Iran FM says backs efforts for simultaneous Gaza-Lebanon ceasefire
Iran FM says backs efforts for simultaneous Gaza-Lebanon ceasefire/node/2573930/middle-east
Iran FM says backs efforts for simultaneous Gaza-Lebanon ceasefire
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaks with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati during their meeting in Beirut, on Oct. 4, 2024. (AP)
Iran FM says backs efforts for simultaneous Gaza-Lebanon ceasefire
“We support the efforts for a ceasefire,” Iran’s FM Abbas Araghchi said
Updated 18 sec ago
AFP
BEIRUT: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday said his country backed efforts for a simultaneous ceasefire with Israel in both the Palestinian territory of Gaza and Lebanon.
“We support the efforts for a ceasefire, provided that first, the rights of the Lebanese people are respected and it is accepted by the (Hezbollah) resistance, and second, that it comes simultaneously with a ceasefire in Gaza,” he said during a visit to Beirut.
Hunted yet unrepentant: Yahya Sinwar remains committed to Israel’s destruction
Updated 4 sec ago
For Sinwar, 62, armed struggle remains the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian nation Now the conflict has spread to Lebanon, with Israel heavily degrading Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, including killing most of its leadership
GAZA STRIP: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is unrepentant about the Oct. 7 attacks a year ago, people in contact with him say, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, laid waste to his Gaza homeland and rained destruction on ally Hezbollah. For Sinwar, 62, architect of the Hamas cross-border raids that became the deadliest day in Israel’s history, armed struggle remains the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian nation, four Palestinian officials and two sources from governments in the Middle East said. The Oct. 7 attacks killed 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and captured 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded by launching a massive offensive, killing 41,600 people and displacing 1.9 million, according to Palestinian health authorities and UN figures. Now the conflict has spread to Lebanon, with Israel heavily degrading Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, including killing most of its leadership. Hamas patron Tehran is at risk of being pulled into open war with Israel. Sinwar has drawn Iran and its entire “Axis of Resistance” — comprising Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi militias — into conflict with Israel, said Hassan Hassan, an author and researcher on Islamic groups. “We’re seeing now the ripple effects of Oct.7. Sinwar’s gamble didn’t work,” Hassan said, suggesting that the Axis of Resistance may never recover. “What Israel did to Hezbollah in two weeks is almost equal to a whole year of degrading Hamas in Gaza. With Hezbollah, three layers of leadership have been eliminated, its military command has been decimated, and its important leader Hassan Nasrallah has been assassinated,” added Hassan. However, Sinwar’s grip on the Hamas remains unwavering, despite some signs of dissent among Gazans. He was chosen as the Islamist movement’s overall leader after his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh was killed in July by a suspected Israeli strike during a visit to Tehran. Israel has not confirmed its involvement in the strike. Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels under Gaza, two Israeli sources said Sinwar and his brother, also a top commander, appear to have so far survived Israeli airstrikes, which have reportedly killed his deputy Mohammed Deif and other senior leaders. Dubbed “The Face of Evil” by Israel, Sinwar operates in secrecy, moving constantly and using trusted messengers for non-digital communication, according to three Hamas officials and one regional official. He has not been seen in public since Oct. 7. Over months of failed ceasefire talks, led by Qatar and Egypt, that focused on swapping prisoners for hostages, Sinwar was the sole decision-maker, three Hamas sources said. Negotiators would wait for days for responses filtered through a secretive chain of messengers. Hamas and Israel did not respond to requests for comment. Sinwar’s high tolerance for suffering, both for himself and for the Palestinian people, in the name of a cause, was apparent when he helped negotiate the 2011 exchange of 1,027 prisoners, himself included, for one kidnapped Israeli soldier held in Gaza. The kidnapping by Hamas had led to an Israeli assault on the coastal enclave and thousands of Palestinian deaths. Half a dozen people who know Sinwar told Reuters his resolve was shaped by an impoverished childhood in Gaza’s refugee camps and a brutal 22 years in Israeli custody, including a period in Ashkelon, the town his parents called home before fleeing after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The question of hostages and prisoner swaps is deeply personal for Sinwar, said all the sources, who requested anonymity to speak freely about sensitive matters. He has vowed to free all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Sinwar became a member of Hamas soon after its founding in the 1980s, adopting the group’s radical Islamist ideology, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in historic Palestine and opposes Israel’s existence. The ideology views Israel not only as a political rival but as an occupying force on Muslim land. Seen in this light, hardships and suffering are often interpreted by him and his followers as part of a larger Islamic belief of sacrifice, experts on Islamic movements say. “What lies behind his resolve is tenacity of ideology, tenacity of goal. He’s ascetic and satisfied with little,” said one senior Hamas official who requested anonymity.
