BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker interior minister said Tuesday that this week’s slaying of a local politician by what authorities say was a gang of Syrian nationals signals the need to restrict the number of refugees entering the country from neighboring Syria.
Bassam Mawlawi also urged Lebanese to show restraint amid flaring tensions over the slaying of Pascale Suleiman of the Christian nationalist Lebanese Forces party, which has prompted anti-Syrian violence and worsened political tensions among deeply divided Lebanese.
Lebanese military officials have said the slaying in northern Lebanon was part of a robbery, but Suleiman’s party suspects political motives.
The tiny Mediterranean country of over 6 million people, including refugees, hosts what the UN refugee agency says are nearly 785,000 UN-registered Syrian refugees, of which 90 percent rely on aid to survive. Lebanese officials estimate the actual number could be as high as 1.5 or 2 million.
“We are seeing more crimes committed by Syrians,” Mawlawi said at a news conference following a meeting with security and military officials, adding that some 35 percent of detainees in Lebanon’s prisons are Syrian nationals.
“The Syrian presence in Lebanon must be limited, and we emphasized to the security forces of the need to strictly enforce Lebanese laws on displaced Syrians.”
Videos have circulated of angry Lebanese beating Syrians on the streets and destroying cars with Syrian license plates in different parts of the country following Suleiman’s disappearance Sunday and the discovery of his body on Monday. The death has also exacerbated political and sectarian strife among Lebanon’s divided political groups.
“I call on the Lebanese to be rational, and not to be drawn into reactions and incidents that harm security,” Mawlawi said, echoing a statement from Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s office urging restraint.
The Lebanese Forces is the most outspoken opponent of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, and many partisans and allies were quick to accuse the Iran-backed group of being involved in the attack on Suleiman. Hezbollah’s opponents are critical of the group’s ongoing clashes with the Israeli military after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that have sparked fears of war spilling over into Lebanon.
Lebanon’s military said late Monday that Suleiman was killed when a gang of Syrian nationals tried to steal his car. But the Lebanese Forces have cast doubt on those findings, saying they believe it was a political assassination.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah slammed the Lebanese Forces party and its allies for what he said were baseless accusations and dangerous sectarian rhetoric.
Three judicial officials told The Associated Press that three apprehended Syrian nationals, one woman and two men, have told authorities that they worked for a theft gang whose leader was in Syria.
Suleiman resisted the theft of his car and the assailants hit him several times with the back of a pistol before throwing him into the trunk of the car where he is believed to have suffocated, the officials said. The body was taken into Syria near northeastern Lebanon, and returned to Lebanon on Tuesday.
The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
Lebanon official urges restrictions on Syrian refugees after slaying blamed on Syrian gang
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Lebanon official urges restrictions on Syrian refugees after slaying blamed on Syrian gang
- “We are seeing more crimes committed by Syrians,” Mawlawi said
- “The Syrian presence in Lebanon must be limited, and we emphasized to the security forces of the need to strictly enforce Lebanese laws on displaced Syrians”
Egypt tests new extension of the Suez Canal
- Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said
- The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day
Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said.
Authority chief Osama Rabie said the development in the canal’s southern region will “enhance navigational safety and reduce the effects of water and air currents on passing ships.”
Vessels navigating the waterway have at times run aground, mostly because of strong winds and sandstorms.
In 2021, giant container ship Ever Given became wedged diagonally in the canal, blocking trade for nearly a week and resulting in delays that cost billions of dollars.
The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day, Rabie said, and it will open after new navigational maps are issued.
In 2015, Egypt undertook an $8-billion expansion to the waterway, followed by several smaller development projects.
The Suez Canal has long been a vital source of foreign currency for Egypt that has been undergoing its worst ever economic crisis.
According to the International Monetary Fund, revenue from the canal has been slashed by up to 70 percent since last year because of attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea.
Before the attacks pushed companies to change routes, the vital passage accounted for around 10 percent of global maritime trade.
Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say
- Israeli forces instruct Beit Hanoun residents to leave, causing new displacements
- Palestinian officials say evacuations worsen Gaza’s humanitarian conditions
CAIRO: Israeli forces carrying out a weeks-long offensive in northern Gaza ordered any residents remaining in Beit Hanoun to quit the town on Sunday, pointing to Palestinian militant rocket fire from the area, residents said.
The instruction to residents to leave caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected, the residents said.
Israel says its almost three-month-old campaign in northern Gaza is aimed at Hamas militants and preventing them from regrouping. Its instructions to civilians to evacuate are meant to keep them out of harm’s way, the military says.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen humanitarian conditions of the population.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and razed, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.
The Israeli military announced its new push into the Beit Hanoun area on Saturday.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in the town, and it was unable to send teams into the area because of the raid.
On Friday, Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. The military said it was being used by militants, which Hamas denies.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X.
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital, which is not in service, and medics were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
On Sunday, health officials said an Israeli tank shell hit the upper floor of the Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City near the X-ray division.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 16 people on Sunday. One of those strikes killed seven people and wounded others at Al-WAFA Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Nearly 300 arrested in Syria crackdown on Assad loyalists: monitor
- The new authorities in Syria have intensified efforts to consolidate control
- The arrests were reportedly taking place ‘with the cooperation of local populations’
BEIRUT: Syria’s new authorities have arrested nearly 300 people, including informants, pro-regime fighters and former soldiers, in a crackdown on loyalists to ousted former president Bashar Assad, a monitor said Sunday.
Since militants led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group toppled Assad three weeks ago, ending more than five decades of family rule, the new authorities in Syria have intensified efforts to consolidate control.
