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France Relays Israeli Threats to Hezbollah in Lebanon 

An Israeli army soldier stands atop the turret of a Merkava battle tank as a column of tanks is amassed in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on October 11, 2023. (AFP)
An Israeli army soldier stands atop the turret of a Merkava battle tank as a column of tanks is amassed in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on October 11, 2023. (AFP)
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France Relays Israeli Threats to Hezbollah in Lebanon 

An Israeli army soldier stands atop the turret of a Merkava battle tank as a column of tanks is amassed in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on October 11, 2023. (AFP)
An Israeli army soldier stands atop the turret of a Merkava battle tank as a column of tanks is amassed in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on October 11, 2023. (AFP)

Israel has told the Lebanese Hezbollah party that it “is not interested in the war, but ready to wage it if it is imposed on it,” political sources told Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

It also made unprecedented threats, explaining that the war will not be waged according to “Hezbollah’s agenda, and will witness several strategic shocks.”

Israel informed the party, through France, that if the party joined the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, it would “resort to American power to suppress Hezbollah,” as well as confront and overthrow the Syrian regime, including President Bashar al-Assad’s personal security.

Military sources told the newspaper that the decision announced by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to bring the US aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford closer to the region was part of this threat.

The huge modern battleship carries 38 F-35, F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, and has a stockpile of 1,000 tons of weapons. It is accompanied by four small warships, a ship carrying missiles, and four nuclear war submarines, and is ready for combat.

Military sources who spoke to the newspaper said Israel held talks with the administration of US President Joe Biden and requested Congress’ approval to allow US forces to participate in a possible campaign against Hezbollah.

According to media leaks, a number of extremist ministers in the Israeli government are calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to wait for Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to make a move. Rather he must exploit the war to launch a preemptive strike on the party. Netanyahu has been cautious and thrown the ball in the Israeli army’s court.

Army officials believe it was not wise for Israel to open the northern front, but they have stressed that if Hezbollah provocations persist, then “we will respond to them appropriately.”

Israeli military intelligence has been warning for several months against possible war with Hezbollah, pointing to several indications of unusual movements by its members, and saying Nasrallah has adopted a hardline.

On Saturday, an Israeli minister warned that the Hamas attack was just a ruse by Iran and would be followed by a surprise assault by Hezbollah.

“Iran is behind everything that is happening in our region... It pushed [Hamas] into war, and... will push [Hezbollah] to launch a second war,” the minister was quoted as saying.

The Israeli army announced on Oct. 5 that it was preparing “to conduct the largest massive training exercises to train on launching a broad, multi-front war” next November.

It added that these exercises will focus on the air force, with the unusual participation of the German, American, Italian, Greek and French air forces. Britain canceled its participation at the last minute and decided to send observers.

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Arab World

Gazans Flee Scorching Tents for a Polluted Sea

Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. (Reuters)
Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. (Reuters)
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Gazans Flee Scorching Tents for a Polluted Sea

Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. (Reuters)
Tents housing displaced Palestinians stand amid summer heat in Gaza City, June 20, 2026. (Reuters)

Residents of the Gaza Strip have been flocking from suffocating tents to the territory's polluted Mediterranean shore to bathe and wash their clothes, as summer temperatures rise and fresh water remains hard to come by.

Nearly all Gaza's population was displaced during two years of war between Israel and Hamas, with Gazans now crammed into a narrow strip along the coast, mainly in tents and damaged buildings.

"The only outlet in the Gaza Strip, from north to south, is the sea," said Wadie al-Ras, 36, a displaced Palestinian standing on Gaza ‌City's shore.

"The tents ‌we have been staying in since the war ‌are ⁠a torment."

Before war with ⁠Israel broke out in October 2023, Gaza City's sandy beach was a favorite spot for locals to relax. Now it is their only refuge from the crammed, makeshift tents, which are a hotbed of bugs and disease.

Temperatures in Gaza range between 28 and 31 degrees Celsius in the mornings, and inside the tents, it feels far hotter.

The sea offers little comfort. The water is thick with sewage and waste, the ⁠result of a collapse of infrastructure that once served a population ‌of more than two million people.

"The seawater ‌is not clean. There's sewage in it, filled with dirt," said Shehab al-Suwaireki, 36, a ‌displaced father of six.

With no steady supply of fresh water, however, families have been ‌left with little choice.

"We go in and wash (clothes) and bathe then we get out," Suwaireki said. "In any case, germs are getting to our bodies."

