News

Described as a dangerous escalation.. An Israeli soldier was killed and 10 were injured on the Lebanese front
وصف بالتصعيد الخطير.. مقتل جندي إسرائيلي وإصابة 10 بجبهة لبنان

Israeli media reported that a soldier was killed and others were injured near Tel Hai in the Upper Galilee after two shells were fired from southern Lebanon.
Al Jazeera's correspondent said that two rockets were fired towards an Israeli site in the Upper Galilee, while Anadolu Agency quoted Israeli media outlets as saying that 8 Israelis were injured, two of them seriously, due to two anti-tank rockets fired from Lebanon towards the Galilee Finger.
The Israeli army dispatched a military helicopter and 7 ambulances to evacuate the wounded, and Israeli media described the event as a dangerous escalation. The army also fired artillery towards the source of the gunfire.
The Galilee is a geographical region located in the far north of occupied Palestine, and has geopolitical and security importance, as it is a border region located on a permanent line of conflict between the occupation forces and the Palestinian resistance movements and the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Yedioth Ahronoth also reported that two Israelis were injured in a drone explosion in the Western Galilee.
For its part, Israeli Channel 12 reported that a drone exploded in a building in the Ya'ara area in the Western Galilee.
The Israeli army also stated that it had monitored the fall of a number of drones launched from Lebanon towards Beit Hillel in the Galilee, and the army said that firefighting crews were working to extinguish a fire that broke out after the drones fell.
For its part, Hezbollah said that its fighters targeted a position of Israeli soldiers in the Marj site, killing and wounding a number of them.
In contrast, the Israeli army said it bombed a Hezbollah weapons depot in Khiam and other areas in southern Lebanon.
The army added that it bombed Hezbollah military buildings in Sheheen, Taybeh, Blida, Mays al-Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military reportedly decided on Thursday to move forces from the West Bank to the border with Lebanon, in anticipation of a full-scale war with Hezbollah.
This comes after 32 people were killed and more than 3,200 injured in two waves of explosions of telecommunications equipment in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind these explosions.
The Wall Street Journal also quoted an informed source as saying that the explosions in Lebanon coincided with Israel's transfer of a division from the Gaza Strip to the northern front.
Since October 8, Lebanese and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, have been exchanging daily shelling with the Israeli army across the Blue Line, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, most of them on the Lebanese side.

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Israel prepares new agreement proposal, including "Sinwar's fate"
إسرائيل تعد مقترح اتفاق جديدا وتدرج فيه "مصير السنوار"

Israeli radio said on Thursday that Tel Aviv is preparing a new proposal for an agreement on the Gaza Strip that it will present to mediators, stipulating the return of all detainees at once.
The radio reported that the Israeli proposal calls for the return of all detainees in exchange for the exit of Yahya Sinwar, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and others from Gaza through a safe passage.
The proposal also calls for an end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
The Israeli radio indicated that the new Israeli proposal may be presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly in a few days.
There was no immediate statement from Hamas regarding the leaked new Israeli proposal, but the movement has repeatedly stressed that it sees no reason for new proposals, especially since it agreed to the plan presented by US President Joe Biden before Netanyahu set new conditions.
This comes as the families of Israeli prisoners continue their demonstrations to demand a ceasefire agreement and an exchange deal. Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that they went out today in Tel Aviv to demand the approval of the deal proposal on the negotiating table.
She also stressed the need to sign a prisoner exchange deal and not move towards a comprehensive war.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken revealed yesterday - during a visit to Cairo - that the United States had made progress regarding the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
Blinken added that 15 of the 18 items in the proposed ceasefire agreement had been agreed upon, but the remaining issues needed to be resolved.
He stressed that Washington had put forward ideas to the Qatari and Egyptian sides in order to resolve the outstanding issues, but the agreement goes back to the issue of political intention, and the two parties to the conflict must prove political intention in order to reach an agreement that prepares for a ceasefire, returns the detainees to their homes, and opens important horizons for calming the hot spots, including northern Israel and the Red Sea.
He also considered that a ceasefire is the best way to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and confront the risks of regional destabilization.
Regarding the Philadelphia axis, Blinken said that his country's position on this axis separating Egypt and the Gaza Strip is that "we will not accept any change to the rules in effect before October 7," as he put it.
In contrast, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aati said - during a joint press conference with Blinken - that there is agreement in the Egyptian and American positions on the necessity of implementing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and stopping the bloodshed of Palestinian civilians, stressing the need to quickly reach an agreement to release detainees in Gaza and bring in more aid.
He added that Hamas "assures us of its full commitment to the understandings that were previously reached," and that his country continues to cooperate with the United States and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.
It is noteworthy that the rounds of indirect negotiations between Tel Aviv and Hamas have been faltering for more than 10 months, due to Netanyahu's insistence on continuing the war on the Strip, and his adherence to the Philadelphi and Netzarim axes in the south and center of the Strip, while Hamas demands a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the return of the displaced without restrictions.
Despite Israeli obstacles, Egypt continues its mediation alongside Qatar and the United States to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and conclude a prisoner exchange between the two parties.

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Lebanese Health Ministry presents death toll from two-day telecommunications device bombing
الصحة اللبنانية تقدم حصيلة لقتلى يومين من تفجير أجهزة الاتصالات

Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said on Thursday that the death toll from wireless communications device explosions over the past two days has reached 32 dead and thousands wounded.
This came in a press conference held by Al-Abyad in the capital Beirut, in response to the bombings that occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday in wireless communication devices in various areas in Lebanon.
Lebanon and Hezbollah accuse Israel of being responsible for hacking and detonating the devices, while Tel Aviv remains silent on the matter.
The minister pointed out that dozens of doctors spent last night in operating rooms, and hundreds of nurses and paramedics participated in providing rapid treatment to those injured in the bombings.
He pointed out that the bombings showed one positive thing, which he described as the cohesion of the Lebanese people in various regions in confronting the event.
The Minister referred to the existence of initiatives led by Arab countries (which he did not name) to provide medical services to his country, and expressed his appreciation for that.
Hezbollah had previously announced the killing of 20 of its members as a result of the wave of explosions that struck ICOM radio equipment in several areas of Lebanon on Wednesday.
The bombings came a day after similar explosions hit pager communication devices on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including civilians, and wounding about 2,800 others, including 300 in critical condition.
In parallel, the head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, Hashem Safieddine, said, "We are facing a new phase of aggression and punishment is coming."
He stressed that "the people of resistance have not and will not weaken at all, and that the enemy and those behind it are still unable to realize this truth," according to his expression.
In turn, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib considered that the bloody bombings of communication devices used by Hezbollah members in several areas of Lebanon threaten "the outbreak of a wider conflict" in the Middle East.
In response, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed on Wednesday that “devices intended for civilian use” must not be turned into weapons.
"It is very important that there is effective control over devices for civilian use, and that they are not diverted into weapons. This should be the norm for everyone in the world, and governments should be able to implement it," Guterres told reporters.

