Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?

Special Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?
Whoever replaces President Joe Biden in the White House will face the twin challenges of the Gaza conflict and the looming threat of a full- scale war in the Middle East. (AFP)
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Updated 02 September 2024
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Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?

Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?
  • From bolstering US-Gulf relations to preventing a regional war, candidates offer both conflicting and convergent visions
  • Republican and Democrat nominees are aligned on ties with Saudi Arabia, but could diverge on response to Gaza conflict

LONDON: With the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the looming threat of a full-scale war in the Middle East, a stalemate in Ukraine, and intensifying competition between the US and China, America’s 47th president will face multiple foreign policy challenges.

Indeed, international affairs could prove even more demanding than domestic economic concerns for the incoming administration, with implications for national security, the price of commodities, and America’s standing in the world.

And while uncertainty hangs over the trajectory of the next US president’s Middle East policy, there are indications it will broadly align with the status quo, with regional alliances playing a key role in helping Washington address current and emerging challenges.




Saudi-US partnership, built on more than 70 years of friendship, has been strengthened by exchange opportunities promoting mutual understanding. (AN archives)

Analysts believe America’s cooperation with Gulf states, notably with regional leader Saudi Arabia, will continue to yield strategic benefits in areas including energy security and regional stability.

Norman Roule, a former senior US intelligence official, told Arab News: “There is no shortage of areas in which the US and its partners in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, can cooperate.”

Vital growth areas for the US and Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, include trade, defense, energy, artificial intelligence, space, communications, environmental technology and strategic investments.




Cooperation on space exploration is one of the rising features of Saudi-US partnership. (AN archives)

Despite a rocky start early in his presidency, President Joe Biden has upheld America’s long-standing security, educational and institutional ties with Saudi Arabia. This partnership, built on more than 70 years of friendship, has been strengthened by exchange opportunities promoting mutual understanding.

“The next US president and administration can build on the work of its predecessors by reinforcing existing collaboration with regional allies,” Joe Macaron, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center, told Arab News.

This appears to be high on the agenda for both of the main party candidates — Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump — both of whom view Riyadh as an important partner for Washington.

Throughout his term as president, from 2017 to 2021, Trump placed Saudi Arabia at the heart of his Middle East agenda, viewing the Kingdom as a key business partner and an ally against Iran’s malign influence in the region.

Likewise, Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee in July, has acknowledged Riyadh as an important partner.




US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has acknowledged Saudi Arabia as an important partner of the US. (Reuters photo) 

In 2019, she told the Council on Foreign Relations that the US and Saudi Arabia “still have mutual areas of interest, such as counterterrorism, where the Saudis have been strong partners,” and stressed the need for continued coordination.

However, Macaron emphasized that “as challenges and new geopolitical trends” continue to emerge in the Middle East, “US interests are at stake in the next four years.

“The US can potentially enhance trade and cooperation, but most importantly the expectation is for the US to have a clear and predictable approach to the Middle East,” he said.

Failure to do so could have dangerous consequences. For Roule, “the region’s broken states,” including the Palestinian territories, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, “cannot be ignored,” as “doing so makes them vulnerable to Iran, Iranian proxies and terrorism.”

“Sudan, Yemen and Libya stand out as areas where much more work needs to be done,” he said. “The end of the Gaza war will bring highly expensive reconstruction projects that will require careful and long-term management.”




When the Gaza war ends, the US and other countries have much work to do to reconstruct a nation laid to waste by Israel in revenge against the Hamas invasion on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. (Reuters)

Israel’s assault on Gaza, which came in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, has threatened to spill over into neighboring countries, including Lebanon and Syria, raising concerns about the potential for a regional war pitting Israel and Iran and its proxies.

As the US is Israel’s biggest financial and military backer, the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and the possibility of a full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon have become key issues in the US election race.

While reaffirming his staunch support for Israel, Trump has urged the Israeli government to quickly conclude its military operation in Gaza, saying the prolonged war is damaging Israel’s global image.

In an interview he gave in April, Trump said Israel needed to “finish what they started” and “get it over with fast” because it was “absolutely losing the PR war.”

“You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy. And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. You have to have a victory, and it’s taking a long time,” he said on the “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”




Donald Trump has voiced concerns that conflict in the Middle East could drag the US into a third world war scenario. (AP photo)

Harris, too, has been clear about her support for Israel’s security and its right to exist. Despite opposing an arms embargo on Israel, the vice president has said she and Biden are working to end the conflict.

