SIDON, Lebanon: Piles of fishing nets lay on land unused in the southern Lebanese port of Sidon on Tuesday as fishermen stayed ashore after the Israeli military warned of strikes against militants along the coast.
Commercial vessels and leisure boats were anchored in the harbor, while the city’s ancient fish market fell unusually quiet, with traders trying to peddle the catch from earlier in the week.
“The Lebanese army told us we weren’t allowed to go out, and we’re respecting that,” said Mohammed Bidawi, a member of the local fishermen’s union.
“If it continues like this, the market will close too.”
After nearly a year of cross-border clashes, Israel intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon on September 23, killing more than 1,100 people and displacing over a million from their homes, according to official figures.
The Israeli army warned late Monday that it would expand its operations against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to Lebanon’s coast.
It warned people to stay away from the shore in the area south of the Al-Awali river, which flows into the sea to the north of Sidon.
Issam Haboush, another fisherman, said he was worried about his family.
“Fishing is the way we support our children. If we don’t go out to sea, we won’t be able to feed ourselves,” he said, adding that hundreds of families depended on the trade.
Bidawi said the de facto ban on fishing in Sidon had plunged around “5,000 to 6,000 people” into difficulty, the latest blow after a huge financial crisis in the country since 2019.
“The fishermen and traders at the fish market are going to need help,” he said.
Before the war, Lebanon’s fleet of 3,000 fishing boats reaped in between 3,000 and 3,500 tons of fish each year, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said in 2021.
Fisherman Hamza Sonbol said he and his colleagues had become destitute overnight.
“We’ve become like the country’s displaced,” he said.
Freediving instructor Marwan Hariri, 47, also has a boat in the port to take students out on for lessons.
“Since yesterday I’ve been feeling very down,” he said.
He had already lost 70 percent of his students in the past year of border clashes, as they largely came from southern areas under heavy Israeli bombardment, he said.
“I haven’t even been opening the diving center. I’ve just been going down to the sea to go spearfishing,” he said.
Despite the financial crisis and the tensions in the south, he was still enjoying diving with his speargun which he said was a way to temporarily escape from the news.
On Monday, he put his catch up for auction among acquaintances and managed to sell it for $56.
Then the Israeli military issued its warning.
Despite the perfect weather conditions on Monday morning, when he went down to the beach, he saw no fishermen coming back on their boats.
“It was really upsetting,” he said.
Lebanese fishermen stay ashore after Israeli warning
https://arab.news/wpse5
Lebanese fishermen stay ashore after Israeli warning
- Commercial vessels and leisure boats were anchored in the harbor, while the city’s ancient fish market fell unusually quiet
- “The Lebanese army told us we weren’t allowed to go out, and we’re respecting that,” said Mohammed Bidawi, a member of the local fishermen’s union
US slaps sanctions on Sudan paramilitary leader
- Algoney Hamdan Dagalo Musa was sanctioned “for his involvement in RSF efforts to procure weapons and other military materiel,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said
- His actions have fueled war in Sudan “and brutal RSF atrocities against civilians”
WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions against a senior leader in war-torn Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for his role in obtaining weapons for the paramilitary organization.
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced since war broke out in April 2023 between Sudan’s army and the RSF after their head generals refused a plan to integrate.
Algoney Hamdan Dagalo Musa was sanctioned “for his involvement in RSF efforts to procure weapons and other military materiel that have enabled the RSF’s ongoing operations in Sudan,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
His actions have fueled war in Sudan “and brutal RSF atrocities against civilians, which have included war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing,” Miller said.
The US Treasury said that as a result of such sanctions “all property and interests in property of the designated persons... that are in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported.”
The United States has led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting in Sudan but has seen limited success and leverage, with RSF commanders unlikely to hold major assets in the West that would be affected by sanctions.
France, Qatar deliver urgent aid to Lebanon, foreign minister says
- “If we don’t do anything, then Lebanon tomorrow could resemble what Syria has become,” Jean-Noel Barrot told lawmakers in parliament
- French and Qatari military planes delivered some 27 metric tons of medicines and basic necessities
PARIS: France and Qatar delivered urgent humanitarian aid to Lebanon on Tuesday, France’s foreign minister said, as Paris pushes for broader humanitarian efforts and a ceasefire in the country.
“If we don’t do anything, then Lebanon tomorrow could resemble what Syria has become,” Jean-Noel Barrot told lawmakers in parliament. “(That is), a hub of instability for smuggling, terrorism and a point of departure for a large migration of civilians seeking refuge in Europe.”
