CAIRO: Sudanese fleeing the fighting between rival generals in their capital flooded an already overwhelmed city on the Red Sea and Sudan’s northern borders with Egypt, as explosions and gunfire echoed Monday in Khartoum.
Many exhausted Sudanese and foreigners arrived in Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport, joining thousands who have waited for days to be evacuated out of the chaos-stricken nation. Others have been driven in packed buses and trucks, seeking shelter in Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor.
“Much of the capital has become empty,” said Abdalla Al-Fatih, a Khartoum resident, “all (residents of) our street fled the war.”
The fighting, now in its third week, has turned Khartoum and its neighboring city of Omdurman into a battlefield. Fierce clashes taking place inside residential neighborhoods that have become “ghost areas,” residents say.
The conflict, which capped months of worsening tensions, pits the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Al-Fatih’s family managed to get out of Khartoum over the weekend after they spent the past two weeks trapped in their home in Khartoum’s neighborhood of Kafouri, a major flashpoint since the fighting broke out on April 15.
They arrived in Port Sudan late Monday, after an exhausting 20-hour trip, he said. There, they found thousands, including many women and children, camping outside the port area. Many had been there for more than a week, with no food and other services, he said.
Port Sudan has become a hub for foreign governments to evacuate their citizens air and sea.
At the congested crossing points with Egypt, thousands of families have waited for days inside buses or sought temporary shelter in the border city of Wadi Halfa to finalize their paperwork to be allowed into Egypt.
Yusuf Abdel-Rahman is a Sudanese university student who crossed into Egypt along his family, through the Ashkit crossing point late Monday. They spent their night at a community hostel in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan, and plan to board a train to Cairo later Tuesday, he said.
Abdel-Rahman’s family went first to the Arqin crossing point over the weekend. It was overcrowded and they couldn’t reach the customs area. They then decided to move to the Ashkit crossing after they heard from people there that the crossing would be easier, he said.
“It’s a chaotic situation (in Arqin),” he said over the phone. “Women, children and patients are stranded in the desert with no food, no water.”
Abdel-Rahman reported widespread destruction and looting particularly in upscale neighborhood in the capital. He said a neighbor told them by phone said armed men in RSF uniform stormed their home in Khartoum’s Amarat neighborhood on Friday, a day after they fled the capital. Many Sudanese have taken to social media to complain that their homes were stormed and looted by armed men.
“We are lucky” that they didn’t at home at the time of storming,” he said. “We could be ended up dead bodies.”
Tens of thousands have already fled Sudan to neighboring countries, including Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Ethiopia. And the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that the number could surpass 800,000.
“We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if violence doesn’t stop we will see more people forced to flee Sudan seeking safety,” he wrote on Twitter Monday.
Early Monday sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed though many parts of the capital, with fierce clashes taking place around the military’s headquarters, the international airport and the Republican Palace in Khartoum, residents reported. The military’s warplanes were seen flying overhead across the capital, they said.
The fighting has come despite both sides declared Sunday a second, three-day extension of a humanitarian cease-fire to allow safe corridors for health care workers and aid agencies working in the capital.
“The war never stopped,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, Secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate. “Doctors can’s move safely. Hospitals were still occupied.”
Morgues across the capital are overcrowded with dead bodies and people were still unable to collect their dead to bury, he said. Many injured also did not have access to hospitals, he added.
At least 436 civilians have been killed and more than 1,200 injured since the fighting began, according to figures on Monday by the Doctors’ Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties. As of a week ago, the Sudanese Health Ministry had counted at least 530 people killed, including civilians and combatants, with another 4,500 wounded, but those figures haven’t been updated since.
The power struggle has derailed Sudan’s efforts to restore its democratic transition, which was derailed in Oct. 2021 when then allied generals, Burhan and Dagalo, removed a western backed transitional government in a coup.
