BEIRUT: Scores of protesters clashed with riot police in Beirut on Thursday as they tried to break into the chief offices of Lebanon’s judiciary after officials moved to cripple the probe into the massive port explosion that wreaked havoc on the capital city in 2020.
Several demonstrators were wounded as police pushed back crowds from outside Beirut’s Palace of Justice, beating people with batons.
On Wednesday, Lebanon chief prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat ordered the release of all suspects detained in the investigation into the deadly port blast in Beirut, and filed charges against the judge leading the probe, Tarek Bitar.
Among those released was an American citizen whose detention without trial had drawn threats of sanctions from US officials, and who promptly left Lebanon, circumventing a travel ban.
Bitar on Monday resumed the investigation based on his legal interpretation, following a 13-month halt over legal challenges raised by politicians accused in the probe. He also charged more than a dozen senior political, judicial, and security officials, including Oueidat.
The recent developments have led to a standoff between the two judges, who each claim the other is breaking the law, crippling Lebanon’s judiciary, as the country’s cash-strapped institutions continue to decay.
Lebanon’s Higher Judicial Council failed to meet as scheduled on Thursday to discuss Bitar’s “judicial coup d’état.”
The council’s members said they avoided convening due to public pressure and MPs’ interference with the judiciary.
During Thursday’s protests, MPs were hit and a lawyer was handcuffed by security officers.
Hundreds of families of Beirut blast victims rallied near the Justice Palace to protest against a decision by the Higher Judicial Council to remove Bitar from the investigation. They expressed their anger at Oueidat, demanding his removal from the case and describing his move as “a scandal.”
Willam Noun, spokesman for the families of the Beirut Port Blast victims, told Arab News: “It was an unexpected decision that we are not contented with.
“We did not expect this absurdity. They are settling their scores with our martyrs’ blood.
“We prefer to find justice from our country’s judiciary, however, after what has happened, we call on an international investigation into the crime.”
Peter Bou Saeb, a brother of one of the victims, said: “We were shocked by the decision to release the detainees.
“This case has turned into a confrontation between us and the judiciary; Let them deal with the consequences.
The mother of victim Jack Baramakian, who held her son’s photo while weeping, said: “My son was guilty of being at home; We live opposite the explosion site, and seven of our neighbors died in our building. Who will do us justice?”
Families held banners demanding the “overthrow of the police regime,” stressing that “justice will happen” and “failing to speak up is a crime.”
They stood in solidarity with Bitar, who resumed his work despite the political disruption deterring his investigation into one of Lebanon’s biggest disasters.
Families called on the Higher Judicial Council to protect the course of the investigation and put an end to political pressure on Bitar that aims to implement the agenda of the political class.
They held the security agencies responsible for the safety of the judge as well as private documents relating to the case.
Some Reformist MPs joined the angry victims’ families and met caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury to discuss the move against Bitar.
The meeting devolved into a heated exchange and state security officers, who are duty-bound to protect the minister, restrained the MPs.
Angry protesters broke into the Ministry of Justice, throwing rocks and unlocking an access gate, allowing crowds to enter. However, riot police struck back by hitting demonstrators with batons, causing several injuries.
Lawyer and activist Wassef Harake was seen handcuffed and dragged by security officers inside the justice palace building.
MP Adib Abdel Massih told protesters that he was assaulted by security agents and had his phone seized.
MP Paula Yaacoubian said: “This is a lunatic asylum and justice is being evaded.”
MP Mark Daou said: “Oueidat’s move is a coup; This is not judicial work; it is political.” He denied that MPs interfered with the judiciary.
Among those released by Oueidat was Beirut Port head of security Mohammad Ziad Al-Ouf, a dual US Lebanese citizen.
According to security and judiciary sources, several Lebanese citizens received messages from the US warning that they will be subject to the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act if fail to address the fate of American national Al-Ouf, who was detained without trial for two and a half years. “Arbitrary arrest rules apply to Al-Ouf and his file has reached Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and currently awaits his signature,” the message said.
In the event that Blinken signs the file, sanctions will be imposed on the Lebanese state, and penalties will be imposed on those who interfered with the case, including judges and ministers.
Activist Nizar Zakka, who was wrongfully detained in Iranian prisons for years, tweeted: “US citizen Ziad Al-Ouf, freed from unlawful detention in Lebanon for more than two years, is thankfully on his way home to the US.
“He will finally be reunited with his family.”
A photo of Al-Ouf smiling onboard a plane next to his family circulated on Wednesday night shortly after his release.
Oueidat imposed a travel ban on detainees who were released, justifying his move to journalists on Thursday, saying: “Implementing a travel ban requires five hours.”
Beirut blast victims’ relatives rally for embattled probe judge
https://arab.news/28yuh
Beirut blast victims’ relatives rally for embattled probe judge
- The recent developments have led to a standoff between the two judges, who each claim the other is breaking the law, crippling Lebanon’s judiciary
- Willam Noun, spokesman for the families of the Beirut Port Blast victims, told Arab News: “It was an unexpected decision that we are not contented with”
Iran’s Khamenei hails US university students for Gaza support
- Universities in the US were rocked by pro-Palestinian demonstrations in April, triggering campus clashes with police and the arrest of dozens of people
“You have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front,” said Khamenei, referring to Tehran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East arrayed against arch-foe Israel which is also known as the Axis of Resistance.
