Lebanese president seeks Israel’s commitment to Gaza deal, warns against violations

Lebanese president seeks Israel’s commitment to Gaza deal, warns against violations
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Lebanese celebrate the nomination of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, at Martyrs’ Square in Beirut, on Jan. 13, 2025. (AFP)
Lebanese president seeks Israel’s commitment to Gaza deal, warns against violations
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Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam gestures at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon Jan. 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 16 January 2025
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Lebanese president seeks Israel’s commitment to Gaza deal, warns against violations

Lebanese president seeks Israel’s commitment to Gaza deal, warns against violations
  • French president, UN chief set to visit Beirut as Aoun rallies support
  • PM-designate Salam calls for dialogue with Hezbollah, Amal as consultations end

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun hoped on Thursday “for the ceasefire in Gaza to end the tragic reality and prompt Israel to seriously abide by the clauses of the agreement, which requires the follow-up of the sponsoring states and the UN.”
Israel had always evaded its commitments and ignored international resolutions, he said.
“The hostilities taking place in the south (of Lebanon), as well as the violations of the ceasefire agreement, prove so.”
Aoun’s comments came as Israel’s violations of Lebanese airspace reached Beirut and its forces continued to bulldoze the neighborhoods of Taybeh and Aita Al-Shaab.
Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International said its media staff “came under Israeli fire while accompanying an ambulance team inside a house in Mays Al-Jabal, with no casualties reported.”
Aoun, who was elected president a week ago, received invitations to visit Qatar and Jordan. He also took a phone call from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who invited him to visit the Kingdom. Aoun said it would be his “first visit abroad.”
Qatar’s Ambassador to Lebanon Saud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani delivered an official invitation from his nation’s leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, for Aoun to visit Doha.
In the letter, the sheikh said he hoped that Aoun’s tenure would “witness a new stage where security, stability and prosperity will prevail in the country.”
In a speech delivered from the presidential palace, the ambassador expressed his country’s “continuous support for Lebanon in all the political, economic and military fields.”
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi delivered an invitation from King Abdullah II for Aoun to visit Jordan. He also expressed Jordan’s “commitment to supporting Lebanon, its security, stability and full sovereignty” and urged Israel to “honor the ceasefire agreement and stop its violations against Lebanon.”
Safadi also met Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam.
“We believe that the new leadership in Lebanon can go forward and we affirm that we will continue to support the Lebanese army,” he said.
“We look with our partners worldwide into providing what the army needs in terms of fundamental capabilities so it could carry out its role.”
Safadi said that the mediators announced the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip “clearly and decisively” and that “the whole world knows the importance of respecting and implementing this agreement.”
“We call for full compliance,” he said. “We also urge the opening of all crossings and an international effort to deliver sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to make a working visit to Beirut on Friday, becoming the second head of state to visit the country, following Cyprus’ President Nikos Christodoulides.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also expected to travel to Beirut to congratulate Aoun.
The Elysee Palace said Macron’s visit “underscores France’s unwavering commitment to Lebanon’s stability, unity and development” and that his presence would strengthen the ceasefire monitoring mechanisms, mainly focusing on UNIFIL’s peacekeeping operations.
In domestic developments, Aoun held talks with acting Central Bank Governor Wassim Mansouri, who offered his first public assessment since Lebanon’s recent period of turmoil.
He reported “improving monetary conditions and increased foreign currency reserves following the presidential election” and emphasized the central bank’s policy of maintaining the value of the Lebanese pound “without market intervention.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Aoun received Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, EU and Cooperation Jose Manuel Albares Bueno.
Meanwhile, Salam entered the final day of non-binding parliamentary consultations regarding government formation and the ministerial statement that will outline his administration’s agenda.
The process has unfolded amid growing international and Arab support for Lebanon’s new leadership.
A meeting between Salam and Berri is expected to take place on Friday.
Both Berri’s parliamentary bloc and Hezbollah’s representatives have boycotted the consultations, protesting against Salam’s appointment ahead of their preferred candidate, Najib Mikati.
If it takes place, the meeting between Berri and Salam is intended to ease Hezbollah’s concerns.
It will also seek to assure the party it has not lost its internal cohesion following the speeches of the president and prime minister.
Salam is expected to present his vision for forming the next government to Berri and the president after consulting with all parliamentary blocs, including independent and Change lawmakers.
MP Jihad Al-Samad met Salam on Thursday and quoted him as saying that “given the ongoing disagreement, there are only two solutions: either an agreement or an agreement.”
Other lawmakers who attended the talks said the parliamentary consultations concluded on the second day with the “assertation that the government’s ministerial statement must be a reflection of the president’s oath speech.”
They said the consultations also emphasized the importance of “establishing a government capable of protecting Lebanon, overseeing rapid reconstruction and ensuring the return of the displaced people to the south.”
“It must be a government composed of qualified people, free from political calculations, with all its components, including new faces who aspire to trust and plan to restore depositors’ funds,” they said.
“Additionally, the government should consist of national competencies, separate parliamentary seats from ministerial posts and ensure the transparency and integrity of the judiciary to attract investments back to the country.”
At the end of the first day of the parliamentary consultations, the parliamentary blocs expressed their desire to form “a government of specialists representing all the parliamentary blocs.”


