeds $195 billion, while reconstruction and recovery may require almost $588 billion.
Metinvest, Ukraine's largest steel producer, illustrates the scale of that destruction. Its Azovstal complex, once an industrial pillar employing thousands, was destroyed during the siege of Mariupol. Facilities were lost, employees were killed or mobilized, and revenues were roughly halved.
Russia's burden has taken another form: sanctions, inflation, labor shortages, expensive credit and the diversion of national resources toward a militarized economy. In 2025, approximately 233,000 Russian legal entities were liquidated, while only 173,000 were created. Both societies are sacrificing their future to a war with no clear military conclusion.
This war must end—and it must end now.
That is not naïveté. Diplomacy without leverage produces declarations, not settlements. Peace without enforcement merely postpones the next war. But military power without a political destination condemns nations to an endless cycle of destruction.
Who bears responsibility? Could the war have been prevented? Did Moscow, Kyiv, Washington or Europe miscalculate? Did the failure of the Minsk agreements make escalation inevitable? Could stronger diplomacy have changed the course of events?
These questions are legitimate. They will be debated for decades, and historians may reach conclusions that today's political passions do not permit. But no answer can bring back the dead, and no interpretation of the past can justify the unlimited destruction of the future.
The urgent responsibility of leadership is not to win the argument over yesterday. It is to prevent more people from dying tomorrow.
A ceasefire alone will not be enough. Any durable settlement must address Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, Russia's long-term security concerns, the security of Europe, reconstruction, sanctions and credible mechanisms for verification. No peace can endure if it rests on humiliation, the denial of sovereignty or the permanent insecurity of either nation.
Yet security arrangements cannot by themselves reconcile two wounded societies. Peace must acquire economic foundations strong enough to survive changes of government, political crises and the temptations of revenge.
Those foundations are not entirely absent. Russians and Ukrainians share centuries of familial, cultural, industrial and economic connections. Before war severed them, their economies were linked across energy, transport, agriculture, metallurgy, manufacturing and aerospace. Supply chains crossed the border. Workers possessed complementary skills. Millions of families had relatives on both sides. These bonds do not erase separate national identities or the right of each people to determine its future. But governments cannot permanently extinguish every human relationship, and peace cannot be constructed as though geography and history did not exist. A postwar architecture should therefore include reconstruction projects, protected commercial corridors, agricultural trade, energy arrangements and carefully supervised investment. Such cooperation must be reciprocal, transparent and governed by law. Its purpose would not be to recreate the dangerous dependencies of the past, but to give both nations a material interest in stability. There is a compelling reason to take the present American initiative seriously. Jared Kushner has already demonstrated that Montesquieu's insight can be translated into modern diplomacy.
The Abraham Accords did not ask societies separated by decades of conflict, religious sensitivity and political mistrust to forget their history or resolve every grievance before speaking to one another. They began with a different question: what future could these nations build together that none could build alone?
Trade, investment, technology, tourism and security cooperation were not treated merely as rewards to follow reconciliation. They became instruments of reconciliation. Common interests opened political doors that decades of conventional diplomacy had left closed.
The Abraham Accords did not resolve every conflict in the Middle East. But they proved that hostility inherited from the past does not have to determine the future.
This is what Kushner brings to the Ukrainian conflict: not a Middle Eastern formula that can simply be transferred to Europe, but a demonstrated ability to challenge diplomatic fatalism and search beyond hardened public positions for interests upon which a new relationship can be built.
Steve Witkoff now joins him in the mission entrusted to them by President Trump. It is too early to judge their initiative or predict its outcome. It deserves neither blind confidence nor premature dismissal. It deserves the political space and international support necessary to determine whether an honorable and enforceable settlement is possible.
Europe—including Britain, must help shape this effort. If the initiative fails without a credible alternative, the result will not be a better peace. It will be more deaths, deeper destruction and a growing risk of confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Peace will not endure because former enemies suddenly trust each other. It will endure when security makes renewed conflict dangerous and shared prosperity makes cooperation more valuable than war.
Montesquieu understood this in 1748. Kushner helped demonstrate its modern relevance through the Abraham Accords. American diplomacy can now offer a path out of another seemingly intractable conflict—but it cannot make the final choice for Russia and Ukraine.
That responsibility belongs to Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Both have repeatedly invoked their devotion to their nations. History will judge them not only by the determination with which they pursued this war, but by the courage they show in ending it.
They now have an opportunity to choose a peace that neither denies their national interests nor condemns another generation to inherit this war—a peace protected by strength, sustained by shared interests and worthy of the people in whose name they lead.
They must not waste it.
**Ahmed Charai is the Chairman and CEO of World Herald Tribune, Inc., and the publisher of the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, TV Abraham, and Radio Abraham. He serves on the boards of several prominent institutions, including the Atlantic Council, the Center for the National Interest, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the International Crisis Group. He is also an International Councilor and a member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune. It is reprinted here by the kind permission of the author.
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.

