Israel rolls out red carpet for ‘one of our best-ever friends’ as Biden kicks off Middle East tour

Israeli officials said Biden’s visit would work toward what they called a Jerusalem Declaration on the US-Israel strategic partnership. (AFP)
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Updated 14 July 2022
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Israel rolls out red carpet for ‘one of our best-ever friends’ as Biden kicks off Middle East tour

  • Arriving in Israel on Wednesday, US President Biden described the connection between the two countries as “bone-deep”
  • While in Israel, the US president will discuss regional integration and efforts to counter Iran’s malign regional activities

DUBAI: In the skies above Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Air Force One lowered its giant wheels. On the ground below, red carpet already unrolled, the great and the good awaited the arrival of a US president six years older than the state of Israel itself.

Joe Biden is no stranger to Israel. This is his 10th visit, and he has met every one of the country’s prime ministers since he first came as a young senator in 1973 and sat down with Golda Meir.




Joe Biden is no stranger to Israel. This is his 10th visit. (AFP)

This time it was the turn of President Isaac Herzog and Yair Lapid, Israel’s interim prime minister as it awaits yet another parliamentary election at the end of the year, to welcome Biden. The men exchanged fist bumps, in line with White House guidance that the US president would be avoiding personal contact because of COVID-19 precautions.

However, Biden made an exception for Benjamin Netanyahu, sharing a hearty handshake with the opposition leader and former prime minister. The president also placed a friendly hand on the shoulders of several Israeli dignitaries.

In a welcoming speech, Lapid told Biden: “Your relationship with Israel has always been personal,” and said the president was “one of the best friends Israel has ever known.”

In a similar vein, Herzog played on Biden’s first name, deeming him “both a visionary and a leader” like the biblical Joseph. Biden was “truly among family” in Israel, Herzog said.

In reply, Biden described the connection between the two countries as “bone-deep.” He said: “We have a full agenda over the next few days, because the relationship between Israel and the US covers every issue that matters to our mutual future. We are united in our shared values and our shared vision.

“I’m proud to say that our relationship with the state of Israel is deeper and stronger in my view than it’s ever been. With this visit, we’re strengthening our connections even further. We’ll continue to advance Israel’s integration into the region.”

The issue of Iran, particularly its nuclear program and regional meddling through proxy militias, tops the agenda for Biden’s visit — not just in Israel but also later when he visits Saudi Arabia.

Herzog referred on Wednesday to the “security challenges emanating directly from Iran and its proxies, threatening Israel and its neighbors and endangering our region.”

Lapid said that he and Biden would “discuss building a new security and economy architecture with the nations of the Middle East,” following US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.




Biden was “truly among family” in Israel, President Isaac Herzog said. (AFP)

“And we will discuss the need to renew a strong global coalition that will stop the Iranian nuclear program,” he said.

Israeli officials said Biden’s visit would work toward what they called a Jerusalem Declaration on the US-Israel strategic partnership. One official said the joint declaration “takes a very clear and united stand against Iran, its nuclear program and its aggression across the region and commits both countries to using all elements of their national power against the Iranian nuclear threat.”

Indeed, before Biden had even left Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday, Israeli security officials had shown him their latest hardware, which they say is essential in confronting Iran — the new Iron Beam system of anti-drone lasers.

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Israeli officials have increasingly been sounding the alarm over Iran’s fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, which have already been used to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This month the Israeli military intercepted four Iranian-made drones launched by Hezbollah and headed for an offshore gas rig.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army showed Biden footage of drones being intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system already in place, and the Iron Beam system which uses laser technology.

“It will be operational in very few years, it will be on the ground, integrated with Iron Dome,” said Daniel Gold, head of research at Israel’s Defense Ministry.

He said the two systems would complement each other. “They will work together, and the brain of Iron Dome — the command and control — will decide in real time who is going to shoot, the laser or the missile,” he said.

Presenting such technology to Biden is a strategic move for Israel, after Washington approved a billion-dollar package in September for the Iron Dome system.

After leaving the airport on Wednesday, Biden’s first stop was another rite of passage for every diplomatic visitor to Israel — a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to pay his respects to the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War.

Joined by Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, both of whom are children of Holocaust survivors, Biden was invited to rekindle the eternal flame in the memorial's Hall of Remembrance.

A children’s choir sang a poem by Hannah Szenes, a female Jewish resistance fighter who was captured by the Nazis in Hungary and executed at the age of 23.

Two Marines placed a wreath on the stone crypt containing the ashes of Holocaust victims. Biden, wearing a skullcap, bent down to adjust it and placed his hand over his heart as the Marines saluted for a moment of silence.

Biden listened quietly as a cantor recited the remembrance prayer, before he greeted two Holocaust survivors — Rena Quint, 86, and Giselle Cycowicz, 95. Kissing the women on their cheeks, the president had tears in his eyes as he engaged them in conversation. “My mother would say: ‘God love you, dear’,” Biden told the women.

Quint later said she told Biden how her mother and brothers were killed in a death camp. Born in Poland, she was reunited with her father in a male slave labor factory, where she pretended to be a boy. Her father also was murdered. Quint arrived in the US in 1946 and was adopted by a childless Jewish couple.




Biden said he would emphasize in talks with Israel and Palestinian leaders his continued support for a two-state solution. (AFP)

“Did you see the president hug me?” she said after her encounter with Biden. “He asked permission to kiss me and he kept on holding my hand and we were told not to touch him.”

The president is spending two days in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli officials before meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in the West Bank.

Biden said he would emphasize in talks with Israel and Palestinian leaders his continued support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he said was the best way to ensure a “future of equal measure of freedom, prosperity and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians alike.” But he acknowledged that it probably would not be feasible “in the near term.”

On Friday Biden will travel directly from Tel Aviv to Jeddah to meet King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, other Gulf state leaders and officials from Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.

 

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Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities

Updated 9 sec ago
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Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities

ANKARA: Turkiye stripped two elected pro-Kurdish mayors of their posts in eastern cities on Friday, for convictions on terrorism-related offenses, the interior ministry said, temporarily appointing state officials in their places instead.
The local governor replaced mayor Cevdet Konak in Tunceli, while a local administrator was appointed in the place of Ovacik mayor Mustafa Sarigul, the ministry said in a statement, adding these were “temporary measures.”
Konak is a member of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, which has 57 seats in the national parliament, and Sarigul is a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Dozens of pro-Kurdish mayors from its predecessor parties have been removed from their posts on similar charges in the past.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said authorities had deemed that Sarigul’s attendance at a funeral was a crime and called the move to appoint a trustee “a theft of the national will,” adding his party would stand against the “injustice.”
“Removing a mayor who has been elected by the votes of the people for two terms over a funeral he attended 12 years ago has no more jurisdiction than the last struggles of a government on its way out,” Ozel said on X.
Earlier this month, Turkiye replaced three pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities over similar terrorism-related reasons, drawing backlash from the DEM Party and others.
Last month, a mayor from the CHP was arrested after prosecutors accused him of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), banned as a terrorist group in Turkiye and deemed a terrorist group by the European Union and United States.
The appointment of government trustees followed a surprise proposal by President Tayyip Erdogan’s main ally last month to end the state’s 40-year conflict with the PKK.


Gaza civil defense says 19 killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 23 November 2024
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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

Gaza City: Gaza’s civil defense agency said that 19 people, some of them children, were killed in Israeli air strikes and tank fire on Saturday.
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

Updated 23 November 2024
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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

Updated 23 November 2024
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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

Updated 23 November 2024
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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.”