Many water pumps have stopped working due to Israeli bombardment, while sewage stations, pumping facilities, and water treatment plants have all been ‌severely damaged, said Husni Muhanna, a spokesperson for the Gaza municipality.

"Residents resort to the beach despite all the dangers," Muhanna ⁠said.

The war began ⁠when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.

Israel responded with an all-out assault on Gaza that killed at least 73,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory.

Despite an October 2025 truce, Israel has continued to carry out deadly attacks in Gaza, which it says aim to thwart imminent attacks by Hamas and other fighters. Hamas has so far rebuffed calls to lay down its arms in exchange for Israel withdrawing its troops.

Aid and basic essentials are scarce.

Nahed Hamouda, a 56-year-old father of four who has been displaced from Jabalia, north of Gaza City, said the tents were "like an oven".

"There's no electricity, no fan, no water, even the food is inedible," he said, as he sat fanning himself with a piece of cardboard.

Arab World

Lebanon Ceasefire Largely Holds but Fears Persist It May Collapse

People check destroyed cars following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in the village of Mayfadoun, southern Lebanon, Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP)
People check destroyed cars following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in the village of Mayfadoun, southern Lebanon, Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP)
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Lebanon Ceasefire Largely Holds but Fears Persist It May Collapse

People check destroyed cars following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in the village of Mayfadoun, southern Lebanon, Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP)
People check destroyed cars following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in the village of Mayfadoun, southern Lebanon, Monday, June 22, 2026. (AP)

A ceasefire largely held in Lebanon on Monday as the country experienced the longest lull yet in three months of war between Hezbollah and Israel, even as fear of renewed hostilities kept displaced people from going home.

A senior Lebanese security official said that adherence to the ceasefire had been "almost total" since Saturday evening, though the official said an Israeli tank fired shells towards a village near Tyre and Israeli forces fired sound grenades in two other locations on Monday. An Israeli drone buzzed over Beirut.

The war has tested the interim US-Iran deal on ending the regional conflict, leading Tehran to announce at the weekend it had once more closed the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US had failed to meet its commitment to halt the fighting in Lebanon.

US Vice President JD Vance, who led Washington's delegation to a first round of talks with Iran aimed at reaching a final peace deal, said on Monday that progress had been made towards ending hostilities in Lebanon, ‌and that the Strait ‌was open.

He said Lebanon was a work in progress.

Hassan Wazni, director of a hospital in ‌Nabatieh - ⁠a city in the ⁠south that has been heavily bombarded during the conflict - said there had been calm since Saturday evening.

"I'm monitoring the situation day by day, and most of the time I'm sleeping in the hospital. This is the longest a ceasefire has held," he told Reuters by phone.

'PEOPLE ARE STILL UNEASY'

But people were hesitant to return, he added, noting that a ceasefire declared on Friday had quickly collapsed, with 20 people in Lebanon killed by Israeli attacks on Saturday, according to Lebanon's civil defense.

"People are still uneasy," Wazni said.

The municipal council of the village of Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh, in a statement circulated on social media, warned residents against returning until safe to do so.

Israeli forces remain deployed deep inside southern Lebanon, occupying a ⁠self-declared security zone where they have been razing villages, saying Hezbollah has embedded itself in civilian ‌areas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that troops had full freedom of ‌action to thwart any Hezbollah direct or emerging threat against them or Israeli citizens, and would remain in Lebanon for "as long as is necessary".

Still, the ‌Israeli military lifted safety restrictions in eight communities near the Lebanese border beginning at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Monday.

VANCE DISCUSSES CEASEFIRE WITH LEBANESE PRESIDENT

A joint statement issued at the end ‌of US-Iranian talks mediated by Pakistan and Qatar in Switzerland said the parties had agreed to create "a de-confliction cell" to ensure adherence to the termination of hostilities in Lebanon.

Israel has yet to issue ⁠any comment on this.

At Iran's ⁠insistence, an interim deal signed with the United States last week requires Washington, Tehran, and their allies to declare an immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire on Friday afternoon, only for hostilities to flare up again on Saturday, leading Iran to announce that it had again shut the Strait of Hormuz.

US officials disputed that the strait was closed, but commercially available shipping data showed an immediate impact.

On Saturday evening, an Israeli military official said the military had received updated directives from the political echelon to cease fire. The Israeli military was operating in "a defensive manner within the security zone", the official said.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun discussed efforts to maintain a ceasefire and halt Israeli military escalation during a phone call with Vance, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, and White House envoy Jared Kushner, the Lebanese presidency said.

