Fighting escalates along Lebanese border as Hezbollah threatens to strike anywhere in Israel

Above, people watch Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivering a televised address as they sit in a cafe in Beirut on Oct. 15, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 16 October 2024
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Fighting escalates along Lebanese border as Hezbollah threatens to strike anywhere in Israel

  • Sheikh Naim Qassem: ‘We have the right, from a defensive standpoint, to target any point within the Israeli entity’
  • Lebanese citizens have received calls from Israeli authorities ordering them to evacuate their homes and other buildings

BEIRUT: Clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah intensified on Tuesday as an Israeli infantry unit advanced on the outskirts of the border town of Rab El-Thalathine.

At the same time, Israel stepped up its airstrikes on numerous towns in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, resulting in mass casualties.

As tensions continued to escalate, calls by Lebanese politicians for a ceasefire grew and they urged the government to deploy army forces in the border region.

In a televised speech, however, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qassem said “the party (Hezbollah) is strong and united.” Pictured alongside a Lebanese flag and the Hezbollah banner, he warned that “since the enemy has targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right, from a defensive standpoint, to target any point within the Israeli entity.”

He added: “The solution lies in a ceasefire. Following the ceasefire … the settlers will return to the north. However, as long as the conflict persists, the number of uninhabited settlements will increase, placing hundreds of thousands, potentially more than 2 million, at risk.”

Fouad Siniora, a former prime minister of Lebanon, called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities to halt the bloodshed … as well as a complete adherence to the constitution.”

The Kataeb Party called upon “the speaker of the parliament and the prime minister to urgently seek a definitive and unambiguous position from Hezbollah concerning the immediate acceptance of a ceasefire.”

Meanwhile, fighting continues. Hezbollah said its members “engaged in combat with the Israeli forces that infiltrated into the area of Rab El-Thalathine using automatic weapons and missiles, and the clashes are ongoing.”

Fighting also resumed in the border town of Aita Al-Shaab. The Israeli army has tried to cross the Blue Line and enter Lebanese territory in several places. The extent to which incursions have been successful remains unclear, other than video footage released by the Israeli army.

Meanwhile, more than 20 people were killed or injured when an airstrike hit a residential building in the town of Riyaq in Bekaa. Elsewhere, Mohammed Hassan Mashourab, an employee of internet provider Ogero, his wife Ghida Farhat and their children, Raine and Ali, were killed when an airstrike hit their house in the town of Jarjou, in Iqlim Al-Tuffah region.

Israel also targeted Qilya in Western Bekaa with a series of airstrikes, killing three paramedics from Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization. Similar attacks targeted Hosh Al-Sayyid Ali in Hermel, and the border area of Jarmash, near the border with Syria.

Parts of Baalbek in the vicinity of its Roman castle were also hit by airstrikes at dawn, described by residents as “the most violent of all times.” Neighboring Al-Murtada Hospital was severely damaged and forced to close.

Israeli forces said they “eliminated Khader Al-Abed, who was in charge of the area north of the Litani River with Hezbollah’s aerial unit.” Hezbollah did not immediately confirm this.

Israeli reconnaissance planes entered Lebanese airspace over Beirut and its suburbs and thermal balloons were deployed over the capital.

Army forces targeted a residential building in Ayto, a town in the Zgharta district of northern Lebanon and the death toll among civilians there rose to 23 on Tuesday, including women, children and the elderly, some of whom were reportedly “blown to pieces.”

Avichai Adraee, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, again warned residents of southern Lebanon on Tuesday “not to return to their villages in the south or to their olive groves.”

In a joint statement, the World Food Programme and UNICEF said “the humanitarian needs of displaced people in Lebanon are increasing. We need to mobilize efforts to provide additional funding to enable a scaled-up response.” A ceasefire is urgently required, they added.

According to the latest daily report issued by the Lebanese government, 200 Israeli airstrikes were recorded in the past 48 hours, bringing the total number of attacks on Lebanon since the start of hostilities just over a year ago to 9,866. The reported death toll stands at 2,309, with 10,782 people injured and 188,146 displaced and living in more than 1,000 shelters, the majority of them in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

Lebanese citizens have received calls from Israeli authorities ordering them to evacuate their homes and other buildings in specific streets in many Lebanese regions because Hezbollah militants are sheltering in them, which has caused panic among residents.