Since the launch of her presidential campaign in July, Harris has sought strike a balance between reaffirming US support for Israel and expressing sympathy for Palestinian civilians — mirroring Biden’s approach to the conflict.

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, she said: “Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating … The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”

 

IN NUMBERS

40k+ US troops and contractors in the Middle East.

• 7.5k Personnel aboard two aircraft carrier groups deployed in the region.

For her part, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has been a vocal advocate for Palestinian rights, openly vowing in several media appearances and social media posts to “end the Gaza genocide.”

Earlier this month, she also slammed Israel in a post on X for “attempting to drag the US into escalations on the brink of WWIII.

“We are seeing ourselves on the verge of potentially nuclear conflicts, which is terrifying,” she said, referring to the possibility of all-out war between Israel and Iran.

More than 40,000 US military personnel deployed across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, are at risk of being drawn into a broader conflict should regional tensions escalate.




A US Army soldier hands out candy to children while on joint patrol with local forces on May 25, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. (Getty Images)

Trump has also voiced concerns that conflict in the Middle East could drag the US into a third world war scenario. “Who is negotiating for us in the Middle East? Bombs are dropping all over the place!” he posted on X.

“Let’s not have World War lll, because that’s where we’re heading!”

Fears of an all-out war between Israel and Iran have intensified in recent weeks following Israel’s suspected killing of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on July 31 and of Hezbollah number two Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, immediately threatened Israel with a “harsh punishment” for the suspected killings. Iran’s security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian, meanwhile, told Mehr news agency that “all fronts of the resistance will take revenge for Haniyeh’s blood.”




Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends the funeral prayer of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran in late July. (Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

On Aug. 25, Hezbollah launched hundreds of missiles at Israeli targets, marking the onset of its retaliation for its slain commander. Shortly beforehand, Israel launched a wave of preemptive airstrikes aimed at thwarting Hezbollah’s barrage.

All of the US presidential candidates have expressed a desire to prevent a broader war in the Middle East, yet their specific strategies for this remain unclear. One thing they appear to share in common, however, is a commitment to normalization.

“At a time of great political polarization in US politics, there is an emerging consensus on the importance of deepening and broadening the process of normalizations between Israel and America’s Arab partners,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, told Arab News.

“The style and pace might differ depending on who is elected to the White House, but not the strategic trajectory.”

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In 2020, Bahrain and the UAE signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords, designed to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states.

Macaron believes “it is paramount for the next US administration to define its objectives in the Middle East beyond managing chaos.”

At the moment, the US is “reactive to developments in the Middle East as it manages crises erupting one after the other, which includes managing both allies and foes.”




Continuing threats by Yemen's Houthi militia against commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea remains a major concern not just for the US but the whole world. (REUTERS)

He added: “The US is being tested to control the impulses of an increasingly aggressive approach of the Israeli government while continuing to deter Iran and its proxies without provoking a direct confrontation.

“Ultimately, the US must be proactive by advancing its separate interests and by setting limits when needed for both its foes and allies.”

Former intelligence official Roule believes that an effective US foreign policy for the Middle East must include three elements.

“First, the approach must be consistent and clear that our policy will reap benefits for both the US and our partners, as well as deterrence against Iran and its proxies,” he said.

“Next, the next administration must do more to build a bipartisan approach to the region with Congress.

“Last, our approach should involve frequent and senior engagement with partners in the region, who will sometimes better understand the opportunities and challenges before us.”
 

 


US, France and allies call for ‘immediate’ 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah

US, France and allies call for ‘immediate’ 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah
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US, France and allies call for ‘immediate’ 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah

US, France and allies call for ‘immediate’ 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah
  • In a joint statement, the allies said the recent fighting is “intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation”
  • The signatories include Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia and Canada

