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Middle East Eye
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Khamenei assassination could draw Hezbollah into Israel-Iran hostilities, say sources
Hezbollah may join the war between Israel and Iran if the United States intervenes directly, or if Iran's supreme leader is killed, sources close to the Lebanese group have told Middle East Eye. On 14 June, Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah lawmaker, stated: 'Iran knows how to defend itself.' The comments were widely interpreted in Lebanese political circles as a sign that the war-weary group did not want to intervene in support of its Iranian allies. A Hezbollah official also told Reuters last week that the group 'will not initiate an attack on Israel in response to strikes on Iran'. However, sources close to the party have said to MEE that the Reuters report is inaccurate. One source said that Hezbollah had ideological 'red lines', namely direct American military involvement in the war, or the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Those scenarios would 'shift the calculations' and may push the group into the conflict. The source would not be drawn on exactly what that role in the war would look like. A senior Iranian official echoed one of the red lines, saying to Al Jazeera that Hezbollah would intervene if Washington did so. Both the red lines have been hinted at by US President Donald Trump in recent days. CBS reported that Trump had approved plans to directly attack Iran, but had not yet made a final decision on it. On Khamenei, the president said on Tuesday that Washington knew where the supreme leader was, but would not kill him 'for now'. 'Existential battle' The Axis of Resistance - a group of non-state actors across the region allied to Iran - sees the current conflict as an 'existential battle', a second source close to Hezbollah told MEE. Ali Rizk, a Lebanese security analyst and expert on Hezbollah, said that the killing of Khamenei, taken in isolation, would not necessarily pose an existential threat to Hezbollah. 'It's quite likely Hezbollah would intervene should the regime's survival be at stake' – Ali Rizk, Lebanese security analyst 'I think what the existential threat for Hezbollah would be is for the Islamic Republic to be destroyed,' Rizk told MEE. 'It's quite likely Hezbollah would intervene should the regime's survival be at stake. 'Hezbollah's relations to Iran are linked. There's an ideological level, not just Shia, but Wilayat al-Faqih,' he said, referring to a doctrine in Shia Islam that governments should be led by Islamic jurists who have the highest levels of expertise. Rizk added that if the US became involved militarily, the conflict could 'snowball towards regime change', which most likely would draw Hezbollah into getting involved. 'Support front' like Gaza and Syria wars Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria, warned Hezbollah against getting involved. 'I can say on behalf of President Trump… that would be a very, very, very bad decision,' he told reporters on Thursday in Beirut, shortly after meeting Lebanese officials, including parliament speaker Nabih Berri. The second source told MEE: 'If necessary, and if the Iranian regime is threatened, the party is ready to enter this battle through a support front, as happened with Gaza and Syria.' Hezbollah opened a battlefront with Israel on 8 October 2023, in support of Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza. 'Iran's Revolutionary Guard has become heavily involved in the Hezbollah's organisation and is overseeing its rebuilding' - Source close to Hezbollah For around a year, the conflict was limited to cross-border exchanges of fire. However in September, Israel exploded thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members, before launching a huge bombing campaign and ground invasion. More than 3,900 Lebanese were killed. The war left Hezbollah severely weakened, killing much of its senior leadership, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah. A ceasefire was agreed in November, though Israel continues to carry out frequent attacks on south Lebanon and Beirut suburbs. The Israeli army still occupies several posts in southern Lebanon. In Syria, meanwhile, Hezbollah ground forces had fought for several years in support of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad. But the Assad dynasty's five-decade rule fell in December, in a surprise assault by rebel forces which was helped by the months-long depletion of Hezbollah. 'In coordination with the IRGC' Since a new Lebanese administration was appointed in February, after two years of deadlock, discussions have been ongoing between the government and Hezbollah about the future of the group's vast weaponry. The government in Beirut instructed the Lebanese army to communicate with Hezbollah and ensure they kept Lebanon out of the conflict, a Lebanese official told MEE. Several government meetings were held about the repercussions of the conflict, the official said, including meetings at the presidential palace between President Joseph Aoun and the heads of Lebanon's security agencies. Rizk said military involvement would be politically challenging for Hezbollah. 'The existential threat for Hezbollah would be for the Islamic Republic to be destroyed' - Ali Rizk, security analyst 'It's going to put the Lebanese state in a difficult situation, and it could upset ties between Aoun and Hezbollah,' Rizk told MEE. 'They have established good ties with the president.' Hezbollah is widely regarded to be the most heavily-armed non-state group in the world. Its arsenal includes a wide range of drones, rockets and long-range missiles. Many of its most prized weapons are thought to be held in tunnels dug deep underground. The second source said that Hezbollah had undergone a structural re-organisation since its most recent war with Israel, in coordination with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. 'Since the war, the Revolutionary Guard has become heavily involved in the party's organisation and is overseeing its rebuilding,' they said. 'Thus, any decision the party makes will be in coordination with the Revolutionary Guard, which views this war as a battle to preserve the [Iranian] regime and prevent its collapse.' They said that despite over a year of conflict with Israel, Hezbollah retained fighting capabilities and weapons out of reach of Israeli air strikes.
