الكاتب: kafej

You would need a large piece of paper to list every national crisis faced by the people of Lebanon over the past 50 years.

This multi-religious nation has long struggled to make itself work, with political disagreements ending in violent confrontation – and a 15-year civil war.

The current situation offers few reasons to feel cheerful as a caretaker government tries to navigate a disastrous economic crisis.

Follow live: Netanyahu says Israel not seeking to govern Gaza

Yet people have something else to worry about with the threat of all-out war with Israel now looming on its southern border.

The country’s most powerful faction, the Shiite group Hezbollah, is currently engaged in a tit-for-tat battle with the Israelis, largely being fought within several kilometres of their shared border.

But this limited conflict could quickly change with the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, backing militant group Hamas in the month-long war in Gaza.

In a speech broadcast last week, Nasrallah warned “all options are open”.

Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday, he again said Hezbollah were “ready for all possibilities”.

The key question here in Lebanon is both simple and complex. Do the people of Lebanon favour a fully-fledged war with Israel?

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Crucially, everyone knows how destructive a war would be because Lebanon has been through it before.

In 2006, Hezbollah and Israel fought a calamitous 33-day war which displaced a million people in Lebanon. Large parts of south Beirut were levelled by Israeli bombing.

Former Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, was credited with leading the negotiations which resolved that conflict and in an exclusive interview with Sky News, he told us that Lebanon cannot handle another war.

“In the past 50 years Lebanon suffered from six Israeli invasions in 1969 in 78 in 82, in 93, 96 and 2006. How much conflict can this country take? I cannot [take it].

“Now Lebanon suffers from a series of major crises that go hand in hand with each other. We have a political crisis, we can’t agree on electing a new president, we can’t rejuvenate our institutions and we have a grave economic crisis… this is why I have made myself clear. We cannot get involved in this war.”

Like many Lebanese however, the former prime minister is deeply angry about the Israeli invasion of Gaza – and the failure of the international community to intervene.

He chose to express his feelings with this question: “Assume that there are 500 cats dying from a disease of something in Gaza.

“Tell me how the international community would react? But we are talking about 2.2 million people being massacred and what are we doing with them? If they were cats, I think that international community would come and save them.”

And it is here that Mr Siniora finds himself in agreement with Hezbollah, who say the situation faced by Palestinians in Gaza is unacceptable.

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We spoke to Kassem Kassir, a figure widely considered to be close to Hezbollah’s leadership.

“I want peace [with Israel]. We all want peace, but there will be no peace [in the region] without peace in Gaza.

“What is happening cannot be tolerated. The question should be asked the other way around: ‘Is it possible to remain silent about what is happening in Gaza?’”

The anger and frustration expressed by Mr Siniora and Hezbollah’s leadership are shared and remarkably similar.

Where the two parties diverge is in terms of what to do about it. The former prime minister says the international community has to stop the war – and to do it quickly.

“There is a situation that has to be addressed otherwise nobody can stop the situation from engulfing many other countries and many other players – that’s why the matter is so urgent, sensitive and [potentially] destructive.”

Hezbollah views the exasperation and indignation in a different way. In a divided country, such emotions are an asset to be exploited according to Mr Kassir.

“Hezbollah takes into account the presence of supportive public opinion. The more Israel continued the massacres, the closer the people came to the idea of accepting war… every day that the war expands inside Gaza, the Lebanese people get closer to accepting the war.”

This is an important revelation, and it gets us closer to Hezbollah’s strategic thinking.

With a military wing that can fight – but cannot defeat – the Israelis, their leaders are looking for a groundswell of support in Lebanon and the region.

Without it, people like Nasrallah will worry about the destructive consequences that will follow a major clash.

“There are 5 million people in Lebanon, half of whom may support the Palestinians, but there are a billion Arabs in the region who are ready to enter the war and support Gaza,” says Kassir.

“We will [make the] sacrifice when the right time comes. The party will not remain silent any longer and the entire region will enter the war, including Egypt and Jordan.

“It will be a historic moment.”

Dozens of Ukrainians have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Israel remains vague over reports of pauses in fighting.