Sudanese fleeing clashes flood port city, borders with Egypt
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Sudanese fleeing clashes flood port city, borders with Egypt
- Many exhausted Sudanese and foreigners arrive at Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport
- Others have been driven in buses and trucks, seeking shelter in Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor
Will ceasefire deal to end Israel-Hezbollah war achieve lasting peace for Lebanon?
- Iran welcomes “end of Israel’s aggression” despite terms requiring withdrawal and disarmament of its proxy Hezbollah
- For Israel, the ceasefire is not necessarily an end to the war, but a pause in the fighting, according to analysts
BEIRUT/LONDON: The world has largely welcomed a ceasefire deal which ends 13 months of fighting betrween Israel and Hezbollah that has claimed the lives of at least 3,700 Lebanese and more than 130 Israelis.
The deal between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, brokered by the US and France, came into effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. local time.
From the Israeli army’s perspective, the war in Lebanon was coming to a point of diminishing returns. It has succeeded in weakening Hezbollah’s military standing and eliminating its top leadership but has been unable to wipe it out entirely. For its part, Hezbollah has been seriously debilitated in Lebanon; the war has eroded its military capabilities and left it rudderless.
Looking at it optimistically, the diplomatic breakthrough — which unfolded on Tuesday night as Israel unleashed a barrage of bombs on central Beirut — could be the beginning of the end of the long-standing “Israel-Iran shadow war,” as a new administration prepares to assume power in Washington.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military began to exchange cross-border fire on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack.
The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 this year, when Israel began heavily bombing several parts of Lebanon, including Hezbollah’s stronghold in the south. The airstrikes killed thousands of Lebanese, displaced some 1.2 million others, flattened residential buildings, and devastated 37 villages.
While the ceasefire deal calls for a 60-day halt in hostilities, President Joe Biden said that it “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Negotiators have described it as laying the groundwork for a lasting truce.
Under the terms of the deal, Hezbollah will remove its fighters and arms from the region between the Blue Line and the Litani River, while Israeli troops will withdraw from Lebanese territory during the specified period.
Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers will deploy to the region south of the Litani River. A US-led international panel will oversee compliance from all sides. However, uncertainty persists, as both Hezbollah and Israel have warned that they will resume fire if the other party breaches the agreement.
Hezbollah stated it would give the ceasefire pact a chance, but Mahmoud Qamati, the deputy chair of the group’s political council, stressed that Hezbollah’s support for the deal depends on clear assurances that Israel will not resume its attacks.
Likewise, Israel said it would attack if Hezbollah violated the agreement. The army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, also urged residents of southern Lebanese villages — who had fled in recent months — to delay returning home until further notice from the Israeli military.
David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst with the International Crisis Group, believes that while the ceasefire is desperately needed, it “will almost certainly not bring Lebanon’s troubles to an end.
“Many of the country’s displaced may not be able to return home for months, as Israel has razed entire villages near the Blue Line border,” he said. “Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s domestic foes claim they will no longer accept the group’s dominance over Lebanese politics — a pledge that promises still more instability.”
Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, also cannot see this ceasefire bringing an end to Lebanon’s problems as the war has already triggered shifts in internal alliances.
Describing the deal as a “capitulation,” he said during an interview with the BBC that “the majority of the Lebanese people, including Hezbollah's own support base, did not want to see Lebanon dragged into this war.”
“After all this devastation, after Hezbollah having now to capitulate and withdraw away from that border north of the Litani River, having to accept an American-led mechanism led by a general who is part of CENTCOM in the region, this is going to be highly embarrassing,” he said. “And there's going to be a day of reckoning for Hezbollah in Lebanon once the ceasefire actually goes into effect.”
He added that politically, this means that “the various Lebanese parties and the various also alliances that had been in place before this war are no longer going to be there.”
“We saw, for example, Hezbollah’s crucial Christian ally distance itself from the group now, very much moving towards the center or even in opposition to Hezbollah.”
Gebran Bassil, leader of the Maronite Free Patriotic Movement and a close ally of Hezbollah since 2006, said earlier this month that his party is “not in an alliance with Hezbollah.”