Middle East Eye
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Far more Americans oppose US strikes on Iran than support them: Poll
Fewer than half of Americans surveyed oppose US strikes on Iran, with that figure dwarfing the number of people who do support military action, a new poll published by The Washington Post on Wednesday has found. A random sampling of 1,008 US adults was texted by the paper to respond to several questions on what may be impending US operational involvement in air strikes on Iran, following Israel's attacks, which began on 13 June. Results showed that 45 percent of respondents oppose US strikes "at this time" and only 25 percent said they support them, creating a significant 20-point margin. The remaining 30 percent of respondents said they were "unsure". Among Democrats, two-thirds oppose US military action, while among Republicans, only 24 percent are opposed. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Those who said they do not identify with either political party largely oppose the strikes, at a figure of 44 percent. The results showed that households with links to the US military showed less opposition to US strikes than those with no links. Still, in both cases, the majority of respondents do not want the US to attack Iran. When The Post asked how much news they've heard about Israel's attacks on Iran and Iran's retaliation, 39 percent of respondents said "a good amount", but it was unclear what their sources of news were. Opposing military action However, The Post noted that support for US strikes on Iran was highest among people paying the most attention to the news. The caveat is that even within this particular group, more respondents oppose military action than support it. Nearly equal amounts of US adults - 31 percent and 30 percent, respectively - said they either heard "a great deal" of news or "little to nothing" about Israel and Iran. Only one-fifth of all respondents said Iran's nuclear potential poses "an immediate threat" to the US. Most are Republicans. Nearly half of all respondents, 48 percent, said it is a "somewhat serious threat", while 23 percent said it is a "minor threat". 'No war on Iran': New Yorkers rally against US and Israeli regime change plans Read More » Just seven percent of respondents do not believe Iran's nuclear potential poses any threat to the US at all. Among Republicans, Democrats, and those who identify with neither, between 45 and 50 percent of respondents said the threat is "somewhat serious". The vast majority of those surveyed, 82 percent, expressed concern about US involvement in the conflict, with 39 percent saying they are "very concerned". Democrats looked to be the most concerned, while Republicans were the least concerned, the results showed. The figures come as President Donald Trump reportedly weighs the prospect of dropping a one-of-a-kind 30,000 lb "bunker-buster" bomb on Iran's Fordow nuclear plant. Israel has made it clear it wants the US to join its attacks on Iran, not only to dismantle its nuclear capability, but also to collapse its governing structure. Iran maintains that its nuclear research and enrichment are only for civilian purposes and to meet its energy needs. The UN's nuclear watchdog and US intelligence assessments both indicate that Iran does not yet have the required elements to build a nuclear weapon.
