BEIRUT: Habib Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), was sentenced to death in absentia on Friday by the Lebanese Justice Council.
He was found guilty of murdering former Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel and 32 of his colleagues in 1982, when Shartouni blew up the Phalange headquarters as Gemayel was chairing a meeting of the party’s leadership.
The court said targeting Gemayel “aimed to generate strife and damage the foundation of the homeland.”
The Justice Council also sentenced to death in absentia Nabil Alam, who was reported to have died abroad, though the court was unable to substantiate the claim and so considered him a fugitive.
The court said he was the “key instigator of the assassination.”
The sentence, which was described as “historic” by MP Samy Gemayel, was met with loud applause in the courtroom.
Both the Phalange and the Lebanese Forces celebrated in Sassine Square in Beirut’s Achrafieh district.
The family later visited Bachir’s tomb in the town of Bikfaya, where they displayed the text of the judgment against the killers.
The Lebanese authorities arrested Shartouni after the assassination in 1982, but he was not prosecuted.
In 1990, when the Syrian Army seized the Lebanese presidential palace and besieged then-President Michel Aoun, Shartouni was smuggled from Roumieh central prison to an unknown location.
Bachir’s widow Solange said: “At last, the sentence has been passed in the name of the Lebanese people. We’ve been working hard for 35 years to get justice for Bachir and his comrades.”
She added: “I’m the wife of a martyr and the mother of a martyr, along with thousands of families who lost martyrs. The judiciary has restored some prestige to the state.”
She thanked the Justice Council and the Lebanese people, and stressed “the continuation of the march to achieve Bachir’s dream of a free, sovereign and independent Lebanon.”
A family spokesperson told Arab News: “This sentence is conclusive and won’t be reconsidered, according to the judicial law concerning fugitives, unless the fugitives are caught and retried before the Justice Council.”
Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk left a Cabinet meeting in the presidential palace when the sentence was passed, and went to the ministry to follow the security situation on the ground.
Arab News attended the Justice Council session, which was held under tight security at the Beirut Palace of Justice.
The session was attended by two groups, one supporting the SSNP and the other the Phalange and Lebanese Forces.
The sentencing was attended by Phalange leader and former Lebanese President Amine Gemayel, Solange, Bachir’s children Nadim and Yumna, and Phalange and Lebanese Forces leaders.
Before the session began, SSNP supporters marched toward the Palace of Justice. Security forces set up an iron barrier to separate them from Phalange and Lebanese Forces supporters.
Some protesters said Bachir’s assassination was not personal, but was because he dealt with Israel and helped it occupy Lebanon and commit massacres.
“What’s happening today is a political trial,” one of them said. Protesters chanted slogans in support of Shartouni, Syria and SSNP founder Antoun Saadeh.
Naoum Farah, a lawyer for the Gemayel family, said: “The sentence today confirms that what Shartouni and Alam did was not an act of resistance, but rather a terrorist crime.”
But Shartouni’s lawyer Richard Riachi said: “What Shartouni did was an act of resistance protected by international law and the UN charter. What he did was a reaction to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.”
The court “didn’t listen to the aggrieved party,” Rayachi added.
“This is a political crime with a decent motivation. Shartouni didn’t receive any money from any party. This crime is covered by amnesty because it’s political.”
The amnesty issued at the end of Lebanon’s civil war did not include assassinations of presidents, cases referred to the Justice Council or kidnappings.
Lebanese judiciary sentences killer of Bachir Gemayel to death
Lebanese judiciary sentences killer of Bachir Gemayel to death
Thousands mourn top Iranian military commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes
- Caskets of Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami and Gen. Amir Ali Hajjizadeh and others were driven on trucks along the capital
- Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefir
DUBAI: Thousands of mourners lined the streets of downtown Tehran on Saturday for the funeral of the head of the Revolutionary Guard and other top commanders and nuclear scientists killed during a 12-day war with Israel.
The caskets of Guard’s chief Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajjizadeh and others were driven on trucks along the capital’s Azadi Street.
Salami and Hajjizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, June 13, as Israel launched a war it said meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, specifically targeting military commanders, scientists and nuclear facilities.
Over 12 days before a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group.
Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people.
Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children.
Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies.
Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. But Israel views it as an existential threat and said its military campaign was necessary to prevent Iran from building an atomic weapon.
Yemen missile launched toward Israel ‘most likely’ intercepted, Israeli army says
- Houthis have been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza
- Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile launched from Yemen toward Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted.”
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement — which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza — with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
Sudan’s military accepts UN proposal of a weeklong ceasefire in El Fasher for aid distribution
- Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and the rival RSF escalated into battles
- The war has also driven more than 14 million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine
CAIRO: Sudan’s military agreed to a proposal from the United Nations for a weeklong ceasefire in El Fasher to facilitate UN aid efforts to the area, the army said Friday.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called Sudanese military leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and asked him for the humanitarian truce in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, to allow aid delivery.
Burhan agreed to the proposal and stressed the importance of implementing relevant UN Security Council resolutions, but it’s unknown whether the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces would agree and comply with the ceasefire.