“As the page of history is turning, you are standing on the right side of it,” he said in a letter published on his official website on Thursday.
Universities in the United States were rocked by pro-Palestinian demonstrations in April, triggering campus clashes with police and the arrest of dozens of people.
The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York and later spread across the country as well as to Europe and elsewhere.
Tehran has reiterated support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip.
The assault resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry
Regional tensions have since soared, drawing in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Tit-for-tat escalations led to Tehran launching hundreds of missiles and rockets directly at Israel last month.
Rafah battles intensify as Israel takes over Gaza-Egypt border strip
- The Israeli military launched its incursion into Rafah in early May despite international objections over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there
RAFAH: Rafah residents reported intense artillery shelling and gunfire Thursday in Gaza’s far-southern city after Israel said it had seized a strategic corridor on the Palestinian territory’s border with Egypt.
The Israeli military launched its incursion into Rafah in early May despite international objections over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
A strike over the weekend that started a fire and killed dozens in a displacement camp drew a wave of fresh condemnation, including a social media campaign with the slogan “All eyes on Rafah” that has been shared by tens of millions of users.
Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari announced Israel had taken “operational control” of the narrow border area, where he said troops had “discovered around 20 tunnels.”
Egypt, a longtime mediator in the conflict which has become increasingly vocal in its criticism of the Israeli operation, has rejected claims of smuggling tunnels running beneath the buffer zone.
“Israel is using these allegations to justify continuing the operation on the Palestinian city of Rafah and prolonging the war for political purposes,” a high-level Egyptian source was quoted as saying by state-linked Al-Qahera News.
Egyptian officials have said a potential Israeli takeover of Philadelphi could violate the two countries’ landmark 1979 peace deal, though there has been no official comment from Cairo since the military’s announcement.
On a visit in Beijing, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for increased humanitarian assistance to besieged Gaza, and reiterated his country’s longstanding opposition to “any attempt at forcing Palestinians to forcibly flee their land.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, meanwhile, called on Thursday for a “broad-based, authoritative and effective international peace conference” to address the war, as he hosted Arab leaders including El-Sisi.
On the ground in the Gaza Strip, witnesses reported fighting in central and western Rafah.
Witnesses also said Israeli forces had demolished several buildings in the city’s eastern areas where the Israeli incursion began on May 7, initially focusing on the vital Rafah border crossing, a key entry point for humanitarian aid.
An AFP correspondent reported artillery and gunfire in Gaza City’s southern neighborhood of Zeitun, in the territory’s north, where witnesses saw thick plumes of smoke rising over Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahia.
A steady stream of civilians have fled Rafah, transporting their belongings on their shoulders, in cars or on donkey-drawn carts.
Before the Rafah offensive began, the United Nations said up to 1.4 million people were sheltering there. Since then, one million have fled the area, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported late Wednesday that two of its paramedics “were killed as a result of the Israeli occupation’s direct bombing” of an ambulance near Rafah.
The weekend Israeli strike and ensuing fire which tore through the camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, killed 45 people, according to Gaza officials and has prompted two days of discussions at the UN Security Council.
Israel has said it targeted a Hamas compound and killed two senior members.
In the wake of the strike, Algeria presented a draft UN resolution that “demands an immediate ceasefire respected by all parties” and the release of all hostages, but it was not clear when it would be put to a vote.
In a phone call with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday, France’s Emmanuel Macron said Paris was “determined to work with Algeria” to ensure the council “makes a strong statement on Rafah.”
He also called on Abbas to “implement necessary reforms,” offering the “prospect of recognition of the state of Palestine.”
Decisions by Spain, Norway and Ireland to formally recognize the State of Palestine this week have sparked a debate over the issue, and Macron said it should take place at a “useful moment.”
Israel’s has killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza since October 7, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the war could go on until the year’s end.
“We may have another seven months of fighting to consolidate our success and achieve what we have defined as the destruction of Hamas’s power and military capabilities,” Hanegbi said.
The United States has been among the countries urging Israel to refrain from a full-scale Rafah offensive because of the risk to civilians.
However, the White House said Tuesday that so far it had not seen Israel cross President Joe Biden’s “red lines.”
The New York Times and CNN, citing weapons experts and analysis of video from the scene of the weekend Rafah strike, reported that the bomb believed to have started the fatal fire was a US-made GBU-39 guided munition.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel to quickly devise a post-war strategy for Gaza, stressing: “In the absence of a plan for the day after, there won’t be a day after.”
Iran opens registration period for presidential election after Raisi’s fatal helicopter crash
- The election comes as Iran grapples with the aftermath of the May 19 crash
- The five-day period will see those between the ages of 40 to 75 with at least a master’s degree register as potential candidates
TEHRAN: Iran opened a five-day registration period Thursday for hopefuls wanting to run in the June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this month with seven others.
