UNITED NATIONS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his leadership strained by conflicts on two fronts, took the UN General Assembly podium on Friday and said he was there to refute the untruths he had heard from other leaders on the same rostrum earlier in the week.
Netanyahu, armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, defended his nation’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
“I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life,” Netanyahu said. “But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight.”
He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: “If you strike us, we will strike you.” He once again blamed Iran for being behind many of the problems in the region.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2.
In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah militants and has inflicted civilian casualties as well. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Hamas invasion, and ongoing fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes.
Late Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days — following 11 months of cross-border exchange of fire — could grow into an all-out war.
The United Nations says over 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, bringing the total to 200,000 people who have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war.
Israel has maintained its military operations are justified and are necessary to defend itself.
As Netanyahu took the stage, there was enough ruckus in the audience that the presiding diplomat had to shout, “Order, please.”
The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions. “Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now,” Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. And Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: “This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine.” He thumped the rostrum to audible applause.
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Israel’s Netanyahu, at UN, says he came to refute lies he heard there this week from other leaders
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Israel’s Netanyahu, at UN, says he came to refute lies he heard there this week from other leaders
- “I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life,” Netanyahu said
- He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: “If you strike us, we will strike you”
Dark times under Syria’s Assad hit Arab screens for Ramadan
Dark times under Syria’s Assad hit Arab screens for Ramadan
BEIRUT: A Syrian prison warden screams at a group of chained, crouching inmates in a harrowing scene from one of several Ramadan television series this year that tackle the era of former ruler Bashar Assad.
Talking about Syria’s prisons and the torture, enforced disappearances and executions that took place there was taboo during half a century of the Assad family’s iron-fisted rule, but the topics are now fertile ground for creative productions, though not without controversy.
An abandoned soap factory north of the Lebanese capital Beirut has been transformed into a replica of the basements and corridors of Syria’s Saydnaya prison, a facility synonymous with horror under Assad, for the series “Going Out to the Well.”
Crews were filming the last episodes this week as the Muslim holy month kicked off — primetime viewing in the Arab world, with channels and outlets furiously competing for eager audiences’ attention.
Director Mohammed Lutfi told AFP that “for Syrians, Saydnaya prison is a dark place, full of stories and tales.”
The series focuses on the 2008 prison riots in Saydnaya, “when inmates revolted against the soldiers and took control of the prison, and there were negotiations between them and Syrian intelligence services,” he said.
The military prison, one of Syria’s largest and which also held political prisoners, remains an open wound for thousands of families still looking for traces of their loved ones.
Tragedy into drama
The Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison estimates that some 30,000 people were thrown into the facility after the 2011 uprising against Assad began, but only 6,000 came out after he was toppled.
Amnesty International has described the prison outside Damascus, which was notorious for torture and enforced disappearances, as a “human slaughterhouse.”
In the opening scene of the series, the main character is seen in a tense exchange with his family before jumping into a deep well.
The symbolic scene in part captures the struggles of the detainees’ relatives. Many spent years going from one Assad-era security facility to another in search of their missing family members.
Syrian writer Samer Radwan said on Facebook that he finished writing the series several months before Assad’s fall.
Director Lutfi had previously told AFP that challenges including actors’ fears of the Assad authorities’ reaction had prevented filming until after his ouster.
Since then, productions have jumped on the chance to finally tackle issues related to his family’s brutal rule.
Another series titled “Caesar, no time, no place” presents testimonies and experiences based on true stories from inside Syria’s prisons during the civil war, which erupted in 2011.
But in a statement this week, the Caesar Families Association strongly rejected “transforming our tragedy into dramatic material to be shown on screen.”
“Justice is sought in court, not in film studios,” said the association, whose name refers to thousands of images smuggled out of Syria more than a decade ago showing bodies of people tortured and starved to death in the country’s prisons.
Refugees
Another series, “Governorate 15,” sees two Saydnaya inmates, one Lebanese and one Syrian, leave the facility after Assad’s fall and return to their families.
Producer Marwan Haddad said that the series tackles the period of “the Syrian presence in Lebanon” through the Lebanese character.
