January 17th, 20250In Lebanon, citizens welcomed the election of a president after more than two years of vacancy. However, a political crisis emerged when the "Shi'a duo" — the Amal Movement and Hezbollah — felt an agreement had been breached regarding their support for President Joseph Aoun. The duo was taken aback when 88 parliamentarians designated...
November 29th, 20240
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of displaced Lebanese residents began returning to their homes in Southern Lebanon as a ceasefire was called, halting the fighting between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah. After a nearly 14 month cross-border fight and Israel's invasion into Lebanon last month, with thousands killed, displaced and...
November 15th, 20240The Israeli offensive in Gaza and Lebanon continues to face significant challenges on multiple fronts. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is grappling with an intensifying internal political crisis and a looming corruption trial while the Israeli military faces an emboldened and well-organized resistance on the ground.
Military stalemate...
October 26th, 20240
Lebanon frontline and Israeli setbacks:
Over a month into Israel’s comprehensive and vicious military campaign against Lebanon, the Israeli army struggles to accomplish any significant gains along the northern border. Hezbollah forces, meanwhile, are not only repelling ground incursions but also intensifying their missile...
October 4th, 20240The Biden administration believes it is appropriate for Israel to continue with its ground and air attacks on Hezbollah for now, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday, even as he acknowledged the risk of the operation in Lebanon expanding beyond Israel's current aims.
Israel sent troops into southern...
October 4th, 20240
Last week was not an ordinary one in the history of the Middle East. Major events unfolded, starting with the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah by 85 tons of explosives in an Israeli airstrike. The strike targeted Hezbollah’s stronghold in Haret Hreik, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on...
September 20th, 20240TAIPEI – The president and founder of a Taiwanese pager company linked to the detonation of thousands of pagers targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon was questioned by prosecutors late into the night on Thursday, then released.
Taiwan-based Gold Apollo's president and founder Hsu Ching-kuang has said it did not manufacture the devices used...
September 20th, 20240Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says the pager and walkie-talkie attacks against its members in Lebanon and Syria this week crossed “all red lines” and the group will retaliate and is undeterred in its fight against Israel in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
On Thursday, in his first televised speech since the...
September 7th, 20240NEW YORK — A dual Lebanese-Belgian citizen accused by the United States of financing the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah is expected to plead guilty in a criminal case charging him with sanctions evasion and money-laundering conspiracies.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said in a court filing on Thursday that lawyers for Mohammad...
August 2nd, 20240WASHINGTON – D.C. – On Wednesday, the Biden administration urged Americans in Lebanon to “shelter in place” amid rising tensions in the Middle East over a series of attacks and retaliation among Hezbollah, Israel and Iran.
The State Department updated its travel advisory for the entire country of Lebanon to Level 4: Do Not...
June 21st, 20240BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Hezbollah has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that would allow it to target and destroy more critical Israeli military and infrastructure positions deeper inside Israel in case of an all-out war, the powerful group’s leader warned on Wednesday.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah’s comments came as the...
June 14th, 20240Hezbollah fired the most rockets it has launched at Israel in a single day since cross-border hostilities broke out eight months ago, as part of its retaliation on Wednesday for an Israeli strike which killed a senior Hezbollah field commander.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire since the eruption of the Gaza...
May 8th, 20240By Jamal I. Bittar
Last Friday, Israel launched an assault on Iran in response to an Iranian incursion onto Israeli soil the weekend prior, involving over 300 missiles and drones. Among the various options available to the Israeli government – ranging from assaults on numerous nuclear facilities, military bases and key national...
March 1st, 20240
BEIRUT — On Thursday, the Hezbollah group signaled that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip stops, but that it was also ready to keep on fighting if Israel continued hostilities.
Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been trading fire since the Palestinian group Hamas...
February 16th, 20240BEIRUT — On Thursday, Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at a northern Israeli town in a "preliminary response" to the killing of 10 civilians in southern Lebanon, the deadliest day for Lebanese civilians in four months of cross-border hostilities.
