PARIS: France’s foreign minister travels to Lebanon on Saturday as part of diplomatic efforts by President Emmanuel Macron’s government to help contain the Middle East conflict.
Fears of a widening war have been growing, with Iran-backed groups targeting US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria, and daily exchanges of fire along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
“We must avoid a regional eruption,” foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said ahead of Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s trip.
Colonna will call for “restraint” and “responsibility” to avoid a new front line on the Israeli-Lebanese border, he said.
There have been near-daily cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Hamas ally in Lebanon, and Israel since the Palestinian group’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an unrelenting military offensive on Gaza that has left swathes of the besieged Palestinian territory in ruins. The health ministry in the Hamas-run strip says more than 18,700 people have been killed.
Along the Israel-Lebanon border violence has remained relatively limited, with 128 killed in total, including 90 Hezbollah combatants and at least 11 Israelis.
French officials are also seeking the release of the French hostages among the around 240 seized by Hamas militants, as the Israeli army announced Friday that it had recovered the body of French-Israeli hostage Elya Toledano, a 28-year-old seized at a desert rave party when the attack occurred.
Hamas released dozens of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a week-long truce last month, but several are still being held and others have been found dead.
Colonna said her country was “deeply saddened to hear the Israeli armed forces announce the death of our compatriot Elya Toledano, a Hamas hostage whose body was found in Gaza.”
“We share the grief of his family and loved ones. The release of all hostages is our priority,” she wrote on X.
But Israel has stepped up its shelling while issuing warnings to the Hezbollah leadership.
“If Hezbollah chooses to wage a full-fledged war on us, then it will transform, with its own hands, Beirut and South Lebanon into Gaza and Khan Yunis (a city in southern Gaza),” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week during a visit to troops along the Lebanese border.
Western governments, notably the United States and France, are stepping up behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to stop the situation from worsening.
The risk of full-out war is “very real” if the Lebanese side underestimates Israel’s determination to protect its borders in the aftermath of the traumatic October attack, a French diplomatic source said.
But French diplomats and security officials also believe that Israel needs to be reminded that any wider conflict would not guarantee regional security, the source said.
Colonna will therefore “reiterate French appeals for responsibility and restraint,” Lemoine said.
The head of the French external intelligence service, Bernard Emie, gave a similar message when he met Lebanese officials in Beirut last week.
Israel’s current objective is that Hezbollah forces move back from the border by 40 kilometers (25 miles), a Western diplomatic source in Beirut said.
In particular, they want Hezbollah’s elite Al-Radwan unit, equipped with heavy artillery, to back off, said the source, requesting anonymity.
Hezbollah meanwhile says it has no visible presence in the border region.
France maintains that the United Nations Security Council’s resolution 1701, which states that only the official Lebanese army and the UN’s UNIFIL force can be deployed in southern Lebanon, is a promising basis for discussions.
This stance is shared by Israel, but Hezbollah’s second-in-command Naim Qassem said this week that “we won’t discuss any deployment in southern Lebanon with anybody while the attack on Gaza continues.”
The Western diplomatic source said mediation efforts are focusing on settling an ongoing border dispute between both countries, by which Israel would withdraw from farms in the town of Chebaa and from the Lebanese part of the village of GHajjar.
France is the biggest contributor to UNIFIL with 700 soldiers, to whom Colonna could pay a visit on Saturday.
The UN force has been targeted by Israeli fire since the start of the violence, with France condemning “any violation of the safety” of the UN soldiers.
Colonna is scheduled to travel to Israel and the occupied West Bank on Sunday.
France steps up Mideast effort with FM’s Lebanon trip
https://arab.news/4sms6
France steps up Mideast effort with FM’s Lebanon trip
- “We must avoid a regional eruption,” foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said ahead of Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s trip
- Colonna will call for “restraint” and “responsibility” to avoid a new front line on the Israeli-Lebanese border
What would lifting US sanctions on Syria mean to the war-torn country?
- After Trump’s announcement, Syria’s currency gained 60 percent on Tuesday night
- Experts says the process for lifting the US sanctions is unclear
- Syria needs tens of billions of dollars to restore its battered infrastructure and pull an estimated 90 percent of population out of poverty
BEIRUT: President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will ease sanctions on Syria could eventually facilitate the country’s recovery from years of civil war and transform the lives of everyday Syrians.
