Lebanese ‘orphaned of their land’ as Israel blows up homes

Lebanese ‘orphaned of their land’ as Israel blows up homes
Lebanon’s National Human Rights Commission has said ‘the ongoing destruction campaign carried out by the Israeli army in southern Lebanon is a war crime.’ (Reuters)
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Updated 01 November 2024
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Lebanese ‘orphaned of their land’ as Israel blows up homes

Lebanese ‘orphaned of their land’ as Israel blows up homes
  • Aerial footage shows simultaneous explosions rock a cluster of buildings on a lush hill
  • Israeli troops dynamited buildings in at least seven border villages last month

BEIRUT: The news came by video. Law professor Ali Mourad discovered that Israel had dynamited his family’s south Lebanon home only after footage of the operation was sent to his phone.
“A friend from the village sent me the video, telling me to make sure my dad doesn’t see it,” Mourad, 43, said.
“But when he got the news, he stayed strong.”
The aerial footage shows simultaneous explosions rock a cluster of buildings on a lush hill.
Mourad’s home in Aitroun village, less than a kilometer from the border, is seen crumpling in a cloud of grey dust.
His father, an 83-year-old paediatrician, had his medical practice in the building. He had lived there with his family since shortly after Israel’s 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon ended in 2000.
The family fled the region again after the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted on September 23 after a year of cross-border fire that began with the Gaza war.
South Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, has since been pummeled by Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah says it is battling Israeli forces at close range in border villages after a ground invasion began last month.
For the first 20 years of his life, Mourad could not step foot in Aitroun because of the Israeli occupation.
He wants his two children to have “a connection to their land,” but fears the war could upend any remaining ties.
“I fear my children will be orphaned of their land, as I was in the past,” he said.
“Returning is my right, a duty in my ancestors’ memory, and for the future of my children.”
According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency, Israeli troops dynamited buildings in at least seven border villages last month.
Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast footage appearing to show one of its presenters blow up a building while embedded with soldiers in the village of Aita Al-Shaab.
On October 26, the NNA said Israel “blew up and destroyed houses... in the village of Odaisseh.”
That day, Israel’s military said 400 tons of explosives detonated in a Hezbollah tunnel, which it said was more than 1.5 kilometers (around a mile) long.
It is in Odaisseh that Lubnan Baalbaki fears he may have lost the mausoleum where his mother and father, the late painter Abdel-Hamid Baalbaki, are buried.
Their tomb is in the garden of their home, which was levelled in the blasts.
Baalbaki, 43, bought satellite images to keep an eye on the house which had been designed by his father, in polished white stone and clay tiles.
But videos circulating online later showed it had been blown up.
Lubnan has not yet found out whether the mausoleum was also damaged, adding that this was his “greatest fear.”
It would be like his parents “dying for a second time,” he said.
His Odaisseh home had a 2,000-book library and around 20 original artworks, including paintings by his father, he said.
His father had spent his life savings from his job as a university professor to build the home.
The family had preserved “his desk, his palettes, his brushes, just as he left them before he died,” Baalbaki said.
A painting he had been working on was still on an easel.
Losing the house filled him with “so much sadness” because “it was a project we’d grown up with since childhood that greatly influenced us, pushing us to embrace art and the love of beauty.”
Lebanon’s National Human Rights Commission has said “the ongoing destruction campaign carried out by the Israeli army in southern Lebanon is a war crime.”
Between October 2023 and October 2024, locations “were wantonly and systematically destroyed in at least eight Lebanese villages,” it said, basing its findings on satellite images and videos shared on social media by Israeli soldiers.
Israel’s military used “air strikes, bulldozers, and manually controlled explosions” to level entire neighborhoods — homes, schools, mosques, churches, shrines, and archaeological sites, the commission said.
Lebanese rights group Legal Agenda said blasts in Mhaibib “destroyed the bulk” of the hilltop village, “including at least 92 buildings of civilian homes and facilities.”
“You can’t blow up an entire village because you have a military target,” said Hussein Chaabane, an investigative journalist with the group.
International law “prohibits attacking civilian objects,” he said.
Should civilian objects be targeted, “the principle of proportionality should be respected, and here it is being violated.”


Militant leader vows to overthrow Assad and establish new governance for Syria

Militant leader vows to overthrow Assad and establish new governance for Syria
Updated 8 sec ago
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Militant leader vows to overthrow Assad and establish new governance for Syria

Militant leader vows to overthrow Assad and establish new governance for Syria
  • Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN at an undisclosed location inside Syria, Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani outlined his vision for a post-Assad Syria

LONDON: The leader of Syria’s militants currently sweeping across the country has reiterated his group’s determination to overthrow President Bashar Assad, as the opposition groups continue to gain ground in the country’s protracted civil war.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN at an undisclosed location inside Syria, Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani outlined his vision for a post-Assad Syria, emphasizing the creation of a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people.”

