BEIRUT: A Lebanese tourism chief has called on the country’s political and security leaders to work together in helping create the conditions for a bumper summer season.
Pierre Al-Ashkar, head of the Federation of Tourist Syndicates in Lebanon urged authorities to ease restrictions on movement wherever possible to encourage visitors.
Tourism officials fear security risks and political tensions in Lebanon could discourage holidaymakers.
With the national economy in meltdown, an influx of tourists would provide struggling businesses with a welcome cash injection.
“This season offers a breathing space for Lebanon and the Lebanese to support the tourism sector and all economic sectors, as well as families and young Lebanese.
“Last month’s kidnapping of the administrative employee Mashari Al-Mutairi at the Saudi Embassy, did not have any repercussions on the tourist season, as security forces freed the kidnap victim at a record speed,” Al-Ashkar said.
Internal security forces announced on Thursday that a Syrian, thought to be the head of a gang suspected of being involved in ransom kidnappings, had been arrested.
And on Friday, Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said: “The UAE has lifted the visa ban on Lebanese nationals after a temporary suspension was attributed to security concerns according to an Emirati official.”
Al-Ashkar noted that Lebanese hotel occupancy rates for this year’s summer season were expected to be similar to 2022, running at between 60 percent and 80 percent.
Restoration work has been carried out on several waterfront hotels damaged in the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion.
And in a bid to encourage more visitors some Lebanese youth have been posting videos on social media platforms highlighting beauty spots, markets, restaurants, and sporting events.
Tony Ramy, head of the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Cafes, Nightclubs, and Pastries in Lebanon, said: “Downtown Beirut is about to witness the opening of large nightclubs between June 20 and July 1. A huge number of foreign visitors are expected, including Arab tourists and Lebanese expatriates.”
A series of concerts and street festivals are planned with “demand for partying high,” Ramy added.
Head of the Association of Travel and Tourist Agents in Lebanon, Jean Abboud, said: “We have work to do this summer considering that Lebanon is a tourism country rather than a space for tensions and disagreements.
“Reservations on foreign flights arriving in Lebanon have reached 90 percent. We expect that this percentage will increase to reach 100 percent in July and August, and that the number of flights will also increase following the demand to visit Lebanon.
“The number of Arab tourists exceeded 35 percent of the total tourists’ number, including Iraqis, Jordanians, Saudis, Emiratis, and some Egyptians. This shows that tourism revenues are about to increase.
“The daily number of incoming tourists is expected to be around 12,000 visitors. As of early July, we expect this number to reach 15,000 tourists,” Abboud added.
The committees of the Beiteddine and Baalbek international festivals will be staging concert programs at both sites during July and August. Attractions will include jazz, pop, and rock music, oriental, folklore, and soprano singers, a range of dance performances, plus the musical “Chicago.”
Baalbek – Hermel Gov. Bashir Khedr called for the removal of politically motivated ads on billboards on key highways used by visitors.
Lebanon tourism chiefs urge national unity to help boost holiday season income
https://arab.news/8vzmw
Lebanon tourism chiefs urge national unity to help boost holiday season income
- Tourism officials fear security risks and political tensions in Lebanon could discourage holidaymakers
- With the national economy in meltdown, an influx of tourists would provide struggling businesses with a welcome cash injection
What we know about the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar
- According to the Israeli military, Sinwar met his end at the hands of a routine patrol on Wednesday
His death represents a massive blow to the Palestinian militant movement that has waged a war with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip for more than a year now.
Here is what we know about the killing of Israel’s most wanted man.
According to the Israeli military, Sinwar met his end at the hands of a routine patrol on Wednesday.
It said a group of soldiers of the 828th Brigade (Bislach) was moving through the city of Rafah when it came across three Palestinian militants.
Israeli media and military officials said there was no prior intelligence pointing to Sinwar’s presence in the area.
“Sinwar hid in places that our forces have explored over a long period of time,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said during a briefing Thursday.
“The forces identified three terrorists who were going from home to home on the run,” Hagari said.
As the soldiers chased them, Sinwar split from the other two, public broadcaster Kan reported.
A tank fired at a building in which two of the militants hid, while Sinwar took cover in another house, it said.
“Sinwar ran away alone into one of the buildings and our forces scanned the area with a drone,” Hagari said.
