THE HAGUE: Russia and the West are braced for a fresh showdown at the world’s chemical weapons watchdog this week over a new team that will name culprits for attacks in Syria for the first time.
The investigators’ first report identifying perpetrators is expected early next year, and tensions are already rising at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Moscow is threatening to block next year’s budget for the OPCW at the annual meeting in The Hague if it includes funding for the new team, which could effectively shut down the watchdog.
But the United States, Britain, France and other allies believe they have enough support for it to pass with a large majority.
Despite fierce objections from Syria and its allies, OPCW member states agreed in 2018 to give the organization new powers to pin blame on culprits for the use of toxic arms.
Previously the watchdog — which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 and has eliminated 97 percent of the world’s chemical weapons — only had a mandate to say whether or not an attack had occurred.
“Everyone is waiting for the IIT (Investigation and Identification Team) results,” a senior diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Russia, Iran and China led efforts to block the budget last year but it passed by a majority of 99-27.
Western diplomats hope to improve on that figure this year to show international support for the OPCW. A vote is expected on Wednesday.
Moscow has consistently raised doubts over chemical attacks in Syria or insisted they were staged, and has recently highlighted a leaked report raising questions about a deadly chlorine attack in the Syrian town of Douma in April 2018.
Western diplomats however say the Russians and Syrians are trying to muddy the waters about alleged attacks by President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Tensions have also been high since four Russian spies were expelled from the Netherlands in 2018 for allegedly trying to hack into the OPCW’s computers.
The eagerly-awaited first reports by the new investigations team are expected in the next few months, OPCW chief Fernando Arias said recently. Diplomats say they expect it to be released in February or March.
Syria agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal in 2013, narrowly avoiding US and French air strikes in retaliation for a suspected sarin attack that killed 1,400 people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
Russia and the West may however reach agreement on the thorny issue of whether to extend the list of banned chemical weapons to include new “novichoks” — the nerve agent used in the 2018 Salisbury attacks.
London blamed Moscow for the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and said novichok, a military-grade poison developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, was used.
The United States, the Netherlands and Canada have called for the addition of two novichoks, but Moscow wants to add similar chemicals that it says Western nations were experimenting with.
Diplomats said a compromise now appeared to be on the cards.
Showdown looms over Syria chemical weapons probe
Showdown looms over Syria chemical weapons probe
- The first report which will identify perpetrators is expected early next year
- Syria agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal in 2013
Gaza civil defense says 19 killed in Israeli strikes
- More than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that “19 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip between midnight and this morning,” as well as by tank fire in Rafah in the territory’s south.
Lebanon says at least four killed in Israeli strike on central Beirut
- Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut on Saturday, with rescue operations still ongoing.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Basta Al-Fawqa in Beirut killed four people and injured 23 others,” the ministry said in a statement, giving a preliminary toll. Rescuers were still “removing the rubble”, it added.
A powerful Israeli airstrike targeted central Beirut on Saturday, security sources said, shaking the Lebanese capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said early on Saturday that the attack resulted in a large number of fatalities and injuries and destroyed an eight-story building. Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
Israel used bunker buster bombs in the strike, leaving a deep crater, said the agency. Beirut smelled strongly of explosives hours after the attack.
The blasts shook the capital around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), Reuters witnesses said. Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.
It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, where the bulk of Israel’s attacks have targeted the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah media official in the Ras Al-Nabaa district of central Beirut.
Israel has killed several leaders of its long-time foe Hezbollah, Tehran’s most important ally in the region, in air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
The conflict began when Hezbollah opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after it launched the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
A US mediator traveled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive
- Destruction of Lubnan Baalbaki’s childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon
- Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, held more than just personal memories
BEIRUT: Lubnan Baalbaki, the conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched on his phone screen as an aerial camera pointed to a village in southern Lebanon. In seconds, multiple houses erupted into rubble, smoke filling the air. The camera panned right, revealing widespread devastation.
He zoomed in to confirm his fears: His family’s house in the border village of Odaisseh, where his parents are buried, was now in ruins.
“To see your house getting bombed and in a split second turned into ash, I don’t think there is description for it,” Baalbaki said.
The destruction of his childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
The Israeli military has released videos of controlled detonations in areas along the border, saying it is targeting Hezbollah facilities and weapons.
But the bombardment has also wiped out entire residential neighborhoods or even villages. The World Bank in a recent report said over 99,000 housing units have been “fully or partially damaged” by the war in Lebanon.
Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, renowned Lebanese painter Abdel Hamid Baalbaki, held more than just personal memories. It held a collection of Abdel Hamid’s paintings, his art workshop and over 1,500 books. All were destroyed along with the house.
What cut even deeper, Baalbaki said, was the loss of the letters his parents exchanged during his father’s art studies in France. Only a few remain as digital photos.
“The language of passion and love they shared was filled with poetry,” Baalbaki said.
In a book of poems and photographs his father created for his wife following her sudden death in a car accident, the first page reads, “Dedication to Adeeba, the partner of my most precious days, the love bird that left its nest too soon.”
Abdel Hamid painstakingly designed his wife’s tombstone. Later, he was laid to rest beside her in the garden next to the house. For their son, watching his childhood home go up in smoke brought back the pain of losing them.
It was a moment he had feared for months.
Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. For nearly a year, the conflict remained limited.
After the war dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, Baalbaki and his siblings frequently checked satellite images for updates on their village.
On Oct. 26, explosions in and around Odaisseh triggered an earthquake alert in northern Israel. That day, videos circulated online, one of which showed their home being obliterated.
Until a few days before that, the satellite images showed their house still standing.
Now, Baalbaki said, he is resolved to honor his father’s dream.
“The mourning phase started to turn to determination to rebuild this project,” he said.
When the war is over, he plans to rebuild the house as an art museum and cultural center.
226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO
- Over 187 attacks on healthcare workers have taken place in Lebanon over 13 months, says UN health agency
- Fifteen of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning, warns WHO
GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”
226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO
- Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient”
GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”