NEW YORK: The US, France and other allies jointly called Wednesday for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon in recent days.
The joint statement, negotiated on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, says the recent fighting is “intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation.”
“We call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border to provide space for diplomacy,” the statement reads. “We call on all parties, including the Governments of Israel and Lebanon, to endorse the temporary ceasefire immediately.”
The signatories include the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the UN Security Council during a meeting that “we are counting on both parties to accept it without delay.”
Barrot said France, a former colonial power to Lebanon, and the US had consulted with the sides on “final parameters for a diplomatic way out of this crisis,” adding that “war is not unavoidable.”
US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood encouraged the council to support the diplomatic efforts but didn’t offer specifics about the plan.
“We are working with other countries on a proposal that we hope will lead to calm and enable discussions to a diplomatic solution,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US administration was “intensely engaged with a number of partners to deescalate tensions in Lebanon and to work to get a ceasefire agreement that would have so many benefits for all concerned.”
Blinken and other advisers to President Joe Biden have spent the past three days at and on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting of world leaders in New York lobbying other countries to support the plan, according to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.
Americans hope such a ceasefire could lead to longer-term stability along the border between Israel and Lebanon. Months of Israeli and Hezbollah exchanges of fire across the border drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border, and escalated attacks this week have rekindled fears of a broader war in the Middle East.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior advisers Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein have been meeting with Middle East allies in New York and have been in touch with Israeli officials about the proposal, one of the US officials said. McGurk and Hochstein have been the White House’s chief interlocutors with Israel and Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu has given the green light to pursue a possible deal, but only if it includes the return of Israeli civilians to their homes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati threw his support behind the French-US plan that “enjoys international support and which would put an end to this dirty war.”
He called on the Security Council “to guarantee the withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied Lebanese territories and the violations that are repeated on a daily basis.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, told journalists at the United Nations that Israel would like to see a ceasefire and the return of people to their homes near the border: “It will happen, either after a war or before a war. We hope it will be before.”
Addressing the Security Council later Wednesday night, he made no mention of negotiations on a temporary ceasefire but said Israel “does not seek a full-scale war.”
Both Danon and Mikati reffirmed their governments’ commitment to a Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. Never fully implemented, it called for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon to be replaced by Lebanese forces and UN peacekeepers, and the disarmament of all armed groups including Hezbollah.
Danon demanded that the resolution be enforced in full without delay: “I make this declaration here today, to remove any doubt: Never again. Never again will the Jewish people hide from the monsters whose purpose in life is to murder Jews.”
Earlier Wednesday, Biden warned in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that “an all-out war is possible” but said he thinks the opportunity also exists “to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”
Biden suggested that getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire could help achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. That war is approaching the one-year mark after Hamas raids in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Israel responded with an offensive that has since killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not provide a breakdown of civilians and fighters in their count.
“It’s possible and I’m using every bit of energy I have with my team … to get this done,” Biden said. “There’s a desire to see change in the region.”
The US and other international mediators have tried and failed for months to broker a ceasefire in Gaza that also would release hostages held by Hamas.
The US government also raised the pressure with additional sanctions Wednesday targeting more than a dozen ships and other entities it says were involved in illicit shipments of Iranian petroleum for the financial benefit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the chief of Israel’s army said Wednesday that the military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon as Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet.
Blinken has been urging both Israel and Hezbollah to step back from their intensifying conflict, saying that all-out war would be disastrous for the region and that escalation was not the way to get people back to their homes on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“It would be through a diplomatic agreement that has forces pulled back from the border, create a secure environment, people return home,” Blinken told NBC News. “That’s what we’re driving toward because while there’s a very legitimate issue here, we don’t think that war is the solution.”
 


Israel tells its troops to prepare for a possible ground operation in Lebanon

Israel tells its troops to prepare for a possible ground operation in Lebanon
Updated 26 September 2024
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Israel tells its troops to prepare for a possible ground operation in Lebanon

Israel tells its troops to prepare for a possible ground operation in Lebanon
  • Israel said Wednesday its air force had struck some 280 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon by early afternoon, including launchers used to fire rockets on the northern Israeli cities of Safed and Nahariya

TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon, its army chief said Wednesday as Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets across the border and a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet.
Addressing troops on the northern border, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Israel’s punishing airstrikes this week were designed to ”prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
Israel says it targeted Hezbollah weapons and rocket launchers in attacks that have killed more than 600 people, at least a quarter of them women and children, according to Lebanese health officials.
In an apparent reference to the missile fired at Tel Aviv, Halevi told troops: “Today, Hezbollah expanded its range of fire, and later today, they will receive a very strong response. Prepare yourselves.”
It was not clear whether he was referring to a ground operation, airstrikes or some other form of retaliation against Hezbollah, which is Lebanon’s strongest political force and, with backing from Iran, is widely considered the top paramilitary group in the Arab world.
The Israeli military has said in recent days it had no immediate plans for a ground invasion, but Halevi’s comments were the strongest yet suggesting troops could move in. Israeli said Wednesday it would activate two reserve brigades for missions in the north — another sign that Israel plans tougher action.
In the southern Israeli city of Eilat, a building at the port was struck by a drone, an attack that injured two people and was claimed by an umbrella group for Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. A second drone was intercepted, the Israeli military said.
Footage aired on Israeli media showed a plume of smoke in the area and at least one damaged building. The army said the drones were identified “approaching from the East.”
Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have steadily escalated since war broke out 11 months ago between Israel and Hamas, another Iran-backed militant group. Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and Hamas. Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders while threatening a wider operation.
Nearly a year of fighting had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before the recent escalation.
Israel has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will keep up its rocket attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, something that appears increasingly remote.
To allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes, “we are preparing the process of a maneuver,” Halevi told troops.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel and Hezbollah to step back, saying all-out war would be disastrous for the region and its people.
In New York for the annual UN General Assembly, Blinken said the US was working with other partners on a temporary ceasefire plan to reduce tensions and allow Israelis and Lebanese to return to their homes in border areas.
US officials say they are floating ideas but have not been specific. Some may be discussed at a special UN Security Council meeting on Lebanon that France called for later Wednesday.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 72 people were killed Wednesday in the continuing Israeli strikes, raising the death toll from the past three days to 636, with more than 2,000 wounded.
At Dar Al Amal hospital in the eastern city of Baalbek, Soumaya Moussawi lay in bed with her head bandaged and face bruised.
She had been sitting outside with relatives when warplanes started striking in the distance, she said.
“Then suddenly it hit next to us. We were all thrown in different directions,” she said. Two cousins and her father were killed, and another cousin was badly wounded.
This week has been the deadliest in Lebanon since the bruising 2006 monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a recent string of targeted killings of its top commanders and for an attack last week in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands, including many Hezbollah members.
Israeli military officials said they intercepted a surface-to-surface missile that set off air-raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it struck the launch site in southern Lebanon.
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the missile fired Wednesday had a “heavy warhead” but declined to elaborate or confirm it was the type described by Hezbollah. He dismissed Hezbollah’s claim of targeting the Mossad headquarters just north of Tel Aviv as “psychological warfare.”
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month in an aerial attack, but there was no confirmation. Hamas repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv in the opening months of the war in Gaza.
The launch ratcheted up hostilities in a region that appeared to be teetering toward another all-out war, even as Israel continues to battle Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Iranian-made Qader is a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile with multiple types and payloads. It can carry an explosive payload of up to 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds), according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iranian officials have described the liquid-fueled missile as having a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).
Israel said Wednesday its air force had struck some 280 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon by early afternoon, including launchers used to fire rockets on the northern Israeli cities of Safed and Nahariya.
Fleeing families have flocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria.
The United Nations said more than 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes. In all, 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel nearly a year ago, drawing Israeli retaliation, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Hezbollah’s latest strikes included dozens of rockets fired Wednesday into northern Israel, the military said.
Rocket fire over the past week has disrupted life for more than 1 million people across northern Israel, with schools closed and public gatherings restricted. Many restaurants and other businesses are shut in the coastal city of Haifa, and there are fewer people on the streets. Some who fled from communities near the border are coming under rocket fire again.
Israel has moved thousands of troops who had been serving in Gaza to the northern border. It says Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including some capable of striking anywhere in Israel.
Cross-border fire began ramping up Sunday after pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah were attacked remotely, killing 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.
The next day, Israel said its warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons concealed in private homes. The strikes racked up the highest one-day death toll in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bruising monthlong war in 2006.


Saudi aid chief appeals for international assistance to Sudan

Saudi aid chief appeals for international assistance to Sudan
Updated 25 September 2024
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Saudi aid chief appeals for international assistance to Sudan

Saudi aid chief appeals for international assistance to Sudan
  • Abdullah Al-Rabeeah: It is a ‘collective responsibility’ to help conflict-ravaged country
  • Kingdom has allocated more than $3bn in aid to ‘brotherly’ Sudan

NEW YORK CITY: Saudi Arabia’s aid chief on Wednesday issued an impassioned plea for assistance to Sudan at a high-level event in New York City on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly.

Saudi Arabia has allocated more than $3 billion in aid to the conflict-ravaged country, where almost 26 million people are now facing crisis levels of food insecurity.

