BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday urged the United Nations to pass a resolution calling for an “immediate” ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
In a televised address, Mikati emphasized his government’s commitment to deploy the army on the border with Israel as part of a cessation of hostilities, and said Hezbollah agreed on the matter.
Mikati said Lebanon’s foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire.”
He said his government was committed to “the full application of Resolution 1701,” which was adopted in 2006 and called for the Lebanese army and peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in the south of the country.
Lebanon is committed to “the deployment of the army in the south and the bolstering of its presence along the border,” he said.
“Hezbollah is in agreement on this issue,” he added.
A government source had previously said that Hezbollah informed Lebanese authorities it had accepted a ceasefire with Israel on September 27, the day an Israeli strike killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Previously, the Iran-backed militant group had said it would only accept a truce if there was also one with its Palestinian ally Hamas in Gaza.
Mikati also condemned attacks on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon as a “crime,” with peacekeepers targeted two days in a row by Israeli forces, according to Lebanese official media and the foreign ministry.
A year of hostilities has killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon and forced more than one million people to flee, according to Lebanese authorities.
Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel
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Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel
- Lebanon’s foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a ‘full and immediate ceasefire’
Somalia says it welcomes Egypt’s offer to deploy peacekeepers there
- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday attended a summit in the Eritrean capital, Asmara
- Somali authorities said at the end of the summit that they welcome Egypt’s offer to deploy troops in Somalia as part of a stabilization force
MOGADISHU: Somalia says Egypt has offered to deploy peacekeeping troops to the Horn of Africa nation in a security partnership that is emerging as the mandate of a long-time group of African Union peacekeepers winds down.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday attended a summit in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, where he and the leaders of Somalia and Eritrea pledged strong cooperation in regional security.
Somali authorities said in a statement at the end of the summit that they welcomed Egypt’s offer to deploy troops in Somalia as part of a stabilization force when the present African Union force disbands in December.
The statement said the leaders welcomed the African Union Peace and Security Council’s decision to launch the African Union Mission to Support Stabilization in Somalia, or AUSSOM, under whose mandate the Egyptians or others would be deployed.
A separate statement following the summit signed by representatives of Somalia, Egypt and Eritrea asserted Somalia’s sovereign right to determine the composition, tasks and deployment timeline for the AUSSOM troops.
Somalia’s federal government has been supported by an African Union peacekeeping mission since 2007 in fighting the Islamic extremist group Al-Shabab, which has ties with Al-Qaeda and is responsible for deadly attacks in the country.
The summit in Asmara followed a period of tensions in the region stemming from disputes pitting Ethiopia against others.
The first dispute — between Ethiopia and Egypt — is over Ethiopia’s construction of a $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile, a key tributary of the Nile River. Egypt fears it will have a devastating effect on water and irrigation supplies downstream in Egypt unless Ethiopia takes its needs into account. Ethiopia plans to use the dam to generate badly needed electricity.
The second dispute — between Ethiopia and Somalia — is over Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland.
Somalia has sought to block landlocked Ethiopia’s ongoing efforts to gain access to the Red Sea via a contentious agreement with Somaliland to lease a stretch of land along its coastline, where Ethiopia would establish a marine force base. In return, Ethiopia would recognize Somaliland as an independent country, according to Somaliland authorities.
Somaliland seceded from Somalia more than 30 years ago but is not recognized by the African Union or the United Nations as an independent state. Somalia still considers Somaliland part of its territory.
Second round of Gaza polio vaccination ‘more complicated’: UN
- The vaccination campaign began after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years was reported in the besieged Gaza Strip
GENEVA: A campaign starting next week to give hundreds of thousands of children in war-stricken Gaza the necessary second dose of polio vaccine will be “more complicated” than the first round, the UN said Friday.
The United Nations agencies for health and for children said they were gearing up to start providing follow-up doses to some 591,700 children under the age of 10 across Gaza from Monday.
That follows a first vaccination round implemented from September 1 to 12, which Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative for the Palestinian territories, hailed Friday as “a massive achievement.”
The vaccination campaign began after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years was reported in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Like the last round, the upcoming campaign will take part in three phases, aided by localized “humanitarian pauses” in fighting: first in central Gaza, then in the south and finally in the hardest-to reach north of the territory.
