Promises about Gulf Tourists Returning to Lebanon this Summerhttps://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1221816/promises-about-gulf-tourists-returning-lebanon-summer
Promises about Gulf Tourists Returning to Lebanon this Summer
Emirates Airbus. Ashraf Mohammad / Reuters
Saudi Embassy Chargé d'Affaires Walid Bukhari and UAE Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamad Bin Saeed al-Shamsi, announced on Thursday the presence of serious efforts to stimulate the return of Gulf tourists to Lebanon, stressing that the first signs of such decision could appear this summer, following the May parliamentary elections.
The diplomats’ comments came during a ceremony welcoming the arrival of an Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner, at Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport on Thursday, in a flight coming from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Bukhari told reporters that Saudi Arabia was reviewing advice to citizens against travelling to Lebanon, adding that a decision would be based on security indications.
Al-Shamsi echoed Bukhari’s comments by revealing the presence of similar efforts to revive the comeback of Gulf tourists to Lebanon.
“We expect that executive measures would be taken in this regard during next summer, following the Parliamentary elections scheduled for May 6,” he said.
Lebanese senior officials awaited the plane’s arrival at the airport on Thursday.
Lebanon’s Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos described the ceremony as “historic,” adding that it was the first time Beirut’s airport welcomes such kind of airplanes.
Owned by UAE’s Emirates Airline, the double-decker passenger plane requires airports specially equipped to allow over 500 passengers to disembark from both decks, a characteristic still not carried out at the Beirut airport.
Fenianos said that expansion plans for Beirut airport would ensure that A380 planes are properly accommodated.
“The arrival of the biggest airplane to Beirut is a symbol of cooperation between the UAE and Lebanon and between the UAE’s Airline and the civil aviation in Lebanon,” the minister said.
The Airbus arrived to Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport for the first time, to test the operations and infrastructure required to accommodate an A380 service.
Mourners attend the funeral of Azzam Al-Hayya, the son of Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas' chief negotiator in US-mediated talks over Gaza's future, in Gaza City May 7, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Mourners attend the funeral of Azzam Al-Hayya, the son of Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas' chief negotiator in US-mediated talks over Gaza's future, in Gaza City May 7, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Two Hamas sources told Asharq Al-Awsat the group’s leadership is weighing a temporary suspension of negotiations, citing what one source called “Israel’s lack of seriousness” in taking any steps to stop “its crimes and daily killings in Gaza.”
Talks on the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which took effect last October, are facing fresh complications.
Israel and Hamas remain at odds over how to implement the first-phase terms demanded by Hamas, including humanitarian commitments, and the second phase, which Israel is pressing to activate, especially the clause on “disarming” Gaza.
Israel has stepped up assassinations in Gaza after three days of relative calm requested by mediators, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, and a US official from envoy Jared Kushner’s team.
People scramble to receive a warm meal at the Nuseirat camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 7, 2026. (Photo by Eyad Baba / AFP)
Hamas said Thursday that Azzam al-Hayya, son of its chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, had died of wounds sustained in an Israeli attack that targeted him and others in Gaza City on Wednesday evening.
The attack also killed Hamza al-Sharbasi, a field commander in the elite unit of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, in the Shujaiya neighborhood.
Israeli strikes after noon Thursday killed three members of Hamas’ Internal Security Service at the entrance to its headquarters west of Gaza City.
Hamas said in a statement that the killing of Azzam al-Hayya was a failed attempt by Israel to influence the negotiating team and win political concessions.
Azzam’s death means Khalil al-Hayya has lost four sons in separate incidents. Among them was Hammam, Azzam’s twin, who was killed in a strike that targeted his father and several Hamas leaders while they were in Doha in September 2025.
‘The option is on the table, but it is not a response’
The two Hamas sources, both based outside the Palestinian territories, said the group had not made a final decision to suspend talks.
But one said “the option is now strongly on the table,” citing what he described as the mediators’ clear inability, including Mladenov and the US, to force Israel to stop daily violations that he said had killed about 1,000 Palestinians since the ceasefire began last October.
In separate comments, the sources rejected the idea that the possible suspension was a response to the killing of Khalil al-Hayya’s son.
They said the proposal had already been under discussion by the delegation, but had been delayed at the request of mediators and following consultations with factions.
“With the return of intensive assassinations and killings in this manner, it is back on the table again,” one source said.
Children sift through rubbish at the Nuseirat camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 7, 2026. (Photo by Eyad Baba / AFP)
Sources from Palestinian factions said the killing of al-Hayya’s son would, in any case, automatically pause negotiation contacts because of a mourning period expected to last at least three days.
Despite earlier “positive” signals about progress, Palestinian factions have not received a response following Mladenov’s visit to Israel and his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Tuesday.
Mladenov left Cairo last Friday for Israel to seek a response to understandings reached in Egypt’s negotiations with Hamas.
