MAARAB: The head of Lebanon’s largest Christian party said Iran-backed Hezbollah should relinquish its weapons as quickly as possible to end its year-long war with Israel and spare Lebanon further death and destruction.
Samir Geagea, Hezbollah’s fiercest political opponent in Lebanon, spoke to Reuters on Thursday at his mountain home and party headquarters in Maarab, north of Beirut, as Israel carried out waves of strikes on areas Hezbollah holds sway.
“With the destruction of all of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and its warehouses, a big part of Lebanon is also being destroyed. That’s the price,” he said.
Hezbollah’s critics in Lebanon, such as Geagea, say it unilaterally pulled Lebanon into a new war after it began firing at Israel in solidarity with Palestinian group Hamas following the Oct. 7 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah says it is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression and has vowed to keep fighting, saying it will not lay down its arms or allow Israel to achieve political gains on the back of the war.
The intense pressure of Israel’s military campaign, which has escalated and expanded since late September to include ground incursions into southern Lebanon, presented an opportunity to get the country back on track, Geagea said.
“If the challenges and the prices paid are so big, then we can take advantage of them to get the situation back to normal,” he said, calling on Hezbollah and the Lebanese state to swiftly implement local accords and international resolutions disbanding armed factions outside the control of the state.
“That is the shortest way to end the war. It’s the least costly way for Lebanon and for the Lebanese people,” he said.
Faltering diplomatic efforts on a ceasefire have centered on United Nations Resolution 1701, which brought an end to Hezbollah’s last deadly conflict with Israel in 2006.
Israel has insisted that this time around, it wants to keep carrying out strikes against Hezbollah threats even if a truce is agreed.
Geagea said he was opposed to granting Israel that option but said Lebanon had little power to stop it, especially if an excuse remained in the form of Hezbollah’s armed presence.
Arms race
Lebanon’s population is a mosaic of more than a dozen religious sects, with political representation divided along sectarian lines. Religious divisions fueled the 1975-1990 civil war, which left some 150,000 people dead and drew in neighboring states.
Geagea’s party, the Lebanese Forces, was one of the main warring factions during the civil war and aligned itself with Israel, including when Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon reached Beirut, and its leader, Bashir Gemayel, was elected president.
Gemayel was assassinated before he could assume office, and Geagea said he saw no parallels with that period today.
The Lebanese Forces relinquished its weapons in line with the Taef Accord, which ended the civil war and called on all militias to disband.
Hezbollah did not, saying it needed them to fight Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon. But the group refused to disarm when Israeli troops withdrew in 2000, citing ongoing threats.
Despite his decades-old opposition to Hezbollah, Geagea, 72, said he opposed the Lebanese army forcefully disarming the group.
He said he does “not see the possibility of any civil war” breaking out and said that his party “categorically” did not want one to start.
Still, he noted that the mass displacement of mostly Shiite Muslim Lebanese into Sunni and Christian-majority areas could spark “problems here or there” in a country that was already suffering an economic crisis before the war.
They include thousands who have fled into areas that are strongholds of Geagea’s party. In Beirut, Lebanese Forces flags were put up overnight in neighborhoods where the group has strong support, but no clashes have been reported.
More than 1.2 million people have fled heavy Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s south, eastern Bekaa valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
In recent weeks, Israeli troops carrying out incursions into southern Lebanon have laced entire villages with explosives and detonated them, leaving border towns in ruins.
Hezbollah says it has managed to keep Israeli troops at bay by preventing them from holding any ground in south Lebanon.
But Geagea disputed that reading, saying Israel’s “new military doctrine” was to enter areas, carry out operations, and leave, and that the war’s next phase could see villages deeper into Lebanon being hit.
He said Israel’s military and economic strength would always give it an advantage over Hezbollah, even if the group re-armed.
“Do you have the ability to enter this arms race?” he said.
Hezbollah should abandon arms to end Israel war, Lebanese Christian party head says
https://arab.news/2rjcd
Hezbollah should abandon arms to end Israel war, Lebanese Christian party head says
- Hezbollah’s critics in Lebanon, such as Geagea, say it unilaterally pulled Lebanon into a new war after it began firing at Israel in solidarity with Hamas
Israel says intercepted missile from Yemen, day after Sanaa hit with strikes
SANAA: The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen early Saturday, a day after the Houthi-held capital Sanaa was hit by fresh air strikes.