FROM SACKCLOTH TO LEADER Before the war, Sinwar, would sometimes tell of his early life in Gaza during decades of Israeli occupation, once saying his mother made clothes from empty UN food-aid sacks, according to Gaza resident Wissam Ibrahim, who has met him. In a semi-autobiographical novel written in prison, Sinwar described scenes of troops bulldozing Palestinian houses, “like a monster crushing its prey’s bones,” before Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. A ruthless enforcer tasked with punishing Palestinians suspected of informing for Israel, Sinwar then made his name as a prison leader, emerging as a street hero from a 22-year Israeli sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians. He then quickly rose to the top of the Hamas ranks. His understanding of the everyday hardships and brutal realities in Gaza was well-received by Gazans and made people feel at ease, four journalists and three Hamas officials said, despite his fearsome reputation and explosive anger. Sinwar is regarded by Arab and Palestinian officials as the architect of Hamas’ strategy and military capabilities, bolstered through his strong ties with Iran, which he visited in 2012. Before orchestrating the Oct. 7 raids Sinwar made no secret of his desire to strike his enemy hard. In a speech the year before, he vowed to send a flood of fighters and rockets to Israel, hinting at a war that would either unite the world to establish a Palestinian state on land Israel occupied in 1967, or leave the Jewish nation isolated on the global stage. By the time of the speech, Sinwar and Deif had already hatched secret plans for the assault. They were even running training drills in public that simulated such an attack. His goals have not been fulfilled. While the issue is once again at the top of the global agenda, the prospect of a Palestinian nation is as distant as ever. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected a post-war plan for Gaza that would include a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
’HEAD HARDER THAN A ROCK’ Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to four life sentences, accused of orchestrating the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian informants. Nabih Awadah, a former Lebanese Communist militant who was imprisoned with Sinwar in Ashkelon between 1991-95, said the Hamas leader viewed the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as “disastrous” and a ruse by Israel, which he said would only relinquish Palestinian land “by force, not by negotiations.” Calling him “willful and dogmatic,” Awadah said Sinwar would light up with joy whenever he heard of attacks against Israelis by Hamas or Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. For him, military confrontation was the only path “to liberating Palestine” from Israeli occupation. Awadah said Sinwar was an “influential model to all prisoners, even those who were not Islamists or religious.” Michael Koubi, a former official with Israel’s Shin Bet security agency who interrogated Sinwar for 180 hours in prison, said Sinwar clearly stood out for his ability to intimidate and command. Koubi once asked the militant, then aged 28 or 29, why he was not already married. “He told me Hamas is my wife, Hamas is my child. Hamas for me is everything.” Sinwar married after his release from prison in 2011 and has three children. In jail, he continued to pursue Palestinian spies, Awadah said, echoing reports from Shin Bet interrogators. His sharp instincts and caution allowed him to identify and expose Shin Bet informants infiltrated in the prison, Awadah said. He said Sinwar’s leadership was pivotal during a hunger strike in 1992, in which he led over 1,000 prisoners to survive solely on water and salt. Sinwar negotiated with prison authorities and refused to settle for partial concessions. He also used his time in prison to learn fluent Hebrew. Awadah said Sinwar frequently recalled that Ashkelon, where they were imprisoned together, was his family’s ancestral hometown. When playing table tennis in the courtyard of Ashkelon jail, in present day Israel, Sinwar would often play barefoot, saying he wanted his feet to touch the land of Palestine. “Sinwar often told us: ‘I’m not in prison; I’m on my land. I am free here, in my country.’”
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is unrepentant about the Oct. 7 attacks a year ago, people in contact with him say, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. (AP)
Most of Lebanon’s displacement shelters are full, UN says
Lebanese authorities say more than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and nearly 2,000 people killed since the start of Israeli war
Updated 04 October 2024
Reuters
GENEVA: UN officials said on Friday most of Lebanon’s nearly 900 shelters were full and that people fleeing Israeli military strikes were increasingly sleeping out in the open in streets or in public parks.
“Most of the nearly 900 government established collective shelters in Lebanon have no more capacity,” the UN refugee agency’s Rula Amin told a Geneva press briefing. She said that they were working with local authorities to find more sites and that some hotels were opening their doors.
“People are sleeping in public parks, on the street, the beach,” said Mathieu Luciano, the International Organization For Migration’s office head in Lebanon. He confirmed that most shelters were full, including those in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, but said some others had space.