About 11 million Sudanese have fled the country following the outbreak of civil war, seeking refuge in neighboring states and beyond.

The Kingdom is employing a twin strategy of peacemaking and aid relief to bring an end to the crisis, but the international response to Sudan has consistently underwhelmed, threatening to condemn millions more to suffering, said Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, supervisor general of Saudi aid agency KSrelief. The UN’s own refugee appeal for Sudan is only 25 percent funded.

The event, “The Cost of Inaction,” was hosted by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the US, the EU, the African Union and the UN in a bid to draw global attention to the scale of suffering in Sudan and rally support for a worldwide humanitarian appeal.

In his address, Al-Rabeeah said it is a “collective responsibility” to assist Sudan, a “brotherly country whose people are facing great challenges that they’re attempting to overcome, and they deserve our full support.”

Saudi Arabia is “fully aware” of its duty toward Sudan, he added, highlighting the “great efforts” made by the Kingdom to address the crisis since the beginning of the civil war.

These efforts were carried out “in order to find means to bring hope back to Sudan, and this includes the Jeddah Declaration for the protection of civilians as well as humanitarian access,” he said.

“However, the escalation of violence that has recently been seen in a number of regions has caused even further damage, pushing millions of people to flee their homes, leaving behind their families and their possessions.”

Despite Saudi Arabia allocating $3 billion in assistance to Sudan and carrying out a number of relief missions earlier this year, “the worsening of the security situation has impacted the progress that had been made,” Al-Rabeeah said, adding that in response, the Kingdom has “redoubled its efforts” and stepped up its contributions.

“Since April 2023, we’ve launched a number of projects. Together with the UN and other humanitarian organizations, we’ve brought in assistance through land and sea routes. We’re providing support to the government and also carrying out a campaign to assist the Sudanese people with contributions above $125 million,” Al-Rabeeah said.

“However, despite all of these efforts made by our country, challenges remain, and the crisis requires coordinated efforts in order to bring unhindered humanitarian access to the country and provide a sustainable and coordinated response, as well as safe unhindered access to areas affected by conflict.”

Al-Rabeeah urged the international community to look past “political considerations” to formulate a powerful response to the crisis in Sudan.

“This is a humanitarian tragedy that requires us to overcome existing divisions. We must ensure genuine change that will allow the entirety of the Sudanese people to restore their normal lives,” he said, adding that Saudi Arabia “is making significant efforts to make sure that this necessary assistance is delivered to the Sudanese people, who deserve a dignified life.”

Al-Rabeeah’s address was followed by Dr. Obaida El-Dandarawy, Egypt’s deputy assistant foreign minister for UN affairs.

El-Dandarawy highlighted his country’s hosting of more than 1.5 million Sudanese refugees, in addition to the 5 million who already reside in Egypt.

“We’ve opened our doors widely to host our brothers and sisters from Sudan,” he said. “However, Egypt and neighboring countries on their own can’t continue carrying this burden, and that’s why we need to make sure that various countries, organizations and donors need to shoulder their humanitarian responsibility, and they have to help Egypt and the neighboring countries so that we can carry out this task, a heavy one, both in terms of the social and economic dimensions.”

He added: “We need to send a clear message to the sons and daughters of Sudan, and say that the international community is aware of their suffering and will spare no effort.”

The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the chamber: “I feel, as I know all of you must, a sense of shame and embarrassment that this is happening on our watch.”

Filippo Grandi, UN high commissioner for refugees, echoed Al-Rabeeah’s appeal, painting a stark picture of the reality on the ground.

“I went to Sudan twice this year, and as many of you have said, and I want to reiterate, conditions are apocalyptic,” he said.

“If people don’t die because of bullets, they starve to death. If they manage to survive, they must face disease, or floods, or the threat of sexual violence and other horrifying abuse, which if perpetrated in other places would make daily headlines.”

Grandi said humanitarian convoys in Sudan face being held up by closed roads due to flooding, or fired on and shelled by fighters.

“The solution to this crisis lies inside Sudan, but I can assure you its consequences won’t be contained to the region,” he warned.

“Let me just join everybody else on this panel in saying that more than anything else we need a political solution, because this is a crisis that can be solved, and it must be solved now.”