Middle East Eye
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Khamenei assassination could draw Hezbollah into Israel-Iran war, say sources
Hezbollah may join the war between Israel and Iran if the United States intervenes directly, or if Iran's supreme leader is killed, sources close to the Lebanese group have told Middle East Eye. On 14 June, Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah lawmaker, stated: 'Iran knows how to defend itself.' The comments were widely interpreted in Lebanese political circles as a sign that the war-weary group did not want to intervene in support of its Iranian allies. A Hezbollah official also told Reuters last week that the group 'will not initiate an attack on Israel in response to strikes on Iran'. However, sources close to the party have said to MEE that the Reuters report is inaccurate. One source said that Hezbollah had ideological 'red lines', namely direct American military involvement in the war, or the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Those scenarios would 'shift the calculations' and may push the group into the conflict. The source would not be drawn on exactly what that role in the war would look like. A senior Iranian official echoed one of the red lines, saying to Al Jazeera that Hezbollah would intervene if Washington did so. Both the red lines have been hinted at by US President Donald Trump in recent days. CBS reported that Trump had approved plans to directly attack Iran, but had not yet made a final decision on it. On Khamenei, the president said on Tuesday that Washington knew where the supreme leader was, but would not kill him 'for now'. 'Existential battle' The Axis of Resistance - a group of non-state actors across the region allied to Iran - sees the current conflict as an 'existential battle', a second source close to Hezbollah told MEE. Ali Rizk, a Lebanese security analyst and expert on Hezbollah, said that the killing of Khamenei, taken in isolation, would not necessarily pose an existential threat to Hezbollah. 'It's quite likely Hezbollah would intervene should the regime's survival be at stake' – Ali Rizk, Lebanese security analyst 'I think what the existential threat for Hezbollah would be is for the Islamic Republic to be destroyed,' Rizk told MEE. 'It's quite likely Hezbollah would intervene should the regime's survival be at stake. 'Hezbollah's relations to Iran are linked. There's an ideological level, not just Shia, but Wilayat al-Faqih,' he said, referring to a doctrine in Shia Islam that governments should be led by Islamic jurists who have the highest levels of expertise. Rizk added that if the US became involved militarily, the conflict could 'snowball towards regime change', which most likely would draw Hezbollah into getting involved. 'Support front' like Gaza and Syria wars Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria, warned Hezbollah against getting involved. 'I can say on behalf of President Trump… that would be a very, very, very bad decision,' he told reporters on Thursday in Beirut, shortly after meeting Lebanese officials, including parliament speaker Nabih Berri. The second source told MEE: 'If necessary, and if the Iranian regime is threatened, the party is ready to enter this battle through a support front, as happened with Gaza and Syria.' Hezbollah opened a battlefront with Israel on 8 October 2023, in support of Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza. 'Iran's Revolutionary Guard has become heavily involved in the Hezbollah's organisation and is overseeing its rebuilding' - Source close to Hezbollah For around a year, the conflict was limited to cross-border exchanges of fire. However in September, Israel exploded thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members, before launching a huge bombing campaign and ground invasion. More than 3,900 Lebanese were killed. The war left Hezbollah severely weakened, killing much of its senior leadership, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah. A ceasefire was agreed in November, though Israel continues to carry out frequent attacks on south Lebanon and Beirut suburbs. The Israeli army still occupies several posts in southern Lebanon. In Syria, meanwhile, Hezbollah ground forces had fought for several years in support of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad. But the Assad dynasty's five-decade rule fell in December, in a surprise assault by rebel forces which was helped by the months-long depletion of Hezbollah. 'In coordination with the IRGC' Since a new Lebanese administration was appointed in February, after two years of deadlock, discussions have been ongoing between the government and Hezbollah about the future of the group's vast weaponry. The government in Beirut instructed the Lebanese army to communicate with Hezbollah and ensure they kept Lebanon out of the conflict, a Lebanese official told MEE. Several government meetings were held about the repercussions of the conflict, the official said, including meetings at the presidential palace between President Joseph Aoun and the heads of Lebanon's security agencies. Rizk said military involvement would be politically challenging for Hezbollah. 'The existential threat for Hezbollah would be for the Islamic Republic to be destroyed' - Ali Rizk, security analyst 'It's going to put the Lebanese state in a difficult situation, and it could upset ties between Aoun and Hezbollah,' Rizk told MEE. 'They have established good ties with the president.' Hezbollah is widely regarded to be the most heavily-armed non-state group in the world. Its arsenal includes a wide range of drones, rockets and long-range missiles. Many of its most prized weapons are thought to be held in tunnels dug deep underground. The second source said that Hezbollah had undergone a structural re-organisation since its most recent war with Israel, in coordination with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. 'Since the war, the Revolutionary Guard has become heavily involved in the party's organisation and is overseeing its rebuilding,' they said. 'Thus, any decision the party makes will be in coordination with the Revolutionary Guard, which views this war as a battle to preserve the [Iranian] regime and prevent its collapse.' They said that despite over a year of conflict with Israel, Hezbollah retained fighting capabilities and weapons out of reach of Israeli air strikes.
Middle East Eye
10 hours ago
- Health
- Middle East Eye
How can Palestinian medics 'cooperate' with Israeli health bodies during a genocide?