Boycotting Jewish Businesses Will Not Create Peace
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/September 10, 2026
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22852/boycotting-jewish-businesses
After acknowledging the October 7 massacre, these Western governments still insist that the answer is to accelerate the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.
This is a political fantasy. As the British journalist Jonathan Sacerdoti shrewdly asks, "What if the Palestinians do not want two states, and never have?"
The planned boycott only demonstrates how disconnected these governments are from the human and economic realities on the ground.
While politicians in European capitals lecture Israelis and Palestinians about coexistence, Israelis and Palestinians are already practicing it in countless workplaces.
There are Jewish-owned factories, supermarkets, restaurants, wineries, and other businesses in the West Bank, where Palestinians and Israelis work together. These workplaces may not constitute a political peace agreement, but they represent something that boycott campaigns destroy: normal human contact and economic cooperation.
Boycotts are not a substitute for peace negotiations. They are certainly not a substitute for Palestinian recognition of Israel.
Whatever one's position on settlements, it is difficult to see how depriving Palestinians of jobs advances Palestinian prosperity or Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.
Extremist Palestinians do not regard Israel as a country next to which to they want their own state, They regard all of Israel as one big settlement — to be permanently uprooted and replaced as soon as possible.
These extremists are no different from the jihadists in Europe who rape, mow down, and behead the citizens of the very countries now demanding that Israel tolerate the same terrorists that they so naively accept.
Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Islamist terror organizations do not seek more Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation. They seek confrontation, separation, and ultimately the elimination of infidels in the very countries now working to empower them.
For decades, Western governments have repeated the phrase as if saying it often enough will make it happen -- or even make it a good idea.
Hamas transformed Gaza into a heavily armed Islamist war machine...
The question Western leaders should be asking is not: "How can we establish a Palestinian state?" The questions they should be asking are: What kind of Palestinian state would be established, who would control it, what would its security forces look like, what would its relationship with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad be, and what guarantees would prevent it from becoming another armed base for attacks against Israel?
Any territory in which terrorist groups are not totally disarmed will simply be a launching pad from which to continue attacking Israel.
This goal is probably why countries that would like to see Israel eliminated — apart from those in Europe — such as Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, are eager to be part of a Board of Peace. They would be placed right on Israel's border to wait a few months until President Donald Trump is gone.
Western governments would not tolerate an Islamist terrorist organization establishing a heavily armed state or quasi-state entity on their own borders. Why should Israel?
Would the British accept an Islamist army operating immediately outside London? Would France accept a terrorist organization armed and financed by jihadist-run sovereign wealth funds establishing itself on the outskirts of Paris?
If Western governments genuinely want to help the Palestinians, they should stop treating a Palestinian state as the ultimate objective and start talking about the importance of freedom of speech and of the press, separation of mosque and state, a serious education system that could prepare youths for lucrative jobs, businesses that could see growth, a judiciary that delivers equal justice under the law, and a government that is actually accountable to the public and responsive to the productive lives of its citizens — not a regime promoting murder, martyrdom and death.
Conditions should also include the Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist, the abandonment of terrorism and jihadist ideology, the dismantling and disarming of all terrorist organizations, an end to incitement against Israel and Jews in schools and mosques, serious reform of the Palestinian Authority education system, transparent and accountable government, and an end to corruption and the misuse of international aid.
Above all, Palestinian leaders must demonstrate that they want to build a society rather than destroy another one.
Palestinians should not be encouraged to believe that terrorism is a shortcut to statehood. Otherwise, the message of October 7 becomes dangerously clear, for the West as well: murder Jews, Christians and other infidels, kidnap them, rape them, and massacre them — and eventually the international community will reward them with a state.
There are Jewish-owned factories, supermarkets, restaurants, wineries, and other businesses in the West Bank, where Palestinians and Israelis work together. These workplaces may not constitute a political peace agreement, but they represent something that boycott campaigns destroy: normal human contact and economic cooperation. Pictured: A branch of the Rami Levy supermarket in Mishor Adumim, east of Jerusalem, photographed on February 13, 2020. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
The foreign ministers of 12 Western countries have apparently decided that the best way to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians is to punish businesses operating in Jewish communities in the West Bank.
One can only wonder what planet these ministers are living on.
On September 8, Canada, France, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement declaring that they intend to introduce, or support, restrictions on trade in goods produced in Jewish settlements.
The ministers said that "Israel's actions in the West Bank are undermining the possibility of a two-State solution" and that "the two-state solution must be protected, and we will take action."They also condemned the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and described it as "the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust."
Then comes the extraordinary part. After acknowledging the October 7 massacre, these Western governments still insist that the answer is to accelerate the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.
This is a political fantasy. As the British journalist Jonathan Sacerdoti shrewdly asks, "What if the Palestinians do not want two states, and never have?"
The planned boycott only demonstrates how disconnected these governments are from the human and economic realities on the ground.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, about 20,400 Palestinians from the West Bank were working in Jewish settlements in the fourth quarter of 2025 — an increase from 16,000 in the previous quarter.
Palestinian workers employed in Israel and West Bank Jewish settlements earned an average daily wage of 256.90 shekels (about $85) in that quarter.
These are Palestinian men and women supporting families. Most are happy to be employed by Israelis because they get higher salaries and more labor rights than they do working for Palestinian businesses.
A boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in West Bank settlements is therefore not some painless diplomatic gesture aimed exclusively at "settlers." It affects Palestinian employees whose livelihoods depend on those businesses.
The hypocrisy is even more striking because Palestinians and Israelis work together in many places throughout the West Bank.
Take the Israeli supermarket chain Rami Levy. Its stores have long employed Palestinians and Israeli Arabs alongside Jewish Israelis. The company has described a policy of employing Palestinians and Israeli Arab workers and treating its workers equally. It is estimated that approximately half of the chain's roughly 4,000 employees were Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. "I believe in true coexistence," said the owner, Rami Levy. "All our employees at our stores are hired without distinction on the basis of religion, race, or nationality, in an equal fashion." This successful acceptance and mutual respect is what the boycott campaign conveniently ignores. While politicians in European capitals lecture Israelis and Palestinians about coexistence, Israelis and Palestinians are already practicing it in countless workplaces.
There are Jewish-owned factories, supermarkets, restaurants, wineries, and other businesses in the West Bank where Palestinians and Israelis work together. These workplaces may not constitute a political peace agreement, but they represent something that boycott campaigns destroy: normal human contact and economic cooperation.
Boycotts are not a substitute for peace negotiations. They are certainly not a substitute for Palestinian recognition of Israel. Previous experience has apparently taught Western governments nothing, When SodaStream moved its factory from Ma'aleh Adumim to southern Israel amid intense pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, roughly 500 Palestinian workers lost their jobs.
Whatever one's position on settlements, it is difficult to see how depriving Palestinians of jobs advances Palestinian prosperity or Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.
The opposite is true.
Extremist Palestinians do not regard Israel as a country next to which to they want their own state, They regard all of Israel as one big settlement — to be permanently uprooted and replaced as soon as possible. Boycotts encourage separation. They tell Israelis and Palestinians that cooperation is something shameful rather than something to be encouraged. They also serve the agenda of jihadists and extremists who oppose any normalization between Arabs and Jews. These extremists are no different from the jihadists in Europe who rape, mow down, and behead the citizens of the very countries now demanding that Israel tolerate the same terrorists that they so naively accept. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Islamist terror organizations do not seek more Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation. They seek confrontation, separation, and ultimately the elimination of infidels in the very countries now working to empower them. Why would Western governments adopt policies that make it harder for Palestinians and Israelis to work together?
The statement from the 12 Western countries is even more disconnected from reality when it comes to the so-called two-state solution. For decades, Western governments have repeated the phrase as if saying it often enough will make it happen -- or even make it a good idea.
October 7 should have changed the conversation. Hamas did not merely launch another round of fighting. It crossed an internationally recognized boundary from Gaza into Israel and carried out a massacre in which they murdered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, kidnapped 251 as hostages, and subjected thousands to horrific acts of violence, torture and rape. Hamas had independently governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, one year after Israel withdrew from Gaza, expelling thousands of Jewish residents, and leaving it to Palestinians to govern. Hamas transformed Gaza into a heavily armed Islamist war machine with 350 miles of underground terror tunnels and command centers in hospitals.
The result was October 7, 2023.
Many Western governments nevertheless appear to think that the Palestinians should again be given territory in which a hostile jihadist organization with a genocidal charter could establish itself to build another war machine. The question Western leaders should be asking is not: "How can we establish a Palestinian state?" The questions they should be asking are: What kind of Palestinian state would be established, who would control it, what would its security forces look like, what would its relationship with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad be, and what guarantees would prevent it from becoming another armed base for attacks against Israel?
These are questions written in blood on October 7.
A Palestinian state cannot be established without fundamental changes in the entire Palestinian political culture, which currently exists solely to glorify terrorism, violence and slaughtering Jews — and later Christians, by the way. Any territory in which terrorist groups are not totally disarmed will simply be a launching pad from which to continue attacking Israel.
This goal is probably why countries that would like to see Israel eliminated — apart from those in Europe — such as Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, are eager to be part of a Board of Peace. They would be placed right on Israel's border to wait a few months until President Donald Trump is gone. Israel's tiny, vulnerable size — it is smaller than Djibouti — makes the danger particularly serious. A Palestinian state in the mountainous West Bank would overlook Israel's densely populated coastal plain and sit immediately adjacent to Jerusalem and Israel's major population centers.
Western governments would not tolerate an Islamist terrorist organization establishing a heavily armed state or quasi-state entity on their own borders. Why should Israel?
Would the British accept an Islamist army operating immediately outside London? Would France accept a terrorist organization armed and financed by jihadist-run sovereign wealth funds establishing itself on the outskirts of Paris? Would Canada tolerate a hostile Iranian proxy controlling territory on its border? If they would, they should not.
Israelis, however, are repeatedly told that they must accommodate this risk.
If Western governments genuinely want to help the Palestinians, they should stop treating a Palestinian state as the ultimate objective and start talking about the importance of freedom of speech and of the press, separation of mosque and state, a serious education system that could prepare youths for lucrative jobs, businesses that could see growth, a judiciary that delivers equal justice under the law, and a government that is actually accountable to the public and responsive to the productive lives of its citizens — not a regime promoting murder, martyrdom and death.
Conditions should also include the Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist, the abandonment of terrorism and jihadist ideology, the dismantling and disarming of all terrorist organizations, an end to incitement against Israel and Jews in schools and mosques, serious reform of the Palestinian Authority education system, transparent and accountable government, and an end to corruption and the misuse of international aid.
Above all, Palestinian leaders must demonstrate that they want to build a society rather than destroy another one. Palestinians should not be encouraged to believe that terrorism is a shortcut to statehood. Otherwise, the message of October 7 becomes dangerously clear, for the West as well: murder Jews, Christians and other infidels, kidnap them, rape them, and massacre them — and eventually the international community will reward them with a state.
**Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple who wish to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.