Sirens sounded in areas of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea on Saturday as “a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted... prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the Israeli military said.
The day before, a fresh air strike hit Sanaa, which Houthi rebels blamed on “US-British aggression” though it remains unclear who was behind it.
There was no comment from Israel, the United States or Britain.
“I heard the blast. My house shook,” one Sanaa resident told AFP late Friday.
The Iran-backed Houthis control large parts of Yemen after seizing Sanaa and ousting the government in 2014.
Since the eruption of war in Gaza in October last year, the Houthis — claiming solidarity with Palestinians — have fired a series of missiles and drones at Israel.
They have stepped up their attacks since November’s ceasefire between Israel and another Iran-backed group, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel has also struck Yemen, including targeting Sanaa’s international airport on Thursday in an attack that came as the head of the World Health Organization was about to board a plane.
The Houthis have also attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, prompting reprisal strikes by the United States and sometimes Britain.
Earlier Friday, before the strike on Sanaa, tens of thousands of people gathered to protest and express solidarity with Palestinians.
“The equation has changed and has become: (targeting) airport for airport, port for port, and infrastructure for infrastructure,” Houthi supporter Mohammed Al-Gobisi said.
“We will not get tired or bored of supporting our brothers in Gaza.”
Israel’s strike on the Sanaa international airport on Thursday shattered windows and left the top of the control tower a bombed-out shell.
A witness told AFP that the raids also targeted the adjacent Al-Dailami air base, which shares the airport’s runway.
“The attack resulted in four dead until now and around 20 wounded from staff, airport and passengers,” Houthi Deputy Transport Minister Yahya Al-Sayani said.
It occurred as the head of the UN’s World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was preparing to fly out, and left one UN crew member injured.
Tedros was in Yemen to seek the release of UN staff detained for months by the Houthis, and to assess the humanitarian situation. He later posted on social media that he had safely reached Jordan with his team.
He said the injured member of the UN’s Humanitarian Air Service “underwent successful surgery and is now in stable condition.”
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they knew at the time that the WHO chief was there.
An Israeli statement said its targets included “military infrastructure” at the airport and power stations in Sanaa and Hodeida — a major entry point for humanitarian aid — as well as other facilities at several ports.
Houthis use these sites “to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials,” the statement said.
But UN humanitarian coordinator Julien Harneis said the airport was “a civilian location” which the UN also uses, and the strikes took place as “a packed civilian airliner from Yemenia Air, carrying hundreds of Yemenis, was about to land.”
Although the plane “was able to land safely... it could have been far, far worse,” Harneis said.
In his latest warning to the Houthis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s strikes would “continue until the job is done.”
“We are determined to cut this branch of terrorism from the Iranian axis of evil,” he said in a video statement.
Despite the damage, flights at Sanaa airport resumed at 10 am (0700 GMT) on Friday, deputy transport minister Sayani said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the escalation in hostilities, and said bombing transportation infrastructure threatened humanitarian operations in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population depends on aid.
The United Nations has called Yemen “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” with 24.1 million people in need of humanitarian aid and protection.
The airport is “absolutely vital” to continue transporting aid for Yemen, UN humanitarian coordinator Harneis said.
“If that airport is disabled, it will paralyze humanitarian operations.”
After the attack on Sanaa airport, Houthis said they fired a missile at Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv and launched drones at the city and a ship in the Arabian Sea.
The Israeli military said the same day a missile launched from Yemen had been intercepted.
Israeli “aggression will only increase the determination and resolve of the great Yemeni people to continue supporting the Palestinian people,” a Houthi statement said Friday.
Humanitarian disaster in Yemen could get even worse if attacks by Israel continue, UN warns
- Israeli strikes on air and sea ports, and continuing detentions by the Houthis cause great anxiety among aid workers, UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen tells Arab News
- Israeli warplanes struck the international airport in Sanaa on Thursday, as well as seaports and power stations on the Red Sea coast, killing at least 4 people
NEW YORK CITY: The humanitarian crisis in Yemen, already one of the most dire in the world, threatens to get even worse should Israel continue to attack Hodeidah seaport and Sanaa airport and puts them out of action, the UN warned on Friday.
