WASHINGTON: US-arranged flights have brought about 350 Americans and their immediate relatives out of Lebanon this week during escalated fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, while thousands of others still there face airstrikes and diminishing commercial flights.
In Washington, senior State Department and White House officials met Thursday with two top Arab American officials to discuss US efforts to help American citizens leave Lebanon. The two leaders also separately met with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
Michigan state Rep. Alabas Farhat and Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, used the White House meeting to “really drive home a lot of important points about the issues our community members are facing on the ground and a lot of the logistical problems that they’re encountering with it when it comes to this evacuation,” Ayoub said.
Some officials and community leaders in Michigan, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, are calling on the US to start an evacuation. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said that was not being considered right now.
“The US military is, of course, on the ready and has a whole wide range of plans. Should we need to evacuate American citizens out of Lebanon, we absolutely can,” Singh told reporters.
Israel has opened a pounding air campaign deep into Lebanon and a ground incursion in the country’s south targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Iran on Tuesday fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel, leaving the region bracing for any Israeli retaliation and fearing an all-out regional war.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering the war in Gaza.
Other countries, from Greece to the United Kingdom, Japan and Colombia, have arranged flights or sent military planes to ferry out their citizens.
As Israeli bombardments targeting senior Hezbollah leaders shook southern neighborhoods in Lebanon’s capital last week, “We could still see, hear and feel everything” despite fleeing to the mountains outside Beirut, said Nicolette Hutcherson, a longtime humanitarian volunteer living in Lebanon with her husband and three children.
The only seats Hutcherson’s family could find on commercial carriers were for flights weeks away and for thousands of dollars, she said. Ultimately, Hutcherson and her young children joined crowds heading to Lebanon’s Mediterranean marinas, finding spots on pleasure boats turned evacuation ships for the nine-hour ride to Cyprus.
Her husband was able to find a single seat out on a plane days later to join them.
Another American family was mourning Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a resident of metro Detroit’s Dearborn area, who was killed in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. Family members said he stayed to help civilians too old, infirm or poor to flee.
He had been on the phone with his daughter Tuesday when the impact of a strike knocked him off his feet, his daughter, Nadine Kamel Jawad, said in a statement.
“He simply got up, found his phone, and told me he needed to finish praying in case another strike hit him,” she said.
The State Department has been telling Americans for almost a year not to travel to Lebanon and advising them to leave the country on commercial flights for months. It also has made clear that government-run evacuations are rare, while offering emergency loans to aid travel out of Lebanon.
Some Americans said relatives who are US citizens or green-card holders have been struggling for days or weeks to get seats on flights out of Lebanon. Limits on withdrawing money from banks due to Lebanon’s longstanding economic collapse and intermittent electricity and Internet have made it difficult, they said.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid, a lawyer based in Washington, paid $5,000 to get a female relative on the last seat of a flight out of Beirut on Saturday.
“She was on her way to the airport” when Israeli began one of its first days of intensified bombing, Abou-Chedid said.
By Thursday, some Americans said their loved ones had been able to secure tickets for upcoming flights and were hopeful.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US would continue to organize flights as long the security situation in Lebanon is dire and there is demand.
Miller said Lebanon’s flag carrier, Middle East Airlines, also had set aside about 1,400 seats on flights for Americans over the past week. Several hundred had taken them, he said.
Miller could not speak to the cost of the airline’s flights, over which the US government has no regulatory oversight, but said the maximum fare that would be charged for a US-organized contract flight would be $283 per person.
More than 6,000 American citizens have contacted the US Embassy in Beirut seeking information about departing the country over the past week.
Not all of those have actually sought assistance in leaving, and Miller said the department understood that some Americans, many of them dual US-Lebanese nationals and longtime residents of the country, may choose to stay.
Miller said the embassy is prepared to offer temporary loans to Americans who choose to remain in Lebanon but want to relocate to a potentially safer area of the country. The embassy also would provide emergency loans to Americans who wish to leave on the US-contracted flights.