Twenty-Five Years Later: The Warnings Still Remain
Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/September 10/2026
A quarter-century after September 11, 2001, it is worth remembering that the warning signs were not invisible in the years — and even in the hours — before that day. We cannot afford that strategic error a second time — not against the enemies we already know, and not against a nuclear-armed Iran we still have time to prevent. Tomorrow marks 25 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001 shattered America's complacency and changed the course of the world. A quarter-century later, it is worth remembering that the warning signs were not invisible in the years — and even in the hours — before that day.
On that morning, the hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field (a flight forced down and believed bound for Washington, D.C). Readers of The Washington Times opened an essay that began with a question that, within hours, would no longer be theoretical: Imagine a popular restaurant in Manhattan's Times Square blown to bits by a terrorist's bomb. Would Americans demand an immediate and aggressive effort to prevent the next attack — or would they prefer a wringing of hands so as not to perpetuate a "cycle of violence"?
The answer was obvious. So was the public's answer. The column reported on a bipartisan poll that the American Middle East Information Network (AMEIN) — an organization this author founded — had commissioned only weeks earlier. Seventy-three percent of Americans said Israel, when it had proof that a suicide bombing or other attack was being planned against its citizens, was justified in attempting to kill a terrorist. A majority described Palestinian attacks as terrorism or warfare, not "resistance." Americans, the poll showed, understood a distinction that too many editorial pages preferred to avoid addressing: eliminating those who would kill, before they kill, is rational self-defense.
The essay went further. It invoked the suicide attack on the USS Cole that nearly sank the warship. It argued that a nation under siege has the right to use force to protect its people — and that Washington should treat Israel's fight against terrorism as America would treat its own. The poll revealed that two-thirds of Americans approved. That column was written, edited, and set in type before the first 9/11 plane departed Logan Airport in Boston. It appeared in print on September 11, 2001. The date on the page and the date on the calendar were the same. History supplied the event that no one typesetting that page could have known but already feared. This is not a claim that an opinion essay predicted the method or the hour of the attack. What the work did do — and what a number of analysts, investigators, and private citizens had been trying to do in the years before it — was insist that radical Islamic terrorism was not a distant quarrel among other people's children. It was a terror campaign against civilians, already visible in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Aden, and the cafés and buses of Israel. It would not remain overseas out of courtesy to American ideals.
In the years leading to 2001, I invested private resources behind that kind of analysis: polling, research, and public argument meant to force a hearing for an uncomfortable conclusion. On the eve of September 11th, this work cautioned that the threat from radical Islamic fundamentalism was real and growing against the United States. It was one of several voices. Most were treated as background noise.
We now know, with the cruel clarity of hindsight, how right those warnings were. Nearly 3,000 people were murdered. Airports, wars, intelligence services, and the American sense of safety at home were remade. Even before the dust had settled, the country asked how so catastrophic an intelligence and policy failure could have occurred. Part of the answer is as old as Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941: some people did see the shape of the danger. Their assessments never became prevention.
Twenty-five years is long enough to extract a few lessons that still apply.
The first is humility. Good analysis — well funded, clearly argued, even printed on the front of a national newspaper the morning the blow falls — can still go unheeded if there is no political will to carry it to the people who can act. Information is not the same thing as urgency.
The second is responsibility. Those who produce serious threat assessments, whether on terrorism, cyber vulnerability, biological risk, or the next instrument of mass harm we have not yet named, deserve a hearing before the disaster, not a commemorative plaque after it. A free society does not owe every alarmist a hearing. It does owe the serious ones one.The third is moral clarity. The column drew a line Americans instinctively recognized: civilians under fire are not required to wait until the bomber has already chosen the restaurant. That line has been argued over for a generation. It has not become less true. A nation that cannot say the word "terrorism" when the facts require it will not stop the next attack in time.Those lessons are not artifacts of 2001. They are a warning about what comes next.
The most dangerous unfinished business of the post-9/11 era is Iran. For a generation the regime in Tehran has armed, trained, and financed its proxies — Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis — while pursuing the one capability that would place its threats beyond recall. A nuclear Iran would not merely endanger Israel. It would put American cities, American forces, and the energy lanes of the world under a form of blackmail no sanctions regime has ever undone.
President Donald Trump has been right to treat that outcome as intolerable. His position has been consistent and plain: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon — not in any way, shape, or form. That is not a slogan. It is the minimum condition of American security in this century. Diplomacy that buys time for enrichment is not strategy. Ambiguity is not strength. The lesson of September 11 is that the cost of waiting for "compelling evidence" to become a catastrophe is a cost a free country should refuse to pay twice.
As we mark this anniversary, the tribute owed the dead is not only remembrance. It is vigilance. A quarter-century ago, resources were put behind identifying a threat that produced warnings many preferred not to hear. They went unheeded. We cannot afford that strategic error a second time — not against the enemies we already know, and not against a nuclear-armed Iran we still have time to prevent.
*Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.