The United Nations urged a halt to what it called a "dangerous escalation" of the...
January 12th, 20240This article was written shortly before Israel assassinated the deputy head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut on January 2. The assassination is a further illustration of the Israeli government's desire to escape the consequences of its disastrous war in Gaza, by igniting a regional...
January 5th, 20240BEIRUT — On Wednesday, the head of Lebanon's Hezbollah said it "cannot be silent" after the killing of Hamas' deputy leader in the suburb of Beirut and warned that his heavily armed forces would fight to the finish if Israel chose to extend war from Gaza to Lebanon.
Israeli forces meanwhile kept up their aerial and ground assaults...
November 10th, 20230WASHINGTON, D.C./BAGHDAD – On Thursday, U.S. forces were targeted in three attacks in Iraq but suffered no casualties, security sources have said, in the most geographically widespread series of strikes on U.S. assets in a single day since the Israel-Hamas conflict started.
A defective drone in Iraq may have helped keep America from...
October 13th, 20230
Under a barrage of more than 3,000 rockets, hundreds of Hamas gunmen stormed into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Oct. 7, on motorbikes, paragliders and four-wheel drives, unleashing unprecedented attacks on nearby towns and villages of Jewish settlers.
Hundreds of trained Palestinian militants appeared...
October 13th, 20230 On Thursday Israel and the White House condemned remarks by Donald Trump in which he praised the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over an attack by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed more than 1,300 people in Israel.
Trump, a former Republican president who is the front...
August 18th, 20230An escalating war of words between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon echoes heightened tension at the border, with each vowing to return the other to the "stone age" and preparing for a possible conflict even as they deny seeking one.
Israel and Hezbollah have avoided war across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since their last major clash...
August 12th, 20230The clashes on Wednesday between Hezbollah members and armed Christian villagers in the town of Kahaleh, which is a Lebanese Forces stronghold, stole the limelight and overshadowed all other events in Lebanon. The clashes that claimed two casualties — a member of Hezbollah and a Christian villager — came after a series of security...
November 10th, 20220Lebanon faces an indefinite government crisis that further complicates the path out of its financial meltdown, adding to risks of instability as hardship deepens and state institutions teeter on the brink of collapse.
Lebanon has had neither a head of state nor a fully empowered cabinet since Michel Aoun's term as president ended on...
October 28th, 20220BEIRUT — Lebanese and Israeli leaders finalized a U.S.-brokered maritime demarcation deal on Thursday, bringing a measure of accommodation between the enemy states as they eye offshore energy exploration.
Leaders from Lebanon, Israel and the U.S. have all hailed the deal as "historic" but the possibility of a wider diplomatic...
October 24th, 20220Before Lebanon's government approved a U.S.-brokered deal settling a decades-long maritime boundary dispute with Israel, the powerful Hezbollah had scrutinized the final draft line by line and given a crucial nod of acceptance.
Branded a "terrorist group" by Washington and a sworn enemy of Israel, the Iran-backed Hezbollah was certainly...
October 21st, 20220BEIRUT — Lebanon's parliament failed to elect a president for the third time on Thursday, bringing the country closer to institutional deadlock amid a deep financial crisis.
Outgoing President Michel Aoun's term ends on Oct. 31 and divisions remain among political blocs over the makeup of a new cabinet.
Lebanon has been without...
October 6th, 20220BEIRUT — Lebanon said U.S.-brokered talks to demarcate its maritime border with longtime foe Israel were at a "make or break" point on Thursday after Israel rejected revisions to a draft deal requested by Beirut, throwing years of diplomatic efforts into doubt.
The draft, which has not been made public, had a warm preliminary...
July 15th, 20220Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had strong words on Wednesday about a maritime oil dispute between Lebanon and Israel.
Nasrallah warned that "no one" would be allowed to operate in maritime oil and gas fields if Lebanon was barred from its "rights" in extracting from areas off of its own coast.
"If Lebanon is prevented...