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Arab and Islamic welcome to historic UN resolution against Israel
ترحيب عربي إسلامي بقرار أممي تاريخي ضد إسرائيل

Arab and Islamic countries and organizations welcomed - yesterday, Wednesday - the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution calling on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967 within 12 months, describing it as historic and calling for its tangible translation.
This came in official statements issued by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, amid Palestinian welcome and Israeli rejection.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed the adoption by the UN General Assembly - in its emergency special session - of a resolution drafted by the Palestinian Authority calling on Israel to end its "illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories" within 12 months.
The Palestinian Ministry considered the decision a decisive and historic moment for the Palestinian cause and for international law. It also thanked the member states that adopted, sponsored and voted for the decision submitted by the State of Palestine, which was adopted by a majority of 124 votes, while 43 countries abstained from voting, and 14 countries opposed the decision.
She explained that the positive vote of more than two-thirds of the UN members is a referendum on an international consensus that the occupation must end, its practices and crimes must stop, and its forces, including the settlers, must be withdrawn.
For its part, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) welcomed the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution calling on Israel to end its illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Hamas considered - in a statement - this vote an expression of the true international will supporting the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.
She added that this decision expresses the international support for the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom and independence.
Hamas said the decision was an important victory for the Palestinian people and an affirmation of the extent of Israel's isolation.
She also expressed her appreciation to the countries that voted in favor of the resolution, and called on them to take further measures to isolate Israel and pressure it to stop the war.
The draft resolution aims to support the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice last July, calling for an end to the illegal Israeli occupation, the dismantling of the settlements and their illegal system and the apartheid wall, and the evacuation of all settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories, including occupied Jerusalem.
The UN General Assembly approved - by a majority of 124 votes to 14 - the first resolution submitted by Palestine calling for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories within 12 months.
The Permanent Mission of Palestine to the United Nations submitted its first draft resolution to the General Assembly on Tuesday, following the additional rights it gained through a vote in the General Assembly last May.
The draft resolution, co-sponsored by more than 40 countries, was voted on in an emergency special session entitled “Illegal Israeli measures in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Qatar announced - in a statement by its Foreign Ministry - its welcome of the UN resolution, stressing that the adoption of the resolution by a majority of 124 countries clearly reflects the justice of the Palestinian cause, and represents broad international recognition of the right of the brotherly Palestinian people to self-determination, which is a natural, legal and historical right.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry expressed its hope that all countries would interact with this decision by complying with their obligations under international law, and would seek to implement the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, and would not recognize the legitimacy of the situation resulting from the occupation or provide assistance to maintain the situation resulting from it.
Doha also reiterated its firm position on the justice of the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, including the establishment of their independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In a statement by the Foreign Ministry, Saudi Arabia welcomed the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution on ending the illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, which was voted on during the emergency special session.
The Kingdom stressed the need to take practical and credible steps to reach a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue.
The UAE also welcomed - in a statement by its UN mission - the adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution, and stressed that the International Court of Justice's ruling is clear that the Israeli occupation is illegal and it is time for it to end.
She also urged the Security Council to translate the advisory opinion into concrete steps.
Jordan also welcomed the UN resolution in a statement by the Foreign Ministry, stressing that the adoption of the draft resolution reflects the international will and international law to support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of their independent, sovereign state on the lines of June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital.
The Jordanian statement stressed the need to oblige Israel to implement what was included in the resolution regarding ending its illegal policies, including the immediate cessation of all new settlement activities and the evacuation of all settlers from Palestinian land.
In a related context, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation welcomed - in a statement - the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a historic resolution on the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation.
The organization considered that this decision expresses the international consensus on the justice of the Palestinian cause and its steadfast support for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
It called on all countries to assume their responsibilities and take individual and collective measures to ensure that the Israeli occupation complies with all its obligations under international law and international legitimacy resolutions.
The Gulf Cooperation Council also welcomed the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine. Secretary-General Jassim Mohammed Al-Badawi stressed - in a statement - the need to end the illegal presence of the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and the right of the Palestinian people to reclaim their lands.
Al-Badawi said that the measures taken by the Israeli occupation forces, including settlement expansion and geographical change, are considered illegal and unlawful and do not receive any recognition at the regional or international level, stressing the need for the international community to assume its responsibilities towards implementing this resolution.
Earlier, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the UN resolution, according to the Palestinian News Agency. He stressed that the Palestinian draft resolution receiving a two-thirds vote from the members of the UN General Assembly represents an international consensus on the justice of the Palestinian cause and a victory for the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected this decision in a statement, saying that it was disconnected from reality and harmed the chances of peace.
Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and has since been building and expanding settlements in the West Bank.
In July 2023, the Israeli government claimed it had the “right to impose its sovereignty” over the West Bank, saying that “the Jewish people have the exclusive right to self-determination in these lands.”
International law prohibits Israel from annexing any parts of the West Bank, according to numerous UN statements in recent years.
The UN vote yesterday comes as Israel has been waging a devastating war in Gaza since October 7, 2023, with full American support, which has left more than 136,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.
On October 27, the General Assembly called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza by a majority of 120 votes, and in December 153 countries voted in favor of demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire rather than simply calling for one.
In contempt of the international community, Israel continues this war, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to stop it immediately, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the besieged Gaza Strip.

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42 martyrs in Gaza and the occupation targets the tents of the displaced
42 شهيدا بغزة والاحتلال يستهدف خيام نازحين

Medical sources told Al Jazeera that 42 people were killed in ongoing Israeli bombardment of various areas of the Gaza Strip since dawn yesterday, Wednesday.
Al Jazeera's correspondent said that 4 Palestinians were killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombardment that targeted a house in Jabalia al-Balad, north of the Gaza Strip, today.
He also reported that 4 civilians were killed and others were injured in the bombing of a group of Palestinian citizens at the Six Martyrs Junction in Jabalia Camp.
The bodies of the martyrs and the wounded were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
The correspondent also reported that two martyrs were killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombing of a house in the Al-Fakhoura area of ​​Jabalia camp last night.
The Palestinian Civil Defense said that one of its members was also killed in a bombing that targeted his home in Jabalia camp.
In the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, a number of children were injured with varying degrees of severity when an Israeli drone threw a bomb at a group of them north of the camp.
Martyrs and wounded in Israeli shelling targeting a house in Jabalia camp, north of the Gaza Strip #News #Gaza_War pic.twitter.com/eAjUNSRFbC
— Al Jazeera Palestine (@AJA_Palestine) September 19, 2024
In the southern Gaza Strip, the raids targeted tents for displaced people in Al-Qadisiyah, northwest of Khan Yunis, where the tents were extensively damaged in addition to terrorizing their residents.
Al Jazeera's correspondent also said that 7 people were killed, including 3 children, in an Israeli raid on a house housing displaced people in the Qizan al-Najjar area, south of Khan Yunis.
In the coastal Al-Mawasi area, west of Rafah city, the occupation forces opened fire on the tents of the displaced, which resulted in a number of them being injured and were transferred to receive treatment at the Red Cross field hospital in the area.
Israeli tanks also bombed the Al-Janina and Tel Al-Sultan areas in Rafah.
It is noteworthy that since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 136,000 martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.

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Fake text messages spread panic among Israelis
رسائل نصية وهمية تبث الهلع لدى الإسرائيليين

Israelis received fake text messages on Wednesday evening titled “Emergency Alert,” urging them to leave their homes and seek a “protected area,” according to Israeli media.
The text messages the Israelis received, according to the Jerusalem Post, contained a link that spelled out, "You must enter a protected area," meaning a warning of possible rocket fire.
The Israeli army's Home Front Command denied sending text messages to Israelis asking them to immediately enter shelters and fortified places.
She stressed that there was no change in the Home Front Command's instructions, calling on Israelis to follow its official platforms and not to deal with such messages, which she described as "suspicious."
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority confirmed that thousands of Israelis received warning messages asking them to enter safe places during the last hours.
The channel reported that the relevant security authorities are examining who is behind sending these messages, which, according to it, caused "a state of panic among the Israelis."
According to the channel, initial expectations suggest that Iran is responsible for these messages.
It is noteworthy that the broadcast of these warning messages to the Israelis comes amid an atmosphere of field escalation between the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel, and after large-scale bombings in Lebanon, specifically Beirut, of wireless pager devices owned by members of the party, which resulted in the death of more than 30 people and the injury of hundreds.