Speaking via video-link from Jerusalem, Peeperkorn told reporters he had “confidence” in the hundreds of teams ready to roll out the second stage of the campaign.
But he acknowledged he was “concerned about the developments in the north,” where Israel has dramatically escalated its operations and has issued a string of evacuation orders.
“We are concerned,” agreed Jean Gough of UNICEF.
“The conditions on the ground are really more complicated this time,” she told the briefing, also speaking from Jerusalem.
She emphasized the need to fully vaccinate at least 90 percent of children to ensure polio does not spread.
“It will be absolutely critical that not only the localized humanitarian pauses are respected in the north, but also that people are not forced to move from one area to another,” she said.
Gough stressed that the UN had held numerous meetings with Israeli authorities and had received confirmation from Cogat, an Israeli government agency, that the humanitarian pauses would be implemented.
“This worked in the last round and we are confident” it will work again, she said.
“It is difficult, but it is possible.”
The Gaza war began on October 7 last year, when Hamas militants stormed across the border and carried out the worst attack in Israeli history.
The militants took 251 people hostage in an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
According to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, 42,065 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, a majority civilians, figures the UN has described as reliable.
Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off
- Newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian extended an apparent olive branch to the West at the UN
- Khamenei vowed that Iran’s militant allies, primarily the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, would not “back down”
PARIS: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s undisputed number one, but in the pecking order beneath the supreme leader are different factions competing for influence as the country maps out how to react to growing setbacks and escalating confrontation with Israel, experts say.
While some insiders are seen as favoring negotiation, others believe in using force, with the outcome of the behind-the-scenes debate helping to determine whether the current tit-for-tat cycle spirals into a full-blown war.
In a rare public sermon last week, Khamenei vowed that Iran’s militant allies, primarily the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, would not “back down” in their war against Israel, the Islamic republic’s sworn enemy which he said “does not have long to live.”
Yet last month, newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian extended an apparent olive branch to the West at the UN, proposing the revival of the 2015 international nuclear deal that was unilaterally abandoned in 2018 by then-US president Donald Trump.
Experts say that as Israel prepares its response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack, Khamenei remains keen to avoid all-out war while showing the Islamic republic can still stand up to its enemies.
The supreme leader, who is chosen for life and has been in power since the death of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, has long been seen as seeking to balance out the various factions in Iran before deliberately and, sometimes slowly, coming to a decision.
“There were certainly dozens of hours of meetings and analysis before deciding on the details of the strike against Israel,” said Pierre Razoux, research director at the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES).
“It’s similar to a chess champion studying all possible moves and openings with their team before making a play.”
While Khamenei is the ultimate decision-maker, Iran’s power structure is deeply complex with the president often only having a limited influence in foreign policy decisions.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s ideological army which maintains links with Iran’s regional proxies, plays a crucial role, as do low-profile but powerful figures within the office of the supreme leader including his son Mojtaba who is sometimes seen as a successor.
“Despite its authoritarian nature, the Islamic Republic has always had fractious factions that disagreed over the way in which they (Iran) should interact with the outside world,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, told AFP.
The president “does not control or set foreign and security policy. Rather, he is there to offer a change in style and not substance,” he added.
While there may be intense debates behind closed doors over strategy, it would be extremely unusual for such splits to be revealed in public.
“Khamenei adopts his decisions after consulting with members of the Iranian Supreme National Council, which, under the leadership of the reformists of the Iranian government, includes both conservative and reformist officials,” explained Eva Koulouriotis, an independent expert on the region.
Positions change with events.
When Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Khamenei initially supported “a tactical retreat, which was the opinion of the reformists,” says Koulouriotis.
However, when Israel killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September, Khamenei decided that a stronger response was necessary.
“So he adopted the opinion of the conservatives in the IRGC, who called on him to respond to the assassination of Haniyeh to deter Israel,” said Koulouriotis.
This led to the launch of some 200 Iranian missiles on Israel on October 1. Were Israel to now launch a major attack in response, pressure would mount on Khamenei to respond more than just in kind.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah is not just an ally for Iran. It is considered Tehran’s most crucial asset, a so-called “crown jewel” boasting a formidable arsenal of drones, rockets, and missiles of various ranges, and claiming 100,000 fighters.