French and Qatari military planes delivered some 27 metric tons of medicines and basic necessities, including blankets and hygiene kits, diplomatic sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Paris has historical ties with Lebanon and has been working with the United States in trying to secure a ceasefire in the Middle Eastern country. Those talks stalled at the end of September when Israel heavily bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
It has since launched a ground offensive displacing thousands of people. Tuesday’s Franco-Qatari aid aims to support local aid groups to help the wounded and displaced.
The two sides must accept the ceasefire proposal, Barrot said, to “give peace and negotiations a chance to guarantee the sovereignty of Lebanon and security for Israel.”
France is also working to put together a conference on Lebanon soon that will center around three pillars: humanitarian aid, reinforcing the Lebanese army and discussing the ongoing political vacuum in the country, Barrot said.
Israel says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander as more rockets are fired
- The military said the strike killed Suhail Husseini, who it said was responsible for overseeing logistics, budget and management of the group
- There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah
BEIRUT: The Israeli military said Tuesday it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike on Beirut while the militant group’s acting leader promised more fighting against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and rocket fire into Israel.
The military said the strike killed Suhail Husseini, who it said was responsible for overseeing logistics, budget and management of the group. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Sheikh Naim Kassem, the acting leader of Hezbollah, said in a defiant televised statement that his group’s military capabilities are still intact. He said that Hezbollah has replaced all of its senior commanders after weeks of heavy Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon, including targeted strikes that killed much of its top command in a matter of days.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday, the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, underscoring their resilience in the face of a devastating Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed about 42,000 people, according to local medical officials.
A year ago, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. On Monday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli strike in the country’s south, part of a wider bombardment, killed at least 10 firefighters. Hezbollah fired new barrages despite its recent losses.
Israel’s Gallant says it appears Nasrallah’s replacement has been eliminated
- Hashem Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah
- “Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” said Gallant
JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that it appears that the replacement of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been eliminated.
He did not give further details.
Hashem Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah.
“Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” Gallant told officers at the military’s northern command center, in a brief video segment distributed by the military. “There’s no one to make decisions, no one to act,” he said.
Safieddine had been running Hezbollah alongside its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem since Nasrallah’s assassination and was expected to be formally elected as its next secretary general, although no official announcement had yet been made.
Qassem said in a televised statement on Tuesday that the group will elect a new secretary general and will announce it once it has been done.
UN warns Lebanon could face same ‘spiral of doom’ as Gaza
- “We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for WFP
- “It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom,”
GENEVA: UN humanitarian officials called Tuesday for urgent action to stop the escalating conflict in Lebanon from spiralling into a similar scene of devastation as seen in Gaza.
“We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
Speaking from Beirut, he told a press briefing in Geneva that he spent the first half of the year coordinating WFP’s operations in Gaza before taking the helm of its Lebanon office, and was deeply concerned by the similarities.
“It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom... We shouldn’t allow that to happen,” he said.
Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack inside Israel, has killed more than 41,900 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The UN has said the figures are reliable.
The October 7 attack left 1,206 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
The resulting conflict has spilled into Lebanon, with intensifying airstrikes and Israeli troops battling Hezbollah militants on the ground.
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 1,100 people and displaced upwards of a million in less than two weeks.
Hollingworth said many people were fleeing because they “have watched over the last year as the war in Gaza has continued and neighborhoods have been decimated and pounded, and that is deep in their gut, in their hearts, in their minds.”
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, warned that “the commonalities are unfortunately absolutely there to be seen, whether it is displacement on the ground, impact upon children or language being used ... (to) soften the realities on the ground.”
“We are seeing the same patterns that we saw in Gaza,” added Jeremy Laurence of the UN rights office.
“The devastation is beyond belief for all people in Lebanon as it is in Gaza. We can’t let this happen again.”
Humanitarians are working to address the soaring needs, but Hollingworth insisted that what was needed was to “de-escalate.”
While WFP is currently able to reach around 150,000 people a day, they “need to be reaching, at this point, almost a million people per day,” he said.
At the same time, he highlighted that 1,900 hectares of agricultural land had been burned in southern Lebanon over the past year, mainly in the past couple of weeks, while 12,000 hectares of productive farmland had been abandoned.
“We have very significant needs moving forward,” Hollingworth said, lamenting that the WFP was facing a $115 million funding gap to cover the towering needs over the next three months.
The World Health Organization meanwhile said it had registered 16 attacks on health care in Lebanon since mid-September, leaving 65 health care workers dead and 40 injured.
At the same time five of the country’s hospitals were now non-functional and four were only partially functional, Ian Clarke, WHO’s deputy incident manager in the country, told reporters, speaking via video link from Beirut.
Nearly 100 primary health care facilities had also been forced to close, he said, warning that with limited access to care, “we are facing a situation where there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks.”