Some of these calls, described as “psychological warfare,” were reported in Christian areas, including Sin El-Fil, Ballouneh and Hadath, causing chaos among residents and displaced people who thought they were in safe areas.

 


Syria’s de facto leader not interested in new conflicts despite Israeli attacks

Updated 15 December 2024
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Syria’s de facto leader not interested in new conflicts despite Israeli attacks

  • Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, condemned what they called Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights

DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa said on Saturday Israel is using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he is not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focuses on rebuilding following the end of Bashar Assad’s reign.
Sharaa — better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani — leads the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group that swept Assad from power last week, ending the family’s five-decade iron-fisted rule.
Israel has since moved into a demilitarised zone inside Syria created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where it took over an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has said that it does not intend to stay there and calls the incursion into Syrian territory a limited and temporary measure to ensure border security, has also carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles.
Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, condemned what they called Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
“Israeli arguments have become weak and no longer justify their recent violations. The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region,” Sharaa said in an interview published on the website of Syria TV, a pro-opposition channel.
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
He also said diplomatic solutions were the only way to ensure security and stability and that “uncalculated military adventures” were not wanted.
On Russia, whose military intervention almost a decade ago helped tip the balance in Assad’s favor and which gave asylum to the ousted leader earlier this week, Sharaa said that its relations with Syria should serve common interests.
“The current stage requires careful management of international relations,” he added.

 


Lebanon’s Mikati calls on Syrians to return home

Updated 15 December 2024
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Lebanon’s Mikati calls on Syrians to return home

  • “The strain on our resources has been substantial, worsening existing economic trouble,” Mikati said
  • “Today, and after the political transformation in Syria, the best resolution to this issue is for Syrians to go back“

ROME: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called Saturday for Syrians who sought refuge in his country to return home following the fall of Syria’s longtime leader, Bashar Assad.
“The consequences of the Syrian war made Lebanon home to the largest number of refugees per capita, with one-third of our population comprising of Syrian refugees,” Mikati said at a Rome political festival.
“The strain on our resources has been substantial, worsening existing economic trouble and creating fierce competition for jobs and services,” he said in English.
“Today, and after the political transformation in Syria, the best resolution to this issue is for Syrians to go back to their homeland,” he said.
Authorities say Lebanon, population 5.8 million, currently hosts around two million Syrians, while more than 800,000 are registered with the United Nations — the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.
Many fled Syria after its civil war began following the repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
Mikati told a festival held by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party that “the international community, particularly Europe, should assist in the return of Syrians.”
They should do so “by engaging in early recovery efforts in secure areas with Syria,” he said.


Thousands protest in Israel for Gaza hostage deal

Updated 15 December 2024
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Thousands protest in Israel for Gaza hostage deal

  • In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met on Saturday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk

JERUSALEM: Thousands of Israelis demonstrated Saturday for a deal to release the remaining hostages still held in Gaza after more than 14 months of war against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
“We all can agree that we have failed until now and that we can reach an agreement now,” Lior Ashkenazi, a prominent Israeli actor, told a crowd gathered in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
Itzik Horn, whose sons Eitan and Iair are still being held captive in Gaza, said: “End the war, the time has arrived for action and the time has arrived to bring everyone home.”
There has been guarded optimism in recent days that a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza might finally be within reach after months of abortive mediation efforts.
Palestinian militants abducted 251 hostages during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 96 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Qatar, a key mediator in the negotiations, said last week there was new “momentum” for talks.
US Security of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Jordan on Saturday: “This is the moment to finally conclude that agreement.”
In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met on Saturday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk.
“The meeting addressed efforts to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in Gaza,” El-Sisi’s office said.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack last year that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,930 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

 


Palestinian refugees return to Yarmouk amid questions about their place in the new Syria

Updated 14 December 2024
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Palestinian refugees return to Yarmouk amid questions about their place in the new Syria

