Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Lebanon

Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Lebanon has no plan to vaccinate Palestinians for COVID-19. Waiting for media and NGO outrage.

Al Bayan reports that Lebanon has no plans to vaccinate Palestinians who have lived there for over seven decades.

Lebanon has been signing agreements with various pharmaceutical companied to obtain vaccines for its population, starting in early February.

Yet they have not announced any plans on how these vaccines will be distributed in Lebanon's overcrowded Palestinian "refugee" camps, which have become even more crowded since the Syrian civil war forced many more people of Palestinian ancestry to move in.

Palestinians in Lebanon only have limited access to Lebanese health services, and rely on UNRWA for their health needs. But UNRWA is not stepping up.

Lebanese officials told Al Bayan that they expected international organizations to vaccinate the Palestinians. UNRWA issued a vague statement that they expect the World Health Organization and the Lebanese Health Ministry to work on the issue. The Lebanese Health Ministry hasn't announced any plans, seeming to think it will be UNRWA's problem.

No one is making any concrete plans on distribution of vaccines in the 12 UNRWA camps in Lebanon.

UNRWA closed its 28 health facilities in Lebanon on Thursday as the nation went on lockdown, causing great anger among Palestinians. They plan to re-open tomorrow.

Nearly 4000 Palestinians have tested positive for COVID-19 in Lebanon, and 145 Palestinians have died so far.

There has not been a single article in The Guardian or Reuters or CNN or the New York Times about this situation. No "human rights" NGOs are up in arms about this. No one is castigating Lebanon for not taking care of the people who live in Lebanon.

In fact, no one in the West has even bothered to ask the question of how Palestinians in Lebanon will be vaccinated.

When Israel can't be blamed, no one seems too interested in Palestinian welfare.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

UNRWA releases, and buries, report on Lebanese Palestinian poverty

UNRWA together with the American University of Beirut released a 240 page report on the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon, both the population that has been there since 1948 and the more recent refugees from Syria.

While it correctly mentions the institutionalized discrimination against them, it obscures one important point:

More than 67 years after their initial presence in Lebanon, Palestine refugees are still considered as foreigners under Lebanese law, which does not grant them any special legal status and deprives them from basic rights enjoyed by the Lebanese. This prolonged foreigner status mainly stems from the strong rejection by the Lebanese authorities of the naturalization of Palestine refugees, which is sometimes used as justification for the various discriminatory policies against them. On a political level, Palestine refugees have also opposed naturalization. Accordingly, despite their longstanding presence in the country as refugees, PRL remain excluded from key aspects of social, political, and economic life. They face legal and institutional discrimination; they are denied the right to own property and face restrictive employment measures such as a ban from some liberal and syndicate professions.

Palestine refugees in Lebanon (PRL) face one of the worst socioeconomic conditions in the region, and these have been deteriorating given the country’s weakening socioeconomic situation and the prolonged Syria crisis. A little short of two thirds of the PRL population is poor, a proportion that has not changed since 2010, and the discriminatory laws against them hinder their ability to improve their living conditions and livelihoods. Decaying infrastructure, a dearth of recreational spaces, insufficient access to roads, deteriorated water and sewage treatment systems, contaminated water, and jerry-rigged electrical wires along with open drainage ditches paint a gloomy picture of camps where over 63 per cent of PRL reside.

UNRWA is not being entirely truthful when it says "On a political level, Palestine refugees have also opposed naturalization." Yes, self-appointed leaders keep saying that they don't want to become citizens in order to keep the dream of destroying Israel through "return" alive, but in reality Palestinians in Lebanon are clamoring to become citizens and whenever a loophole opens up, tens of thousands of them apply.

The report also admits that UNRWA inflates the figures of "refugees" in Lebanon, keeping hundreds of thousands on its rolls who no longer live in Lebanon:

Some 495,985 Palestine refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon.58 However, it is estimated that the actual number of Palestine refugees who still reside in the country ranges between 260,000 and 280,000 following the results of the 2010 socioeconomic survey conducted jointly by UNRWA and AUB.

UNRWA has no mechanism to remove people from its list of "refugees" so even the ones who live permanently in Europe are considered "refugees" - phantoms who are still useful in agitating against Israel.

The report issues no recommendations as to how to fix the situation. Lebanese discrimination and apartheid is considered normal and not worth making a stink about. Because Lebanon might respond by making things worse.

