Rai’s Call for Lebanon’s Neutrality Strains Relations with Hezbollahhttps://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2411976/rai%E2%80%99s-call-lebanon%E2%80%99s-neutrality-strains-relations-hezbollah
Rai’s Call for Lebanon’s Neutrality Strains Relations with Hezbollah
Maronite Patriach Beshara al-Rai receives French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Bkirki on July 23. (French FM Twitter)
The Hezbollah party appears unresponsive to Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai’s call for Lebanon to remain neutral from regional developments.
A joint committee, formed in the 1990s, comprised of representatives of the Patriarchate and the party usually assumes the role of bridging divides between the two sides. The committee became more active after Rai became patriarch. Prior to that, relations between the Patriarchate and Hezbollah were often strained during the term of his late predecessor Nasrallah Sfeir, who was a vocal critic of the party and its weapons and the Syrian regime.
The committee does not appear to be holding a meeting any time soon even though both parties involved have said that nothing is holding them back. The criticism expressed by Hezbollah supporters on social media of Rai’s call for neutrality, however, tell a different story and may delay the committee meeting even further.
Maronite Bishop Samir Mazloum said the committee may meet at any moment. He told Asharq Al-Awsat there was no reason for it to cease its meetings or dialogue. Contacts with Hezbollah and other sides take place from the Patriarchate’s position of openness to everyone, he went on to say.
Moreover, Rai’s call for neutrality was not directed at Hezbollah, he added. “The suggestion benefits all Lebanese without exception. Rai was seeking rapprochement between parties.”
Information obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat revealed that the committee last met some four months ago. The panel does not have a specific schedule for its talks.
Sources close to Hezbollah said that it used to meet every 15 days, every month or every three months. As of yet, there appears to be no meeting scheduled for the near future, they told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Relations between Hezbollah and Bkirki, the seat of the Maronite Patriarchate, are “generally good”, they stressed, citing visits and communication between the two sides over several issues. “Today, however, we are separating the positive relationship with Bkirki from the proposal on neutrality, which we prefer not comment on,” they stated.
Political analyst and Hezbollah expert Qassem Kassir said the party has taken the decision not to officially comment on Rai’s call. It is seeking greater clarifications about his proposal, which is seen as still vague.
The party has left it to President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Hassan Diab and its allies, such as MP Gebran Bassil, former minister Suleiman Franjieh and others to comment on the suggestion, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Hezbollah today is more concerned about the living and economic crisis sweeping Lebanon, Kassir remarked. He speculated that party chief Hassan Nasrallah may address the call for neutrality during a speech on August 13 to mark the anniversary of the end of the July 2006 war.
This is not the first time that relations between Rai and Hezbollah become strained. Back in 2014, the party was critical of the patriarch’s decision to travel to Jerusalem to meet with Pope Francis, saying that such a visit may have repercussions. It marked the first time a Maronite patriarch visited Jerusalem since Israel’s formation in 1948.
Palestinians’ Dangerous Ordeal to Reach Israeli-Approved Aid in Gazahttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5152750-palestinians%E2%80%99-dangerous-ordeal-reach-israeli-approved-aid%C2%A0-gaza
Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)
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Palestinians’ Dangerous Ordeal to Reach Israeli-Approved Aid in Gaza
Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)
When university professor Nizam Salama made his way to a southern Gaza aid point last week, he came under fire twice, was crushed in a desperate crowd of hungry people and finally left empty handed.
Shooting first started shortly after he left his family's tent at 3 a.m. on June 3 to join crowds on the coast road heading towards the aid site in the city of Rafah run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new US-based organization working with private military contractors to deliver aid in Gaza.
The second time Salama came under fire was at Alam Roundabout close to the aid delivery site, where he saw six dead bodies.
Twenty-seven people were killed that day by Israeli fire on aid seekers, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel said its forces had shot at a group of people they viewed as a threat and the military is investigating the incident.
At the aid delivery site, known as SDS 1, queues snaked through narrow cage-like fences before gates were opened to an area surrounded by sand barriers where packages of supplies were left on tables and in boxes on the ground, according to undated CCTV video distributed by GHF, reviewed by Reuters.
Salama said the rush of thousands of people once the gates opened was a "death trap."
"Survival is for the stronger: people who are fitter and can make it earlier and can push harder to win the package," he said. "I felt my ribs going into each other. My chest was going into itself. My breath...I couldn't breathe. People were shouting; they couldn't breathe at all."
A Palestinian man, next to a child, displays the aid supplies he received from the US-supported Gaza Relief Organization, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)
Reuters could not independently verify all the details of Salama's account. It matched the testimonies of two other aid seekers interviewed by Reuters, who spoke of crawling and ducking as bullets rattled overhead on their way to or from the aid distribution sites.
All three witnesses said they saw dead bodies on their journeys to and from the Rafah sites.
A statement from a nearby Red Cross field hospital confirmed the number of dead from the attack near the aid site on June 3.
Asked about the high number of deaths since it began operations on May 26, GHF said there had been no casualties at or in the close vicinity of its site.