But experts say it will take time, and the process for lifting the sanctions — some of which were first introduced 47 years ago — is unclear.
“I think people view sanctions as a switch that you turn on and off,” said Karam Shaar, a Syrian economist who runs the consultancy firm Karam Shaar Advisory Limited. “Far from it.”
Still, the move could bring much-needed investment to the country, which is emerging from decades of autocratic rule by the Assad family as well as the war. It needs tens of billions of dollars to restore its battered infrastructure and pull an estimated 90 percent of population out of poverty.
And Trump’s pledge has already had an effect: Syrians celebrated in streets across the country, and Arab leaders in neighboring nations that host millions of refugees who fled Syria’s war praised the announcement.
What are the US sanctions on Syria?
Washington has imposed three sanctions programs on Syria. In 1979, the country was designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” because its military was involved in neighboring Lebanon’s civil war and had backed armed groups there, and eventually developed strong ties with the powerful militant Hezbollah group.
In 2003, then-President George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act into law, as his administration faced off with Iran and Tehran-backed governments and groups in the Mideast. The legislation focused heavily on Syria’s support of designated terror groups, its military presence in Lebanon, its alleged development of weapons of mass destruction, as well as oil smuggling and the backing of armed groups in Iraq after the US-led invasion.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, he signed the Caesar Act, sanctioning Syrian troops and others responsible for atrocities committed during the civil war.
Caesar is the code name for a Syrian photographer who took thousands of photographs of victims of torture and other abuses and smuggled them out of the country. The images, taken between 2011 and 2013, were turned over to human rights advocates, exposing the scale of the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on political opponents and dissidents during countrywide protests.
What has been the impact of US sanctions on Syria?
The sanctions — along with similar measures by other countries — have touched every part of the Syrian economy and everyday life in the country.
They have led to shortages of goods from fuel to medicine, and made it difficult for humanitarian agencies responding to receive funding and operate fully.
Companies around the world struggle to export to Syria, and Syrians struggle to import goods of any kind because nearly all financial transactions with the country are banned. That has led to a blossoming black market of smuggled goods.
Simple tasks like updating smartphones are difficult, if not impossible, and many people resort to virtual private networks, or VPNs, which mask online activity, to access the Internet because many websites block users with Syrian IP addresses.
The impact was especially stark after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkiye and northern Syria in February 2023, compounding the destruction and misery that the war had already brought.
Though the US Treasury issued a six-month exemption on all financial transactions related to disaster relief, the measures had limited effect since banks and companies were nervous to take the risk, a phenomenon known as over-compliance.
Interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa — who led the insurgency that ousted President Bashar Assad — has argued the sanctions have outlived their purpose and are now only harming the Syrian people and ultimately preventing the country from any prospect of recovery.
Trump and Al-Sharaa met Wednesday.
Washington eased some restrictions temporarily in January but did not lift the sanctions. Britain and the European Union have eased some of their measures.
What could lifting the sanctions mean for Syria?
After Trump’s announcement, Syria’s currency gained 60 percent on Tuesday night — a signal of how transformational the removal of sanctions could be.
Still, it will take time to see any tangible impact on Syria’s economy, experts say, but removing all three sanctions regimes could bring major changes to the lives of Syrians, given how all-encompassing the measures are.
It could mean banks could return to the international financial system or car repair shops could import spare parts from abroad. If the economy improves and reconstruction projects take off, many Syrian refugees who live in crowded tented encampments relying on aid to survive could decide to return home.
“If the situation stabilized and there were reforms, we will then see Syrians returning to their country if they were given opportunities as we expect,” says Lebanese economist Mounis Younes.
The easing of sanctions also has an important symbolic weight because it would signal that Syria is no longer a pariah, said Shaar.
Mathieu Rouquette, Mercy Corps’ country director for Syria, said the move “marks a potentially transformative moment for millions of Syrians who have endured more than 13 years of economic hardship, conflict, and displacement.”
But it all depends on how Washington goes about it.
“Unless enough layers of sanctions are peeled off, you cannot expect the positive impacts on Syria to start to appear,” said Shaar. “Even if you remove some of the top ones, the impact economically would still be nonexistent.”