Unlike other UNRWA reports, this one has barely been mentioned in the media and certainly hasn't been publicized much by UNRWA. Mostly because Israel cannot be blamed for Lebanese discrimination against Palestinians.

So this report will sink into obscurity, and do nothing to help the actual lives of actual Arab who remain as pawns between their leaders, Lebanese leaders, the Arab world, UNRWA and the anti-Israel Westerners who claim to care about Palestinians but whose concern doesn't go beyond blaming everything on Israel.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Stop press! Palestinian leaders condemn a terror attack!

From Ma'an:

Palestinian authorities on Sunday condemned last Tuesday's suicide bombing attack against the Iranian embassy in Beirut, stressing that the Palestinian individual involved "does not represent the Palestinian leadership."

Palestinian authorities reacted to news that one of the suicide bombers was a young Palestinian refugee in Lebanon named Adnan Mousa Muhammad by saying that "the participation of a Palestinian in such cowardly criminal act represents (only) the individual."

"This act serves only the enemies of our cause and the enemies of our nation," they added, denouncing the bombings on Nov. 19 in the strong terms.

Muhammad's family reacted to the news by condemning their son's participation in the attack and praising Iran for its consistent support for the Palestinian cause.

A relative was quoted by the Lebanese National News Agency as saying, "The family condemns in the strongest terms this criminal act ... which serves only the Israeli enemy."

Wow!

And to think, only a few weeks ago, Mahmoud Abbas was happily posing with people who murdered innocent civilians!

There must have been a major change of heart in the Palestinian Arab leadership in the past few weeks. Surely there isn't any rational way to otherwise reconcile these stories. Surely the PA condemns all terror attacks, no matter who the victims are.

Otherwise, they'd be monsters. And how could a monster be so honored by the international community?

(h/t PTWatch)

Trafficking in Syrian girls reaches Lebanon - and cyberspace

We knew it happens in Jordan.

Now it is happening in Lebanon as well.

Some people make a business out of trafficking women for rich foreigners, says Ayman Hariri, a Syrian activist who settled in Akkar in 2011 when he had to flee Daraa fearing arrest. He used to run an NGO that provided aid for Syrian refugees, but he decided to close it down. Trying to provide aid is difficult, with some aid organizations using their small NGOs to sell 16-year-old girls to their Gulf sponsors in exchange for money.

“I can tell you about someone I know, I met him in person and he offered to bribe me. He posed as a sheikh with a Saudi benefactor. People soon found out his organization was actually what you call a whorehouse: He was getting girls for the Saudi sheikh. If he liked the girl, he would offer $10,000, he would marry her for a week, and then she would go back home with $1,000. The rest was given to the so-called Lebanese sheikh, who now owns a building and has several cars,” Hariri explains.

He says that Akkar is not like the Zaatari camp in Jordan, and the arranged marriages and cloaked prostitution aren’t nearly as frequent. “Jordan is closer to the Gulf, where girl-brides and early marriage are more common. Lebanon is farther away.”

But international organizations and NGOs in Lebanon say early marriage happens among the Syrian refugees as well as host communities. Stopping it is almost impossible, because Lebanese law allows child marriage, sociologist Rafif Rida Sidawi told NOW. “The Lebanese family code allows marriage for girls as young as 13-14. In some confessions, even as young as 9.” (Lebanon has 15 different family codes, almost one for each sect. Many of them allow child marriage.)

A Lebanese sheikh who requested to remain anonymous told NOW that he would never marry a girl under 13, although the law tells him that the minimum age is 9. “I need to see the girl, to see if she’s ready. I also need a medical certificate, and the father’s permission,” he explained.

But the Internet is also allowing rich Arab perverts to find and "marry" Syrian girls:

It is common to see on Arabic online forums requests by men "seeking marriage from Syrian girls". At a price ranging from 500 to 1,000 Saudi riyals (Dh490 to Dh980), girls are reportedly being taken from refugee camps in Jordan. Saudi Arabia is most often named as the destination, but a similar trend is reported in other countries including Iraq and Turkey.

The Saudi columnist Mohammed Al Osaimi, who first highlighted the online posts, wrote that parents feel compelled to marry their daughters off to strangers because they see that as a better option than staying in a refugee camp.

