LONDON: Calls for the UK to re-classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in its entirety are intensifying, following demands from both UK MPs and US President Donald Trump to outlaw the organization.
UK politicians have secured a cross-party parliamentary debate to take place on Jan. 25 with the aim of ramping up pressure on the government to completely ban the Lebanon-based group “without further delay or excuses,” Jennifer Gerber, director of the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), said.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, driven by an anti-Semitic ideology, which seeks the destruction of Israel. The British government has repeatedly failed to take action to ban it in its entirety.”
The upcoming debate was secured by the LFI chairperson and Labour MP Joan Ryan.
Trump also demanded all US allies to designate all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in a speech on Jan. 12 where he called Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” which has enabled organizations such as Hezbollah “to sow chaos and kill innocent people.”
Hezbollah, which is funded and armed by Iran, is among 60 groups defined as foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department.
The UK only categorizes Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization, excluding the group’s political wing. It made that proscription in 2001 and extended the ban to Hezbollah’s Jihad Council in 2008.
The EU also names the military arm of Hezbollah on its list of terror groups, but does not include the political arm. The EU designated Hezbollah’s military arm as a terrorist entity in 2013 after a bus of Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian city of Burgas was bombed.
“This false distinction means that Hezbollah flags can be flown on the streets of Britain,” LFI said in a statement last week, referring to the flags seen in the Al Quds Day parade held in London in June last year. Al Quds Day is an annual event first established by Iran to encourage people to march in support of Palestine and against Israel.
The parliamentary debate has been welcomed by many groups eager for the government to crack down on Hezbollah and its presence on the streets of the UK.
“On June 4, 2017, the day after the London Bridge terror attack, Prime Minister Theresa May said that the UK was too tolerant of extremism. Two weeks later, people walked down the streets of London waving Hezbollah flags,” said Michael McCann, director at the Israel Britain Alliance.
“Hezbollah is a genocidal terror organization that operates on the orders of Iran. It illustrates the prime minister’s point perfectly. On Jan. 25, MPs can send a message to the British government — our country stands against terror in all its forms,” he said.
McCann’s comments are echoed by David Ibsen, the executive director of the Counter-Extremism Project, a US-based non-government organization.
“The UK and the EU must recognize the semantic fallacy of a difference between the military and political wings of Hezbollah,” he said.
“There is only one Hezbollah, a terrorist organization founded by and heavily funded by Iran. Even Hezbollah’s top officials brazenly acknowledge that the same leaders who ordered attacks against British soldiers in Iraq direct Hezbollah’s work in the Lebanese Parliament.
Ibsen said it was time for the UK and the EU to join countries such as the Netherlands, the Arab League, Canada and the US that have banned the group in its entirety.
While the distinction between the political and military arms may not even be recognized by Hezbollah itself, Filippo Dionigi, lecturer of politics and International relations at the University of Bristol, said it could be useful in supporting the UK’s diplomatic relations with Lebanon.
“This distinction (however artificial) allows to those states and institutions that adopt it (including the EU) to implement measures against Hezbollah’s militant activity, but avoids the condemnation of Hezbollah’s political activity which is important, given that this group plays an influential role also within the Lebanese government and institutions,” he said.
He said that the UK government would need to weigh its foreign policy priorities before making a decision to reclassify Hezbollah.
“It will depend on the government’s priorities and interests whether to adopt a more comprehensive ban on Hezbollah or not.
“Doing so will signal greater amenability to President’s Trump demands (and those of Israeli nationalist groups), but may have the effect of rendering relations with Lebanon more unstable given that the president of the country enjoys Hezbollah’s support and the government is partly composed by Hezbollah-supported members,” he said.
While the focus of the UK debate will probably be on Israel, Hezbollah’s actions in other countries like Syria, where it has provided a crucial military buttress to Bashar Assad, will also be under scrutiny.
“Hezbollah’s current crimes against Syrian civilians should be our most urgent concern,” a spokesperson for opposition group Syria Solidarity UK, said.
“In particular, Hezbollah is directly responsible for besieging and forcibly displacing several civilian communities, blocking food and medical aid, and killing civilians.”
The group called for a full ban on Hezbollah by the UK.
Calls for UK to follow US crackdown on Hezbollah
Calls for UK to follow US crackdown on Hezbollah
Jordan foreign minister holds talks with Syria’s new leader
- It was the first visit by a senior Jordanian official since Bashar Assad’s fall
AMMAN: Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi met with Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, Amman said, the latest high-profile visit since Bashar Assad’s ouster.
Images distributed by the Jordanian foreign ministry showed Safadi and Sharaa shaking hands, without offering further details about their meeting.
A foreign ministry statement earlier said that Safadi would meet with the new Syrian leader as well as with “several Syrian officials.”
It was the first visit by a senior Jordanian official since Assad’s fall.
Jordan, which borders Syria to the south, hosted a summit earlier this month where top Arab, Turkish, EU and US diplomats called for an inclusive and peaceful transition after years of civil war.
Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad on December 8, has welcomed senior officials from a host of countries in the Middle East and beyond in recent days.
