US Sen. Elizabeth Warren walks following a Senate Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Sept. 28, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson

A near-majority of the Democratic Party’s incoming leadership in the US Senate recently voted in favor of a partial arms embargo on Israel, fueling concerns that America’s primary center-left political party is increasingly distancing itself from the Jewish state.

On Tuesday, Senate Democrats announced their new 11-member leadership team for the 119th session of the US Congress, which will begin next month. Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) will continue to lead Democrats in the upper legislative chamber, but this time soon as the minority party. Meanwhile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) elevated to the No. 3 spot as the chair of the Steering and Policy Committee and Sen. Cory Booker (NJ) moved to the No. 4 spot as chair of the Strategic Communications Committee.

Other members of the leadership team include: Sen. Mark Warner (VA) as co-vice chair of the conference, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (WI) as conference secretary, and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV) as vice chair of outreach.

The other five newly elected members of Democratic leadership, or 45 percent of the group, voted last month in support of each of three separate resolutions aimed at depriving Israel of weapons amid its ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. The lawmakers are Sens. Dick Durbin (IL), party whip; Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), co-vice chair of the conference; Bernie Sanders (VT), an independent who caucuses with Democrats and will be chair of outreach; and Chris Murphy (CT) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), both deputy conference secretaries.

All five senators voted for measures to ban the sale of tank cartridges to Israel and target sales of mortar rounds and precision-guided bombs to the Jewish state.

Despite their votes, however, the Senate overwhelmingly smacked down all three measures, which were spearheaded by Sanders. A total of 19 senators — 17 Democrats and two independents — supported at least one of the three resolutions.

Durbin said that his reason for voting to suspend arms transfers to Israel was “straightforward,” arguing that although he supported Israel’s right to self-defense, too many women and children had died in the Gaza conflict and the Israel-Hamas war “must end.”

Warren wrote that the Biden administration’s alleged failure to “follow US law and to suspend arms shipments is a grave mistake that undermines American credibility worldwide.” She accused Israel of inflicting starvation on Gaza and ignoring American demands to accelerate the flow of aid into the war-torn enclave. 

Sanders, a longtime critic of Israel, claimed that “there is no longer any doubt that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of US and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Although Sanders noted that he believes Israel has a right to exist, he argued that the Jewish state has indiscriminately bombed the Palestinian civilian population. 

Murphy wrote that he believes Israel has inflicted a significant degree of suffering on the Palestinian population and that “humanitarian conditions in Gaza have gotten worse, not better.”

Democrats in Congress have grown increasingly critical of Israel in the year following Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Although Democrats have repeatedly reiterated that Israel has a right to “defend itself,” many have raised concerns over the Jewish state’s conduct in the war in Gaza, reportedly exerting private pressure on US President Joe Biden to adopt a more adversarial stance against Israel and display more public sympathy for the Palestinians.

Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.

Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations, direct attacks, and store weapons.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in October that Israel had delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation a year ago. He also noted that Hamas terrorists often hijack and steal aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.

The Israeli government ramped up the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza in recent weeks under pressure from the United States, which has expressed concern about the plight of civilians in the war-torn enclave.

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Smoke billows after an Israeli Air Force air strike in southern Lebanon village, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, Oct. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhar

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been significantly degraded militarily by Israel, but the Iran-backed terrorist group will likely try to rebuild its stockpiles and forces and pose a long-term threat to the US and its regional allies, four sources briefed on updated US intelligence told Reuters.

US intelligence agencies assessed in recent weeks that Hezbollah, even amid Israel’s military campaign, had begun to recruit new fighters and was trying to find ways to rearm through domestic production and by smuggling materials through Syria, said a senior US official, an Israeli official, and two US lawmakers briefed on the intelligence, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It’s unclear to what extent those efforts have slowed since last week when Hezbollah and Israel reached a shaky ceasefire, two of the sources said. The deal specifically prohibits Hezbollah from procuring weapons or weapons parts.

In recent days, Israel has tried to undercut Hezbollah‘s ability to rebuild its military forces, striking several Hezbollah rocket launchers in Lebanon, bombing border crossings with Syria, and blocking an Iranian aircraft suspected of ferrying weapons for the group.

US intelligence agencies assess that Hezbollah is operating with limited firepower. It has lost more than half its weapons stockpiles and thousands of fighters during the conflict with Israel, reducing Tehran’s overall military capacity to its lowest point in decades, according to the intelligence.

But Hezbollah has not been destroyed. It still maintains thousands of short-range rockets in Lebanon and it will try to rebuild using weapons factories in neighboring countries with available transport routes, the sources said.

One of the lawmakers said Hezbollah has been “knocked back” in the short term and had its ability to conduct command and control reduced. But the lawmaker added: “This organization is designed to be disrupted.”

US officials are concerned about Hezbollah‘s access to Syria, where Syrian rebels recently launched an offensive to retake government strongholds in Aleppo and Hama. Hezbollah has long used Syria as a safe haven and transport hub, taking military equipment and weapons from Iraq, through Syria, and into Lebanon through the rugged border crossings.

Washington is trying to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to limit Hezbollah‘s operations, enlisting other countries in the region to help, a senior US official said. Reuters reported on Monday that the US and the United Arab Emirates have discussed possibly lifting sanctions on Assad if he peels himself away from Iran and cuts off weapons routes to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah officials have said the group will continue to function as a “resistance” against Israel, but its secretary general Naim Qassem has not brought up the group’s weapons in recent speeches, including after the ceasefire was reached. Sources in Lebanon say Hezbollah‘s priority is rebuilding homes for its constituency after Israeli strikes destroyed swaths of Lebanon’s south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The US National Security Council and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence declined to comment on the updated US intelligence.