The election comes as Iran grapples with the aftermath of the May 19 crash, as well as heightened tensions between Tehran and the United States, and protests including those over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini that have swept the country.
While Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, maintains final say over all matters of state, presidents in the past have bent the Islamic Republic of Iran toward greater interaction or increased hostility with the West.
The five-day period will see those between the ages of 40 to 75 with at least a master’s degree register as potential candidates. All candidates ultimately must be approved by Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei. That panel has never accepted a woman, for instance, nor anyone calling for radical change within the country’s governance.
Raisi, a protege of Khamenei, won Iran’s 2021 presidential election after the Guardian Council disqualified all of the candidates with the best chance to potentially challenge him. That vote saw the lowest turnout in Iran’s history for a presidential election. That likely was a sign of voters’ discontent with both a hard-line cleric sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in mass executions in 1988, and Iran’s Shiite theocracy over four decades after its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Who will run — and potentially be accepted — remains in question. The country’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, a previously behind-the-scenes bureaucrat, could be a front-runner, because he’s already been seen meeting with Khamenei. Also discussed as possible aspirants are former hard-line President Mohammad Ahmadinejad and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami — but whether they’d be allowed to run is another question.
The five-day registration period will close on Tuesday. The Guardian Council is expected to issue its final list of candidates within 10 days afterwards. That will allow for a shortened two-week campaign before the vote in late June.
The new president will take office while the country now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a drone and missile attack on Israel amid the war in Gaza. Tehran also has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.
Meanwhile, Iran’s economy has faced years of hardship over its collapsing rial currency. Widespread protests have swept the country, most recently over Amini’s death following her arrest over allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf to the liking of authorities, A UN panel says the Iranian government is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.
Raisi is just the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the Islamic Revolution.
Egypt’s El-Sisi calls to ensure Gazans not ‘forcibly displaced’
- El-Sisi’s comments come after the Israeli army said it had gained “operational control” over the strategic Philadelphi corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt
Beijing: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday urged the international community to ensure Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are not displaced from their war-ravaged territory.
“I... call on the international community to immediately provide for long-term humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip and to end the Israeli siege,” El-Sisi told a forum of Arab leaders and Chinese officials in Beijing.
He also urged the international community to “stop any attempt at forcing Palestinians to forcibly flee their land.”
China is this week hosting El-Sisi and several other Arab leaders for a forum at which discussions on the war in Gaza were expected.
El-Sisi’s comments come after the Israeli army said Wednesday it had gained “operational control” over the strategic Philadelphi corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
The corridor had served as a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt, and Israeli troops patrolled it until 2005, when they were withdrawn as part of a broader disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Its seizure comes weeks after Israeli forces took control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on May 7 as their ground assault on the far-southern Gaza city began.
El-Sisi on Thursday said there was “no pathway to peace and stability in the region” without a “comprehensive approach to the Palestinian cause.”
He called for a “serious and immediate commitment to the two-state solution and a recognition of the Palestinians’ legitimate right to an independent state.”
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
French PM Macron urges Abbas to ‘reform’ Palestinian Authority with ‘prospect of recognition’
- In a statement, Macron said France supports “a reformed and strengthened Palestinian Authority, able to carry out its responsibilities throughout the Palestinian territories"
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron urged Palestinian Authority chief Mahmud Abbas to “implement necessary reforms,” offering the “prospect of recognition of the state of Palestine” during a phone call Wednesday, his office said.
Macron “highlighted France’s commitment to building a common vision of peace with European and Arab partners, offering security guarantees for Palestinians and Israelis,” as well as “making the prospect of recognition of a state of Palestine part of a useful process,” Macron’s Elysee Palace said.
The readout of the call with the chief of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank follows Tuesday’s official recognition for a Palestinian state by fellow European nations Spain, Ireland and Norway, which drew ire from Israel.
Macron’s Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne earlier Wednesday accused France’s neighbors of “political positioning” ahead of June 9 European elections, rather than seeking a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Macron had said Tuesday that he would be prepared to recognize a Palestinian state, but such a move should “come at a useful moment” and not be based on “emotion.”
France supports “a reformed and strengthened Palestinian Authority, able to carry out its responsibilities throughout the Palestinian territories, including in the Gaza Strip, for the benefit of the Palestinian people,” Macron told Abbas on Wednesday, according to the Elysee Palace readout.
Abbas’s office said in a statement that he expressed the Palestinian government’s commitment to “reform” during the talks with Macron.
He called on “European countries that have not recognized the state of Palestine to do so.”
Current fighting in Gaza, controlled by the PA’s rival Hamas, was sparked by the militant group’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the Israeli army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Macron called civilian casualties “intolerable” and offered his “sincere condolences to the Palestinian people” for the bombing of a displaced people’s camp in Rafah in southern Gaza.
He told Abbas that Paris was “determined to work with Algeria and its partners on the UN Security Council” so the body “makes a strong statement on Rafah.”
Algeria’s draft resolution calls on Israel to immediately halt military action in Rafah.
