TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel’s intelligence minister said Tuesday that Syria cannot be allowed to obtain chemical weapons, after a report emerged that Israel targeted the country’s chemical weapons facilities.
In an interview with Israeli Army Radio, Elazar Stern would not directly comment on the report in the Washington Post that said that Israel struck Syria on two occasions — once this year and once last year — in a bid to block attempts to rebuild its chemical weapons stockpile. But Stern, a retired military general, hinted that Israel could not accept such weapons in the hands of its enemy to the north.
“We have a neighbor who has already proved that it doesn’t hesitate to use chemical weapons even against its own people,” he said. “(Syrian President Bashar) Assad must not have chemical weapons.”
Israeli officials have declined to comment on the Washington Post report.
Military affairs commentators in Israel, who often are briefed by top defense officials, said the timing of the report was not a coincidence and comes as negotiators are meeting with Iran in Vienna to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran has close ties with Syria and has sent troops to back the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s decade-long civil war.
“It was a signal to all of the actors, Iran and the United States, that Israel is serious about acting against the development of non-conventional weapons by its enemies,” wrote Yossi Yehoshua in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
Israel has long opposed the 2015 nuclear deal between global powers and Iran, which granted Iran relief from economic sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Instead, it has called for an accord with even tighter safeguards on Iran’s nuclear program and addresses other Iranian military behavior, such as its missile program and support for anti-Israel militant groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel also supports a “credible” military threat against Iran as leverage.
Israel believes Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon — a charge Iran denies.
One of the strikes cited by the Washington Post, on June 8, was reported by Syrian state media as an Israeli aerial attack near the Syrian capital Damascus and in the central province of Homs, that prompted a response from Syrian national air defenses. There was no mention in official media of what was targeted in the strikes, although loud explosions were heard in Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that closely monitors the war in Syria, reported Israeli planes struck military targets in the countryside of Homs and Damascus. It said the targeted sites included a scientific research center in the vicinity of the village of Khirbet Al-Tineh, northwest of Homs, in addition to an ammunition depot likely to belong to Hezbollah, south of Homs. The strikes killed 11 soldiers, including a colonel, it said.
Unconfirmed reports published by pro-Assad media at the time identified the colonel as a leading chemist at the Scientific Studies and Research Center, Gen. Ayham Sueleiman Ismail.
The center is a government agency described by the Syrians as a facility for the advancement of scientific research in the country but has been long described by Syria watchers as an outfit for the development of chemical, biological and other weapons.
Israel is believed to have struck facilities associated with the SSRC on numerous occasions in the past.
Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in September 2013, pressed by Russia after a deadly chemical weapons attack that the West blamed on Damascus. By August 2014, the Assad government declared that the destruction of its chemical weapons was completed, but its initial declaration of chemical stockpiles and production sites to the OPCW has remained in dispute. OPCW investigators have blamed three chemical attacks in 2017 on President Bashar Assad’s government.
Earlier this year, the UN’s disarmament chief, Izumi Nakamitsu, told the Security Council that Damascus’ declaration of its chemical stockpiles and chemical weapons production sites nearly eight years ago remains incomplete.
Israeli official says Syria must not have chemical weapons
https://arab.news/c8b63
Israeli official says Syria must not have chemical weapons
- Stern, a retired military general, hinted that Israel could not accept such weapons in the hands of its enemy to the north
- Israeli officials have declined to comment on the Washington Post report
2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing
TUNIS: Two unidentified bodies were recovered off Tunisia’s eastern coast after a migrant boat capsized, local media reported on Friday, with one person still missing and 28 rescued.
Most of the passengers were Tunisian, according to the reports, which said that the boat had set sail from Teboulba, a coastal town some 180 kilometers south of the capital Tunis.
Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants, often from other African countries, who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys in the hopes of reaching better lives in Europe.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing. Italy, whose Lampedusa Island is only 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Tunisia, is often their first port of call.
In late October, the bodies of 15 people believed to be migrants were recovered by authorities in Monastir, eastern Tunisia.
And in late September, 36 would-be migrants — mainly Tunisians — were rescued off Bizerte in northern Tunisia.
Since January 1, at least 103 makeshift boats have capsized and 341 bodies have been recovered off Tunisia’s coast, according to the interior ministry.
More than 1,300 people died or disappeared last year in shipwrecks off the North African country, according to the Tunisian FTDES rights group.
The International Organization for Migration has said that more than 30,309 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the past decade, including more than 3,000 last year.
Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers
- The Labor Ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers
KARBALA: Rami, a Syrian worker in Iraq, spends his 16-hour shifts at a restaurant fearing arrest as authorities crack down on undocumented migrants in the country better known for its own exodus.