Drone footage released by the military showed Sinwar covered in dust sitting in an armchair staring down a drone as the device entered the house devastated by strikes.
The grainy footage showed Sinwar alone with one hand severely injured and his head covered in a traditional scarf, throwing a stick at the approaching drone during his final moments.
“We identified him as a terrorist inside a building and we shot into the building and we entered to scan the area. We found him with a gun and 40 thousand shekels ($10,750),” said Hagari.
Unverified images circulating online showed Israeli soldiers circled around the mangled corpse of a man resembling Sinwar who appeared to have suffered a severe head wound.
The man was wearing a chunky watch and surrounded by rubble.
The military conducted immediate DNA testing along with dental examinations and other forensic enquiries that helped confirm Sinwar’s identity.
Later on Thursday, Sinwar’s body was brought to a laboratory in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The initial findings described Sinwar’s physical condition as “good even though he had spent a long time in tunnels,” Kan reported.
Sinwar had not been seen in public since the war erupted with the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The Israeli military and media regularly claimed he was hiding deep in the warren of tunnels under Gaza, while images released by the army showed CCTV footage of a man exiting from a tunnel it claimed was Sinwar.
There were also reports that Sinwar had surrounded himself with several hostages who were seized by militants during the October 7 onslaught.
But when Sinwar was finally cornered and killed, there were no captives by his side.
“In the building where the terrorists were eliminated, there were no signs of the presence of hostages in the area,” a military statement said on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the killing of Sinwar and said his death could be the “beginning of the end” to the conflict.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant remained defiant in the wake of the killing, saying Israel would “pursue every terrorist and eliminate them” and bring back the hostages still held in Gaza.
Families of hostages, however, expressed concern over the fate of their loved ones as they called for a deal to secure their release.
At a Tel Aviv rally just hours after Sinwar’s death was announced, El-Sisil, 60, who gave only her first name, told AFP the killing presented a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for “a hostage deal to end the war.”
Hamas, meanwhile, has not confirmed its leader’s death.
Experts say it the group may bid its time before acknowledging his death, while his body remains with the Israeli military.
His killing so soon after the death of his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, in July also begs the question of who might succeed him.
UNIFIL vows to stay in Lebanon despite several ‘deliberate’ Israeli attacks
- UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti: ‘We need to stay, they asked us to move’
GENEVA: A United Nations’ UNIFIL peacekeeping mission spokesperson on Friday said that the 10,000-strong mission would remain in Lebanon despite several direct attacks by Israeli forces in recent days which he described as deliberate.
“We need to stay, they asked us to move,” said UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti by video link from Beirut. “The devastation and destruction of many villages along the Blue Line, and even beyond, is shocking,” he said, referring to a UN-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Asked about the downing of a drone near its ship off the Lebanese coast on Thursday, he said: “The drone was coming from the south but circling around the ship and getting very, very close, a few meters away from the ship.”
Israeli military kill two attackers crossing from Jordan’s Dead Sea area
- Two of them were killed after they opened fire on Israeli forces
DUBAI: The Israeli military identified what it called “a number of terrorists” crossing from Jordan into Israel south of the Dead Sea region and neutralized two of them after they opened fire on Israeli forces, the IDF said in a statement on Friday.
“IDF troops were dispatched to the scene and two terrorists who opened fire toward the troops were neutralized by the forces,” the military said.
“Additional forces have been dispatched to reinforce the area and are conducting searches on the ground and air for an additional terrorist who likely fled the scene.”
The latest incident follows a separate attack on Sept. 8 when a gunman from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the occupied West Bank before security forces shot him dead.
Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Jordan and the Allenby Bridge attack was the first of its kind along the border with Jordan since Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas carried out an assault on southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza that has escalated throughout the region.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties.
Dozens of trucks cross daily from Jordan, with goods from Jordan and the Gulf that supply both the West Bank and Israeli markets.
PM Najib Mikati rejects Iranian interference in Lebanese matter
- Speaker of Iran’s parliament said Tehran was ready to negotiate with France on implementing a UN resolution concerning southern Lebanon
- Prime Minister Najib Mikati: ‘We are surprised by this position, which constitutes a blatant interference in Lebanese affairs’
DUBAI: Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister said on Friday he rejected Iranian interference in a Lebanese matter, after the speaker of Iran’s parliament said Tehran was ready to negotiate with France on implementing a UN resolution concerning southern Lebanon.
