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U.N. exhibit remembers when the world turned its back on stateless Jewish refugees
(New York Jewish Week) — In 2017, Deborah Veach went back to Germany, looking for the site of the displaced persons camp where she and her parents had been housed after World War II. They were in suspension, between the lives her parents led in Belarus before they were shattered by the Nazis, and the unknown fate awaiting them as refugees without a country.
To her dismay, and despite the fact that Foehrenwald was one of the largest Jewish DP centers in the American-controlled zone of Germany, she found barely a trace. A complex that once included a yeshiva, a police force, a fire brigade, a youth home, a theater, a post office and a hospital was remembered by almost no one except a local woman who ran a museum in a former bath house.
“It was sort of an accident of history that we were there in that particular camp in Germany, of all places, with no ties, no extended family, no place to call home,” said Veach, who was born at Foehrenwald in 1949 and lives in New Jersey. Now, “they renamed it. They changed the names of all the streets. There is nothing recognizable about the fact that it had been a DP camp.”
Veach is part of a now-aging cohort of children born or raised in the DP camps, the last with a first-hand connection to the experience of some 250,000 Jewish survivors who passed through them at the end of the war. To make sure memories of the camps survive them, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the United Nations Department of Global Communications have staged a short-term exhibit, “After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps.”
On display at U.N. headquarters in New York City Jan. 10 through Feb. 23, it is intended to illuminate “how the impact of the Holocaust continued to be felt after the Second World War ended and the courage and resilience of those that survived in their efforts to rebuild their lives despite having lost everything,” according to a press release.
Residents of a displaced persons camp in Salzburg, Austria. Undated, post-Second World War. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
Among the artifacts on display are dolls created by Jewish children and copies of some of the 70-odd newspapers published by residents, as well as photographs of weddings, theatrical performances, sporting events and classroom lessons.
The exhibit is “about the displaced persons themselves, about their lives and their hopes and their dreams, their ambitions, their initiatives,” said Debórah Dwork, who directs the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center-CUNY, who served as the scholar adviser for the exhibition.
“There’s no point where the residents of these DP camps were just sitting around waiting for other people to do things for them,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “They took initiative and developed a whole range of cultural and educational programs.”
As early as 1943, as the war displaced millions of people, dozens of nations came to Washington and signed onto the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Authority. (Despite its name, it preceded the founding of the U.N.) After the war, the British and U.S. military were in charge of supplying food, protection and medical care in hundreds of camps throughout Germany and Austria, and UNRRA administered the camps on a day-to-day basis.
Early on, Jewish Holocaust survivors — some who suffered in concentration camps, others who had escaped into the Soviet Union — were put in DP camps alongside their former tormentors, until the U.S. agreed to place them in separate compounds. Unable or unwilling to return to the countries where they had lost relatives, property and any semblance of a normal life, they began a waiting game, as few countries, including the United States, were willing to take them in, and Palestine was being blockaded by the British.
Abiding antisemitism was not the only reason they remained stateless. “Jews were [accused of being] subversives, communists, rebels, troublemakers, and the world war quickly gave way to cold war, and with it the notion that Hitler had been defeated and what we have to worry about is the communists,” David Nasaw, author of “The Last Million,” a history of the displaced persons, told the New York Jewish week in 2020.
In 1948 and 1950, Congress grudgingly passed legislation that allowed 50,000 Jewish survivors and their children to come to the United States. The rest were eventually able to go to Israel, after its independence in 1948.
The U.N. exhibit focuses less on this macro history — which includes what became another refugee crisis for the Palestinians displaced by Israel’s War for Independence — than on life in the DP camps.
“The exhibition illustrates how the displaced persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said Jonathan Brent, chief executive officer at YIVO, in a statement.
Among those rebuilding their lives were Max Gitter and his parents, Polish Jews who had the perverse good luck of being exiled to Siberia during the war. The family made its way to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, where Gitter was born in 1943. After the war ended, his parents returned to Poland, but repelled by antisemitism sought refuge in the American zone in Germany. They spent time in the Ainring DP camp, a former Luftwaffe base on the Austrian border, and at a small camp called Lechfeld, about 25 miles west of Munich.