The show also addresses the Syria refugee crisis through the story of the Syrian character’s family, who fled to the struggling neighboring country to escape the civil war.
“For years we said we didn’t want Lebanon to be (Syria’s) 15th province” and each person fought it in their own way, said Lebanese screenwriter Carine Rizkallah.
Under Assad’s father Hafez, Syria’s army entered Lebanon in 1976 during the country’s civil war and only left in 2005 after dominating all aspects of Lebanese life for almost three decades.
It was also accused of numerous political assassinations.
Lebanese director Samir Habchy said that the actors represent their “own community’s problems” in the “Lebanese-Syrian series.”
The show could prove controversial because it includes real people who “are still alive and will see themselves” in the episodes, he added.
BEIRUT: A Syrian prison warden screams at a group of chained, crouching inmates in a harrowing scene from one of several Ramadan television series this year that tackle the era of former ruler Bashar Assad.
Talking about Syria’s prisons and the torture, enforced disappearances and executions that took place there was taboo during half a century of the Assad family’s iron-fisted rule, but the topics are now fertile ground for creative productions, though not without controversy.
An abandoned soap factory north of the Lebanese capital Beirut has been transformed into a replica of the basements and corridors of Syria’s Saydnaya prison, a facility synonymous with horror under Assad, for the series “Going Out to the Well.”
Crews were filming the last episodes this week as the Muslim holy month kicked off — primetime viewing in the Arab world, with channels and outlets furiously competing for eager audiences’ attention.
Director Mohammed Lutfi told AFP that “for Syrians, Saydnaya prison is a dark place, full of stories and tales.”
The series focuses on the 2008 prison riots in Saydnaya, “when inmates revolted against the soldiers and took control of the prison, and there were negotiations between them and Syrian intelligence services,” he said.
The military prison, one of Syria’s largest and which also held political prisoners, remains an open wound for thousands of families still looking for traces of their loved ones.
Tragedy into drama
The Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison estimates that some 30,000 people were thrown into the facility after the 2011 uprising against Assad began, but only 6,000 came out after he was toppled.
Amnesty International has described the prison outside Damascus, which was notorious for torture and enforced disappearances, as a “human slaughterhouse.”
In the opening scene of the series, the main character is seen in a tense exchange with his family before jumping into a deep well.
The symbolic scene in part captures the struggles of the detainees’ relatives. Many spent years going from one Assad-era security facility to another in search of their missing family members.
Syrian writer Samer Radwan said on Facebook that he finished writing the series several months before Assad’s fall.
Director Lutfi had previously told AFP that challenges including actors’ fears of the Assad authorities’ reaction had prevented filming until after his ouster.
Since then, productions have jumped on the chance to finally tackle issues related to his family’s brutal rule.
Another series titled “Caesar, no time, no place” presents testimonies and experiences based on true stories from inside Syria’s prisons during the civil war, which erupted in 2011.
But in a statement this week, the Caesar Families Association strongly rejected “transforming our tragedy into dramatic material to be shown on screen.”
“Justice is sought in court, not in film studios,” said the association, whose name refers to thousands of images smuggled out of Syria more than a decade ago showing bodies of people tortured and starved to death in the country’s prisons.
Refugees
Another series, “Governorate 15,” sees two Saydnaya inmates, one Lebanese and one Syrian, leave the facility after Assad’s fall and return to their families.
Producer Marwan Haddad said that the series tackles the period of “the Syrian presence in Lebanon” through the Lebanese character.
The show also addresses the Syria refugee crisis through the story of the Syrian character’s family, who fled to the struggling neighboring country to escape the civil war.
“For years we said we didn’t want Lebanon to be (Syria’s) 15th province” and each person fought it in their own way, said Lebanese screenwriter Carine Rizkallah.
Under Assad’s father Hafez, Syria’s army entered Lebanon in 1976 during the country’s civil war and only left in 2005 after dominating all aspects of Lebanese life for almost three decades.
It was also accused of numerous political assassinations.
Lebanese director Samir Habchy said that the actors represent their “own community’s problems” in the “Lebanese-Syrian series.”
The show could prove controversial because it includes real people who “are still alive and will see themselves” in the episodes, he added.
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