Lebanon’s caretaker PM calls on ‘friends’ to stand by Lebanese

Lebanon’s caretaker premier Hassan Diab talks to reporters at the Rafik Hariri Hospital in the capital Beirut. (File/AFP)
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Updated 02 June 2021
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Lebanon’s caretaker PM calls on ‘friends’ to stand by Lebanese

  • ’Either you save it now before it’s too late or else no regrets will help,’ Diab said
  • Diab has been steering the government in a caretaker role since his cabinet resigned in the aftermath of the Aug. 4 Beirut port blast

BEIRUT: Lebanon is “in the heart of great danger,” and needs friendly countries to save it, the caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, said on Wednesday.
“Either you save it now before it’s too late or else no regrets will help,” Diab said in a televised address. Lebanon is in the throes of a deep financial crisis that is posing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Diab has been steering the government in a caretaker role since his cabinet resigned in the aftermath of the Aug. 4 Beirut port blast, which devastated large swathes of the capital, killed hundreds of people and injured thousands.
Prime Minister-desginate Saad Al-Hariri has been at loggerheads with President Michel Aoun over naming cabinet ministers for ten months as the country hurtles toward economic collapse. A new government capable of introducing reforms is necessary to unlock much needed foreign aid.
“I call on political powers to present concessions, and those will be small no matter how big they may seem, because that will alleviate the suffering of the Lebanese and stop this frightening path,” Diab said.
Under a sectarian power-sharing system, Lebanon’s president must be a Maronite Christian and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. Aoun, a Christian, is an ally of the Iran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist group by the United States.
Hariri, a veteran Sunni politician, has said the only way out of Lebanon’s crisis is through mending relations with its Arab neighbors.

This comes as Lebanon’s president and prime minister-designate traded barbs Wednesday, accusing one another of obstruction, negligence and insolence in a war or words that has for months obstructed the formation of a new government as the country sinks deeper into economic and financial crisis.
The power struggle between Hariri, on one side and Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil on the other, has worsened despite warnings from world leaders and economic experts of the dire economic conditions tiny Lebanon is facing. The World Bank on Tuesday said Lebanon’s crisis is one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years.
In a reflection of the growing turmoil, scores of Lebanese lined up in front of ATM machines late on Wednesday, after a top court suspended a Central Bank decree that allowed them to withdraw from dollar deposits at a rate two and a half times better than the fixed exchange rate.
The Lebanese pound, pegged to the dollar for 30 years at 1,507, has been in a free fall since late 2019. It is now trading at nearly 13,000 to the dollar at the black market.
Hariri blames the president for the months-long delay, accusing him of insisting on having veto power in the upcoming government.
Aoun, an ally of the powerful militant Hezbollah group, has said that Hariri did not shoulder his responsibilities in forming a government they both can agree on. There is no legal avenue for the president to fire the prime minister-designate, who is chosen to the post by a majority of lawmakers.
The rift has paralyzed the cash-strapped country, delaying urgently needed reforms. The economic crisis, which erupted in 2019, has been compounded by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Lebanon and the massive blast at Beirut’s port last year that killed over 200 people and defaced a big section of the capital.
The crisis has driven more than half of the population into poverty, caused the local currency to lose more than 85% of its value, and prompted banks to lock deposits through informal capital controls, eroding trust in a once-thriving banking sector.
The country’s highest administrative court on Tuesday ordered the temporary suspension of a Central Bank circular that gave depositors a chance to withdraw at a rate better than the pegged rate.
The Central Bank announced late Wednesday it was accepting the decision, prompting the queues outside ATMS. One man said he went from one ATM to another to withdraw as much as he could. Another complained that people’s savings are at the mercy of corrupt politicians.
“This is not resilience. We got used to being humiliated and controlled this much by the politicians," said Mustafa Taoush, a 23-year-old who failed to withdraw more than a weekly limit imposed on withdrawals.
A statement from Aoun’s office on Wednesday accused Hariri of trying to usurp presidential powers, and coming up with “delusional propositions and insolent expressions.”
“The prime minister-designate ’s continuous evading of responsibilities ... constitutes a persistent violation of the constitution and national accord,” it added.
Hariri and his political group, the Future party, responded by saying the presidency is “hostage to the personal ambitions” of Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, alluding to his alleged presidential aspirations.
High-level mediation efforts from France and local powerful players, including the parliament speaker and the head of the Maronite Church, have faded without a breakthrough in the face of intransigence from the rival parties in Lebanon.
Amid the Aoun-Hariri barbs, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab warned that a collapse of Lebanon could have consequences beyond its borders, hinting at a possible massive exodus of refugees.
Diab, whose Cabinet resigned days after the port explosion, appealed on politicians to make concessions so that a new Cabinet could be formed — one that could resume talks with the International Monetary Fund on how to get out of the crisis.
“The collapse, if it happens, God forbid, will have very grave consequences not only for the Lebanese or those living here but also on friendly countries from the land and sea,” Diab said. “No one will be able to control what waves the sea bring.”