He met Netanyahu and described the meeting as “a positive and substantive discussion on the way forward to ensure the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan.”
Mladenov’s delayed response
Asharq Al-Awsat learned that Mladenov left Israel on Wednesday evening for his office in Dubai, although he had been expected in Egypt last Tuesday.
A Hamas source inside Gaza accused the Board of Peace representative of “aligning with Israeli conditions instead of being neutral.”
“What the negotiating delegation hears about ‘positivity’ from Mladenov or some US officials who took part in the meetings was expected to be followed by them compelling Israel or bringing positive responses from it,” the source said. But that did not happen, according to the source.
In an interview with Israel’s i24NEWS, Mladenov reiterated the Board of Peace’s position that Gaza’s reconstruction and Israel’s withdrawal from the strip are essentially tied to full disarmament.
He warned against linking Gaza to geopolitical developments in Iran or Lebanon, calling such voices “irresponsible” toward two million people living in tragic conditions.
Trump’s Gaza plan, accepted by Israel and Hamas, calls for Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza, reconstruction to begin and Hamas to give up its weapons. But “disarmament” remains a major sticking point in talks to implement the plan and cement the ceasefire.
Senior Hamas sources say the group has told Mladenov it will not enter serious talks on implementing the second phase before Israel meets its first-phase obligations, including a complete halt to attacks.
Israel Strikes across Southern Lebanon despite Trucehttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5270586-israel-strikes-across-southern-lebanon-despite-truce
A bulldozer clears the rubble of a partially damaged building targeted by an Israeli strike in the Haret Hreik neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 07 May 2026. EPA/STRINGER
Israel Strikes across Southern Lebanon despite Truce
A bulldozer clears the rubble of a partially damaged building targeted by an Israeli strike in the Haret Hreik neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 07 May 2026. EPA/STRINGER
Israel pummeled southern Lebanon on Thursday, state media and AFP correspondents said, a day after it targeted a Hezbollah commander in its first strike on Beirut's southern suburbs since a truce sought to end weeks of fighting.
The Israeli army said Thursday that the strike on the southern suburbs killed "the Commander of Hezbollah's 'Radwan Force' Unit", an elite unit within the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
A ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel began on April 17, but combat has largely not stopped in southern Lebanon.
Wednesday's strike near the capital, however, came as a shock in Lebanon.
AFP photographs taken in the southern suburbs showed the top floors of a residential building totally destroyed, and rescuers searching through the rubble on Thursday morning.
Hezbollah has not retaliated for the attack.
Lebanese state media reported Israeli strikes across a number of southern towns and villages, and the Israeli army issued fresh evacuation warnings to three villages north of the Litani River, and outside the area occupied by Israeli troops following their ground invasion of the border area.
Some of the Israeli strikes, on the southern city of Nabatieh, targeted a shopping center and residential buildings, state media and an AFP correspondent said.
In the nearby village of Toul, two rescuers from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were wounded in an Israeli strike as they were dispatched following a previous attack, spokesperson Mahmoud Karaki told AFP.
The team's ambulance was heavily damaged, he added.
The Israeli military said in a statement Thursday that an "explosive drone impact" wounded four soldiers -- one severely -- in southern Lebanon the previous day.
Despite the ceasefire, Hezbollah regularly claims attacks against Israeli forces occupying parts of southern Lebanon.
Since the war began on March 2, Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,700 people in Lebanon.
The Israeli military says it has lost 17 soldiers and a contractor in south Lebanon.
Israeli Attack Kills Son of Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayyahttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5270550-israeli-attack-kills-son-hamas%E2%80%99-khalil-al-hayya
Israeli Attack Kills Son of Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayya
FILE PHOTO: Hamas officials, Khalil Al-Hayya and Osama Hamdan, attend a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, November 21, 2023. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo
Azzam Al-Hayya, the son of Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas' exiled Gaza chief who had been leading indirect talks with Israel over the Palestinian enclave's future, died on Thursday, a day after he was wounded in a strike in Gaza City, medical sources and others from the Hamas movement told Asharq Al-Awsat.
One source at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital said that Azzam Al-Hayya’s injuries were “severe and critical,” while a Hamas source indicated that the Israeli attacks on Wednesday were large-scale and extensive, resulting in the deaths of at least five people across the Gaza Strip, in addition to the son of the senior Hamas leader.
Khalil Al-Hayya had already lost three sons in previous Israeli attempts on his life - two in Gaza in the 2008 and 2014 rounds of fighting, while the third was killed in an Israeli attempt to kill Hamas leadership in Doha last year.
Several of Al-Hayya’s daughters and grandchildren have also been killed in a series of attacks during the war in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Hayya is in Cairo as part of a Hamas delegation and is holding talks with regional mediators and the Board of Peace’s lead envoy, Nickolay Mladenov.
Al-Hayya on Wednesday accused Israel of trying to undermine mediators' efforts to push ahead with US President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, overseen by his Board of Peace.
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