BEIRUT: Morgan Ortagus, US deputy special envoy to the Middle East, caused controversy following her meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday, after making comments about militant group Hezbollah.
Ortagus, who arrived in Beirut on Thursday evening, emphasized “US commitment to strengthening close relations with Lebanon.”
However, she told reporters that she believes excitement from the Lebanese diaspora about the future of Lebanon “is largely in part, of course, because Hezbollah was defeated by Israel. And we are grateful to our ally, Israel, for defeating Hezbollah.
“But it’s also thanks to you, thanks to the Lebanese people. It is thanks to President Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam, and everyone in this government who is committed to an end of corruption, who is committed to reforms and who are committed to making sure that Hezbollah is not a part of this government in any form, and that Hezbollah remains disarmed and militarily defeated.”
She continued: “That, of course, starts with the pressure that US President Donald Trump is now placing on the Islamic Republic of Iran so that they can no longer fund their terror proxies through the region.”
Ortagus added: “We will be working again to make sure that the Islamic Republic of Iran doesn’t achieve a nuclear weapon and that they are unable to inflict chaos and harm into this country and to so many other countries around the region, which they were allowed to do for decades. That ends with President Trump.
“We’re incredibly hopeful that hope comes because we know that we have men and women of character, of resilience, of transparency. The men and women of character in this government will ensure that we start to end corruption. That we end influence from Hezbollah and that we embark on the reforms for Lebanon, that all of you, the people of Lebanon, deserve.”
Ortagus said she informed Aoun that “we don’t want to look at Lebanon as a donor country. You’re a beautiful, sophisticated country that deserves to have the most impressive businessmen and women, the most impressive businesses, companies and country from around the world investing in here. We want to get to Lebanon, back to that place where it is, the place and the hope of the Middle East. And I know we’ll get there together.”
Asked about the US stance on Hezbollah’s potential inclusion in the upcoming Lebanese government, Ortagus said: “I am certainly not afraid of Hezbollah. I am not afraid of them because they have been defeated militarily. We have set clear red lines in the US, and they will not be able to terrorize the Lebanese people, and that includes by being part of the government. The end of Hezbollah’s reign of terror in Lebanon and around the world has started, and it is over.”
The US, she said, “is committed to the Feb. 18 deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. This date is part of negotiations I had with my partner Eric Trager at the National Security Council, and with the Lebanese government and the Israeli government. Feb. 18 will be the day for redeployment, whenever the IDF troops finish their redeployment and, of course, the Lebanese troops will come in behind them. We are very committed to that firm date.”
Aoun told Ortagus that “the permanent stability in southern Lebanon hinges on Israel’s full withdrawal from the recently occupied territories and the implementation of Resolution 1701 in all its aspects, including the provisions of the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Nov. 27.”
Aoun said: “Israeli attacks must cease. The killing of innocent civilians and soldiers, the destruction of homes, and bulldozing and burning of agricultural lands must stop.” He also pointed out that “the release Lebanese hostages is an integral part of the agreement.”
He added: “The Lebanese Army is prepared to deploy in the evacuated villages and towns, and Israel must adhere to the Feb. 18 deadline for completing its withdrawal.
“Our cooperation with UNIFIL is ongoing and focused on implementing Resolution 1701, aiming to establish stability and gradually restore life to the areas liberated from occupation.
“These areas require a comprehensive reconstruction plan, including essential means of livelihood for returnees, following the extensive damage caused by Israeli aggression to crops and property.”
Aoun’s media office said that he and Ortagus discussed the formation of the Lebanese government. The president emphasized that “the consultations to form the government are nearing completion, with the goal of creating a harmonious and effective government that will meet the hopes and aspirations of the Lebanese people, as outlined in my oath speech.”
Hezbollah supporters expressed their discontent with Ortagus’s statements, gathering outside Beirut’s Rafic Harari International Airport for a sit-in to protest her remarks.
Other Hezbollah activists criticized Ortagus’s ring bearing the star of David, which was visible when she was shaking Aoun’s hand.
The US envoy subsequently headed to southern Lebanon accompanied by a US delegation. Along with a number of Lebanese Army officers, she inspected the area where the Lebanese military has been redeployed.
This is Ortagus’s first visit to Lebanon. It came in parallel with an Israeli raid on Friday afternoon on Baysarieh in the Zahrani region, north of the Litani Line, following a violent day of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, Bekaa and the Syrian border, breaching the ceasefire agreement.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said that “the Israeli Army carried out bombings in two stages on Kfarkila.”
