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‘Messages’ Behind Israel’s Bombing of Latakia Port

A fire blazes in the container yard of the Syrian port of Latakia after an Israeli air strike targeting an Iranian arms shipment. (AFP)
A fire blazes in the container yard of the Syrian port of Latakia after an Israeli air strike targeting an Iranian arms shipment. (AFP)
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‘Messages’ Behind Israel’s Bombing of Latakia Port

A fire blazes in the container yard of the Syrian port of Latakia after an Israeli air strike targeting an Iranian arms shipment. (AFP)
A fire blazes in the container yard of the Syrian port of Latakia after an Israeli air strike targeting an Iranian arms shipment. (AFP)

The bombing of the port of Latakia at dawn on Tuesday carried most messages since the start of the Israeli raids in Syria at the end of 2013, months after the “chemical deal” between Washington and Moscow. Why?

1 - Latakia port: The attack targeted the most important Syrian port, kilometers away from the Russian Hmeimim military base, which hosts the advanced S-300 and S-400 missile systems. This is an indication of the Russian consent with the Israeli raids, or at least, its non-objection to them.

2 - Russian anger: Moscow had previously expressed to Damascus its “anger” at the Syrian government’s decision in February 2019 to give the Latakia port management to Iran after terminating a contract with an international company. Damascus tried to please Moscow by granting it concessions in the nearby port of Tartus as part of a “balance game between the two allies”, but the Russian implicit anger persisted.

3 - The “September knot”: In September 2018, the Syrian air defenses mistakenly shot down a Russian military plane while it was responding to Israeli raids. The incident led to the killing of 15 Russian soldiers, causing tension between Moscow and Israel, and requiring visits from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Russian President Vladimir Putin to resolve the crisis and return to operating the military “coordination mechanism” between the two sides in Syria. However, Israel remained cautious when targeting the vicinity of the two Russian bases in Latakia and Tartus to avoid any Russian casualties.

4- Putin - Bennett: Since Naftali Bennett assumed the premiership in June, Russia has sought to “remind” Israel of its presence in Syria, by providing detailed data on the Syrian response to the raids and Damascus’ use of Russian anti-missile shields, with warnings to Tel Aviv not to target Russian or Syrian government interests. However, according to Israeli leaks, Bennett obtained from Putin, during their meeting in Sochi on October 22, “more than what Netanyahu had.” Military coordination and the “red line” between Tel Aviv and the Hmeimim base were restored. In fact, the first raid after the meeting saw the use of surface-to-surface missiles targeting the outskirts of Damascus.

5- “Broadness and focus”: Since the meeting between Putin and Bennett, the circle of raids has expanded. “Mysterious bombing” was repeated on “Iranian sites” in eastern Syria, while Israel targeted several times the outskirts of Damascus and central Syria, on October 30 and November 3, 8 and 24, hitting “Iranian weapons and ammunition depots,” according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

6- “Inhuman”: The special envoy of the Russian President to Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said during his participation in a forum in Damascus in mid-November: “As for the issue raised regarding the illegal bombings of Syrian territory by Israel: we strongly oppose these inhuman actions and call for contacts at all levels with the Israeli side on the need to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity of Syria and stop these bombings.”

He continued: “In this context, a military response would be counterproductive, because no one needs a war on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

7- “Resistance to Israel”: Lavrentyev’s position is completely different from that of Tehran. The Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said during his meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad in Tehran on Tuesday: “The resistance is the only way to eradicate this cancerous tumor from the region,” as reported by IRNA.

8 - Two approaches and a theater: Faced with the different approaches of Moscow and Tehran on government control and the relationship with Tel Aviv, Russia sought to persuade Iran to remove its organizations from the T-4 base in the center of the country, which was exposed to several Israeli raids.

On the other hand, US officials accused Iran of bombing the US base of al-Tanf in southeastern Syria, in “retaliation” for the Israeli attacks. This angered Moscow, which establishes major understandings with Washington, including in Syria.

9 - Putin-Biden: Before the Putin-Bennett meeting at the end of October, organizations affiliated with Tehran targeted Al-Tanf base, as part of their “messages” to Sochi, the meeting place. It is not a coincidence for the recent Israeli bombing of an “Iranian shipment” in Latakia, near Hmeimim, to come hours before the summit of the Russian and American presidents, who have good relations with Israel and “guarantee its security.”

10 - The nuclear file and normalization: The raids cannot be taken out of the context of regional and international developments, especially with regard to the deadlock facing the nuclear talks in Vienna and Israeli and American warnings of “other options.” In addition, some are betting that “normalization” with Damascus will “curb the Iranian military presence” in Syria... even if it was the result of an understanding between Moscow, Damascus and Tehran, which Meqdad visited on Tuesday.

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As the UN Turns 80, Its Crucial Humanitarian Aid Work Faces a Clouded Future

Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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As the UN Turns 80, Its Crucial Humanitarian Aid Work Faces a Clouded Future

Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007.

“We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,” the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the UN World Food Program and UN refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees, The Associated Press said.

Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from dozens of conflict-hit east African countries.

A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, “UN agencies have supported my children’s education — we get food and water and even medicine,” as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics.

This year, those cash transfers — and many other UN aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives.

As the UN marks its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending. Some want to use the money to build up national defense.

Some UN agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some UN agencies.

Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the UN and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago.

“It’s the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the UN in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,” said Jan Egeland, a former UN humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. “And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.”

‘Brutal’ cuts to humanitarian aid programs UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of UN agencies to find ways to cut 20% of their staffs, and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid.

Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don’t — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water.

The UN says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi group, who have detained dozens of UN and other aid workers.

Proponents say UN aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles.

Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often UN-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight.

In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the UN’s refugee and migration agencies, the US has represented at least 40% of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in US foreign assistance have hit hard. Each UN agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending.

“It's too brutal what has happened,” said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. “However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.”

With the UN Security Council's divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of UN activity. That's dimming now.

Not just funding cuts cloud the future of UN humanitarian work

Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work.

UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948.

Israel claims the agency's schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off UN aid in Gaza to profit from it, while UN officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy.

“UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,” said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut.

UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife’s heart medicine. The United States, Israel's top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, which has strived to continue its work nonetheless.

Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: “If it wasn’t for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.”

Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks.

“This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,” said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. “It’s a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40%. So obviously that’s an equation that doesn’t come together easily.”

Billing itself as the world's largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff.

The aid landscape is shifting

One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing.

The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the US Agency for International Development.

Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites.

The future of UN aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body's 193 member countries.

“We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the UN to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program.