BAGHDAD: Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Alhakim says his country supports efforts to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League eight years after it was expelled from the regional body.
Iraq is one of three countries in the Arab world that never cut ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after its crackdown against anti-government demonstrations in 2011 led to civil war. Syria was cast out of the Arab League the same year.
Alhakim received Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif in Baghdad on Sunday. Iran remained a steadfast backer of Assad throughout Syria’s conflict.
The two ministers discussed Syria and other regional issues, Alhakim said at a press conference after their meeting. They also discussed economic ties between their two countries in light of recent US sanctions against Iran.
Iraq says it supports Syria’s return to Arab League
Iraq says it supports Syria’s return to Arab League
The family of Israeli-American hostage pleads with Biden and Trump to bring hostages home
- “I think maybe there is new hope,” says Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20
TEL AVIV, Israel: Over the past two weeks, the political landscape around the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza have undergone a dramatic transformation.
The American elections, the firing of Israel’s popular defense minister, Qatar’s decision to suspend its mediation, and the ongoing war in Lebanon all seem to have pushed the possibility for a ceasefire in Gaza further away than it has been in more than a year of conflict.
Still, some families of the dozens of hostages who remain captive in Gaza are desperately hoping the changes will reignite momentum to bring their loved ones home — though the impact of Donald Trump returning to the White House and a hard-line new defense minister in Israel remains unknown.
“I think maybe there is new hope,” said Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20, a soldier kidnapped from his base on the Gaza border during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Alexander’s parents, Adi and Yael Alexander, who live in New Jersey, met this week with Trump and President Joe Biden in Washington and pleaded with them to work together to bring all the hostages home in a single deal.
“As a grandmother, I say, cooperate — Trump wants peace in this region, Biden has always said he wants to release the hostages, so work together and do something important for the lives of human beings,” Ben Baruch said.
She said neither leader offered specific details or plans for releasing the hostages or restarting negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire.
Talks have hit a wall in recent months, largely over Hamas’ demands for guarantees that a full hostage release will bring an end to Israel’s campaign in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vows to continue fighting until Hamas is crushed and unable to rearm.
“We’re not involved in politics, not American and not Israeli, the families are above politics, we just want our loved ones home,” she said. “Edan was kidnapped because he was Jewish, not because he voted for a certain party.”
More than 250 people were kidnapped and 1,200 killed when Hamas militants burst across the border and carried out a bloody attack on southern Israeli communities. Israel’s campaign of retaliation since has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and some 90 percent of its 2.3 million people have been displaced.
As militants attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, Edan Alexander, then 19, was able to send a quick message to his mother amid the intense fighting around his base. He told her that despite having shrapnel embedded in his helmet from the explosions, he had managed to get to a protected area. After 7 a.m., his family lost contact.
Alexander was considered missing as the family desperately searched hospitals for him. After five days, friends recognized him in a video of Hamas militants capturing soldiers.
The family was happy: He was alive, Ben Baruch said. “But we didn’t understand what we were entering into, what is still happening now.”
When a week-long ceasefire last November brought the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, some of the freed hostages said they had seen Alexander in captivity. Ben Baruch said they told her Alexander kept his cool, encouraging them that everyone would be released soon.
Ben Baruch said she was disheartened when Netanyahu last week fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who she said had consistently reassured the families that the hostages were at the top of his agenda.
“I felt he was a partner,” she said. Gallant was replaced by a Netanyahu loyalist who has urged a tough line against Hamas.
A mass protest movement urging the government to reach a hostage deal has shown signs of weariness, and hostage families have struggled to keep their campaign in the headlines. A delegation of former hostages and their relatives met with the pope on Thursday and expressed hope the incoming and outgoing American administrations would bring their loved ones home.
In Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, the headquarters of the protest movement, opinions were mixed on the effect of Trump’s election on hostages.
“I don’t think this is good for Israel or the hostages, I’m really scared of him,” said David Danino, a 45-year-old hi-tech worker from Tel Aviv. He was at Hostages Square with his family, visiting from France, who wanted to pay their respects.
Danino noted that Israel had already achieved many of its war goals, including killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “They are building us a photo of what is ‘victory,’ but how is there victory without the hostages?” he asked.
Others thought Trump’s reputation might help the situation.
“When he decides to do something, he does it, without blinking, and he can create ultimatums,” said Orly Vitman, a 54-year-old former special education teacher from the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon.
