De-escalation eludes Lebanon as Israel and Hezbollah gird for all-out war

Special De-escalation eludes Lebanon as Israel and Hezbollah gird for all-out war
Black smoke billows following an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the Lebanese-Israeli border on June 21, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 25 June 2024
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De-escalation eludes Lebanon as Israel and Hezbollah gird for all-out war

De-escalation eludes Lebanon as Israel and Hezbollah gird for all-out war
  • Cash-strapped country on brink of conflict as US-led diplomatic efforts to find a solution falter
  • Crisis compounds existing problem of internal turmoil, political discord and crumbling economy

BEIRUT: Efforts by American diplomats to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon have hit a dead end, leaving the region perched on the edge of a full-blown war. 

Since the eruption of hostilities on Oct. 8 last year, both sides have intensified their defense preparations, with leaks and official statements signaling that the Israeli military has authorized operational plans for strikes within Lebanese territory.

Meanwhile, reports carried by Hezbollah-aligned media outlets indicate that the powerful Shiite group has prepared extensively for a potential Israeli offensive, planning to counter various military scenarios and thwart attacks on Lebanese soil.

Lebanon, already weighed down by deep political divisions and a crumbling economy, now faces the specter of a devastating conflict that could tear apart its fragile unity. As diplomatic solutions falter, the prospect of war looms larger, raising grave concerns among Lebanese citizens and the international community alike.

Recent footage released by Hezbollah, showing aerial views of Israeli military installations captured by a Hudhud (hoopoe) drone, underscores the group’s formidable capabilities. However, images of Gaza, devastated by repeated Hamas-Israel conflicts, serve as a stark warning of the potential human and economic toll of renewed warfare.




Members of Israeli security forces inspect sites where rockets launched from southern Lebanon fell in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel near the Lebanon border, on June 19, 2024. (AFP)

Since Oct. 8, the Lebanon-Israel border has witnessed almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and allied Palestinian militant groups and Israel’s military that have left more than 400 people dead in Lebanon.

Most of the fatalities were fighters and commanders, but they also included more than 80 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed over the past eight months.

Against this tense backdrop, Hezbollah’s actions affect not only Lebanon but also regional stability, hence its ability to avert or deal with a direct military confrontation with Israel will be crucial in the days ahead.

Last week Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Cyprus against allowing Israel’s military to use its airports on the island to bomb Lebanon should a full-blown war break out. This created a diplomatic crisis of sorts as Cyprus and Lebanon have had close and historic relations for decades, with the island hosting thousands of Lebanese during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

Adding to the sense of impending doom are growing signs of international alarm. Several embassies and diplomatic missions in Lebanon have issued advisories urging their citizens to leave immediately, citing escalating tensions and the risk of broader conflict.

Kuwait’s recent decision to advise against travel to Lebanon reflects a wider trend of concern among foreign governments.

Lebanon’s internal turmoil accentuates its vulnerability. The country has been without a president for nearly two years, relying on a caretaker government unable to make critical decisions amid rampant corruption and economic collapse.

More than half of Lebanon’s population now depends on aid for survival, while the remainder struggles to secure basic necessities such as education, fuel and electricity.




This photograph taken on January 8, 2024 shows a banner depicting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hanging on the building, which was hit by a drone attack on January 2, 2024. (AFP)

The gravity of Lebanon’s predicament was underscored by recent developments at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport. Reports in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper suggested that Hezbollah was using the airport to smuggle large quantities of Iranian weaponry, including short-range missiles — a claim that could potentially make the facility a target for Israeli airstrikes.

In Washington, President Joe Biden’s administration has reportedly reassured Israeli officials of unwavering US support, promising to provide Israel with all necessary security assistance.

This commitment comes amid reports of heightened military movements, including the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean — a move interpreted as a show of force and readiness to back Israel in any military confrontation.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, has issued a stark warning against Lebanon descending into the chaos and destruction witnessed in Gaza. The international community’s fear is palpable, as another conflict in Lebanon could unleash humanitarian and geopolitical consequences that would reverberate across the Middle East and beyond.