Jordanian government spokesman Mohamed Momani told reporters on Sunday that Amman “sides with the will of the brotherly Syrian people,” stressing the close ties between the two nations.
Momani said the kingdom would like to see security and stability restored in Syria, and supported “the unity of its territories.”
Stability in war-torn Syria was in Jordan’s interests, Momani said, and would “ensure security on its borders.”
Some Syrians who had fled the war since 2011 and sought refuge in Jordan have begun returning home, according to Jordanian authorities.
The interior ministry said Thursday that more than 7,000 Syrians had left, out of some 1.3 million refugees Amman says it has hosted.
According to the United Nations, 680,000 Syrian refugees were registered with it in Jordan.
Jordan in recent years has tightened border controls in a crackdown on drug and weapon smuggling along its 375-kilometer border with Syria.
One of the main drugs smuggled is the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon, for which there is huge demand in the oil-rich Gulf.
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza kill at least 20 people, Palestinian medics say
- Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,200 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry till date
Palestinian medics say Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 20 people.
One of the strikes overnight and into Monday hit a tent camp in the Muwasi area, an Israel-declared humanitarian zone, killing eight people, including two children. That’s according to the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, which received the bodies.
Hospital records show another six killed in a strike on people securing an aid convoy and another two killed in a strike on a car in Muwasi. One person was killed in a separate strike in the area.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir Al-Balah said three bodies arrived after an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp.
The Israeli military says it only strikes militants, accusing them of hiding among civilians. It said late Sunday that it had targeted a Hamas militant in the humanitarian zone.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Around 100 captives are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,200 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry says women and children make up more than half the dead but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
South Sudan overwhelmed by refugee influx: MSF
- Sudan is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies since conflict broke out in April 2023
NAIROBI: The situation on South Sudan’s border was “completely overwhelming” as thousands flee war-torn Sudan each day, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Monday.
The medical charity said up to 5,000 people were crossing the border every day. The United Nations recently put it even higher at 7-10,000 daily.
Sudan is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies since conflict broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, with tens of thousands killed and millions displaced.
An MSF emergency coordinator in Renk town, near a transit center holding some 17,000 people according to the UN, said they were working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide care.
“But the situation is completely overwhelming and it’s not enough,” said Emanuele Montobbio.
Facilities had been expanded to accommodate the arrival of war wounded, he said, but they were unable to treat everyone.
“Over 100 wounded patients, many with serious injuries, still await surgery,” Montobbio said.
Bashir Ismail, from Mosmon in Blue Nile state, was recovering in hospital in Renk after an air raid.
“Something hit me in the chest — it was the most painful experience of my life,” he said.
“I was so disoriented that it felt like I had lost my memory.”
MSF South Sudan’s deputy medical coordinator Roselyn Morales said thousands who had crossed faced “critical shortages of food and shelter, clean water, shelter and health care.”
South Sudan is ill-equipped to handle the arrival of thousands seeking shelter from war, with the young country itself battling violence, endemic poverty and natural disasters.
Alhida Hammed fled to Renk after his village was attacked and he was shot in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.
“The houses were blazing, and everyone was running in different directions,” he said.
He now has no shelter and is living under a tree, but does not want to return to Sudan.
“Home is no longer a home — it is filled with bad memories.”
Bethlehem plans another somber Christmas under the shadow of war in Gaza
- Manger Square is empty of tourists and many businesses aren’t sure how much longer they can hold on
- The city’s hotel occupancy rate plunged from around 80 percent in early 2023 to around 3 percent today
BETHLEHEM: The Nativity Store in Manger Square has sold handmade olive wood carvings and religious items to people visiting the traditional birthplace of Jesus since 1927. But as Bethlehem prepares to mark its second Christmas under the shadow of the war in Gaza, there are almost no tourists, leaving the Nativity Store and other businesses unsure of how much longer they can hold on.
For the second straight year, Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations will be somber and muted, in deference to ongoing war in Gaza. There will be no giant Christmas tree in Manger Square, no raucous scout marching bands, no public lights twinkling and very few public decorations or displays.
“Last year before Christmas, we had more hope, but now again we are close to Christmas and we don’t have anything,” said Rony Tabash, the third-generation owner of Nativity Store.
Israel’s war against Hamas has been raging for nearly 15 months, and there still is no end in sight. Repeated ceasefire efforts have stalled.
Since the war began, tourism to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank has plummeted. And after Israel barred entry to most of the 150,000 Palestinians in the West Bank who had jobs in Israel, the Palestinian economy contracted by 25 percent in the past year.
The yearly Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem — shared among Armenian, Catholic and Orthodox denominations — are usually major boons for the city, where tourism accounts for 70 percent of its yearly income. But the streets are empty this season.
Tabash said he continues to open the store every day, but often an entire week will go by without a sale. Tabash works with more than 25 local families who create hand-carved religious items out of the region’s storied olive wood. But with no buyers, work has dried up for these families.
Lots of room at the inn
The number of visitors to the city plunged from a pre-COVID high of around 2 million visitors per year in 2019 to fewer than 100,000 visitors in 2024, said Jiries Qumsiyeh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian tourism ministry.
