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Lebanon’s Rahi to Hezbollah: Heroism Lies in Averting War

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is seen at his sermon on Sunday. (Maronite Patriarchate on Facebook)
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is seen at his sermon on Sunday. (Maronite Patriarchate on Facebook)
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Lebanon’s Rahi to Hezbollah: Heroism Lies in Averting War

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is seen at his sermon on Sunday. (Maronite Patriarchate on Facebook)
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is seen at his sermon on Sunday. (Maronite Patriarchate on Facebook)

The heads of Lebanon’s two major Christian sects intensified on Sunday their criticism of Hezbollah - without directly naming it - over its clashes with Israel that are threatening to drag the country to war.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said: “Heroism lies in averting war, not making it.”

Speaking at his Sunday sermon, he added: “Heroism doesn’t lie in fighting wars with destructive advanced weapons, but lies in reason and determination to make peace, achieve justice and prioritize compassion.”

This state of “mistrust and distance” can no longer continue “as it is poisoning society,” he declared.

He urged all parties to prioritize “forging national unity through new means and rhetoric, especially dedication to our nation Lebanon.”

“We pray to God to grant us the grace to prioritize peace over war, understanding over conflict, love over spite, good over evil and unity over division,” al-Rahi said.

Hezbollah has declared that it will continue its military operations against Israel from southern Lebanon until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza. It has said the southern front aims to back Gaza.

Meanwhile, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Audeh indirectly criticized Hezbollah by saying the “state’s voice has been usurped and war is being imposed on it and the people.”

“Our country is being destroyed and it is losing its democratic values. It is sliding into chaos and demagogy,” he went on to say.

“How can a country grow and prosper without a president to lead it according to what the constitution dictates?” he asked.

“How can a country be built while its army is deliberately weakened? How can a country enjoy stability and prosperity amid the proliferation of arms, the violation of its borders, oppression of justice, and usurpation of the state and while war is being imposed on it and its people?”

“What crime have the innocent civilians, who are being killed in this war every day, committed? How can a state be built when some parties seek to overpower the other, violate their decisions and ignore their very existence?” he asked.

“How can a state be built while everyone is ignoring it? How can citizens be seen as equal when those who have power, money and authority are the ones making the decisions?” Audeh wondered.

‘Israeli plot’

Hezbollah recently claimed that it thwarted an Israeli plot to strike Lebanon. It said that it preemptively chose to join the conflict after the eruption of the war on Gaza in October.

Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah said: “Our country, especially the South, is most concerned with the outcomes of the aggression on Gaza. Lebanon is at the heart of the conflict and it is being targeted by the Israeli enemy.”

He revealed that after the eruption of the war, Israel had informed all envoys who had visited Lebanon, as well as American officials, that it could not coexist with “the Lebanese borders where a force like the resistance is deployed.”

“It asked them to head to Lebanon, exert pressure to find a solution and get rid of the resistance on the border area. The resistance responded clearly by saying that the decision-makers in Lebanon are the Lebanese people, who stand in a position of strength that is provided to them by the resistance,” he stated.

Moreover, he added: “The sacrifices made by the martyrs and the sons of the south, whether in blood or their livelihoods, are protecting the country and preventing a largescale Israeli war. They are thwarting the Israeli plans that want to undermine Lebanon’s strength, which is this resistance.”

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Arab World

Power Cuts, Rubble: Millions Come Home to Find Sudan's Capital Unlivable

Millions have returned to Khartoum but the city is still reeling from Sudan's war. Ebrahim HAMID / AFP
Millions have returned to Khartoum but the city is still reeling from Sudan's war. Ebrahim HAMID / AFP
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Power Cuts, Rubble: Millions Come Home to Find Sudan's Capital Unlivable

Millions have returned to Khartoum but the city is still reeling from Sudan's war. Ebrahim HAMID / AFP
Millions have returned to Khartoum but the city is still reeling from Sudan's war. Ebrahim HAMID / AFP

They came home to a war-ruined city determined to rebuild their lives, but a chronic lack of power, water, jobs and medicine has left many residents of Sudan's capital wishing they had stayed away.

About four million people fled Khartoum after war broke out between the army and a paramilitary force in 2023, in fighting that reduced large parts of the city to rubble, said AFP.

But the estimated 2.7 million who have returned since the army recaptured Khartoum last year are caught between joy at being home and the harsh realities of living there.

Businessman Emad Khaled said he was sending his family back to Egypt, while he remains in Khartoum for his work.

"Bringing my family back was a mistake," the 43-year-old told AFP near the city center, which is filled with blackened, bombed-out buildings.

Multiple government officials, ordered back to Khartoum, told AFP they were also leaving their families outside the country.

Fighting between the armed forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is still raging elsewhere in Sudan, including in the Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile regions.

The army, strongly encouraging Khartoum's residents to return, rebuilt the airport and reopened it for domestic flights, and patched up infrastructure.

However, electricity and water still go out for days at a time. And while markets across the capital are open again, many people are unemployed and have little money to spend.

