WASHINGTON: The US negotiator on Iran said Wednesday it was possible that Tehran will never return to a 2015 nuclear accord, and that Washington was working with regional allies on a Plan B.
Rob Malley, who led indirect talks with Iran earlier this year, said that President Joe Biden’s administration still felt it was best to return to the deal that was trashed by former president Donald Trump.
“We feel like coming back would still be the best outcome but we’re realistic,” Malley said at an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“We know that there’s at least a good possibility that Iran is going to choose a different path and we need to coordinate with Israel and with our other partners in the region,” Malley said.
He said the two sides had made headway in their first six rounds of indirect talks in Vienna about reviving the deal, but he suggested the new Iranian government under President Ebrahim Raisi, who took office in August, may adopt a different stance.
He also said the US is ready to consider “all options” if Iran is unwilling to return to the nuclear deal.
In addition to using the phrase “all options,” which is typically intended to include the possibility — however remote — of military action, Malley also said the US and Israel were united in opposing Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
The foreign ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which established relations last year, were meeting jointly Wednesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Beyond citing US consultation with Israel, which has previously struck nuclear sites in Iraq and Syria, Malley also said he would soon travel to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to coordinate with the US Gulf allies.
(With AFP and Reuters)
US envoy says possible Iran won’t return to nuclear deal
https://arab.news/v3zvp
US envoy says possible Iran won’t return to nuclear deal
- Rob Malley says ‘there is every possibility that Iran will choose a different path, and we need to coordinate with regional partners’
- He will be traveling to the Gulf to talk about efforts to return to Iran nuclear deal
Protests against powerful group persist in Syria’s last major rebel stronghold
Officials at one hospital in Binnish said they had received 36 people who suffered bruises and tear gas inhalation
IDLIB, Syria: Members of a powerful insurgent group in Syria ‘s rebel-held northwest fired into the air and beat protesters with clubs Friday, injuring some of them as protests intensified to demand the release of detainees and an end to the group’s rule.
Protests took place Friday in several areas, including the provincial capital of Idlib and major towns such as Jisr Al-Shughour, Binnish and Sarmada.
They came days after Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, described the demonstrators as anarchists and told dignitaries in Syria’s Idlib province to persuade them to stop protesting.
The protests, which are calling for the ouster of Al-Golani, broke out in late February following the death of a member of a rebel faction, allegedly while being tortured in a jail run by HTS, which previously had links to Al-Qaeda. Since then, HTS released hundreds of detainees, but many remain in jails run by the group’s so-called General Security Agency.
“I came out against injustice. We don’t want Al-Golani and we don’t want the security fist. We want the prisoners of opinion to be out” of jails, protester Mazen Ziwani told The Associated Press.
Officials at one hospital in Binnish said they had received 36 people who suffered bruises and tear gas inhalation.
After more than 13 years of civil war and more than half a million deaths, Idlib is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.
On Tuesday, HTS members attacked protesters with clubs and sharp objects outside a military court in Idlib city, injuring several people.
Anti-HTS sentiments had been rising since a wave of arrests by the group of senior officials within the organization, which was previously known as the Nusra Front, when it was Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, before changing its name several times and distancing itself from Al-Qaeda.
Over the years, Al-Golani’s HTS crushed many of its opponents to become the strongest group in the rebel-held region that stretches to the western parts of Aleppo province.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said HTS fighters closed major roads leading to Idlib city Friday to prevent the demonstrators from reaching the provincial capital.
Over the past years, HTS has been trying to distance itself from Al-Qaeda and market itself as a more moderate Syrian opposition group after years of strict religious rule.
In 2017, HTS set up a so-called “salvation government” to run day-to-day affairs in the region. At first, it attempted to enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Religious police were tasked with making sure that women were covered, with only their faces and hands showing.
The police would force shops to close on Fridays so that people could attend the weekly prayers. Playing music was banned, as was smoking water pipes in public.
For the children of Gaza, war means no school
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
DEIR AL-BALAH: Atef Al-Buhaisi, 6, once dreamed of a career building houses. Now, all he craves is to return to school.
In Israel’s war with Hamas, Atef’s home has been bombed, his teacher killed, and his school in Nuseirat turned into a refuge for displaced people.
He lives in a cramped tent with his family in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. He sleeps clinging to his grandmother and fears walking alone, even during the day.
Since the war erupted on Oct. 7, all Gaza’s schools have closed — leaving hundreds of thousands of students like Atef without formal schooling or a safe place to spend their days. Aid groups are scrambling to keep children off the streets, and their minds are focused on something other than the war as heavy fighting continues across the enclave and has expanded into the southern city of Rafah and intensified in the north.
“What we’ve lost most is our children’s future and their education,” said Irada Ismael, Atef’s grandmother.
“Houses and walls are rebuilt, money can be earned again ... but how do I compensate for (his) education?”
Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis, with the head of the UN’s World Food Programme determining a “full-blown famine” is already underway in the north.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
About 80 percent of Gaza’s population has been driven from homes.
Much of Gaza is damaged or destroyed, including nearly 90 percent of school buildings, according to aid group estimates.
Children are among the most severely affected, with the UN estimating some 19,000 children have been orphaned and nearly a third under the age of 2 face acute malnutrition.
Education experts say that in emergencies, education takes a back seat to safety, health, and sanitation, but the consequences are lasting.
“The immediate focus during conflict isn’t on education, but the disruption has an incredibly long-term effect,” said Sonia Ben Jaafar of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on education in the Arab world.
“The cost at this point is immeasurable.”
According to the UN, Gaza had a highly literate population that included more than 625,000 students and some 20,000 teachers before the war.
In other conflicts, aid groups can create safe spaces for children in neighboring countries — for example, Poland for shelter and schooling during the war in Ukraine.
That’s impossible in Gaza, a densely populated enclave between the sea, Israel, and Egypt. Since Oct 7, Palestinians from Gaza haven’t been allowed to cross into Israel. Egypt has let a small number of Palestinians leave.
“They’re unable to flee, and they remain in an area that continues to be battered,” said Tess Ingram of UNICEF.
“It’s very hard to provide them with certain services, such as mental health and psychosocial support or consistent education and learning.”
Aid groups hope classes will resume by September. But even if a ceasefire is brokered, much of Gaza must be cleared of mines, and rebuilding schools could take years.
In the interim, aid groups are providing recreational activities — games, drawing, drama, art — not for a curriculum-based education but to keep children engaged and in a routine in an effort for normalcy. Even then, advocates say, attention often turns to the war — Atef’s grandmother sees him draw pictures only of tents, planes, and missiles.
Finding free space is among the biggest challenges.
Some volunteers use the outdoors, make do inside tents where people live, or find a room in still-standing homes.
It took volunteer teachers over two months to clear one room in a school in Deir Al-Balah to give ad hoc classes to children. Getting simple supplies such as soccer balls and stationery into Gaza can also take months, groups report.
“Having safe spaces for children to gather to play and learn is an important step,” Ingram said, but “ultimately, the children of Gaza must be able to return to learning curriculum from teachers in classrooms, with education materials and all the other support schooling provides.”
This month, UNICEF had planned to erect at least 50 tents in Rafah for play-based numbers and literacy learning for some 6,000 children from preschool to grade 12. But UNICEF says Israel’s operation there could disrupt those plans.
Lack of schooling can take a psychological toll — it disrupts daily life and, compounded with conflict, makes children more prone to anxiety and nervousness, said Jesus Miguel Perez Cazorla, a mental health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Children in conflicts are also at increased risk of forced labor, sexual violence, trafficking, and recruitment by gangs and armed groups, experts warn.
“Not only are children vulnerable to recruitment by Hamas and other militant groups, but living amid ongoing violence and constantly losing family members makes children psychologically primed to want to take action against the groups they consider responsible,” said Samantha Nutt of War Child USA, which supports children and families in war zones.
Palestinians say they have seen more children take to Gaza’s streets since the war, trying to earn money for their families.
“The streets are full of children selling very simple things, such as chocolate and canned goods,” said Lama Nidal Alzaanin, 18, who was in her last year of high school and looking forward to university when the war broke out. There is nothing for them to do.”
Some parents try to find small ways to teach their children, scrounging for notebooks and pens and insisting they learn something as small as a new word each day. But many find the kids are too distracted with the world at war.
Sabreen Al-Khatib, a mother whose family was displaced to Deir Al-Balah from Gaza City, said it’s particularly hard for the many who’ve seen relatives die.
“When you speak in front of children,” Al-Khatib said, “what do you think he is thinking? Will he think about education? Or about himself, how will he die?”
On Oct. 7, 14-year-old Layan Nidal Alzaanin — Lama’s younger sister — was on her way to her middle school in Beit Hanoun when missiles flew overhead, she said. She fled with her family to Rafah, where they lived crowded in a tent.
Since Israel ordered evacuations there, she fled to Deir Al-Balah.
“It is a disaster,” she said.
“My dreams have been shattered. There is no future for me without school.”
Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Security Council announces arrest of top aide of former Daesh leader
- Khalil made bombs for the Daesh and was entrusted by Al-Baghdadi with various major operations
BAGHDAD: The Kurdish Regional Security Council announced in a statement on Friday that it captured a senior Daesh figure, Socrates Khalil.
Khalil was known to be a confidant of the late Daesh leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
“After spending five years in Turkiye, Khalil returned to Kurdistan with a forged passport and was swiftly apprehended,” the statement said.
Khalil made bombs for the Daesh and was entrusted by Al-Baghdadi with various major operations, the statement added, saying that he was instrumental in the 2014 Daesh takeover of Mosul, and participated in many battles against Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga forces.