Emergency and security service members and residents gather around a car at the site of an Israeli strike in Al-Khiyara town in Lebanon’s Western Bekaa area on June 22, 2024. (AFP)

According to Harith Slieman, an academic and political analyst, Lebanon has effectively been in a state of war since Oct. 8. He believes that in the coming days, Israel may not seek a ground invasion of Lebanon, but could ratchet up hostilities through continued airstrikes, targeting infrastructure that would inflict significant damage.

“The missiles Israel intends to launch are more costly than the facilities they will destroy,” Slieman told Arab News, dismissing the notion of a “balance of terror” maintained by Hezbollah to forestall war.

“Hezbollah’s drones, such as the Hudhud, primarily gather intelligence rather than posing a direct security threat to Israel,” he said.

Slieman also rejects comparisons between Israel’s 1970s-80s-era conflict with the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its current standoff with Hezbollah, arguing that the former was viewed as an existential threat whereas the latter is rooted in security concerns.




An Israeli air force multirole fighter aircraft flies over the border area between northern Israel and southern Lebanon on June 21, 2024. (AFP)

Regarding the displacement of nearly 60,000 residents of northern Israel caused by the cross-border fighting with Hezbollah, Slieman said this was a decision prompted by Israeli fears of an assault similar to the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7 on southern Israel.

He believes that even if Israel pushes Hezbollah north of the Litani River, it would not be able to eliminate the threat to its security entirely. Instead, he suggests, Israel’s strategy aims to exert military pressure on Hezbollah to force negotiations that could relocate its citizens back to safer northern areas, in a tacit acknowledgement of Hezbollah’s entrenched presence in southern Lebanon.

Slieman nevertheless paints a bleak picture of Lebanon’s governance, describing it as in a state of collapse, with Hezbollah wielding substantial influence, Najib Mikati operating as a caretaker prime minister, and Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker, remaining politically beholden to the pro-resistance faction.

He says dealing with the Hezbollah question is a fundamentally internal political matter, and therefore only Lebanese stakeholders can resolve the underlying tensions.




This picture taken late on June 23, 2024 shows Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel. (AFP)

Political observers say Hezbollah’s outsized role in Lebanese politics and its broader regional ambitions complicate efforts to achieve lasting peace. Since the 2006 war with Israel, the group has solidified its position, emerging as a key player in domestic governance and a formidable force in regional conflicts such as Syria’s civil war.

Charles Jabour, head of the Lebanese Forces party’s media and communications wing, laments the deepening polarization within Lebanese society.

Since the withdrawal of Syrian forces in 2005, the country has struggled to forge a unified national identity, with Hezbollah’s influence often seen as exacerbating sectarian tensions.

“The division is stark,” Jabour told Arab News. “Attempts to elect a president have repeatedly faltered, as Hezbollah asserts its own agenda independently of the state.”




Nasrallah, seen here delivering a live-streamed address, has ratcheted up the rhetoric of war in response to the elimination of numerous Hezbollah commanders. (AFP)

Hezbollah’s actions and alliances have also invited international scrutiny and condemnation. Its rejection of the international tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri, coupled with allegations of involvement in illicit activities like drug smuggling and money laundering, have further isolated Lebanon on the global stage.

The threat of war has prompted religious leaders to convene urgent meetings, seeking to address the growing crisis and its potential ramifications. From the headquarters of the Maronite patriarchate, leaders from across Lebanon’s religious spectrum recently called for unity and calm.

In a recent interview with Al-Hadath, Raghida Dergham, founder of the Beirut Institute, warned of Lebanon’s dangerous geopolitical trajectory, highlighted the interconnectedness of regional dynamics, particularly Hezbollah’s ties to Iran and its broader influence across the Middle East.

She said the problem now is one of interpreting Hezbollah’s claim that there is a connection between Gaza and Lebanon. Hamas leader “Yahya Sinwar has 120 hostages while Hassan Nasrallah has 4 million hostages,” Dergham told the current-affairs Arabic TV channel. “The situation is becoming dangerous. What may stop the Lebanon-Israel war is Iran more than America.”

