BEIRUT: Syrian insurgent groups launched a counteroffensive Thursday against government forces advancing toward a major opposition-held air base in the country’s northwest Idlib province, capturing several villages and taking prisoners, opposition groups said.
The push by several factions, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee, slowed the government offensive toward the Abu Zuhour air base that has been held by fighters since 2015.
Recapturing the air base has been a key government goal since late October and Syrian forces have captured some 160 villages since first launched the offensive. The operations also aim to secure the road linking the capital, Damascus, with Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, in Damascus, said he was “deeply worried” about civilians caught up in the violence in Idlib. The fighting has displaced an estimated 100,000 people who have fled north toward safer areas close to the border with Turkey.
Lowcock, on his first mission to Syria since his appointment last year, called for agreements to allow the UN and other relief organizations to reach 2.5 million Syrians in need of aid on a regular basis. They are Syrians in areas the UN classifies as “besieged” or “hard-to-reach.” The UN delivered aid to an average 7.5 million people each month last year.
The under-secretary-general said he was “particularly concerned about the fate of the besieged people of (Eastern) Ghouta,” a pocket of the opposition in the suburbs of Damascus. Government forces have waged a punishing aerial and artillery campaign on eastern Ghouta after opposition launched an attack on a nearby military base in November. The bombardment has killed 170 civilians over the last two weeks, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Attacks by Syrian and Russian forces on eastern Ghouta damaged or destroyed four schools and killed eight children in late October and early November 2017, according to a new report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Russia is a key military backer of Syria's Bashar Assad.
“Syrian and Russian forces appear to view the lives of children in Eastern Ghouta as utterly disposable,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Government forces had largely beaten back the counter-offensive by militants in Idlib by evening Thursday, the Observatory reported. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said troops repelled the assault and killed several militants in the fighting.
Idlib is the largest remaining territory in opposition hands, and its population is swollen with more than 1.1 million refugees who have fled fighting from other areas in Syria, according to the UN
A statement Thursday by the International Rescue Committee said it received hundreds of newly displaced people from the southeast of the province in the past few days, joining thousands who fled over the past month.
Many of the newly displaced brought only the belongings they could carry, the committee said, adding that one mother of two twin babies recounted the initial panic of fleeing the airstrikes. The woman was so frightened, she initially left one of her children behind.
“We couldn’t think properly. The fear affected our brains,” the IRC quoted her as saying. The baby was unharmed, she added.
The IRC said nearly two thirds of the displaced in Idlib are living in makeshift tents that are unable to withstand winter conditions while others live in abandoned or partially-build homes that have well water but no toilets.
The Aamaq media arm of the extremist Daesh group reported Thursday that its fighters are clashing with Syrian troops on the eastern edges of Idlib, and released a video purporting to show four soldiers it claimed to have captured.
The Observatory confirmed insurgents have retaken several villages from government troops and said 11 pro-government fighters were captured. The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman said 16 insurgents were killed in the fighting but did not provide a figure for government casulaties.
At least 400,000 people have been killed and half of Syria’s population displaced since a violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in 2011 plunged the country into civil war.
Assad regime says it is fighting a war on terror and describes itself is as a target of a US-led international conspiracy.
It says Western sanctions have crippled its economy. Lowcock, in Damascus, said he would like to see “more detailed evidence” about the claims, and said it would be topic of continued discussion with regime officials.
The US Treasury Department says its sanctions against the Syrian government are in response to human rights abuses and state-sponsored terrorism.
Syrian insurgents in counteroffensive in northwestern area
Syrian insurgents in counteroffensive in northwestern area
Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
- Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing the Islamist movement Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli military says it downed drone smuggling weapons from Egypt
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Wednesday it shot down a drone that was carrying weapons and crossed from Egypt to Israel.
When asked about the latest drone incident, Egyptian security sources said they had no knowledge of such an incident.
In two separate incidents in October, Israel also said it downed two drones smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory.
Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Palestinian militant group Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms.
However, Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
Will ceasefire deal to end Israel-Hezbollah war achieve lasting peace for Lebanon?