He is one of hundreds of thousands of foreigners working without permits in Iraq, which, after emerging from decades of conflict, has become an unexpected destination for many seeking opportunities.
“I’ve been able to avoid the security forces and checkpoints,” said the 27-year-old, who has lived in Iraq for seven years and asked that AFP use a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Between 10 in the morning and 2 a.m. the next day, he toils at a shawarma shop in the holy city of Karbala, where millions of pilgrims congregate every year.
“My greatest fear is to be expelled back to Syria, where I’d have to do military service,” he said.
BACKGROUND
Authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as the country seeks to diversify from the dominant hydrocarbons sector.
The Labor Ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers.
Now, the authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as the country seeks to diversify from the currently dominant hydrocarbons sector.
Many, like Rami, work in the service industry in Iraq.
One Baghdad restaurant owner admitted that he has to play cat and mouse with the authorities during inspections, asking some employees to make themselves scarce.
He said that not all those who work for him are registered because of the costly fees involved.
Some of the undocumented workers in Iraq first came as pilgrims. In July, Labour Minister Ahmed Assadi said his services investigated information that “50,000 Pakistani visitors” stayed on “to work illegally.”
Despite threats of expulsion because of the scale of the issue, the authorities, at the end of November, launched a scheme for “Syrian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani workers” to regularize their employment by applying online before Dec. 25.
The ministry says it will take legal action against anyone who brings in or employs undocumented foreign workers.
Rami has decided to play safe, even though “I want” to acquire legal employment status.
“But I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m waiting to see what my friends do, and then I’ll do the same.”
Current Iraqi law caps the number of foreign workers a company can employ at 50 percent, but the authorities now want to lower this to 30 percent.
“Today we only allow qualified workers for jobs requiring skills” that are not currently available, Labor Ministry spokesman Nijm Al-Aqabi said.
It’s a sensitive issue — for the past two decades, even a foreign workforce has dominated the robust oil sector. But now the authorities are seeking to favor Iraqis.
“There are large companies contracted to the government” which have been asked to limit “foreign worker numbers to 30 percent,” said Aqabi.
“This is in the interests of the domestic labor market,” he said, as 1.6 million Iraqis are unemployed.
He recognized that each household has the right to employ a foreign domestic worker, claiming this was work Iraqis did not want to do.
One agency launched in 2021 that brings in domestic workers from Niger, Ghana, and Ethiopia confirms the high demand.
“Before, we used to bring in 40 women, but now it’s around 100” a year, said an employee at the agency.
The employee said it was a trend picked up from rich countries in the Gulf.
“The situation in Iraq is getting better, and with higher salaries, Iraqi homeowners are looking for comfort.”
A domestic worker earns about $230 a month, but the authorities have quintupled the registration fee, with a work permit now costing more than $800.
In the summer, Human Rights Watch denounced what it called a campaign of arbitrary arrests and expulsions targeting Syrians, even those with the necessary paperwork.
HRW said that raids targeted both homes and workplaces.
Ahmed — another pseudonym — is a 31-year-old Syrian who has been undocumented in Iraq for the past year and a half.
He began as a cook in Baghdad and later moved to Karbala.
“Life is hard here — we don’t have any rights,” he said
“We come in illegally, and the security forces are after us.”
His wife did not accompany him. She stayed in Syria.
“I’d go back if I could,” said Ahmed. “But life there is very difficult. There’s no work.”
Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood
- Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are predominantly Shiite areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong base of support
BAALBEK, Lebanon: In eastern Lebanon’s city of Baalbek, the Jawhari family gathered around a gaping crater where their home once stood, tears streaming as they tried to make sense of the destruction.
“It is heart-breaking. A heartache that there is no way we will ever recover from,” said Lina Jawhari, her voice breaking as she hugged relatives who came to support the family.
“Our world turned upside down in a second.”
The home, which was a gathering place for generations, was reduced to rubble by an Israeli airstrike on Nov. 1, leaving behind shattered memories and twisted fragments of a once-vibrant life.
The family, like thousands of Lebanese, were returning to check on their properties after the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect early Wednesday.
BACKGROUND
Israeli airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across Lebanon.
Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across the country.
A photo of the Jawhari family’s home — taken on a phone by Louay Mustafa, Lina’s nephew — is a visual reminder of what had been. As the family sifted through the rubble, each fragment recovered called them to gather around it.