A Shift in London’s Policy Toward Israel: Netanyahu’s Hardline Stance Cannot Last
Laura Yammine/Al-Markaziya/September 10/ 2026  (Google translation from Arabic)
Al-Markaziya – On Tuesday, the British government announced a ban on the import of goods from "illegal" Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, alongside a comprehensive sanctions regime targeting entities contributing to the expansion of those settlements. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband spoke of a "new approach" to the Palestinian issue, stating in the House of Commons that London’s dispute is not with the "people of Israel" but with the "conduct of its government." He acknowledged the occurrence of "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians in parts of the West Bank—perpetrated by "terrorist settlers"—noting that the Israeli government had often "turned a blind eye" to these violations and that some of its members had made statements and taken actions aimed at "supporting the forced displacement" of Palestinians. He emphasized that Israeli settlements are "illegal" and should not be promoted in the UK, citing the 2024 advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice. Regarding Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip, Miliband stated that Britain is "neither silent in the face of profound injustice nor powerless." He pointed to "mounting evidence of war crimes that appear to have been committed" in the Strip, declaring his country’s refusal to remain a "spectator to further suffering and the destruction of the two-state solution." In response, Israel countered the British moves with a series of measures, most notably the closure of the British Consulate in occupied East Jerusalem and restrictions on British activities related to the Palestinian issue. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar described the accusations leveled by Miliband against Tel Aviv as "reprehensible and false," deeming the British decisions an interference in Israel's internal affairs and its upcoming elections. Diplomatic sources told *Al-Markaziya* that the British decisions are not merely a minor detail but represent a shift in British policy toward Israel, paving the way for a transition from verbal support for the two-state solution to substantive backing. According to these sources, the extremism of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—which the latter views as advantageous ahead of the elections—is actually a double-edged sword; while it "might" benefit him domestically, it will certainly harm him on the international stage. US President Donald Trump had repeatedly advised "Bibi" to halt the escalation and chaos in the occupied territories and the region, warning that such behavior would erode international support for Israel. Yet, Netanyahu failed to heed this advice, and the circle of nations distancing themselves from Tel Aviv is widening. Britain has now joined the ranks of European nations, Gulf states, and Turkey in this regard—noting that Washington, too, is dissatisfied with the Israeli government's conduct. All these factors indicate, according to the sources, that Israel’s unchecked behavior must be reined in; even if Netanyahu returns to power after the elections, he will be compelled to return to a settlement that secures a "two-state" outcome—however minimal—or else face the entire world in opposition.

