RSS
Facing Calls to Disarm, Hezbollah Ready to Discuss Weapons if Israel Withdraws, Senior Official Says
A man gestures the victory sign as he holds a Hezbollah flag, on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah, in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
As calls for Lebanon’s Hezbollah to disarm gain momentum, a senior Hezbollah official told Reuters the Iran-backed terrorist group is ready to hold talks with the Lebanese president about its weapons if Israel withdraws from south Lebanon and stops its strikes.
The prospect of talks aimed at securing Hezbollah‘s disarmament – unimaginable when it was at the zenith of its power just two years ago – underlines dramatic shifts in the Middle East power balance since Israel pummeled the Shi’ite Islamist group in a devastating conflict triggered by the Gaza war.
US-backed President Joseph Aoun, who vowed when he took office in January to establish a state monopoly on the control of arms, intends to open talks with Hezbollah over its arsenal soon, three Lebanese political sources said.
Hezbollah emerged severely weakened from the 2024 conflict with Israel when its top leaders and thousands of its fighters were killed and much of its rocket arsenal destroyed. The blow was compounded when its ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled from power in Syria, cutting its supply lines from Iran.
The senior Hezbollah official said the group was ready to discuss its arms in the context of a national defense strategy, but this hinged on Israel pulling out its troops from five hilltops in south Lebanon.
“Hezbollah is ready to discuss the matter of its arms if Israel withdraws from the five points, and halts its aggression against Lebanese,” the senior official told Reuters.
Hezbollah‘s position on potential discussions about its arms has not been previously reported. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to political sensitivities.
Hezbollah‘s media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The presidency declined to comment.
Israel, which sent ground troops into south Lebanon during the war, has largely withdrawn but decided in February not to leave the five hilltop positions. It said it intended eventually to hand them over to Lebanese troops once it was sure the security situation allowed.
RENEWED FOCUS ON HEZBOLLAH‘S ARMS
Despite a ceasefire since November, Israeli airstrikes have kept pressure on the group while Washington has demanded Hezbollah disarm and is preparing for nuclear talks with Hezbollah‘s Iranian backers.
Hezbollah has been the most powerful of the paramilitary groups Iran has backed across the region.
Reuters reported on Monday that several Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq are prepared to disarm for the first time to avert the threat of an escalating conflict with the Trump administration in the US.
Hezbollah has long rejected calls from its critics in Lebanon to disarm, describing its weapons as vital to defending the country from Israel. Deep differences over its arsenal spilled into a short civil war in 2008.
The group’s critics say the group has unilaterally dragged Lebanon into conflicts and the presence of its large arsenal outside of government control has undermined the state.
A US-brokered ceasefire with Israel requires the Lebanese army to dismantle all unauthorized military facilities and confiscate all arms, starting in areas south of the Litani River, which flows into the Mediterranean some 20 km (12 miles) north of the Israeli border.
Two sources familiar with Hezbollah‘s thinking said it is weighing handing to the army its most potent weapons north of the Litani, including drones and anti-tank missiles.
CALL FOR A DISARMAMENT TIMETABLE
Aoun has said Hezbollah‘s weaponry must be addressed through dialogue because any attempts to disarm the group by force would prompt conflict, the sources said.
Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, the head of Lebanon’s Maronite church, said last week it was time for all weapons to be in state hands, but this would need time and diplomacy because “Lebanon cannot bear a new war.”
Communication channels with relevant stakeholders are being opened to “begin studying the transfer of weapons” to state control, after the army and security services had extended state authority across Lebanon, a Lebanese official said, saying this was a move to implement Aoun’s policy.
The issue was also being discussed with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an important Hezbollah ally, who plays a key role in narrowing differences, she said.
US envoy Morgan Ortagus, who visited Beirut at the weekend, repeated Washington’s position that Hezbollah and other armed groups should be disarmed as soon as possible, and the Lebanese army was expected to do the job.
“It’s clear that Hezbollah has to be disarmed and it’s clear that Israel is not going to accept terrorists shooting at them, into their country, and that’s a position we understand,” Ortagus said in an April 6 interview with Lebanon’s LBCI television.
Several Lebanese government ministers want a disarmament timetable, said Kamal Shehadi, a minister affiliated with the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces party. Shehadi told Reuters disarmament should take no more than six months, citing post-civil war militia disarmament as a precedent.