Elaborating on the claim, she said: “As Iran is currently not ready to wage war with Israel and wishes to reconcile with the US administration, I think that Nasrallah worries that some deals are being done behind his back. Therefore, he has got to be extra careful in the way he goes about the matter.”

As Lebanon braces for what many fear is an inevitable conflict, the international community grapples with how best to avert or mitigate the crisis. Calls for diplomatic intervention and mediation grow louder, yet the complex web of regional alliances and historical grievances complicates efforts to find a peaceful resolution.

For now, Lebanon remains on the brink — a nation hamstrung by its own divisions and external pressures. The path forward is uncertain, with the fate of millions hanging in the balance.

As the world watches, hoping for a reprieve from the drums of war, Lebanon’s destiny seems inexorably intertwined with the volatile geopolitics of the Middle East.

 


Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say
Updated 30 sec ago
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Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

BENGHAZI, Libya: At least 29 bodies of migrants have been recovered in two locations in the southeast and west of Libya, a security directorate and the Libyan Red Crescent said on Thursday.
The Alwahat district Security Directorate said in a statement that 19 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in a farm in Jikharra area, some 441 km from Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and said the deaths were related to smuggling activites.
The directorate posted on Facebook pictures showing police officers and Jalu Red Crescent volunteers placing the bodies in black plastic bags.
Separately, the Libyan Red Crescent said on Facebook late Thursday evening that its volunteers recovered the bodies of 10 migrants earlier in the day after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, some 40 km from Tripoli, the capital.
The Red Crescent posted pictures showing volunteers on the dockside placing bodies in white plastic bags, while one volunteer put numbers on one of the bags.
"In the presence of the Public Prosecution Office in Jalu, the directorate was able to recover 19 bodies resulting from smuggling and illegal migration activities in Jikharra area, belonging to a known smuggling network," the directorate said.
It said the bodies were found in a total of three graves on the farm, with one grave holding one body, a second grave holding four bodies, and the remaining 14 bodies found in the third grave.
"The bodies were all referred to a forensic doctor to conduct the necessary tests," the directorate said.
Libya has turned into a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean.
At the end of January, Alwahat Criminal Investigation Department said it had freed 263 migrants from different Sub-Saharan nationalities, saying they were "being held by a smuggling gang in extremely poor human and health conditions."


Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity
Updated 07 February 2025
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Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity
  • First Lt. Farid Al-Madhan was the former head of the forensic evidence department at the military police in Damascus

BEIRUT: A Syrian whistleblower, who smuggled tens of thousands of pictures depicting torture under Bashar Assad, on Thursday revealed his identity for the first time, two months after the longtime ruler was toppled.
“I am First Lt. Farid Al-Madhan, the (former) head of the forensic evidence department at the military police in Damascus, known as Caesar,” he said in a televised interview with Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.
Identified at the time only as a Syrian military photographer under the pseudonym Caesar, he had fled the country in 2013, taking with him some 55,000 graphic images taken between 2011 and 2013.
Describing himself during the interview as a “son of a free Syria,” he said he was from the city of Daraa, “the cradle of the Syrian revolution.”
Following the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, he said he was tasked with “taking pictures of victims of detention.”
These included “old men, women and children, who were detained at security checkpoints in Damascus, and from protest squares that called for freedom and dignity,” said Madhan, who added that he currently resides in France.
“They were detained, tortured and killed in bloody, systematic ways and their bodies were transferred to military morgues to be photographed and taken to mass graves,” he continued.
He said he postponed his defection from the government forces and fleeing the country in order to be able to “collect the largest number of pictures documenting and incriminating the Syrian regime apparatuses of committing crimes against humanity.”
He said the pictures were smuggled in a flash drive that he sometimes hid in his socks or a bundle of bread to escape government security checkpoints or those of the opposition.
The photos, authenticated by experts, show corpses tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.
Some people had their eyes gouged out. The photos showed emaciated bodies, people with wounds on the back or stomach, and also a picture of hundreds of corpses in a shed surrounded by plastic bags used for burials.
Assad’s government said only that the pictures were “political.”
But Caesar testified to a US Congress committee and his photographs inspired a 2020 US law which imposed economic sanctions on Syria and judicial proceedings in Europe against Assad’s entourage.
Germany, the Netherlands and France have since 2022 convicted several top officials from the Syrian intelligence service and militias.


Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
Updated 07 February 2025
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Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
  • No American troops would be needed on the ground, the US president wrote his Truth Social web platform
  • Israel’s defense chief suggests Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others opposed to military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians
  • Trump’s top diplomat said that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was being rebuilt

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
A day after worldwide condemnation of Trump’s announcement that he aimed to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” Israel ordered its army to prepare to allow the “voluntary departure” of Gaza Palestinians.
Trump, who had previously declined to rule out deploying US troops to the small coastal territory, clarified his idea in comments on his Truth Social web platform.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said. Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” He added: “No soldiers by the US would be needed!“
Earlier, amid a tide of support in Israel for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “remarkable” proposal, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wished to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan. Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” Katz said on X.
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.
Trump, a real-estate-developer-turned-politician, sparked anger around the Middle East with his unexpected announcement on Tuesday, just as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin talks in Doha on the second stage of a ceasefire deal for Gaza, intended to open the way for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, a further release of hostages and an end to a nearly 16-month-old war.

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rebuffed the proposal outright and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who will meet Trump at the White House next week, said on Wednesday he rejected any attempts to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Egypt also weighed in, saying it would not be part of any proposal to displace Palestinians from neighboring Gaza, where residents reacted with fury to the suggestion.
“We will not sell our land for you, real estate developer. We are hungry, homeless, and desperate but we are not collaborators,” said Abdel Ghani, a father of four living with his family in the ruins of their Gaza City home. “If (Trump) wants to help, let him come and rebuild for us here.”
It was unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his proposal or, in keeping with his self-image as a shrewd dealmaker, has simply laid out an extreme position as a bargaining tactic. His first term in 2017-21 was replete with what critics said were over-the-top foreign policy pronouncements, many of which were never implemented.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was rebuilt. He did not say whether they would be able to return under Trump’s plan to develop the enclave, home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
Axios reported Rubio planned to visit the Middle East in mid-February with an itinerary that includes Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Displacement
What effect Trump’s shock proposal may have on the ceasefire talks remains unclear. Only 13 of a group of 33 Israeli hostages due for release in the first phase have so far been returned, with three more due to come out on Saturday. Five Thai hostages have also been released.
Hamas official Basem Naim accused Israel’s defense minister of trying to cover up “for a state that has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on Gaza,” and said Palestinians are too attached to their land to ever leave.
Displacement of Palestinians has been one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East for decades. Forced or coerced displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime, banned under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Details of how any such plan might work have been vague. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said different thinking was needed on Gaza’s future but that any departures would have to be voluntary and states would have to be willing to take them.
“We don’t have details yet, but we can talk about principles,” Saar told a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani. “Everything must be based on the free will of (the) individual and, on the other hand, of a will of a state that is ready to absorb,” he said.
A number of far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and there was strong support for Trump’s push among both security hawks and the Jewish settler movement, which wants to reclaim land in Gaza used for Jewish settlements until 2005.
Giora Eiland, an Israeli former general who attracted wide attention in an earlier stage of the war with his “Generals’ Plan” for a forced displacement of people from northern Gaza, said Trump’s plan was logical and aid should not be allowed to reach displaced people returning to northern Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign has killed tens of thousands of people since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel touched off the war, and has forced Palestinians to repeatedly move around within Gaza in search of safety.
But many say they will never leave the enclave because they fear permanent displacement, like the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed from homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Katz said countries that have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.


Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024

Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024
Updated 06 February 2025
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Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024

Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024

RABAT: Morocco stopped 78,685 migrants from illegally crossing into EU territory in 2024, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The figures highlight “growing migratory pressure in an unstable regional environment,” the ministry said in response to questions.