The Israeli military didn't respond to detailed requests for comment. Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters on Sunday that Hamas was "doing its best" to provoke troops, who "shoot to stop the threat" in what he called a war zone in the vicinity of the aid sites. He said military investigations were underway "to see where we were wrong."
Salama, 52, had heard enough about the new system to know it would be difficult to get aid, he said, but his five children - including two adults, two teenagers and a nine-year-old - needed food. They have been eating only lentils or pasta for months, he said, often only a single meal a day.
"I was completely against going to the aid site of the American company (GHF) because I knew and I had heard how humiliating it is to do so, but I had no choice because of the bad need to feed my family," said the professor of education administration.
In total, 127 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid from GHF sites in almost daily shootings since distribution under the new system began two weeks ago, Gaza's health authority said on Monday.
The system appears to violate core principles of humanitarian aid, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major humanitarian organization. He compared it to the Hunger Games, the dystopian novels that set people to run and fight to the death.
"A few will be rewarded and the many will only risk their lives for nothing," Egeland said.
"International humanitarian law has prescribed that aid in war zones should be provided by neutral intermediaries that can make sure that the most vulnerable will get the relief according to needs alone and not as part of a political or military strategy," he said.
GHF did not directly respond to a question about its neutrality, replying that it had securely delivered enough aid for more than 11 million meals in two weeks. Gaza's population is around 2.1 million people.
A Palestinian man shows blood stains on his palm after he carried casualties among people seeking aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. (Reuters)
FAMINE RISK
Israel allowed limited UN-led aid operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave, where experts a week earlier warned a famine looms.
The UN has described the aid allowed into Gaza as "drop in the ocean."
Separate to the UN operation, Israel allowed GHF to open four sites in Gaza, bypassing traditional aid groups. The GHF sites are overseen by a US logistics company run by a former CIA official and part-owned by a Chicago-based private equity firm, with security provided by US military veterans working for a private contractor, two sources have told Reuters.
An Israeli defense official involved in humanitarian matters told Reuters GHF's distribution centers were sufficient for around 1.2 million people. Israel and the United States have urged the UN to work with GHF, which has seen a high churn of top personnel, although both countries deny funding it.
Reuters has not been able to establish who provides the funding for the organization but reported last week that Washington was considering an Israeli request to put in $500 million.
GHF coordinates with the Israeli army for access, the foundation said in reply to Reuters questions, adding that it was looking to open more distribution points. It has paused then resumed deliveries several times after the shooting incidents, including on Monday.
Last week, it urged the Israeli army to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations. GHF said the UN was failing to deliver aid, pointing to a spate of recent lootings.
Israel says the UN's aid deliveries have previously been hijacked by Hamas to feed their own fighters. Hamas has denied stealing aid and the UN denies its aid operations help Hamas.
The UN, which has handled previous aid deliveries into Gaza, says it has over 400 distribution points for aid in the territory. On Monday it described an increasingly anarchic situation of looting and has called on Israel to allow more of its trucks to move safely.
SHOOTING STARTS
Salama and four neighbors set out from Mawasi, in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday for the aid site, taking two hours to reach Rafah, which is several miles away near the Egyptian border.
Shooting started early in their journey. Some fire was coming from the sea, he said, consistent with other accounts of the incidents. Israel's military controls the sea around Gaza.
His small group decided to press on. In the dark, the way was uneven and he repeatedly fell, he said.
"I saw people carrying wounded persons and heading back with them towards Khan Younis," he said.
By the time they reached Alam Roundabout in Rafah, about a kilometer from the site, there was a vast crowd. There was more shooting and he saw bullets hitting nearby.
"You must duck and stay on the ground," he said, describing casualties with wounds to the head, chest and legs.
He saw bodies nearby, including a woman, along with "many" injured people, he said.
Another aid seeker interviewed by Reuters, who also walked to Rafah on June 3 in the early morning, described repeated gunfire during the journey.
At one point, he and everyone around him crawled for a stretch of several hundred meters, fearing being shot. He saw a body with a wound to the head about 100 meters from the aid site, he said.
Palestinians gather to collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. (Reuters)
The Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 184 patients on June 3, the majority of them injured by gunshots, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement, calling it the highest number of weapon-wounded patients the hospital had ever received in a single incident. There were 27 fatalities.
"All responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site," the statement said.
When Salama finally arrived at the aid point on June 3, there was nothing left.
"Everyone was standing pulling cardboard boxes from the floor that were empty," he said. "Unfortunately, I found nothing: a very, very, very big zero."
Although the aid was gone, more people were arriving.
"The flood of people pushes you to the front while I was trying to go back," he said.
As he was pushed further towards where GHF guards were located, he saw them using pepper spray on the crowd, he said.
GHF said it was not aware of the pepper spray incident, but said its workers used non-lethal measures to protect civilians.
"I started shouting at the top of my lungs, brothers I don't want anything, I just want to leave, I just want to leave the place," Salama said.
"I left empty-handed... I went back home depressed, sad and angry and hungry too," he said.