Al-Jolani is the leader of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a group that emerged from a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

Speaking to CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh, he said: “When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal.”

Al-Jolani claimed that the Assad regime’s fall would be inevitable, despite years of support from allies like Iran and Russia.

“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it. The Iranians attempted to revive the regime, buying it time, and later the Russians also tried to prop it up. But the truth remains: This regime is dead,” he said.

As HTS continues to expand its territorial control in Syria, Al-Jolani sought to reassure minorities who have faced persecution during Syria’s decade-long conflict.

“People who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly,” he said.

He promised that minorities such as Christians could live safely under a new coalition’s rule, adding: “No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them.”

Human rights groups have criticized HTS for its treatment of political dissidents in areas such as Idlib, citing allegations of torture and harsh crackdowns on protests, but Al-Jolani denied any systemic abuse and said that if such incidents happened, it was “not done under our orders or directions” and that HTS had held those responsible accountable.

Al-Jolani also addressed HTS’ enduring terror designation by countries and organizations in the West, including the US, the EU and the UN, describing it as “primarily political and, at the same time, inaccurate.”

He claimed his group had severed ties with extremist Islamist factions, rejecting their brutal tactics. “I was never personally involved in attacks on civilians,” he told CNN.

The Assad government, bolstered by Iranian-backed militias, Hezbollah, and Russian air support, has maintained a tight grip on Syria since the uprising began in 2011.

Al-Jolani, however, said he sees the withdrawal of foreign forces as key to Syria’s future stability.

“I think that once this regime falls, the issue will be resolved, and there will no longer be a need for any foreign forces to remain in Syria,” he said.

Reflecting on the Assad family’s over five decades in power, Al-Jolani called for a complete overhaul of governance in Syria.

“Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional, not one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions,” he said.

Al-Jolani envisions a broader national project that goes beyond HTS itself.

“We are talking about a larger project — we are talking about building Syria. Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham is merely one part of this dialogue, and it may dissolve at any time. It is not an end in itself but a means to perform a task: confronting this regime.”


Hamas releases hostage video claiming to show living hostage

Hamas releases hostage video claiming to show living hostage
Updated 41 min 7 sec ago
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Hamas releases hostage video claiming to show living hostage

Hamas releases hostage video claiming to show living hostage
  • In the video a man who introduces himself as Matan Zangauker, 24, can be seen pleading with the Israeli leaders to make a deal
  • Hamas has released several videos of hostages begging to be released

JERUSALEM: Hamas released a video claiming to show Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker in captivity on Saturday.
In the video a man who introduces himself as Matan Zangauker, 24, can be seen pleading with the Israeli leaders to make a deal that would bring captives being held by Hamas in Gaza back to Israel.
Mediating countries, including Qatar, see increased momentum for a possible deal that could allow the 100 hostages being held in Gaza to be released in exchange for scores of Palestinian prisoners, after Israel signed a landmark ceasefire deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon last month.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has traveled to Qatar and Israel to try to kickstart the US president-elect’s diplomatic push for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal before he takes office on Jan. 20, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters.
Hamas has released several videos of hostages begging to be released over the course of the war as it enters its fifteenth month, but Israeli officials have dismissed the short, edited clips as psychological propaganda meant to put pressure on the government.
The Hostage Families Forum, which represents hostage family members, called the video “proof of life” and said that it “provides further evidence that after more than 420 days in captivity, there are hostages still alive and enduring severe suffering.”


Syrian insurgents have reached suburbs of Damascus, activists say

Syrian insurgents have reached suburbs of Damascus, activists say
Updated 45 min 37 sec ago
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Syrian insurgents have reached suburbs of Damascus, activists say

Syrian insurgents have reached suburbs of Damascus, activists say
  • The pace of events has raised fears of a fresh wave of regional instability, with Qatar saying it threatens Syria’s territorial integrity
  • Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011, dragged in big outside powers, created space for militants to plot attacks around the world

AMMAN/BEIRUT: Syrian militants readied to press their lightning advance on Saturday as government forces buttressed collapsing frontlines and bombarded the insurgents’ positions around Homs, in a bid to save President Bashar Assad’s 24-year rule.

Since the militants’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defenses have crumbled across the country at dizzying speed as insurgents seized a string of major cities and rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.

Besides capturing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the center and Deir Ezzor in the east, militants rose up in southern Suweida and Daraa, saying on Friday they had taken control of the two cities and posting videos showing insurgent celebrations there.

Syria’s military said it was carrying out airstrikes around Hama and Homs and reinforcing on that front. It also said it was repositioning around Daraa and Suweida, without acknowledging their capture by militants.