The US claimed yesterday that Israel has agreed to pause fighting in Gaza for four hours each day to allow civilians safe escape, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only described “a few hours here, a few hours there”.

Among those trying to flee the bombarded Palestinian enclave are Ukrainians, including Tatyana Tapalova, who fears returning to Ukraine with her young child.

Follow live: Netanyahu says Israel is not seeking to govern Gaza

“I don’t want to go from one war to another,” she said, as she waited at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza with her Ukrainian passport in hand.

A total of 89 Ukrainians have been evacuated, Mr Zelenskyy said, since the evacuation process began on Wednesday for his compatriots.

They are now in Egypt, he said, adding efforts to evacuate any remaining Ukrainian nationals from the strip are ongoing.

“It is very important that as many civilians as possible are protected and that the war that is going on in the Middle East does not lead to a full-scale collapse of international stability,” he said.

“Everyone needs security and peace. We continue this work. A very painstaking and delicate process.”

Russia is continuing its onslaught of Ukraine, with particular focus currently on the key eastern town of Avdiivka, where shelling is “round the clock”.

Drone attacks have been reported across the country, including over Kyiv, which gives Ukrainians in Gaza a potentially deadly dilemma.

Follow live: Russia attacking key town ’round the clock’

A senior US official said on Thursday the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip is “very possibly” higher than the 10,000 reported by the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Despite near-constant shelling, Israel says it is encouraging civilians to flee to the south, where bombing has also been reported.

But it isn’t clear what arrangement – if any – has actually been agreed by Israel for temporary pauses in fighting.

When questioned by Fox News on the matter, Mr Netanyahu said “the fighting continues against the Hamas enemy”.

“But in specific locations for a given period – a few hours here, a few hours there – we want to facilitate a safe passage of civilians away from the zone of fighting,” he added.

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Israel has already opened the Salah al Din road as a “humanitarian corridor” on several days this week, to allow Gazan citizens to flee south, but it is unclear whether the pauses would take place on a wider scale across a bigger area.

The White House and President Biden indicated the daily four-hour pauses would take place in areas of northern Gaza, but Mr Netanyahu did not confirm this.

The Israeli PM also said there was no timetable for the war, only that it would end after Hamas is defeated.

He added that though Israel had no intention of occupying or governing Gaza, it did envision a radically reshaped territory and wider region.

“We don’t want to seek to govern Gaza, we don’t seek to occupy, but we seek to give it and us a better future in the entire Middle East,” he said.

A long-beaked echidna, named after David Attenborough and thought to be extinct, has been rediscovered in the mountains of Indonesia. 

The long-lost species of mammal is described as having the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole.

It was caught on camera in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains more than 60 years after it was last recorded – on the very last day of a four-week expedition led by Oxford University scientists.

Biologist James Kempton found the images of the small creature in the forest undergrowth on the last memory card retrieved from more than 80 remote cameras.

“There was a great sense of euphoria, and also relief having spent so long in the field with no reward until the very final day,” he said of the moment he first saw the footage.

“I shouted out to my colleagues that were still remaining… and said ‘we found it, we found it’ – I ran in from my desk to the living room and hugged the guys.”

Echidnas share their name with a half-woman, half-serpent Greek mythological creature, and were described by the team as shy, nocturnal burrow-dwellers who are notoriously difficult to find.

“The reason it appears so unlike other mammals is because it is a member of the monotremes, an egg-laying group that separated from the rest of the mammal tree-of-life about 200 million years ago,” Dr Kempton said.

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This particular species, Zaglossus attenboroughi, has only been scientifically recorded once before, by a Dutch botanist in 1961.

A different echidna species is found throughout Australia and lowland New Guinea.

Dr Kempton’s team survived an earthquake, malaria and even a leech attached to an eyeball during their trip.

They worked with the local village, Yongsu Sapari, to navigate and explore the remote terrain of northeastern Papua.

The echidna is embedded in the local culture, including a tradition that says conflicts are resolved by sending one party into the forest to search for the mammal and another to the ocean to find a marlin.

Both creatures were seen as so difficult to find that it would often take decades or a generation to locate them – but once found, the animals symbolised the end of the conflict and a return to harmonious relationships.

Astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded NASA’s first Apollo mission to the moon, has died aged 95. 

Borman commanded Apollo 8’s historic Christmas 1968 flight, which saw the spacecraft circle the moon 10 times – paving the way for the following year’s lunar landing.

He died on Tuesday 7 November in Billings, Montana, NASA said.

Paying tribute to “one of NASA‘s best,” the space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said: “Astronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero.

“His lifelong love for aviation and exploration was only surpassed by his love for his wife Susan.”

Borman’s wife Susan was his childhood sweetheart. She died in 2021.

The Apollo 8 mission launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 21 December 1968 and together with his crew, James Lovell and William Anders, Borman spent three days travelling to the moon before slipping into lunar orbit on Christmas Eve.

They then circled the moon 10 times on 24 and 25 December, before beginning their journey home on 27 December.

On Christmas Eve, a live telecast from the orbiter saw the astronauts read from the Bible’s Book of Genesis, saying: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

Ending the broadcast, Borman said: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.”

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In his book, Countdown: An Autobiography, Borman recalled how the Earth looked from space.

“We were the first humans to see the world in its majestic totality, an intensely emotional experience for each of us,” he wrote. “We said nothing to each other, but I was sure our thoughts were identical – of our families on that spinning globe.

“And maybe we shared another thought I had, This must be what God sees.”

After NASA, he moved into the aviation industry and joined Eastern Airlines, who were the fourth-largest airline in the US at the time.

EXPLAINER

As the conflict between Israel and Gaza enters its 35th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, November 10, 2023:

The latest developments

• Israel has agreed to four-hour daily pauses in its war on Gaza, the White House said on Thursday.
• On Thursday, 695 foreign passport holders and dependents were able to leave Gaza for Egypt through the Rafah crossing, according to the Red Cross.
• Thousands of Palestinians are continuing to escape to the south of Gaza through a “corridor” announced by the Israeli military. On November 9, more than 50,000 people left areas in the north, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
• Top diplomats and defence chiefs of India and the United States discussed the Israel-Hamas war at a meeting in New Delhi, the Associated Press news agency reported on Friday.

Human impact and fighting

• At least 243 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza between Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, according to the UN. In all, 10,812 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s military campaign started on October 7, including 4,412 children.
• Gaza’s hospitals have been under fire during the past day. On Thursday, Israeli raids hit Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, killing six and injuring four according to the hospital’s director. The vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital was hit by 11 missiles, according to its director. Al-Awda Hospital, which already warned of fuel depletion and a shutdown on Thursday has also been struck overnight, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. Early on Friday, strikes were reported by Al Jazeera Arabic in the vicinity of Gaza Patient’s Friends Hospital, while the Red Crescent reported a “violent bombardment” near al-Quds Hospital.
• Israel continuing its war for another month could push an additional half a million people in Gaza into poverty, the United Nations reported on Thursday.
• Israel’s military said it launched strikes on Syria early on Friday in response to a drone that hit a school building in Eilat.
• On Thursday, Yemen’s Houthi group targeted Israel with drones and missiles, including sites in Eilat. The attacks also disrupted internet service in Yemen, according to the AP.

Diplomacy

• More than 500 former campaign staffers who helped Joe Biden secure his election as United States president are pushing for him to call for a ceasefire.
• In the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak is being put under pressure to sack British Home Secretary Suella Braverman for her comments against pro-Palestine demonstrations.
• In a push for international action, three Palestinian rights groups have filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the body to investigate Israel’s “apartheid”.
• In the Middle East, Iran’s foreign minister said on Friday that expansion of the Israel-Gaza war has now become “inevitable”.
• Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim is travelling to Egypt, according to a statement from the Qatari government’s website. The talks are expected to focus on the crisis in Gaza and the release of captives held by Hamas.
• On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he discussed the possibility of allowing 500 humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza daily when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ankara. He added that Blinken took a “positive approach” to the passage of more aid, and that Turkey is ready to take Palestinian patients into its hospitals, Reuters is reporting.

Arrests and attacks in the occupied West Bank

• At least 19 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank over the past 24 hours, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. In all, at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 7.
• Israeli arrests and raids were under way early on Friday and involved fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.