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Earthquake-sized explosion after Ukraine attacks Russian arms depots
انفجار بحجم زلزال إثر هجوم أوكرانيا على مخازن أسلحة روسية

Le Monde newspaper said that an air attack launched by the Ukrainian army using new cruise missiles led to the destruction of a large number of long-range Russian weapons, and Newsweek magazine described the explosion resulting from the attack as possibly the biggest event in the war waged by Russia on Ukraine.
Le Monde explained - in a report by its correspondents in Moscow, Emmanuel Grynszpan and Benjamin Quenell - that the Ukrainians destroyed a huge ammunition depot near the town of Toropets in the Tver region at dawn on Wednesday, noting that the Russian army's 107th arsenal, which stores 240 tons of ammunition, was the one that was exposed to projectiles fired by the Ukrainian army from positions 500 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the result of the attack in his evening video address, without specifically mentioning the target. "A very important result was achieved last night on Russian territory and such actions weaken the enemy. I thank everyone who took part in this. This precision is truly inspiring," Zelenskyy said.
Unconfirmed images on social media show a huge ball of flames following the strike on the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate arsenal in Toropets, about 240 miles west of Moscow, and several subsequent explosions, Newsweek reported.
Le Monde described the explosions as so powerful that they were detected by seismic monitoring systems, with the first tremors recording a magnitude of 2.8 on the Richter scale, while Newsweek estimated the force of the ammunition depot explosion at about 1.8 kilotons of TNT.
Reuters reported that NASA satellites recorded intense heat sources emanating from an area of ​​about 14 square kilometers (5 square miles) at the explosion site in the early hours of the morning, and seismic monitoring stations noted what sensors believed to be a small earthquake.
A source in the Ukrainian Security Service told the Kyiv Independent newspaper - according to Newsweek - that Ukrainian drones "literally wiped off the face of the earth a large warehouse of the main missile and artillery department" used by the Russians, adding that there are plans for similar attacks on other Russian military facilities.
The massive mushroom cloud rising into the air was widely documented by numerous videos filmed by residents and Russian soldiers, according to Le Monde. While Russian authorities reported that 17 people were injured, a video filmed around 8 a.m. shows dozens of houses with their windows shattered.
The sounds of explosions continued, indicating - according to the newspaper - that the situation in the warehouse remained out of control several hours after the attack. Satellite images published by the private American space company Maxar also showed that the forest adjacent to the warehouse continued to burn for part of the day.
The newspaper believed that the unprecedented means used by the Ukrainian army had a definite relationship with the extent of the damage, and said that more than 100 drones participated in the operation, according to a military source in Kiev, noting that many of the videos clearly heard the distinctive whistling sound of jet engines, indicating that the attack was carried out, at least in part, with cruise missiles.
Newsweek concluded that Ukraine, without directly claiming responsibility, has intensified its attacks deep inside Russian territory, targeting military installations vital to Moscow, noting that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry says, "We do not comment on what is happening in Russia."

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Four experts answer Al Jazeera Net: Are our smartphones vulnerable to explosion?
أربعة خبراء يجيبون الجزيرة نت: هل هواتفنا الذكية معرضة للانفجار؟

On Tuesday, September 17, the world was surprised by the explosion of hundreds of pagers in southern Lebanon, killing about 12 people, including two children, in addition to injuring nearly 3,000 people. The next day, Lebanon witnessed more explosions in various parts of it with other devices, which led to the death of 14 people and the injury of nearly 500.
Investigations are still ongoing to discover how these devices exploded, and more than one explanation has emerged, but the issue is still surrounded by some mystery regarding how, and Hezbollah has officially accused Israel of being behind this operation.
Although the incidents involved pagers and not smartphones, it has people wondering whether their phones, which they use on a daily basis, can really be hacked and blown up?
In a statement to Al Jazeera, Toby Walsh, Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, said that “the occurrence of these explosions required planting small explosives in these devices, and they were activated through ‘malware’ that contributed to the launch of these explosives.”
Regarding the possibility of hacking smartphones, Walsh says, “Just as pagers have been hacked, smartphones can be hacked, but blowing up these phones will often require planting small explosives inside them.”
Walsh explains that it has become necessary to carefully investigate the source of the supply of communications equipment, which includes smartphones, to ensure that the device is safe. He added, “If I believe that there is an intelligence enemy like Mossad or someone else, then my smartphone must be subjected to an X-ray test to ensure that it is free of any potential explosives!”
However, Walsh does not see the smartphones we currently use as a clear danger, in terms of their potential to explode.
Mustafa Bahran, a visiting professor in the Department of Physics at Carleton University in Canada, agrees with this view. He believes that “the general public should not worry about their smartphones exploding, but it is necessary to realize that these phones are watching us very well.”
On the other hand, Bahran stressed that "officials who are exposed to being targeted by international parties may need to be concerned."
Noah Silvia, a C4D research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in the UK, says it's too early to analyse how the explosions happened.
However, he added in statements to Al Jazeera Net that "this bombing operation required clear preparation, and it is not expected to be repeated later by any group that secures its own supply lines."
Lebanese media quoted anonymous security sources as saying that “the pagers contained parts called ICs that contained explosive materials. The booby-trapped devices were able to pass through the inspection devices without being detected, and were booby-trapped at the source of their import.”
A Lebanese security source revealed to Al Jazeera that the type of explosives used in the pagers is “RDX” or “hexogen,” which is highly destructive and was used as an explosive material during the 20th century.
According to a report published by Al Jazeera yesterday, experts expected that the explosives were planted either during the manufacturing process itself, or during their transfer into Lebanon.
Al Jazeera Net spoke to Maher Al-Qadi, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, who told us that text messages received by pagers cannot raise the temperature of the batteries inside them, while spyware can do that, but not to the extent required to cause them to explode.
“Spyware can cause the battery to heat up to 50 or 60 degrees Celsius, and this temperature, although high, is not enough. For batteries to explode, a series of high-speed chemical reactions must occur inside the battery, which is only achieved after its temperature exceeds 150 degrees Celsius,” according to Al-Qadi.
But the judge pointed out that he had observed a "difficult" situation that could cause batteries to explode, which is that text messages could activate a "switch" that connects the negative part of the battery to its positive part, which results in a situation similar to what we know as an "electrical short circuit" that could cause the battery to explode.
The judge said in his statement to Al Jazeera Net, "It is noticeable that all the explosions occurred at approximately the same time, which reduces the hypothesis of the batteries exploding due to the activation of the switch, or due to misuse, or manufacturing defects. Therefore, we are - in most cases - facing a deliberate attack that resorted to booby-trapping the pagers in advance with some type of explosive."
The judge generally attributes battery explosions to 3 main causes:
"I think what happened was that small explosives in the pagers were remotely activated, which caused the temperature to suddenly rise and the batteries to explode," the judge explained.
In this context, the judge agrees with Bahran on the issue of smartphones, as both of them do not believe that any spyware or techniques can be used to increase the temperature of the batteries of these devices, despite the ease of hacking them.
The judge added, "Battery manufacturers conduct a test called the 'hot box' to ensure the safety of the battery. In this test, the battery is placed inside something like an oven that reaches a temperature of 150 degrees Celsius, and waits for an hour. If the battery comes out intact without any problems, it is approved by the company."
The judge explains that the explosion of smartphone batteries is a rare occurrence, in addition to the fact that explosions resulting from manufacturing defects do not appear until after approximately 30 days of use, meaning that they do not occur all at once as we saw in the events in Lebanon, so there should be no fear of these phones exploding, except that they are - of course - traceable!
The judge offers some advice to protect smartphone batteries from exploding, the first of which is to use the phone’s charger and avoid charging the battery via direct electricity, which may increase the voltage reaching the battery.
He added, "Increasing the number of volts reaching the battery beyond 5 volts leads to stimulating chemical reactions inside it, and the possibility of it exploding."
Another important tip is to stop using any battery that suffers from “bloating,” a problem that accompanies an old battery, which causes the fluids inside it to decompose, producing a type of gas that raises the pressure inside it.
You should also be careful if you notice that the battery temperature rises significantly during charging, at a rate where you feel a “heat sting” when you touch the phone, which means that the battery is in poor condition.
The judge said at the end of his statement, “What happened in Lebanon is exceptional, and will not happen again except in the context of wars and deliberate targeting, nothing more than that, whether it is the explosions of pagers or walkie-talkies. As for smartphones, they are safer despite everything, except for the ease of tracking them.”