The pace of events has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a fresh wave of regional instability, with Qatar saying on Saturday it threatened Syria’s territorial integrity.

Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s rule, dragged in big outside powers, created space for jihadist militants to plot attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighboring states.

Western officials say the Syrian military is in a difficult situation, unable to halt militant gains and forced into retreat.

Assad had long relied on allies to subdue the militants, with Russian warplanes bombing from the skies while Iran sent allied forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi militia to bolster the Syrian military and storm insurgent strongholds.

But Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022 and Hezbollah’s leadership has been decimated this year in its own grueling war with Israel.

Russia on Friday urged its nationals to leave the country. Iran evacuated families of diplomats from Syria, an Iranian official said.

Hezbollah has sent some “supervising forces” to Homs on Friday but any significant deployment would risk exposure to Israeli airstrikes, Western officials said. Israel attacked two Lebanon-Syria border crossings on Friday, Lebanon said.

Iran-backed Iraqi militias are on high alert, with thousands of heavily armed fighters ready to deploy to Syria, many of them amassed near the border. But they have not yet been ordered to cross, two of their commanders said. Iraq does not seek military intervention in Syria, a government spokesman said on Friday.

BATTLE FOR HOMS

The militants said they were “at the walls” of Homs after taking the last village on its northern outskirts late on Friday, a day after seizing nearby Hama following a brief battle outside the city.

Inside Homs, a resident said the situation had felt normal until Friday, but had grown more tense with the sound of airstrikes and gunfire clearly audible and pro-Assad militia groups setting up checkpoints.

“They are sending a message to people to keep in line and that they should not get excited and not expect Homs to go easily,” the resident said.

Seizing Homs, a key crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, would cut off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, and from a naval base and air base of his Russian allies there.

Militants outside Homs came under intense bombardment overnight and the military and its allies were attempting to dig in for a defense of the city, both sides said.

A Syrian military officer said there was a lull in fighting on Saturday morning after a night of intense airstrikes on the militants.

A coalition of militant factions that include the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) made a last call on forces loyal to Assad’s government in Homs to defect.

Ahead of the militant advance, thousands of people fled Homs toward the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government, residents and witnesses said.

“Homs is the key. It will be very hard for Assad to make a stand but if Homs should fall, the main highway from Damascus to Tartus and the coast will be closed, cutting the capital off from the Alawite Mountains,” said Jonathan Landis, a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma.

“But the Syrian army won’t fight. No one wants to die for Assad and his regime,” he added.

Taking Daraa and Suweida in the south could allow a concerted assault on the capital, the seat of Assad’s power, military sources said.

Militant sources said on Friday the military had agreed to make an orderly withdrawal from Daraa under a deal giving army officials safe passage to the capital Damascus, about 100km north.

Daraa, which had a population of more than 100,000 before the civil war began 13 years ago, holds symbolic importance as the cradle of the uprising. It is the capital of a province of about one million people, bordering Jordan.

In the east, a US-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured Deir El-Zor, the government’s main foothold in the vast desert, on Friday, three Syrian sources said, jeopardizing Assad’s land connection to allies in Iraq.


Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers

Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers
Updated 07 December 2024
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Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers

Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers
  • Rapid advances by the insurgents threaten to undermine Russia’s geopolitical clout in the Middle East
  • Russian war bloggers say the most immediate threat is to the future of Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province and to its naval facility at Tartous on the coast

DAMASCUS: Two strategically-important Russian military facilities in Syria and Moscow’s very presence in the Middle East are under serious threat from rapidly advancing insurgents, Russian war bloggers have warned.
With Russian military resources mostly tied down in Ukraine where Moscow’s forces are rushing to take more territory before Donald Trump comes to power in the US in January, Russia’s ability to influence the situation on the ground in Syria is far more limited than in 2015 when it intervened decisively to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Rapid advances by the insurgents threaten to undermine Russia’s geopolitical clout in the Middle East and its ability to project power in the region, across the Mediterranean and into Africa. They also risk dealing an embarrassing setback to President Vladimir Putin, who casts Russia’s intervention in Syria as an example of how Moscow can use force to shape events far away and compete with the West.
But Russian war bloggers, some of whom are close to the Russian Defense Ministry and whom the Russian authorities allow greater freedom to speak out than the military, say the most immediate threat is to the future of Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province and to its naval facility at Tartous on the coast.
The Tartous facility is Russia’s only Mediterranean repair and replenishment hub, and Moscow has used Syria as a staging post to fly its military contractors in and out of Africa.
Influential Russian war blogger “Rybar,” who is close to the Russian Defense Ministry and has over 1.3 million followers on his Telegram channel, said Moscow’s forces were facing a grave threat.
“In reality we need to understand that the insurgents will not stop,” Rybar warned.
“They will try to inflict the maximum defeat and the maximum reputational and physical damage on the representatives of the Russian Federation (in Syria) and in particular to destroy our military bases.”
Relying on the Syrian army alone was a lost cause, he added, saying it would continue to fall back unless properly supported by the Russian air force and specialists.
The Russian Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment on a non-working day. The Russian Embassy in Damascus has advised Russian nationals to leave Syria.
Asked on Saturday in Doha about the fate of the Russian bases, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was “not in the business of guessing” what would happen, but said Moscow was doing all it could to prevent “terrorists” from prevailing.
He said he was not worried about how events in Syria would affect his own reputation or that of Russia, but was worried about the fate of the Syrian people.