A timetable – which presumably would impose deadlines on the process – is, he said, the “only way to protect our fellow citizens from the recurring attacks that are costing lives, costing the economy and causing destruction.”
He said he and other ministers hoped the full cabinet would endorse the idea and task the minister of defense with preparing the timetable. “We’re going to keep asking for it,” he said.
The most recent conflict began when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem in a March 29 speech said his group no longer has an armed presence south of the Litani, and had stuck to the ceasefire deal while Israel breached it “every day.” Israel has accused Hezbollah of maintaining military infrastructure in the south.
Hezbollah has put the onus on the Lebanese state to get Israel to withdraw and stop its attacks. Qassem said there was still time for diplomatic solutions. But he warned that the “resistance is present and ready” and indicated it could resort “to other options” if Israel doesn’t adhere to the deal.
The post Facing Calls to Disarm, Hezbollah Ready to Discuss Weapons if Israel Withdraws, Senior Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Freed Israeli Hostage Calls on Pulitzer Board to Revoke Prize to Palestinian Writer Who Justified Hamas Abductions
Former hostage Emily Damari is reunited with her mother, on Jan. 19, 2025. Credit: Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit.
The Pulitzer Prize board is facing increasing pressure to rescind its decision to give the high-profile journalism award earlier this week to a Palestinian writer who justified the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, shared antisemitic comments, and dismissed the accounts of hostages held in Gaza who said they were abused in captivity.
Emily Damari, a former hostage held in Gaza for over 500 days, sent a letter to the Pulitzer Prize board on Thursday urging it to rescind its latest award, expressing “shock and pain” upon learning that the prestigious honor had been given to a man who, earlier this year, questioned her captivity and denied the murder of the Bibas family.
“These are not word games – they are outright denials of documented atrocities,” Damari wrote in a post on X. “You claim to honor journalism that upholds truth, democracy, and human dignity. And yet you have chosen to elevate a voice that denies truth, erases victims, and desecrates the memory of the murdered.”
Dear Members of the @PulitzerPrizes board,
My name is Emily Damari. I was held hostage in Gaza for over 500 days.
On the morning of October 7, I was at home in my small studio apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas terrorists burst in, shot me and dragged me across the border…
— Emily Damari (@EmilyDamari1) May 8, 2025
Damari, a 28-year-old Israeli-British national, was shot and abducted from her home in Kfar Aza during Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel, during which Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people. She was held in captivity for months before being released earlier this year as part of a ceasefire deal. After being shot in the hand and leg, she required surgery and ultimately lost two fingers.
On Monday, Mosab Abu Toha, a Gaza-born writer currently living in the United States, won journalism’s most prestigious honor in the “commentary” category for a series of essays in The New Yorker about life in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.
In a statement announcing this year’s awards, the Pulitzer committee praised Abu Toha, 32, for his “essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel.”
Damari, who was one of 251 hostages kidnapped in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during the Oct. 7 onslaught, described the writer in different terms.
“Mosab Abu Toha is not a courageous writer,” Damari wrote in her letter. “He is the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier. And by honoring him, you have joined him in the shadows of denial.”
She continued, “This is not a question of politics. This is a question of humanity. And today, you have failed.”
HonestReporting, a media watchdog group, also called for the Pulitzer Prize to be rescinded after it highlighted several posts in which Abu Toha denigrated Damari and other hostages, denied the murder of the Bibas children, and spread fake news and antisemitic remarks across social media.
“How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most ‘hostages’). This is Emily Damari, a 28 UK-Israeli soldier that Hamas detailed [sic] on 10/7,” Abu Toha wrote in a post on Facebook earlier this year.
“So this girl is called a ‘hostage’? This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a ‘hostage’?” he continued.
In other social media posts, Abu Toha referred to Israeli soldiers as “killers who join the army and have family in the army,” while criticizing international media for “humaniz[ing]” them.
According to HonestReporting, the Palestinian writer’s online rhetoric fits the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, spreading misinformation and perpetuating harmful antisemitic stereotypes. The organization highlighted posts in which Abu Toha referred to Israeli troops as “terror soldiers” and likened Israel’s military actions in Gaza to the Holocaust.
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein condemned the prize awarded to Abu Toha as “shameful” and called for it to be rescinded.
“Apparently, attacking young Israeli women who were brutally kidnapped by Hamas, can get you the @PulitzerPrizes— at least when it comes to @MosabAbuToha,” he wrote in a post on X.
