Lebanon awaits US envoy, maintaining a firm stance on UN Resolution 1701

White House envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein is due in Lebanon on Tuesday. (File/AFP)
White House envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein is due in Lebanon on Tuesday. (File/AFP)
Short Url
Updated 18 November 2024
Follow

Lebanon awaits US envoy, maintaining a firm stance on UN Resolution 1701

White House envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein is due in Lebanon on Tuesday. (File/AFP)
  • Israeli strike on central Beirut kills five

BEIRUT: White House envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein is due in Lebanon on Tuesday for talks on a ceasefire as the Israeli army continued to carry out violent airstrikes, causing massive destruction.

Airstrikes receded in Beirut and its southern suburbs but intensified in southern Lebanon.

Sunday saw intense attacks and assassinations in Beirut’s southern suburbs and neighborhoods.

Israeli media outlets reported Hochstein would arrive in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

His visit comes as part of his previously disrupted efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to stop the expanded war, which has been ongoing for 60 days between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.

Lebanon has yet to confirm Hochstein’s visit to Beirut. Citing a Lebanese political source, Reuters reported that “Hochstein arrives in Beirut on Tuesday,” while Israel’s Channel 12 announced that “Hochstein arrives in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.”

Fares Gemayel, media advisor to the caretaker prime minister, said Najib Mikati’s schedule was still the same and had yet to be modified.

He told Arab News: “We were not informed of Hochstein’s visit, and just like you, we heard that he is coming and that he is meeting with Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, but nothing is confirmed.”

Following his meeting with Berri, caretaker Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram said Berri looped him in on the draft ceasefire proposal, adding that “the situation was positive,” but “all is well that ends well.”

Bayram, a Hezbollah minister, said that Berri — whom Hezbollah assigned to negotiate with the West — was waiting for Hochstein’s visit on Tuesday.

“He’s waiting to inform him of Lebanon’s positive stance in this regard, and therefore, all eyes will be on the Israeli stance, whether it wants to stop its aggression or continue with its war crimes witnessed live by people,” he added.

Bayram pointed out that the expansion of war was an Israeli decision, saying that “war crimes are not a sign of victory for the aggressor.”

He clarified: “Lebanon is committed to Resolution 1701 fully, including its mechanisms, so why do we want to put in place other mechanisms that would complicate the matter?”

Bayram emphasized that “there are points in the draft that were not even discussed because it’s impossible to accept them, including Israel’s right to act freely.”

He said no patriotic Lebanese would agree to such issues and waive their sovereignty.

He also stressed that Hezbollah “abides by Resolution 1701, which stipulates that Israel should stop its violations against Lebanon, so is it going to stop them?”

He added: “The resistance is a reaction and not an action. If the Israelis abide by the resolution, we can have a different discussion, especially since what the resistance owns is no longer linked to a 10 km geographical area.

“The resistance can fight anywhere, but it all comes down to whether or not the Israelis will abide by 1701.”

Bayram believes that “the more you concede to the Israelis, the more they ask and kill you.”

Hezbollah submitted to Berri its response to the US draft proposal based on Resolution 1701.

However, the response leaked to some media outlets and included comments proposing a return to how things were before the last war. According to previous Israeli officials’ statements, Israel rejects this.

The Lebanese side is seeking international and American guarantees regarding Israel’s commitment to the agreement, ensuring that Israel does not violate Resolution 1701 under any pretext to carry out operations in Lebanon.

Furthermore, Lebanon also demands that the monitoring committee for the implementation of Resolution 1701 remain limited to the US, France, Lebanon, Israel, and the UN without any expansion.

Hezbollah rejects “any expansion of the role of UNIFIL forces” and “firmly opposes any enhancement of the UNIFIL forces’ mandate,” emphasizing that “coordination between these forces and the Lebanese army must persist, and that UNIFIL should not operate in private areas without prior agreement with the army.”

Furthermore, Hezbollah calls for the “prompt return of displaced individuals, preventing Israel from establishing a border security zone, and the recognition of Lebanon’s entitlement to reconstruction without external interference.”

Additionally, they demand the release of Lebanese citizens detained by Israel during the recent confrontations.

Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz, head of the State Camp party, stated on Monday that “the condition for any agreement with Lebanon is the absolute freedom of Israeli operations in response to any violation of the agreement.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry stated on Monday that “the Lebanese are capable of determining their interests and making decisions regarding any initiative related to halting Israel’s crimes.”

It indicated that Tehran would spare no effort in assisting the Lebanese people.

Israel escalated its military actions against Hezbollah on Sunday, resuming targeted assassinations that included the killing of Hezbollah’s media relations officer Mohammed Afif, along with four of his associates — Hilal Tarmas, Moussa Haidar, Mahmoud Al-Sharqawi, and Hussein Ramadan — in an airstrike on Beirut.

Israel announced that Mahmoud Madi, head of operations for Hezbollah’s southern front, was also targeted in a separate airstrike on Beirut later that evening.

The southern front of Lebanon remained intense on Monday as Israeli soldiers attempted to reach Al-Bayada hill after passing through the town of Chamaa in the Tyre district.