In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, he added that Hezbollah “has weakened itself and exposed its military strength, leaving Lebanon as a whole vulnerable to Israeli attacks.”
Also acknowledging the toll on Hezbollah is Lebanese political analyst Ali Al-Amin. He expressed concern that, while the ceasefire deal is a positive development, its terms signal a significant shift for Hezbollah.
“People were happy at first glance about the ceasefire agreement, as it is a basic demand after a fierce, destructive war,” he told Arab News. “However, there are many (unanswered) questions, starting with the nature of the agreement and its content.
“In a first reading, I believe that Hezbollah’s function has ended. The prohibition of military operations and weapons, the necessity of destroying and dismantling weapons facilities, and the ban on the supply of weapons are all preludes to ending the party’s function.”
Hezbollah’s main ally, Tehran, expressed support for the ceasefire. Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, welcomed the end of Israel’s “aggression against Lebanon.”
He also reaffirmed his country’s “firm support for the Lebanese government, nation and resistance.”
Before the Israeli cabinet approved the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow his country to “intensify” pressure on the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and focus on the “Iranian threat.”
Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israeli analyst with the ICG, believes that “for Israel, the ceasefire is not necessarily an end to the war, but a pause” in fighting.
She said: “It will free up forces and resources to Israel’s other fronts in Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran, and is a chance to test out Israel’s ability to take military action to enforce the ceasefire, which is being sold as the main difference between the resolution that ended the 2006 war and this time around.”
Al-Amin believes Iran, Israel’s biggest adversary, has accepted this shift affecting its ally Hezbollah. However, he stressed that while the deal remains “subject to implementation,” it raises questions about the enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and Washington’s role in overseeing its execution.
Echoing Al-Amin’s concern, Heiko Wimmen, ICG project director for Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, said: “The ceasefire is based on the commitment of both Lebanon and Israel to finally implement Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“The challenges are the same as 18 years ago, namely, how to make sure that both parties comply in the long term and what to do with Hezbollah’s military capabilities, which constitute a threat to the security of Israel, and potentially other Lebanese, whether they are present on the border or a few kilometers away.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who welcomed the ceasefire deal, reiterated on Wednesday his government’s commitment to implementing Resolution 1701.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted to resolve the 2006 Lebanon war, called for a permanent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, the establishment of a buffer zone free of armed personnel other than UN and Lebanese forces, Hezbollah’s disarmament and withdrawal from south of the Litani River, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
However, Maksad of the Middle East Institute, emphasizes that implementing a ceasefire in Lebanon — US-led and otherwise — will demand more than just adhering to the deal’s terms, especially on the domestic front.
“There is a crucial need to rearrange the deck in Lebanon,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
“You need to elect a president in Lebanon, one that is a sovereign-minded president that would work with the Lebanese army and provide it with the political cover it needs to help and implement this resolution together with the UN troops that are there and also the international community.”
He added: “You also cannot begin the task — the mammoth task — of rebuilding, the reconstruction, the tune of billions of dollars if you don’t have a reform-minded government.”
And while the ceasefire brings a faint hope for Lebanon’s displaced population, many of those affected perceive its terms through the prism of personal loss, questioning what, if anything, had been gained from the war.
Nora Farhat, whose family home in Anqoun in Beirut’s southern suburbs was reduced to rubble, lamented that the agreement “will not restore our destroyed homes or bring back those who were killed — loved ones we have yet to bury.”
The scale of destruction in southern villages means return is not an option for many, who are left wondering about Hezbollah’s future and its ability to maintain its influence in the region.
Analyst Al-Amin believes that Hezbollah’s immediate focus will likely shift to managing the domestic narrative.
“Hezbollah’s priority now will be how to reverse the defeat into victory at home, and how to prevent the Lebanese from questioning what happened and why it happened,” he said.
Some of those displaced from Shiite-majority villages in the south expressed frustration at being caught in the crossfire of Hezbollah’s conflicts with Israel.