A worn letter sparked a collective cheer, while a photo of their late father triggered sobs. Reda Jawhari had built the house for his family and was a craftsman who left behind a legacy of metalwork. The sisters cried and hoped to find a piece of the mosque-church structure built by their father. Minutes later, they lifted a mangled piece of metal from the debris. They clung to it, determined to preserve a piece of his legacy.
“Different generations were raised with love ... Our life was filled with music, dance, and dabke (traditional dance). This is what the house is made up of. And suddenly, they destroyed our world. Our world turned upside down in a second. It is inconceivable. It is inconceivable,” Lina said.
Despite their determination, the pain of losing their home and the memories tied to it remains raw.
Rouba Jawhari, one of four sisters, had one regret.
“We are sad we did not take my mom and dad’s photos with us. If only we took the photos,” she said, clutching an ID card and a bag of photos and letters recovered from the rubble.
“It didn’t cross our mind. We thought it was two weeks and we will be back.”
The airstrike that obliterated the Jawhari home came without warning, striking at 1:30 p.m. on what was otherwise an ordinary Friday.
Their neighbor, Ali Wehbe, also lost his home. He had stepped out for food a few minutes before the missile hit and rushed back to find his brother searching for him under the rubble.
“Every brick holds a memory,” he said, gesturing to his library.
“Under every book you would find a story.”
Israel criticized for ‘provocative actions’ in Lebanon despite ceasefire agreement
- US general in discussions over implementation of ceasefire
- Municipality warns returning residents about ‘landmines, explosives, unexploded shells’
BEIRUT: Israel was criticized on Friday for provocative actions in Lebanon, despite the ceasefire agreement currently in force.
The Israeli military said Lebanese residents were prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice.
The army continued its operations in the border area it had advanced into and where it is still present, continuing actions which included uprooting olive trees, damaging structures, and even firing on mourners at a funeral.
On the third day of the ceasefire, security reports — primarily from the Iran-backed Hezbollah — highlighted what were described as “provocative Israeli violations.”
FASTFACT
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem pledged on Friday to coordinate closely with the Lebanese army to implement a ceasefire deal with Israel.
The US general tasked with leading the ceasefire monitoring committee and its members began meetings in Beirut on Friday with the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces Gen. Joseph Aoun to discuss the implementation of the agreement.
Meanwhile, Al-Manar TV reported that Israeli forces “advanced into the town square of Markaba … and began bulldozing operations and blocking roads.”
The Israeli army also opened fire on residents in Khiam, who said that they had obtained permission from the Lebanese military, in coordination with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, to enter the town for a funeral.
Footage captured by the mourners, who numbered no more than five or six, showed two of them injured in their legs by Israeli gunfire.
The mourners said that they left a woman’s body on the ground after an artillery shell struck nearby. The incident forced them to flee.
They also reported that the Israeli army seized the vehicles they had traveled in.
Israelis fired machine guns toward Aitaroun and demolished a playground in Kfarkela.
The army claimed on Thursday that the areas it had moved into in southern Lebanon were not included in the ceasefire agreement.
The deal, which was approved by both Lebanon and Israel on Tuesday, went into effect on Wednesday morning.
The Israeli army called on the Lebanese “not to cross into a line of towns specified by name to enter the border area, extending from Shebaa through Habbariyeh, Arnoun, Yohmor, Qantara, Shaqra, Baraashit, Yater, and Mansouri,” as anyone crossing these towns would endanger themselves.
The Israeli army said that it had 60 days to accomplish a “complete withdrawal from these areas” under the agreement.
The Israeli army has advanced into settlements extending 3 km from the border, an area which includes about 20 villages and Bint Jbeil.
Israeli forces have also prohibited Lebanese residents in the restricted area from moving around between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Eyewitnesses spoke of attacks on “olive groves in Kfarkela, where bulldozers are uprooting olive trees near the Al-Abbara area.”
Meanwhile, four Israeli tanks ventured into the western neighborhood of the town of Khiam. An artillery shell fell on the town and the Israeli army conducted occasional sweeping operations with machine guns.
Israeli artillery shelling also targeted the outskirts of the towns of Markaba and Tallousa in the Marjayoun district while Israeli drones continued to fly over the western and central sectors.
The Lebanese army, which continues to deploy in the areas south of the Litani River and away from the Israeli incursion, blocked the roads leading to the restricted area.
Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces Party, said that “Hezbollah’s war in support of Gaza destroyed both Gaza and Lebanon,” and criticized the “unity of battlefields that Hezbollah called for.”
He was speaking after a meeting held by the Lebanese Forces’ parliamentary bloc and executive body.
Geagea added: “Hezbollah usurped the Lebanese people by starting this war and took Lebanon to war while the majority of the people were against it.