- Iran welcomes “end of Israel’s aggression” despite terms requiring withdrawal and disarmament of its proxy Hezbollah
- For Israel, the ceasefire is not necessarily an end to the war, but a pause in the fighting, according to analysts
BEIRUT/LONDON: The world has largely welcomed a ceasefire deal which ends 13 months of fighting betrween Israel and Hezbollah that has claimed the lives of at least 3,700 Lebanese and more than 130 Israelis.
The deal between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, brokered by the US and France, came into effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. local time.
From the Israeli army’s perspective, the war in Lebanon was coming to a point of diminishing returns. It has succeeded in weakening Hezbollah’s military standing and eliminating its top leadership but has been unable to wipe it out entirely. For its part, Hezbollah has been seriously debilitated in Lebanon; the war has eroded its military capabilities and left it rudderless.
Looking at it optimistically, the diplomatic breakthrough — which unfolded on Tuesday night as Israel unleashed a barrage of bombs on central Beirut — could be the beginning of the end of the long-standing “Israel-Iran shadow war,” as a new administration prepares to assume power in Washington.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military began to exchange cross-border fire on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack.
The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 this year, when Israel began heavily bombing several parts of Lebanon, including Hezbollah’s stronghold in the south. The airstrikes killed thousands of Lebanese, displaced some 1.2 million others, flattened residential buildings, and devastated 37 villages.
While the ceasefire deal calls for a 60-day halt in hostilities, President Joe Biden said that it “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Negotiators have described it as laying the groundwork for a lasting truce.
Under the terms of the deal, Hezbollah will remove its fighters and arms from the region between the Blue Line and the Litani River, while Israeli troops will withdraw from Lebanese territory during the specified period.
Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers will deploy to the region south of the Litani River. A US-led international panel will oversee compliance from all sides. However, uncertainty persists, as both Hezbollah and Israel have warned that they will resume fire if the other party breaches the agreement.
Hezbollah stated it would give the ceasefire pact a chance, but Mahmoud Qamati, the deputy chair of the group’s political council, stressed that Hezbollah’s support for the deal depends on clear assurances that Israel will not resume its attacks.
Likewise, Israel said it would attack if Hezbollah violated the agreement. The army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, also urged residents of southern Lebanese villages — who had fled in recent months — to delay returning home until further notice from the Israeli military.
David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst with the International Crisis Group, believes that while the ceasefire is desperately needed, it “will almost certainly not bring Lebanon’s troubles to an end.
“Many of the country’s displaced may not be able to return home for months, as Israel has razed entire villages near the Blue Line border,” he said. “Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s domestic foes claim they will no longer accept the group’s dominance over Lebanese politics — a pledge that promises still more instability.”
Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, also cannot see this ceasefire bringing an end to Lebanon’s problems as the war has already triggered shifts in internal alliances.
Describing the deal as a “capitulation,” he said during an interview with the BBC that “the majority of the Lebanese people, including Hezbollah's own support base, did not want to see Lebanon dragged into this war.”
“After all this devastation, after Hezbollah having now to capitulate and withdraw away from that border north of the Litani River, having to accept an American-led mechanism led by a general who is part of CENTCOM in the region, this is going to be highly embarrassing,” he said. “And there's going to be a day of reckoning for Hezbollah in Lebanon once the ceasefire actually goes into effect.”
He added that politically, this means that “the various Lebanese parties and the various also alliances that had been in place before this war are no longer going to be there.”
“We saw, for example, Hezbollah’s crucial Christian ally distance itself from the group now, very much moving towards the center or even in opposition to Hezbollah.”
Gebran Bassil, leader of the Maronite Free Patriotic Movement and a close ally of Hezbollah since 2006, said earlier this month that his party is “not in an alliance with Hezbollah.”
In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, he added that Hezbollah “has weakened itself and exposed its military strength, leaving Lebanon as a whole vulnerable to Israeli attacks.”
Also acknowledging the toll on Hezbollah is Lebanese political analyst Ali Al-Amin. He expressed concern that, while the ceasefire deal is a positive development, its terms signal a significant shift for Hezbollah.
