The IDF Spokesman announced Friday morning that overnight, Air Force fighter jets, guided by intelligence from the Military Intelligence Directorate, struck multiple Hezbollah targets in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. These targets were identified as threats to both the Israeli home front and IDF forces.
According to Arab media reports, Israeli warplanes attacked eastern Lebanon and the border area with Syria at around 3 AM Friday. The Lebanese Al-Manar channel claimed that the attack was carried out in the area of the village of Al-Qasr, on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel. In addition, there were reports that warplanes passed over southern Lebanon and over the capital Beirut.
On Thursday, the IDF Spokesman announced that a Hezbollah reconnaissance drone launched toward Israel had been intercepted. The statement clarified that “no alerts were activated according to policy.” The spokesman emphasized that “the IDF will not allow terrorist activity by Hezbollah in Lebanon and will take action to eliminate any threat to Israel and its citizens.”
In a statement Friday morning, the IDF Spokesman reiterated that the drone launch violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon, stating, “The IDF remains committed to the ceasefire agreements in Lebanon and will not allow the execution of terrorist operations of this nature. The IDF is deployed in southern Lebanon and will act to neutralize any threat to Israel and its forces.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Israel had filed a complaint with the committee overseeing the ceasefire in Lebanon, alleging that Iran is funneling funds to Hezbollah in suitcases full of cash. According to the report, Israel informed the committee—chaired by the US—that suitcases containing tens of millions of dollars are being sent from Tehran to Lebanon to help rebuild the terrorist organization. The complaint claims these suitcases are arriving on flights from Tehran, as well as via Turkish citizens traveling from Istanbul.
The committee includes representatives from Israel, Lebanon, the US, France, and the UN. Officials from some member countries told the WSJ that they are “aware of Iran’s use of the Beirut airport to smuggle cash” and consider Israel’s claims credible.
Hamas gunmen, members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in Rafah, the southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 17, 2019.
Why does Qatar, the largest funder and sponsor of Hamas, have such a strong desire to restore the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the Gaza Strip? To guarantee Hamas’s continued domination of the Gaza Strip.
Qatar has no problem with the PA, which was expelled from the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007, taking up its duties there again as long as Hamas is permitted to maintain its grasp on power and preserve its security and military forces and capabilities.
Qatar wants the PA government to collect the garbage, rebuild destroyed houses, and pay salaries to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas is busy rearming, regrouping and getting ready for the next attack on Israel.
Hamas has sustained enormous losses since the beginning of the war it started on October 7, 2023, when thousands of its terrorists and “ordinary” Palestinians invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 Israelis, wounding thousands, and kidnapping more than 250 others. The Qataris seem to realize that Hamas cannot undertake the task of rebuilding the Gaza Strip on its own. They also seem to understand that the international community will not agree to transfer funds to the Gaza Strip through Hamas. Qatar needs the PA in the Gaza Strip to facilitate the flow of millions of dollars in Western aid. The aid anyway should be supervised by international parties and donors, including the US, to make sure it is not stolen.
Two days after the announcement of the ceasefire-hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdulrahman Al Thani said that Doha hopes for the return of the PA to the Gaza Strip. Lasting peace in the Gaza Strip, he added, depends on Israel and Hamas showing good faith: “If they proceed in good faith, this will continue, and hopefully lead to a permanent ceasefire.”
This statement by the Qatari official, whose country has long supported and hosted the leaders of the terrorist group, was not made out of affection for the PA. Qatar’s financial and political backing of Hamas has caused tensions between the PA and Qatar over the past two decades. PA officials have frequently criticized Qatar for backing their rivals in Hamas.
Earlier this month, the PA-Qatar crisis reached its peak when the PA government in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians in the West Bank, decided to suspend the broadcasts of the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera television for supporting and promoting Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups. Israel and some Arab states had also shut down the broadcasts for the same reason.