‘We feel their pain’: Gazans stunned by strikes on Lebanon

‘We feel their pain’: Gazans stunned by strikes on Lebanon
Updated 25 September 2024
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‘We feel their pain’: Gazans stunned by strikes on Lebanon

‘We feel their pain’: Gazans stunned by strikes on Lebanon
  • Filled with empathy, fear, Palestinians worry how the widening war might affect them

GAZA STRIP: As Israeli bombs flattened buildings and sent smoke billowing skywards over Lebanon this week, Gazans looked on with both empathy and fear over how the widening war might affect them.

Israel carried out a third day of airstrikes against Lebanon on Wednesday.

In a dramatic escalation after nearly a year of cross-border violence, Israeli air raids on Monday killed at least 558 people in Lebanon in the country’s deadliest day since the 1975-1990 civil war.

After the unprecedented Oct. 7 attack by militants against southern Israel, Hezbollah said it began striking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, another Iran-backed group.

The Oct. 7 attack sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, marked by relentless Israeli bombardment that has devastated much of the Palestinian territory.

Chadi Nawfal, a 24-year-old resident of Gaza City who said he lost his home in an Israeli strike, said footage from Lebanon was hard to watch.

“The bloody scenes from Lebanon that we see on our television screens are very harsh images,” he said.

“We people in the Gaza Strip are the only ones who can currently feel the pain that the Lebanese people are experiencing.”

The sustained Israeli aerial assault on Lebanon is the latest in a series of attacks that began last week with coordinated blasts of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies.

The explosions killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000, and were followed by a deadly strike on Friday on south Beirut, with leading Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil among the dead.

Another strike on the Lebanese capital on Tuesday killed Hezbollah rocket forces commander Ibrahim Kobeissi.

Taken together, Israel’s onslaught confirmed its Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s claim a week ago that the war’s “center of gravity” was moving northward.

Ayman Al-Amreiti, another displaced resident of Gaza City, said he was worried the fighting in Lebanon would mean the ongoing war in Gaza gets less global attention.

“The military weight is now shifting to Lebanon, so even the media attention on the Gaza Strip has become secondary,” the 42-year-old said.

“This encourages the appetite of the occupation (Israel) to commit more crimes.”

Hamas’s attack on Israel nearly a year ago resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least nearly 41,500 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. 

There are obvious differences in time frame and scale, but Umm Munzir Naim, 52, said she could not help but see similarities between the fighting in Lebanon and in Gaza.

“The war against Lebanon and Hezbollah is a war like in Gaza. The victims are the people,” she said.

“The small, the big, the properties, everything is targeted — humans, trees ... they say it’s against Hamas and Hezbollah, but on the ground it’s people who die.”

Amreiti said he hoped the fighting would end soon in both places, and that their fates could even be linked given Hezbollah’s past pledges to stop fighting once a Gaza ceasefire comes about.

“The outcome, the hope is that any settlement with Hezbollah will also involve Gaza,” he said.

“Right now, that is the hope that the children of the Palestinian people are turning to.”


Macron urges Israel, Hezbollah to de-escalate tensions

Macron urges Israel, Hezbollah to de-escalate tensions
Updated 25 September 2024
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Macron urges Israel, Hezbollah to de-escalate tensions

Macron urges Israel, Hezbollah to de-escalate tensions
  • French president calls for creation of Palestinian state with ‘security guarantees for Israel’
  • ‘Israel can’t, without consequence, just expand its operations to Lebanon. We can’t have a war in Lebanon’

NEW YORK CITY: French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday called for Israel and Hezbollah to de-escalate tensions.

“Israel can’t, without consequence, just expand its operations to Lebanon,” he told the UN General Assembly. “We can’t have a war in Lebanon.”

Macron said France would act to “ensure a diplomatic voice can be heard,” adding: “We should look for peace everywhere and not accept any differences at a time when human lives are at stake.”

Regarding Gaza, he said Israel “has a legitimate right to protect their own people and to deny Hamas the means of attacking them again.”

However, he added that Israel’s invasion of Gaza has gone on for “too long,” and there is no justification for the deaths of Palestinians.

He called for the release of hostages held by Hamas, including several French citizens, along with a ceasefire and humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

Macron offered France’s participation in “any initiatives that will save lives and will allow for everyone’s safety to be protected” because “it’s imperative that a new page is turned in Gaza, for the guns to be silent, for humanitarian workers to return, (and) for civilians to finally be protected.”

France is committed to the creation of a Palestinian state with “security guarantees for Israel,” he said, reiterating his country’s commitment to working with Israelis, Palestinians and other partners to create the conditions for a just and lasting peace.