She comes every few months to the square with her daughter to light candles in honor of the hostages. While she was opposed to the firing of Gallant in the middle of the war, she was heartened by Trump’s election.
“We will have the legitimacy and ability to use the full force of what we know how to do,” she said.
Ben Baruch, a philanthropist and accomplished artist whose modernizt sculptures dot the Tel Aviv home where she has lived for 52 years, said she has pushed everything aside in her life to focus on the struggle to bring her grandson home. Her days are filled with meetings, interviews, rallies, protests and communal prayer sessions uniting different groups of Israelis from across the religious spectrum.
“It’s like people’s lives went back to their routine, but ours did not,” she said. “There’s nothing left to say. All the words have been said. We have heard everything. We have met with everyone. But they are still there.”
Two flares land near Netanyahu’s home in ‘serious incident’: police
- Israel's President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident in a post on X and said an investigation was underway
- Caesarea is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Haifa city area, which Hezbollah has regularly targeted
JERUSALEM: Two flares landed near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Saturday in the central town of Caesarea, security services said, describing the incident as “serious.”
“Two flares landed in the courtyard outside the prime minister’s residence,” police and the Shin Bet internal security agency said in a joint statement.
“The prime minister and his family were not in the house at the time of the incident,” they added.
“An investigation has been opened. This is a serious incident and a dangerous escalation.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident and warned “against an increase in violence in the public sphere.
“I have now spoken with the head of the Shin Bet and expressed the urgent need to investigate and deal with those responsible for the incident as soon as possible,” Herzog said in a post on X.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the flares.
The incident comes after a drone attack targeting the same residence on October 19, which was later claimed by Hezbollah.
Netanyahu at the time accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate him and his wife.
Since September 23, Israel has escalated its bombing of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops after almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah militants over the war in Gaza.
Caesarea is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Haifa city area, which Hezbollah has regularly targeted.
Two people were injured when a synagogue was hit in Haifa by a “heavy rocket barrage” from Hezbollah earlier Saturday, the Israeli military said.
Separately, the army said it had intercepted some of the “approximately 10 projectiles” that crossed from Lebanon into Israel.
Hezbollah claimed several rocket attacks on northern Israel, saying it targeted military sites including a naval base in the Haifa area.
Tunisia migrant advocate held in first ‘terrorism’ probe: rights group
- Tunisia is one of the main launching points for boats carrying migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to seek better lives in Europe
TUNIS: A prominent Tunisian advocate for migrants is in custody and his case being handled by anti-terrorist investigators, a disturbing first for the country, the head of a rights group said Saturday.
Tunisia is one of the main launching points for boats carrying migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to seek better lives in Europe.
Abdallah Said, a Tunisian of Chadian origin, was questioned along with the secretary general and treasurer of his association, Children of the Medenine Moon, said Romdhane Ben Amor, spokesman for the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights (FTDES).
Two officers of a bank handling the association’s accounts were also detained, he said.
Ben Amor described as “a dangerous signal” the transfer of the case to anti-terrorist investigators “because it’s the first time authorities have used this against associations specializing in migration issues.”
La Presse newspaper, which is close to the government, reported that “five activists operating on behalf of an association in Medenine were in custody in order to be referred to anti-terrorism investigators.”
The newspaper said the association is suspected of receiving foreign funds “to assist sub-Saharan migrants to enter illegally onto Tunisian soil.”
Ben Amor called Said’s detention part of “a new wave of even tougher repression” against migration activists after an earlier crackdown in May.
“It’s a message to all those working in solidarity with the migrants,” he said.
In May, President Kais Saied lashed out at organizations that defend the rights of migrants, calling their leaders “traitors and mercenaries.”
The president reiterated that Tunisia must not become “a country of transit” for migrants and asylum seekers.
Saied, re-elected in October in a vote with turnout of 28.8 percent, made a sweeping power grab in 2021 and critics accuse him of ushering in a new authoritarian regime.
Under a 2023 agreement, the European Union has provided funds to Tunisia in exchange for help with curbing small-boat crossings to Europe.
EU funding rules state all money should be spent in a way that respects fundamental rights, but reports have since emerged of migrants being beaten, raped and mistreated in Tunisian custody.
What Trump’s picks for key foreign-policy roles mean for the Middle East
- Likely impact of Republican president’s return to power becoming clearer with naming of nominees
- Frustrated by Joe Biden’s inaction on Gaza, many Arab American voters abandoned the Democratic Party
LONDON: On Nov. 5 many Arab Americans, disenchanted with the Biden administration’s failure to curb Israel’s deadly military interventions in Gaza and Lebanon, abandoned their traditional support for the Democratic party and voted in record numbers for Donald Trump.
