WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a money exchanger and a group of firms across six countries involved in commodity shipments and business transactions that benefit Iran’s military and the Houthi militant group in Yemen and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned six firms, two tankers and a money exchanger, all either based or registered in Liberia, India, Vietnam, Lebanon or Kuwait. They are accused of materially benefiting Iran, the Houthis and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah and the Houthis have been launching regular attacks since the onset of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and they have sparked international concern that the war in the Palestinian enclave could spill over into the rest of the Middle East.
Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops exchange fire on a near-daily basis along Lebanon’s southern border, which has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people on both sides. Despite losing more than 200 combatants and Israel striking deeper into the tiny country, Hezbollah maintains that it will stop launching rockets into northern Israel only when there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthls, who control much of Yemen’s north and west, have been launching drones and missiles on ships in the Red Sea, which they say is an effort to pressure Israel to end its war. Despite US-led airstrikes over the past two months, they have carried on with their campaign.
In a separate announcement Tuesday, Treasury slapped sanctions on 11 people and entities accused of facilitating financial transfers to the Syrian government to help it duck sanctions and being involved in the trafficking of a highly addictive amphetamine called Captagon that has become a booming industry in the war-torn country.
Treasury sanctioned a Syrian identified as Taher Al-Kayali and his company Neptunus LLC, accused of purchasing cargo ships to smuggle Captagon to Europe. One of his ships was intercepted by Greek authorities in 2018. Mahmoud Abulilah Al-Dj and his companies Al-Ta’ir Company and FreeBird Travel and Tourism were also sanctioned. He has had several of his drug shipments seized in Libya, and has cooperated with Abulilah. Al-Dj is also the “exclusive agent” of sanctioned Syrian airliner Cham Wings in Libya, Treasury said.
Experts say Captagon is primarily produced in Syria and Lebanon, where packages containing millions of pills are smuggled into Gulf countries, Europe and elsewhere. The trade allegedly has strong ties to Syrian President Bashar Assad and his associates, as well as the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in neighboring Lebanon.
Western governments estimate that the industry has generated billions of dollars in revenue for Syria. Syria’s Arab neighbors, notably Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states, have been desperate to halt the trade, as millions of pills have been smuggled in.
Meanwhile, Treasury slapped sanctions on Syria-based Maya Exchange Company, as well as Aleksey Makarov, the vice president of the listed Russian Financial Cooperation Bank, and Muhammad ‘Ali Al-Minala of the Syrian central bank, who used the exchange company to make payments to “a Jordanian beneficiary”.
Treasury also slapped sanctions on STF Logistic which it claims has generated tens of millions of revenue for the Syrian government and through a 50-year contract with Damascus has been granted the right to almost three-quarters of sales revenue from Syrian mines near Palmyra. Grains Middle East Trading, and its chief executive officer Yafi David were sanctioned for serving as an intermediary for STF Logistic. The company is based in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
Assad’s crackdown on protests in 2011 led to his global isolation, and his forces were accused of torture, bombing civilian infrastructure, and using chemical weapons with support of key allies Russia and Iran.
US imposes more Iran sanctions and hits Syrian regime with penalties for drug trafficking
https://arab.news/g2w6p
US imposes more Iran sanctions and hits Syrian regime with penalties for drug trafficking
- The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned six firms, two tankers and a money exchanger
- Treasury sanctioned a Syrian identified as Taher Al-Kayali and his company Neptunus LLC, accused of purchasing cargo ships to smuggle Captagon to Europe
Lebanon says Israeli strike kills five, wounds 10
BEIRUT: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on the country’s east on Thursday killed at least five people, in the latest attack despite a November ceasefire in a war with militant group Hezbollah.
“The Israeli strike on Masnaa Road resulted in a preliminary toll of five deaths and ten injuries,” the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement. The state-run National News Agency reported that the strike hit a vehicle in the area, near a border crossing with Syria.
The reported strike came as Lebanon’s government was discussing Hezbollah’s disarmament.
US envoy hails ‘historic’ Lebanon decision on Hezbollah disarmament
- “This week’s Cabinet resolutions finally put into motion the ‘One Nation, One Army’ solution for Lebanon,” Barrack said
BEIRUT: US envoy Tom Barrack said on Thursday Lebanon’s government had taken a “historic” decision this week by moving to disarm Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which Washington has pushed for.
In a post on X, Barrack congratulated Lebanese leaders “for making the historic, bold, and correct decision this week to begin fully implementing” a November ceasefire which ended more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and neighboring Israel, and stipulated that weapons in Lebanon be restricted to government agencies only.
“This week’s Cabinet resolutions finally put into motion the ‘One Nation, One Army’ solution for Lebanon. We stand behind the Lebanese people,” Barrack said.
The Paris office of Israeli airline El Al is vandalized with graffiti
- Red paint and the words “El Al genocide airline” were discovered Thursday morning on the door outside the airline’s office
- The airline said it was handling the matter with the “utmost gravity”
PARIS: The Israeli airline El Al said Thursday that its Paris office was vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti, calling the act a “deeply disturbing” incident as tensions between France and Israel run high.