He voiced concern about the fate of tens of thousands of mostly female live-in domestic workers in Lebanon whom he said were being “abandoned” by their employers. “They face very limited shelter options,” he said, adding that many of them came from Egypt, Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Lebanese authorities say more than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and nearly 2,000 people killed since the start of Israeli war with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group over the last year, most of them over the past two weeks.
On Friday, Israeli strikes sealed off Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria, blocking the way for vehicles, although the UNHCR’s Amin said that some were crossing on foot.
“We could see that some people were walking, desperate to flee Lebanon, and so they walked actually through that destroyed road,” she said.
WHO aims to begin second phase of polio campaign in Gaza on Oct. 14
Negotiations ongoing and a meeting with Israeli authorities about the next phase of the campaign planned for Sunday
Updated 04 October 2024
Reuters
GENEVA: A World Health Organization official on Friday said the organization has sent a request to Israel to begin the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza from Oct. 14.
“We have asked the Israeli authorities to consider a similar scheme that we had for the first round, something they call ‘tactical pauses’ (in fighting) during the working hours of the campaign,” said Ayadil Saparbekov, WHO lead for emergencies in the occupied Palestinian territory.
He said negotiations were ongoing and that a meeting with Israeli authorities about the next phase of the campaign was planned for Sunday.
Source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah says slain chief Nasrallah temporarily buried
An Israeli strike killed the Hezbollah leader last week
Updated 04 October 2024
AFP
BEIRUT: A source close to Hezbollah said Friday that the Lebanese militant group’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah has been temporarily buried in a secret location for fear Israel would target a large funeral.
“Hassan Nasrallah has been temporarily buried, until the circumstances allow for a public funeral,” the source said, after an Israeli strike killed the leader last week.
The source said a public funeral had been impossible to hold “for fear of Israeli threats they would target mourners and the place of his burial.”
Shiite Muslim rites provide for such a temporary burial when circumstances prevent a proper funeral or the deceased cannot be buried where they wished.
A Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Hezbollah had, through top Lebanese officials, sought but failed to obtain “guarantees” from the United States, a key ally of Israel, that Israel would not target a public funeral.
Amid intensifying Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah, a massive strike on its south Beirut stronghold on September 27 killed Nasrallah alongside an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general.
Israel said it killed around 20 members of the Iran-backed militant group.
Nasrallah still does not have a successor a week after he was killed.
His cousin Hashem Safieddine, a prominent Hezbollah figure touted as a possible successor, was the target of a recent Israeli air strike on south Beirut, US and Israeli media reported.
Tunisia votes Sunday in its third presidential election since the Arab Spring
Tunisia’s President Kais Saied faces few obstacles to winning another term in the country’s presidential election Sunday because his major opponents have been imprisoned or left off the ballot
The presidential election is Tunisia’s third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the Arab Spring
Updated 04 October 2024
AP
TUNIS: With his major opponents imprisoned or left off the ballot, Tunisian President Kais Saied faces few obstacles to winning reelection on Sunday, five years after riding anti-establishment backlash to a first term.
The North African country’s Oct. 6 presidential election is its third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — the first autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings that also overthrew leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
International observers praised the previous two contests as meeting democratic norms. However, a raft of arrests and actions taken by a Saied-appointed election authority have raised questions about whether this year’s race is free and fair. And opposition parties have called for a boycott.
What’s at stake?
Not long ago, Tunisia was hailed as the Arab Spring’s only success story. As coups, counter-revolutions and civil wars convulsed the region, the North African nation enshrined a new democratic constitution and saw its leading civil society groups win the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering political compromise.
But its new leaders were unable to buoy its struggling economy and were plagued by political infighting and episodes of violence and terrorism.
Amid that backdrop, Saied, then 61 and a political outsider, won his first term in 2019. He advanced to a runoff promising to usher in a “New Tunisia” and hand more power to young people and local governments.
This year’s election will offer a window into popular opinion about the trajectory that Tunisia’s fading democracy has taken since Saied took office.
Saied’s supporters appear to have remained loyal to him and his promise to transform Tunisia. But he isn’t affiliated with any political party, and it’s unclear just how deep his support runs among Tunisians.
It’s the first presidential race since Saied upended the country’s politics in July 2021, declaring a state of emergency, sacking his prime minister, suspending the parliament and rewriting Tunisia’s constitution consolidating his own power.
Those actions outraged pro-democracy groups and leading opposition parties, who called them a coup. Yet despite anger from career politicians, voters approved Saied’s new constitution the following year in a low-turnout referendum.
