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Israel Wants US, Egypt, Qatar to Press Abbas for Calm

A Palestinian child plays with a toy pistol during the funeral of Hamad Mustafa Abu Jeldah in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank (AFP)
A Palestinian child plays with a toy pistol during the funeral of Hamad Mustafa Abu Jeldah in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank (AFP)
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Israel Wants US, Egypt, Qatar to Press Abbas for Calm

A Palestinian child plays with a toy pistol during the funeral of Hamad Mustafa Abu Jeldah in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank (AFP)
A Palestinian child plays with a toy pistol during the funeral of Hamad Mustafa Abu Jeldah in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank (AFP)

Israel wants Egypt and Qatar to pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to activate the security forces and prevent armed operations during the upcoming Jewish holidays.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israel is responsible for the ongoing escalation, saying it regularly targets Palestinian citizens with the worst forms of persecution and oppression without being held accountable.

The Foreign Ministry added in a press statement Sunday that the Israeli government and its various military branches, including the settlers' militias, organizations, and terrorists, are part of an Israeli strategy to escalate the conflict.

"The Israeli government is fully and directly responsible for the escalation."

The Ministry noted that the Israeli government's policy aims to keep the situation very tense to block any opportunity for the resumption of the peace process that had been stalled since 2014.

It denounced that more than one Israeli official held the Palestinian side responsible for the escalation and its repercussions in an attempt to evade responsibility and as part of Israel's official misleading campaigns.

The Ministry accused Israel of adopting a military-security approach in dealing with the Palestinian issue as an alternative to political solutions to the conflict.

Political sources in Tel Aviv revealed that the Israeli government sought Cairo, Doha, and Washington to pressure Abbas to activate the Palestinian security services to carry out arrest campaigns against Palestinian militants in the West Bank, especially in Jenin and Nablus.

According to Haaretz, Israel is facing difficulty finding goodwill initiatives and restoring confidence between the two parties or taking economic steps that could reduce security tension in the West Bank.

Tel Aviv claimed several serious warnings that the Palestinians are preparing for dozens of armed operations during the Jewish holidays in September and October.

The newspaper noted that the Fatah movement is among the organizations preparing for the operations, not just Palestinian opposition factions.

Israeli forces are carrying out the most significant arrests throughout the West Bank daily since the formation of the cabinet led by Naftali Bennett and then Yair Lapid, which has so far included more than 1,500 detainees.

Each arrest is carried out with a massive military campaign, with the participation of hundreds of soldiers, armored cars, and sometimes drones.

Haaretz reported that the Israeli political leadership is anxious that Abbas's expected speech at the United Nations General Assembly will escalate the situation.

According to the newspaper, Abbas's visit to Cairo last Monday focused on this issue.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, also tried to pressure the Palestinians in this direction during her meeting with Minister Hussein al-Sheikh and intelligence chief Majed Faraj.

Leaf called on the Palestinians to withdraw their request for the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a member state, claiming that this would lead to an escalation in the West Bank. Abbas refused to meet Leaf.

An Israeli source familiar with the matter claimed that Abbas does not realize the depth of the problem.

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Arab World

Hamas Says Will Give Up Arms to a Palestinian Authority ‘If Occupation Ends’

A Palestinian gunman stands guard as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters transport a white body bag believed to carry the remains of an Israeli hostage in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on December 3, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian gunman stands guard as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters transport a white body bag believed to carry the remains of an Israeli hostage in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on December 3, 2025. (AFP)
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Hamas Says Will Give Up Arms to a Palestinian Authority ‘If Occupation Ends’

A Palestinian gunman stands guard as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters transport a white body bag believed to carry the remains of an Israeli hostage in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on December 3, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian gunman stands guard as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters transport a white body bag believed to carry the remains of an Israeli hostage in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on December 3, 2025. (AFP)

Hamas said Saturday it was ready to hand over its weapons in the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian authority governing the territory on the condition that the Israeli army’s occupation ends.

“Our weapons are linked to the existence of the occupation and the aggression,” Hamas chief negotiator and its Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya said in a statement, adding: “If the occupation ends, these weapons will be placed under the authority of the state.”

Asked by AFP, al-Hayya’s bureau said he was referring to a sovereign and independent Palestinian state.

“We accept the deployment of UN forces as a separation force, tasked with monitoring the borders and ensuring compliance with the ceasefire in Gaza,” al-Hayya added, signaling his group’s rejection of the deployment of an international force in the Strip whose mission would be to disarm it.

Arab World

Hezbollah Supporters Dismayed as Leaked Videos Show Assad Mocking Party

A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
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Hezbollah Supporters Dismayed as Leaked Videos Show Assad Mocking Party

A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon expressed their dismay in the leaked videos of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late media advisor Luna al-Shibl in which they mock supporters of the regime, including the Iran-backed party, during the 14-year Syrian civil war.

Al Arabiya released the videos that showed Assad driving a vehicle in Damascus, with Shibl in the passenger seat. A third person was filming from the back seat. The videos are undated but suspected to date back to 2018 after opposition fighters were forced out of Ghouta near Damascus.

As they drive, the trio encounter gunmen, whom Assad said were Lebanese, meaning Hezbollah fighters. Shibl then started to discuss the party and its performance during the war.

Hezbollah had sent its fighters to Syria to prop up the regime during the conflict. Its intervention helped prolong the war. Russia’s eventual intervention helped tip the balance in the regime’s favor.