After Gaza hostage release, Israeli family demand 'answers' on wife, sons

After Gaza hostage release, Israeli family demand 'answers' on wife, sons
Updated 6 sec ago
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After Gaza hostage release, Israeli family demand 'answers' on wife, sons

After Gaza hostage release, Israeli family demand 'answers' on wife, sons
  • The boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday fell in January, and his five-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal

RAMAT GAN, Israel: Relatives of an Israeli hostage freed in the latest Gaza ceasefire swap made an emotional plea Monday for answers from Israeli authorities on the fate of his wife and sons.
Yarden Bibas, 35, was released by Gaza militants on Saturday, after being held captive in the Palestinian territory for more than 15 months.
Together with his wife Shiri and their two sons Ariel and Kfir, they were all seized by militants during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war.
Hamas has previously declared that Shiri Bibas and the two children had been killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, but Israel has not confirmed their deaths.
“We will no longer accept uncertainty. We demand answers. We demand them back,” Shiri Bibas’s sister, Dana Silberman-Sitton, told reporters at the Sheba hospital in central Israel.
“The state failed to protect them. The state has been failing for almost 16 months to bring them home.”
“It’s the responsibility of the government and the state to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, to Yarden, to me and our entire family, and to all the citizens of Israel,” she added, her voice breaking.
Gal Hirsch, the government’s hostage coordinator, said on Saturday that “we have been searching for them for a long time” and demanding “information about their condition from the mediators.”
Footage filmed by Hamas militants during their attack showed Shiri Bibas clutching her two red-haired boys outside their home near the Gaza border.
The boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday fell in January, and his five-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.
During the Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, 76 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.
Shiri Bibas’ parents, Yossi and Margit Silberman, died in a fire in their home in Nir Oz kibbutz, in southern Israel, when it came under attack on October 7, 2023.
Since the first, 42-day phase of Gaza ceasefire began on January 19, militants have so far freed 18 hostages, in four hostage-prisoner swaps.
During the current phase a total of 33 hostages are to be freed in return for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.

 


Israeli army maneuvers on Lebanese border amid claims of dismantling Hezbollah military structures

Israeli army maneuvers on Lebanese border amid claims of dismantling Hezbollah military structures
Updated 03 February 2025
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Israeli army maneuvers on Lebanese border amid claims of dismantling Hezbollah military structures

Israeli army maneuvers on Lebanese border amid claims of dismantling Hezbollah military structures
  • Lebanon interior minister: New checkpoints at Beirut Airport to control all incoming items

BEIRUT: Security authorities at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport effectively fulfill their responsibilities, caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said on Monday.

Mawlawi’s assurance followed his meeting with the Central Security Council.

In response to Israeli claims that Hezbollah was receiving cash through the airport, Mawlawi emphasized that the council had set up new checkpoints to inspect all items entering through the airport.

He stressed that the Lebanese army was fulfilling its duties to control the Lebanese border with the Syrian Arab Republic “despite the challenges” and urged increased cooperation from Syrian authorities.

Syria’s Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday that it had seized shipments of weapons intended for smuggling into Lebanon through land routes in the Talkalakh area of Homs.

On Jan. 26, Syrian security forces reportedly discovered a missile depot at a former regime site in Homs. They also seized a weapon shipment that was “intended for Hezbollah.”

There are six official border crossings between the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon and numerous illegal crossings along a 375-km border.

On Monday, the Israeli army said that it was continuing its “defensive operations” in southern Lebanon, under agreements with Lebanon, to maintain the operational gains in the region.

Recently, the Israeli army said it conducted extensive operations to eliminate threats in the region, “dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and prevent any potential dangers to Israel and its citizens.”

The announcement came a day after Defense Minister Israel Katz toured Israeli military positions in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces continue to violate the ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah was extended at Israel’s request through US mediation until Feb. 18.

Israel is exerting pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and eliminate its military presence south of the Litani line. Israeli threats to disarm Hezbollah extend beyond this region to areas north of the Litani and even to the Lebanese border with Syria.

