Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates

Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates
A man rides his scooter as he drives on the debris of destroyed buildings that were hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 06 October 2024
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Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates

Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates
  • The current military escalation unfolds amid fears that fighting could spread in the region and comes as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza nears the grim one-year mark

It was a year ago when Jomana Siddiqui visited Lebanon, where her father was born — and is now buried. She planned to return there soon; this time, she thought, she would take her two teenage daughters.
Instead, Siddiqui, who lives in California, now worries about relatives there. As she watches from afar the violence and the recent escalation in Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Siddiqui thinks about the people she met during her visit, the kindness and generosity she encountered.
She thinks about her father’s grave — when, or if, she will get to visit it again. Her voice cracks with emotions. It’s been gut-wrenching, she said.
“It’s like the universal story of the Lebanese people,” she said. “They have to keep leaving and not knowing when they can come back.”
From the United States to South Africa, Cyprus, Brazil and beyond, many members of Lebanon’s far-flung and large diaspora are contending with the ripples of the violence — grieving, gripped by fear for loved ones and for their homeland, trying to find ways to help.
Some 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians and fighters of the militant group Hezbollah, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September, saying it aims to push Hezbollah away from the countries’ shared border.
For Lina Kayat, who moved to South Africa almost 36 years ago but still has a big family in Lebanon, the violence and tensions there have echoes of earlier turbulent chapters.
“We lived through a civil war for a long time; I was like seven years old,” she said. “It feels like history repeating itself. ... It’s the unknown of who is going to get killed next.”
Kayat, who lives in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban, speaks daily to her family, including her mother and her sister.
“They are very scared and very worried about what is going to happen,” she said.
Generations of Lebanese have grappled with whether to leave to seek better opportunities or escape various times of tumult — from a 15-year-old civil war to military occupations, bombings and political assassinations — or stay in a Lebanon that despite its numerous scars retains its allure for many. Lebanon — home to multiple religious groups, including Christians and Sunni and Shiite Muslims — takes pride in its large emigrant communities, which include successful businessmen and celebrities of Lebanese heritage.
The current military escalation unfolds amid fears that fighting could spread in the region and comes as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza nears the grim one-year mark.
“It happening on top of Gaza is almost too much to bear,” said James Zogby, president of the Washington D.C.-based Arab American Institute.
“It almost makes you physically ill just trying to fathom the extent of the trauma,” added Zogby, whose father was born in Lebanon.
Already, Lebanon had been on edge and struggling under the weight of an economic meltdown, the fallout from a massive 2020 port explosion and other crises. It’s been without a president for two years.
Against such a somber backdrop, Zogby wonders what will become of the displaced.
“Who’s going to care for them? Where do the health services come from ... when the country is already as overstretched as it is and on the verge of collapse?” he said. “At what point does it finally collapse? And who will care?”
Fueling the pain, he said, is his anger at the US response to the devastation in Gaza and now the escalation in Lebanon.
“There’s a sense of powerlessness, a sense of almost despair that, you know, it can get out of control. And as long as nothing here happens to restrain it, it will get worse.”
Akram Khater, director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University, said that since the earliest diaspora, Lebanese who left have been contributing heavily to the economic well-being of Lebanon, sending large amounts of remittances.
Watching the escalation in Lebanon, where he was born and raised, has been re-traumatizing, he said.
“I find myself amidst a swirl of emotions that are unresolved and that derive from this recurring nightmare,” he said. “Yet, even amidst this our community comes together to create solidarity and provide solace and comfort for each other.”
Recently, hundreds of Lebanese flags filled the night sky in Dearborn, Michigan, as some attended a rally to support Lebanon and protest the Israeli offensive there.
At Sao Paulo’s international airport, two Lebanese brothers who’ve been living in Brazil, recently had a solemn reunion. They said eight of their loved ones — their sister, brother-in-law, four of their nephews and two of their nephews’ children — were killed in Lebanon in one of the attacks.
Hussein Zeineddine, one of the brothers, had been on vacation with his family in southern Lebanon when the area was hit by Israeli attacks, he told The Associated Press. He and his family moved to a safer location until they could book flights back to Brazil. “My wife was crying and asking us to leave. We left just with basic items. And then, shortly after, my sister’s house was bombed,” he said after his arrival.
“It will be tough here. But it will be tougher for people there,” he said.
In Cyprus, Rosaline Ghoukassian said the overwhelming majority of Lebanese don’t want this war. She relocated to Cyprus with her husband Raffi Garabedian and their daughter Maria after the 2020 ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut’s port that killed more than 200 people. She said she’d been disenchanted with Lebanon’s political leadership and also lamented Hezbollah’s influence.
“We knew this was coming,” she said. “The problem is in Lebanon. ... Because we don’t have a good government.”
Their decision to leave Lebanon was never about money but safety, as their daughter explained in a letter she wrote in class in Cyprus: “I don’t want to go there because I was saved in the explosion, and I don’t want to go live there because I don’t want to die.”
The family chose to stay.
“I’m not here to make thousands of euros. No. I’m here just to live. To be happy, to be safe. This is what I want. To live,” Garabedian said.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which the militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Since then, Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
Back in California, Siddiqui said coping with it all has been challenging.
“You grab the phone; you hesitate to open it because you’re afraid of what you’re going to see, but you kind of have to.”
She talks to friends and others in her circle who can relate.
“We all feel kind of sad, depressed, helpless, rundown,” she said. “We can do things like fundraise and donate and protest or anything like that, but at the end of the day, it still weighs on you.”