A recent editorial in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), one of the most prominent and widely cited public health journals in the United States, advocates for renewed cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian public health sectors. This appeal, authored by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other Israeli institutions, badly misrepresents the reality of Israel's systematic destruction of every aspect of Palestinian public health and the complicity of its healthcare institutions in that very process. What is happening in Gaza today is not simply a failure of cooperation. It is a one-sided assault on its infrastructure and practitioners in more than 600 days of violence and terror enacted by one of the world's most powerful armies against a trapped civilian population. Since October 2023, Gaza has been under near-total siege, as Israel has dropped over 100,000 tonnes of explosives, destroying local agriculture, bakeries, pharmaceutical stockpiles, solar panels and water desalination facilities - effectively making public health impossible. As of March, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 670 attacks by Israeli forces on legally protected healthcare infrastructure and personnel. At least 1,400 healthcare workers have now been killed by Israel in its war on Gaza. Despite more than 100,000 injuries documented by the WHO as resulting from Israeli attacks, only 7,057 medical evacuations were permitted - largely because Israel refused to grant the necessary visas. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Last September, an independent United Nations commission concluded that Israel had pursued a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system. The AJPH editorial makes no mention of any of this. Public health is further eroded when healthcare workers are mistreated in Israeli custody. A UN commission found Israel was deliberately dismantling Gaza's healthcare system, yet the AJPH editorial makes no mention of this Testimonies collected by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel describe not only medical neglect, but also cases in which healthcare staff failed to intervene in abuses - or actively took part in the torment of detained Palestinian healthcare workers. In one affidavit, Dr MK, an orthopaedic surgeon from Gaza's Nasser Hospital, wrote: "Skin diseases, bacterial infections, asthma symptoms, and dermatitis are spreading among the prisoners. There is a doctor, but we never see him. There are detainees with illnesses, yet no doctor examines them. There is a clinic, but detainees aren't seen there." Yet MK also described witnessing prisoners having their limbs amputated - evidence that the medical system is, in fact, quietly present throughout these accounts, corroborated by multiple sources. Who must cooperate? When the AJPH editorial calls for "renewed cooperation", it is not clear who, exactly, is expected to renew it. Do they mean the paramedics who were killed execution-style and buried with their ambulances? Dr Alaa al-Najjar, the paediatrician whose husband and nine of her 10 children were killed in an Israeli air strike on their home? Or Dr Adnan al-Bursh, a beloved surgeon who died following torture in Israeli detention - torture, including sexual abuse, that has been extensively documented among medical and other detainees? Gaza genocide: How Israel's healthcare system became an instrument of state violence Read More » In Israel, one quarter of all doctors are Palestinian, as are nearly half of all new doctors and nurses. Are they the ones now expected to demonstrate "renewed cooperation" on public health? Like advocates for Palestinian rights elsewhere, Palestinians inside Israel have been silenced – often by their own colleagues. A Lancet correspondence last week described the international medical community's failure to condemn Israel's genocide - and, in the US, the "atmosphere of intimidation and silencing" that leads to professional retaliation against public health advocates for Palestinian human rights. Yet the AJPH editorial frames the genocide as an unfortunate exchange of fire between equal parties. In reality, it is more akin to shooting fish in a barrel: the fish being one million children and their families; the barrel, a shrinking territory where the population is forced into ever tighter spaces; and the gun, 910kg American bombs that vaporise human beings, tear off children's limbs, and obliterate healthcare facilities, ambulances and healthcare workers. Genocide disguised In their AJPH editorial, the authors' argument rests on past coordination among Israeli, Palestinian and global public health actors. Media and scientific literature, they write, should highlight "that until about a generation ago, Israeli-Palestinian health collaborations thrived and directly benefited all populations". Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war But for decades before October 2023, Israel strictly controlled everything and everyone entering or leaving Gaza - medical equipment, medicines, calories, even patients – a process the UN Conference on Trade and Development in 2015 described as "de-development and impoverishment". That is the real context behind examples often cited as success stories of past collaboration, such as the polio vaccination campaign - initiatives carried out under conditions of occupation and total Israeli control. Even more egregiously, the authors trumpet the November 2024 vaccination campaign in response to a polio outbreak caused by forced displacement and Israel's destruction of Gaza's healthcare sector, sewage infrastructure and waste management systems - but fail to mention that Israeli forces threw a stun grenade into a polio vaccination clinic during a so-called "humanitarian pause". They similarly cite cooperation to bring in aid, but omit Israel's targeted strike that destroyed desperately needed medical supplies; multiple strikes on a hospital during a carefully negotiated medical evacuation; or the 335 bullets fired by Israeli forces into the car from which six-year-old Hind Rajab begged emergency services for rescue. Aid workers spent hours coordinating with