The Houthis and Mass Isolation: When Geography Becomes a Prison
Ezzedine Saeed Al-Asbahi/An-Nahar/September 10/2026  (Google translation from Arabic)
The most dangerous aspect of tyranny is not merely preventing you from seeing the world, but preventing you from knowing that a world exists beyond the one it presents to you. This is the crucial story to consider regarding the Houthi experience in Yemen. The militia did not stop at seizing Sana’a and its state institutions, nor did it use weapons solely to subjugate the population; it actively sought to seal off the very spheres in which individuals operate—their access to information, their relationships, their freedom of movement, and their right to question and dissent. It is an attempt to isolate the geography itself from the outside world. People living in Houthi-controlled areas inhabit an environment where avenues for free communication are severely constricted. News and information flow through channels controlled or censored by the group, while the spaces where people might encounter alternative narratives continue to shrink. The dozens of local radio stations in the vicinity of Sana’a do not signify a plurality of voices; rather, they represent a massive amplification of the same single voice. As for travel—one of the most fundamental human rights regarding movement and connection—it has been weaponized as a political bargaining chip. The group deliberately creates obstacles and fabricates pretexts to keep Sana’a Airport closed, forcing citizens to pay the price of this isolation with their lives, opportunities, and global connections. Even social media—platforms meant to break down barriers—have transformed, within this climate of repression, into yet another arena for fear, caution, and surveillance. In this context, repression does not require a soldier standing behind every citizen; it suffices for the citizen to know that their words might be reported, their posts misinterpreted, and their meetings with others viewed with suspicion. This is where the most dangerous shift occurs: the individual begins to police themselves before the authorities do. They fall silent before being ordered to do so, weigh their words carefully, avoid conversation, and reconsider whom they trust. Thus, fear transforms from a mere security measure into a social climate, and surveillance shifts from an external eye to an internal one residing within the individual. Isolation is not a Houthi invention; it is one of the oldest tools of repression, employed by security agencies and authoritarian regimes in prisons and interrogation centers alike, for isolating a person from the world and others drains them psychologically and erodes their capacity for resistance. Yet, the Houthis have transposed this concept from the confines of a prison cell to the broader landscape. In prison, an individual is cut off from society; here, however, an entire society is driven into isolation—severed from diverse sources of information, freedom of movement, public discourse, and dissenting opinions.
When a single narrative is imposed upon a society, one controls not only what people hear but, gradually, how they interpret what they hear. Yet, prolonged isolation does not invariably produce an obedient society; it can just as easily breed an angry one. Fear, frustration, helplessness, and a loss of trust accumulate within the individual. When natural avenues for expression are blocked, anger seeks other outlets, and hatred seeps into everyday relationships. A neighbor may turn into an adversary, a relative into a source of suspicion, and someone with a different viewpoint into an enemy. This is not because Yemenis are inherently this way, nor because the society under Houthi control is naturally hateful; rather, it is because prolonged oppression reshapes human relationships, sowing suspicion, destroying trust, and driving the individual to withdraw into themselves. Yet the great paradox is that isolation can produce something more dangerous than fear: it can produce an illusion of strength.
When a person is hemmed in by a single narrative and fed a daily diet of rhetoric centered on defiance, confrontation, and triumph, the world in their consciousness transforms into a monolithic bloc of enemies. America is an enemy, Israel is an enemy, the Gulf states are enemies, and anyone who criticizes the group is branded a conspirator or a traitor. Conversely, the group portrays itself as the sole force standing against the entire world. Thus, the conflict shifts from a political issue open to debate into a psychological dogma. Defeat becomes a "deferred victory," retreat a "tactic," crisis the "price of dignity," and failure an "external conspiracy," all while the collective ego inflates. The question is no longer "What have we achieved?" but rather "How do we confront the whole world?" Here, imagined power replaces actual power, and affiliation with the group becomes the source of an individual’s worth and sense of superiority. This is where the danger lies; for a person who views themselves as part of an exceptional force may become more inclined to regard those who differ as inferior—and more willing to harm them without compunction. Consequently, hate speech paves the way for justifying repression, violence, and arbitrary detention. The most dangerous aspect of the Houthi-imposed isolation is not merely that it prevented people from seeing the world, but that it attempted to reconstruct the world inside their minds. This is a battle that does not end with the collapse of the regime of force. Even when the balance of power shifts, the imprint of years spent living amidst fear, propaganda, and isolation remains. Therefore, reclaiming Yemen means more than just restoring the state and its institutions; it means reclaiming the human being—restoring the right to travel, to access knowledge and free media, to meet others, to hold differing views, and to hear a different voice without fear. We need to reopen the closed windows. It is for the Yemeni to see the world as it truly is, rather than as an armed group wants them to see it; to relearn that difference is not treason, criticism is not a conspiracy, and the "other" is not an enemy simply because they are different. For freedom is not merely about opening the prison door; it is about opening the windows of the mind that have been sealed shut. The most dangerous cell is not the one with four walls and a guard at the door, but the one whose existence goes unnoticed—because the person inside has come to believe that the entire world is nothing more than what they see from within. This is the most perilous thing an armed group can do to a society: transform a landscape into a prison, then convince the inmates that they are living in a fortress.