Dolls made by stateless Jewish children residing in a DP camp near Florence, Italy, known as “Kibbutz HaOved.” The dolls are attired in local costumes based on the districts of the Tuscan city of Sienna. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“I was there until we came to the United States when I was six and a half, so I have some very distinct memories and some hazy memories,” said Gitter, emeritus director and vice chair of the YIVO board. One story he hasn’t forgotten is how his father and a friend were walking through the camp when they came upon a long line of people. “They were from the Soviet Union, so they knew that when there’s a line that it might be of interest.” It turned out to be a line for the lottery that would allow them to get into the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.
The family came to the United States in 1950, to “pretty shabby lodgings” in the Bronx, before his father bought a candy store and moved to Queens. Max went on to attend Harvard College and Yale Law School, and became a corporate litigator.
Gitter’s brother was born in one of the camps, and the exhibit includes a poster depicting the population increase between 1946 and 1947 at the Jewish DP center Bad Reichenhall. The birthrate in the camps has often been described as evidence of the optimism and defiance of the survivors, but Dwork said the truth is somewhat more complicated.
“There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. This is the age group of reproductive age, at 20 to 40,” she said. “However, this image of fecundity hides what was rumored to be a significant abortion rate, too. And women had experienced years of starvation. Menstruation had only recently recommenced. So many women, in fact, miscarried or had trouble conceiving to begin with.”
A chart by artist O. Lec depicts the natural population increase of the Jewish Center Bad Reichenhall, Germany, 1946-1947. There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“There is no silver lining here,” she added. “People live life on many levels. On the one hand, DPs look to the future and look with hope; at the same time, they carry tremendous burdens of pain and suffering and trauma and trepidations about the future.”
Veach, a member of the YIVO board, hopes visitors to the exhibit understand that such trauma is hardly a thing of the past.
“I think the real lesson is that history keeps repeating itself,” said Veach, growing emotional. “Basically we have DPs on our border with Mexico, you have DPs from Ukraine. I don’t think people realize the repercussions for these people who are trying to find a place to live. These are good people who are just placed where they are by history.”
Gitter, who like Veach will speak at an event Jan. 24 at the U.N. marking the exhibit, also hopes “After the End of the World” prods the consciences of visitors.
“A lot of the countries, a lot of places, including the United States, would not accept Jews after the war,” he said. “The issue of memory, the issue of statelessness, the issue of finally there was some hope for the Jews in their immigration to Israel and the United States — that part of the story also needs to be told.”
“After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps” is on view from Jan. 10-Feb. 23, 2023, at the United Nations Headquarters, 405 E 42nd St, New York, Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Entrance to the United Nations Visitor Centre in New York is free, but there are requirements for all visitors. See the United Nations Visitor Centre entry guidelines.
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‘Center of Gravity for Global Terrorism’: US Lawmakers Spotlight Surging Jihadist Terror Threat in Africa
Islamic State – Central Africa Province released documentary entitled “Jihad and Dawah” covering group’s campaigns in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and battles against Congolese and Ugandan armies. Photo: Screenshot
US lawmakers this week raised alarm bells over the rising terrorist threat from Africa, advocating for continued American support for African nations fighting Islamists as the continent becomes the center of global terrorism.
The US Senate Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, which is part of the larger Foreign Relations Committee, held a hearing in which legislators highlighted the importance of combating terrorist groups in Africa while jousting over President Donald Trump’s approach to the continent.
“Today, the center of gravity for global terrorism has shifted to Africa. It has shifted partly and in fact precisely because of the export of violent Islamic terrorism from the Middle East as well as because of incredibly complicated and specific local dynamics,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who chairs the subcommittee.
“Across the Sahel in West Africa and in East Africa, terrorist groups are expanding, embedding, and operating with increasing capability,” Cruz added. “ISIS affiliates and al-Qaeda-linked groups are growing, controlling territory, and exploiting weak governance.”