The trend was also triggered by clerics such as Sheikh Adnan Arour, a hardline Syrian cleric, who has issued fatwas to encourage men to marry victims of sexual assault and "cover their shame" through marriage. But the fatwas ironically have led to further sexual exploitation.

In these classified ads, men post brief requests on different websites, often leaving only their first names and email addresses. "I am looking for a Syrian wife," a man identifying himself as Asa'ad wrote on a website. "I am a man of means and I fear God. My Syrian sisters are decent and honourable."

Many other comments are far more demeaning. A man, who identified himself only as "Jordanian", sardonically wrote "no woman deserves sympathy these days", in reference to dishonesty. Another man who called himself Abdulsamad wrote a longer post explaining that his desire to marry a Syrian woman had preceded the conflict, apparently to present a better case.

Another man wrote: "This is not a question of exploitation. It is a question of supply and demand." He suggested a reduction in dowries to 100 dinars [Dh520] because of the increasing number of refugees.

Maher Abu Tair, a Jordanian columnist, wrote: "All we hear these days is talk about a Syrian wife who can be bought with 100 dinars. One could go to any of the areas of Al Mafraq, Amman, Ramtha, Irbid or Karak to pick for himself a Levantine houriya." (A Levantine houriya, or virgin, is a reference to women from the Levant known in Arab cultures for their beauty). He added that people are encouraged by the speedy, cheap and conditions-free marriages.

Syrian war keeps expanding into Lebanon

From Ya Libnan:

Clashes between gunmen of rival Lebanese sects in the northern city of Tripoli have killed seven people since clashes flared earlier this week, security officials said Thursday.

The latest round of fighting that began four days ago in Lebanon’s second largest city has wounded another 50 people, officials said. That comes as disputes from neighboring Syria’s civil war frequently inflame sectarian grievances in Tripoli.

The clashes pit gunmen from two impoverished Tripoli neighborhoods against each other, areas that are home to opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Bab Tabbaneh district is largely Sunni Muslim, like Syria’s rebels. The other neighborhood, Jabal Mohsen, mostly has residents of Assad’s Alawite sect, a Shiite Islam offshoot.

The latest bout of fighting began building after Oct. 14, when a Lebanese military prosecutor pressed charges against earlier this month against seven men, at least one whom from Jabal Mohsen, for their involvement in twin bomb blasts near two Sunni mosques in Tripoli on Aug. 23 that killed 47 people.

Judging from the ICRC paper about the laws of occupation, I think a serious argument can be made that Lebanon is occupied, today, by Syria/Iran under international law.

The definition of occupation in that paper allowed occupation by proxy, if the group that runs the occupied territory is a puppet for the occupier. Since Syria did occupy Lebanon from 1976 to 2005, and now Hezbollah (which is an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards) effectively controls large parts of Lebanon as well as much of the government, that means that Lebanon is still occupied today, notwithstanding a few years when it was ostensibly free.

Syria of course does what Iran wants it to.

Lebanese politicians rush to blame Israel for Islamist suicide car bombing

From Now Lebanon, in its live coverage of today's massive car bomb in Beirut:

[19:28] A video posted on YouTube shows masked men dubbing themselves the "Aisha the Mother of Believers Brigades for Foreign Missions" claiming responsibility for Thursday's bombing.

“And we address our second message to you and the people like you, and yet you do not understand, therefore we address a message to our brothers and families in Lebanon: We ask you to stay away from all of Iran’s colonies inside and outside Beirut because your blood is dear to us but Hassan Nasrallah is an agent for Iran and Israel and we promise more for him.”

Even after this group accepted responsibility (and called Nasrallah a Zionist!]...

[19:55] LBC: Jumblatt accuses Israel of Dahiyeh blast.

[20:22] Suleiman: Dahiyeh explosion is cowardly, its criminal method has Israel’s prints all over it

[20:37] Amal MP Abdel Majid Saleh: The Israeli enemy and its agents had something to do with the al-Roueiss explosion.

[20:50] Aoun to Al-Manar: The explosion’s timing aims at attacking the victory of the 2006 war and to incite the Lebanese people against each other.

There ya go.

Lebanon barring Palestinians refugees from Syria

Once again, the Arab world shows its derision for their Palestinian brethren. And once again, the world ignores blatant discrimination against Palestinians - when done by Arabs.