According to the Christmas story, Mary was forced to give birth to Jesus in a stable because there was no room at the inn. Today, nearly all of Bethlehem’s 5,500 hotel rooms are empty.
The city’s hotel occupancy rate plunged from around 80 percent in early 2023 to around 3 percent today, said Elias Al Arja, the head of Bethlehem Hoteliers Association. At his own hotel, the Bethlehem Hotel, he said he has laid off a staff of more than 120 people and retains just five employees.
The city hosts more than 100 stores and 450 workshops dealing with traditional Palestinian handicraft, Qumsiyeh said. But just a week before Christmas, when the city should be bursting with visitors, Manger Square was mostly empty save for a few locals selling coffee and tea. Only two of the eight stores in the main drag of the square were open for business.
Qumsiyeh worries that when the war ends and tourism eventually rebounds, many of the families that have handed down traditional skills for generations will no longer be making the items that reflect Palestinian heritage and culture.
Many are leaving the region entirely. “We have witnessed a very high rate of emigration since the beginning of the aggression, especially among those working in the tourism sector,” said Qumsiyeh.
A Christmas without joy
Almost 500 families have left Bethlehem in the past year, said Mayor Anton Salman. And those are just the families who moved abroad with official residency visas. Many others have moved abroad on temporary tourist visas and are working illegally, and it’s unclear if they will return, Salman said.
Around half of the population in the Bethlehem area, including nearby villages, works in either tourism or in jobs in Israel.
The unemployment rate in Bethlehem is roughly 50 percent, said Salman. Unemployment across the West Bank is around 30 percent, according to the Palestinian Economy Ministry.
Canceling Christmas festivities is one way to draw attention to the difficult situation in Bethlehem and across the Palestinian territories, said Salman. “This year we want to show the world that the Palestinian people are still suffering and they haven’t the joy that everybody else in the world having,” said Salman.
It is another blow to the Holy Land’s dwindling population over the decade due to emigration and a low birthrate.
Christians are a small percentage of the population. There are about 182,000 in Israel, 50,000 in the West Bank and Jerusalem and 1,300 in Gaza, according to the US State Department.
Finding the light in the night
Father Issa Thaljieh, the parish priest of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Church of the Nativity, said many families are struggling financially, leaving them unable to pay rent or school fees, much less buy Christmas presents or celebrate the holiday in other ways. The church’s social services have tried to help, but the needs are great, he said.
Thaljieh said his Christmas message this year focused on encouraging Palestinians in Bethlehem to stay despite the challenges.
“A church without Christians is not a church,” he said, as workers hand-polished the ornate brass candelabras in the cavernous, empty church a week before the holiday.
“The light that was born when Jesus Christ was born here is the light that moves beyond darkness, so we have to wait, we have to be patient, we have to pray a lot, and we have to stay with our roots because our roots are in Bethlehem,” he said.
Some families are finding ways to bring back pockets of joy.
Bethlehem resident Nihal Bandak, 39, gave into her three children’s requests to have a Christmas tree this year, after not having one last year. Decorating the tree is the favorite part of Christmas of her youngest daughter, 8-year-old Stephanie.
Mathew Bandak, 11 was thrilled his family brought back some of their traditions, but also torn.
“I was happy because we get to decorate and celebrate, but people are in Gaza who don’t have anything to celebrate,” he said.
Rony Tabash, the third-generation owner of Nativity Store, said he will continue to open the store, because it’s part of his family’s history.
“We are not feeling Christmas, but in the end, Christmas is in our hearts,” he said, adding that the entire city was praying for a ceasefire and peace. “We have a big faith that always, when we see Christmas, it will give us the light in the night.”
Former Israeli spy agents describe attack using exploding electronic devices against Hezbollah
- Operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah did not realize it was buying from Israel
- It took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices
WASHINGTON: Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie talkies three months ago.
Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
The agents spoke with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities.
One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn’t realize it was buying from Israel, its enemy. The walkie-talkies were not detonated until September, a day after booby-trapped pagers were set off.
“We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.”
Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, kicked in in 2022 after Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said.
The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity.
Mossad also tested numerous ring tones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket.
The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more.
He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad.
Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel.
Gabriel compared the ruse to a 1998 psychological film about a man who has no clue that he is living in a false world and his family and friends are actors paid to keep up the illusion.
“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” Gabriel said. “We make like ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100 percent kosher including businessman, marketing, engineers, showroom, everything.”
By September, Hezbollah militants had 5,000 pagers in their pockets.
Israel triggered the attack on Sept. 17, when pagers all over Lebanon started beeping. The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons to read an incoming encrypted message.
The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of the approximately 30 people who were killed in the pager attacks.
Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.
“If he just dead, so he’s dead. But if he’s wounded, you have to take him to the hospital, take care of him. You need to invest money and efforts,” he said. “And those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”
In the days after the attack, Israel’s air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker.
By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire. More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, health officials have said.
The agent using the name “Michael” said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too.
“There is real fear,” he said.
Asked if that was intentional, he said, “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”
