The Israeli army withdrew from the southern Lebanese village of Bani Hayyan on Friday morning, two days after entering the area in the Marjayoun district. According to local reports, Israeli forces demolished multiple homes as they retreated.
Friday, December 20, 2024
In a highly anticipated episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes, recently retired Mossad agents provide unprecedented insights into a decade-long covert operation targeting Hezbollah. The agents, whose identities remain concealed with masks and altered voices, share with journalist Lesley Stahl the intricate details of their mission to sabotage Hezbollah’s communications network.
Friday, December 20, 2024
The United States has important equities in Lebanon, including a desire for a generally friendly government’s economic and political stability; security cooperation; long-standing relations with the large Christian community in Lebanon and Lebanese diaspora in the United States; and ultimately peace between Israel and Lebanon within a broader regional settlement. Achieving these objectives will require navigating a tumultuous period in the country’s history following a war between Hezbollah and Israel that has devastated a large part of the country, exacerbating Lebanon’s already challenging economic conditions. But perhaps the most important dynamic will be how a likely Sunni-dominated state of uncertain composition in Syria will differ in its intentions toward Lebanon from the previous Alawite-led minoritarian Assad regime.
Thursday, December 19, 2024
The news of the sudden and unexpected demise of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has met a mixed response in Europe. The jubilation that a murderous dictator and close ally of Russia and Iran has fallen is not just good for the Syrian people but serves as a morale booster for Eastern Europeans wondering whether Russia can be defeated
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the richest global athletes, has unveiled his upgraded private jet reportedly worth $73 million. With its top-notch design, exceptional speed and range of 7500 nautical miles, the Gulfstream G650 is among the fastest jets in the world.
Monday, December 16, 2024
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola believes he will need a bigger squad to handle soccer’s ever-expanding fixture schedule.
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Sunday 4 June 2023 11:04:13
A son of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has been held in Lebanon for more than seven years, began a hunger strike Saturday to protest his detention without trial, his lawyer said.
Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped from neighboring Syria where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of a Shiite cleric who went missing in Libya 45 years ago.
Gadhafi was later taken by Lebanese authorities and has been held in a Beirut jail without trial.
Attorney Paul Romanos told The Associated Press that his client started the hunger strike Saturday morning and “he is serious and will continue with it until the end.” Romanos did not go into details of the case as he was not authorized to speak about it to the media.
Gadhafi issued a statement describing his conditions.
“How can a political prisoner be held without a fair trial all these years?” Gadhafi, who is married to a Lebanese woman, wrote in his statement.
The Libyan citizen added that now that he is on hunger strike, “those who are treating me unjustly” will be responsible for the results. He added that “the time has come to liberate the law from the hands of politicians.”
Romanos said his client suffers from back pain due to being held in a small cell for years without being able to move or exercise.
The disappearance of prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr in 1978 has been a long-standing sore point in Lebanon. The cleric’s family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, though most Lebanese presume al-Sadr is dead. He would be 94 years old.
Al-Sadr was the founder of a Shiite political and military group that took part in the lengthy Lebanese civil war that began in 1975, largely pitting Muslims against Christians.
Born in the Iranian holy city of Qom, al-Sadr came to Lebanon in 1959 to work for the rights of Shiites in the southern port town of Tyre. In 1974, a year before Lebanon’s 15-year civil war broke out, al-Sadr founded the Movement of the Deprived, attracting thousands of followers.
The following year, he established the military wing Amal — Arabic for “hope” and an acronym for the militia’s Arabic name, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades — which later fought in Lebanon’s civil war. The group is headed by Lebanon’s powerful Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Since al-Sadr’s disappearance, Libya has maintained that the cleric and his two traveling companions left Tripoli in 1978 on a flight to Rome and suggested he was a victim of a power struggle among Shiites.
Most of al-Sadr’s followers are convinced that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias.
The Libyan leader was killed by opposition fighters in 2011, ending his four-decade rule of the north African country. Even after his death, al-Sadr’s fate is still unknown.
Hannibal Gadhafi was born two years before al-Sadr disappeared. He fled to Algeria after Tripoli fell, along with his mother and several other relatives. He later ended up in Syria where he was given political asylum before being kidnapped and brought to Lebanon.