Turkiye’s $14-billion plan to boost development in Kurdish southeast

Turkiye’s $14-billion plan to boost development in Kurdish southeast
Updated 47 sec ago
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Turkiye’s $14-billion plan to boost development in Kurdish southeast

Turkiye’s $14-billion plan to boost development in Kurdish southeast
  • The announcement comes amid increased hopes for an end to a decades-long insurgency waged by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party in southeast Turkiye

SANLIURFA: Turkiye announced on Sunday a $14 billion regional development plan that aims to reduce the economic gap between its mainly Kurdish southeast region and the rest of the country.

The announcement comes amid increased hopes for an end to a decades-long insurgency waged by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in southeast Turkiye as well as the advent of a new leadership in neighboring Syria with cordial ties to Ankara.

The eastern and southeastern provinces of Turkiye have long lagged behind other regions of the country in most economic indicators including the GDP per capita, partly as a result of the insurgency.

Turkish Industry Minister Fatih Kacir told reporters in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa that the government would spend a total 496.2 billion lira ($14.15 billion) on 198 projects across the region in the period to 2028.

“With the implementation of the projects, we anticipate an additional 49,000 lira ($1,400) increase in annual income per capita in the region,” he added.

According to 2023 data, the per capita income of Sanliurfa stood at $4,971, well below the national average of $13,243.

Meanwhile, Turkiye’s pro-Kurd party said Sunday that Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the PKK, is “ready to make a call” to back a new initiative by the Turkish government to end decades of conflict.

Two lawmakers from the DEM party made a rare visit to Ocalan on Saturday on his prison island, the first by the party in almost a decade, amid signs of easing tensions between the Turkish government and the PKK.

On Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government approved DEM’s request to visit the founder of the PKK, which is designated a terror group by Turkiye and its Western allies.

Ocalan has been serving a life sentence on the island of Imrali south of Istanbul since 1999.


Syrian Jewish community can visit one of the world’s oldest synagogues again

Syrian Jewish community can visit one of the world’s oldest synagogues again
Updated 5 min 44 sec ago
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Syrian Jewish community can visit one of the world’s oldest synagogues again

Syrian Jewish community can visit one of the world’s oldest synagogues again
  • New rulers have said they will allow members of all religions to perform their religious duties freely

JOBAR, Syria: In this Damascus suburb, the handful of remaining Jews in Syria can again make pilgrimages to one of the world’s oldest synagogues where people from throughout the region once came to pray.

Syria’s 13-year civil war left the synagogue partially destroyed. Walls and roofs have collapsed. Some artifacts are missing. A marble sign in Arabic at the gate says it was first built 720 years before Christ.

Since insurgents overthrew President Bashar Assad in early December, people have been able to safely visit the widely destroyed Jobar suburb that was pounded for years by government forces while in the hands of opposition fighters.

Syria was once home to one of the world’s largest Jewish communities. Those numbers have shrunk dramatically, especially after the state of Israel was created in 1948.