Some experts suggest that Hezbollah’s long-range missiles are tasked with defending Iran’s nuclear facilities, effectively serving as a sort of remote defense shield.
Iran’s strategy in the coming months and years is therefore likely to depend on a complex mix of regional dynamics, pressure from global powers, and internal factional battles.
“Given Iran’s repeated setbacks abroad, especially the loss of Hezbollah, considered its foreign policy linchpin, the radical wing succeeded in convincing the supreme leader that restoring Iran’s credibility was essential,” said analyst Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Arab and Mediterranean World Studies (CERNAM) in Geneva.
Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’
- Masoud Pezeshkian: ‘I would like to say to Israel: stop killing innocent people. Stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway’
MOSCOW: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Israel should “stop killing innocent people,” and that its actions in the Middle East were backed by the United States and the European Union.
Pezeshkian was speaking to a Russian state TV reporter on the sidelines of an international meeting in Turkmenistan.
Israel in recent weeks has sharply escalated its assault on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, including by killing its top leaders, sending ground troops into southern Lebanon and bombing the capital Beirut.
An Israeli strike late on Thursday in the heart of Beirut killed 22 people and injured more than 100, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel says the operations in Lebanon aim to allow tens of thousands of its residents to return home after being forced to leave northern Israel due to Hezbollah rocket fire over the past year.
Hezbollah is firing at Israel in support of its ally Hamas, which triggered Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza following an Oct. 7 attack on communities in southern Israel.
“I would like to say to Israel: stop killing innocent people. Stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway,” said Pezeshkian, accusing Israel of violating every kind of international agreement.
“It does this because it knows that the US and the European Union are behind it,” he said.
The Middle East remains on high alert for further escalation in the region, awaiting
Israel’s response to an Iranian missile strike on Oct. 1.
Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis
- Jordan’s King Abdullah will join the leaders of the so-called MED9 — including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia
- Leaders will also focus on helping clinch a ceasefire deal between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza strip
PAPHOS: The leaders of nine southern European Union countries and Jordan are meeting in Cyprus on Friday to come up with ways to de-escalate the crisis in the Middle East that is threatening to engulf Lebanon and trigger a wider humanitarian crisis.
Jordan’s King Abdullah will join the leaders of the so-called MED9 — including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia — as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to brainstorm initiatives aimed at protecting Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The leaders will also focus on helping clinch a ceasefire deal between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza strip in line with a UN Security Council resolution adopted unanimously in June.
Cyprus’ government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said Thursday the Jordanian monarch’s presence at the meeting lends additional weight to the proceedings given his country’s role in helping peace efforts in the region.
The meeting comes amid reports of an international diplomatic effort to degrade Hezbollah’s political hold in Lebanon.
“We want the Lebanese people to decide who their leaders ought to be, bottom line, and that has been our position,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday. “We certainly don’t want to dictate to the people of Lebanon who their leader is, and we’re not going to ... we want them to be able to do it absent a terrorist organization putting a gun to their head, which is the situation that Lebanon has been in for decades now.”
“Ultimately, we hope that Hezbollah is degraded enough that they are less of a force in Lebanese politics,” he added.
According to Letymbiotis, King Abdullah will also discuss with the leaders way of further bolstering his country’s relations with the EU. The Jordanian monarch and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides will put forward a joint proposal to create a regional firefighting hub in Cyprus through the permanent deployment of fire-fighting aircraft on the island nation to respond to regional emergencies.
Christodoulides will also raise EU efforts to deal with migration flows through the adoption a new asylum policy that would more evenly share the distribution of asylum seekers through all EU members. Cyprus is considered a front-line country that receives a significantly high numbers of asylum seekers relative to its population.
Climate change is also on the agenda as the east Mediterranean and the Middle East are considered particularly vulnerable areas to temperatures changes.
Christodoulides will also highlight Cyprus’ role in helping deliver humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor as well as a waystation for the repatriation of third-country nationals evacuated from Lebanon.
According to Letymbiotis, more than 2,400 third-country nationals from 20 countries have so far used Cyprus as a transfer point to their homeland.