The Sahel region runs 3,360 miles across the African continent, dividing the Sahara Desert to the north from the tropical southern savannahs. Terrorist hot spots in recent years in the region have included Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, where, Cruz noted, “JNIM [Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin], and Islamic State in the Sahel have all expanded. In Nigeria, Boko Haram, ISIS West Africa, and Fulani extremists are mass slaughtering Christians.”
In November, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point released a study documenting that in 2024, 86 percent of all terrorism-related deaths occurred in just 10 countries, with seven of them in Africa and five in the Sahel. The researchers identified JNIM as being behind 83 percent of the killings.
Describing the threats in the Horn of Africa region, Cruz said that, in Somalia, al-Shabaab “targets Americans and threatens US personnel and partners in East Africa, all while receiving support from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.”
“In region after region, terrorist groups are outpacing the ability of local governments to respond,” he added. “The failures threaten our interest globally and endanger the American homeland. The threat is rapidly growing and demands attention.”
The Texas senator also took time in his opening remarks to criticize former US President Joe Biden’s approach to Africa.
“For too long, however, Africa was treated as a theater where we didn’t have interests. Presidential administrations either ignored it or used it as a playground for self-indulgent ideological experiments,” Cruz said. “The latter problem was particularly acute during the previous administration. That mismatch allowed terrorist groups to expand and global adversaries, in particular Russia, China, and Iran, to intervene and undermine American interests. Those dynamics now threaten US interests, our allies, and ultimately the American homeland.”
After concluding, Cruz allowed Sen. Cory Booker (NJ), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, to offer his own assessment.
“What we are discussing today is not far away. It’s not disconnected from American life. It’s not some side issue we can afford to regulate to the margins of our senatorial and administrative focus,” Booker said. “Africa is not peripheral to the national security of the United States and to the urgencies we face.”
Booker added that, earlier this year, “the US intelligence community assessed that Africa has become ‘a focal point for the global Sunni Jihadist movement.’ That is not a passing warning. That is a flashing red light.”
Echoing Cruz’s concerns, Booker noted that “al-Shabaab remains a deadly and determined force who has killed civilians, killed Americans, threatened US interests, and plotted a 9/11 style attack against the United States.” He also described how “ISIS Somalia is emerging as a more significant node in the broader ISIS network with demonstrated intent and capability to threaten beyond the region, including against the United States.”
The senator went on to discuss the Sahel, pointing to how “in the Lake Chad Basin, IS West Africa and Boko Haram continue to exploit borders that are weak, states that are strained, and communities that have been failed by their governments for far too long. So, let’s be clear, counterterrorism in Africa is not charity. It is not a distraction. It’s not optional for our country. It is a core American national security interest.”
Booker named the factors that fueled terrorist groups in the region, saying, “They feed on corruption. They feed on broken governance. They feed on despair. They feed on the absence of state legitimacy, the weakness of institutions, the pain of exclusion, and the vulnerability of young people who see too few pathways to dignity, work, and hope.”
Emphasizing that “military strikes alone cannot prevent extremist groups from returning the moment attention shifts and the dust settles,” the New Jersey Democrat argued that combating the threat takes “strategy, patience, partnerships, diplomacy, development, and security working together.”
Booker then criticized the Trump administration for its approach to Africa, describing it as “retreat dressed up as resolve,” in part due to “diminished diplomatic presence” across the continent.
“The Trump administration is not delivering a whole-of-government strategy. It is delivering a whack-a-mole policy dressed up as counterterrorism,” Booker argued. “It is fragmented. It is reactive. It is too often militarized and under-strategized. Because the future of American security is bound up with the future of the stability, prosperity, and partnerships we have on the African continent, we need a strategy that reflects the true conditions on the ground and not only frames Africa as a problem but actually sees the real framing that it is an extraordinary asset.”
Cruz defended the Trump administration’s efforts in Africa.
“As I’ve said, one of the reasons for these hearings is to ensure that the administration officials have the opportunity and the platform to articulate President Trump’s approach to Africa. For too long, US policy has treated Africa as a secondary theater,” Cruz said. “The Biden administration withdrew US forces from Niger, which was a key foothold in the region that is the epicenter of global terrorism. That assumption is no longer tenable for a range of reasons.”