US arranges flights to bring Americans out of Lebanon as others seek escape
https://arab.news/ngb8k
US arranges flights to bring Americans out of Lebanon as others seek escape
- Some officials and community leaders in Michigan, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, are calling on the US to start an evacuation
- Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said: “The US military is, of course, on the ready and has a whole wide range of plans”
Lebanon says at least three killed in Israeli strike on Baalbek
- A ministry statement said body parts were recovered from the site
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said at least three people were killed in an Israeli strike Thursday on the main eastern city of Baalbek.
“The Israeli enemy strike... in Baalbek killed three people, in an initial toll,” a ministry statement said, adding that “body parts were recovered from the site and their identities are being verified.”
Cafe in Libya champions recycling and sustainability
- Lamma, which means “gathering” or “hangout” in Arabic, has become a cultural hub for locals and other visitors
- Its central mission, its owner said, is raising awareness of an eco-friendly lifestyle in Libya
TRIPOLI: In Libya’s capital, a cafe’s sleek exterior gives little hint of the vibrant space inside, built entirely from recycled materials to promote sustainability in a country recovering from years of war.
Lamma, which means “gathering” or “hangout” in Arabic, has become a cultural hub for locals and other visitors, featuring an art gallery that showcases Libyan artists, and hosts events and workshops.
But its central mission, its owner said, is raising awareness of an eco-friendly lifestyle in Libya, where green initiatives are scarce as people grapple with the aftermath of a gruelling conflict.
“We use materials that were abandoned in the streets, such as rubber from tires, wood from trees and construction waste” to build the cafe, said Louay Omran Burwais, an architect who designed and founded Lamma.
“The idea is to show people that what is thrown in the street and may seem ugly or useless is actually still valuable,” he told AFP.
Libya was hurled into war after a NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow and killing of dictator Muammar Qaddafi, followed by years of fighting between militias, mercenaries and jihadists.
Power remains split between a UN-recognized government and a rival authority in the east.
Behind the long, narrow door into Lamma, visitors are greeted with a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes.
The plant-covered walls contrast with a web of suspended metal scraps, alcoves and slide tunnels that children swoop down through.
“There are no places like this in Libya,” said Roula Ajjawi, Lamma’s art director. “We base everything on one aspect that we consider very important: recycling.”
Families gather at Lamma on Thursdays, the start of the Libyan weekend, when the cafe holds art workshops for children.
Others borrow books from the venue’s small library.
Burwais says his team hopes recycling and other eco-friendly practices, which remain rare, start up in Libya, which currently has no recycling facilities.
Visitors to Lamma will recognize familiar everyday objects repurposed throughout the space, Burwais said, but they will “start seeing them differently. We are here to foster a new mindset.”
In Libya, the plastic, metal, and glass left from over a decade of civil war destruction are rarely, if ever, reused or recycled, Ajjawi said.
More often, they are abandoned in nature and on the streets, occasionally washed into the Mediterranean by rain and wind.
But with initiatives like Lamma, objects once destined for the landfill are transformed into works of art — a concept now catching on with locals.
“I love this place,” said Riyad Youssef, now a Lamma regular. “The food is great, the service is excellent, and I appreciate the commitment to reducing waste. Every idea here is amazing.”
Turkiye probes event spending in opposition-run cities
- The office said late on Wednesday it would investigate “irregular spendings“
- The Ankara chief prosecutor’s office has also launched an investigation into two concerts
ISTANBUL: The Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office has opened a probe into allegations of illicit expenditures at some public events organized by the Istanbul municipality, marking the latest legal challenge to opposition-run districts in Turkiye.
The office said late on Wednesday it would investigate “irregular spendings” to determine whether the public experienced financial harm, without elaborating.
The Ankara chief prosecutor’s office has also launched an investigation into two concerts organized by the Ankara municipality on Republic Day celebrations on Oct. 29.