As revealed by an Arab News/YouGov poll in the run-up to the US presidential election, Arab Americans believed that Trump would be more likely than Kamala Harris to successfully resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict — even though he was seen as more supportive of Israel’s government than his opponent.
They also felt that Trump would be at least as good for the Middle East in general as Kamala Harris.
Now, however, as Trump reveals his picks for the key roles in his administration, it is becoming clearer what impact that protest vote might have on the Middle East, and on Palestinians.
Some of the hires will have to be approved by Senate hearings. But amid talk that Trump’s team is planning to bypass vetting by making so-called recess appointments, many of the choices have raised eyebrows in Washington.
In terms of what Trump’s new team might mean for the Middle East in general, it is perhaps enough to know that Israel is celebrating both Trump’s victory and his picks for key positions.
“Some of the announcements,” commented The Jerusalem Post, “like a new ambassador to the UN and Israel, as well as for an incoming national security adviser and special envoy to the Middle East, are all positive developments in terms of shaping a team that will be supportive of Israel, and strong in the face of adversaries, such as Iran.”
According to a CNN report, current and former US officials have cautioned against assuming that the intelligence community is uniformly opposed to Trump. Across the 18 agencies that include thousands of analysts and operators, there are plenty who support him and likely welcome his return.
Marco Rubio — Secretary of State
The appointment of Rubio, a Florida Republican senator known for his advocacy of a muscular US foreign policy, appears at odds with Trump’s oft-professed intention to see America withdraw from its role as the world’s policeman.
One of the “20 core promises to make America great again” in his Agenda 47 manifesto was a pledge to “strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world.”
On the other hand, Trump has promised to ensure that “our government uses that great strength sparingly, and only in clear instances where our national interests are threatened.”
In 2016, when he ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, Rubio repeatedly criticized his rival’s isolationist foreign policy, saying “a world without our engagement is not a world we want to live in.
Rubio, a former member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence, doubtless brings a great deal of foreign-policy experience to the Trump team, along with a reputation for being a hawk, ready to take a hard line on Iran and China.
He also brings a strong commitment to Israel.
In footage of a 2023 confrontation between Rubio and activists of the group CODEPINK in Washington, Rubio replied, when asked if he would support a ceasefire, “No I will not,” adding “I want (Israel) to destroy every element of Hamas.”
Pressed to say if he cared about “the babies that are getting killed every day,” he replied: “I think it’s terrible, and I think Hamas is 100 percent to blame.”
Following Iran’s missile attack on Israel in October — carried out in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran — Rubio defended Israel's “right to respond disproportionately.”
Israel, he added, “should respond to Iran the way the US would respond if some country launched 180 missiles at us.”
In a tweet on Wednesday after his nomination was confirmed, Rubio said he would work to carry out Trump’s foreign policy agenda and under his leadership “we will deliver peace through strength and always put the interests of Americans and America above all else.”
Pete Hegseth — Secretary of Defense
Many in Washington — and everyone in the Pentagon — are still trying to digest the news that the new man chosen to be in charge of America’s vast military machine is a 44-year-old presenter on Fox News, Trump’s favorite TV channel.
Hegseth, a co-host of the program “Fox & Friends Weekend” who has regularly interviewed Trump on the show, has been a staunch critic of “wokeness” in the military, demanding the sacking of any “general, admiral, whatever” involved in promoting the previous Democratic administrations’ agenda of diversity, equality and inclusivity.
Furthermore, he has spoken out in defense of US soldiers accused of war crimes committed in the region, condemning “the betrayal of the men who keep us free” in his latest book, “The War on Warriors.”
During Trump’s first term in office, he lobbied successfully for presidential pardons for three US soldiers who had been charged with, or had already been found guilty of, war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hegseth’s on-the-ground military experience has given him a grunt’s perspective on warfare. He rose to the rank of major in the Minnesota National Guard and served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But according to a statement from Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, he is “undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for (defense secretary) in American history, and the most overtly political.”
Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, himself a veteran, was more direct. Hegseth’s nomination, he said, is “the most hilariously predictably stupid thing” that Trump could have done.