Julien Harneis, the organization’s resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said the number of people in the country in need of aid to survive is expected to reach 19 million in the coming year.
Speaking from Sanaa, he said Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, has the second-highest number of malnourished children of any nation, and ranks third in terms of food insecurity.
The civil war there, which has dragged on for nearly a decade, has decimated the economy and left millions of civilians without access to the basic necessities of life, he added. The country is in the throes of a “survival crisis” and the number of people unable to access healthcare services is one of the highest in the world.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck the international airport in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, as well as seaports and power stations on the Red Sea coast, killing at least four people. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the attacks were a response to more than a year of missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis, and were “just getting started.”
The Houthis began attacking Israel and international shipping lanes shortly after the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. They have vowed to continue as long as the war goes on.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Israeli airstrikes and said he was “gravely concerned” about the intensified escalation of hostilities. He said the strikes on the airport and seaports were “especially alarming,” and warned that they pose “grave risks to humanitarian operations” in the war-torn country.
Harneis, who was in the vicinity of the airport during the strikes, told of the destruction of its air traffic control tower, which left the facility temporarily nonoperational. A member of the UN staff was injured in the strike, and there were significant concerns about the safety of humanitarian workers in the area, he added. The airstrikes took place while a Yemeni civilian airliner was landing, additionally raising fears for the safety of passengers.
The airport is a critical hub for the delivery of humanitarian aid, and a key departure point for Yemenis seeking medical treatment abroad. Harneis said destruction of the airport would have far-reaching implications for international aid operations and the ability of Yemenis to access life-saving healthcare.
Hodeidah seaport is another focal point for humanitarian efforts in Yemen, with 80 percent of the country’s food and 95 percent of medical supplies arriving through this gateway. The recent airstrikes, which damaged tugs used to guide large ships, have reduced the port’s capacity by 50 percent.
“Any damage to this crucial facility would only deepen the suffering of the Yemeni population,” Harneis warned. He also reiterated that the one of the UN’s tasks is to ensure the harbor is used solely for civilian purposes in accordance with international law.
In addition to the immediate physical dangers airstrikes pose to its staff, the UN is also grappling with the detention of 17 of its workers by the Houthis, which casts another shadow over humanitarian operations.
Harneis said the UN has been in negotiations with the Houthis in Sanaa and continues to work “tirelessly” to secure the release of detained staff.
About 3,000 UN employees are currently working in Yemen, Harneis told Arab News, and the ongoing detentions and the threat of further airstrikes continue to create an atmosphere of anxiety. Given these risks, the emotional toll on staff is significant, he said.
“Many colleagues were very anxious about even coming to the office or going out on field missions. It’s very heavy for everyone,” he added.
Though there have been some improvements in operating conditions for humanitarian workers in recent months, Harneis said that when staff see that 16 of their colleagues are still detained “there’s obviously a great deal of anxiety.”
He added: “Then if you add in to that air strikes and the fear of more airstrikes, there is the fear of what’s going to happen next? Are we going to see attacks against bridges, roads, electricity systems? What does that mean for them?”
Despite the challenges to aid efforts, Harneis stressed that as the situation continues to evolve it is the response from the international community that will determine whether or not Yemen can avoid descending even more deeply into disaster.
Relatives of Bashar Assad arrested as they tried to fly out of Lebanon
- Wife and daughter of Assad's cousin arrested at Beirut airport
BEIRUT: The wife and daughter of one of deposed Syrian president Bashar Assad ‘s cousins were arrested Friday at the Beirut airport, where they attempted to fly out with allegedly forged passports, Lebanese judicial and security officials said. Assad’s uncle departed the day before.
Rasha Khazem, the wife of Duraid Assad — the son of former Syrian Vice President Rifaat Assad, the uncle of Bashar Assad — and their daughter, Shams, were smuggled illegally into Lebanon and were trying to fly to Egypt when they were arrested, according to five Lebanese officials familiar with the case. They were being detained by Lebanese General Security. Rifaat had flown out the day before on his real passport and was not stopped, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Swiss federal prosecutors in March indicted Rifaat on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago.