UN Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, calls for the border area of southern Lebanon to be free of weapons or troops other than those of the Lebanese state, with the aim of keeping peace on the border with Israel.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, made his comments in an interview published on Thursday.
“We are surprised by this position, which constitutes a blatant interference in Lebanese affairs and an attempt to establish a rejected guardianship over Lebanon,” a government statement quoted Prime Minister Najib Mikati as saying.
Mikati added that negotiating to implement UN resolution 1701 was a matter for the Lebanese state.
Under Resolution 1701, the United Nations Security Council authorized a UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL “to assist” Lebanese forces in ensuring southern Lebanon is “free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon.”
Israel says the Lebanese army and UNIFIL have failed to secure the area. It started a ground operation in Lebanon on Oct. 1 after almost a year of ongoing hostilities with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in parallel with the war in Gaza.
The UN Security Council has expressed strong concerns after several UN peacekeeping positions in southern Lebanon came under fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that it is time to withdraw UNIFIL.
Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon told Reuters on Monday he wanted to see “a more robust mandate for UNIFIL to deter Hezbollah.”
The peacekeeping mission is currently authorized until Aug. 31, 2025.
Israeli drone video captures last minutes of Hamas leader Sinwar’s life
- Israeli troops were initially unaware that they had caught their country’s number one enemy
JERUSALEM: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was tracked by an Israeli mini drone as he lay dying in the ruins of a building in southern Gaza and filmed him slumped in a chair covered in dust, according to video released by Israeli authorities on Thursday.
As the drone hovered nearby, the video showed him throwing a stick at it, in an apparent act of desperation.
After an intensive manhunt that had lasted for more than a year, the Israeli troops that killed Sinwar were initially unaware that they had caught their country’s number one enemy after a gunbattle on Wednesday, Israeli officials said.
Intelligence services had been gradually restricting the area where he could operate, the military said on Thursday, after dental records, fingerprints and DNA testing provided final confirmation of Sinwar’s death.
But unlike other militant leaders tracked down and killed by Israel, including Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 13, the operation which finally killed Sinwar was not a planned and targeted strike, or an operation carried out by elite commandos.
Instead, officials said he was found by infantry soldiers from the Bislach Brigade, a unit that normally trains future unit commanders. The soldiers were searching an area in the Tal El Sultan area of southern Gaza on Wednesday, where they believed senior members of Hamas were located.
The troops saw three suspected militants moving between buildings and opened fire, leading to a gunfight during which Sinwar escaped into a ruined building.
According to accounts in Israeli media, tank shells and a missile were also fired at the building.
On Thursday, the military released footage from a mini drone that it said showed Sinwar, badly wounded in the hand, sitting on a chair, his face covered in a scarf. The film shows him attempting to throw a stick at the drone, in a futile effort to knock it down.
At this stage, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, Sinwar was only identified as a fighter, but troops entered and found him with a weapon, a flak jacket and 40,000 shekels ($10,731.63).
“He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him,” he told reporters in a televised briefing.
Hamas has not made any comment itself, but sources within the group have said that the indications they have seen suggest Sinwar was indeed killed by Israeli troops.
“The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
In the last months of his life, Sinwar, the main architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza, appears to have stopped using telephones and other communication equipment that would have allowed Israel’s powerful intelligence services to track him down.
Israeli officials said they believed he was hiding in one of the vast network of tunnels that Hamas dug beneath Gaza over the past two decades, but as more and more have been uncovered by Israeli troops, even the tunnels were no guarantee of escaping capture.
The head of Israel’s military, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Israel’s pursuit of Sinwar over the past year drove him “to act like a fugitive, causing him to change locations multiple times.”
Israeli officials, who knew Sinwar as a ruthless and committed enemy, were long concerned that he had surrounded himself with some of the 101 Israeli and foreign hostages still held in Gaza as a human shield to protect himself from Israeli attacks.
But no hostages were found nearby when he was finally trapped on Wednesday, although Hagari said samples of his DNA were located in a tunnel a few hundred meters from where six Israeli hostages were executed by Hamas at the end of August.