“Hezbollah committed a great crime against the Lebanese people. We could have avoided the martyrdom of 4,000 people and all the displacement and destruction.
“(But) despite all these disasters, Hezbollah MPs are still claiming victory, which is a strange and completely unrealistic logic.”
Geagea said that the ceasefire approved by Hezbollah “is the biggest proof of the illegitimacy of the party’s weapons,” and called on Hezbollah to “meet with the army command and develop a plan to dismantle its military presence north of the Litani River.
Meanwhile, the municipality of Mays Al-Jabal has warned residents returning to their town of the presence of “landmines, explosives and unexploded shells.”
It confirmed that it “is following up with the Lebanese army and relevant authorities to facilitate the safe return of people on time.”
The municipality warned that “entering the town at present is dangerous as the enemy is firing and launching artillery shells into the town’s neighborhoods and streets to target any civilian movement in the area.”
It added: “Due to the presence of landmines, explosives, and unexploded shells in homes and neighborhoods, and given that some houses are still rigged with explosives and might detonate at any moment, as well as the town’s streets being blocked with rubble and obstacles, we urge you and rely on your awareness to refrain from heading to our town at this time, and await further instructions.”
The Israeli army published a summary and data on Friday about the military operations carried out in the last two months against Hezbollah on the northern front.
It added that “orders preventing the return of residents to open areas north of Western Galilee and Upper Galilee remain in effect."
The Israeli army claimed that more than 12,500 targets were attacked, including more than 1,600 military headquarters and more than 1,000 ammunition depots.
The Israeli operations included “more than 14,000 flight hours for fighter jets and about 11,000 targets for attacks.”
The army’s statement claimed that “more than 1,500 offensive infrastructures, about 160 military headquarters, and about 150 ammunition depots were destroyed in the operation against the Radwan Force.
“About 2,500 high-ranking fighters were eliminated, causing significant damage to Hezbollah’s force.”
The Israeli army added that it estimated that Hezbollah had less than 30 percent of the drones it had possessed on the eve of the conflict.
Hezbollah pledges to help army build Lebanon’s defensive capacities
- “We will work to... strengthen Lebanon’s defensive capacities,” said Qassem
- “The resistance will be ready to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of Lebanon’s weakness along with our partners... first and foremost the army”
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday vowed to cooperate with the Lebanese army and help build the country’s defense capacities amid efforts to implement the terms of a ceasefire with Israel.
Qassem was speaking for the first time since the start of the ceasefire on Wednesday that envisions both Hezbollah and the Israeli military withdrawing from south Lebanon and the Lebanese military deploying there alongside UN peacekeepers.
“We will work to... strengthen Lebanon’s defensive capacities,” said Qassem, who succeeded Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed in a massive Israeli air strike on south Beirut in September.
“The resistance will be ready to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of Lebanon’s weakness along with our partners... first and foremost the army,” he added in a televised speech.
“The coordination between the resistance and the Lebanese army will be at a high level to implement the commitments of the agreement,” Qassem continued, adding that “no one is betting on problems or disagreements” with the army.
Qassem also declared that his group had achieved a “great victory” against Israel that “surpasses that of July 2006,” referring to the last time Hezbollah went to war with Israel.
“We won because we prevented the enemy from destroying Hezbollah... (and) from annihilating or weakening the resistance.”
Qassem vowed that “our support for Palestine will not stop and will continue through different means.”
The truce ended a conflict that began the day after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, when Hezbollah began a low-intensity exchange of cross-border fire in solidarity with their Palestinian allies.
In late September, Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah, launching fierce air strikes and later sending in ground troops.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 3,961 people have been killed in the country since October 2023 as a result of the conflict, most of them in recent weeks, while 16,520 were wounded.
On the Israeli side, the hostilities with Hezbollah killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities there say.
Earlier Friday, the Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher in southern Lebanon after detecting militant activity in the area.
“A short while ago, terrorist activity and movement of a Hezbollah portable rocket launcher were identified in southern Lebanon,” the army said.
“The threat was thwarted in an (Israeli Air Force) strike,” it added in a statement that featured a video of the air strike on a slowly moving truck.
Israel has vowed to continue acting against any threats even after the ceasefire.
The military also announced a nighttime curfew in south Lebanon for the third day in a row, warning residents they are “strictly forbidden to move or travel south of the Litani River” between 5:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday and 07:00 AM (0500 GMT) the following day.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israeli troops will hold their positions but “a 60-day period will commence in which the Lebanese military and security forces will begin their deployment toward the south,” a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Then, Israel should begin a phased withdrawal without a vacuum forming that Hezbollah or others could rush into, the official said.