Since the ceasefire began, Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly targeted vehicles transporting weapons and ammunition, as well as storage facilities for stockpiling arms.

In its statement, the Israeli army clarified that during a survey operation in the border area, troops from the 769th Brigade discovered weapons storage facilities. These facilities contained mortar shells, rockets, explosives, firearms, and a significant amount of military equipment. All the weapons were confiscated, and the storage sites were dismantled.

The statement indicated that Israeli soldiers “eliminated several Hezbollah members in the area and apprehended suspects who posed a threat to Israeli forces.”

The Israeli army announced it was conducting a military exercise on Monday in the Upper Galilee region, which has remained in a state of tension following months of military operations against Hezbollah.

The Israeli army issued a warning against civilian entry into areas expected to see “increased military activity.”

Israeli media reports indicate that residents of northern settlements in Israel have begun repairing their homes after damage caused by “fire from Hezbollah.”

The Israeli military has withdrawn from the western region of southern Lebanon and from certain villages in the central area while still maintaining its presence in other towns.

At the same time, it is engaged in bulldozing and demolition activities in the eastern sector, where it has not retreated from any villages.

It seems likely that the military will continue to occupy strategic positions in southern Lebanon.

Former MP Mustafa Alloush stated that Israel’s release of information about the significance of maintaining control over strategic heights and five key points overlooking the southern territories, as well as a substantial portion of occupied Palestine, was quite plausible.

He stated that Hezbollah was giving Israel reasons to justify its actions, evident both in the deployment of drones and in the group’s insistence on maintaining resistance without disarming.

Additionally, remarks from Hezbollah’s leadership, including statements made by its secretary-general, ministers, and MPs, emphasized that the resistance was regaining its strength and readiness.

Alloush claimed that Israel was leveraging this situation to conduct its daily airstrikes, which have targeted areas from Nabatieh and the Bekaa to northern Lebanon.

The Israeli army still holds El-Hamames Hill, located at the southwestern entrance to the town of Khiam.

This strategic hill overlooks the entire town of Khiam and the Hasbaya region, all the way to Ebel Al-Saqi.

It also holds the strategic Awida Hill, between Adaisseh and Taybeh, in the Marjeyoun district.

It overlooks the entire western sector up to Tyre and the whole central sector up to the Litani River and the western Bekaa from the direction of Jezzine.

The Israeli army also holds the hill of Khallet Wardeh, a strategic point located southwest of the town of Aita Al-Shaab in the Bint Jbeil district and overlooking the southern coast from Tyre to Naqoura and the western sector up to Tayr Harfa and Al-Jbein.

Israeli forces are still penetrating the strategic Shebaa and Kfar Shuba hills, which overlook the entire Arqoub region and the western Bekaa to the north, Hasbaya and Marjeyoun to the west, and Mount Hermon and Syrian lands to the west.


Syrian president says elections could take up to five years

Syrian president says elections could take up to five years
Updated 03 February 2025
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Syrian president says elections could take up to five years

Syrian president says elections could take up to five years
  • Ahmed Al-Sharaa said infrastructure for the vote needs rebuilding
  • A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1

DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Monday that organizing elections could take up to five years, the week after he was appointed interim president and less than two months after ousting Bashar Assad.
“My estimate is that the period of time will be approximately between four and five years until the elections,” Sharaa said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a private Syrian television channel.
In late December, he told Al Arabiya TV the election process could take four years.
The infrastructure for the vote “needs to be re-established, and this takes time,” Sharaa added on Monday.
He also promised “a law regulating political parties,” adding that Syria would be “a republic with a parliament and an executive government.”
Military commanders last Wednesday appointed Sharaa interim president, after opposition factions toppled Assad on December 8, ending more than five decades of the family’s iron-fisted rule.
Sharaa’s appointment has been welcomed by key regional players Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia.
Sharaa was also tasked with forming an interim legislature, and the Assad-era parliament was dissolved, along with the Baath party, which ruled Syria for decades.
Syria’s constitution was also repealed, and the Assad-era army and security forces were dissolved, as were armed groups, including Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1.