Today, only nine Jews live in Syria, according to the head of the community, almost all older men and women. The community believes that no Syrian Jews will remain in the country in a few years.

One of the people visiting the Jobar Synagogue, also known as Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue, on Thursday was gray-haired Bakhour Chamantoub, the head of the community in Syria.

“This synagogue means a lot to us,” the 74-year-old said during his first visit in 15 years.

Chamantoub had heard the synagogue was damaged, but he did not expect to see that part of it had been reduced to a pile of debris.

“I am frankly disturbed,” he said.

Chamantoub said Jewish people from around the world have been calling him to say they are ready to help rebuild.

He had refused to leave Syria during the war, while all 12 of his siblings left. He said he was happy in Syria and surrounded by people who respect him.

Chamantoub said he had been one of the few Jews who openly spoke about his faith, adding that he never faced discrimination. 

He said other Jews preferred not to speak openly for safety reasons amid the animosity in Syria toward archenemy Israel and fears of being labeled spies or collaborators. The Jewish community in Syria dates back to the prophet Elijah’s Damascus sojourn nearly 3,000 years ago. 

After 1099, when Christian armies conquered Jerusalem in the First Crusade and massacred the city’s Muslim and Jewish inhabitants, some 50,000 Jews reportedly fled to Damascus, making up nearly a third of residents. 

Another wave of Jews later arrived from Europe, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition that began in 1492.

The community in Syria numbered about 100,000 at the start of the 20th century. In the years surrounding Israel’s creation, Syrian Jews faced increased tensions and restrictions. Many emigrated to Israel, the US and other countries.

Before Syria’s conflict began in 2011, Chamantoub and other remaining community members came on Saturdays to Jobar for prayers. He recalled Torahs written on gazelle leather, chandeliers, tapestries and carpets. All are gone, likely stolen by looters.

Barakat Hazroumi, a Muslim born and raised near the synagogue, recounted how worshipers on Saturdays asked him to turn on the lights or light a candle since Jews are not allowed to do physical labor on the Sabbath.

“It was a beautiful religious place,” Hazroumi said of the synagogue, which at some point during the war was protected by rebels. It and the whole destroyed suburb “needs to be reconstructed from scratch.”

Assad’s forces recaptured Jobar from rebels in 2018 but imposed tight security, preventing many people from reaching the area.

The new rulers of Syria, led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, have said they will allow members of all religions to perform their religious duties freely. There have been some sectarian attacks but mostly against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

After visiting the synagogue, Chamantoub returned to his home in old Damascus, close to the private Jewish school known as Maimonides that was founded in 1944 but has been closed for decades. Posters in Hebrew remain on the walls.

The area is known as the Jewish quarter. Many old homes have doors and windows closed with pieces of metal and a sign in Arabic saying: “The real estate is closed by the state’s Higher Committee for the Affairs of Jews.”

As the Jewish community has shrunk, it has also struggled to find kosher food. Chamantoub receives packages of meat from siblings in the US at least once a year via people traveling to Syria. In the past, he went to the chicken market with a Jewish friend who would slaughter them, but the man now can hardly walk.

Chamantoub mostly eats vegetarian dishes. Almost every morning, he cooks for himself and a Jewish woman in the area with no remaining relatives in Syria.

The woman, 88-year-old Firdos Mallakh, sat on a couch under two blankets. When asked to greet a journalist with “Shabbat Shalom,” she replied it was not yet time. “Today is Thursday and tomorrow is Friday,” she said.

Chamantoub, who makes a living as a landlord, asked Mallakh why she had not turned on the gas heater. Mallakh said she did not want to waste gas.

Chamantoub hopes that with the fall of Assad, Syrians will enjoy more freedoms, economic and otherwise. In the past, he said, authorities prevented him from giving interviews without permission from the security agencies.

“I am a Jew and I am proud of it,” he said. But with so few remaining in Damascus, the city’s synagogues see no services. Chamantoub is marking the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah alone at home.