An explosion occurred in a house in Tayr Harfa, which witnessed the Israeli army’s withdrawal, killing two adults and several kids. According to the security bodies, it appeared that the house had been previously booby-trapped by the Israeli forces.
The Lebanese Army sent reinforcements to the Kald Al-Sabeh area in the Hermel barrens following tensions in the area, due to confrontation between the Bekaa tribes and Syrian Arab Republic forces.
Syrian personnel pushed into the villages of Al-Fadiliya, Blouza, Jermash and Hawik, to reinforce their presence in the Lebanese-inhabited Assi basin villages inside the Syrian territory.
US envoy’s anti-Hezbollah stance causes controversy in Lebanon
https://arab.news/ce4v2
US envoy’s anti-Hezbollah stance causes controversy in Lebanon
- Ortagus told reporters that she believes excitement from the Lebanese diaspora about the future of Lebanon “is largely in part, of course, because Hezbollah was defeated by Israel”
- Ortagus said she informed Aoun that “we don’t want to look at Lebanon as a donor country”
Why efforts to protect children from early marriage have faltered in the Middle East
- Conflicts, disasters, and rising conservatism have rolled back women’s rights, says Oxfam’s Hadeel Qazzaz
- Despite laws setting 18 as the minimum marriage age in many Arab countries, legal loopholes undermine progress
LONDON: In a bid to protect the rights of children, Kuwait recently raised the minimum age of marriage to 18. However, the fight against child marriage across the Arab world remains an uphill battle, particularly in conflict-ridden regions.
In mid-February, Kuwait amended its Personal Status Law No. 51/1984 and Jaafari Personal Status Law No. 124/2019, citing alarming rates of child marriage. In 2024 alone, 1,145 underage marriages were registered, including 1,079 girls and 66 boys.
The move aligns with the Gulf state’s international commitments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Under the principles of both conventions and other international treaties, child marriage is widely recognized as a harmful practice, and a violation of human rights that only deepens gender inequality, particularly as it affects girls more than boys.
“Child marriage is a human rights violation,” Hadeel Qazzaz, Oxfam’s Middle East North Africa regional gender coordinator, told Arab News. “It impacts the life of the child.”
She explained that child marriage denies girls the chance to pursue education or employment, strips them of decision-making power, and denies them both bodily autonomy and reproductive choice.
“It does not only impact the child’s life but also the life of her family and her future children,” said Qazzaz. “Girl brides are more likely to be subjected to different forms of gender-based violence and to be less engaged at the family, community, or society levels.”
According to New York-based monitor Human Rights Watch, research shows that underage brides are at a higher risk of experiencing domestic violence, marital rape, and restricted access to reproductive healthcare and education.
UN agencies say a staggering 70 percent of married girls aged 15 to 19 experience physical or other forms of violence at the hands of their husbands.
Compounding the issue, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries. Girls aged 15 to 20 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as those in their 20s, while girls under 15 face a fivefold risk.
Pregnancy and domestic responsibilities often prevent girls from ever returning to education, Human Rights Watch warned. This lack of education limits their choices and opportunities throughout their lives, often leading to poverty.
The impact of child marriage extends beyond the individuals themselves, affecting the region’s economy as well.
A 2020 study by the International Monetary Fund found that eliminating child marriage could boost annual per capita gross domestic product growth in emerging and developing countries by 1.05 percentage points in the long term.
Nevertheless, child marriage remains a scourge across the Middle East and North Africa, hitting war zones and post-conflict societies the hardest.
The MENA region is home to 40 million child brides, with one in five marrying before the age of 18 and one in 25 before 15, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF. In recent years, girls have been married off at a rate of around 700,000 per year.
“These are alarming figures that can increase with fragility, conflicts, and natural disasters,” said Oxfam’s Qazzaz.
The five countries with the highest child marriage rates in the region are Yemen at 30 percent, Iraq at 28 percent, Iran at 17 percent, Egypt at 16 percent, and Morocco at 14 percent.
According to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the lack of legal protections, the impact of societal norms, poverty, and deep-rooted gender inequality are the key drivers of child marriage in the Arab world.
Many countries in the region have set the minimum age of marriage at 18, with some allowing exceptions based on judicial or parental consent. But even where minimum-age laws exist, exceptions often undermine their effectiveness.
In Iraq, for example, the problem is expected to worsen after authorities passed amendments to the personal status law in January, which indirectly legalize the marriage of girls as young as 9, sparking condemnation both domestically and abroad.
Although Iraqi law sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage, the amendments give Islamic courts greater authority to decide. Clerics could interpret Islamic law to allow such marriages under the Jaafari school followed by many religious authorities in Iraq.