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For spying or to improve the Internet? Launching "Starlink" in Yemen raises controversy
للتجسس أم لتحسين الإنترنت؟.. إطلاق "ستارلينك" في اليمن يثير الجدل

"Starlink" is available in Yemen," American millionaire and owner of SpaceX, Elon Musk, announced yesterday, Wednesday, in a post on his account on the X platform, the launch of the "Starlink" satellite internet service in Yemen.
Starlink available in Yemen! https://t.co/JC1abSA6F8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2024
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Yemeni government in Aden said, "In a qualitative step to enhance the digital infrastructure and expand access to the Internet, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the legitimate government in Yemen announced the activation of the Starlink satellite Internet service in the liberated areas."
She added that this "comes within the framework of the ministry's efforts to confront the challenges resulting from the conflict and improve communications services under the current circumstances."
However, this announcement did not please the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology affiliated with the Houthi group in Sana'a, and it announced its rejection of this agreement, and said in a statement published on its Facebook page that "allowing the aggression mercenaries for the Starlink company to provide internet services in the occupied areas is a blatant violation of Yemen's sovereignty," according to his expression.
The statement added that the provision of internet services by a foreign company in any region throughout the republic constitutes a direct threat to Yemeni national security and undermines the ability to protect citizens' privacy and data.
Communications: Allowing the aggression mercenaries to provide Internet services in the occupied areas is a flagrant violation of Yemen's sovereignty
Wednesday, 15 Rabi` al-Awwal 1446 AH corresponding to September 18, 2024
Sana'a -:
A responsible source in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Sana'a expressed its condemnation and rejection of the aggression mercenaries' actions against... pic.twitter.com/OT7zKHL2Yd
— Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (@mtityemen) September 18, 2024
In contrast, the US Embassy in Yemen was among the first to welcome this announcement, saying in a post on its account on the X platform: Congratulations to Yemen for being the first country in the Middle East to have full access to the Internet via satellite from Starlink!
“This achievement demonstrates how technology can open up new opportunities and drive progress,” she added.
Congratulations to #Yemen for becoming the first country in the Middle East to have full access to #Starlink satellite internet! This milestone demonstrates how technology can unlock new opportunities and drive progress. As Secretary Blinken has previously noted, technology is reshaping… https://t.co/3L2oRhOC6c
— U.S. Embassy Yemen (@USEmbassyYemen) September 18, 2024
This announcement of the launch of the Starlink satellite internet service in Yemen has sparked controversy between supporters of the Yemeni government and supporters of the Houthi group on social media platforms.
Activists supporting the Houthi group expressed their surprise at the timing of the announcement of the Starlink service, especially since it comes in light of the Yemeni group entering into a direct confrontation with the Israeli occupation in support of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
One of the tools and means used by colonialism. As a Yemeni citizen, I demand that Parliament issue a firm decision and also emphasize taking all necessary measures to preserve national sovereignty.
— Nashwan Alshawsh (@AlshawshNashwan) September 18, 2024
One of the bloggers said: “As a Yemeni citizen, I declare my complete rejection of the presence of the Starlink service in Yemen, because I fully realize that this service is supported by the Zionist enemy and the Americans, who do not have any good intentions towards our country, and that their goal from this service is clear, which is to target us militarily, culturally, security-wise, and economically, and we are fully aware of this plan.”
Others added that the announcement of the launch of the service at this time comes "to facilitate the process of spying and identifying the locations of the missiles that the Houthis will use to target Israel."
We all know that Starlink devices

A direct link with the CIA without any supervision from anyone

But the disaster is that there is a thirst to acquire it

Do you know what is the reason for some people's thirst to acquire it!!

It is the looting that you are doing and your weakening of the internet speed and it is considered the most expensive and imported internet in the world

Review your policy Advice
— Ghazwan (@ghazwanali711) September 18, 2024
On the other hand, those who support the entry of the Starlink service into Yemen saw it as a cornerstone for breaking the monopoly of the Yemeni Telecommunications Company, and more and more options will be available in the future, according to their expression.
Yemenis wondered why this fear of Starlink devices, especially since they have been using the Internet service for years. They also wondered, “Does the Yemeni citizen not have the right to learn more and discover how the world is developing around him, or is he destined to continue living under the monopoly of the local company?”
Why this fear of Starlink devices? We have been using them for years. Doesn’t the Yemeni citizen have the right to learn more and discover how the world is developing around him? Or is it written for us to remain on the YemenNet system that plunders and steals from the citizen while he does not have his daily bread? Why do we use it in southern Yemen without fear or anxiety? If we reach the north, we must…
— ּا̍ڵــڜــٰا̍مۘــڂۡــہ♥️ (@shomokh774) September 19, 2024
There are also those who held the Houthi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology responsible for the entry of Starlink into Yemen, explaining that: There is an urgent need to improve current internet services. We call on you to reduce internet prices and expand 4G services in all governorates, including Saada. If local networks are improved, there will be no need for satellite networks such as Starlink.
The Ministry of Communications must reconsider local Internet services and prices by increasing the speed of 4G and reducing Internet prices because the citizen needs good service and a reasonable price. This is the biggest measure to prevent Starlink and protect citizens. As for the morning and after midnight packages, they will force citizens to search for alternatives.
— Saad Rassam (@SaadMRassam1) September 18, 2024

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For these reasons, Somalia is unable to eliminate Al-Shabaab
لهذه الأسباب يعجز الصومال عن القضاء على حركة الشباب