  • “The new Syrian leadership, how will it deal with the Palestinian issue?” said Palestinian ambassador to Syria Samir Al-Rifai. “We have no information because we have had no contact with each other so far”

DAMASCUS: The Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was considered the capital of the Palestinian diaspora before the war in Syria reduced it to row after row of blasted out buildings where there were once falafel stands, pharmacies and mosques.
Taken over by a series of militant groups then bombarded by government planes, the camp has been all but abandoned since 2018. The buildings that were not destroyed by bombs were demolished by the government or stripped by thieves. Those who wanted to return to rebuild their homes were stymied by Kafkaesque bureaucratic and security requirements.
But bit by bit, the camp’s former occupants have trickled back. After the Dec. 8 fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in a lightening offensive by opposition forces, many more hope they will be able do so.

A Palestinian woman Taghrid Halawi, left, with her two relatives speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, outside Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. (AP)

At the same time, Syria’s Palestinian refugees — a population of about 450,000 — are unsure of their place in the new order.
“The new Syrian leadership, how will it deal with the Palestinian issue?” said Palestinian ambassador to Syria Samir Al-Rifai. “We have no information because we have had no contact with each other so far.”
Days after Assad’s government collapsed, women walked in groups through the streets of Yarmouk while children played in the rubble. Motorcycles, bicycles and the occasional car passed between bombed-out buildings. In one of the less heavily damaged areas, a fruit and vegetable market was doing brisk business.
Some people were coming back for the first time in years to check on their homes. Others had been back before but only now were thinking about rebuilding and returning for good.
Ahmad Al-Hussein left the camp in 2011, soon after the beginning of the anti-government uprising-turned-civil-war. A few months ago, driven by rising rents elsewhere, he came back to live with relatives in a part of the camp that was relatively untouched.
He is now hoping to rebuild his home in a building that was reduced to a hollowed-out shell and marked for demolition.
Under Assad’s rule, getting permission from security agencies to enter the camp “wasn’t easy,” Al-Hussein said. “You would have to sit at a table and answer who’s your mother, who’s your father, and who in your family was arrested and who was with the rebels. … Twenty-thousand questions to get the approval,”
He said people who had been reluctant now want to return, among them his son, who fled to Germany.
Taghrid Halawi came with two other women on Thursday to check on their houses. They spoke wistfully of the days when the streets of the camp used to buzz with life until 3 or 4 a.m.
“You really feel that your Palestine is here, even though you are far from Palestine,” Halawi said. “Even with all this destruction, I feel like it’s like heaven. I hope that everyone returns, all the ones who left the country or are living in other areas.”
Yarmouk was built in 1957 as a Palestinian refugee camp but grew into a vibrant suburb where many working-class Syrians settled. Before the war, some 1.2 million people lived in Yarmouk, including 160,000 Palestinians, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Today, it houses some 8,160 Palestinian refugees who remained or have returned.
Palestinian refugees in Syria are not given citizenship, ostensibly to preserve their right to go back to the homes they fled or were forced from during the 1948 creation of the state of Israel and where they are currently banned from returning.
But in contrast to neighboring Lebanon, where Palestinians are banned from owning property or working in many professions, in Syria, Palestinians historically had all the rights of citizens except the right to vote and run for office — a negligible matter given that the outcome of Syrian elections was largely predetermined.
At the same time, Palestinian factions have had a complicated relationship with Syrian authorities. Former Syrian President Hafez Assad and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat were bitter adversaries. Many Palestinians were imprisoned for belonging to Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Mahmoud Dakhnous, a retired teacher who returned to Yarmouk to check on his demolished house, said he used to be frequently called in for questioning by the Syrian intelligence services.
“Despite their claims that they are with the (Palestinian) resistance, in the media they were, but on the ground the reality was something else,” he said of the Assad dynasty.
In recent years, the Syrian government began to roll back the right of Palestinians to own and inherit property.
As for the country’s new rulers, “we need more time to judge” their stance toward Syria’s Palestinians, Dahknous said.
“But the signs so far in this week, the positions and proposals that are being put forward by the new government are good for the people and the citizens,” he said.
Yarmouk’s Palestinian factions tried to remain neutral when Syria’s civil war broke out, but by late 2012, the camp was pulled into the conflict and different factions took opposing sides.
Since the fall of Assad, the factions have been angling to solidify their relationship with the new government. A group of Palestinian factions said in a statement Wednesday that they had formed a body, headed by the Palestinian ambassador, to manage relations with Syria’s new authorities.
The new leadership — headed by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an Islamic militant group — has not officially commented on the status of Palestinian refugees or regarding its stance toward Israel, which the previous Syrian government never recognized.
The Syrian interim government on Friday sent a complaint to the UN Security Council denouncing the incursion by Israeli forces into Syrian territory in the Golan Heights and their bombardment of multiple areas in Syria. But HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, has said the new administration does not seek a conflict with Israel.
Al-Rifai said the new government’s security forces had entered the offices of three Palestinian factions and removed the weapons that were there, but that it was unclear whether there had been an official decision to disarm Palestinian groups.
“We are fully aware that the new leadership has issues that are more important” than the issue of Palestinian refugees, he said, including “the issue of stability first.”
For now, he said, Palestinians are hoping for the best. “We expect the relationship between us to be a better relationship.”
 