Equality Now, a global feminist advocacy organization, warned that the amendments risk exacerbating existing gaps in Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law.
The group said the shift would create a fragmented legal system, with protections for children and women varying significantly across communities.
According to UNICEF, child marriage rates in Iraq vary widely by region, with Missan (43.5 percent), Najaf (37.2 percent), and Karbala (36.8 percent) reporting the highest rates.
“Fragmentation of laws creates loopholes that undermine the welfare of the most vulnerable, particularly girls, and weakens the state’s ability to uphold international human rights commitments,” Dima Dabbous, Equality Now’s MENA representative, said in a statement.
Conflict and displacement across parts of the MENA region, including Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, and the Palestinian territories, worsen inequalities that make girls vulnerable to child marriage and its consequences.
Oxfam’s Qazzaz pointed out that conflict is “one of the main reasons” for the rising rates across MENA countries. “In the Gaza Strip, where child marriage was less common, there is now a noticeable increase in the number of marriages,” she said.
“The reasons vary from fear for the safety of the girl to scarcity of resources that force families to marry their daughters to others who can provide for them.”
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, Gaza has been under intense Israeli bombardment and a strict blockade of humanitarian aid and consumer goods.
After 16 months of war, Gaza’s population — 90 percent of whom have been displaced — are now fully reliant on what limited aid can get through.
While the January ceasefire has improved conditions in the embattled enclave, Israel’s recent decision to again suspend the entry of assistance threatens to reverse progress, aid agencies warn.
The situation for girls is similarly dire in Yemen — a hotspot for child marriage, where there is no legal minimum marriage age. The ongoing civil war, which began in 2014, has stalled efforts to establish one.
According to UN figures, the war has displaced more than 4.5 million people, and 21.6 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
The economic strain of displacement and conflict, coupled with pre-existing cultural norms favoring early marriage, has significantly increased underage marriages.
“In the MENA region, it’s not just conflicts that impact child marriage — economic and natural disasters, as well as the rise in conservatism and the regression of women’s rights, also play a role,” Qazzaz said.
Owing to the rise in conservatism and geopolitical tensions, “the achievements women’s rights organizations have gained through years of activism are at risk of being reversed,” she added.
Sudan, for instance, already saw high rates of child marriage and female genital mutilation even before the civil war erupted in April 2023.
Despite efforts to curb these harmful practices, 21 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 were already married before the war began, according to UNICEF.
The ongoing hostilities, mass displacement, worsening economic conditions, and declining education threaten to deepen the crisis facing women and girls.
Since fighting erupted between rival factions of Sudan’s military government, more than 12.5 million people have been displaced, either within the country or to neighboring countries including Egypt and Ethiopia.
Similarly, in Syria, 13 percent of women aged 20 to 25 were married as minors before the 2011 conflict broke out, according to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
However, more than a decade of war and displacement has significantly increased the rate of child marriage. Today, an estimated 41 percent of Syrian girls are married before the age of 18.
“Traditions, honor, economics, fear, and protection-related factors act as drivers of child marriage of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon,” said Qazzaz.
Around 6.2 million Syrian refugees live in neighboring countries, including Turkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, where most endure harsh living conditions, leading to a rise in child marriage as a coping mechanism.
In Jordan’s Zaatari camp, home to 80,000 Syrian refugees, girls as young as 13 are reportedly married to much older men. In Lebanon, 18 percent of adolescent Syrian refugee girls were married in 2014, according to UN figures.
National governments and international aid agencies are nonetheless working to improve the circumstances of women and girls and to protect them from early marriage. Oxfam, for instance, is a global partner of the Girls Not Brides campaign.
“Most of our feminist and women rights partners work on child marriage as a major form of gender-based violence and seek to raise the age of marriage to 18,” Qazzaz said. “They document and challenge social and legal practices that allow for child marriage.”
Oxfam’s efforts in Yemen, in particular, have led to significant progress in raising awareness and influencing policy.
Through Oxfam’s work on sexual and reproductive health and rights, Qazzaz added: “We built youth networks in six countries to advocate for their rights and lead awareness campaigns, including the right to choose when and whom to marry.”
Yemen Houthi rebel media accuse US of attacking airport
- Three attacks had targeted the airport in Hodeida on the Red Sea coast
SANAA: Houthi militant media in Yemen accused the United States Saturday of attacking the airport in Hodeida, the latest such claim since Washington announced heavy strikes against the rebels one week ago.
Al-Masirah TV, blaming “American aggression,” said three attacks had targeted the airport in Hodeida on the Red Sea coast.