Which Middle East Has Ended: The American or the Iranian?
Rafiq Khoury/Independent Arabia/September 10/2026  (Google translation from Arabic)
There is no shortage of scenarios devised under the banner of a "New Middle East"—formulated within an old Middle East that barely recognizes itself. Each scenario sprouts in the dark like a mushroom, only to face demise once exposed to the light; a major event inevitably supersedes the one that spawned the scenario, relegating it to the ranks of unfinished ideas that never fully materialize.
The list is long. It spans the era following the Oslo Accords, the Camp David Peace Accords, and the Wadi Araba Treaty; the period after Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Imam Khomeini’s gamble on "exporting the revolution"; the time following the Soviet Union's collapse and the rise of American unipolarity; and the post-"Arab Spring" era, marked by the return of multipolarity through China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence. Today, the latest iteration is the post-war phase of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran—a landscape shaped by dreams of "Greater Israel," "Greater Iran," and "Neo-Ottoman Turkey." Everything hinges on the outcome of this clash of strategies; President Donald Trump plays all his cards simultaneously rather than seeing a single strategy through to the end. It is a war waged for the sake of a deal, a peace that requires war, and a forced hegemony lacking the "attraction and push" dynamics described by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye in *The End of the American Century*. He is waging war on Iran without a comprehensive strategy or an exit plan; only now is he asking his aides to prepare a "Day After" strategy—something he had ignored both before and during the conflict. Its broad outlines appear to involve a phased approach. This involves the phase of resolving the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 "Al-Aqsa Flood" and the wars involving Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran—thereby implementing Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip—as well as the phase of reaching a security agreement between Syria and Israel and implementing the trilateral framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel. It also encompasses the expansion of the "Abraham Accords" between Israel and Arab nations and the construction of a regional security architecture among U.S. allies to contain Iran. Yet, as American strategic expert Anthony Cordesman observes, "the war after the war is harder than the war itself." Trump’s strategy for "the day after" faces four unavoidable challenges, for which solutions are not easily found.
The first challenge is the "missing" Palestinian component in the equation; any regional security system lacking a Palestinian state is not a security system at all, but rather a recipe for conflict and war. The second is Israel’s "excessive" role in the game—a state acting as a regional superpower to build a "Greater Israel," encroaching aggressively upon Gaza and the West Bank while insisting on establishing "buffer zones" in southern Lebanon and southern Syria. How can an Israel that feels insecure within its own borders—and seeks to occupy additional Arab territories—reassure its "Abraham Accords" partners regarding their own security? Furthermore, how can one place confidence in a regional security system when Israel’s national security strategy dictates not only confronting tangible threats but also waging preemptive wars to prevent any Arab power from developing its military capabilities? The third challenge is that the war with Iran halted before a decisive conclusion was reached; indeed, it is a futile exercise to map out a "day after" scenario following a war that lacked a definitive outcome. What, then, if Tehran declares itself victorious and insists on pursuing its regional project—for which the Arab world serves as the sole theater—in a manner that transcends mere hegemony, dominance, or extortion? And what if the equation defies the usual norms of warfare: America strikes Iran, while Tehran strikes the Gulf states and Jordan?
A fourth factor is the internal American debate regarding the war with Iran and the events that have unfolded to date, alongside the ongoing economic warfare and blockade. Kori Schake—a colleague and the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute—discusses in a *Foreign Affairs* article "Trump’s mistake" and his disregard for the Weinberger Doctrine on waging war, the initial outlines of which were drawn by General Colin Powell. Meanwhile, Marc Lynch—a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University—argues in the same publication that "the American Middle East is over," noting that "the regional order that had succeeded since 1991 has become a casualty of the US-Israeli war on Iran." Nothing prevents hardliners within the Revolutionary Guard from contemplating a massive military assault on US forces and Gulf states, nor stops Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf from telling America that "the rules of the game have changed"—or, for that matter, prevents Trump and Netanyahu from envisioning Iran’s imminent demise and the dawn of a new Middle East following the conflict. Yet, the reality is that the region is grappling with a clash of strategies amidst inconclusive wars and intractable crises. Any "new Middle East" born of such a clash of strategies merely drags us back to the old Middle East, with all its inherent flaws and catastrophes. And no one knows which is more dangerous: the old or the new.