(With Reuters and AP)


Children broken in mind and body by Israeli ‘abomination’ in Gaza

Updated 01 May 2025
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Children broken in mind and body by Israeli ‘abomination’ in Gaza

  • UN health chief: ‘How much blood is enough?’
  • We can’t live like this, say Palestinians

GENEVA: Palestinian children in Gaza are being physically and mentally broken by two months of an Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and incessant pounding by airstrikes, UN health chiefs said on Thursday.

More than 1,000 children had lost limbs, thousands had severe spinal cord and head injuries from which they would never recover and many were psychologically damaged, World Health Organization emergencies chief Mike Ryan said.

“We have to ask ourselves, how much blood is enough to satisfy whatever the political objectives are?” he said. “We are watching this unfold before our very eyes, and we’re not doing anything about it.
“We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit. As a physician I am angry. It is an abomination.”
Israel has interrupted or blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza since the war began in October 2023, and imposed a total blockade on March 2. Since then the UN has repeatedly warned of a humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine looming, and it said this week that acute malnutrition among Gaza’s children was worsening.

Meanwhile Israel continues to pound civilians in Gaza with daily airstrikes and artillery bombardments. Civil defense chiefs said at least 29 Palestinians were killed on Thursday. They included eight who died in an airstrike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Younis refugee camp, four killed in another strike on Al-Tuffah in Gaza City, and others who died in an attack on a tent sheltering displaced people near the central city of Deir Al-Balah.

“We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces,” survivor Ahmed Abu Zarqa said after a deadly strike in Khan Younis.
“This is no way to live. Enough, we’re tired, enough. We don’t know what to do with our lives any more. We’d rather die than live this kind of life.”


Several countries send firefighting planes to Israel to help tackle major wildfire

Updated 01 May 2025
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Several countries send firefighting planes to Israel to help tackle major wildfire

JERUSALEM: Several countries were sending firefighting aircraft to Israel on Thursday as crews battled for a second day to extinguish a wildfire that had shut down a major highway linking Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and sent drivers scrambling from their cars.

The fire broke out around midday on Wednesday, fueled by hot, dry conditions and fanned by strong winds that quickly whipped up the flames, burning through a pine forest. 

Several communities were evacuated as a precaution as the smoke turned the skies over Jerusalem gray.

The fire has burned about 20 sq. km and is the most significant fire Israel has had in the past decade, according to Tal Volvovitch, a spokesperson for Israel’s fire and rescue authority. 

She said the fire has “miraculously” not damaged any homes.

Israel’s fire and rescue authority warned the public to stay away from parks or forests, and to be exceptionally careful while lighting barbecues. 

Thursday is Israel’s Independence Day, which is typically marked with large family cookouts in parks and forests.

At least 12 people were treated in hospitals on Wednesday, mainly due to smoke inhalation, while another 10 people were treated in the field, Magen David Adom Ambulance services said.

Italy, Croatia, Spain, France, Ukraine, and Romania were sending planes to help battle the flames, while several other countries, including North Macedonia and Cyprus, were also sending water-dropping aircraft.