“We are making contacts with both sides with that objective, and that was the fundamental reason for that phone contact. We have a dramatic situation in El Fasher,” Guterres told reporters on Friday.
No further details were revealed about the specifics of the ceasefire, including when it could go into effect.
Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and the rival RSF escalated into battles in the capital, Khartoum, and spread across the country, killing more than 20,000 people.
The war has also driven more than 14 million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine. UNICEF said earlier this year that an estimated 61,800 children have been internally displaced since the war began.
Guterres said on Friday that a humanitarian truce is needed for effective aid distribution, and it must be agreed upon several days in advance to prepare for a large-scale delivery in the El Fasher area, which has seen repeated waves of violence recently.
El-Fasher, more than 800 kilometers southwest of Khartoum, is under the control of the military. The RSF has been trying to capture El Fasher for a year to solidify its control over the entire Darfur region. The paramilitary’s attempts included launching repeated attacks on the city and two major famine-stricken displacement camps on its outskirts.
Trump hopeful for Gaza ceasefire, possibly ‘next week’
- United Nations officials on Friday said the GHF system was leading to mass killings of people seeking aid, drawing accusations from Israel that the UN was “aligning itself with Hamas”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump voiced optimism Friday about a new ceasefire in Gaza, as criticism grew over mounting civilian deaths at Israeli-backed food distribution centers in the territory.
Asked by reporters how close a ceasefire was between Israel and Hamas, Trump said: “We think within the next week, we’re going to get a ceasefire.”
The United States brokered a ceasefire in the devastating conflict in the waning days of former president Joe Biden’s administration, with support from Trump’s incoming team.
Israel broke the ceasefire in March, launching new devastating attacks on Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel also stopped all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months, drawing warnings of famine.
Israel has since allowed a resumption of food through the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which involves US security contractors with Israeli troops at the periphery.
United Nations officials on Friday said the GHF system was leading to mass killings of people seeking aid, drawing accusations from Israel that the UN was “aligning itself with Hamas.”
Eyewitnesses and local officials have reported repeated killings of Palestinians at distribution centers over recent weeks in the war-stricken territory, where Israeli forces are battling Hamas militants.
The Israeli military has denied targeting people and GHF has denied any deadly incidents were linked to its sites.
But following weeks of reports, UN officials and other aid providers on Friday denounced what they said was a wave of killings of hungry people seeking aid.
“The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,” with people “shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs (UNWRA).
“This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN including @UNRWA,” he wrote on X.
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies.
The country’s civil defense agency has also repeatedly reported people being killed while seeking aid.
“People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“The search for food must never be a death sentence.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) branded the GHF relief effort “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.”
That drew an angry response from Israel, which said GHF had provided 46 million meals in Gaza.
“The UN is doing everything it can to oppose this effort. In doing so, the UN is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF’s humanitarian operations,” the foreign ministry said.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a report in left-leaning daily Haaretz that military commanders had ordered troops to shoot at crowds near aid distribution sites to disperse them even when they posed no threat.
Haaretz said the military advocate general, the army’s top legal authority, had instructed the military to investigate “suspected war crimes” at aid sites.
The Israeli military declined to comment to AFP on the claim.
Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Defense Minister Israel Katz that their country “absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels” and “malicious falsehoods” in the Haaretz article.
Gaza’s civil defense agency told AFP 80 Palestinians had been killed on Friday by Israeli strikes or fire across the Palestinian territory, including 10 who were waiting for aid.
The Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the incidents, and denied its troops fired in one of the locations in central Gaza where rescuers said one aid seeker was killed.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP six people were killed in southern Gaza near one of the distribution sites operated by GHF, and one more in a separate incident in the center of the territory, where the army denied shooting “at all.”
Another three people were killed by a strike while waiting for aid southwest of Gaza City, Bassal said.
Elsewhere, eight people were killed “after an Israeli air strike hit Osama Bin Zaid School, which was housing displaced persons” in northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said they shelled an Israeli vehicle east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on Friday.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas-ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said they attacked Israeli soldiers in at least two other locations near Khan Yunis in coordination with the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,331 people, also mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.
Child laborers among 19 dead in Egypt road accident: state media
- Most of the victims were teenage girls working as day laborers
CAIRO: A road accident in northern Egypt killed 19 people on Friday, most of them teenage girls working as day laborers, state media reported.
A truck collided with the minibus carrying the laborers to their place of work from their home village of Kafr Al-Sanabsa in the Nile Delta, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Cairo, state-owned newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm reported.
According to a list of the names and ages of the dead published by another state-owned daily, Al-Ahram, most of the workers were teenagers — two of them just 14.
Egyptian media dubbed the girls “martyrs for their daily bread.”
Road accidents are common in Egypt, where traffic rules are unevenly enforced and many roads are in poor repair.
Accidents often involve underage laborers traveling to work in overcrowded minibuses in rural areas.
At least 1.3 million minors are engaged in some form of child labor in Egypt, according to official figures.