In the videos, Shibl said that the “Syrian army has learned and now has experience that it can share with other armies.”

“Hezbollah in the end could not back up its claims and we never heard from it,” she added.

Commenting to Asharq Al-Awsat about the videos, Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon expressed their disappointment, saying they were a “mockery of all the sacrifices and denial of the facts on the ground.”

One supporter said Assad’s silence over Shibl’s comments “is a sign of his agreement and another insult” to the party.

Assad has no loyalty and does not appreciate the sacrifices, he stressed.

Another supporter dismissed Shibl, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that she is “delusional”, a “liar” and “flatterer”.

“She and Assad both know that were it not for Hezbollah, the opposition would have captured Damascus in winter 2012,” he remarked.

Hezbollah supporters often trade stories about their fighting in Syria. The party has also released footage of its operations in Syria, most notably in the regions of Qusayr and al-Qalamoun in spring 2013, and Aleppo, al-Zabadani and Ghouta in 2016. Those operations have become part of the party’s “lore”.

One Hezbollah fighters told Asharq Al-Awsat that the regime army “did not know how to stop attacks in southern Damascus in 2012. (...) The party had to step in and draft plans.”

The offensive launched by the opposition in Daraa at the time “was repelled by the party alone and some Syrian fighters,” he went on to say.

In eastern Ghouta, he recalled how the regime forces were retreating, “leaving Hezbollah members to fight alone for two hours” before regrouping.

“Shibl should have spoken about who devised the plans to capture al-Qalamoun and al-Zabadani and who fought there” before she doubted the party’s capabilities, the fighter told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The disappointment in the videos also played out on social media, with supporters recalling that before they were allied during the war, Hezbollah and the regime had a rivalry that dates back to Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

The rivalry was patched up because the regime needed the party, said one social media user.

Another said the videos were a message to those who still defended Assad.

Ties between Hezbollah and Assad were strained before his ouster in December 2024. Some Hezbollah leaders accused Assad of abandoning the party during the “support war” it had launched from Lebanon in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

It has since been revealed that Assad barred Hezbollah from using Syrian territory to launch rockets at Israel during the “support war”. The regime also restricted the delivery of weapons to the party through Syria during the conflict.

Arab World

Assad Curses Ghouta, Mocks Syrian Troops in Leaked Videos

Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)
Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)
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Assad Curses Ghouta, Mocks Syrian Troops in Leaked Videos

Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)
Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)

As Syrians gear up to mark the one-year anniversary of the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad's regime on Monday, Al Arabiya television released videos of the toppled leader recorded a few years ago showing him cursing the region of al-Ghouta and mocking his own troops even amid the civil war.

The videos released on Saturday showed Assad as he was driving his car through Damascus with his late media advisor Luna al-Shibl. The videos are undated but suspected to have been recorded around 2018 after opposition fighters were forced out of Ghouta. They were filmed by a third person in the vehicle with Assad and Shibl.

In one video, Assad is heard cursing Ghouta, saying: “To hell with it.” Other shots showed him mocking his own soldiers when they would kiss the president’s hands in a show of loyalty.

At one point, Shibl asked Assad how he feels about seeing posters of himself on the streets of Syria, to which he replied that he feels “nothing” about them.

On the situation in war-torn Syria, Assad said he was “not only ashamed but disgusted.”

Assad at one point mocks even his family name, which translates to “lion” in Arabic, saying maybe he should change it to “some other animal.”

Assad and Shibl even mocked Lebanon's Hezbollah that had sent its fighters to Syria to prop up the regime.

Commenting on the leaks, Syrians dismissed them, while other said they were further evidence of his lack of loyalty to forces that had stood by him during the war.

Journalist Wael Youssef said he did not care about the leaks, saying Assad and Shibl were now part of the past.

He added that he was disturbed even hearing their voices. “Personally, I could never listen to Bashar when he was delivering an allegedly important speech. If it was really important, I would get a copy of it to read. Today they are now behind us, thank God.”

Assad's late media advisor Luna al-Shibl.

Radwan, a resident of Damascus’ Jobar neighborhood that was destroyed by regime forces during the war, described Assad as an “idiot, which is why we rose up against him”.

“When he would bomb us with planes, we would often wonder how he could possibly call himself Syrian because he has an unnatural animosity to Syria and its people,” he said. “The videos are evidence of this.”

Lawyer Nibal Hamdoun said she was not surprised by Assad’s comments in the leaks. “We had experienced his sentiments during 14 years of killing and destruction during the war,” she remarked.

“If he believes Syria is disgusting, then it is because of his corrupt rule and the corruption of his father (late President Hafez al-Assad),” she stressed, adding that he should be ashamed of himself.

Another Syrian, Badr Rahmeh said he was curious to learn how Assad feels in his Moscow exile as he watches Syria prepare to celebrate a year since his ouster.

“Will he watch as we trample posters of his image that he allegedly didn’t like to see on the streets where we were forced to hang them?” he wondered.

“I want to know how the supporters Shibl had called on to persevere during the war now feel as they watch these videos that mock their loyalty,” he went on to say.

Shibl had died in mysterious circumstance in 2024. The official story was that she died in a car accident, while skeptics say that the accident was deliberate and staged by the regime after she had fallen afoul of it.

She had worked for years as the director of the presidency media office before being promoted to Assad’s media advisor.