Month: August 2024

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group on Thursday vowed there would be a “real” response to Israel’s killing of its top military commander.

Speaking at the funeral of Fuad Shukr who was killed in an airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday, Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the war against Israel had “entered a new phase”.

Lebanese health authorities said at least seven people, including two children, were killed in the Israeli strike.

“We are planning a real and well-calculated response, not merely a symbolic one,” Nasrallah said, adding that Israel had “crossed red lines” in Beirut, as well as in the Iranian capital.

Hamas’ political leader was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack which Iran and the Palestinian militant group have blamed on Israel.

Nasrallah said the response would go beyond the scope of the daily border skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces that have been ongoing since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas.

“We are facing a big battle now, it is beyond a support front now. There is now a battle in Gaza, there is now a battle in south Lebanon, an open battle in Yemen, and even in Iraq because this is all happening at the same time,” he said.

“They’ve picked a fight with all of us,” Nasrallah said, referring to the Iran-backed network of armed groups that spans Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iraq.

Meanwhile in Tehran, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh, having earlier threatened a “harsh punishment” against Israel for his death.

Haniyeh had been in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president. His remains are to be transferred to Qatar, where he was based, for burial on Friday.

Israel has not denied or confirmed responsibility for the killing of Haniyeh, but did say it had carried out Tuesday’s airstrike in Beirut that killed Shukr.

It said Shukr was behind a rocket attack days earlier that hit a soccer field in the Israeli-held Golan Heights, killing 12 children. Hezbollah denied being behind that strike.

The back-to-back killings have increased fears of an escalation into a wider war, leaving the region waiting to see how Iran and ally Hezbollah will respond.

International diplomats have been scrambling to avert a cycle of retaliation before it spirals into a greater war.

Since the Gaza war began in October last year, Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily across the border.

The exchanges have caused deaths and the evacuation of tens of thousands from their homes. But they have also stayed within limits.

Several times, strikes that appeared to cross red lines raised fears of an acceleration into full-fledged war, but outside diplomacy reined in the two sides.

Hezbollah faces strong pressure from Lebanon not to draw it into a repeat of its 2006 war with Israel, which wreaked heavy death and destruction in the country.

Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April.

Iran retaliated, and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.

The plane caryying Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist holding dual U.S.-Russia citizenship, landed in the U.S. just before midnight to reunite with their families.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed them upon arrival.

This follows a histoic prisoner exchange in post-Soviet history carried out by the United States and Russia on Thursday.

Moscow released journalist Gershkovich, In 2023, he was imprisoned and found guilty in July of spying charges that he and the U.S. government strongly refuted.

His family expressed their eagerness to embrace him and see his courageous smile in person in a statement released by the newspaper.

The editor-in-chief of the paper, Emma Tucker, described it as a “happy day.”

Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied. Kurmasheva, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.

Among those released were Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer sentenced to 25 years on politically motivated treason charges, along with several of Navalny’s associates.

Also freed were Kremlin critics Oleg Orlov, a long-time human rights activist found guilty of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, who was jailed for speaking out against the war in Ukraine.

They were all released as part of a multinational agreement that resulted in the freedom of two dozen individuals.

The deal that secured the freedom of Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir was a feat of diplomacy.

All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia – some of whom were unjustly held for years.

All have endured unimaginable suffering.

Today, their agony is over.

— President Biden (@POTUS) August 1, 2024

Biden trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of swaps with Russia, as a diplomatic feat while welcoming families of the returning Americans to the White House.

“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said, He added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”

However, the agreement, similar to previous ones, highlighted a fundamental imbalance: The U.S. and its allies surrendered Russian individuals accused or found guilty of severe offenses in return for Russia freeing journalists, dissidents, and other individuals detained by the country’s heavily politicized legal system on what the West views as fabricated charges.

The exchange occurred even though Washington and Moscow’s relationship hit rock bottom following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Backchannel negotiators initially considered a swap involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his passing in February, they ultimately brokered a 24-person deal that demanded substantial compromises from European allies.

During secret discussions, negotiators considered a swap related to Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, however, following his passing in February, they finalized a complex agreement involving 24 individuals that demanded major compromises from European partners.

This deal led to the release of a Russian killer and the liberation of a group of reporters, alleged spies, dissidents, and more.

When Navalny passed away, there were talks about a potential swap with Krasikov.

However, after that possibility was ruled out, high-ranking U.S. officials, such as national security adviser Jake Sullivan, intensified efforts to persuade Germany to free Krasikov.

Ultimately, some of the individuals Russia set free were either German citizens or held dual German-Russian citizenship.

Russia obtained two supposed sleeper agents who were imprisoned in Slovenia, along with three individuals indicted by U.S. federal authorities.

This group includes Roman Seleznev, a convicted hacker and the son of a Russian politician, and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence agent accused of supplying American electronics and ammunition to the Russian military.

Norway repatriated an academic suspected of espionage for Russia, while Poland returned a man it had detained on espionage allegations.

“Today illustrates the importance of having allies in the world,” Biden stated.