UN has got only 12 percent of funds sought for war-wracked Sudan
- “It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told reporters
- “In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in“
GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.”
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The United Nations says more than 1.4 million people have fled the country.
“It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
“Without more resources coming in fast, humanitarian organizations won’t be able to scale up in time to stave off famine and prevent further deprivation,” he said.
“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.”
The United Nations has expressed growing concern in recent days over reports of heavy fighting in densely populated areas as the RSF seeks control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the western Darfur region not under its control.
“Now is the time for donors to make good on pledges made, step up and help us help Sudan and be part of changing the current trajectory that’s leading toward the cliff’s edge. Don’t be missing in action,” he said.
Shible Sahbani, the UN’s World Health Organization representative in Sudan, said: “Thirteen months of war in Sudan, nine million people displaced which represent around 17 percent of the population and the largest internal displacement crisis in the world today.
“This conflict has... nearly destroyed the health system which is almost collapsed now. Close to 16,000 people have died due to this war, 33,000 have been injured,” she said, speaking from Port Sudan.
Sahbani said the real toll was “probably much higher.”
The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces are seen as both wanting to secure a battleground victory and each side has received support from outside players.
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk this week separately spoke to Lt. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Commander of the Rapid Support Forces.
“He urged them both to act immediately — and publicly — to de-escalate the situation,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
Children among dead as Israeli forces widen attacks on Hezbollah
- Southern Lebanon faces ‘escalating violence,’ army veteran tells Arab News
- US Embassy joins calls for a new Lebanese president to ‘unite the nation’
BEIRUT: Two children from a Syrian refugee family and a Hezbollah fighter were killed when Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit an area of southern Lebanon more than 30 km inside the border.
Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh, adjacent villages south of the coastal city of Sidon, killing the children and a Hezbollah fighter driving a pickup truck.
Hezbollah responded to the raids by firing dozens of rockets toward the upper Galilee, western Galilee, the Galilee panhandle, and the Golan.
Israeli media claimed that 140 rockets were fired toward the north of the country.
BACKGROUND
Hezbollah has traded cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah have expanded their hostilities, with both launching drone attacks deep into Lebanese territory and northern Israel.
Retired Brig. Gen. Khaled Hamadeh of the Lebanese Army said that the situation in southern Lebanon is “escalating toward more violent attacks.”
Hezbollah insists on linking a ceasefire in southern Lebanon to an end to hostilities in Gaza.
Hamadeh said that no efforts were being made to stop the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, unlike the situation in Gaza.
In a statement, Hezbollah said it targeted Israel’s Tsnobar logistics base in the Golan with 50 Katyusha rockets in response to the strike on Najjarieh.
According to Israeli media, rocket salvos were aimed at military bases in Katzrin and areas north of Lake Tiberias.
Two people were injured in rocket blasts in Karam bin Zamra in the upper Galilee, media added.
CCTV cameras installed outside homes in Najjarieh showed an Israeli drone following the pickup truck as the driver, named as Hussein Khodor Mehdi, attempted to flee.
The first missile launched by the drone missed its target, but a second that struck the truck, setting it on fire and killing the driver. Three onlookers were also injured.
Hezbollah said that Mehdi, 62, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem.”
Israeli Army Radio said the victim was a senior commander in the Hezbollah air force.
It claimed that the army planes shelled Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Najjarieh.
The second airstrike targeted a congregation hall and a cement factory, wounding several members of a Syrian refugee family. Two children, Osama and Hani Al-Khaled, later died from their injuries.
Hezbollah said it targeted the Al-Raheb military site with artillery and Israeli positions in Al-Zaoura with a salvo of Katyusha rockets.
According to a security source, Hezbollah’s latest targets included surveillance balloons near Tiberias and Adamit in the Galilee.
Early on Friday, Hezbollah attacked the newly established headquarters of the 411th Artillery Battalion in Kibbutz Jaatoun, east of Nahariyya, with drones in response to the Israeli killing of two Hezbollah fighters, Ali Fawzi Ayoub, 26, and Mohammed Hassan Ali Fares, 34, the previous day.
In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, head of Hezbollah’s Shariah Council, said the group was “waging its fierce war on the north of Palestine, pursuing the enemy, blinding its espionage, and breaking what were once red lines, as well pursuing its soldiers in their hideouts until the war on Gaza stops.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon issued a warning over the conflict on the southern border and the presidential vacuum in the country.
Electing a president was crucial to ensuring Lebanon’s participation in regional discussions and future diplomatic agreements concerning its southern border, the embassy said.
Lebanon “needs and deserves a president who unites the nation, prioritizes the well-being of its citizens, and forms a broad and inclusive coalition to restore political stability and implement necessary economic reforms,” the statement added.
The ambassadors of Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the US to Lebanon issued a statement this week warning of “the critical situation facing the Lebanese people and the difficult-to-manage repercussions on Lebanon’s economy and social stability due to the delay of necessary reforms.”