A Shift in London’s Policy Toward Israel: Netanyahu’s Hardline Stance Cannot Last
Laura Yammine/Al-Markaziya/September 10, 2026  (Google translation from Arabic)
Al-Markaziya – On Tuesday, the British government announced a ban on the import of goods from "illegal" Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, alongside a comprehensive sanctions regime targeting entities contributing to the expansion of those settlements. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband spoke of a "new approach" to the Palestinian issue, stating in the House of Commons that London’s dispute is not with the "people of Israel" but with the "conduct of its government." He acknowledged the occurrence of "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians in parts of the West Bank—perpetrated by "terrorist settlers"—noting that the Israeli government had often "turned a blind eye" to these violations and that some of its members had made statements and taken actions aimed at "supporting the forced displacement" of Palestinians. He emphasized that Israeli settlements are "illegal" and should not be promoted in the UK, citing the 2024 advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice. Regarding Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip, Miliband stated that Britain is "neither silent in the face of profound injustice nor powerless." He pointed to "mounting evidence of war crimes that appear to have been committed" in the Strip, declaring his country’s refusal to remain a "spectator to further suffering and the destruction of the two-state solution." In response, Israel countered the British moves with a series of measures, most notably the closure of the British Consulate in occupied East Jerusalem and restrictions on British activities related to the Palestinian issue. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar described the accusations leveled by Miliband against Tel Aviv as "reprehensible and false," deeming the British decisions an interference in Israel's internal affairs and its upcoming elections. Diplomatic sources told *Al-Markaziya* that the British decisions are not merely a minor detail but represent a shift in British policy toward Israel, paving the way for a transition from verbal support for the two-state solution to substantive backing. According to these sources, the extremism of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—which the latter views as advantageous ahead of the elections—is actually a double-edged sword; while it "might" benefit him domestically, it will certainly harm him on the international stage. US President Donald Trump had repeatedly advised "Bibi" to halt the escalation and chaos in the occupied territories and the region, warning that such behavior would erode international support for Israel. Yet, Netanyahu failed to heed this advice, and the circle of nations distancing themselves from Tel Aviv is widening. Britain has now joined the ranks of European nations, Gulf states, and Turkey in this regard—noting that Washington, too, is dissatisfied with the Israeli government's conduct. All these factors indicate, according to the sources, that Israel’s unchecked behavior must be reined in; even if Netanyahu returns to power after the elections, he will be compelled to return to a settlement that secures a "two-state" outcome—however minimal—or else face the entire world in opposition.

Selected Face Book & X tweets on September 10/2026
Danny Danon
https://x.com/dannydanon/status/2097829533403508946/video/1
Today at the UN, with the support of multiple countries, we launched the Task Force on Combating Antisemitism. Antisemitism is rearing its ugly head around the world and within the UN itself. An institution founded in the wake of the Holocaust cannot turn a blind eye to it.
With the election of a new Secretary-General ahead, our message is clear: fighting antisemitism must be a top priority. The time for words is over. It’s time for action.