Apparently, attacking young Israeli women who were brutally kidnapped by Hamas, can get you the @PulitzerPrizes — at least when it comes to @MosabAbuToha.
Shameful. pic.twitter.com/o0e1kvO93B— Oren Marmorstein (@OrenMarmorstein) May 7, 2025
The post Freed Israeli Hostage Calls on Pulitzer Board to Revoke Prize to Palestinian Writer Who Justified Hamas Abductions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Dozens Arrested After Pro-Hamas Takeover of Columbia University Building
Pro-Palestinian protesters are detained by NYPD after taking part in a demonstration at Butler Library on the Columbia University campus in New York, US, May 7, 2025. Photo: Dana Edwards via Reuters Connect.
New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers on Wednesday arrested over 75 members of a pro-Hamas student group that occupied Columbia University’s Butler Library and vowed not to leave unless school officials accede to a list of five demands calling for, among other things, a boycott of Israel and divestment from armaments manufacturers.
“When Columbia speaks of its rich history and commitment to upholding its values, these are the values it speaks of: death dealing, displacement, imperialism, segregation, colonialism, nazism, state violence, abductions, anti-Black racism, zionism, and white western hegemony [sic],” the group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), said in a social manifesto issued after commandeering the Butler Library. “It is our duty to rise to this moment, for the people of Gaza. It is our duty to escalate. It is our duty to be brave. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
According to The Columbia Spectator, the demonstration soon faltered after CUAD was out maneuvered by Columbia’s private security forces, who effectively detained the students inside the Butler Reading Room by locking it from the outsider to prevent others, including faculty who wished to offer themselves as “mediators,” from coming in. Meanwhile, the Spectator said, the university dispatched a team of “special patrol officers” and others who initiated negotiations to end the demonstration.
“We don’t want to bring NYPD on campus, we don’t want to have to fight you on this one, please,” an officer told one of the leading protesters, who demanded in response that students be allowed to exit Butler of their own volition. The officer said they would be allowed to do so in exchange for presenting identification, a condition the students reportedly rejected with laughter. Some students later attempted to leave Butler without permission from the officers. The effort did not succeed.
“We refuse to show our IDs under militarized arrest,” CUAD later said a statement, referencing the negotiations. “We refuse to go down quietly.”
Having reached an impasse, interim Columbia University president Claire Shipman — the school’s third new chief executive in two years — requested the help of the NYPD, a decision she justified in a statement as “necessary” for preserving Columbia’s academic mission. By the time the remarks were published, two Columbia officers had been assaulted by a crush of demonstrators who resolved to enter Butler by storming it.
“Columbia has taken the necessary step of requesting the presence of NYPD to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community,” Shipman said. “Disruptions to our academic activities will not be tolerated and are violations of our rules and policies; this is especially unacceptable while our students study and prepare for final exams. Columbia strongly condemns violence on our campus, antisemitism, and all forms of hate and discrimination, some of which we witnessed today. We are resolute that calls for violence or have no place at our university.”
The NYPD’s operation to clear Butler was quickly completed after officers arrived there at 7:25 pm, the time cited by the Spectator. Bundling them “20 at a time,” the officers relocated the students to an NYPD bus used for mass arrests.
Even with those numbers, however, the protest betrayed the attenuating momentum of the pro-Hamas movement at Columbia University. Last year, police arrested 109 protesters for commandeering Hamilton Hall. This year’s occupation saw a 31 percent reduction in arrests and a noticeable drop in student participation, a trend seen elsewhere, as campus newspapers have reported less interest in protesting in support of terrorism.
On Thursday, Shipman declared that “Butler is Now Open!” in a triumphant statement which stressed the campus’ swift return to normalcy.
“Butler Library is now open to students, and the third floor reading room — with thanks to the efforts of a large and dedicated overnight facilities team — is restored and ready for use,” Shipman said. “Butler will, as is usual, remain open overnight this evening, and we will have normal operations across all other libraries today…Thank you again, for your resilience, and best of luck to all of our students as finals begin. I look forward to seeing members of our community on campus today.”
Columbia University is not the first school to quell an attempt to establish a pro-Hamas encampment in recent weeks. Swarthmore College and the University of Washington (UW) did so between Saturday and Monday, securing the arrest of over 30 students.
