Rai: Calls for Dissociation are for Lebanon’s Interests

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai. (NNA)
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai. (NNA)
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Rai: Calls for Dissociation are for Lebanon’s Interests

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai. (NNA)
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai. (NNA)

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai said that his call last week to the international community to stress Lebanon’s neutrality was for the sake of the country and the best of all its components.

“The Lebanese do not want any party to unilaterally decide the fate of Lebanon, along with its people, territory, border, identity, coexistence formula, system, economy, culture and civilization,” Rai said during a Sunday Mass sermon.

“They want a free state that speaks in the name of the people and returns to them with regard to fateful decisions, rather than a state that abandons its decision-making and sovereignty,” he added.

The patriarch stressed that calls he made last Sunday on the need to dissociate Lebanon from external and regional conflicts were based on the country’s supreme interests and national unity.

He said he made the call “in order to protect Lebanon from the dangers of the fast-moving political and military developments in the region and in order to avoid involvement in the policy of regional and international axes and struggles, prevent external interference in Lebanon’s affairs, and out of keenness on its supreme interest, national unity and civil peace … and its adherence to the resolutions of international legitimacy and Arab unanimity.”

He also underscored “the rightful Palestinian cause” and demanded “the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Shebaa Farms, the Kfarshouba hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar, in addition to the implementation of the relevant resolutions of international legitimacy.”



Israeli Forces Have Completed Encirclement of Gaza’s Rafah, Military Says

 Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)
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Israeli Forces Have Completed Encirclement of Gaza’s Rafah, Military Says

 Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)

Israeli forces have completed the encirclement of Gaza's Rafah, the military said on Saturday, part of an announced plan to seize more areas of the enclave, accompanied by large-scale evacuations of the population.

The military has issued repeated evacuation warnings to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across Rafah since it resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, forcing them into a diminishing space limited by the sea.

Israel said on April 2 that troops had begun seizing an area it called the Morag Axis, a reference to a former Israeli settlement once located between the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have since fled Rafah, a 60 square km area that borders Egypt to the south.

"Over the past 24 hours, the 36th Division's troops completed the establishment of the Morag route, separating Rafah and Khan Younis," the military said on Saturday.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza was launched after Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 50,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the offensive, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.

Israel restarted the offensive in March after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January. The campaign will continue, it says, until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Hamas is stamped out of Gaza.

Hamas says it will free hostages only as part of a deal that will end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms. A Hamas delegation was expected in Cairo over the weekend to discuss new truce proposals, according to a source in the group.