Lebanon arrests late Muslim Brotherhood leader’s son wanted by Egypt, says judicial official

Lebanon arrests late Muslim Brotherhood leader’s son wanted by Egypt, says judicial official
Updated 29 December 2024
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Lebanon arrests late Muslim Brotherhood leader’s son wanted by Egypt, says judicial official

Lebanon arrests late Muslim Brotherhood leader’s son wanted by Egypt, says judicial official
  • Qaradawi was detained on Saturday as he arrived from Syria at the Masnaa border crossing

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities have arrested Abdul Rahman Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist wanted by Cairo and son of the late spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP on Sunday.
Qaradawi, also a poet, was detained on Saturday as he arrived from Syria at the Masnaa border crossing due to an Egyptian arrest warrant, the official said.
The warrant was “based on an Egyptian judiciary ruling” sentencing Qaradawi in absentia to five years’ jail on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism,” the official added.
His father was prominent Sunni scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood which is outlawed in Egypt.
The late scholar was imprisoned several times in Egypt over his links to the Muslim Brotherhood. He died in 2022 after decades in exile in Qatar.
Lebanese authorities “will ask the Egyptian authorities” to transfer Al-Qaradawi’s file for examination, the judicial official said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The judiciary will make a recommendation on whether “the conditions are met for him to be extradited” and the matter will be referred to the Lebanese government, which must make the final decision, the official added.
Qaradawi was a political organizer against the government of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 in the Arab Spring uprising.
He later became a vocal opponent of current Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
A family friend told AFP that Qaradawi holds Turkish citizenship and was returning from a visit to Syria, where militants led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham toppled longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad on December 8.
Assad’s ousting came more than 13 years after war broke out in Syria with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
Qaradawi had posted a video online taken at Damascus’s Umayyad mosque, celebrating Assad’s fall.
The video has circulated widely including on Egyptian media, where local outlets have described it as “insulting.”
Some commentators close to El-Sisi’s government have demanded Qaradawi be handed over to Egyptian authorities.
Cairo blacklisted the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization in 2013, and has since jailed thousands of its members and supporters and executed dozens.
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s daughter Ola was detained in Egypt for four and a half years over her links to the organization. She was released in 2021.


Israeli airstrike near Syrian capital kills 11, war monitor says

 An Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor. (File/AFP)
An Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor. (File/AFP)
Updated 29 December 2024
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Israeli airstrike near Syrian capital kills 11, war monitor says

 An Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor. (File/AFP)
  • Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot that belonged to Assad’s forces near the industrial town of Adra

BEIRUT: An Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor, as Israel continues to target Syrian weapons and military infrastructure even after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot that belonged to Assad’s forces near the industrial town of Adra, northeast of the capital. The observatory said at least 11 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV also reported the airstrike but put the death toll at six. The Israeli military did not comment on the airstrike Sunday.
Israel, which has launched hundreds of airstrikes over Syria since the country’s uprising turned-civil war broke out in 2011, rarely acknowledges them. It says its targets are Iran-backed groups that backed Assad. Israel also wants to remove a threat posed by weapons in Syria, which is now governed by militants. 
Syrian insurgents who ousted Assad in a lightning ofensive in early December have demanded that Israel cease its airstrikes.


Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say

Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say
Updated 29 December 2024
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Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say

Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say
  • Israeli forces instruct Beit Hanoun residents to leave, causing new displacements
  • Palestinian officials say evacuations worsen Gaza’s humanitarian conditions

CAIRO: Israeli forces carrying out a weeks-long offensive in northern Gaza ordered any residents remaining in Beit Hanoun to quit the town on Sunday, pointing to Palestinian militant rocket fire from the area, residents said.
The instruction to residents to leave caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected, the residents said.
Israel says its almost three-month-old campaign in northern Gaza is aimed at Hamas militants and preventing them from regrouping. Its instructions to civilians to evacuate are meant to keep them out of harm’s way, the military says.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen humanitarian conditions of the population.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and razed, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.
The Israeli military announced its new push into the Beit Hanoun area on Saturday.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in the town, and it was unable to send teams into the area because of the raid.
On Friday, Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. The military said it was being used by militants, which Hamas denies.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X.
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital, which is not in service, and medics were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
On Sunday, health officials said an Israeli tank shell hit the upper floor of the Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City near the X-ray division.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 16 people on Sunday. One of those strikes killed seven people and wounded others at Al-WAFA Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.