- 'Price goes up every day' -

By June, only one percent of Khartoum had been declared safe by the UN, with dozens of children killed and injured by booby-traps and unexploded shells lurking within walls and on street corners.

Nearly half a million people have returned from neighboring Egypt, where 1.5 million Sudanese sought shelter but faced soaring living costs, racial persecution, arrests and deportations.

Khartoum's working-class neighborhoods have seen the highest numbers of returnees, while most of those who can afford to stay away.

Consequently, upscale districts such as Khartoum 2 lie abandoned. Along tree-lined avenues, glass crackles underfoot and only birdsong fills the air between empty villas, entire corners of them blown out by missiles.

Thuraya Babiker, 86, thought she had returned for good. But three months later, "my husband, my youngest daughter and I are leaving for the United Arab Emirates", she told AFP.

"We don't want to leave," she said, explaining that the lack of medical care makes it impossible to stay.

As people started returning last year, Sudanese charities rushed to rebuild hospitals, some of which are now "better than before", health workers say.

But despite their best efforts, physician Haifa Omar says "some things just aren't available".

"We have to ask patients to buy some medicines on their own dime. I have a lump in my throat as I say it, we know how difficult people's situations are."

College professor Imam Babiker has to visit 10 pharmacies to find his father's blood pressure medication, "and every day it's a different price", he said.

The 34-year-old bought a refrigerator to store his diabetic mother's insulin, "but the electricity goes out for 12 hours a day, so it gets ruined," he told AFP.

Others like Souad Mohamed, 49, had her fridge stolen by looters and couldn't afford a replacement.

"So now I have to buy vegetables and meat every day, and the price goes up every day," she said.

- 'Things really aren't fine' -

Khartoum, once a major African capital home to more than eight million people, is a shell of its former self.

In the city center, a veteran UN official told AFP the level of destruction dwarfs every other crisis they had seen, including Ukraine.

Although occasional RSF drone strikes continue, Khartoum's university students have been told they must return, after authorities ended remote learning in July.

Khartoum University medical professors have threatened to resign en masse in protests, while students complain they are being forced back.

"The university's refusing to let me defend my thesis online, even though my supervisor is also in a different country and doesn't want to return," one master's student told AFP, requesting anonymity.

An undergraduate management student, who should be starting her senior year, said she missed in-person exams this summer and is now scrambling for scholarships in Egypt to restart college from scratch.

"They wouldn't listen to us, all they cared about was for people to return," she told AFP.

"To me it's political, they want people back to show that things are fine, when things really aren't fine."

Arab World

Leadership Crisis in Hezbollah After Nasrallah's Assassination

A woman carries a picture of the late Hezbollah leader Nasrallah as supporters of Hezbollah protest outside the Lebanese Government Palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 18 August 2026, rallying against direct Lebanese-Israeli talks. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
A woman carries a picture of the late Hezbollah leader Nasrallah as supporters of Hezbollah protest outside the Lebanese Government Palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 18 August 2026, rallying against direct Lebanese-Israeli talks. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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Leadership Crisis in Hezbollah After Nasrallah's Assassination

A woman carries a picture of the late Hezbollah leader Nasrallah as supporters of Hezbollah protest outside the Lebanese Government Palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 18 August 2026, rallying against direct Lebanese-Israeli talks. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
A woman carries a picture of the late Hezbollah leader Nasrallah as supporters of Hezbollah protest outside the Lebanese Government Palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 18 August 2026, rallying against direct Lebanese-Israeli talks. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH

Two years after the assassination of former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, the group has not fully overcome the absence of the man who led it for more than three decades and transformed the secretary-general's office into a center of political, organizational, military, and popular influence that is difficult to replace.

Hezbollah will mark the second anniversary of the assassinations of Nasrallah and his successor, Hashem Safieddine, on Sunday with a public rally at Nasrallah's shrine in Beirut's southern suburbs. Its new Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, will speak at the event. Security measures will include closing roads leading to the shrine from the direction of the old airport road and Ziad Rahbani Highway and diverting traffic to other routes.

According to people close to the group and its opponents, current Secretary-General Naim Qassem does not appear to have succeeded in filling the vacuum left by his predecessor. At the same time, there has been an increasing shift in the center of decision-making within the group, with the room for internal initiative narrowing in favor of decisions coming directly from Iran.

The group's opponents say the issue is not simply a matter of the difference in charisma and popular presence between the two men, but also the nature of the role Nasrallah played within Hezbollah. He combined political, organizational, and military leadership, and served as the principal link with the group's supporters and its Iranian ally. Hezbollah today, by contrast, appears to have a more collective and structured leadership, but with a more direct Iranian role in shaping its choices and decisions.

While people close to Hezbollah believe that, despite the blows it has suffered, the group has managed to reorganize its ranks and maintain its cohesion under Naim Qassem, its opponents argue that the period following Nasrallah has exposed a leadership crisis and a decline in its ability to mobilize supporters, as well as internal divisions resulting from Qassem's performance.