For Ahmad Ismail, who was displaced from his home in south Lebanon, the war and its aftermath seemed “futile.”
He told Arab News: “There was no need to open a southern front under the slogan of supporting Gaza, as those who sought this war sought to humiliate us.
“If only we had implemented the May 17 agreement in the 1980s with Israel, we would have been spared wars, killing and destruction, and the Shiite sect would not have reached the point of displacement, death, and frustration it has reached today.”
Ismail, who was previously imprisoned in Israel, believes the ceasefire is the only positive aspect of the US-brokered truce deal.
“It is a good initiative toward making this the last of the wars and a step toward disarming illegal weapons,” he said. “It also paves the way for restoring the state to its role, which Hezbollah undermined by monopolizing decisions of war and peace without consulting anyone.”
Despite the Israeli military’s warning, Lebanese people displaced from their homes in the south began flocking to their villages.
Ismail believes “people are currently in shock. Some still cannot believe that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, and many have not yet seen what happened to their homes and villages.
“When they wake up from the trauma, we will see the repercussions.”
Ismail added: “A disaster has befallen the Lebanese people, and Hezbollah must be held accountable. Hezbollah is no longer able to mobilize the people through the power of weapons, excess force, and money.”
As Lebanon begins to pick up the pieces, many still wonder if this ceasefire will offer more than just a temporary reprieve — or if it will be the beginning of an uncertain future.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah vows to continue resistance after ceasefire
- The group made no direct mention of the ceasefire deal
- Fighters would continue to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces
CAIRO: Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Wednesday vowed to continue its resistance and support Palestinians, including fighters, a day after a ceasefire deal between the group and Israel was announced.
In the first statement by Hezbollah’s operations center since the deal was announced, the group made no direct mention of the ceasefire deal.
“The Islamic resistance’s operations room affirms that its fighters in all military disciplines will remain fully equipped to deal with the aspirations and assaults of the Israeli enemy,” the group said.
It added that its fighters would continue to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces beyond the Lebanese borders “with their hands on the trigger.”
The ceasefire deal includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days, Israeli officials said.
The deal, brokered by the US and France, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years. Israel is still fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
Former ICC chief prosecutor tells of ‘threats to family’ during Israel-Palestine war crimes probe
- Fatou Bensouda says she was subjected to ‘thug-style tactics’ while working on cases related to Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan
- A newspaper investigation previously alleged she was threatened by the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad
LONDON: The former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has told how she received “direct threats” to herself and her family while working there.
Fatou Bensouda’s comments about her experiences came six months after a newspaper report alleged that the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had threatened her in an attempt to get her to drop an investigation into accusations of war crimes in occupied Palestinian territories.
Appearing at a legal event in London on Tuesday, Bensouda did not mention any specific threats but said she was subjected to “unacceptable, thug-style tactics” while doing her job.
She said that while working on some of the court’s toughest cases, including those related to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan, she received “direct threats to my person and family and some of my closest professional advisors.”
Bensouda was the ICC’s chief prosecutor from 2012 until 2021. The Guardian newspaper reported in May that Israel’s foreign intelligence services put pressure on Bensouda after she opened a preliminary investigation in 2015 into the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The newspaper, sighting several Israeli sources, alleged that Yossi Cohen, the director of Mossad at the time, threatened Bensouda during a series of secret meetings and warned her not to proceed with a case related to alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities denied the allegations of threats and intimidation, and Bensouda opened a full criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in 2021, shortly before she left her post.
Last week, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military chief of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
The warrants were requested six months ago by Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, as part of an extension of the investigation that his predecessor initiated. Khan accelerated the case after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.
During her lecture at the Bar Council on Wednesday, Bensouda, who is now Gambia’s high commissioner to the UK, said the arrest warrants issued last week focused exclusively on the events of Oct. 7 and those that followed, and did not include aspects of the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine that formed the basis of the investigation she initiated.