TRAINING CHALLENGES

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said last week that Hezbollah had not been weakened by Israel’s killing of many of its leaders since January and by its ground assault against the group since early October. He said Hezbollah had been able to reorganize and fight back effectively.

However, US intelligence indicates that Israel has taken out thousands of Hezbollah‘s missiles in Lebanon, pushing cadres of its fighters back from the border with Israel, the sources told Reuters.

While tracking the exact number of Hezbollah fighters remains a challenge, the intelligence notes that the group will likely face significant training challenges for years to come, the sources said.

US officials say Hezbollah‘s breakdown points to a growing gap in Iran’s military capacity and raises doubts about its ability to use its proxies to attack Israel and its other adversaries in the short term. Iran also backs Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip and the Houthi terror group in Yemen.

In the past, had Israel considered bombing Iran, it faced the prospect of Hezbollah in Lebanon reciprocating, said a second US official, but with Hezbollah weakened, Israel can attack Iran directly without the same threat to its north.

In Gaza, US intelligence indicates Hamas can only sustain small, guerrilla-style tactics after having lost at least half of its fighters. The Houthis continue to launch missiles and drones from Yemen, but the US has been able to intercept most.

The updated US intelligence — briefed to senior officials and lawmakers in recent weeks — emerges ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The US charged an Iranian man last month in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. Iran has rejected the accusation.

During his first term in office, Trump embraced a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, imposing harsh sanctions on Tehran, its military complex, and its most lucrative economic sectors. Trump in 2018 pulled the US out of a 2015 international agreement meant to deny Tehran the ability to build nuclear weapons. In 2020 Trump was responsible for a strike in Iraq that killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

The post Hezbollah Aims to Rebuild Longer Term Despite Israeli Blows, US Intel Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Displaced children who fled the Aleppo countryside, stand at the back of a truck in Tabqa, Syria, Dec. 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman

Syrian rebels battled government forces and allied militia on Wednesday in villages north and east of Hama, a major city whose capture would pile pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

The rebels have staged their biggest advance in years over the past week, seizing Aleppo — Syria’s biggest city before the war — in a lightning assault that has upended long stable frontlines and further destabilized a region already ablaze from war in Gaza.

On Wednesday, as the insurgents mounted fresh assaults around the outskirts of Hama, the most powerful rebel commander was shown on video touring Aleppo’s ancient citadel, historically a potent symbol of rule over northern Syria.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which was formerly an al Qaeda affiliate, was shown marching out of the citadel’s medieval gateway amid cheering supporters and escorted by masked fighters waving opposition flags.

It was a symbolic moment at a site where government forces had hung portraits of Assad when they captured the city in 2016 after a long siege, a major turning point in the war.

The loss of Aleppo last week has stunned Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies, with rebels rapidly taking a swathe of countryside around the city and pushing on to the outskirts of Hama on the road to Damascus.

UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen warned the Security Council on Tuesday that the situation was “extremely fluid and dangerous,” adding that Syria faced danger of “further division, deterioration, and destruction.”

Syria’s civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people, sent many millions fleeing across borders, and drew in regional and global powers after erupting in 2011 in a rebellion against Assad.

Syrian state media and rebels said there was fighting on Wednesday around al-Uwayr and neighboring villages after pro-government forces had pushed back an assault overnight on Jabal Zain al-Abidin, just north of Hama.

Fighting in Uwayr would indicate rebels were advancing into areas of countryside on the eastern flank of Hama, which is one of Syria’s most important cities and has stayed in government hands throughout the conflict.

ALLIES

Moscow and Tehran, distracted by conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Middle East, have scrambled to get more support to Assad, with Russia intensifying air strikes and Iran-backed Iraqi and Afghan militia groups heading to front lines.

Moscow and Tehran have been allies of the Assad dynasty for decades and Syria remains important to both. Assad represents an important link in the network of Shi’ite groups Iran backs across the region. Russia operates a Mediterranean naval port at Tartous and has an air base at Hmeimim near Latakia.

Russian air power and Iran’s network of regional militias were vital to Damascus clawing back most of the country from 2015-20 after losing swathes of territory to rebels in the war’s early years.

Rebels and Syrian military sources both cited a combination of air strikes and the arrival of reinforcements as crucial in staving off an insurgent approach into northern Hama late on Tuesday.

Iran said on Tuesday it would consider sending forces if asked, and Russia said it would strongly support efforts to “counter terrorist groups and restore constitutional order.”

Meanwhile Assad has started a new conscription push, announcing a 50 percent increase in military pay and setting up checkpoints in Damascus and eastern Deir al-Zor signing up young men to join the army, residents said.

Syrian state media reported further arrivals of reinforcements to Hama on Wednesday.

REBELS

Golani’s appearance in Aleppo underscores the growing sway of HTS, long the most powerful faction in northwest Syria, regarded not only by Damascus and its allies but also by Western countries as a terrorist group.

HTS was originally called the Nusra Front as the main al Qaeda franchise in Syria before cutting formal ties with the global jihadist network in 2016.

The insurgents’ rapid advance over the past week has brought them new territory that they may struggle to govern, with food and fuel shortages already reported in Aleppo.

It has also led to the capture of several Syrian military bases and rebel sources said fleeing government forces had abandoned significant amounts of weapons and equipment, now in insurgent hands.

HTS fights alongside more mainstream rebel factions that are backed by Turkey.

Ankara also supports the Syrian National Army, a separate rebel grouping that holds a strip of territory along the border. It wants to keep Kurdish groups in Syria away from the frontier and to create a haven for Syrian refugees now living in Turkey.

The United States, which still has a small contingent of troops on the ground after intervening to help defeat Islamic State from 2014-2017, supports an alliance led by Syria’s main Kurdish armed group.

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