Red paint and the words “El Al genocide airline” were discovered Thursday morning on the door outside the airline’s office in the center of the French capital. El Al said that no one was in the office at the time of the incident and that no one was harmed.
The airline said it was handling the matter with the “utmost gravity” and working in close coordination with authorities in France and Israel. El Al added it “unequivocally condemns all forms of violence, particularly those driven by hatred,” and said its planes “proudly” display the Israeli flag.
French authorities announced that they opened opened an investigation into building “degradation” with a racist or ethnically prejudicial intent.
Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev condemned the act and blamed the policies of French President Emmanuel Macron. “Today it’s El Al, tomorrow it’s Air France,” she wrote on social media. “When President Macron makes announcements that give gifts to Hamas, this is the result.”
The incident comes amid diplomatic friction following Macron’s pledge last month to recognize a Palestinian state — a move welcomed by some European allies but strongly opposed by Israel.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry also condemned what it called an antisemitic attack and urged the French government to ensure the safety of El Al staff and offices and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
In May, several Jewish sites across Paris were defaced with green paint, including the Shoah Memorial, three synagogues and a Jewish restaurant.
France is home to Western Europe’s largest Jewish population, with an estimated 500,000 Jews — approximately 1 percent of the national population.
In recent years, antisemitic incidents have surged, with a sharp increase reported in 2023 after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. These include physical assaults, threats, vandalism, and harassment, prompting alarm among Jewish communities and leaders.
GHF aid distribution sites in Gaza becoming ‘laboratories of cruelty,’ says medical charity
- Scathing new report claims locations centers of ‘orchestrated killing’
LONDON: Doctors Without Borders has accused a controversial aid initiative in Gaza of enabling the systematic targeting and killing of civilians, it was reported on Thursday.
In a scathing new report, the medical charity — also known by its French acronym MSF— said aid distribution centers run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had become sites of “orchestrated killing.”
Raquel Ayora, one of the charity’s general directors, said: “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.
“The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.”
The group is calling for GHF’s operations to be scrapped immediately and replaced with a UN-led system. It has urged governments and donors to “suspend all financial and political support for the GHF.”
In a report by Sky News, the channel contacted both the GHF and the Israel Defense Forces for comment. In an interview on Wednesday, IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani dismissed the allegations, claiming: “I think that is completely false,” and described some reports of shootings as “fake news.”
Between June 7 and July 24, MSF says it treated 1,380 people wounded near GHF aid sites at two of its clinics.
Among the injured were 71 children, 25 of them under the age of 15. The charity said 28 people were dead on arrival.
Among the cases were an 8-year-old girl shot in the chest, and a 12-year-old boy hit in the abdomen. The charity described several injuries as precise and deliberate.
“The distinct patterns and anatomical precision of these injuries strongly suggests the intentional targeting of people within and around the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire,” the report stated.
Gunshot wounds recorded at MSF’s Al-Mawasi Clinic showed 11 percent struck victims in the head or neck, while 19 percent were to the torso. In Khan Younis, injuries to the lower limbs were more common.
One patient, Mohammed Riad Tabasi, said: “We’re being slaughtered. I’ve been injured maybe 10 times. I saw it with my own eyes, about 20 corpses around me; all of them shot in the head (and) in the stomach.”
The report also documented 196 injuries caused by stampedes or chaos during aid distribution. One woman died of likely asphyxiation in a crush. Others, MSF said, were beaten or robbed after receiving food.
The GHF took over much of Gaza’s aid provision in May after Israel ended an 11-week blockade. But the operation has drawn mounting international criticism. A previous Sky News investigation linked GHF-led aid drops to spikes in fatalities, and UN officials have condemned the system as “death traps.”
UN experts this week called the program “an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.”
They reiterated calls for Israel to restore access for UN agencies and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations.
MSF echoed the demand and directly urged the US to end its support.
“Despite the condemnations and calls for dismantling it, the global inaction to stop GHF is baffling,” said Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator.
The IDF maintains that humanitarian access is not being obstructed. “There is no limit of aid getting into Gaza,” Shoshani said. “Every day, hundreds of trucks go into Gaza.”
Israeli officials argue the GHF model prevents supplies being stolen by Hamas and ensures they reach civilians directly. Steve Witkoff, the US’ special envoy to the Middle East, last week toured one of the sites.
“We’re putting up money to get the people fed,” US President Donald Trump declared at the same time.
Trump: Important that Middle Eastern countries join Abraham Accords
- Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starvation in Gaza
- The war in Gaza has provoked global anger
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday it was important that Middle Eastern countries join the Abraham Accords, which aim to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, saying it will ensure peace in the region.
“Now that the nuclear arsenal being ‘created’ by Iran has been totally OBLITERATED, it is very important to me that all Middle Eastern Countries join the Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
As part of the Abraham Accords, signed during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starvation in Gaza.
The war in Gaza, where local authorities say more than 60,000 people have died, has provoked global anger. Canada, France and the United Kingdom have announced plans in recent days to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