From HRW:

The Lebanese government began on August 6, 2013, to bar Palestinians from entering the country from Syria. Refusing to allow asylum seekers to enter the country violates Lebanon’s international obligations.

Two Palestinians told Human Rights Watch that they were among about 200 Palestinian asylum seekers barred from crossing the border, after Lebanese General Security on August 6 abruptly changed its entry policies for Palestinians living in Syria.

The Palestinians stranded at Lebanon’s border include entire families, children, the elderly, and the sick. Some spent the night in the area between the two countries’ border posts, fearing for their safety if they returned to Syria, without shelter or bathroom facilities. Some have family members waiting for them in Lebanon. Others say they have no homes to return to in Syria as they have been destroyed during the war, or no money to return home, even if it were safe.

A Palestinian asylum seeker stuck at the border told Human Rights Watch that at approximately 6:45 p.m. on August 6, Lebanese border guards told him and other Palestinian asylum seekers waiting to enter that the guards had received a call from the Lebanese General Security office telling them not to allow any more Palestinians to enter the country. After this announcement, the only Palestinians allowed to enter Lebanon were Palestinians with Lebanese wives or mothers, or who had plane tickets to leave Beirut that day. General Security made no public announcement of the change in policy.

Lebanon is still allowing tens of thousands of Syrians to enter the country. It is only discriminating against Palestinians.

Jordan has a similar policy and Egypt also discriminates against Palestinian Syrians.

Blatant, explicit and rampant discrimination against Palestinian Arabs happens every day, and is indeed enshrined in the laws of every Arab country which does not allow them to become citizens while all other Arabs can.

Keep this in mind the next hundred times you hear Arabs say that the "Palestinian issue" is their number one priority, and the key to solving all the problems in the region. They don't mean that they care about Palestinians - it means that they regard the destruction of Israel is their number one priority, and the Palestinian Arabs are useful only as pawns in that goal.

In reality, the Arab world hates Palestinians nearly as much as they hate Jews.

But there are no "pro-Palestinian" groups that can be bothered to point that out.

Was the Lebanon incident injuring 4 IDF soldiers an ambush?

From AFP:

Two blasts that wounded four Israeli soldiers on the border with Lebanon were in fact an "ambush" set by Hezbollah, the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on Thursday.

The explosions hit the patrol on Wednesday when the troops ventured 400 meters into south Lebanon, parts of which are controlled by the powerful Shiite movement.

"The enemy blundered when they violated the border with Lebanon, and fell into a trap that only the resistance could set," said the newspaper, which has links to Hezbollah.

"Only Hezbollah can make bombs that blow up Israelis" when they pass by, it said.

Hezbollah, which has close ties to Iran and the regime in Syria, is considered Israel's arch-foe, and the two fought a brief but bloody summer war in 2006.

"The Israeli unit fell into a well-set ambush and the enemy found itself faced with a difficult question: 'How did Hezbollah know we were there?'" the daily wrote.

"The ambush is a dangerous failure for the enemy because it shows that Hezbollah has an intelligence structure that allows it to know when a patrol arrives, its route and to set a trap for it," it added.

"That means the resistance is prepared for every eventuality, in case of confrontation on a wider scale or in case of a general conflict."

The Lebanese army said four Israeli soldiers were wounded by explosions 400 meters inside Lebanese territory.

Israel's military confirmed the toll without specifying what side of the border the soldiers were on as they were "carrying out nocturnal activities in the Lebanese border area when the explosion occurred".

The soldiers were members of an elite unit, Israeli public radio reported.

A UN officer in the area said the 10-strong Israeli unit withdrew taking their wounded with them, as troops on the Israeli side of the border fired flares to aid their exit.

The barbed wire marking the border had been cut, an AFP correspondent reported, and the two blasts occurred in a pine forest several hundred meters into Lebanon.

I read this as Hezbollah observed under what circumstances the IDF troops would enter Lebanon and it created those same circumstances to ambush them.

If so, even though troops were injured, the operation must be regarded as a failure, because the usual goal is to take soldiers hostage. Even if the goal was to start an incident to anger Lebanese citizens and redirect their anger from Hezbollah to Israel, it didn't work, based on what I am reading in Lebanese papers..

Lebanese media report that it was an ordinary mine explosion. If so, then perhaps Hezbollah is simply trying to take credit for dumb luck, although it seems unlikely the IDF would have soldiers walking in a minefield without adequate protection.