Biden, Trump in bitter debate can only agree on eliminating Hamas

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections with US President Joe Biden at CNN's studios in Atlanta, Georgia. (AFP)
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Updated 28 June 2024
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Biden, Trump in bitter debate can only agree on eliminating Hamas

  • US economy, COVID-19, Mideast conflict are main points of contention
  • Republicans, Democrats declare victory for their candidates after face-off

ATLANTA: President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump faced off in a debate in Atlanta on Thursday, during which they blamed each other for the nation’s economic turmoil and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and could only agree on wanting to eliminate Hamas.

Broadcaster CNN circumvented the independent US Commission on Presidential Debates to host the event, which was unprecedented because Biden and Trump have yet to be formally approved by their parties as candidates for the Nov. 5 election.

The format had restrictions to prevent a repetition of events four years ago when Trump interrupted Biden 190 times, CNN reportedly stated.

Devoid of an audience to cheer or jeer, the rigid CNN format may have benefited Trump by forcing him to appear less disruptive, his supporters said.

It shifted the focus onto Biden who was slow to respond to questions, had difficulty hearing, and mixed up some phrases and words.

Bitter name-calling and a back-and-forth battle over who was responsible for the nation’s domestic challenges appeared to distract the two from responding fully to questions about the Middle East and Israel’s war on the Palestinians.

Pushed to explain what “additional leverage” Biden might apply to get Israel and Hamas to endorse his ceasefire plan, the president called the Palestinian group the primary obstacle to peace, the only point of agreement with Trump.

“No. 1, everyone from the UN Security Council straight through to the G7 to the Israelis and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu himself have endorsed the (ceasefire) plan I put forward, endorsed the plan I put forward, which has three stages to it,” Biden said.

“The first stage is to treat the hostages for a ceasefire. Second phase is a ceasefire with additional conditions. The third phase is know the end of the war.

“The only one who wants the war to continue is Hamas, No. 1. They’re the only ones not standing down. We’re still pushing hard to get them to accept.”

Biden added: “Hamas can’t be allowed to be continued. We continue to send our experts and our intelligence people to how they can get Hamas like we did (Osama) bin Laden. You don’t have to do it.

“And by the way, they’ve been greatly weakened, Hamas, greatly weakened, and they should be. They should be eliminated. But you got to be careful for what you use these certain weapons among population centers.”

Trump said Biden is preventing Israel from eliminating Hamas. “As far as Israel and Hamas, Israel is the one that wants to go (and finish the job). He said the only one who wants to keep going is Hamas. Actually, Israel is the one, and you should (let) them go and let them finish the job,” Trump insisted.

“He doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”

On supporting efforts to establish a Palestinian state, Trump said: “I’d have to see.”

He said he had prevented Hamas from attacking Israel by blocking funds to Iran, which he claimed was the group’s major sponsor. He added that Biden’s “weak” leadership opened the door for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In response, Biden called Trump “the weak one,” adding: “I’m the guy that organized the world against Iran when they had a full-blown kind of ballistic missile attack on Israel.

“No one was hurt. No one Israeli was accidentally killed. And it stopped. We saved Israel. We’re the biggest producer of support for Israel than anyone in the world.”

Trump called Biden “the worst president” in US history. Biden slammed Trump as a “convicted felon” and compared his morals to that of an “alley cat.”

The debate took place about 1.6 km from Georgia Tech University, where 800 journalists from 34 countries, and campaign staff, watched on TV monitors.

After the debate, Republican and Democratic leaders came to the floor of the university’s pavilion to speak with reporters, with both sides declaring victory.

Republican member of Congress Elise Stefanik said the debate showed that Trump would “easily defeat” Biden in November, adding: “This is an absolute overwhelming knockout victory by President Trump tonight against a failed, feckless and weak Joe Biden.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, who had challenged Trump for president in the Republican primaries, said Biden seemed confused and only had “a spark of life for him when he was talking about Jan. 6 and Trump’s conviction.

“Biden doesn’t give a damn about the issues that affect Americans ... President Biden came across as the mean guy in the room.”

Several Democrats declined to answer questions from reporters about the debate, and instead issued statements defending Biden and predicting his victory over Trump in November.

Asked if Biden should be concerned about the election, Sen. Raphael Warnock said: “I’d be concerned if the president didn’t have a record to run on, but the fact of the matter is this is a man who has passed historic legislation.”

Warnock added: “Elections are about the character of the country. The American people got a chance tonight to be reminded about the character of Donald Trump, a man who stood there and lied for 90 minutes straight.

“What I was struck by was that every time he was asked a question, you noticed Trump never answered the questions. America is better than Donald Trump.”

Biden and Trump are expected to participate in one more debate, to be hosted by ABC Network News on Sept. 10.

This will also circumvent rules set by the US Commission on Presidential Debates, which has hosted all these events since the 1980s.

Independent candidates excluded from the debate, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Jill Stein, hosted their own parallel events and responded in real time to the same questions posed by CNN to Biden and Trump.


Lebanon says at least four killed in Israeli strike on central Beirut

Updated 11 sec ago
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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.

At least four people were killed and 23 wounded in the attack in Beirut’s Basta neighborhood, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar broadcaster reported, citing the health ministry.

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.”


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

  • 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”

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.”

 


Little hope in Gaza that arrest warrants will cool Israeli onslaught

A Palestinian little girl queues for food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP)
Updated 23 November 2024
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Little hope in Gaza that arrest warrants will cool Israeli onslaught

  • Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave

GAZA: Gazans saw little hope on Friday that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders would slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 21 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.
In Gaza City in the north, an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia killed eight people, medics said.
Three others were killed in a strike near a bakery, and a fisherman was killed as he set out to sea. In the central and southern areas, nine people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes.

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Residents in the three besieged towns on Gaza’s northern edge — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave, their main offensive since early last month.
The military claims it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from waging attacks and regrouping there; residents say they fear the aim is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Residents in the three besieged towns on the northern edge — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.
An Israeli strike hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the area, injuring six medical staff, some critically, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
“The strike also destroyed the hospital’s main generator and punctured the water tanks, leaving the hospital without oxygen or water, which threatens the lives of patients and staff inside the hospital,” it added.
It said 85 wounded people, including children and women, were inside, eight in the ICU.
Gazans saw the ICC’s decision to seek the arrest of Israeli leaders for suspected war crimes as international recognition of the enclave’s plight. But those queuing for bread at a bakery in the southern city of Khan Younis were doubtful it would have any impact.
“The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel, and it can veto anything. Israel will not be held accountable,” said Saber Abu Ghali as he waited for his turn in the crowd.
Saeed Abu Youssef, 75, said that even if justice arrived, it would be decades late: “We have been hearing decisions for more than 76 years that have not been implemented and haven’t done anything for us.” Israel launched its assault on Gaza after militants stormed across the border fence, killed 1,200 people, and seized more than 250 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since then, nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste.
The court’s prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war, as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have denounced the ICC arrest warrants as biased and based on false evidence, and Israel says the court has no jurisdiction over the war.
Hamas hailed the arrest warrants as a first step toward justice.
Efforts by Arab mediators backed by the US to conclude a ceasefire deal have stalled.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.