Since Hezbollah opened fire in support of Iran on March 2, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed 4,106 people, including 773 women, children and health care workers, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The toll does not say how many combatants are among the dead.

Israeli attacks have forced some 1.2 million people from their homes in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.

Direct damage to buildings in south Lebanon in the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah is estimated at around $1.38 billion, a UN agency and Lebanese research center said on Monday.

"In total, 11,095 buildings were completely destroyed, impacting 17,891 housing units, while 2,242 buildings sustained partial damage... and 9,311 buildings incurred minor damage," the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Lebanon's government-linked National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) said.

The assessment compared satellite imagery from late April, nearly two months into the latest war, with those from October 2025.

Israel's death toll from this round of hostilities with Hezbollah includes at least 32 soldiers and four Israeli civilians.

Arab World

Wife of Iraqi Official Accused of Corruption Allegedly Burns Millions of Dollars in Clay Oven

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (AP) 
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (AP) 
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Wife of Iraqi Official Accused of Corruption Allegedly Burns Millions of Dollars in Clay Oven

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (AP) 
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (AP) 

As the Iraqi government intensifies its anti-corruption campaign, the arrests of senior officials across several ministries have been accompanied by allegations that read almost like fiction.

Two senior officials from the Oil and Electricity Ministries have reportedly confessed to embezzling millions of US dollars and billions of Iraqi dinars, as well as participating in what authorities describe as one of the country’s largest money-laundering operations.

The officials and their alleged backers—widely known in Iraq as the “whales of corruption”—are now at the center of a widening investigation.

At the same time, social media platforms and local news outlets have been awash with stories about how illicit wealth was concealed, whether in fortified homes or on private estates.

One of the most widely circulated claims alleges that the wife and sister of former Oil Ministry official Adnan al-Jumaili burned more than $5 million and billions of Iraqi dinars in a traditional clay oven at a family farm in Salahuddin province before security forces arrived to conduct a search.

An Iraqi source told Asharq Al-Awsat that teams from the Integrity Commission, headed by Mohammed Ali al-Lami and operating under directives from Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, have not officially confirmed whether large sums of money were actually destroyed or whether additional cash was found at specific homes and orchards.

According to the source, recovered funds have been deposited in the state treasury pending further investigations into whether the confessed crimes were carried out independently or on behalf of a broader network.

“The scale of these funds and the manner in which they were obtained leave no doubt that those responsible, enjoyed protection from powerful figures,” the source said. “They may have been little more than front men.”

Iraq’s judiciary has issued arrest warrants for the wife and sister of detained former Oil Ministry undersecretary Adnan Mohammed Mahmoud al-Jumaili, accusing them of burning billions of dinars and more than $5 million before security forces reached the property.

According to a statement from the Supreme Judicial Council, headed by Faiq Zaidan, investigators seized assets linked to al-Jumaili valued at roughly $10 million, in addition to real estate, gold and weapons. Al-Jumaili served as undersecretary for refining affairs at the Oil Ministry.

The statement said preliminary investigations uncovered nearly 40 properties in Baghdad, Salahuddin and Erbil, along with approximately $10 million in cash and 3 billion Iraqi dinars.

Authorities also confiscated about 1.5 kilograms of gold jewelry and large quantities of light and medium weapons. Investigations remain ongoing to identify all individuals and entities connected to the case.

From “Most Honest Employee” to Corruption Suspect

Days after al-Jumaili’s arrest, authorities detained Alaa Samir al-Jubouri, director general of the Middle Electricity Distribution Company and the recipient of Iraq’s 2023 “Most Honest Employee” award. Interior Ministry reports said he was caught in possession of tens of billions of Iraqi dinars.

Following al-Jumaili’s arrest, Communications Minister Mustafa Sanad accused him on Facebook of acting as a conduit for political-party corruption and the sale of government posts within the Oil Ministry.

Commenting on the broader anti-corruption drive, Ghaleb al-Daami, a media professor at Mustansiriyah University, said the campaign reflects an unprecedented level of coordination among the government, judiciary and Integrity Commission.

“This is the first time since 2003 that state institutions have worked together in this way,” al-Daami told Asharq Al-Awsat. “In the past, conflicts between executive and judicial authorities often undermined accountability. Today, the process appears markedly different.”