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.”


Bahraini king arrives in Oman for 2-day state visit

Bahraini king arrives in Oman for 2-day state visit
Updated 18 sec ago
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Bahraini king arrives in Oman for 2-day state visit

Bahraini king arrives in Oman for 2-day state visit
  • Squadron of military aircraft escorts king’s jet to Muscat
  • Omani artillery fires 21-gun salute for royal guest

LONDON: Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq welcomed Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa to Muscat on Tuesday.

The Bahraini royal is on a two-day state visit to Oman.

A squadron of Royal Air Force military aircraft escorted the king’s jet to Muscat’s Royal Airport.

The two leaders’ motorcade then departed to Al-Alam Palace for an official public reception, the Oman News Agency reported.

Sultan Haitham accompanied King Hamad to the Dais of Honor, where the Bahraini national anthem was played and a 21-gun salute was performed.

King Hamad is accompanied by an official delegation that includes Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa, the minister of interior; Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, the foreign minister; and Juma bin Ahmed Al-Kaabi, ambassador of Bahrain to Oman.


Unexploded ordnance killing Syria’s children at ‘alarming rate’: UN

Unexploded ordnance killing Syria’s children at ‘alarming rate’: UN
Updated 14 January 2025
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Unexploded ordnance killing Syria’s children at ‘alarming rate’: UN

Unexploded ordnance killing Syria’s children at ‘alarming rate’: UN
  • UNICEF warned that Syria’s girls and boys “continue to suffer the brutal impact of unexploded ordnance at an alarming rate
  • UNICEF communications manager for emergencies Ricardo Pires said: “Across Syria, children face this lurking, often invisible, and extremely deadly threat“

GENEVA: More than 100 children were killed or wounded in Syria last month alone after setting off mines and other unexploded ordnance littering the country after nearly 14 years of civil war, the UN said Tuesday.
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF warned that Syria’s girls and boys “continue to suffer the brutal impact of unexploded ordnance at an alarming rate.”
Such ordnance, dubbed UXOs, are explosive weapons such as bombs, shells, grenades, land mines and cluster munitions, that did not explode when they were deployed and remain a risk, sometimes for decades.
In December alone, as Syria was rocked by dramatic political upheaval following the sudden ousting of strongman Bashar Assad, UNICEF said it received reports of 116 children killed or injured by UXOs.
That is “an average of nearly four per day,” UNICEF communications manager for emergencies Ricardo Pires told reporters in Geneva, speaking via videolink from Damascus, adding that “this is believed to be an underestimate.”
“Across Syria, children face this lurking, often invisible, and extremely deadly threat.”
Nearly 14 years of brutal civil war, which killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions, has left an estimated 324,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance scattered across Syria, Pires said.
“Over the past nine years, at least 422,000 incidents involving UXOs were reported in 14 governorates across the country,” he said, adding that half of those were “estimated to have ended in tragic child casualties.”
He warned that the danger had been worsened with renewed displacement since Islamist-led rebels last November 27 launched the offensive that would overthrow Assad just 11 days later.
Since then, he pointed out, “over a quarter of a million children were forced to flee their homes due to escalating conflict.”
“For these children, and those trying to return to their original areas, the peril of UXO is constant and unavoidable,” he said.
UNICEF stressed the need to dramatically scale up explosive clearance.
“It is imperative that immediate investment takes place to ensure the ground is safe and clear of explosives,” Pires said, warning that some five million children currently live in contaminated areas.
“It’s the main cause of child casualties in Syria right now,” he warned.
“Every step they take carries the risk of an unimaginable tragedy.”
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said an investment of only a few tens of millions of dollars would be enough to make a huge difference.
It “would save thousands of lives and will be an absolutely imperative part if Syria is to again become a middle income country,” he told reporters.
“It’s a very cheap price that needs to be paid.”


Second Israeli far-right minister opposes Gaza deal

Second Israeli far-right minister opposes Gaza deal
Updated 14 January 2025
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Second Israeli far-right minister opposes Gaza deal

Second Israeli far-right minister opposes Gaza deal

JERUSALEM: A key far-right member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Tuesday became the second minister to publicly oppose a Gaza truce deal but said he would not topple the ruling coalition.
“The deal is truly catastrophic,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on his Telegram channel.
“This effectively erases the hard-won achievements of the war, which have been earned at the great cost of the blood of our soldiers in Gaza.
“It is a conscious decision to pay the price with the lives of many other Israeli citizens, who will, unfortunately, bear the burden of this deal,” Ben Gvir added.
Ben Gvir, an outspoken member of Netanyahu’s government, has steadfastly opposed halting the war in Gaza.
He is the second minister to publicly reject a deal being negotiated in Doha between Israel and Hamas through international mediators.
On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also opposed any agreement that would halt the war.
These stances highlight sharp divides in the ruling coalition.
Netanyahu could nonetheless muster enough support to pass the deal through his cabinet, even without their backing.
He is assured of receiving majority votes in the 34-member cabinet supporting the deal, even if Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who together control six ministers, vote against it.
Israel’s main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has also publicly said he would back Netanyahu to ensure the government does not collapse if Ben Gvir and Smotrich withdraw.
“He doesn’t need them... I offered him a political safety net for a hostage deal,” Lapid said on Monday.
Ben Gvir said he and Smotrich had tried to block the deal for a year.
“Over the past year, through our political power, we have managed to block this deal from being executed time and again,” he said.
“However, new elements have since joined the government and now support the deal, leaving us no longer a decisive force.”
He urged Smotrich to join him in opposing what he described as a “disastrous deal.”
He said the two could make “a clear statement to the prime minister that if this deal proceeds, we will withdraw from the government.”
However, the two would not seek to bring down the government, he said.
“I emphasize that even if we find ourselves in the opposition, we will not topple Netanyahu,” he said.
“However, this step is our only chance to prevent the deal from being executed and to stop Israel’s capitulation to Hamas after more than a year of bloody war.”