The municipalities, which are Turkiye’s two largest cities and both run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), deny the allegations.
Speaking at a career fair on Thursday, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — who is seen as a potential future challenger to President Tayyip Erdogan — said the probes amounted to “reputation assassination.” The Istanbul municipality did not comment further on the probe when contacted by Reuters.
Late last month the CHP mayor of Istanbul’s Esenyurt district was arrested and accused of belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), charges he and his party reject.
Since then, the interior ministry dismissed and replaced elected mayors from the pro-Kurdish DEM party in some southeastern cities for alleged ties to militants, charges they and their party also deny.
Israeli attacks on Syria’s Damascus kill 15, state media says
- The buildings are located in the suburbs of Mazzeh and Qudsaya, both west of the capital, the SANA report said
DUBAI: Fifteen people were killed and 16 injured in Israeli attacks on a number of residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, state news agency SANA reported, citing a Syrian military source.
The buildings are located in the suburbs of Mazzeh and Qudsaya, both west of the capital, the SANA report said.
Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus were a headquarters of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad and what it described as other assets, without elaborating.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.
Commanders in Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards based in Syria have been known to reside in Mazzeh, according to residents who fled after recent strikes that killed some key figures from the groups.
Mazzeh’s high rise blocks have been used by the authorities in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
UN resolutions back Palestinian sovereignty, compensation for Lebanon, Syria
- US, Argentina, Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau vote against both resolutions
- Palestinian representative: Israel allowed to act ‘above the law with brazen impunity’
LONDON: The UN Economic and Financial Committee has approved resolutions calling on Israel to compensate Lebanon and Syria for an oil slick, and to hand sovereignty to the Palestinians over their natural resources.
The US, Argentina, Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau voted against both resolutions.
The slick occurred after the Israeli Air Force struck storage tanks near the Jiyah electric power plant in 2006, covering two-thirds of Lebanon’s coastline with oil.
The draft resolution was introduced by Uganda’s representative, who highlighted the disastrous impact the slick has had on biodiversity and the local economy.
It reiterated the UN General Assembly’s “deep concern” over the negative impact the incident has had on Lebanon’s long-term sustainable development, and reaffirmed a UN report that damage to the country caused by the slick amounted to $856.4 million in 2014.
The resolution was passed by 161 votes in favor to seven against, with nine abstentions. It called for “prompt and adequate compensation” from Israel to Lebanon and Syria, which was also affected by the slick.
Lebanon’s representative thanked his country’s supporters at the UN, the World Bank and elsewhere.
He said the slick had hindered Lebanon’s ability to implement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and Israel’s use of chemical and toxic substances in its ongoing military campaign could cause long-term agricultural, economic and biodiversity damage.
He called for an investigation into Israeli war crimes in Lebanon and for further compensation.
The Ugandan representative also introduced a draft resolution calling on Israel to “cease the exploitation, damage, cause of loss or depletion and endangerment of the natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.”
The draft also recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to seek compensation for any illegal activity by Israel or Israeli settlers that exploits or damages their natural resources.
It cited an International Court of Justice advisory opinion from July 19, and reaffirmed “the principle of the permanent sovereignty of the peoples under foreign occupation over their natural resources and the applicability of the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war.”
The committee passed the resolution with 159 states in favor. Seven countries opposed the motion, with 11 abstentions.
The Palestinian representative said Israel must be held accountable for crimes committed against her people and on their territory, saying it has “for over a year” violated the UN Charter with its “incomprehensible” acts in Gaza.
She added that Israel has been allowed to act as a state “above the law with brazen impunity, classifying all Palestinians as terrorists to justify its acts.”
The Syrian delegate said genocide, destruction and displacement committed by Israel “have also threatened to set fire to the entire region and beyond.” He blamed the US for preventing the UN Security Council from taking firm action.
The Algerian delegate said people living under occupation should have sovereignty over their natural resources, and damage caused by Israeli aggression will take years of reconstruction to undo.