Between Wednesday and Friday the Iran-backed militants’ television channel made similar accusations, after United States Central Command on Wednesday confirmed “continuous operations” against the militants and President Donald Trump said they will be “annihilated.”
On March 15 the United States announced a wave of air strikes that officials said killed senior Houthi leaders, and which the militants’ health ministry said killed 53 people.
The strikes, the first since Trump resumed office, came after the militants threatened to renew attacks on Israeli shipping.
On Khartoum front line, Sudan women medics risk all for patients
- Their operating theaters were turned into battlegrounds, their hospitals bombed, and their colleagues killed where they stood. Yet through bombs and bullets, they turned up for their patients every day
OMDURMAN: When fighting first gripped the Sudanese capital in April 2023, quickly overwhelming Khartoum’s hospitals, Dr. Safaa Ali faced an impossible choice: her family or her patients.
She said she stayed up all night before deciding not to follow her husband to Egypt with her four children.
“I was torn. I could either be with my children or stay and do my duty,” she said.
She has not seen her family since.
Nearly two years into the war between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces, she is one of the last remaining obstetricians in the capital, risking her life to give Sudanese women a shot at safe births.
We find strength in our love of our country, our passion for our work, and the oath we swore,” she said in a war-damaged delivery room.
Dr. Safaa Ali
“We find strength in our love of our country, our passion for our work, and the oath we swore,” she said in a war-damaged delivery room.
She is one of a cohort of doctors, nurses, technicians, and janitorial staff who met in the last hospitals in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city just across the Nile.
Their operating theaters were turned into battlegrounds, their hospitals bombed, and their colleagues killed where they stood. Yet through bombs and bullets, they turned up for their patients every day.
Bothaina Abdelrahman has been a janitor at Omdurman’s Al-Nao hospital for 27 years.
She sheltered with her family in a neighboring district for the first 48 hours of the war but has not missed a day of work since.
“I would walk two hours to the hospital and walk two hours back,” she said at the hospital, mop in hand.
For months, medical personnel have been subjected to routine accusations from combatants that they have been collaborating with the enemy or failing to treat their comrades.
“Health professionals were attacked, kidnapped, killed, and taken hostage for ransom,” said Dr. Khalid Abdelsalam, Khartoum project coordinator for medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF.
Nationwide, up to 90 percent of hospitals in conflict zones have been forced shut, according to Sudan’s doctors’ union, which says at least 78 health workers have been killed since the war began. By October, the World Health Organization had recorded 119 attacks on health facilities.
“At one point, there wasn’t a single working MRI machine in the country” for medical scans, said Abdelsalam.
Despite repeated attacks, Khansa Al-Moatasem heads the 180-person nursing team at Al-Nao, Omdurman’s only hospital functioning throughout the war.
“It’s an honor to give the hospital everything I have and learned,” she said, pink headscarf glowing under the fluorescent lights.
According to MSF, which supports the complex of two-story buildings, Al-Nao has suffered three direct hits since the war began.
A sign reads: “No weapons allowed,” but it frequently goes unheeded at the hospital gates.
After the RSF stormed the nearby maternity hospital early in the war, Dr. Ali, who serves as the hospital’s director, steeled her nerves and went to the paramilitary forces herself.
“I met their field commander and told him this was a women’s hospital, only for them to storm it again the next day with even more fighters,” she recalled.
In July 2023, she watched one of her colleagues die when the hospital was bombed.
Eventually, the hospital was forced to close its doors after its ceilings collapsed, its equipment was looted, and the walls of its delivery rooms were left riddled with bullets.
Dr. Ali set up mobile clinics and a temporary maternity ward at Al-Nao until the Saudi hospital partially reopened this month.
Since army forces recaptured much of Omdurman in early 2024, a semblance of normality has slowly returned, but hospitals have continued to come under attack.
As recently as February, Al-Nao was rocked by RSF shelling as its exhausted doctors raced to treat dozens of casualties from RSF artillery fire on a crowded market.
Those hospitals that still function have been forced to rely increasingly on the help of volunteers from the local Emergency Response Rooms. The neighborhood groups are part of a grassroots aid network delivering frontline aid across Sudan but mainly comprise young Sudanese with few resources.
With no senior physicians left, Dr. Fathia Abdelmajed, a pediatrician for 40 years, has become the “mother” of Al-Buluk Hospital.
For years, she treated patients at home in the Bant neighborhood of Omdurman.
But since November 2023, she has been training teams at the small, overwhelmed hospital, “where hardworking young people were struggling since the start of the war,” Abdelmajed said.
She said the work was often harrowing, but the honor of serving alongside such dedicated volunteers “has made this the highlight of my career.”