Gaza, Lebanon conflicts see civilian casualties at highest point in over a decade

People stand next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir Al-Balah in Gaza.
People stand next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir Al-Balah in Gaza.
Updated 14 January 2025
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Gaza, Lebanon conflicts see civilian casualties at highest point in over a decade

People stand next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir Al-Balah in Gaza.
  • Israeli military action responsible for more than half of all non-combatants killed or injured in bombings and explosions in 2024
  • Last year saw casualty figures increase globally by more than two-thirds, with airstrikes the leading cause of death and injury

LONDON: The number of civilian casualties worldwide caused by bombings or explosions during conflicts has reached its highest point in over a decade, driven in particular by Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

The monitoring group Action on Armed Violence said it had identified 61,353 non-combatants killed or wounded in 2024, up 67 percent on 2023. Of those figures, 25,116 were fatalities, a 51 percent increase.

AOAV said Israeli military activity in Gaza and Lebanon was responsible for 55 percent of all civilians killed or wounded by explosions, at 33,910 people.

Gaza alone accounted for 39 percent of all casualties recorded, with 14,435 killed in explosions and 9,314 injured.

The civil war in Sudan has also contributed to the uptick in numbers, as well as 11,693 civilians killed or wounded by explosions in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Spikes in casualties between 2013 and 2017 were due to the conflict in Syria, but the 2024 total was more than double that previous high-water mark. 

The top cause of death and injury from explosions in 2024 was airstrikes — a tactic Israel has used extensively in Gaza and Lebanon.

The number of casualties caused this way more than doubled from 2023, with 30,804 people affected.

AOAV Executive Director Iain Overton said: “2024 has been a catastrophic year for civilians caught in explosive violence, particularly in Gaza, Ukraine and Lebanon. The international community cannot ignore the scale of harm caused.”

The true number of people affected by bombings and explosions is likely to be far higher, as AOAV bases its figures on English-language accounts of incidents.

For instance, where AOAV was only able to verify 14,435 people killed by explosions in Gaza, local health authorities put the number at 23,600.

A report last week in medical journal The Lancet estimated that casualties in Gaza in 2024 could be as much as 40 percent higher than those reported by the enclave’s authorities. 


After economic meltdown and war with Israel, Lebanon’s new prime minister vows to rebuild

After economic meltdown and war with Israel, Lebanon’s new prime minister vows to rebuild
Updated 44 min 58 sec ago
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After economic meltdown and war with Israel, Lebanon’s new prime minister vows to rebuild

After economic meltdown and war with Israel, Lebanon’s new prime minister vows to rebuild
  • After the meeting, Salam said he will not marginalize any side in Lebanon, an apparent reference to the Hezbollah militant group
  • He said that he will work on spreading the state’s authority on all parts of the country

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s prime minister-designate vowed Tuesday to work on building a modern state in the crisis-hit country, saying his priorities will be to rebuild the destruction caused by a yearlong war with Israel and work on pulling the small nation out of its historic economic meltdown.
Nawaf Salam spoke after meeting with Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun, who himself took office last week. With the nomination of Salam and confirmation of Aoun, Lebanon, which has been run by a caretaker administration, now has a new government in waiting for the first time in two years.
After the meeting, Salam said he will not marginalize any side in Lebanon, an apparent reference to the Hezbollah militant group, which in past years opposed his appointment as prime minister and this year indicated its preference for another candidate.
Hezbollah has been weakened by its 14-month war with Israel, which ended in late November when a US-brokered 60-day ceasefire went into effect. The war left 4,000 people dead and more than 16,000 wounded and caused destruction totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
Salam, who is currently the head of the International Court of Justice, said that he will work on spreading the state’s authority on all parts of the country. On Monday he won the support of a majority of legislators, after which Aoun formally asked him to form a new government.
Over the past years, Hezbollah and its allies have blocked Salam from becoming prime minister, casting him as a US-backed candidate.
“The time has come to say, enough. Now is the time to start a new chapter,” Salam said adding that people in Lebanon have suffered badly because of “the latest brutal Israeli aggression on Lebanon and because of the worst economic crisis and financial policies that made the Lebanese poor.”
Decades of corruption and political paralysis have left Lebanon’s banks barely functional, while electricity services are almost entirely in the hands of private diesel-run generator owners and fuel suppliers. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic further battered the economy, and the Beirut port explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear blasts ever recorded, badly damaged several neighborhoods in the heart of the capital.
Salam vowed to fully implement the UN Security Council resolution related to the Israel-Hezbollah war which states that Israel should withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah should not have an armed presence close to the border with Israel.
The premier added that he will work on spreading state authority on all parts of Lebanon through “its forces.”
Salam said he will work on putting a program to build a modern economy that would help the country of 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, out of its economic crisis that exploded into protests in October 2019.
Since the economic crisis began, successive governments have done little to implement reforms demanded by the international community that would lead to the release of billions of dollars of investments and loans by foreign donors.
“Both my hands are extended to all of you so that we all move forward in the mission of salvation, reforms and reconstruction,” Salam said.
Neither Salam nor Aoun, an army commander who was elected president last week, is considered part of the political class the ruled the country after the end of the 1975-90 civil war.