Three decades have passed since Somalia was stuck in a cycle of challenges that stand as an obstacle between it and the ability to rise again and turn the page on the prolonged collapse.
Amid the country’s fluidity, the Al-Shabaab movement stands out as one of the most dangerous threats to the Somali state. The group, which emerged in the mid-2000s, has managed to withstand the ongoing attempts by successive Somali governments and their allies to write the final word on its story.
This crisis, which has lasted for nearly two decades, raises many questions about the reasons for the government’s failure, and sheds light on part of the Somali tragedy in which social, economic and institutional factors are intertwined, which has paved the way for the youth not only to threaten Somalia but also to turn into an imminent regional danger.
When searching for the reasons behind Mogadishu’s inability to eliminate the Al-Shabaab movement, we must go back to the early 1990s, a period that represented the tip of the slope from which Somalia rolled with the collapse of state institutions and the country’s immersion in a civil war and severe divisions whose effects it has not been able to eliminate until now.
While the world witnessed many changes between 2008 and 2024, which led to the rise of some countries and the fall of others, Somalia remained throughout this period fluctuating between the two lowest ranks on the Global Fragility Index issued by the American non-profit organization, the Fund for World Peace.
A fragile state is characterised by weak efficiency in carrying out its basic functions in various areas such as security, monopolising legitimate power, or managing financial resources in a rational manner, in addition to the ability to enforce the law.
This fragility is reflected in the security sector in Somalia, which faces many challenges that prevent it from fully performing its assigned tasks, whether in confronting the Al-Shabaab movement or in establishing security throughout the country.
Perhaps the most important manifestation of the weakness of the Somali security and military apparatus is embodied in the constant need for the presence of the African mission supporting the Somali army in confronting the movement since 2007, as that mission, under its various names, has carried out functions related to supporting the Somali government structures, training security forces, and helping to create a safe environment for delivering humanitarian aid.
Somalia has witnessed tireless efforts over the past years to build and fortify its security sector in cooperation with allied countries, led by Turkey. However, the results are still below expectations, as Mogadishu requested the African Union last August to delegate a new mission to begin work early next year with the end of the current mission’s term.
Many observers believe that it is still too early for Somalia to reach the stage of complete self-reliance. In this context, statements were issued by the International Crisis Group, which were reported by the East African newspaper in mid-July, stating that “Mogadishu will likely not dispense with the assistance of foreign forces for at least the next two years, for fear of a security setback.”
Another manifestation of the fragility of institutions in Somalia is the inability of government authorities to combat the phenomenon of corruption rampant in state departments, which is clearly revealed by the indicators of the "Transparency International" Foundation, as Mogadishu has been at the bottom of the world's countries in the degrees of this annual classification for more than a decade.
This reality casts a heavy shadow over Mogadishu’s ability to eliminate Al-Shabaab, as tribal and political ties pave the way for their owners to reach sensitive military and security positions, which negatively affects the capabilities of the relevant institutions, whether at the planning level or at the field level, as a result of ignoring standards such as efficiency, professionalism and capability.
In addition to the above, corruption not only provides a fertile environment for Al-Shabaab to infiltrate the state apparatuses tasked with combating it, but also undermines confidence in the ability of international powers supporting Somalia to rely on its security institutions.
A February 2013 report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea indicated that weapons obtained by the Somali government were being sold to elements of the Somali Al-Shabaab movement, describing what happened as “high-level and systematic violations in the management and distribution of arms and ammunition.”
Indicative of ongoing corruption, a report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point University in April 2024 cited “extremely high levels of corruption” in the military as a factor in the low morale of Somali army fighters, while weapons and logistical supplies belonging to units in the same institution were reportedly sold in Mogadishu markets.
From his experience as a member of the Peace Operations Effectiveness Network research team that conducted an assessment of the African Union Mission in Somalia in 2018, Professor Paul Williams, director of the George Washington University Security Studies Program, observes a variety of conflicts that characterize areas where al-Shabaab is active.
Since the collapse of the central government in 1991, Somalia has witnessed continuous internal struggles for control of power, which have intensified significantly since the early 2000s, as a result of the influx of many external resources into the country's state-building project.
These conflicts in the AMISOM area of ​​operations centered around control of the Transitional Federal Government, then the Federal Government of Somalia, and later extended to the emerging regional administrations or member states of the Union.
These political conflicts have been intertwined with the powerful tribal dimension in Somalia through competition for relative power and influence among the many Somali clans, sub-clans, and sub-sub-clans. With the vacuum created by the absence of the state, these entities have become providers of security, justice, and job opportunities.
Reports from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Database Project in 2023 illustrate how internal political conflict undermined the Somali government’s counterinsurgency campaign in the first half of the year, and how clan rivalries opened the door for al-Shabaab to reach out to and win the loyalty of some sub-clans.
These ongoing rivalries, with their various dimensions, have deepened political divisions, weakening Mogadishu’s ability to form a cohesive national security architecture that articulates power structures and the relationship between the federal government and federal states in the face of al-Shabaab, according to a study by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point University.
Despite receiving waves of painful blows in 2006-2007, 2011-2016 and 2022-2023, Al-Shabaab was able to absorb the shocks, regain its vitality and continue to pose one of the most dangerous security threats not only in Somalia but also at the regional level.
In an attempt to answer the question “How did the movement manage to do this?” Professor Stig Jarl Hansen, professor of international relations at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and an expert on Islamist movements in the Horn of Africa, identifies a set of interconnected factors that are responsible for the repeated resurgence of the Al-Shabaab movement.
In addition to its involvement as an active party in the game of tribal competitions and balances by attracting local leaders, Al-Shabaab has been able to gain a good reputation in some environments as a force capable of establishing security and protecting rights through its court system, which has enhanced its ability to implement its policies and punish those who rebel against it.
While the political economy of violence, as Professor Paul Williams describes it, is a key dimension of the crisis in areas controlled by the movement, with al-Shabaab able to raise millions of dollars through illegal taxation, smuggling and money laundering networks inside and outside Somalia, which pumps money into the movement’s veins and enables it to buy weapons and recruit fighters in a country where youth suffer from high unemployment and extremely high poverty rates.
In addition to the above, the movement has been able to consolidate its control for many years over areas of Lower and Middle Juba in southern Somalia, as well as in the South West State of the country, and has transformed them into a safe environment that it uses to rest its forces, train new forces, plan and coordinate operations and propaganda efforts, as the restoration and sustainability of government control in these areas represents an indispensable condition for the final salvation from the specter of Al-Shabaab.
In conclusion, what was mentioned above represents broad headings under which fall many sub-headings that have for many years painted a bleak picture that goes beyond the Somali security reality to fundamental issues that, with their complexities, have shaped the features of the crisis under which the land of Punt groans.
Thus, it seems that achieving a final victory against Al-Shabaab requires not only developing the security sector and the military establishment, which have witnessed remarkable transformations in recent years, but it also strongly intersects with the urgent need to redefine the role of the tribe in political life, combat corruption, and give priority to the supreme national interests over partisan and individual interests, thus paving the way for Somalia to emerge from its protracted crisis.

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Experts: Hezbollah device bombings are human infiltration and the goal is to declare a major war
خبراء: تفجيرات أجهزة حزب الله اختراق بشري والهدف إعلان حرب كبرى

The United Nations said on Wednesday that an independent investigation must be opened into the circumstances of the mass bombings that targeted Hezbollah members, and called for those who ordered and carried out such attacks to be held accountable, because targeting thousands of individuals without knowing who had these devices in their possession violates international humanitarian law.
Over the past two days, hundreds of communication devices carried by Hezbollah members have exploded in Lebanon and Syria, killing 32 people and wounding thousands, some seriously, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Immediately after the attacks, Hezbollah announced in a statement that "Israel is responsible" for the attack, and said that "the treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression, whether it expects it or not," while Tel Aviv continues to maintain official silence.
Immediately after the explosions, there were many accounts explaining their causes, who was behind them, and why at this time. A security source revealed to Al Jazeera that the communication devices (pagers) that exploded were rigged with explosives in advance, and that the weight of the explosive device that was detonated did not exceed 20 grams of explosive materials.
The source added that the communication devices that were blown up were imported 5 months ago, noting that a group of hypotheses are currently being investigated about how the explosive charge was activated.
This narrative is adopted by security and military expert Osama Khaled, who says that the process of passing devices laden with explosive materials like this took place in a context that made them appear safe and within a complex concealment and camouflage process to make their detection difficult for inspection and monitoring agencies.
Khaled added - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that the stages of detecting any devices of this type are within technical and supervisory controls within the military and security systems to ensure the safety of these devices and the suitability of their use according to the requirements of the work, especially with regard to tracking, eavesdropping and explosive materials.
The security and military expert describes the bombings as an intelligence and security operation par excellence, which comes within the framework of the conflict of brains and the war of minds that is raging between the Israeli security services and Hezbollah's services. This operation is classified as part of what is known as "intelligence sabotage" carried out by intelligence units within enemy lines, causing damage to equipment and harming individuals.
One of the explanations put forward for the reasons behind the explosion of Hezbollah’s devices is that there was a breach in cybersecurity caused by software that controls the device by accessing the internal system of the targeted device.
However, computer engineering and information technology expert Zuhair Namous rules out the possibility that the explosion of the devices during the past two days was caused by a cyber attack, because the way the devices that exploded work does not require an internet connection and does not operate within collective network systems, and therefore it is difficult to access them by installing malicious programs that operate in secret and are controlled remotely.
This proposal is close to the details mentioned by the media in Lebanon, quoting security sources, which revealed that the pager devices were rigged with explosives from the source of their import.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Nammous said that the hacking operation that took place in the communication devices used by Hezbollah members was not a “cyber hack using software programs,” but rather the hacking was done by adding a piece to the components of these devices, as a first stage until this piece is controlled remotely afterwards.
The technical expert added that this "trick" is very simple in its method of operation and is not complicated, and engineering college students are trained to design such small parts to perform certain commands that are programmed and converted into a small computer, ready to execute the commands requested of it according to the method in which it was designed, and this is what happened with Hezbollah's devices.
Nammous summarizes his idea by saying that there was a breach in the Hezbollah shipment at some point during the delivery process, between the source and the average user on the street, and he believes that this was likely done by a human element by planting an explosive part programmed to receive remote orders via encrypted messages to carry out the order for which it was placed, without being detected by the scanning devices.
The bombings in Lebanon came amid calls in Israel to wage war on Hezbollah, coinciding with the escalation of the party's missile attacks on "northern settlements," some of which had not previously been evacuated of settlers.
Among these calls was what was said by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will do what is necessary to return the population to the north and protect its security, adding that returning the population to the north is not possible without a radical change in the security situation.
Lebanese academic and political analyst Ibrahim Haidar believes that what happened in Lebanon over the past two days represents “a direct declaration of war and the implementation of an unprecedented massacre in the history of wars.” He added that “the breach is evidence that Israel wants to expand the circle of war, starting with the exposure of Hezbollah’s communications circle, an operation that affected all of Lebanon and injured civilians.”
Haidar added - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that the aim of the bombings is "an attempt to lure Hezbollah into a broad, comprehensive and unconventional response to Israel, and thus it wants to justify to itself and the international community that it is exposed to war, and then it will expand the scope of its operations against the party."
Regarding Hezbollah's ability to respond, the political analyst pointed out that "all indications point to the fact that the southern Lebanon front is heading towards a major escalation, and no one can estimate where things could go," stressing that "a diplomatic solution has become unlikely as long as the occupation continues on the land of Gaza, and thus this front will remain burning."
Haidar concluded that Hezbollah will not respond directly to what happened, as it must evaluate its internal situation, the extent of the losses incurred in its ranks, the level of breach in its communications, and the possibilities of expanding the battle.
He added that the party needs to continue its support operations for the resistance, and to respond to its audience in order to preserve its position and the balance of deterrence it has declared, using the human capabilities it possesses that are greater than those it has used so far.