Among the migrants, 58 percent were from West Africa, 12 percent from North Africa where Morocco is located, and 9 percent from East and Central Africa, it said.

Years of armed conflict across Africa’s Sahel region, unemployment, and the impact of climate change on farming communities are among the reasons driving migrants toward Europe.

Morocco and neighboring EU member Spain have strengthened cooperation against undocumented migration since they patched a separate diplomatic feud in 2022.

The North African country has for long been a major launch pad for African migrants aiming to reach Europe through the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, or by jumping the fence surrounding the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco.

Last year, there were 14 group attempts to cross into Ceuta and Melilla, compared with six in 2023, the ministry said.

Moroccan authorities rescued 18,645 would-be migrants from unseaworthy boats in 2024, up 10.8 percent from 2023, it said.

Last month as many as 50 migrants may have drowned in the latest deadly wreck involving people trying to make the Atlantic crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, a migrant rights group said.


West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF

West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF
Updated 06 February 2025
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West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF

West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF
  • Most clinics and hospitals are running at significantly reduced levels, medical charity says

GENEVA: The healthcare system in the occupied West Bank has been in “a state of perpetual emergency” since October 2023, the Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, group said in a new report published on Thursday.

“A dramatic escalation in violence, marked by prolonged Israeli military incursions and stricter movement restrictions ... have severely hindered access to essential services, particularly health care, exacerbating already dire living conditions for many Palestinians,” it said.

Violence in the region soared after the attack on Israel in October 2023, which triggered a massive retaliation by Israel that has leveled much of Gaza.

“Since Oct. 7, 2023, the West Bank has seen a dramatic escalation in violence, marked by prolonged Israeli military incursions and stricter movement restrictions,” it said.

The report examined “the attacks and the obstructions of healthcare in a context of what has been described by the ICJ (International Criminal Court) as segregation and apartheid.”

It revealed “a pattern of systematic interference by Israeli forces and settlers in emergency health care delivery.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023.

Over the same period, at least 32 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory, official Israeli figures show.

Preventing Palestinians from accessing healtcare was “part of a wider system of collective punishment imposed by Israel, under the guise of its crackdown on armed Palestinian men,” MSF said.

“The already-strained Palestinian healthcare system in the West Bank has been further weakened since October 2023 and is facing significant budget constraints,” it said.

Nearly half the essential medications are out of stock, and health workers have not been paid in a year, the report said, adding that “most clinics and hospitals are running at significantly reduced levels.”

“Access to health care is severely impeded by a sprawling system of checkpoints and roadblocks that obstruct ambulance movements, compounded by the escalation of violent military raids involving the use of disproportionate tactics.”

This is compounded by “frequent attacks on medical personnel and facilities ... Hospitals and healthcare structures are often encircled by military forces, with troops sometimes occupying the buildings themselves, compounding the risks to both patients and staff.”

Violence from settlers often exacerbates these dire conditions, it said.

MSF called on Israel to stop its “disproportionate use of force” in the West Bank, including on medical facilities and against medical personnel.

It called for independent probes into past such attacks, for Israel to facilitate medical access to those in need, and to allow the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA to be allowed to continue its work.

Israeli military offensives in two West Bank refugee camps have displaced nearly 5,500 Palestinian families since December, local and UN officials said this week, amid escalating violence in the occupied territory.

Jonathan Fowler, spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said an estimated 2,450 to 3,000 families have been displaced from the Tulkarem refugee camp.

Faisal Salama, head of the camp’s popular committee, estimated that 80 percent of its 15,000 residents had been displaced.

Both Salama and Fowler said that obtaining precise figures was challenging because of the security situation within the camp and its fluctuating population.

“The displaced people from the camp are scattered in the suburbs and in the city of Tulkarem itself,” Salama said.

He said that six people had been killed and dozens wounded since the offensive began on Jan. 25.

“The bombing of residential homes in the camp continues, along with destruction and bulldozing of everything.”

Salama also reported that the violence has severely restricted the movement of goods into the camp.