Dr. Maalouf ‏
11 years ago, 21 Egyptian Copt Christians were beheaded by ISIS in Libya for refusing to convert to Islam.Their last words were: “Jesus, I love you.”Remember, no one marched for them. No one protested for them!

Tom Harb
This is a direct consequence of Saudi strategic weakness.
Houthis seizing Al-Mukha puts them ~50 miles from Bab al-Mandab and increases their leverage over Red Sea shipping at a time when oil is already under pressure.
Riyadh turned against the southern Yemenis, sidelined the RSF (who previously helped constrain Houthi networks), and pushed out the UAE , a natural partner !
only to pivot toward Turkey and Pakistan via Mecca-linked frameworks.
That fractured the anti-Houthi front and left gaps the Houthis are now exploiting.
Time to re-strategize and re-align with actual capable partners instead of isolating them.

Khaled Abu Toameh
Palestinian Authority security forces arrested prominent businessman Tareq al-Natsheh, founder and CEO of Al-Huda Petroleum Group, which operates a chain of gas stations in the West Bank. According to sources in Ramallah, he has been rushed to a local hospital.

U.S. Embassy Beirut
Every day, the Lebanese people make it clear they prefer Lebanese state institutions over Hizballah’s weapons. Southern Lebanon does not belong to regional actors or militias. The United States applauds these communities and supports the government of Lebanon in its stated goal to assert sovereignty, enforced by the LAF, and ensure that the decisions of war and peace lie exclusively with the Lebanese state.

Alberto Miguel Fernandez
So neither Pakistan nor Turkey did a thing to come to Saudi Arabia's aid after direct Houthi attacks on the Kingdom. I hope the Saudis didn't actually pay anyone.

TRT World
BREAKING: Pakistan's foreign ministry denies Islamabad is considering imminent military strike on Yemen's Houthis who have targeted Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles in recent days

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Pakistan turns down Saudi request to strike Houthis. Pakistan says the Mecca Pact of mutual defense “doesn’t cover a pre-existing condition,” so it only covers wars started after the pact was signed. It also covers only state actors, not non-state actors (and perhaps preferably those within reach of Pakistani power projection). Saudis won’t ask Turkey (the third partner in the Mecca Pact). If they did, Turks would happily deploy naval assets from their Somalia base. Turks itch to control Bab al-Mandab; a fight with the Houthis would give them an excuse. Saudis are not keen to replace Iranian occupation of Yemen and the strait with Turkey.

Charles Elias Chartouni
The Islamist jerk Mamdani is selling Jewish citizens their rights. He was naturalized 8 years ago and considers himself the source of fundamental rights. Back to Uganda jerk

Zachary Cohen
Exclusive: More than 100 US military advisers are on the ground in Saudi Arabia providing intel & targeting support to the Kingdom for its military campaign against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, sources tell me,
Comes as fighting on the peninsula intensifies & risks spilling into open war -- with the Houthis threatening a second major shipping corridor out of Middle East.

Raylan Givens
https://x.com/JewishWarrior13/status/2098105625859473567/video/1
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
President Trump announced tonight that Iran is attempting to rearm with nuclear weapons, and this is correct. After we destroyed its immediate capability to produce nuclear bombs, both in Operation Iron Swords and in Operation Rising Lion, they are trying again. I commit to you here, at the Western Wall, ahead of Rosh Hashanah: As long as I am Prime Minister, Iran will not have nuclear weapons. In parallel, we are striking the Iranian axis, not only very hard in the Gaza Strip, but also in Lebanon. We destroyed the Boufort Ridge and are now dealing with the Ali Taar Ridge. More to come.

Tom Harb
President Aoun: Refusing to commit to normalization with Israel doesn’t just leave Lebanon stuck !it gives Hezbollah time to reorganize and rebuild, and opens the door for more terrorist groups to flow in from Syria. That’s not protecting the Lebanese people. That’s betraying

Hiba Nasr
A State Department official on Lebanon:
We are closely monitoring calls from Southern Lebanon, where people are demanding their government assert sovereignty and stop Hizballah from firing and storing weapons in their communities. We applaud those communities and support the Government of Lebanon's receptiveness to their requests. •Hizballah's weapons have only brought misery and destruction to Lebanon. Hizballah remains the obstacle to peace.
•We urge the Government of Lebanon to formulate a plan for disarmament in all Lebanese territory, as laid out in the Trilateral Framework.
•The Trilateral Framework is the only roadmap to peace. Diplomatic engagement is ongoing on a daily basis.

Zachary Cohen
US officials believe there are currently hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in Yemen, working alongside the Houthis with goal of ultimately shutting down the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, one of the sources told CNN.

مكرم رباح
تفجير علي الطاهر إثبات إضافي على أنّ الحرس الثوري الإيراني وصبيته من اللبنانيين أوطى من أعمق نفق حفروه تحت مهود أطفال الجنوب.
The blowing up of Ali al-Tahir is further proof that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and its Lebanese lackeys have sunk lower than the deepest tunnel they dug beneath the cradles of the children of the south .