Or dangerous. Clues to Hegseth’s worldview can be found among the many tattoos he sports. They include the 11th-century Latin Crusader rallying cry “Deus Vult,” “God wills it,” alongside a large “Jerusalem cross,” the symbol adopted by the Crusaders who sacked Jerusalem in 1099, slaughtering tens of thousands of Muslims and Jews in the city.
In the US the symbol is associated with far-right white nationalist movements. In 2016 Hegseth, then in the national guard, was withdrawn from guard duty at Biden’s inauguration because of the tattoo.
Steven Witkoff — Special Middle East envoy
A real-estate tycoon and a long-time friend and golfing buddy of Trump’s, Witkoff has no diplomatic experience but is an uncompromising friend of Israel.
When President Biden paused weapons shipments to Israel in May because of concerns about Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Witkoff responded by raising millions of dollars for Trump’s presidential campaign from wealthy US Jewish donors.
After attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in July, Witkoff told Fox News “it was spiritual … it was epic to be in that room.”
Witkoff has no known experience of diplomacy or the Middle East. Nevertheless, Trump said in a statement, “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”
Witkoff will now be point man for Trump’s two big unfulfilled ambitions for the Middle East: an Israel-Palestine peace deal and normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom has made clear that the latter is dependent upon meaningful progress toward sovereignty for the Palestinian people. Witkoff’s views on that are currently unknown, but it seems unlikely they would differ greatly from those of others in the new administration for whom the creation of a Palestinian state is anathema.
Mike Huckabee — Ambassador to Israel
Of all Trump’s appointments, the one that has been received most rapturously in Israel is the naming of the former governor of Arkansas as America’s new ambassador to the country.
The appointment is seen by the Netanyahu government as a sign not only that the new administration will allow Israel to continue its provocative settlements campaign in the occupied territories, but also that Trump is giving the green light to plans for the full annexation of the West Bank.
Huckabee has always been a staunch defender of Israel. He once said there was “no such thing as a Palestinian,” suggesting the term was nothing more than a “political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”
He has taken part in at least two cornerstone-laying ceremonies at new Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. At one he attended in 2017 he said there was “no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Unsurprisingly, his appointment has been welcomed by far-right Israeli ministers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who has led repeated provocative incursions by extremist settlers into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who sent congratulations to “a consistent and loyal friend.”
On Monday Smotrich said Trump’s victory represented an “important opportunity” to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria,” the Jewish biblical names for parts of the West Bank. The year 2025, he added, “will, with God’s help, be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
Elise Stefanik — Ambassador to the UN
A decade ago, aged 30, Stefanik was the youngest member of Congress. Since then, she has drifted from the center of the Republican party to the right. In the process, she has become a strong supporter of Trump, defending his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election result and describing those arrested for their part in the assault on the Capital as “Jan. 6 hostages.”
She has also been a vocal ally of Israel, which she has visited many times.
In 2023 she won praise from the US Jewish community for her aggressive questioning during a congressional hearing of college leaders, whom she accused of turning a blind eye to antisemitism during campus protests.
In March, she was honored for her stance at the Zionist Organization of America’s “Heroes of Israel” gala, where she was given the “Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Defender of Israel Award.”
In her acceptance speech, Stefanik criticized Joe Biden’s “unconscionable actions and words that undermine the Israeli war effort.” She would, she said, “always be committed to supporting Israel’s right to defend itself … and I will continue to stand with Israel to ensure (it has) the resources it needs in this darkest hour.”
On Thursday the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories found that “Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there.”
As US ambassador, Stefanik — who has been openly critical of the UN for what she calls its “entrenched antisemitic bias” — will be perfectly positioned to push back against such claims.
The Washington Post predicted that Stefanik “will use her position at the United Nations to assail UN agencies and diplomats over any criticism of Israel, and air long-standing Republican grievances over the workings of the world’s most important multilateral institution.”
Michael Waltz — National Security Adviser
Florida Congressman Waltz, a former colonel in the US Army with multiple tours of Afghanistan and Iraq and four Bronze Stars to his name, is one of the few top-level Trump hires who brings relevant expertise to his new job.
A former special forces Green Beret, he served as a defense policy director for secretaries of state Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates — and navigating Washington’s corridors of power is a skill that runs in the family.
His wife is Julia Nesheiwat, the daughter of Jordanian immigrants who came to America in the 1950s. She is a former captain in the US Army’s Intelligence Corps and served in Afghanistan and Iraq. She also held national security roles in the Bush, Obama and previous Trump administrations.