RUSSIAN FORCES BADLY EXPOSED, SAYS BLOGGER
The Russian air force has been helping government forces launch air strikes against insurgents and the Kremlin has said it still supports Assad and is analizing the situation to see what help is needed to stabilize the situation.
However, Russia’s “Fighterbomber” war blogger, who has over 500,000 followers, said Moscow’s forces in Syria were badly exposed and that losing the Hmeimim air base would mean losing the ability to carry out air strikes which he said was 75 percent of Moscow’s capabilities there.
“The Hmeimim airfield is not a multi-story industrial project with basements. It is a field with lightly assembled buildings on top, which will cease to function as soon as the enemy gets within artillery or drone flight range,” he said.
“The situation with the naval base in Tartous is about the same. Of course, it can be defended and held for quite a long time if there is someone and something to do it, but it will either not be able to function at all, or in a very limited way.”
Nor, he warned, would a full evacuation of all of Russia’s military equipment be possible if it became necessary.
“Therefore, the main task of our forces in Syria is to prevent the enemy from entering Latakia, even if we have to temporarily give up the rest of the territory.”
With over 600,000 followers, war blogger “Starshe Eddi” said Russia had paid a heavy price for a foothold in Syria.
“Ten years there, dead Russian soldiers, billions of roubles spent and thousands of tons of ammunition expended — they must be compensated somehow and somehow,” he wrote.
“The only thing that can...give us a chance to compensate for the current failure and the resources we have used up is our retention of the Latakia and Tartous provinces.”
Igor Girkin, a prominent Russian ex-militia commander who fought in Ukraine and who is serving a four-year jail term after accusing Putin and the army’s top brass of mistakes in the Ukraine war, said Moscow’s position in Syria had always been exposed from a reinforcement and supply point of view.
“Now our enemies have naturally decided to take advantage of our weakness at the moment when we are busy on the Ukrainian front,” he wrote from prison.
“We are overstretched. The defeat of the Syrian side will also be our defeat.”


Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria

Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria
Updated 07 December 2024
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Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria

Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria
  • The source said that since the Islamist-led militant offensive began last week, Hezbollah has not taken an active part in the fighting
  • The group’s fighters had been sent “to defend its positions” in the mountains along the Syria-Lebanon border

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah has sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, a source close to the armed group said on Saturday, as ally Damascus reels from a militant offensive that has seized major cities.
The Iran-backed group, which has fought alongside the forces of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s war since 2011, “sent 2,000 fighters to the Qusayr area” near the Lebanese border, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The source said that since the Islamist-led militant offensive began last week, Hezbollah has not taken an active part in the fighting.
The group’s fighters had been sent “to defend its positions” in the mountains along the Syria-Lebanon border, the source said, adding that Hezbollah “has not yet participated in any battles.”
The militant coalition in Syria has already seized two of Syria’s main cities, Aleppo in the north and Hama in the center.
They launched their offensive on November 27, the same day that a ceasefire took effect in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which has left the Lebanese group weakened.
On Saturday, militant forces were at the gates of the key central city of Homs and were advancing toward the capital Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The source said Hezbollah sent “150 military advisers to Homs, to help the Syrian army if it decides to defend” the city.
Since 2013, Hezbollah has openly backed Assad’s forces.
Hezbollah fighters helped Assad regain territory lost earlier in the civil war, which broke out in 2011 after the repression of anti-government protests.
The Lebanese group supported Syrian government forces as they seized Qusayr city from militant control in 2013, with Hezbollah later setting up a military base and training camp there.
But as the war in Syria had been largely dormant until last week, Hezbollah has “withdrawn the majority of its fighters over the past two years,” said the source.
It did keep military advisers in Aleppo and Hama, the source said, without specifying whether they had left before the militant forces captured the two cities in recent days.
Russia and Iran have also intervened in the war to prop up Assad’s rule and help his forces claw back territory.
Tehran on November 28 announced that one of its Revolutionary Guards generals had been killed in the fighting in Aleppo.