Cruz said that Trump “personally met with 13 African heads of state in his first year in office. But too often there is nonetheless a lazy assumption that the US is disengaging from Africa.”
Nick Checker, senior official in the State Department’s Bureau of Africa Affairs, testified before the committee.
“Africa will play an important role in America’s economic future. The continent holds vast critical minerals, energy resources, and tremendous human capital,” he said. “However, these opportunities cannot be fully realized amid persistent instability in parts of the continent, including terrorist threats, which continue to affect US interests.”
Checker described the limited nature of the administration’s approach.
“Our counterterrorism posture in Africa is narrowly focused and aligned with US national security priorities. The primary objective is clear: We will protect the homeland from threats while safeguarding US citizens and commercial interests abroad,” Checker said. “Groups affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda remain active in the Sahel, Nigeria, and parts of East Africa. These threats are real, but our response must be disciplined.”
On April 16, troops in Nigeria killed 25 fighters in the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terror group during a failed attack in the Borno state.
“We will not pursue large-scale, indefinite military engagements, or nation building efforts,” Checker said. “Instead, we are adopting a targeted approach that emphasizes intelligence sharing and limited, high impact security cooperation with partners who demonstrate both capability and political will.”
Regarding the Sahel, Checker said “a region that accounted for 5-10 percent of terrorism-related deaths a decade ago, now represents more than 50 percent. Despite significant American engagement, the strategic picture demonstrates that open-ended, aid-centric approaches have not delivered sustainable security outcomes. This is why a fundamental rethink is necessary.”
In his conclusion, Checker noted that “our approach is grounded in respect for sovereignty and realism about political conditions on the ground. We engage governments as they are, not as we wish them to be.”
Monica Jacobson, senior official for the Bureau of Counterterrorism, also testified and explained how the administration’s approach was guided by three core principles: neutralizing terrorist threats before they reached the US, supporting regional partners instead of replacing them, and defending critical supply chains.
“Moroccan forces previously trained by the Bureau of Counterterrorism now train Sahelian forces across sub-Saharan Africa, using US-provided curricula,” Jacobson said. “This is precisely the model we seek to expand, with regional partners leading and sustaining regional security efforts.”
Jacobson continued, “We also recognize that, in many parts of Africa, radical Islamic terrorists target civilians based on their Christian faith. As President Trump and Secretary Rubio have made clear, we will respond to atrocities and violence against Christians, including those who knowingly direct, authorize, fund, support, or carry out violations of religious liberty. Our counterterrorism efforts have included directly targeting the terrorists responsible for this violence, and we likewise hold governments’ feet to the fire when they fail to address terrorist threats that undermine religious freedom.”
Former Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed responded to the hearing on Wednesday when speaking at Abbey College in Cambridge.
“Now, people say that there is religious persecution in Nigeria and that there is genocide against Christians,” Mohammed said. “It’s not true. It is fake news.” He defended Nigeria as fostering a culture that promotes interfaith tolerance.
Chigozie Ubani, a fellow at the Institute of Security Nigeria, has discussed Boko Haram’s attacks.
“Their target is to terrorize, maim, and displace people,” Ubani told Nigeria’s Punch News. “Once they displace them, of course, they occupy the space. So, for as long as that is not achieved, they can only retreat and come back.”
Last month, multiple terrorist attacks in Nigeria’s Maiduguri killed 25 people and injured more than 200.
“Their goal is to take over our territories,” Ubani said. “When they take over, everybody there will submit to their religious authority. That’s what it is.”
Earlier this week, officials from both Mali and Niger accused their neighboring countries of supporting terrorism. At the sidelines of a security forum in Senegal, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop claimed that other countries were “harboring terrorist groups” and allowing them to operate against Mali. Niger officials have previously accused France of backing terrorism and faced criticism for allegedly concealing the severity of Islamist terror attacks.
On Saturday, US Africa Command released a statement announcing strikes had occurred on Friday, targeting Islamic State terrorists in the mountain regions of Puntland, the Easternmost state of Somalia. The attacks targeted territory approximately 30 miles southeast of the port city of Bosaso in the Bari region. No casualty numbers were announced.