Air raid sirens sound in Palestinian cities to commemorate 77th anniversary of Nakba
- Commemoration occurs amid ongoing Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, leading to forced displacement and accusations of genocide
- Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a Fatah leader, says what is happening in Gaza is a severe and painful catastrophe
LONDON: Palestinians in the Occupied Territories on Wednesday commemorated the 77th anniversary of the national catastrophe in 1948 known as the Nakba.
Air raid sirens sounded for 77 seconds in various Palestinian cities in the West Bank, marking the anniversary of the Nakba.
The commemoration took place amid ongoing Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, leading to forced displacements and accusations of genocide, with more than 52,000 Palestinians killed since late 2023, according to the Wafa news agency.
Israeli actions in the West Bank have resulted in the displacement of 40,000 people from the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps, an increase in settler attacks, home raids, and the banning of UNRWA, the agency responsible for providing relief to Palestinian refugees.
Wafa reported that thousands of Palestinians participated in a rally in Ramallah on Wednesday, carrying Palestinian flags, black banners, and door keys, symbols of the right of return.
Mahmoud Al-Aloul, deputy chairman of the Fatah Movement, said Palestinians mark the Nakba “under difficult circumstances.”
He said: “There is a more severe and painful catastrophe currently being experienced by our people in the Gaza Strip, where the occupation is claiming the lives of children and women, and is carrying out massacres, siege, and starvation.
“The massacres are extending to the West Bank governorates, and settlers are wreaking terror against citizens, their land, and Islamic and Christian holy sites, under the protection of the occupation forces,” he added. “This is in addition to the abuse of prisoners, which has resulted in the martyrdom of dozens of them in occupation prisons.”
During the Nakba in 1948 Jewish militias drove about 750,000 Palestinians from towns and villages, events that led to the establishment of modern-day Israel. Palestinian refugees were settled in UN-established camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The majority of the families’ towns and villages are in Israeli territory.
Leaders of Israel’s Druze say the state owes it to them to defend Syrian kin
- “The Druze in Israel have forged a bond with the country and with the Jewish people. We are fighting alongside them on all fronts,” said Anwer Amer, a former police officer
- An Arab minority straddling Lebanon, Syria and Israel, the Druze practice a secret religion that is an offshoot of Islam
HURFEISH, Israel: Pained and angered by deadly clashes between Islamist and Druze gunmen in Syria in recent weeks, leaders of Israel’s own Druze minority say the Israeli military was right to intervene to defend the Druze and should do so again if violence restarts.
Close ties between the Israeli state and its 120,000 Druze citizens, strengthened by the fact that Druze men serve in the Israel Defense Forces, are one of the reasons for Israel’s deepening involvement in Syria.
“The Druze in Israel have forged a bond with the country and with the Jewish people. We are fighting alongside them on all fronts,” said Anwer Amer, a former police officer who is now the mayor of Hurfeish, a Druze town in the Galilee, northern Israel.
“I expect my state and the Jewish people to reciprocate for everything we’ve done for it and defend our brothers in Syria,” he told Reuters at his office.
An Arab minority straddling Lebanon, Syria and Israel, the Druze practice a secret religion that is an offshoot of Islam. Loyal to their culture and to each other, they also seek good relations with the countries where they live.
Druze solidarity is not Israel’s only concern in Syria, which has been run by an Islamist group that was once an Al-Qaeda affiliate since Bashar Assad was ousted in December.
Israel sees the Islamists as a threat and has sought to keep their armed forces out of regions close to its border, such as Sweida province where the majority are Druze.
Regional geopolitics are shifting. Israel frequently bombed Syria during Assad’s rule to counter his backer, Iran, but now worries about Türkiye, a close ally of the Islamists, becoming stronger in Syria and gaining a foothold near Israel’s border.
In a major policy change, US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, setting aside deep Israeli suspicion of the new administration there.
In this transformed landscape, defending the Syrian Druze is in Israel’s interest because they help keep the Islamists at bay, said Sarit Zehavi, founder of the Alma Center, a security research and teaching organization in the Galilee.
“Building relationships with the Druze of Syria that are living a few tens of kilometers from the border could help ensure the Islamist monster is not growing next to our border,” she said, adding that this was a lesson learned from the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
She said Israel was also duty bound to help the Druze because of its “special relationship” with its own Druze.
That relationship was strained in 2018, when tens of thousands of Druze protested against a new law stating that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country.
Yet in the Galilee’s Druze villages, perched on steep slopes lush with oak and olive trees,
Israeli flags and Druze flags — a green triangle with red, yellow, blue and white stripes — are equally ubiquitous on flagpoles and public buildings.