They conducted extensive airstrikes to secure their movements, targeting the valleys with phosphorus shells.

Also on Monday, Hezbollah announced that its fighters targeted an Israeli army gathering south of the town of Khiam for the fourth time and another group with the Israeli army in the settlement of Kiryat Shmona.

Israeli media reported that “rocket debris fell in Goren in the Upper Galilee, causing damage to a house, a building, and vehicles during the rocket barrage on Kiryat Shmona.”

The Israeli army announced the destruction of dozens of rocket launch platforms and combat equipment in southern Lebanon.

Israeli media reported that over 1,450 rockets had been launched toward Israel since the onset of the conflict.

The Israeli army carried out a series of violent airstrikes targeting the areas of Tyre, Nabatieh, Iqlim Al-Tufah, and Jizzine, causing massive destruction.

A strike on the water facility building in Tyre killed several people, including the Deputy Mayor of Burj Al-Shamli Qassim Wehbi and the Mukhtar of Tyre Samer Shoghari.

In a separate incident, two people were killed by an air raid that hit a house on Al-Madinah Al-Kashfiyah Road, between the areas of Nabatieh Al-Fawqa and Zawtar.

Additionally, airstrikes on the city of Nabatieh killed several citizens, namely Fadel and Hassan Mansour, Jawad Al-Sabouri, and Hussein Mansour, leaving several more injured.

Louai Al-Moussawi, whose family was killed by an Israeli strike when the attacks first started, was also killed in Nabatieh Al-Fawqa.

Red Cross and International Committee of the Red Cross ambulances entered the town of Baraachit.

They recovered the remains of the paramedics of the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority, who were killed in an airstrike that targeted the area weeks ago.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said Israel also struck a densely packed Beirut neighborhood, killing five people.

Monday's raid targeted a residential apartment, an office for Mayor Hasan Shuman, and a street cafe.

Zakat Al-Blat is a densely populated neighborhood shared between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.

Hundreds of displaced people from the southern and south suburbs have taken refuge.

Relief aid was being distributed to the people in the area.

The area was targeted a month ago when an Israeli warplane bombed a residential apartment in a building that was used as a center for paramedics of the Islamic Health Authority affiliated with Hezbollah.

The raid led to the death of eight people.


Egypt imported 6.3 million tons of Russian wheat in 2024/25, analysts say

Egypt imported 6.3 million tons of Russian wheat in 2024/25, analysts say
Updated 3 sec ago
Follow

Egypt imported 6.3 million tons of Russian wheat in 2024/25, analysts say

Egypt imported 6.3 million tons of Russian wheat in 2024/25, analysts say
MOSCOW: Egypt, the biggest buyer of Russian wheat, imported 6.3 million metric tons from July 2024 to January 2025, a 70% increase compared to last year, analysts from rail carrier Rusagrotrans said in a report published on Monday.
Rusagrotrans said wheat exports from Russia continued at a record pace so far this season with the country, the world's top wheat exporter, shipping 32.2 million metric tons, 1.3% more than in the same period of the last season.
The acceleration precedes new export quotas on February 15 that will slow shipments. In line with the new quotas Russia can export 10.6 million metric tons of wheat before July 1, 2025.
Bangladesh, which bought 2.3 million tons, emerged as the second-largest buyer in the 2024/25 season, while Turkey, which introduced an import ban to protect its domestic market, slipped to third place with a 47% drop in Russian wheat imports.
Algiers, which bought 1.7 million tons of Russian wheat, and Kenya, which bought 1.4 million tons, were the fourth and the fifth largest importers. (Reporting by Olga Popova, writing by Gleb Bryanski; editing by Barbara Lewis)

Trump: No right of return for Palestinians under Gaza plan

Trump: No right of return for Palestinians under Gaza plan
Updated 47 min 16 sec ago
Follow

Trump: No right of return for Palestinians under Gaza plan

Trump: No right of return for Palestinians under Gaza plan
  • Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that “I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Palestinians would have no right of return to Gaza under his US takeover plan, describing his proposal in excerpts of an interview released Monday as a “real estate development for the future.”
Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that “I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza — under the plan which the Arab world has rejected.
“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing,” Trump said when Baier asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return to the war-battered enclave.
“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever — it’s not habitable.”
Trump first revealed the shock Gaza plan during a joint news conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, drawing outrage from Palestinians.
The US president pressed his case for Palestinians to be moved out of Gaza, devastated by the Israel-Hamas war, and for Egypt and Jordan to take them.
In the Fox interview — which will be broadcast Monday after the first half was screened ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday — Trump said he would build “beautiful communities” for the more than two million Palestinians who live in Gaza.
“Could be five, six, could be two. But we’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” added Trump.
“In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”


Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence

Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence
Updated 10 February 2025
Follow

Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence

Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence

JERUSALEM: Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in east Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the decades-long conflict. The police said the books incited violence.
The Educational Bookshop, established over 40 years ago, is a hub of intellectual life in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed to its capital in a move not recognized internationally. Most of the city’s Palestinian population lives in east Jerusalem, and the Palestinians want it to be the capital of their future state.
The three-story bookstore that was raided on Sunday has a large selection of books, mainly in Arabic and English, about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and Jewish authors. It hosts cultural events and is especially popular among researchers, journalists and foreign diplomats.
The bookstore’s owners, Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and police confiscated hundreds of titles related to the conflict before ordering the store’s closure, according to May Muna, Mahmoud’s wife.
She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant.” She said they used Google Translate on some the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting them away in plastic bags.
Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in the Old City in east Jerusalem last week.
In a statement, the police said the two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism.”
As an example, the police referred to an English-language children’s coloring book entitled “From the River to the Sea,” a reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that today includes Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians and hard-line Israelis each view the entire area as their national homeland. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is opposed to Palestinian statehood, has said Israel must maintain indefinite control over all the territory west of the Jordan.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have soared since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. A ceasefire has paused the fighting and led to the release of several Israeli hostages abducted in the attack as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Tensions have also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted around 250 people. The war the followed has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The last serious and substantive peace talks broke down after Netanyahu returned to power in 2009.


Iraq president sues PM over unpaid Kurdistan salaries

Iraq president sues PM over unpaid Kurdistan salaries
Updated 10 February 2025
Follow

Iraq president sues PM over unpaid Kurdistan salaries

Iraq president sues PM over unpaid Kurdistan salaries
  • Lawsuit was only disclosed now due to protests over missed payments in Sulaimaniyah
  • Iraq’s public sector is wracked with inefficiency and corruption

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s president has sued Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani over unpaid salaries for civil servants in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, bringing into focus a rift in the country’s leadership.
President Abdul Latif Rashid, a Kurd, filed the lawsuit against Sudani and Finance Minister Taif Sami last month, but his adviser, Hawri Tawfiq, only announced it on Sunday.
The case, submitted to Iraq’s top court, seeks an order to ensure salaries are paid “without interruption” despite ongoing financial disputes between Baghdad and Irbil, the regional capital.
Iraq’s public sector is wracked with inefficiency and corruption, and analysts say Sudani and Rashid had long had disagreements.
While public sector workers received their January salaries, they are still waiting for their December pay.
Tawfiq said the lawsuit was only disclosed now due to protests over missed payments in Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan’s second-largest city and the president’s hometown.
Kurdistan regional president Nechirvan Barzani recently thanked Sudani for his cooperation on financial issues, including salaries.
On Sunday, hundreds of people from Sulaimaniyah attempted to protest in Irbil, but police used tear gas to disperse them, local media reported.
Others have staged a sit-in for two weeks in Sulaimaniyah, with 13 teachers resorting to a hunger strike.
Last year, Iraq’s top court ordered the federal government to cover the public sector salaries in Kurdistan instead of going through the regional administration — a demand employees in Sulaimaniyah have long called for.
But officials say payments have been erratic due to technical issues.
Political scientist Ihssan Al-Shemmari said the lawsuit underscores deepening tensions between Rashid and Sudani.
“We are facing a significant division within the executive authority, and it is now happening openly,” said Shemmari.
In January, Sudani ordered a probe into Rashid’s son’s company, IQ Internet Services.
MP Hanan Al-Fatlawi addressed Rashid on X, saying: “The fines on your son’s company IQ... are enough to pay the salaries” in Kurdistan.


World Governments Summit starts Tuesday with biggest billing in 12-year history

World Governments Summit starts Tuesday with biggest billing in 12-year history
Updated 10 February 2025
Follow

World Governments Summit starts Tuesday with biggest billing in 12-year history

World Governments Summit starts Tuesday with biggest billing in 12-year history
  • This year’s summit will explore global transformations, focusing on opportunities and challenges across various sectors and key issues

DUBAI: The World Governments Summit has unveiled the theme of “Shaping Future Governments” for its 12th annual event held in Dubai from Feb. 11 to Feb. 13, state news agency WAM reported.

This year’s summit will explore global transformations, focusing on opportunities and challenges across various sectors and key issues.

The summit aims to foster the development of shared strategies and visions for enhanced global government performance and stronger international cooperation.

With more than 30 heads of states and government, delegations from 140 governments and representatives from more than 80 global institutions, this year’s summit anticipates record participation.

Attendance looks set to increase by over 50 percent compared to last year, representing the largest gathering in the Summit’s history, with delegates from every continent and a wide range of sectors.

Heads of state, including President of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto, President of Poland  Andrzej Duda, and President of Sri Lanka Kumara Dissanayake, will deliver keynote speeches.

Other speakers billed for the summit include Elon Musk, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and Sir Tony Blair, former prime minister of the UK.

Mohammad Al-Gergawi, UAE minister of Cabinet affairs and chairman of the World Governments Summit, said that the event continued to provide exceptional support in empowering governments worldwide to navigate rapid transformations and evolving challenges across various sectors.

“The summit is committed to being the premier global platform to anticipate and explore the future, developing innovative solutions and forging international partnerships to benefit all communities based on scientifically and realistically grounded insights,” he added.

The summit’s final day will host the Climate Change Forum, the World Health Forum, and the World Government Law Making Forum.