Waltz is a member of the Kurdish-American Caucus in Congress, which “promotes knowledge and understanding of the Kurds, a distinct group of over 30 million living in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria, the US and elsewhere globally.”
The Caucus believes that Kurdistan is “a beacon of stability and security in Iraq, deserves strong US support,” and is “a vital ally in protecting US interests in Iraq and the entire region.” Iraqi Kurdistan, it says, is not only “vital to any vision of a peaceful and prosperous Iraq,” but also “critically serves as a break in the crescent from Iran to Lebanon.”
Waltz’s appointment, the Kurdistan 24 network commented, is “very good news for the Kurds.”
Tulsi Gabbard — Director of National Intelligence
In October 2019, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton suggested that Gabbard, who at the time was a Democrat and a rival for the party’s backing, was being “groomed” by Russia, and that her foreign policy views echoed Russian interests.
Since then, the former Democratic congresswomen has switched sides, becoming an independent in 2022 and joining the Republicans this year.
Clinton’s unproven accusation is all the more startling now that 43-year-old Gabbard is about to be put in charge of more than a dozen intelligence agencies, from the FBI to the CIA.
Like many of Trump’s picks, Gabbard is a military veteran. She served in the Hawaii Army National Guard with tours of duty in Iraq and Kuwait. In Iraq from 2004 to 2005 she was part of a medical unit, where, she has said, “every single day, I was confronted with the very high human cost of war.” That experience, she added, shaped her outlook on America’s military adventures.
“I was not the same person when I came home from that war as I was when I left,” she said, “and it’s why I am so deeply committed to doing everything I possibly can to making sure that not a single one of our men and women in uniform, not another service member, has their life sacrificed in the pursuit of wars that have nothing to do with keeping the American people safe.”
On the campaign trail in 2019 she became known as the “anti-war presidential hopeful,” criticizing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan for having taken “trillions of dollars out of our pockets for health care, infrastructure, education, for clean energy.” America, she said, must “end these wasteful regime-change wars.”
That, however, was then. Gabbard is, after all, no stranger to U-turns, having abandoned the Democrats for the Republicans. In a cabinet full of hawks such as Marco Rubio talking tough on China and Iran, it remains to be seen if the head of the world’s biggest spy machine is still keen to rein America in.
John Ratcliffe — Director of CIA
John Ratcliffe, a former representative from Texas, has been chosen by Trump to serve as the CIA director. He currently serves as co-chair at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked think tank. Ratcliffe served as the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 during Trump’s first term. A CNN report said Ratcliffe “is seen as a largely professional and potentially less disruptive choice than some other former officials believed to have been under consideration.”
Alina Habba — Trump attorney
Alina Saad Habba, a senior Trump adviser and attorney, said she was not considering the role of press secretary, for which she was hotly tippled before it went to Karoline Leavitt on Friday. An American lawyer and managing partner of a law firm based in New Jersey, Habba has been a legal spokesperson for Trump since 2021 and a senior adviser for MAGA, Inc., Trump’s Super PAC. Her parents were Chaldean Catholics who emigrated from Iraq to the US in the early 1980s.
Related
Italy sends more than 15 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza
- Italy is committed to de-escalation of the Palestinian conflict, defense minister says
ROME: An Italian Air Force plane took off on Saturday carrying more than 15 tonnes of humanitarian aid to be delivered to the population in Gaza, a Defense Ministry statement said.
The aid aboard the C-130J aircraft, which departed from the central Italian city of Pisa, had been collected by the charity group Confederazione Nazionale delle Misericordie d’Italia, the statement said.
“Italy is doing and will continue to do everything possible to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza,” said Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, adding Italy did not forget those who are suffering and was committed to a de-escalation of the conflict.
The plane will fly to Larnaca airport in Cyprus, after which all its materials will be transferred to Gaza.
Earlier this year, Italy launched a flagship initiative dubbed Food for Gaza to help civilians there, and it has sent several consignments of aid to those hit by the war ravaging the Palestinian enclave.
Also on Saturday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least 43,799 people had been killed in more than 13 months of war.
The toll includes 35 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 103,601 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Oct. 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to stop militants from regrouping in north Gaza, Israel in October, this year began a major air and ground assault there.
The Israeli army said earlier on Saturday that its troops continued “their operational activity” in the northern areas of Jabalia and Beit Lahia.
The military said “over the past day, the troops continued to operate in the Rafah area, eliminating numerous terrorists, dismantling terrorist infrastructure sites, and locating a large amount of weapons in the area” in the territory’s south.
