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Will Israeli Strikes on Iran Negatively Impact Developments in Lebanon?

A man walks past a mural painting of Iranian flags in a street in Tehran on October 26, 2024. (AFP)
A man walks past a mural painting of Iranian flags in a street in Tehran on October 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Will Israeli Strikes on Iran Negatively Impact Developments in Lebanon?

A man walks past a mural painting of Iranian flags in a street in Tehran on October 26, 2024. (AFP)
A man walks past a mural painting of Iranian flags in a street in Tehran on October 26, 2024. (AFP)

It is too soon to tell how the latest Israeli strikes on Iran will impact the region, especially Lebanon. Officials in Lebanon have not yet determined whether the attacks will positively influence the fight between Israel and Hezbollah.

An official Lebanese source said that the United States’ ability to rein in Israel and prevent it from carrying out a strike against major Iranian facilities must not be tied to the developments in Lebanon.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he explained that Israel’s insistence on its land incursion in Lebanon, occupation of Lebanese villages and its destructive air strikes across the country, demonstrate that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not tying the Lebanese front to any other, especially Iran.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source added that the future of the Israeli war on Lebanon is unpredictable, at least until the American presidential elections are held.

Israel had informed Iran of its intention to attack before it launched the strikes, proving that US President Joe Biden’s administration averted a widescale war in the region days before the elections on November 5.

Former Lebanese Ambassador to Washington Antoine Chedid said the American administration succeeded in persuading Netanyahu to strike Iran within the limits it had drawn up.

He ruled out the possibility that the limited strike would positively impact Lebanon.

Netanyahu is determined to achieve his goals in the war on Lebanon, which are to eliminate Hezbollah and establish security along the Lebanese-Israeli border to allow residents of northern Israeli settlements to return home, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Moreover, he noted that the US doesn’t really have a specific policy on Lebanon. Rather, it has a regional policy and Lebanon is part of it.

The American elections will establish a new equation in the region. Chedid said that Kamala Harris’ win will represent a continuation of Biden’s policies.

A win for Donald Trump will put the region in a different position, especially given that he is critical of calls for Netanyahu to end the war on Gaza and Lebanon, he went on to say.

Axios had quoted three Israeli sources as saying that Tel Aviv had warned Tehran of the impending strike and of what Israel was going to attack and what it wasn’t.

Director of Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs Dr. Sami Nader said the American limits to the Israeli strikes are aimed at preventing the region from slipping into a major war, which Washington wants to avoid, and at averting any negative effects on Harris’ electoral chances.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that Israel will continue to pressure Iran and Lebanon is the main arena where it will do so instead of launching attacks deep into Iran given that the US is largely ignoring the developments in Lebanon and has a major interest in seeing Hezbollah weakened.

Gaza, on the other hand, has become a sore point for Washington given the major destruction there and the massacres Israel has committed against the Palestinian people, he remarked.

Ultimately, the strikes against Iran are not the end of the road, continued Nader.

By not attacking Iranian oil, gas and nuclear facilities and thus avoiding a widescale war, Netanyahu gave Biden a positive boost and he probably earned more weapons for Israel in return, he explained.

This will not be the last Israeli strike on Iran, he warned.

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Climate Change-Worsened Floods Wreak Havoc in Africa

People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change-Worsened Floods Wreak Havoc in Africa

People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)

Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu's house in central Nigeria.

It is always the same story -- the Niger River bursts its banks and the waters claim his home for weeks on end, until he can return and take stock of the damage.

The house then needs cleaning, repairs, fumigation and repainting, until the next rainy season.

Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria's Kogi state, where Africa's third-longest river meets its main tributary, the Benue.

But across vast areas of Africa, climate change has thrown weather patterns into disarray and made flooding much more severe, especially this year.

Devastating inundations are threatening the survival of millions of residents on the continent. Homes have been wrecked and crops ruined, jeopardizing regional food security.

Torrential rains and severe flooding have affected around 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa so far in 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

- 'Very, very bad' -

Residents and officials around Lokoja said floods first became more severe in Kogi state in 2012 and have battered the area each year since.

In 2022, Nigeria's worst floods in a decade killed more than 500 people and displaced 1.4 million.

Sandra Musa, an emergency agency adviser to the Kogi state governor, believes this year's flooding has not yet reached the level seen in 2022, but warned it was "very, very bad".

"Usually at this time of year the water level drops, but here it's rising again," she told AFP, estimating that the floods have affected around two million people in the state.

Fatima Bilyaminu, a 31-year-old mother and shopkeeper, can only get to her house in the Adankolo district of Lokoja by boat as a result of the waters.

The swollen river rises almost to the windows, while water hyacinths float past the crumbling building.

"I lost everything. My bed, my cushioned chair, my wardrobe, my kitchen equipment," she told AFP.

With no money to rent a house elsewhere, she has little choice but to keep living in the small concrete building and repair it, flood after flood.

- Damage and displacement -

Africa is bearing the brunt of climate change, even though it only contributes around four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization.

This year is set to overtake 2023 as the world's hottest on record.

"This year has been unusual in terms of the amount of rainfall, with many extreme events, which is one of the signs of climate change," said Aida Diongue-Niang from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the Sahel region bordering the Sahara desert, the volume, intensity and duration of rainfall was "unprecedented," according to Amadou Diakite from the Mali Meteo weather service.

In Niger, some regions recorded up to 200 percent more rain than in previous years, the national meteorological service said. The waters put at risk the historic city center of Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the desert north.

Over the border in Chad, torrential rains since July have killed at least 576 people and affected 1.9 million, more than 10 percent of the population, according to a report published by the OCHA.

In neighboring Cameroon, the UN body said torrential rains had destroyed more than 56,000 homes and flooded tens of thousands of hectares of crops.

Floodwaters swept through the capital Conakry in Guinea, while floods in Monrovia reignited debates over building another city to serve as Liberia's capital.

Entire districts of Mali's capital Bamako were submerged, leaving waste and liquid from septic tanks seeping across the streets.

In August, downpours caused the roof of the centuries-old Tomb of Askia in the Malian city of Gao to collapse.

Several countries have postponed the start of the school year as a result of the floods.

- 'Keep getting worse' -

"It used to be a decadal cycle of flooding, and we're now into a yearly cycle," said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

"This is only going to keep getting worse if we keep burning fossil fuels," she said.

As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity, scientists warn.

Experts estimate that by 2030, up to 118 million Africans already living in poverty will be exposed to drought, floods and intense heat.

Building along riverbanks also poses a risk, Youssouf Sane of Senegal's meteorology agency said, urging governments to think about the relationship between climate change and urbanization.

But the IPCC's Diongue-Niang said the only way to tackle extreme weather was to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

"That doesn't fall to the region -- it falls to the whole of humanity," she said.