Thailand ‘disappointed’ by renewed Gaza hostilities
- Israel has said it will pound the Palestinian territory until Hamas releases the remaining hostages held there, despite many inside Israel believing that this strategy will only endanger the captives’ lives
BANGKOK: Thailand has said it is “disappointed” by the return to hostilities in Gaza and called for the release of hostages, including a Thai national.
Israel on Tuesday began a fresh assault on the war-battered enclave, shattering the relative calm since a Jan. 19 ceasefire.
The strikes, by far the deadliest since the truce took effect in January, have killed more than 500 people, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
At least 130 Palestinians were killed and 263 wounded in the past 48 hours of Israel’s offensive on Gaza, the ministry said on Saturday.
“Thailand is profoundly concerned about and disappointed at the return to hostilities in the Gaza Strip,” said a Thai Foreign Ministry statement.
The Southeast Asian nation urged “all sides to exercise utmost restraint, cease the hostilities, and resume negotiations to implement the ceasefire and hostage agreement.”
It called for the release of remaining hostages in Gaza — including one Thai — and the repatriation of the bodies of two Thai nationals.
When Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, 31 Thais were abducted, with 23 released by the end of that year and two confirmed dead in May.
Five more abducted Thais returned home in February following their release as part of the January ceasefire, with one Thai national still believed to be alive in Gaza. Israel has said it will pound the Palestinian territory until Hamas releases the remaining hostages held there, despite many inside Israel believing that this strategy will only endanger the captives’ lives.
Ghassan Al-Khatib, a Palestinian political analyst and former Palestinian Authority minister, believes Hamas will only release hostages if it is given guarantees that Israel will uphold the terms of the stalled January ceasefire.
“If the hostages are released under the pressure of the Israeli attacks, then Hamas will be (left) with no guarantees,” he said.
“Hamas will not trust any word from Israel, but the guarantees should come from third parties” such as mediators Egypt, the US or Qatar, Al-Khatib added.
The governments of Germany, France and Britain called for an immediate return to a ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement that also called on Israel to restore humanitarian access.
“We call on Israel to restore humanitarian access, including water and electricity, and ensure access to medical care and temporary medical evacuations in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the foreign ministers of the three countries, known as the E3, said in a statement.
The ministers said they were “appalled by the civilian casualties,” and also called on Palestinian Hamas militants to release Israeli hostages.
They said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could not be resolved through military means, and that a long-lasting ceasefire was the only credible pathway to peace.
The ministers added that they were “deeply shocked” by the incident that affected the UN Office for Project Services, UNOPS, building in Gaza, and called for an investigation into the incident.
Israel anti-government protests flare after dismissal of top security agency chief
- Protesters waved blue and white Israeli flags and called for a deal that would see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages being held in Gaza
- “The most dangerous enemy of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu,” protester Moshe Haaharony
TEL AVIV: Thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday against the decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service and resume fighting in Gaza.
Netanyahu said this week he had lost confidence in Ronen Bar, who has led Shin Bet since 2021, and intended to fire him effective April 10, prompting three days of protests.
Israel’s Supreme Court issued an injunction on Friday temporarily freezing the dismissal.
Netanyahu has dismissed accusations the decision was politically motivated, but his critics have accused him of undermining the institutions underpinning Israel’s democracy by seeking Bar’s removal.
Israel returned to war in Gaza this week, shattering a ceasefire that saw the exchange of hostages being held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and brought respite to the battered enclave.
In Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, protesters waved blue and white Israeli flags and called for a deal that would see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
“The most dangerous enemy of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu,” protester Moshe Haaharony, 63, told Reuters. “Benjamin Netanyahu, for 20 years, doesn’t care about the country, doesn’t care about the citizens.”
Since the start of the war, there have also been regular protests by families and supporters of hostages seized by Hamas during the October 7 attack that have sometimes echoed the criticisms of the government.
“We are a year and a half later after we had very fierce fighting in Gaza and Hamas is still in power,” protester Erez Berman, 44, told Reuters. “It still has tens of thousands of fighters. So the Israeli government actually failed in getting its own goals out of the war.”
With the resumption of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, the fate of 59 hostages, as many as 24 of whom are still believed to be alive, remains unclear and protesters said a return to war could see them either killed by their captors or accidentally by Israeli bombardments.
“We’re going to do whatever it takes to bring the hostages home,” Ophir Falk, Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser, told Reuters.
“Hamas unfortunately understands military pressure, and only military pressure. In November 2023 we got over 80 hostages out for one reason, military pressure... The only reason they went back to the negotiating table was military pressure. And that’s what we’re doing right now,” Falk said.