On Wednesday, Puntland forces displayed the corpses of more than 10 suspected Islamic State fighters killed in the strikes on the Jaceel Valley area of the Calmiskaad mountain range.
Video shared from the scene showed bodies in what appeared to be a crater from an airstrike.
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Arrives in Pakistan, Trump Expects Offer Satisfying US Demands
Army soldiers patrol a road as Pakistan prepares to host US and Iran for the second round of peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Waseem Khan
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday to discuss proposals for restarting peace talks with the US, offering some optimism for an end to the eight-week war that has killed thousands and sown turmoil in global markets.
US President Donald Trump told Reuters on Friday that Iran plans to make an offer aimed at satisfying US demands, but said he did not yet know what the offer entailed.
When asked who the US was negotiating with, Trump said: “I don’t want to say that, but we’re dealing with the people that are in charge now.”
It remained unclear whether Araqchi would meet this weekend with US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, or whether a meeting would happen later.
After a US bombing campaign and Iran‘s blocking of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the two countries are at a costly impasse, with Iran‘s oil exports blocked and US gasoline prices at multi-year highs. The US and Israel also destroyed most of Iran’s navy and air defenses, killed much of the regime’s leadership, and significantly degraded its nuclear, missile, and drone programs.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff and Kushner would leave for Pakistan on Saturday morning for talks with Araqchi. Pakistani sources said Araqchi was not slated to meet US negotiators in Islamabad, a message echoed by an Iran state television reporter, who said Pakistan could convey Iran‘s concerns for ending the war.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry confirmed Araqchi’s arrival in Islamabad, where a heavy military and paramilitary presence was visible across the central parts of the city.
Araqchi went straight into a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at the Serena Hotel, where the first round of talks with the US was held, two government sources said.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani pledged his country’s support for mediation efforts by Pakistan in a phone call with Trump, Qatar’s state news agency reported.
Leavitt struck an upbeat tone, saying the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come this weekend.
She added that US Vice President JD Vance, who earlier this month led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran to end their war, is ready to travel to Pakistan to join the negotiations if they prove successful.
Araqchi wrote on X that he was visiting Pakistan, Oman, and Russia to coordinate with partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments. The tour will include consultations on the latest efforts to end the war, Iran‘s Foreign Ministry spokesperson later told state media.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a briefing earlier on Friday that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with the United States.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely,” he said. “All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways.”
Reports on Araqchi’s trip in Iranian state media and the Pakistani sources made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran‘s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at the talks earlier this month.
The Iranian parliament’s media office denied a report that Qalibaf had resigned as head of Iran‘s negotiating team, and added that there was no new round of talks scheduled yet.
Pakistani sources said earlier that a US logistics and security team already was in place in Islamabad for potential talks.
The last round of peace talks had been expected to resume on Tuesday but never took place, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending and a US delegation led by Vance never leaving Washington.
Trump unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators.
Oil prices remained volatile on Friday, as traders weighed potential disruption from the worst oil shock in history amid the prospect for further talks.
Brent crude futures settled at $105.33 a barrel, about 0.3% higher, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 1.5% at $94.40.
HEZBOLLAH DISMISSES LEBANON CEASEFIRE EXTENSION
On Thursday, Israel and Lebanon extended a separate ceasefire for three weeks at a White House meeting brokered by Trump.
The war in Lebanon, which Israel invaded last month to root out Iran‘s Hezbollah allies after the terrorist group fired across the border, has run in parallel with the wider Iran war, and Tehran says a ceasefire there is a precondition for talks.
There was little sign of an end to the fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities reported two people were killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
While the ceasefire that came into force on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
“It is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said in response to the extension of the ceasefire.
Israel’s military said it had killed six armed Hezbollah members in southern Lebanon on Friday.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKADE
Trump on Thursday said he wanted an “everlasting” agreement with Iran, while asserting the US had an upper hand in the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route.
The US has yet to find a way to open the strait, where Iran has blocked nearly all ships apart from its own since the start of the war eight weeks ago. Iran showed off its control this week by seizing two huge cargo vessels there.
