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Lebanon’s Cabinet Sessions Remain Stalled Pending Results of Aoun-Hariri Contacts

President Michel Aoun met on Tuesday with Ghattas Khoury (NNA)
President Michel Aoun met on Tuesday with Ghattas Khoury (NNA)
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Lebanon’s Cabinet Sessions Remain Stalled Pending Results of Aoun-Hariri Contacts

President Michel Aoun met on Tuesday with Ghattas Khoury (NNA)
President Michel Aoun met on Tuesday with Ghattas Khoury (NNA)

Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Saad Hariri agreed on not holding a cabinet session this week pending a solution to a crisis that emerged over demands to refer to the Judicial Council the killing of two aides of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib in the Druze area of Aley earlier this month.

Contacts between Aoun and Hariri on Tuesday focused on handing over all suspects from the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the Lebanese Democratic Party (LDP), both involved in the deadly shootout.

“The general atmosphere signals a possible solution,” sources familiar with the issue told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The PM dispatched his political adviser, ex-minister Ghattas Khoury, to learn from the President the clear position of LDP leader MP Talal Arslan from the latest developments.

Gharib is a member of the LDP.

Hariri is hoping that Aoun would convince Arslan to relinquish his demand to refer the deadly shooting to the Judicial Council, the country’s top judicial court, during the next cabinet session.

However, Arslan seems to be sticking to his stance.

Cabinet sessions have been stalled since the June 30 Aley shooting, which has widened the rift among several political parties.

PSP chief ex-MP Walid Jumblatt said Tuesday that “Lebanon’s interest lies above all considerations.”

He added that his party was ready to accept any procedures in the deadly shooting.

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Israeli Army Orders Gaza City Suburb Evacuated, Spurring New Displacement Wave

A Palestinian man points at a damaged building in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 20, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian man points at a damaged building in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 20, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Israeli Army Orders Gaza City Suburb Evacuated, Spurring New Displacement Wave

A Palestinian man points at a damaged building in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 20, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian man points at a damaged building in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 20, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.
The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.
"For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south," the military's post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas' armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.
Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.
Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday's early hours, residents and Palestinian media said - the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
HOSPITAL DIRECTOR WOUNDED BY GUNFIRE
In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
"This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost," Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.
"We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us...," he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.
In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns - Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun - said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all the enclave's 2.3 million population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.