“People were happy at first glance about the ceasefire agreement, as it is a basic demand after a fierce, destructive war,” he told Arab News. “However, there are many (unanswered) questions, starting with the nature of the agreement and its content.
“In a first reading, I believe that Hezbollah’s function has ended. The prohibition of military operations and weapons, the necessity of destroying and dismantling weapons facilities, and the ban on the supply of weapons are all preludes to ending the party’s function.”
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Hezbollah’s main ally, Tehran, expressed support for the ceasefire. Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, welcomed the end of Israel’s “aggression against Lebanon.”
He also reaffirmed his country’s “firm support for the Lebanese government, nation and resistance.”
Before the Israeli cabinet approved the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow his country to “intensify” pressure on the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and focus on the “Iranian threat.”
Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israeli analyst with the ICG, believes that “for Israel, the ceasefire is not necessarily an end to the war, but a pause” in fighting.
She said: “It will free up forces and resources to Israel’s other fronts in Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran, and is a chance to test out Israel’s ability to take military action to enforce the ceasefire, which is being sold as the main difference between the resolution that ended the 2006 war and this time around.”
Al-Amin believes Iran, Israel’s biggest adversary, has accepted this shift affecting its ally Hezbollah. However, he stressed that while the deal remains “subject to implementation,” it raises questions about the enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and Washington’s role in overseeing its execution.
Echoing Al-Amin’s concern, Heiko Wimmen, ICG project director for Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, said: “The ceasefire is based on the commitment of both Lebanon and Israel to finally implement Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“The challenges are the same as 18 years ago, namely, how to make sure that both parties comply in the long term and what to do with Hezbollah’s military capabilities, which constitute a threat to the security of Israel, and potentially other Lebanese, whether they are present on the border or a few kilometers away.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who welcomed the ceasefire deal, reiterated on Wednesday his government’s commitment to implementing Resolution 1701.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted to resolve the 2006 Lebanon war, called for a permanent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, the establishment of a buffer zone free of armed personnel other than UN and Lebanese forces, Hezbollah’s disarmament and withdrawal from south of the Litani River, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
However, Maksad of the Middle East Institute, emphasizes that implementing a ceasefire in Lebanon — US-led and otherwise — will demand more than just adhering to the deal’s terms, especially on the domestic front.
“There is a crucial need to rearrange the deck in Lebanon,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
“You need to elect a president in Lebanon, one that is a sovereign-minded president that would work with the Lebanese army and provide it with the political cover it needs to help and implement this resolution together with the UN troops that are there and also the international community.”
He added: “You also cannot begin the task — the mammoth task — of rebuilding, the reconstruction, the tune of billions of dollars if you don’t have a reform-minded government.”
And while the ceasefire brings a faint hope for Lebanon’s displaced population, many of those affected perceive its terms through the prism of personal loss, questioning what, if anything, had been gained from the war.
Nora Farhat, whose family home in Anqoun in Beirut’s southern suburbs was reduced to rubble, lamented that the agreement “will not restore our destroyed homes or bring back those who were killed — loved ones we have yet to bury.”
The scale of destruction in southern villages means return is not an option for many, who are left wondering about Hezbollah’s future and its ability to maintain its influence in the region.
Analyst Al-Amin believes that Hezbollah’s immediate focus will likely shift to managing the domestic narrative.
“Hezbollah’s priority now will be how to reverse the defeat into victory at home, and how to prevent the Lebanese from questioning what happened and why it happened,” he said.
Some of those displaced from Shiite-majority villages in the south expressed frustration at being caught in the crossfire of Hezbollah’s conflicts with Israel.
For Ahmad Ismail, who was displaced from his home in south Lebanon, the war and its aftermath seemed “futile.”
He told Arab News: “There was no need to open a southern front under the slogan of supporting Gaza, as those who sought this war sought to humiliate us.
“If only we had implemented the May 17 agreement in the 1980s with Israel, we would have been spared wars, killing and destruction, and the Shiite sect would not have reached the point of displacement, death, and frustration it has reached today.”
Ismail, who was previously imprisoned in Israel, believes the ceasefire is the only positive aspect of the US-brokered truce deal.