A New Approach to Confronting the Challenges

Political writer Dr. Qassem Qassir, who is closely familiar with Hezbollah's position, acknowledges that after Nasrallah, the group "faced many internal and external obstacles" following a long period of centralized leadership during which Nasrallah held the reins of the organization for about 33 years, from 1992 until 2024, before his assassination under extremely difficult circumstances.

He notes that despite losing both of its secretaries-general, Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine, along with a number of its cadres and leaders, Hezbollah succeeded in reorganizing its ranks and putting its security and organizational affairs in order under Sheikh Naim Qassem.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Qassir says Hezbollah now faces new challenges, which has prompted it to adopt a different approach at both the domestic and external levels. He adds that while Hezbollah was previously a major regional player, it is now focusing to a much greater degree on its internal situation, southern Lebanon, and confronting Israel.

He continues that while Hezbollah is no longer the strongest political player on the domestic scene as it once was, it remains a major political force, and domestic and external actors continue to treat it as a key party in the Lebanese equation.

Asked about the charisma Nasrallah possessed, which many believe Qassem lacks, Qassir says there is no doubt that Nasrallah's charisma was distinctive. However, he describes Sheikh Naim as a highly important organizational and administrative figure who succeeded in reorganizing the group's ranks and preserving its cohesion during an extremely difficult period, given that Hezbollah is entering a new phase that requires a new approach at the political, military, and militant levels.

A Missing Leadership

Jad Al-Akhawi, head of the Lebanese Democrats Coalition and a Shiite opponent of Hezbollah, takes a different view. He says it is difficult to argue that Naim Qassem has so far succeeded in filling the vacuum left by Hassan Nasrallah.

The issue, he says, is not solely about charisma, but about the nature of the leadership Nasrallah built over more than three decades and his ability to combine organizational, political, and military leadership while maintaining direct communication with the group's supporters. Qassem, by contrast, came from a more organizational and ideological background than a popular one and spent decades serving as deputy secretary-general rather than as the group's primary center of gravity.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Akhawi says what stands out about Qassem's appearances is their format. He appears on screen, but without the direct interaction with supporters that was an essential part of Nasrallah's public image. Some of Qassem's appearances, he adds, appear to be so tightly controlled and produced that they can at times give the visual impression of an image or persona generated by artificial intelligence rather than that of a political leader interacting directly with his supporters.

He adds that Nasrallah was not merely a secretary-general, but for Hezbollah's supporters he was part of the mechanism for mobilization, persuasion, and decision-making. Naim Qassem, by contrast, has not yet demonstrated that he can inherit all of these functions collectively.

The question, therefore, is no longer simply whether Qassem can fill the vacuum left by Nasrallah, but whether Hezbollah itself can produce a comparable leadership after the collapse of a significant part of its former leadership structure.

The Decision-Making in Iran

Political activist and Lebanese University psychology professor Dr. Mona Fayad, for her part, focuses on Hezbollah's ability to mobilize people. She considers that ability to have declined significantly under Qassem's leadership, pointing to internal divisions within the group between those who support Qassem and those who oppose him, which she says have affected the way decisions are made and the current phase is managed.

Fayad believes Qassem's current performance "serves Israel," making it not in Israel's interest to target him. She also believes that decisions within Hezbollah now come directly from Iran, with the scope for Lebanese decision-making reduced to a minimum.

In this context, Fayad speaks of an Iranian "determination" to keep the Iranian ambassador in Beirut, saying his role goes beyond diplomatic work to include security responsibilities. She describes him as an "intelligence operative" whom Tehran seeks to keep in place to complete his missions.

Arab World

Iraq Seeks Exemption from US Ban on Iran Airlines

People walk near a giant billboard depicting portrayals of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei through various periods in his life, in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on September 22, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
People walk near a giant billboard depicting portrayals of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei through various periods in his life, in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on September 22, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
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Iraq Seeks Exemption from US Ban on Iran Airlines

People walk near a giant billboard depicting portrayals of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei through various periods in his life, in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on September 22, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
People walk near a giant billboard depicting portrayals of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei through various periods in his life, in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on September 22, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)

The Iraqi government said Saturday it was holding talks with the United States to secure exemptions from sanctions on Iranian airlines, which has disrupted travel for patients, students and pilgrims.

All Iraqi airports enforced the ban this week, resulting in major disruption at the airport of the holy city of Najaf, the main destination for Iranian flights to Iraq.

"The Iraqi government is holding direct talks with the American side to exempt certain Iraqi airports from these measures," the prime minister's media office said.

An exemption would allow flights to resume "for humanitarian reasons, including medical treatment, education, religious visits, and for the interest of civilians," it added.

Iranian airlines mainly carry Iraqi Shiite pilgrims to Iran's holy cities or Iranians visiting sacred sites in Iraq. The flights also serve Iraqi students studying in Iran and patients seeking medical treatment there.

Iraq has joined several countries in enforcing the US ban, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Iranian airlines would be "shut down" on Wednesday.