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Who are the people and organizations who still use pagers?
من الأشخاص والجهات الذين ما زالوا يستخدمون أجهزة البيجر؟

With mobile phones becoming the world's primary communication tool, walkie-talkies known as pagers have largely become a thing of the past, with demand for them declining after peaking in the 1990s.
But these small electronic devices are still a vital means of communication in some areas such as healthcare and emergency services, thanks to their durability and long battery life.
"It's the cheapest and most efficient way to communicate with a large number of people in terms of sending messages that don't need a response," says a senior surgeon at a major British hospital, adding that pagers are widely used by doctors and nurses across the country's National Health Service.
“They are used to tell people where to go, when and why,” he explains.
Pagers made headlines Tuesday when thousands of devices used by civilian Hezbollah members were simultaneously detonated across Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000.
A senior Lebanese security source and another source said that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was the one who planted explosives inside these devices.
The UK’s National Health Service was using about 130,000 pagers in 2019, more than 10% of all pagers in the world, according to government data. More recent figures are not available.
Doctors working in hospital emergency departments carry these devices while on duty.
Many walkie-talkies can also send out a siren and then broadcast a voice message to groups so that entire medical teams are alerted at once to an emergency, says a senior NHS doctor. This is not possible with a mobile phone.
A source familiar with the matter at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution told Reuters that the institution uses pagers to alert its crews. The institution declined to comment.
Pagers can be more difficult to track than smartphones because they lack modern navigation technology such as GPS. This has made them a popular choice among criminals, especially drug dealers in the United States in the past.
But gangs are using cell phones more these days, former FBI agent Ken Gray told Reuters.
"I don't know if anyone uses them (pagers), they've all moved to cell phones and prepaid phones," which can be easily disposed of and replaced with another phone with a different number, making them difficult to track, the American agent continued.
Criminals have changed with the times and newer technology, said Gray, who served 24 years in the FBI and now teaches criminal justice and homeland security at the University of New Haven.
The global pager market — once a major revenue generator for companies like Motorola — is set to reach $1.6 billion in 2023, according to an April report by Cogent Market Research.
This represents a tiny fraction of the global smartphone market, which is estimated to be worth around half a trillion dollars by the end of 2023.
But demand for pagers is growing as the number of patients increases, creating a greater need for effective communication in the healthcare sector, according to the report, which forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 5.9% from 2023 to 2030.
The report stated that North America and Europe are the largest markets for pagers, generating $528 million and $496 million in revenue, respectively.

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What do we know about the radio explosions in Lebanon? 6 questions that explain what happened
ما الذي نعرفه عن انفجارات أجهزة اللاسلكي في لبنان؟.. 6 أسئلة تفسر ما جرى

Al Jazeera's correspondent reported dozens of explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in a number of Lebanese regions, a day after widespread attacks via wireless communication devices (pagers) targeted thousands of Hezbollah members.
In a preliminary toll, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported 14 dead and more than 450 injured in the explosion of the devices.
Al Jazeera's correspondent said that the explosions that took place in areas of Lebanon were widespread, but the explosion of the devices was not large.
The reporter added that the devices that were detonated were not pagers, but rather wireless devices, noting that the devices that were detonated in areas of Lebanon were of the "Icom walkie-talkie" type.
In the following points, we will try to get closer to the scene and explain some of its aspects:
Wednesday's explosions come a day after large-scale, unprecedented bombings targeted pagers carried by Hezbollah members on Tuesday.
Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said on Wednesday that the death toll had risen to 12, including two children, and that about 2,800 wounded had arrived at hospitals, with 300 in critical condition, noting that among them were children and women, not just Hezbollah members.
Axios quoted two sources as saying that today's attack is the second phase of the Israeli intelligence operation against Hezbollah's communications network.
Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that the explosions that took place in areas of Lebanon were widespread, but the explosion of the devices was not large.
Press sources reported that the explosions occurred during the funeral of the son of a Hezbollah MP. These sources explained that the explosions targeted the radios carried by Hezbollah members, some of which were in residential homes.
A source close to Hezbollah said, "A number of wireless communication devices exploded in the southern suburb of Beirut," while a Hezbollah ambulance service confirmed the explosion of communication devices in two cars in the southern suburb.
The National News Agency reported an explosion of pagers and wireless communication devices in the suburbs, the south, and the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon.
Security sources told Al Jazeera that five explosions occurred in the city of Sidon and its surroundings in southern Lebanon.
Reuters also quoted a security source and an eyewitness as saying that the communications devices that exploded in a number of areas in Lebanon today, Wednesday, were portable radios and different from the pagers that exploded yesterday.
Channel 12 Israel reported that the second wave of explosions of communications devices in Lebanon targeted the party's alternative network after the explosion of the pagers yesterday.
The Lebanese News Agency also reported that explosions occurred in solar energy systems in a number of homes, coinciding with the explosion of wireless devices.
Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that the devices that were detonated in areas of Lebanon were of the "Icom walkie-talkie" type.
ICOM radios are a variety of devices that use different technologies to communicate over radio. These devices vary to meet different needs, including maritime communications, emergency communications, and mobile communications.
When you press the "talk" button, the audio is converted into a wireless signal and sent, and the audio signal can be received from the other party immediately.
These devices operate on specific radio frequencies, often in the VHF or UHF bands, to ensure clear communication.
Walkie-talkies have multiple channels to avoid interference, and users must be on the same channel to communicate.
The range depends on environmental factors such as terrain and obstacles, the transmission power of the device itself and its range, and it works with a battery system that can be recharged or replaced.
CNN quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that the wireless devices are less used than the pagers and were distributed to the organizers of the gatherings.
Pagers and walkie-talkies are more secure for communication than cell phones.
The moment a walkie-talkie exploded during a funeral for a martyr in #Lebanon #Gaza_War pic.twitter.com/1S9ad2BbPT
— Al Jazeera Channel (@AJArabic) September 18, 2024
The ICOM walkie-talkie being used is reported to be an ICOM v82. These are a relatively advanced version of the ICOM, and are effective in open areas and over long distances.
This model offers multiple channels, allowing users to switch frequencies to avoid interference and communicate clearly.
It also has adjustable power settings, allowing users to conserve battery life or extend range as needed.
The new version is designed to be robust, weather-resistant and suitable for outdoor use, and the external antenna helps transmit and receive signals more efficiently.
This type of device can be operated without using hands, by selecting the frequency range of the channel on which the device operates.
It is known that the battery of this device is huge, which allows for the placement of a larger quantity of explosives, which explains the sound of the explosions and the number of injuries.
A security source said Hezbollah bought the walkie-talkies five months ago at around the same time the group bought the pagers.
ICOM is a global manufacturer of advanced communications equipment, including two-way radio systems, avionics, marine navigation systems, and IP-based networks.
The company was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1954. It began as an importer of American-made electronic equipment before moving into manufacturing, with its first product being a crystal oscillator for radios.
Product lines have expanded to include marine and aviation radios, and land mobile radios for public safety and commercial industries.
Press coverage | Fires broke out in a large number of homes and cars, following the explosion of wireless communication devices in several areas in Lebanon pic.twitter.com/mV5l7pimwo
— Rassd Network (@RassdNewsN) September 18, 2024
The extent of human and material losses is not yet fully known, but the Lebanese Ministry of Health confirmed that 14 people were killed and more than 450 others were injured.
In an indication of the extent of the fires, the Lebanese Civil Defense announced that it had extinguished the fires in 60 homes and shops as a result of the explosion of wireless devices in Nabatieh, in the south of the country.
Security sources confirmed to Al Jazeera that five explosions occurred in the city of Sidon and its surroundings in southern Lebanon.
The National News Agency reported the explosion of pagers and wireless communication devices in the suburbs, the south, and the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon.
A medical source said that a hospital in the city of Baalbek received 25 wounded people as a result of the explosion of wireless devices.
Although Israel has not commented on the intelligence operation that led to simultaneous explosions - yesterday and today - in thousands of wireless communication devices (pagers and ICOM V82) used by Hezbollah members, many indications point to Tel Aviv's responsibility for the explosions.
A short while ago, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said, "The center of gravity is shifting north (Lebanon) and we are at the beginning of a new phase in the war."
Haaretz newspaper quoted security sources as saying that dealing with the escalation against Hezbollah was discussed in a limited circle without informing the members of the security cabinet.
For its part, CNN quoted informed sources as saying that Israel informed the United States that it would carry out an operation in Lebanon, but did not provide any details.
Axios also quoted two sources as confirming that Israel had blown up thousands of wireless communication devices used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah accused Israel of being responsible and vowed to respond. Iran, through President Massoud Pezeshkian and other officials, also accused Israel of being responsible for the “massacre and mass killing.”
A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday's bombings.
Several sources told Reuters that the plot apparently took several months to prepare.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted senior sources as saying that the strategic goal is to "return the residents of the north, impose a heavy price on Hezbollah, and restore deterrence."
The attack also sheds light on Unit 8200, a secret cyber warfare unit known in Israel by its Hebrew numerical name, "Shmoni Matayem," which is part of the Military Intelligence Directorate.
Unit 8200 is the equivalent of the US National Security Agency or the British Government Communications Office, and is the largest single military unit in the Israeli army.
Its origins go back to the early code-breaking and intelligence units formed when the State of Israel was established in 1948.
Their activities are often highly secretive and range from intercepting signals to classifying and understanding data semantics, known as data mining, and technological attacks.
Some of the operations the unit is said to have been involved in included the Stuxnet virus attack between 2005 and 2010 that disabled Iranian nuclear centrifuges.
Unit 8200 also launched a cyberattack in 2017 on the Lebanese-owned telecommunications company Ogero, and thwarted an ISIS attack on a civilian airline flight from Australia to the UAE in 2018.
The unit's commander said last year at a conference in Tel Aviv that the unit uses artificial intelligence technology to help select its targets from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Along with the rest of the defense and security establishment, the unit's reputation was damaged by the military's failure to prevent the October 7 attack (Al-Aqsa Flood) on Israel before it happened, and the unit's commander announced this month that he would resign.