“It is a good initiative toward making this the last of the wars and a step toward disarming illegal weapons,” he said. “It also paves the way for restoring the state to its role, which Hezbollah undermined by monopolizing decisions of war and peace without consulting anyone.”
Despite the Israeli military’s warning, Lebanese people displaced from their homes in the south began flocking to their villages.
Ismail believes “people are currently in shock. Some still cannot believe that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, and many have not yet seen what happened to their homes and villages.
“When they wake up from the trauma, we will see the repercussions.”
Ismail added: “A disaster has befallen the Lebanese people, and Hezbollah must be held accountable. Hezbollah is no longer able to mobilize the people through the power of weapons, excess force, and money.”
As Lebanon begins to pick up the pieces, many still wonder if this ceasefire will offer more than just a temporary reprieve — or if it will be the beginning of an uncertain future.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah vows to continue resistance after ceasefire
- The group made no direct mention of the ceasefire deal
- Fighters would continue to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces
CAIRO: Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Wednesday vowed to continue its resistance and support Palestinians, including fighters, a day after a ceasefire deal between the group and Israel was announced.
In the first statement by Hezbollah’s operations center since the deal was announced, the group made no direct mention of the ceasefire deal.
“The Islamic resistance’s operations room affirms that its fighters in all military disciplines will remain fully equipped to deal with the aspirations and assaults of the Israeli enemy,” the group said.
It added that its fighters would continue to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces beyond the Lebanese borders “with their hands on the trigger.”
The ceasefire deal includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days, Israeli officials said.
The deal, brokered by the US and France, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years. Israel is still fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
Former ICC chief prosecutor tells of ‘threats to family’ during Israel-Palestine war crimes probe
- Fatou Bensouda says she was subjected to ‘thug-style tactics’ while working on cases related to Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan
- A newspaper investigation previously alleged she was threatened by the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad
LONDON: The former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has told how she received “direct threats” to herself and her family while working there.
Fatou Bensouda’s comments about her experiences came six months after a newspaper report alleged that the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had threatened her in an attempt to get her to drop an investigation into accusations of war crimes in occupied Palestinian territories.
Appearing at a legal event in London on Tuesday, Bensouda did not mention any specific threats but said she was subjected to “unacceptable, thug-style tactics” while doing her job.
She said that while working on some of the court’s toughest cases, including those related to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan, she received “direct threats to my person and family and some of my closest professional advisors.”
Bensouda was the ICC’s chief prosecutor from 2012 until 2021. The Guardian newspaper reported in May that Israel’s foreign intelligence services put pressure on Bensouda after she opened a preliminary investigation in 2015 into the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The newspaper, sighting several Israeli sources, alleged that Yossi Cohen, the director of Mossad at the time, threatened Bensouda during a series of secret meetings and warned her not to proceed with a case related to alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities denied the allegations of threats and intimidation, and Bensouda opened a full criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in 2021, shortly before she left her post.
Last week, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military chief of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
The warrants were requested six months ago by Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, as part of an extension of the investigation that his predecessor initiated. Khan accelerated the case after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.
During her lecture at the Bar Council on Wednesday, Bensouda, who is now Gambia’s high commissioner to the UK, said the arrest warrants issued last week focused exclusively on the events of Oct. 7 and those that followed, and did not include aspects of the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine that formed the basis of the investigation she initiated.
She said her initial probe focused on whether Hamas, other Palestinian armed groups or the Israeli military had committed war crimes in relation to hostilities that took place during 2014, and its scope included illegal Israeli settlements and the displacement of populations into the occupied West Bank.
“It will be important to ensure that the full extent of criminality in the context of this devastating … conflict is fully investigated and accountability is finally had for the benefit of its many victims on all sides of the conflict,” she said.
During her time as chief prosecutor, Bensouda also came under pressure from the US. Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on her in 2020 after the ICC began investigating allegations of US war crimes in Afghanistan.
The sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden. However, last week he described the ICC decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu as “outrageous” and said there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC. However, the 124 states that have signed up to it are obliged to act on warrants it issues if the accused visit their countries.
