Aoun Says Relations with Saudi Arabia Back to Normal

Aoun meets with the reporters of French news outlets. Dalati and Nohra photo
Aoun meets with the reporters of French news outlets. Dalati and Nohra photo
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Aoun Says Relations with Saudi Arabia Back to Normal

Aoun meets with the reporters of French news outlets. Dalati and Nohra photo
Aoun meets with the reporters of French news outlets. Dalati and Nohra photo

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has stressed that relations with Saudi Arabia were back to normal, saying the funds and loans secured by Lebanon at the CEDRE conference held in Paris last week will help the country’s economy.

In a meeting with journalists from several French news outlets on Sunday, Aoun said that the Saudi contribution at the CEDRE conference is a sign of rapprochement between the two countries.

“We now have bigger confidence in relations with Saudi Arabia because they are back to normal,” the president told the reporters at Baabda Palace.

Asked about promises made by Lebanon to carry out reforms, he said the country can overcome some difficulties in the implementation of projects.

“As for fighting corruption, it is much more difficult because it spans several sectors,” Aoun stated. “Some influential figures continue to protect corrupt individuals. So at first those involved in corruption should be held accountable.”

International donors pledged on Friday more than $11 billion in low-interest loans and aid for Lebanon at the Paris conference. Lebanon for its part promised a string of reforms including tougher measures to fight corruption.

The conference was aimed at giving Lebanon a boost as it prepares for its first general elections in almost a decade in May.

Aoun stressed that the parliament would witness changes during next month’s elections because the new electoral law allows both the minority and the majority to be represented.

Asked about repeated calls made by Lebanese officials for the return of Syrian refugees to their home country, the president said that the displaced can go back to Syria after military confrontations have been limited to small pockets.

“Bashar Assad is currently the president of his country,” Aoun said.

“We must engage with the existing government - we have no other option,” he stated, responding to a question about Assad’s political future.



Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, local health authorities said, as some Palestinians there said their plight was being forgotten as attention shifted to the air war between Israel and Iran.

The deaths included the latest in near daily killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on Gaza that it had imposed for almost three months.

Medics said separate airstrikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp and Zeitoun neighborhood in central and northern Gaza killed at least 14 people, while five others were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Eleven others were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of displaced Palestinians awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.

The Israel army said it was looking into the reported deaths of people waiting for food. Regarding the other strikes, it said it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" and "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm."

On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said 397 Palestinians among those trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3,000 wounded since aid deliveries restarted in late May.

Some in Gaza expressed concern that the latest escalations in the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023 would be overlooked as the focus moved to Israel's five-day-old conflict with Iran.

"People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days," said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.

"Whoever doesn't die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won," he told Reuters via a chat app.

'FORGOTTEN'

Israel has been channeling much of the aid it is now allowing into Gaza through a new US- and Israeli-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.

It has said it will continue to allow aid into Gaza, home to more than 2 million people, while ensuring aid doesn't get into the hands of Hamas. Hamas denies seizing aid, saying Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the population in Gaza.

The Gaza war was triggered when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.

US ally Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, displaced almost all the territory's residents, and caused a severe hunger crisis.

The assault has led to accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.

Palestinians in Gaza have been closely following Israel's air war with Iran, long a major supporter of Hamas.

"We are maybe happy to see Israel suffer from Iranian rockets, but at the end of the day, one more day in this war costs the lives of tens of innocent people," said 47-year-old Shaban Abed, a father of five from northern Gaza.

"We just hope that a comprehensive solution could be reached to end the war in Gaza, too. We are being forgotten," he said.