United Nations

Southern Lebanon’s Olive Trees: Peace Left to Fallow

After a spiral of violence that devastated villages and farmland, the scars of war remain visible in Deir Mimas, Khiam, Houla, Blida, and Mays al-Jabal. More than 60,000 olive trees have been destroyed. “This year, we lost everything,” says Rose from Deir Mimas. “The trees are no longer pruned, the olives wither on the branches, and no one ...

Hezbollah’s Resurgent Arsenal: Borders, Ports, and Clandestine Workshops

Warnings mount over Hezbollah’s rearmament. After years of focus on Iranian financial backing, Washington and Tel Aviv are increasingly concerned about how quickly Lebanon’s Shia movement is rebuilding its arsenal. A Wall Street Journal investigation published Thursday found that Hezbollah, far from adhering to the November 2024 ceasefire ...

Two Hezb Members Killed in South Lebanon

Tensions sharply escalated across southern Lebanon on Friday as Israeli drone and warplanes struck target in the Nabatiyeh and Bint Jbeil districts, leaving several casualties. In one incident, an Israeli drone launched a guided missile at a motorcycle in Talat Shukain, in the Nabatieh caza, killing the driver instantly. Ambulances rushed to the ...

Sudan's RSF says Arrests Fighters Accused of Abuses in El-Fasher

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said they had arrested several of their fighters accused of committing abuses during the capture of the city of El-Fasher, including a man identified by AFP in multiple execution videos. The RSF, at war with the army since April 2023, seized El-Fasher -- the army's last stronghold in western Darfur -- on ...

No-State Zones in Lebanon: The Bekaa and the Shadow of the Clans (2/3)

Along the road from Zahleh to Hermel, portraits of former clan leaders, imams, and martyrs adorn the buildings, set among auto repair shops and fields of cannabis. In this fertile valley, crossed by the Orontes River and framed by the Anti-Lebanon mountains, the state’s presence gradually fades as the road stretches north. In the Bekaa, clan ...

Nearly 50 Dead After Hurricane Melissa Thrashes Caribbean

The death toll from Hurricane Melissa rose Thursday to nearly 50 people, officials said, after the ferocious storm devastated Caribbean islands and was bearing down on Bermuda. Flooding was expected to subside in the Bahamas although high water could persist in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, the US National Hurricane ...

Voluntary Return of Displaced Syrians from Lebanon Enters Seventh Phase

The seventh wave of voluntary returns of displaced Syrians was launched Thursday from the former offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Zahlé, in Lebanon’s Bekaa region. Convoys departed for several areas in Syria, including Homs, Aleppo, Damascus, and surrounding regions. The operation is part of a voluntary ...

UN Calls for End to Sudan Siege After Mass Hospital Killings

UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to military escalation in Sudan on Thursday after reports that more than 460 people were shot dead in a maternity hospital by paramilitary forces. Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, which recently seized the city of El-Fasher from army forces, has ...

European Intelligence: Iran Rebuilding Missile Program

Western intelligence agencies have revealed that Iran is actively rebuilding its ballistic missile program in defiance of renewed UN sanctions, with significant assistance from China, according to a CNN report. European intelligence sources said that several shipments of sodium perchlorate, a key ingredient in the solid fuel used to power ...

UNIFIL Restores Blue Line Markers Damaged by Last Year’s War

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) announced that it has begun repairing the Blue Line markers damaged during last year’s conflict between Hezbollah and Israel – “an important step toward restoring stability in southern Lebanon,” the mission said in a statement on X Tuesday evening. Since the start of the operation on ...

Sudan Army-Aligned Group Accuses RSF of Executing 2,000 in El-Fasher

Sudanese army allies, the Joint Forces, accused paramilitaries of having "executed more than 2,000 unarmed civilians" since taking control of the western city of El-Fasher on Sunday, as alarming reports of atrocities emerge. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the army for over two years, "committed heinous crimes against innocent ...