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Families of American detainees in Gaza demand Biden to pressure Netanyahu
عائلات المحتجزين الأميركيين بغزة تطالب بايدن بالضغط على نتنياهو

Washington - As the first anniversary of Operation "Noah's Flood" approaches, the families of seven American detainees held by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) participated in the first public activity since the occupation army found the body of the American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg Polin in a tunnel in the city of Rafah along with the bodies of five other prisoners.
Al Jazeera Net attended a press conference in which six members of these families spoke, yesterday, Wednesday, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
The families called on President Joe Biden's administration to do more, and pledged to continue to seek and press for a solution that would ensure the safe return of all living detainees, and the bodies of those who were killed.
They also addressed the urgent need for "international and regional pressure on Hamas," and called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop politicizing the issue of detainees to serve his political goals.
The families will participate in a series of meetings this week in Washington with members of Congress and senior US administration officials.
"As much as we can as private citizens, we will urge the US government to perhaps rethink the approach and how to put pressure on both sides," said Jonathan Dekel, the father of detainee Sagui Dekel, 35.
Dekel lowered his expectations for this phase across the Capitol and the White House, adding, “We do not expect any quick breakthroughs between the negotiating parties to reach an agreement.” He added that he no longer remembers the number of times he and other families have come to Washington since October 7, 2023, to push for an agreement.
"For weeks, if not months, senior Israeli intelligence officials have said there is nothing to be gained by incremental military advances that would justify sacrificing more lives. Netanyahu knows this but is determined to go against the trend," he said.
In turn, Adi Alexander, the father of the prisoner Idan Alexander (19 years old), called on Biden to pressure Netanyahu not to postpone the deal any longer, and to send the same message to Hamas via Egypt and Qatar. He said, "Now, as we approach October 7, Biden must make it clear that this time he cannot fail."
For his part, Ronen Neutra, the father of the detainee Omar Neutra (23 years old), criticized Netanyahu for reports that he wanted to replace his defense minister, Yoav Galant, with the head of the "New Hope - United Right" party, Gideon Sa'ar, in order to "serve his political interests, and because Galant believes that it is impossible to recover the prisoners without reaching a ceasefire agreement."
"Netanyahu must adhere to the Jewish and Israeli values ​​of leaving no one behind and ensuring that every life is precious. He must remember those values ​​as he makes decisions," Neutra said.
"After almost a year, we have not seen our children, our husbands, our sisters, our grandparents. They have not returned. We urge the administration to think outside the box and come up with a strategy that will force Hamas and Israel to reach a much-needed agreement," he added.
The speakers recalled emotional and touching human stories of their family members who were prisoners or killed.
Robbie Chen, the father of 19-year-old Itai Chen, who was confirmed dead in March, spoke of waiting by phone earlier this month when reports of the Israeli military finding bodies of prisoners began to circulate in the media.
"We waited on the phone until about 3 a.m. until the families were notified, and we saw on TV the names of these loved ones, one of them an American family," Chen said.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Chen expressed his anger that nearly a year has passed since his son was killed on October 7 without his body being returned for burial and prayers. He explained that “respecting the sanctity of the dead body is something that exists in all three heavenly religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We only demand the return of our dead son’s body.”
For her part, Iris Leniado, the daughter of the slain American hostages, Jodie Weinstein and Jad Hagai, who were killed on October 7 and whose bodies are being held by Hamas in Gaza, said that her children are asking about the fate of their grandfather and grandmother.
In a statement to Al Jazeera Net, Iris called for “the necessity of working to create a better future for all their children,” and said, “We must not allow terrorists and extremists from every side to decide our fate, our lives, and our future,” as she put it.
Observers ruled out the scenario of the United States making a separate deal with Hamas to release American prisoners, and attributed this to the divisions that this deal would cause among families and a political storm between Washington and Israel.
All eyes are once again on Doha, where a new round of prisoner exchange negotiations is expected to take place tomorrow, Thursday, amid conditions set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that are renewed with each negotiation.
US officials say Hamas may have an incentive to strike a unilateral deal with America because doing so could further strain relations between Washington and Israel and increase pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
US officials are working behind the scenes, in cooperation with a number of allied countries that have good relations with Hamas, to assemble an accurate picture of the number of American prisoners in Gaza, and what can be done about it.