Israeli authorities said 10 firefighting planes were operating on Thursday morning, with another eight aircraft to arrive during the day.

Israel’s fire and rescue authority lifted the evacuation order on approximately a dozen towns in the Jerusalem hills on Thursday.

Three Catholic religious communities that were forced to evacuate from their properties on Wednesday could also return on Thursday, said Farid Jubran, the spokesperson for the Latin Patriarchate. 

He said their agricultural lands, including vineyards and olive trees, suffered heavy damage, and some buildings were damaged. 

But there were no injuries, and historic churches were not affected.

The main highway linking Jerusalem to Tel Aviv was opened again on Thursday, a day after the flames had encroached on the road, forcing drivers to abandon their cars and flee in terror. 

On Thursday morning, broad swathes of burned areas were visible from the highway, while pink anti-flame retardant dusted the top of burned trees and bushes. 

Smoke and the smell of fire hung heavy in the air.

In 2010, a massive forest fire burned for four days on northern Israel’s Mount Carmel, claiming 44 lives and destroying around 12,000 acres, much of it woodland.


Syrian Druze leader Al-Hijri slams ‘genocidal campaign’, Israel issues warning

Updated 01 May 2025
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Syrian Druze leader Al-Hijri slams ‘genocidal campaign’, Israel issues warning

  • Syrian Druze spiritual leader denounced the latest violence in Jaramana and Sahnaya near Damascus as an 'unjustifiable genocidal campaign'
  • The violence was sparked by the circulation of an audio recording attributed to a Druze citizen and deemed blasphemous

DAMASCUS: Syrian Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri on Thursday condemned what he called a “genocidal campaign” against his community after two days of sectarian clashes left 101 people dead.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned his country would respond “with significant force” if Syria’s new authorities fail to protect the Druze minority.
The violence poses a serious challenge to the new Syrian authorities who ousted longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December.
It comes after a wave of massacres in March in Syria’s Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast in which security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, according to rights groups.
It was the worst bloodshed since the ouster of Assad, who is from the minority community.

The government (should) protect its people

Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri, Druze spiritual leader

Hijri in a statement on Thursday denounced the latest violence in Jaramana and Sahnaya near Damascus as an “unjustifiable genocidal campaign” against the Druze.
He called for immediate intervention by “international forces to maintain peace and prevent the continuation of these crimes.”
Israel has ramped up its support for Syria’s Druze, with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday urging the international community to “fulfil its role in protecting the minorities in Syria — especially the Druze — from the regime and its gangs of terror.”
In a later statement, Katz said: “Should the attacks on the Druze resume and the Syrian regime fail to prevent them, Israel will respond with significant force.”

The fighting involved security forces, allied fighters, and local Druze groups. It resulted in the deaths of 30 government loyalists, 21 Druze fighters, and 10 civilians, including Sahnaya’s former mayor, Husam Warwar.

In the southern province of Sweida, which is the heartland of the Druze minority, 40 Druze gunmen were killed, 35 of them in an ambush on the Sweida-Damascus road on Wednesday.
Blasphemous audio
The violence was sparked by the circulation of an audio recording attributed to a Druze citizen and deemed blasphemous.
AFP was unable to confirm the recording’s authenticity.
Truces was reached in Jaramana on Tuesday and in Sahnaya on Wednesday.
The government announced it was deploying forces in Sahnaya to ensure security, and accused “outlaw groups” of instigating the clashes.
However, Hijri said he no longer trusts “an entity pretending to be a government... because the government does not kill its people through its extremist militias... and then claim they were unruly elements after the massacres.”