She said her initial probe focused on whether Hamas, other Palestinian armed groups or the Israeli military had committed war crimes in relation to hostilities that took place during 2014, and its scope included illegal Israeli settlements and the displacement of populations into the occupied West Bank.
“It will be important to ensure that the full extent of criminality in the context of this devastating … conflict is fully investigated and accountability is finally had for the benefit of its many victims on all sides of the conflict,” she said.
During her time as chief prosecutor, Bensouda also came under pressure from the US. Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on her in 2020 after the ICC began investigating allegations of US war crimes in Afghanistan.
The sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden. However, last week he described the ICC decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu as “outrageous” and said there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC. However, the 124 states that have signed up to it are obliged to act on warrants it issues if the accused visit their countries.
Hezbollah faces long recovery, officials believe thousands of fighters killed
- One source said the Iran-backed group may have lost up to 4,000 people
- Hassan Fadallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, told Reuters the priority will be “the people”
BEIRUT: With the bodies of its fighters still strewn on the battlefield, Hezbollah must bury its dead and provide succour to its supporters who bore the brunt of Israel’s offensive, as the first steps on a long and costly road to recovery, four senior officials said.
Hezbollah believes the number of its fighters killed during 14 months of hostilities could reach several thousand, with the vast majority killed since Israel went on the offensive in September, three sources familiar with its operations say, citing previously unreported internal estimates.
One source said the Iran-backed group may have lost up to 4,000 people — well over 10 times the number killed in its month-long 2006 war with Israel. So far, Lebanese authorities have said some 3,800 people were killed in the current hostilities, without distinguishing fighters from civilians.
Hezbollah emerges shaken from top to bottom, its leadership still reeling from the killing of its former leader Hassan Nasrallah and its supporters made homeless en masse by the carpet bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs and the destruction of entire villages in the south.
With a ceasefire taking hold on Wednesday, Hezbollah’s agenda includes working to re-establish its organizational structure fully, probing security breaches that helped Israel land so many painful blows, and a full review of the last year including its mistakes in underestimating Israel’s technological capabilities, three other sources familiar with the group’s thinking said.
For this story Reuters spoke to a dozen people who together provided details of some of the challenges facing Hezbollah as it seeks to pick itself up after the war. Most asked not to be named to speak about sensitive matters.
Hassan Fadallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, told Reuters the priority will be “the people.”
“To shelter them, to remove the rubble, to bid farewell to the martyrs and, in the next phase, to rebuild,” he said.
Israel’s campaign has focused largely on Hezbollah’s Shiite Muslim heartlands, where its supporters were badly hit. They include people still nursing casualties from Israel’s attack on its mobile communications devices in September.
“I have a brother who was martyred, a brother-in-law who was wounded in the pager attacks, and my neighbors and relatives are all either martyrs, wounded or missing,” said Hawraa, a woman from south Lebanon with family members who fight for Hezbollah.
“We want to collect our martyrs and bury them ... we want to rebuild our homes,” said Hawraa, who stayed in her village until she was forced to flee by the Israeli assault in September. She declined to use her full name, citing safety fears. The Israeli offensive displaced more than 1 million people, the bulk of them from areas where Hezbollah has sway.
A senior Lebanese official familiar with Hezbollah thinking said the group’s focus would be squarely on securing their return and rebuilding their homes: “Hezbollah is like a wounded man. Does a wounded man get up and fight? A wounded man needs to tend to his wounds.”
The official expected Hezbollah to carry out a wide-ranging policy review after the war, dealing with all major issues: Israel, its weapons, and the internal politics of Lebanon, where its weapons have long been a point of conflict. Iran, which established Hezbollah in 1982, has promised to help with reconstruction. The costs are immense: The World Bank estimates $2.8 billion in damage to housing alone in Lebanon, with 99,000 homes partially or fully destroyed.
The senior Lebanese official said Tehran has a variety of ways to get funds to Hezbollah, without giving details.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally, is urging wealthy Lebanese Shiites in the diaspora to send funds to help the displaced, two Lebanese officials said.