 


Blinken says US has made ‘direct contact’ with Syria’s victorious HTS

Updated 14 December 2024
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Blinken says US has made ‘direct contact’ with Syria’s victorious HTS

  • “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba
  • He did not give details on how the contact took place but when asked if the United States reached out directly, he said: “Direct contact — yes“

AQABA, Jordan: The United States has made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militants despite designating the group as terrorists, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday, as he sought international unity on a peaceful transition.
“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba.
He did not give details on how the contact took place but when asked if the United States reached out directly, he said: “Direct contact — yes.”
Blinken said that the contact was partly related to the search for Austin Tice, the US journalist kidnapped in 2012 near the start of the brutal civil war.
“We have pressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home,” Blinken said.
He said that in the dialogue with HTS the United States also “shared the principles” on Syria that he has publicly laid out.
Blinken indicated the United States was open eventually to easing sanctions on Syria but not yet.
Referring to HTS statements since their victory, Blinken said: “We appreciate some of the positive words we heard in recent days, but what matters is action — and sustained action.
“This can’t be a decision on the events of one day,” he said.
If a transition moves forward, “we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we have taken and respond in kind.”
Blinken was closing a regional tour in which he has sought common ground after HTS overthrew Bashar Assad, whose family ruled brutally for half a century.
In Aqaba, Blinken took part in talks that brought together top Arab and European diplomats as well as Turkiye, the main supporter of militant groups in Syria.
In a joint statement, the participants called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process.”
The statement also stressed “respect for human rights,” the importance of combating “terrorism and extremism” and demanded “all parties” cease hostilities in Syria.
“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen earlier told Blinken: “We need to make sure that state institutions do not collapse, and that we get in humanitarian assistance as quickly as possible.”
The United States and other Western governments classify HTS as a terrorist group due to its roots in Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch.
The designation severely impedes activities of businesses and aid workers who risk falling foul of US law enforcement if they are seen as directly supporting a terrorist group.
Since seizing power last weekend, militant leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani has spoken in conciliatory terms about making peace with the broad spectrum of Syrian society.
Some analysts note that HTS has not focused on US or other Western targets.
Few expect a quick move by the United States to lift the terrorist designation, especially with a political transition set next month following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
In Britain, a senior minister said that the government would decide quickly whether to remove the terrorist designation but Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was still “far too early” to do so.
Blinken said that he found hope in the street celebrations in Syrian cities in recent days.
“No one has any illusions about how challenging this time will be, but there’s also something incredibly powerful — the Syrian people determined to break with the past and shape a better future,” he said.
He also hailed the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces for raising the new “independence” flag of the militants, after for years flying their own flag as they achieved limited self-rule.
Blinken said it was for Syrians to decide how to incorporate Kurds in the country but he hailed SDF fighters — who are bitterly opposed by Turkiye — for their role in fighting the Daesh group.