The security forces of the new administration launched a large-scale operation on Thursday against Assad’s militias.
“In less than a week, nearly 300 people have been detained in Damascus and its suburbs, as well as in Homs, Hama, Tartus, Latakia and even Deir Ezzor,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The official Syrian news agency SANA also reported arrests this week targeting “Assad militia members” in Hama and Latakia provinces, where weapons and ammunition were seized. It did not provide any figures.
Among those arrested, according to the Observatory, were former regime informants, pro-Iranian fighters and lower-ranking military officers accused of killings and torture, Abdel Rahman said.
The Observatory, which is based in Britain, relies on a network of sources across Syria.
Abdel Rahman said that “the campaign is ongoing, but no prominent figures have been arrested” except for General Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, the former head of military justice under Assad, who reportedly oversaw thousands of death sentences following summary trials at Saydnaya prison.
Referring to social media videos showing armed men abusing detainees and even carrying out summary executions, Abdel Rahman said: “Some individuals, including informants, were immediately executed after being detained.”
AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the images.
The arrests were reportedly taking place “with the cooperation of local populations,” Abdel Rahman added.
The HTS led a coalition of former Islamist militant groups that entered Damascus on December 8 after a rapid offensive, forcing Assad to flee to Russia.
Anas Khattab, the new head of General Intelligence, has pledged to overhaul the security apparatus, denouncing “the injustice and tyranny of the former regime, whose agencies sowed corruption and inflicted suffering on the people.”
Syria’s new intel chief vows reforms to end abuses
- Prisons were emptied after Assad’s fall as officials, agents of the deposed regime fled
- Most of these installations are now guarded by fighters of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group
DAMASCUS: The new head of Syria’s intelligence services announced on Saturday a plan to dissolve the institutions that were so feared under the rule of ousted dictator Bashar Assad.
“The security establishment will be reformed after dissolving all services and restructuring them in a way that honors our people,” Anas Khattab said, two days after being appointed to his post by the country’s new leadership that overthrew Assad in early December.
In a statement carried by the official Sana news agency, he stressed the suffering of Syrians “under the oppression and tyranny of the old regime, through its various security apparatuses that sowed corruption and inflicted torture on the people.”
Prisons were emptied after Assad’s fall as officials and agents of the deposed regime fled.
Most of these installations are now guarded by fighters of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the armed coalition that seized power in Damascus.
Numerous Syrians have rushed to former detention centers in the hope of finding traces of relatives and friends who went missing during the 13 years of a devastating civil war that left more than a half million dead.
“The security services of the old regime were many and varied, with different names and affiliations, but all had in common that they had been imposed on the oppressed people for more than five decades,” Khattab continued.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), more than 100,000 people died in Syrian prisons and detention centers during the conflict.
On Thursday, a general who ran military justice under the former regime was arrested in the west of country, accused of being responsible for sentencing to death thousands of people held in the notorious Saydnaya prison.
And in Europe, several former senior Syrian intelligence officers accused of torture and other abuses have been convicted and jailed since 2022.
A Palestinian was shot dead in her West Bank home. Her family blames Palestinian security forces
- A statement from the Palestinian security forces said she was shot by “outlaws” — the term it has been using for local militants who have been battling Israeli forces in recent years.
JENIN: A Palestinian woman was shot and killed in her home in the volatile northern West Bank town of Jenin, where the Palestinian Authority is carrying out a rare campaign against militants.
The family of Shatha Al-Sabbagh, a 22-year-old journalism student, said she was killed by a sniper with the Palestinian security forces late Saturday while she was with her mother and two small children. They said there were no militants in the area at the time.
A statement from the Palestinian security forces said she was shot by “outlaws” — the term it has been using for local militants who have been battling Israeli forces in recent years. The security forces condemned the shooting and vowed to investigate it.
Separately, a fourth infant has died of hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It is deeply unpopular among Palestinians, largely because it cooperates with Israel on security matters, even as Israel accuses it of incitement and of generally turning a blind eye to militancy.
In a statement, the Al-Sabbagh family accused the Palestinian security forces of having become “repressive tools that practice terrorism against their own people instead of protecting their dignity and standing up to the (Israeli) occupation.”
The Hamas militant group also blamed the security forces and condemned the shooting. It noted that Al-Sabbagh was the sister of one of its fighters who was killed in a battle with Israeli troops last year.
Palestinian security forces launched a rare operation earlier this month in Jenin, which has seen heavy fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces in recent years. The Palestinian Authority says the operation is aimed at restoring law and order, while critics charge it with aiding the occupation.
Violence has flared in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. At least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since then, according to the Palestinian Authority. Most appear to have been militants killed in clashes with Israeli forces, but the dead also include civilians and participants in violent demonstrations.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state.
An infant dies from cold and his twin is hospitalized in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, 20-day-old Jomaa Al-Batran died from hypothermia and his twin brother Ali was in the intensive care unit of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Their father, Yehia, said the twins were born one month premature and were only able to spend a day in the nursery at the hospital, which like other health centers in Gaza has been overwhelmed by the war and is only partially functioning.
He said medics told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) at night. At least three other babies have died from the cold in recent weeks, according to local health officials.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250, including women, children and older adults. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 45,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 100,000, according to local health authorities. They say women and children make up more than half the fatalities but do not distinguish between militants and civilians in their count. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Vast areas of the territory, including entire neighborhoods, have been pounded to ruins, and critical infrastructure has been destroyed.
Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order have hindered the delivery of humanitarian aid, raising fears of famine, while widespread hunger has left people at greater risk of disease and death.