According to a recent investigative report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):
“Among the Islamist terrorist organizations that Qatar and Al-Jazeera have supported over the years are the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, the Al-Nusra Front/ Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, ISIS, Hamas, and even the Shiite proxies in Yemen, Ansar Allah (the Houthis)…”
If the Palestinian Authority is allowed to operate in the Gaza Strip while Hamas is still in power, another slaughter of Israelis, most likely worse than the October 7 carnage, will occur. The Qataris do not want the PA in the Gaza Strip to rein in Hamas and other terrorist groups, or to prevent attacks against Israel. Instead, they want the PA to act as a front to maintain Hamas’s hold on power — as a cover for keeping Hamas in power. That is the main reason Qatar has refrained from calling on Hamas to cede control over the Gaza Strip in the wake of the catastrophe the terrorist group brought on the two million residents there.
If it truly cared about the safety and well-being of the Palestinians, Qatar would have stopped supporting Hamas and insisted that the terrorist group relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. After all these years, however, Qatar chose to do the exact opposite. Hamas was able to expand and strengthen its hold on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip thanks to Qatar’s political and financial backing.
If Qatar truly cared about the Palestinians, it would not have allowed Al-Jazeera to act as a mouthpiece for Hamas and other Jihadist groups responsible for the death of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians.
Qatar has one main purpose: to safeguard its friends in Hamas, continue promoting radical Islam, and deceive Westerners into believing that the Jihadists are a better alternative to the Arab world’s present regimes. Whether the new US administration will be as gullible as other Westerners in trusting Qatar remains to be seen.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi looks on before a meeting with Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 26, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a new interview that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be “crazy,” warning Tehran would have “an immediate and decisive response” as questions continued to swirl over whether US President Donald Trump would support such an Israeli strike.
“We have made it clear that any attack to our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response,” Araghchi told Sky News in Iran in his first interview since Trump’s inauguration. “But I don’t think they will do that crazy thing. This is really crazy. And this would turn the whole region into a very bad disaster.”
Last week, while speaking to reporters, Trump appeared to hint that he could support a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, which US, Israeli, and other officials believe are ultimately geared toward building nuclear weapons. Iran has long claimed its nuclear program is meant for peaceful, civilian purposes.
Though Trump did not confirm that he would back an Israeli attack, he suggested that such actions might be necessary if Tehran does not scale back its nuclear ambitions.
“I’m not going to answer that,” Trump said when asked by reporters if he supports Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear program. “Hopefully that can be worked out without having to worry about it. It would really be nice if that could be worked out without having to go that further step.”
The Trump administration has indicated that it aims to broker a deal with Tehran to mitigate its nuclear program, hoping to avoid possible military action.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump vocally criticized the Biden administration for outright opposing an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear sites as a response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel in October. Thus, some observers have assumed that Trump would support direct attacks against Tehran.
In his initial term in the Oval Office from 2017-2021, Trump pulled out of a 2015 agreement negotiated between Iran, the Obama administration, and several world powers which placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported last month that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.
The UK, France, and Germany said in a recent statement that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
In his latest interview, which aired on Tuesday, Araghchi suggested Iran would be open to restarting discussions with the Trump administration regarding its nuclear program. However, he claimed that Washington would need to “buy [Tehran’s] confidence” to secure a successfully renegotiated nuclear deal.
“The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time,” he said. “Lots of things should be done by the other side to buy our confidence … We haven’t heard anything but the ‘nice’ word, and this is obviously not enough.”
Araghchi also brushed off Trump’s recent suggestion that he would support a “clean out” of civilians from Gaza, instead proposing a forced relocation of Israeli civilians to Greenland.
“My suggestion is something else. Instead of Palestinians, try to expel Israelis, take them to Greenland so they can kill two birds with one stone,” Araghchi said.
Trump recently floated a potential temporary relocation of Gaza civilians to neighboring Arab countries, citing a need to permanently end the conflict with Israel.