In March, a delegation of Syrian Druze religious elders was allowed into Israel to visit a holy shrine for the first time in 50 years, sparking huge celebrations among Israeli Druze.
’NO OTHER CHOICES’
The fighting in Druze areas of Syria started on April 29 and left more than 100 Druze dead, mostly gunmen, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which also reported 32 Islamist deaths.
Coming after hundreds of Alawites, another Syrian minority, were slaughtered by pro-government fighters in March, the violence was viewed as an existential threat by many Druze.
“It’s not easy to see the pictures and to hear them turning to us to help,” said Anan Wahabi, a Druze former IDF officer, now a university lecturer in political science.
The spiritual leader of the Israeli Druze, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to press for military action. Some Druze soldiers signed a letter volunteering to go and fight in Syria. Druze protesters blocked roads to pressure the government into intervening.
Israel responded with air strikes, including one near the presidential palace in Damascus which it called a warning to the Syrian government not to deploy forces south of the capital or threaten the Druze. It also said it had sent ground troops to protect Druze villages and had evacuated some casualties.
“The IDF continues to monitor developments and remains at peak readiness for defense and
various scenarios,” it said last week.
Syria accused Israel of a dangerous escalation and rejected any foreign intervention. The government has made concessions to ease tensions with the Druze, such as hiring security forces locally rather than bringing them in from elsewhere.
Some Druze say Israel should keep quieter about its actions to shield the Syrian Druze from being seen as Israeli proxies.
“We expect a country that we die for to protect our brothers, but it’s better if they tone it down,” Salim Barik, a political scientist, was quoted as saying by Israeli newspaper Calcalist.
But Wahabi said the Syrian Druze needed Israel’s support regardless of optics.
“In this chaos in Syria the Druze have no other choices,” he said.
In the Galilee village of Yanuh-Jat, local religious elder Sheikh Kamal Hatib, speaking at the shrine of a Druze saint, said Israeli Druze would keep pushing for their government to protect their Syrian brethren.
“If something happens, we’re going to be there,” he said.
Erdogan’s global peacemaker spotlight hides tumult within Turkiye
- Erdogan’s growing capital as international statesman is turbocharging Turkiye’s rising regional influence
- “Erdogan has never been this pivotal of a player in geopolitics,” said Birol Baskan, a Turkiye-based political scientist
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan has probably never held more global sway: he will host the first direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks in three years on Thursday, days after his country’s militant nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), dissolved.
His growing capital as international statesman — working toward stability in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and receiving accolades from US President Donald Trump for it — is turbocharging Turkiye’s rising regional influence.
Yet the timing of it appears odd and even agonizing to many at home who fear it could bolster his domestic political goals.
The arrest and jailing of Erdogan’s main political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, prompted the largest protests in a decade in March and April over what critics called a politicized and anti-democratic legal crackdown.
Imamoglu denies the charges he faces, while Ankara denies the criticism of autocratic behavior.
Yet these seemingly parallel universes — international versus domestic — underscore Erdogan’s tendency over 22 years running Turkiye to shift the focus abroad when political or economic problems are brewing at home.
In line with this pattern, Erdogan in May 2022 blocked the planned enlargement of NATO at a time when Turkiye’s inflation rate was soaring toward 85 percent, waiting until early last year to finally approve Sweden’s membership bid in exchange for concessions.
“Erdogan has never been this pivotal of a player in geopolitics,” said Birol Baskan, a Turkiye-based political scientist. “There were dramatic twists and turns in geopolitics, with the re-election of Donald Trump of particular note, though I think Erdogan’s biggest gain is indisputably Syria.”
According to Turkish government officials, Erdogan’s backing of Syrian rebels over the last decade finally paid off for them — and him — when they ousted former President Bashar Assad in December, leaving Ankara with heavy influence in Damascus and beyond as the region sought to recover from war.
Erdogan’s sway grew in January when Trump returned to the White House, given their close ties in Trump’s first term.
Trump, who boasts of “great relations” with Erdogan, said he will be a good host for Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul. He also said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would make a last-minute trip there, and even floated attending in person.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, set to visit the Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday, has dared Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to meet him in Istanbul on Thursday to agree a ceasefire, though Putin has not committed to meet.