Russia tells Hamas to ‘keep promises’ on hostage release

Supporters of Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks hold images of the Bibas family.
Supporters of Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks hold images of the Bibas family.
Updated 03 February 2025
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Russia tells Hamas to ‘keep promises’ on hostage release

Supporters of Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks hold images of the Bibas family.
  • Russia has called for the release of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Trufanov and Maxim Herkin, an Israeli man from Donbas area of Ukraine with Russian relatives

MOSCOW: A deputy Russian foreign minister met Monday with a senior Hamas official in Moscow and urged Hamas to keep “promises” to release a Russian hostage, the ministry said.
Mikhail Bogdanov, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on the Middle East, met with Musa Abu Marzuk, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau.
Russia has called for the release of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Trufanov and Maxim Herkin, an Israeli man from the Donbas area of Ukraine with Russian relatives.
At their talks, Bogdanov “again placed particular stress on the necessity of carrying out the promises given by Hamas’s leadership on releasing from imprisonment Russian citizen Trufanov and other hostages,” the ministry said.
Trufanov, known as Sasha, was abducted on October 7, 2023, with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
His father was killed in the attack and his mother and grandmother were abducted and released in November 2023. The family had emigrated to Israel from Russia in the late 1990s.
Islamic Jihad, a militant group allied with Hamas, published undated clips of Trufanov in November 2024.
Herkin emigrated to Israel from Ukraine with his mother and was taken from the Supernova rave music festival.
Marzuk told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency Monday that “Trufanov will definitely be released in the near future. He will be released despite the fact that he is a soldier but the decision was taken to release him in the first stage of the deal.”
“That is our answering gesture to Russia’s position on the Palestinian question,” Marzuk was quoted as saying in translated comments.
Talks on releasing Herkin will be held at a “second stage,” he added.
The Russian ministry said the two also discussed “the progress of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, with the stress on the importance of increasing humanitarian aid to the suffering Palestinian population.”


Gaza’s reunited twins speak of loss and joy

Palestinian twins Mahmoud and Ibrahim Al-Atout sit amidst the rubble of their destroyed house after being reunited, in Jabalia.
Palestinian twins Mahmoud and Ibrahim Al-Atout sit amidst the rubble of their destroyed house after being reunited, in Jabalia.
Updated 03 February 2025
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Gaza’s reunited twins speak of loss and joy

Palestinian twins Mahmoud and Ibrahim Al-Atout sit amidst the rubble of their destroyed house after being reunited, in Jabalia.
  • The two men, from the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, were split up early in the conflict that began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023

GAZA: The emotional reunion of twin brothers in Gaza after Israel allowed movement within the enclave as part of a ceasefire deal provided a visceral image of Palestinian survival after 15 gruelling months of death, separation and destruction.
Video of the twins’ ecstatic, tearful embrace amid the crowds of people trekking home a week ago from displacement camps was widely viewed around the world. But Ibrahim and Mahmoud Al-Atout had both endured loss and hardship that tinged the joy of their reunion.
“I didn’t want to let go of him. It’s like the soul returned to the chest, the soul returned to the heart,” said one of the 30-year-old twins, Mahmoud, speaking about their experience days later in a video obtained by Reuters.

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The two men, from the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, were split up early in the conflict that began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli military campaign in Gaza killed more than 47,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and levelled much of the enclave.
Early on, Israel ordered civilians to leave the north, where its military operations were most intense, but not everybody did so. Those who did travel south were barred from returning until last week as part of the deal for a ceasefire and hostage release.
Ibrahim had ended up in the south, while Mahmoud stayed in the north.
When news came late one night that he could go back to Jabalia, Ibrahim phoned Mahmoud, who quickly dressed and rushed to a meeting point on a main road into northern Gaza.
“Imagine: I stood on my feet for six hours, standing around looking like this (and wondering) ‘where is Ibrahim? Where is Ibrahim?,’” said Mahmoud in the video obtained by Reuters.
People coming up from the south kept mistaking him for his brother, Mahmoud said, surprised he had come north so quickly. They then would tell him to wait longer because Ibrahim was traveling with his six young daughters and had to go slowly.
“He called out to me ‘Mahmoud’, and I couldn’t comprehend. I ran quickly and we hugged each other,” he said, describing their moment of reunion.
Together again
Now reunited, the two men and their families say they spend time picking through the ruins of their family home, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023 that killed one of Ibrahim’s daughters and injured another in her head and legs.
Palestinians accuse Israel of indiscriminate bombardment. Israel says Hamas hides among the civilian population and it tries to hit the group while minimizing harm to civilians.
Ibrahim had not wanted to go south. But Israeli forces had moved toward north Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital while he was there with his family and the Red Crescent moved them all to a bigger hospital in the south where better treatment was available.
As each man spoke in the video obtained by Reuters, using big arm movements to illustrate their points, the other sat still and quiet, taking it in.
Things were hard for Ibrahim and his family in the south without home or possessions, and communications were cut off for about four months.
“I was devastated to the point where I lost weight,” said Mahmoud of that time.
Together again, they sat in the evening with a fire by the rubble of their home, cooking bread on a metal shelf, their small children gazing at them with delight.