the Israeli military to retrieve the child, whose family already lay dead beside her, before both Hind and her paramedic rescuers were killed. What does cooperation mean under these circumstances? Eliding crimes The authors call for cooperation on specific areas of public health - sanitation, hospital infrastructure, water safety, and environmental health - while consistently eliding Israel's unrelenting attacks on each. They avoid directly condemning Israel's repeated violations of international law in these areas, or the increasingly lethal siege that, even last year, saw midwives cutting newborns' umbilical cords with razor blades and tying them off with string from a face mask. The authors include four Israeli doctors and academics, as well as one American former adviser to Israel's Ministry of Health. Not one is Palestinian With no disinfectants, soap or clean water, patients' wounds were left crawling with maggots. It continues: last week, reports circulated on social media that Israel had informed the WHO it was suspending medical coordination for Palestinian boys over the age of 12. Meanwhile, medical evacuations were denied for weeks before Dr Alaa al-Najjar and her surviving child were finally evacuated - along with just 15 other young patients, out of 10,000 in urgent need of evacuation, including more than 4,000 children. So, what is the real purpose of this editorial? A press release from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem makes it plain: it describes the piece as "a strong rebuttal to current calls to isolate Israeli academia and science". It condemns "such boycotts" and "efforts to cut academic ties". Protecting power The editorial's vague reference to "extremist rejection of cooperation and 'normalisation' between Palestinians and Israelis" appears to be a veiled critique of academic boycotts. The boycott called by the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement explicitly targets institutions, not individuals. It is a form of economic and social pressure, inspired by similar academic boycotts of apartheid-era South Africa. And it is a direct response to the complicity of Israeli institutions - from nearly 100 doctors who, in November 2023, publicly called for the bombing of Gaza's hospitals, to the deafening silence, including from the authors of this editorial, as the Israeli military bulldozes every remaining aspect of public health in Gaza. Why is the New England Journal of Medicine promoting 'health bridges' while Gaza's hospitals burn? Read More » The authors of the AJPH editorial include four Israeli doctors and academics, as well as one American former adviser to Israel's Ministry of Health. Not one is Palestinian. Yet the forces driving what they euphemistically call "the tragic example of Gaza" are clear. The overwhelming evidence shows that Israel, with the participation of its healthcare community, has systematically eradicated public health in Gaza. By smoothly evading Israel's unilateral devastation of Gaza's healthcare system - and its literal elimination of those who staff it - the AJPH editorial promotes continued silence among American public health bodies, even as the US actively supports Israel's war. It reads as an attempt to deflect attention from the complicity of Israeli public health in genocide, and to shield Israeli academia from economically significant boycotts and divestment campaigns - even as the world watches 2.3 million people starve before our eyes. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye
10 hours ago
- Business
- Middle East Eye
EU review finds Israel violated trade agreement, but sanctions not expected
A major upcoming review of the EU-Israel trade agreement has found that Israel has violated the agreement due to its conduct in Gaza, Middle East Eye understands. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas commissioned the review last month in response to a request by the Dutch government. Now MEE understands from diplomatic sources in Brussels that the review finds that Israel has violated the trade agreement's human rights and international law clauses. The EU is Israel's biggest trading partner. Sources told MEE the review contains evidence that Israel has breached international humanitarian law during its war on Gaza. They said that Kallas will present the review to EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Diplomats expect a "difficult" debate and believe there will be no agreement reached on whether to "suspend political dialogue" or impose sanctions on Israel. Those issues will be addressed again at the 15 July meeting of EU foreign ministers, diplomats believe. MEE also understands that Kallas has a mandate from EU foreign ministers to push for de-escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran - and that she is set to visit the Middle East next week. MEE has contacted Kallas' team for comment. Israel has gone 'beyond self-defence' Foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany are reportedly scheduled to join Kallas on Friday in a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister to promote de-escalation. EUObserver and RTE have also reported the review is expected to find Israel violated the trade agreement. EU Commission and states indirectly fund Israeli military industry, report says Read More » On Wednesday Kallas told members of the European parliament that Israel's "blocking food... goes beyond self-defence". She said Israel was responsible for "disproportionate use of force" against civilians - and that "if it was up to me, personally", the EU would impose sanctions on Israel. Last week it emerged that Israel's largest state-owned defence company, which is directly involved in the war on Gaza, has received millions of euros in EU defence funding. According to a report published last Wednesday by Investigate Europe, the French newsroom Disclose and the Greek outlet Reporters United, Intracom Defense is currently involved in 15 European Defence Fund projects worth at least €15m (around $17.5m). Seven of them were awarded after Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. The company was acquired by Israel Aerospace Industries in May 2023.