At UW, a pro-Hamas student group calling itself “Super UW” commandeered the school’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building (IEB) and refused to leave unless school officials terminated partnerships with The Boeing Company, whose armaments manufacturing they identified as a resource aiding Israel’s war to eradicate Hamas from Gaza.
The illegal demonstration involved students erecting blockades near the building using “bike rack[s] and chairs,” burning trash — setting off sizable fires — that they then left unattended, and calling for violence against the police. Law enforcement officers eventually entered the building equipped with riot gear, including helmets and batons, and proceeded to arrest over two dozen protesters.
According to The Phoenix, Swarthmore College’s independent campus newspaper, the encampment there was stationed by Students for Justice in Palestine, a campus group which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, last week in an attempt to “revive” similar demonstrations staged last year. Naming the encampment the “Hossam Shabat Liberated Zone,” SJP called on its supporters to “escalate” and establish a “site of colonial resistence [sic].”
Columbia University had ample motivation to thwart CUAD’s demonstration. In March, the Trump administration impounded $400 million in taxpayer funded research grants and contracts after determining the university failed to respond to last year’s pro-Hamas takeover of Hamilton Hall and was derelict in protecting Jewish students from antisemitism.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to take legal action against expatriate protesters who are visiting the US to attain an education.
“We are reviewing the via status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library,” Rubio said, writing on the X social media platform. “Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Dozens Arrested After Pro-Hamas Takeover of Columbia University Building first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Syrian President Confirms Indirect Talks With Israel Amid Rising Tensions
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced that Damascus is holding indirect talks with Israel through mediators, confirming earlier reports of negotiations between the two countries amid escalating regional tensions.
As Syria’s new leadership seeks regional support to address its growing conflict with its southern neighbor, al-Sharaa said the indirect talks — reportedly mediated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — were aimed at “easing tensions and preventing the situation from spiraling out of control for all involved parties.”
Speaking at a press conference in Paris on Wednesday after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, the Syrian leader also said that “the Israeli intervention constitutes a violation of the 1974 agreement” between Jerusalem and Damascus.
Following the fall of long-time Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel deployed troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to establish a military position aimed at preventing terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state.
The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Earlier this year, al-Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading the rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war, with an offensive spearheaded by al-Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
During the press conference in Paris, al-Sharaa also revealed that his government is reaching out to countries with diplomatic ties to Israel, urging them to pressure Jerusalem to stop what he described as “IDF [Israel Defense Forces] interventions and attacks” in Syria.
Earlier on Wednesday, Reuters reported that the UAE was facilitating a backchannel for indirect talks between Jerusalem and Damascus.
Since 2020, as part of the Abraham Accords — a series of historic US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries — the UAE and Jerusalem have strengthened their diplomatic relations and cooperation, positioning Abu Dhabi as a key avenue to address this regional dispute, given the absence of direct relations between Israel and Syria.
These mediation efforts follow Israel’s recent strikes in Syria, which Israeli officials have framed as a message to the country’s new leadership in response to threats against the Druze, an Arab minority sect whose religion, originally derived from Islam, has adherents in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.
Jerusalem has pledged to defend the Druze community in Syria with military force if they come under threat.
For its part, the Syrian government has accused Israel of fueling instability and interfering in its internal affairs, while the new leadership insists it is focused on unifying the country after 14 years of conflict.
Following his meeting with al-Sharaa in Paris, where he promised to lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, Macron condemned Israel’s military campaign in the south of the country.
“You can’t ensure your country’s security by violating the territorial integrity of its neighbors,” the French leader said in a press conference.
For years, Israel has conducted strikes in Syria as part of a covert campaign to undermine Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon that expanded its influence after intervening in Syria’s civil war in support of Assad.
Since the fall of Assad’s regime last year, Israel has ramped up its military operations in southern Syria, with officials asserting that the strikes are aimed at targeting Islamist militant groups. These actions have included bombings of military sites and the deployment of ground forces along the Golan Heights buffer zone.
Although al-Sharaa has repeatedly pledged to unify Syria’s armed forces and restore stability after years of civil war, the new leadership continues to face major hurdles in convincing the international community of its commitment to peace.
Incidents of sectarian violence — including the mass killing of pro-Assad Alawites in March — have deepened fears among minority groups about the rise of Islamist factions and drawn condemnation from global powers currently engaged in discussions on sanctions relief and humanitarian aid.
The post Syrian President Confirms Indirect Talks With Israel Amid Rising Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.