Trump imposed a separate blockade of Iranian shipping last week. Iran says it will not reopen the strait until Trump lifts his blockade.
“Our blockade is growing and going global,” Hegseth told reporters on Friday.
“No one sails from the Strait of Hormuz to anywhere in the world without the permission of the United States Navy,” he said.
Only five ships crossed the strait in the last 24 hours, shipping data showed on Friday, compared to around 130 a day before the war. Those included one Iranian oil products tanker, but none of the vast crude-carrying supertankers that normally feed global energy markets.
Container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd also said one of its ships had crossed the strait, without giving details.
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IDF Unveils AI-Powered Robotic Warfare System, Breakthrough Artillery Against Hezbollah
Smoke rises from a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army operates in it as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has introduced cutting-edge battlefield technology while fighting Hezbollah over the past several weeks, deploying fleets of explosive robots and game-changing artillery to accelerate the destruction of the Iran-backed group’s terrorist infrastructure across southern Lebanon.
With the goal of minimizing risks to troops, the IDF plans to deploy robots on high-risk missions to detonate large, strategic infrastructure in areas previously beyond the reach of ground forces, marking a significant expansion in its use of autonomous battlefield systems. Some of this technology has already been in use but will only escalate.
According to Israeli officials, this newly introduced technology is designed to scan vast areas using intelligence data, locate Hezbollah infrastructure both above and below ground, and systematically dismantle networks built over decades within Shiite villages, forests, and dense terrain.
The IDF expects this sustained military engineering effort to drain Hezbollah’s extensive financial investments and push threats farther from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Given Lebanon’s rugged, mountainous terrain in the area, the natural landscape severely limits the movement of heavy engineering equipment, forcing troops to rely on complex field improvisations amid dense vegetation and terrain that conceals militant infrastructure.
The IDF has previously used robotic systems during the war in Gaza, providing ground forces with a strategic edge while reducing exposure to danger, including deploying them to explore Hamas tunnels and enhance the detection and tracking of armed operatives.
Robotic systems not only reduce the danger to troops but also help offset manpower shortages and enable operations in especially challenging environments, including tunnel networks, densely populated urban areas, and other locations that are difficult for ground forces to reach.
The IDF has further expanded its arsenal with the introduction of the “Ro’em” self-propelled howitzer battery developed by Elbit Systems, a platform that leverages advanced technology and artificial intelligence to deliver quicker and more accurate firepower.
Fully automatic, the self-propelled howitzer can fire between six and eight rounds per minute at ranges of up to 40 kilometers.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the terrorist group opened fire in support of Iran two days after the start of the joint US-Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime. Since then, Israeli troops have created a “buffer zone” that extends 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanon. According to Israeli officials the purpose of the zone is to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets and drones during the war.
The US mediated a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon last week. The deal was separate from Washington’s efforts to de-escalate tensions with Iran, though Tehran had pushed for Lebanon to be included in any broader framework for stopping hostilities.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the truce, which was due to expire on Sunday, to allow more time for negotiations and diplomatic efforts.
Even though the US-backed ceasefire has sharply reduced violence, negotiations and prospects for lasting peace remain fragile, with Israeli forces still positioned in southern Lebanon to maintain its buffer zone and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.
For its part, Hezbollah, an internationally designated terrorist group that openly seeks Israel’s destruction, maintains it has “the right to resist” what it calls occupying forces, while rejecting any direct negotiations between the two countries.
Even with the truce in place, Israel has warned Lebanese citizens against returning to their homes at this stage, with officials saying that Hezbollah could seek to exploit the situation to reestablish its terrorist infrastructure under civilian cover.
The Lebanese government has now opened direct contacts with Israel despite strong objections from Hezbollah — which was established by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1982.
With negotiations now underway toward a potential longer-term arrangement, Israel has said its position rests on two core demands: the full disarmament of the Iran-backed terrorist group and a “sustainable” security-based peace framework.
Lebanon has demanded an Israeli withdrawal from the south, the return of Lebanese detainees held in Israel, and the delineation of the land border.