BEIRUT: An abrupt decision by Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to postpone the start of daylight saving time by one month has turned into a major political dispute, overshadowing the country’s dire economic crisis.
Despite repeat IMF warnings over the state of the Lebanese economy, the latest political controversy surrounding the postponement from March 25 to April 21 is dominating debate in the country.
The dispute over daylight saving time also involves religious and sectarian differences, and comes as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan. It means those fasting must break their fasts an hour earlier than planned.
Lebanese institutions on Saturday took divergent positions on the move. One media outlet said that it “will not abide by the decision and will commit to the universal time.”
According to one political observer, the dispute reflects a “political vacuum, given that an absurd decision was explained in a sectarian way.”
This dispute “showed the loss of confidence in the ruling political class and the scale of randomness that political action in Lebanon can slip into.”
The postponement caused confusion among institutions working with other states, notably the international airport, banks and mobile phone networks that automatically adjust to daylight savings each year.
Airlines were forced to reschedule flights, and the two major mobile networks in the country sent a written message to subscribers, asking them to “manually adjust the time on their mobile phones before the midnight of Saturday-Sunday, to avoid the time change on their screens.”
Secretary General of Catholic Schools Father Youssef Nasr said: “Private educational institutions and the Federation of Private Educational Institutions will abide by Mikati’s decision until it is reversed.”
Mikati’s move was met with sarcasm on social media platforms. One political activist said: “We are in the republic of wasting time.”
Another said: “It looks like Lebanon’s connection to the global system is not important.”
Other warned that the decision “was taken by leaders who do not acknowledge the presence of others in the country.”
Free Patriotic Movement MP Saeed Nasr said in a press conference: “Such decision leads to many problems and disruptions in software, applications and electronic devices that rely on daylight saving time in their operations, thus resulting in errors in setting times and dates, delaying production and delivery processes, which could possibly affect banks and SWIFT payments.
Meanwhile, amid political dispute over the postponement — with opposition to the move led by FPM MPs and MP Nadim Gemayel — the Lebanese Cabinet is scheduled to hold a session on Monday to discuss boosting salaries and incentives following a collapse in the wages of public and private sector employees.
Retired army members are likely to protest in Riad Al-Solh Square in central Beirut during the Cabinet meeting, following a similar move earlier this week.
Veteran representatives said that the call to protest came after negotiations with the government failed to meet their basic demands, especially fair and legal wages and an increase in medical and educational benefits.
Outrage in Lebanon after PM’s last-minute decision to delay daylight savings
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Outrage in Lebanon after PM’s last-minute decision to delay daylight savings
- Move forces country’s Muslims to change fasting hours during Ramadan
- Lebanese institutions on Saturday took divergent positions on the move
Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza
- The family of hostage soldier Edan Alexander, 20, declined to comment but permitted the 3-1/2 minute video to be published
- The video shows a pale-looking Alexander sitting in a dark space against a wall
JERUSALEM: Palestinian militant group Hamas published a video of an Israeli-American hostage on Saturday, in which he pleads for US President-elect Donald Trump to secure his release from captivity.
The family of hostage soldier Edan Alexander, 20, declined to comment but permitted the 3-1/2 minute video to be published. Alexander was abducted to Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
The video shows a pale-looking Alexander sitting in a dark space against a wall, identifying himself, addressing his family, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump. It is unclear whether his statement was scripted by his captors.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the video was cruel psychological warfare and that he had told Alexander’s family in a phone call that Israel was working tirelessly to bring the hostages home.
Around half of the 101 foreign and Israeli hostages still held incommunicado in Gaza are believed to still be alive.
Hamas leaders were expected to arrive in Cairo on Saturday for ceasefire talks with Egyptian officials to explore ways to reach a deal that could secure the release of hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.
The fresh bid comes after Washington said this week it was reviving efforts toward that goal.
The Hostages Families Forum urged the administrations of both outgoing US President Joe Biden and Trump — who takes office in January — to step up efforts in order to secure a hostage release.
“The hostages’ lives hang by a thread,” it said.
World Central Kitchen says pausing Gaza operations after Israeli strike
- WCK in a statement said it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7 Hamas attack“
- “All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said
GAZA: US charity World Central Kitchen said Saturday it was “pausing operations in Gaza at this time” after an Israeli air strike hit a vehicle carrying its workers.
The Israeli military confirmed that a Palestinian employee of WCK was killed in a strike, accusing the worker of being a “terrorist” who “infiltrated Israel and took part in the murderous October 7 massacre” last year.
WCK in a statement said it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7 Hamas attack,” and did not confirm any deaths.
Earlier Saturday, Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed, including “three employees of World Central Kitchen,” in the strike in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
WCK confirmed a strike had hit its workers, but added: “At this time, we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details.”
The Israeli army statement said representatives from the unit responsible for overseeing humanitarian needs in Gaza had “demanded senior officials from the international community and the WCK administration to clarify the issue and order an urgent examination regarding the hiring of workers who took part in the October 7 massacre.”
It also said its strike in Khan Yunis had hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike, but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The UN said last week that 333 aid workers had been killed since the start of the war in October of last year, 243 of them employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon days into fragile truce
- The army said it had also struck “military infrastructure” on the Syria-Lebanon border, where it accused Hezbollah of smuggling weapons in violation of the truce
- Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported “continued violations of the ceasefire” by Israel
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military carried out air strikes in Lebanon Saturday against Hezbollah activities that it said “posed a threat,” days into a fragile ceasefire between it and the Iran-backed group.
The army said it had also struck “military infrastructure” on the Syria-Lebanon border, where it accused Hezbollah of smuggling weapons in violation of the truce.
In a speech this week announcing his government was ready to accept a ceasefire after more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned that Israel would maintain “full military freedom of action” in the event of any breach.
In a statement on Saturday, the military listed four separate strikes in Lebanon on facilities, weapons and vehicles belonging to Hezbollah, saying it had acted “against activities in Lebanon that posed a threat to the State of Israel, violating the ceasefire understandings.”
Lebanon’s health ministry said that an Israeli “strike on a car in Majdal Zoun wounded three people including a seven-year-old child.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported “continued violations of the ceasefire” by Israel, including an incident in which an Israeli tank “crushed a number of cars and surrounded some families” who were later evacuated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Separately, Israel’s military said it had launched a “strike on military infrastructure sites adjacent to border crossings between Syria and Lebanon that were actively used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons,” adding that the alleged smuggling took place after the ceasefire took effect.
The ceasefire deal, which was intended to end more than a year of cross-border exchanges of fire and two months of all-out war, went into effect early on Wednesday.
As part of the terms of the agreement, the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will deploy in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days.
Hezbollah is also meant to withdraw its forces north of the Litani river, approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
On Friday, the group’s chief Naim Qassem vowed to cooperate with the Lebanese army “to implement the commitments of the agreement.”
NNA reported that army chief Joseph Aoun met US Major General Jasper Jeffers to discuss “the general situation and coordination mechanisms between concerned parties in the south.”
The US military’s Central Command said Jeffers arrived in Beirut this week “to serve as co-chair for the implementation and monitoring mechanism of the cessation of hostilities.”
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, at least 3,961 people have been killed in the country since October 2023 as a result of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, most of them in recent weeks.
On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.
Israel stepped up its campaign in south Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief
- MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
- ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’
LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.
Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.
Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”
Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”
In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.
In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.
Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say
- Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City
The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.