Erdogan — fielding calls or visits from US, Russian, Ukrainian, Saudi, French, Italian, NATO and other world leaders in the last week alone — has urged seizing the opportunity for peace between its Black Sea neighbors to the north.
KURDISH MILITANTS DISBAND
Peace is also within reach to Turkiye’s south, where PKK militants are now largely based after a 40-year insurgency against the Turkish state that killed more than 40,000 people.
Weakened after years of Turkish bombardment, the group said on Monday it decided to disband and disarm at a congress last week in northern Iraq.
While a tricky path lies ahead, it marked a significant victory for Erdogan. He had sought to capitalize on vulnerabilities of PKK-affiliated Kurdish forces in northern Syria after Assad’s fall, including his bet that Trump would soon pull out US troops allied with those forces.
Musavvat Dervisoglu, chair of Turkiye’s opposition nationalist IYI Party, warned that Erdogan was using the PKK decision to secure a “lifetime presidency,” given that the support of Kurdish voters could help him adopt a new constitution and extend his rule beyond 2028 when his term expires.
Erdogan says a new constitution is a priority but has not said whether he wants to run again.
Imamoglu’s lead over Erdogan in polls has edged higher since the mayor was arrested in March — which at the time hit Turkiye’s lira and set back the central bank’s battle with years of soaring inflation.
But last week, a Turkish court order blocked Imamoglu’s access to his social media X account, potentially further isolating him as he awaits a court hearing on corruption charges.
Meanwhile the nightly protests in which tens of thousands of Turks filled streets nationwide to denounce the president for wielding the judiciary for political gain — charges he denies — have largely faded.
Harun Armagan, vice chair of foreign affairs for Erdogan’s AK Party, said Imamoglu’s case “is not a political process, but a judicial one” that is separate from the “significant political developments unfolding” elsewhere.
“The PKK laying down arms and disbanding...will be recorded as historic milestones in the context of Turkish politics,” he told Reuters.
TURKEY-BROKERED PEACE DEAL?
While some European leaders denounced the arrest of Imamoglu, many have also endorsed Erdogan’s offer to host Russia-Ukraine talks, including French President Emmanuel Macron who stressed on a call with Erdogan on Sunday the “necessity” of Russia agreeing a ceasefire.
In another diplomatic boon for Erdogan, Europe has warmed to Turkiye in recent months, diplomats say, as it scrambles to bolster defenses and find guarantees for Ukraine under any forthcoming ceasefire deal pushed by Trump.
Turkiye has NATO’s second-largest army and makes armed drones used extensively by Ukraine against Russia. At the same time, Ankara has rejected Western sanctions on Moscow, walking a fine line between the warring nations and maintaining their trust.
“Even if peace talks stumble in Istanbul, Erdogan still gets credit. He loves his name stamped next to a peace deal,” said Onur Isci, associate professor of international relations at Kadir Has University.
“He is in a very powerful diplomatic position and appears to be scoring more and more points.”
The latest point was scored on Tuesday when Trump, in Riyadh, made the surprise announcement that the US would lift all sanctions on Syria, after sources said Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged him to do so.
Erdogan and Trump have held at least three calls since Trump’s re-election, and spoke again on Wednesday with other leaders about the Syria decision.
Trump also appointed a longtime adviser, Thomas Barrack, as US ambassador to Turkiye who upon arrival last week said he intends to elevate the relationship from a “great” one to an “extraordinary” one.
UAE welcomes Trump’s announcement to lift sanctions on Syria
- UAE hopes the US announcement will support economic recovery, promote development, and bring stability to Syria
- Trump made the announcement during a speech at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh
LONDON: The UAE has welcomed US President Donald Trump’s announcement to lift sanctions on Syria, viewing it as a significant step toward supporting Syria’s prosperity.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated its strong support for the aspirations of the Syrian people and praised the efforts made by Saudi Arabia in this regard, according to a statement.
The UAE hopes the US announcement will support economic recovery, promote development, and bring stability to Syria. The ministry reaffirmed the UAE’s commitment to helping all efforts to achieve Syria’s security and growth.
Trump announced during a speech at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday that he was lifting Assad-era sanctions on Syria in response to demands from Turkiye and Saudi Arabia.
On Wednesday, Trump met with Syrian interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Riyadh. Trump said he agreed to meet with Al-Sharaa after being encouraged by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