Rifaat Assad, the brother of Bashar Assad’s father Hafez Assad, Syria’s former ruler, led the artillery unit that shelled the city of Hama and killed thousands, earning him the nickname the “Butcher of Hama.”
Earlier this year, Rifaat Assad was indicted in Switzerland for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Hama.
Tens of thousands of Syrians are believed to have entered Lebanon illegally on the night of Assad’s fall earlier this month, when insurgent forces entered Damascus.
The Lebanese security and judicial officials said that more than 20 members of the former Syrian Army’s notorious 4th Division, military intelligence officers and others affiliated with Assad’s security forces were arrested earlier in Lebanon. Some of them were arrested when they attempted to sell their weapons.
Lebanon’s public prosecution office also received an Interpol notice requesting the arrest of Jamil Al-Hassan, the former director of Syrian intelligence under Assad. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati previously told Reuters that Lebanon would cooperate with the Interpol request to arrest Al-Hassan.
Fresh air strike hits Sanaa, say Houthis
- Strikes came in response to series of Houthi attacks on Israel
- No immediate comment from Israel, the US or Britain
SANAA: An air strike hit Yemen’s capital on Friday, a day after deadly Israeli raids, according to the Iran-backed Houthis who blamed the US and Britain for the latest attack.
A Houthi statement cited “US-British aggression” for the new attack, as witnesses also reported the blast.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, the United States or Britain.
“I heard the blast. My house shook,” one resident of the Houthi-held capital Sanaa told AFP.
The attack followed Thursday’s Israeli raids on infrastructure including Sanaa’s international airport that left six people dead.
The strikes came in response to a series of Houthi attacks on Israel.
The Houthis have also been firing on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping route for months, prompting a series of reprisal strikes by US and British forces.
Turkiye to allow pro-Kurdish party to visit jailed militant leader
- Militant leader Ocalan is serving life sentence in prison on the island of Imrali
- Pro-Kurdish DEM Party meeting is the first such visit in nearly a decade
ANKARA: Turkiye has decided to allow parliament’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party to hold face-to-face talks with militant leader Abdullah Ocalan on his island prison, the party said on Friday, setting up the first such visit in nearly a decade.
DEM requested the visit last month, soon after a key ally of President Tayyip Erdogan expanded on a proposal to end the 40-year-old conflict between the state and Ocalan’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Ocalan has been serving a life sentence in a prison on the island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, since his capture 25 years ago.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, made the call a month after suggesting that Ocalan announce an end to the insurgency in exchange for the possibility of his release.
Erdogan described Bahceli’s initial proposal as a “historic window of opportunity.” After the latest call last month, Erdogan said he was in complete agreement with Bahceli on every issue and that they were acting in harmony and coordination.
“To be frank, the picture before us does not allow us to be very hopeful,” Erdogan said in parliament. “Despite all these difficulties, we are considering what can be done with a long-range perspective that focuses not only on today but also on the future.”
Bahceli regularly condemns pro-Kurdish politicians as tools of the PKK, which they deny.
DEM’s predecessor party was involved in peace talks between Ankara and Ocalan a decade ago, last meeting him in April 2015. The peace process and a ceasefire collapsed soon after, unleashing the most deadly phase of the conflict.
DEM MPs Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan, who both met Ocalan as part of peace talks at the time, will travel to Imrali island on Saturday or Sunday, depending on weather conditions, the party said.
Turkiye and its Western allies designate the PKK a terrorist group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which in the past was focused in the mainly Kurdish southeast but is now centered on northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
Growing regional instability and changing political dynamics are seen as factors behind the bid to end the conflict with the PKK. The chances of success are unclear as Ankara has given no clues on what it may entail.
Since the fall of Bashar Assad in Syria this month, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia, which it sees as an extension of the PKK, must disband, asserting that the group has no place in Syria’s future.
The YPG is the main component of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In a Reuters interview last week, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped fight Daesh and would return home if a total ceasefire was agreed with Turkiye, a core demand from Ankara.
Authorities in Turkiye have continued to crack down on alleged PKK activities. Last month, the government replaced five pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities for suspected PKK ties, in a move that drew criticism from DEM and others.