Should the attacks on the Druze resume and the Syrian regime fail to prevent them, Israel will respond with significant force

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz

“The government (should) protect its people,” he said.
Syria’s new authorities, who have roots in the Al-Qaeda jihadist network, have vowed inclusive rule in the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic country, but must also contend with pressures from radical Islamists.
On Wednesday, a foreign ministry statement vowed to “protect all components” of Syrian society, including the Druze, and rejected “foreign interference.”
Israeli air strikes
Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani on Thursday reiterated Syria’s rejection of demands for international intervention, posting on X that “national unity is the solid foundation for any process of stability or revival.”
“Any call for external intervention, under any pretext or slogan, only leads to further deterioration and division,” he added.
Israel sees the new forces in Syria as jihadists and carried out strikes near Damascus on Wednesday. Israel said its forces were ordered to hit Syrian government targets “should the violence against Druze communities continue.”
“A stern message was conveyed to the Syrian regime — Israel expects them to act to prevent harm to the Druze community,” a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel has attacked hundreds of military sites in Syria since Assad’s overthrow.
It has also sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone that used to separate Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights and voiced support for Syria’s Druze.
Israel’s military said Thursday two injured Syrian Druze had been evacuated to northern Israel for treatment.
A United Nations statement urged “all parties to exercise maximum restraint” and “uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law.”


Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 29

Updated 01 May 2025
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Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 29

  • Thursday’s toll included eight people killed in an Israeli air strike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Yunis refugee
  • Four people were killed in an air strike east of Shaaf in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighborhood

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Thursday Israeli bombardment killed at least 29 people since midnight in the war-ravaged territory, which has been under Israeli aid blockade for nearly two months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile said that while the military’s mission was to bring home all the hostages from Gaza, its “supreme goal” was to achieve victory against Hamas.
Israel resumed its campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after a two-month truce collapsed over disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas whose 2023 attack triggered the conflict.
Civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir said Thursday’s toll included eight people killed in an air strike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza.
Four people were killed in an air strike east of Shaaf in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighborhood, he told AFP.
At least 17 more were killed in other attacks across the Palestinian territory, including one that hit a tent sheltering displaced people near the central city of Deir el-Balah, the agency said.
“We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces,” said Ahmed Abu Zarqa after a deadly strike in Khan Yunis.
“This is no way to live. Enough, we’re tired, enough!
“We don’t know what to do with our lives any more. We’d rather die than live this kind of life.”
At Nasser Hospital
AFP images showed residents digging through rubble in search of bodies, which were carried away on stretchers under blankets.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, rescuers rushed a screaming wounded child out of an ambulance, as a group of women mourned.
“What have the children done wrong? What have we done wrong? Enough is enough. Just drop a nuclear bomb on us,” said Ghada Abu Sahlul as she mourned the death of a relative.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.


Israel vows ‘significant force’ if Syria govt fails to protect Druze

Sheikh Laith al-Balous, centre, a Druze leader in the southern Sweida province, speaks with Sweida governor Mustafa al-Bakour.
Updated 01 May 2025
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Israel vows ‘significant force’ if Syria govt fails to protect Druze

  • At least 101 people have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes near Syria’s capital, most of them Druze fighters, a war monitor said

JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Thursday that Israel will respond forcefully if Syria’s government fails to protect the Druze minority, after two days of deadly sectarian clashes near Damascus.
“Should the attacks on the Druze resume and the Syrian regime fail to prevent them, Israel will respond with significant force,” Katz said in a statement.
Israel has ramped up its support for Syria’s Druze in recent days, with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday urging the international community to “fulfil its role in protecting the minorities in Syria — especially the Druze — from the regime and its gangs of terror.”
At least 101 people have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes near Syria’s capital, most of them Druze fighters, a war monitor said in an updated toll on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Israel carried out a strike against what it called an “extremist group” preparing to attack members of the Druze community near Damascus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strike on the town of Sahnaya sent a “stern message” to Syria’s new government.
Israel’s armed forces chief later ordered the military to prepare to strike Syrian government targets if the Druze community faced more violence.
Israel’s military said two injured Druze Syrians were evacuated from Syria on Thursday for treatment in Israel, after announcing Wednesday that three had been evacuated.
It did not specify how or where they had been injured.
In its statement on Thursday, it said they were taken for treatment to the town of Safed in northern Israel “after sustaining injuries in Syrian territory.”
“The IDF (military) is deployed in southern Syria and is prepared to prevent the entry of hostile forces into the area of Druze villages,” it added.