In a joint statement issued by around 17 Christian villages in southern Lebanon, the municipalities rejected the Israeli claims and denied reports circulated by Hebrew-language media that these villages had asked Israeli officials to annex them to Israel and grant their residents Israeli citizenship.
The statement described these reports as "fabricated" and having "no basis in reality," stressing that the residents of these villages are committed to Lebanon, regard it as their final homeland, and will not accept any substitute for their Lebanese identity.
polyblog.lebanon:
In a striking political irony, Hezbollah has attacked the framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel, reached under U.S. mediation during negotiations in Washington, portraying it as a concession and a threat to Lebanon.
Yet Israel's far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has taken an almost identical position. He denounced the agreement as a "grave mistake" and announced that he had asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to submit it to a cabinet vote.
The irony does not end there. Al-Akhbar, the Lebanese newspaper closely aligned with Hezbollah, rushed to highlight and promote Ben-Gvir's remarks as evidence of the agreement's supposed dangers—effectively relying on the rhetoric of one of Israel's most extreme politicians to reinforce its own narrative.
When Hezbollah and Ben-Gvir both oppose the same agreement—each for reasons that serve their own agenda—their positions converge despite their declared hostility.
More troubling still is the sight of a Lebanese newspaper turning itself into a platform for Israeli far-right rhetoric whenever that rhetoric happens to serve the narrative it seeks to promote.
Mona Khalil spent decades protecting endangered sea turtles on Lebanon's coast and welcoming volunteers from around the world. She wasn't a politician, a fighter, or a military target. She was an environmentalist.
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After an Israeli airstrike hit her home on June 4, she died from her injuries on June 19.
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If Israel is trying to win hearts and minds, killing the woman known as the "guardian of Lebanon's sea turtles" seems like a strange strategy.
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Says Lebanon must pay a terrible, irreversible price.
👍 we approve of this.