The officials also expected significant donations to come from Shiite religious foundations across the region.
Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a detailed request for comment for this story. Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
’THE RESISTANCE’ WILL CONTINUE Hezbollah has indicated it intends to keep its arms, dashing hopes of Lebanese adversaries who predicted the pressures generated by the war would finally lead it to hand them to the state. Hezbollah officials have said the resistance — widely understood to mean its armed status — will continue.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of Palestinian ally Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023. Israel went on the offensive against the group in September, declaring the aim of securing the return home of 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north.
Despite the resulting devastation, Hezbollah’s Fadlallah said the resistance put up by its fighters in south Lebanon and the group’s intensified rocket salvoes toward the end of the conflict showed Israel had failed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its campaign has set back Hezbollah decades, eliminated its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets, neutralized thousands of fighters, and obliterated its infrastructure near the border. A senior US official said Hezbollah was “extremely weak” at this moment, both militarily and politically. A Western diplomat echoed that assessment, saying Israel had the upper hand and had almost dictated the terms of its withdrawal. The ceasefire terms agreed by Israel and Lebanon require Hezbollah to have no military presence in an area between the Israeli border and the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean Sea some 30 km (20 miles) from the frontier.
Hezbollah, which approved the deal, has not declared how it intends to help implement those terms, including whether it actively hands its arms to Lebanese troops who are deploying into the south, or leaves the weapons for soldiers to find.
Israel complains Hezbollah, which is deeply rooted in south Lebanon, never implemented the same terms when they were agreed to end a previous war in 2006 war. Israel says the group was preparing for a large-scale assault into northern Israel, pointing to its military build-up at the frontier.
Andreas Krieg of King’s College in London said Hezbollah had retained considerable capability.
The performance of its “core infantry fighters in southern Lebanon and rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory in recent days showed the group was still very, very capable,” he said.
“But Hezbollah will be very much bogged down in the effort of rebuilding the infrastructure and also, most importantly, securing the funds to do so,” he said.
’REPAYING THE DEBT’
Hezbollah has been handing out cash to people affected by the hostilities since they began, paying $200 a month to civilians who stayed in frontline villages, and offering more as people were forced to flee the areas, according to recipients.
Since the start of the escalation in September, Hezbollah has been paying around $300 a month to help displaced families.
The group has made no secret of the military and financial support it gets from Iran, which shipped huge sums of cash to in 2006 to aid the homeless and help rebuild.
Hezbollah supporters say more will be on the way. One, citing conversations with a local Hezbollah official, said the group would cover a year of rent for the homeless in addition to furniture costs.
Addressing the Lebanese people in an October sermon, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “the destruction will be replaced... repaying the debt to the wounded, bleeding Lebanon is our duty....”
The World Bank, in a preliminary estimate, put the cost in damage and losses to Lebanon at $8.5 billion, a bill that cannot be footed by the government, still suffering the consequences of a catastrophic financial collapse five years ago.
Gulf states Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia helped pay the $5 billion reconstruction bill in 2006, the last time Hezbollah and Israel went to war. But there has been no sign that these Sunni-led Arab states are ready to do so again. Hezbollah conducted a lot of reconstruction work after the 2006 war, financed by Iran and using its construction wing. The project was directed by Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel 11 days after Nasrallah, in a sign of the bigger challenges it will face this time round.
“For Hezbollah the priority is to guarantee the loyalty of the Shi’ite community. The destruction has been enormous and it will impact the organization,” said Mohanand Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
57 dead in army-miltant clashes in northern Syria: monitor
- Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
- The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants
BEIRUT: Militants launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday, sparking clashes in which 57 combatants were killed, a war monitor said.
Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham” (HTS), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, referring to a militant group led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch which controls a chunk of northwestern Syria.
The Observatory said “26 members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and allied factions” were killed, as well as “31 members of the regime forces.”
The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants in the area for the first time in years, the Britain-based Observatory said.
The Syrian conflict broke out after President Bashar Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011. It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