Authorities subsequently began arresting Saied’s critics including journalists, lawyers, politicians and civil society figures, charging them with endangering state security and violating a controversial anti-fake news law that observers argue stifles dissent.
Fewer voters turned out to participate in parliamentary and local elections in 2022 and 2023 amid economic woes and widespread political apathy.
Who’s running?
Many wanted to challenge Saied, but few were able to.
Seventeen potential candidates filed paperwork to run and Tunisia’s election authority approved only three: Saied, Zouhair Maghzaoui and Ayachi Zammel.
Maghzaoui is a veteran politician who has campaigned against Saied’s economic program and recent political arrests. Still, he is loathed by opposition parties for backing Saied’s constitution and earlier moves to consolidate power.
Zammel is a businessman supported by politicians not boycotting the race. During the campaign, he has been sentenced to prison time in four voter fraud cases related to signatures his team gathered to qualify for the ballot.
Others had hoped to run but were prevented. The election authority, known as ISIE, last month dismissed a court ruling ordering it to reinstate three additional challengers.
With many arrested, detained or convicted on charges related to their political activities, Tunisia’s most well-known opposition figures are also not participating.
That includes the 83-year-old leader of Tunisia’s most well organized political party Ennahda, which rose to power after the Arab Spring. Rached Ghannouchi, the Islamist party’s co-founder and Tunisia’s former house speaker, has been imprisoned since last year after criticizing Saied.
The crackdown also includes one of Ghannouchi’s most vocal detractors: Abir Moussi, a right-wing lawmaker known for railing against Islamists and speaking nostalgically for pre-Arab Spring Tunisia. The 49-year-old president of the Free Destourian Party also was imprisoned last year after criticizing Saied.
Other less known politicians who announced plans to run have also since been jailed or sentenced on similar charges.
Opposition groups have called to boycott the race. The National Salvation Front — a coalition of secular and Islamist parties including Ennahda — has denounced the process as a sham and questioned the election’s legitimacy.
What are the other issues?
The country’s economy continues to face major challenges. Despite Saied’s promises to chart a new course for Tunisia, unemployment has steadily increased to one of the region’s highest at 16 percent, with young Tunisians hit particularly hard.
Growth has been slow since the COVID-19 pandemic and Tunisia has remained reliant on multilateral lenders such as the World Bank and the European Union. Today, Tunisia owes them more than $9 billion. Apart from agricultural reform, Saied’s overarching economic strategy is unclear.
Negotiations have long been stalled over a $1.9 billion bailout package offered by the International Monetary Fund in 2022. Saied has been unwilling to accept its conditions, which include restructuring indebted state-owned companies and cutting public wages. Some of the IMF’s stipulations — including lifting subsidies for electricity, flour and fuel — would likely be unpopular among Tunisians who rely on their low costs.
Economic analysts say that foreign and local investors are reluctant to invest in Tunisia due to continued political risks and an absence of reassurances.
The dire economic straits have had a two-pronged effect on one of Tunisia’s key political issues: migration. From 2019 to 2023, an increasing number of Tunisians attempted to migrate to Europe without authorization. Meanwhile, Saied’s administration has taken a harsh approach against migrants arriving from sub-Saharan Africa, many who have found themselves stuck in Tunisia while trying to reach Europe.
Saied energized his supporters in early 2023 by accusing migrants of violence and crime and portraying them as part of a plot to change the country’s demography. The anti-migrant rhetoric prompted extreme violence against migrants and a crackdown from authorities. Last year, security forces targeted migrant communities from the coast to the capital with a series of arrests, deportation to the desert and the demolition of tent camps in Tunis and coastal towns.
Bodies continue to wash ashore on Tunisia’s coastline as boats carrying Tunisians and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa manage only to make it a few nautical miles before sinking.
What does it mean overseas?
Tunisia has maintained ties with its traditional Western allies but also forged new partnerships under Saied.
Much like many populist leaders who’ve taken power worldwide, Saied emphasizes sovereignty and freeing Tunisia from what he calls “foreign diktats.” He has insisted that Tunisia won’t become a “border guard” for Europe, which has sought agreements with him to better police the Mediterranean.
Tunisia and Iran lifted visa requirements and in May announced plans to boost trade ties. It has also accepted millions in loans as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to build hospitals, stadiums and ports.
Yet European countries remain Tunisia’s top trade partners and their leaders have maintained productive ties with Saied, hailing agreements to manage migration as a “model” for the region.
Saied has spoken ardently in support of Palestinians as war has swept the Middle East and opposes moves made to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel.