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Why does the SDF build watchtowers between its areas and the regime's areas in Syria?
لماذا تبني "قسد" أبراج مراقبة بين مناطقها ومناطق النظام بسوريا؟

Northern Syria - In an effort to strengthen security control and confront threats in the areas under its control in Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have begun building a series of watchtowers along the riverside that separates the areas under its control from the Syrian regime forces and the militias loyal to it.
The project extends from the "Jadid Akidat" area to "Al-Baghouz" near the border with Iraq, and aims to enhance security in light of the ongoing tensions and repeated attacks by regime forces, Iranian militias and tribal forces, as this project represents part of the "SDF" efforts to confront security disturbances and military attacks in the region.
A special source from within the SDF told Al Jazeera Net - who preferred not to reveal his identity - that the region had witnessed continuous confrontations and clashes over the past year, launched by regime forces and clans from areas under their control in the cities of Al-Mayadeen, Al-Qouriya, Al-Ashara and Subikhan, targeting areas under the control of the SDF in the towns of Dhiban, Al-Shaitat, Al-Busayrah and Suwaidan Jazira.
The source stressed that building the towers "is an urgent security and military necessity," noting that they will help monitor any movements against areas under the control of the Democratic Forces, as the river area is considered a major point for infiltration and drug smuggling, which made building the towers inevitable according to a proposal from the international coalition forces.
The project to build watchtowers in Deir Ezzor was approved after a study by the US-led international coalition, where it was agreed to build 150 towers, each 9 meters high, including two rest rooms and a basement, with a courtyard surrounded by a concrete wall, with an area of ​​up to a thousand square meters for each tower, i.e. one tower per kilometer.
The SDF assumed responsibility for building these towers, in addition to supervising the guarding and monitoring. According to a source in the military construction office affiliated with the forces who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, the project was handed over to the military construction office, which supervised its implementation in cooperation with a number of local contractors. The cost of building one tower was estimated at around $70,000.
Civil engineer Fadi Al-Salama explained to Al Jazeera Net that the foundations are the most important element in building these towers, especially since the area is close to the Euphrates River, and the foundations must be strengthened to ensure the stability of the towers, noting that the total cost may not be commensurate with the type of work in which the lowest costs were used.
On the other hand, a special source from the international coalition confirmed to Al Jazeera Net that the coalition is supporting the project financially, in addition to its promise to provide intelligence support and use aircraft if necessary to protect the area from any potential attacks, while the Self-Defense Forces of the "SDF" forces are responsible for guarding and securing the towers and monitoring.
As the construction of the towers continued, and equipment arrived in the Dhiban area, the SDF's Self-Defense Forces tested the towers' capabilities by firing RPG and anti-aircraft missiles at each completed tower, with the aim of testing their durability against attacks and strikes.
According to the plan, 8 members of the Self-Defense Forces will be stationed in each tower for 20 days, before being replaced by other members. A source from within the Self-Defense Forces explained to Al Jazeera Net that every two members will take turns monitoring for two hours, followed by a six-hour break, and they will receive logistical support every 24 hours to ensure continuity of monitoring.
In terms of armament, the source added that the towers are equipped with defensive technology including two PKC heavy machine guns, in addition to Kalashnikov weapons for each element, 12.5 caliber anti-aircraft guns, and RPG launchers.
The towers were also equipped with night vision goggles to enhance surveillance capabilities and detect any suspicious movements on the other bank of the river, in addition to conducting continuous surveillance patrols along the towers, to ensure the safety of the facilities and rapid response to any potential attacks.
On the other hand, many local residents expressed their dissatisfaction with the watchtower construction project, complaining that the SDF forces seized the agricultural lands needed to build the towers without providing financial compensation. A number of farmers explained that they seized approximately one dunum of land for each tower without compensating its owners.
Khaled Al-Raja (a pseudonym) also expressed his anger to Al Jazeera Net about the restrictions imposed on the freedom to use his land, as he was prevented from operating irrigation and water engines early in the morning or late at night, despite the crops needing this for irrigation, which could negatively affect the crops, while the Self-Defense Forces justified these restrictions on the pretext of inconvenience.
Farmer Hatem al-Sari, who is one of those affected by the towers, explained to Al Jazeera Net that any attempt to criticise these measures leads to accusations of cooperation with Iranian militias or the Syrian regime, or even with the “tribal forces”, which are serious accusations that expose people to security questioning by the “SDF” forces.
This security pressure has created a state of tension between the local population and the Syrian Democratic Forces, which further complicates the relationship between the two sides, in light of the need to increase and ensure security in the region.

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Is the Schengen Agreement under threat after Germany's decision to control its borders?
هل تصبح اتفاقية "شنغن" مهددة بعد قرار ألمانيا مراقبة حدودها؟

Paris - The Bridge of Europe spanning the Rhine River has always seen a very busy traffic throughout the day, linking the city of Strasbourg in Alsace, France, to the town of Kehl in Germany, a region with a shared history and culture, as well as many economic ties with the presence of the "Rena" clinic, which employs doctors from both sides.
But the relationship between the two European countries has undergone some changes, after Berlin imposed extensive inspections at all nine land crossings on its borders, to conduct passport checks, as part of a tough campaign against immigration and to tackle crime, according to officials.
These border controls came into effect last Monday for a renewable period of 6 months with France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg, while the same measure was applied with Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland last fall, while the Austrian borders have been under control since 2015.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said last week that the goal was to limit immigration and protect against acute risks posed by what she called “Islamist terrorism and serious crime,” while the ministry noted in a press release that “Berlin will have the power to reject people at all land borders.”
Commenting on this, Ulrike Brückner, a professor of political science at Stanford University in Berlin, believes that the rise of the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Workers' Party has led to this "hysteria," adding that the Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberals have promised to work on an agenda that would make Germany a "more open and pro-immigration country, committed to its humanitarian standards and international obligations," but the Interior Ministry has declared that we are in a "state of emergency."
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Brückner pointed out that the position of the current government is different from its predecessors under Angela Merkel, who sent a signal that Germany is a rich and stable country, and indeed received a large number of immigrants in 2015. “But the situation today means that we do not want foreigners, which will destroy the model of an open society and a land of ideas as presented by Germany’s self-marketing,” he asked, asking, “Who would want to travel to a racist country that closes its borders?”
The German academic believes that his country cannot maintain this political weight, income level and GDP if it does not have an equal flow of qualified workers, “so it is necessary to be an immigration country, providing housing, social benefits and everything related to integrating people, regardless of whether the person is a Nobel laureate, a football star or an asylum seeker.”
While Germany and France are among the most important countries that support the Schengen Agreement and freedom of movement between EU members, the German move has put the unity of the European bloc to the test and attracted criticism from its neighbors on the border.
But Daniel Gross, a board member of the Centre for European Policy Studies and former EU economic adviser, believes that Germany has every right to make such decisions “when it is certain that there is an imminent threat to its internal security.”
Gross explained in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that the mistake Berlin made was in not informing the European Commission in advance to give it the green light to implement border controls, and not warning its European neighbors before the measures were put into effect; in the event of a serious threat to public policy or internal security, this should be implemented as a “last resort.”
Asked whether the Schengen Agreement was in danger, a member of the board of directors of the Center for European Policy Studies confirmed that the agreement had "reached its end" because its provisions were favorable 25 years ago when the numbers of immigrants were small, but border controls and selectivity have become necessary now, due to the huge influx of foreigners, he said.
For his part, Ulrike Brückner believes that this decision poses a threat to the idea of ​​a united Europe, "because the government that was committed to European law and liberal ideas is now sacrificing individual freedom in the name of ensuring security, but it is also forced to legitimize these measures by making them only temporary."
The spokesman added that this does not herald the end of Schengen because "Berlin has proven that the country is in a state of emergency, and has activated the security clause for 6 months, which is included in the European agreement."
The security package coincided with an attack in the western district of Solingen, where a Syrian man stabbed three people to death on August 23. Authorities allege he was linked to the Islamic State group and had previously been due for deportation.
According to the analysis of the German professor Bruckner, the right-wing parties want to ride the current wave of fear by focusing on immigration, pointing in the context of his speech to the Italian example, where the current anti-immigration Italian government exploits people’s fears that their country of 60 million people is being flooded with immigrants, as 60,000 immigrants arrive every year, and he described the speeches of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “pure populism.”
On the possibility of tensions between Germany and the rest of Europe, Brückner explained that Berlin finds itself alone in accepting refugees, but it benefits from the Dublin Agreement, which puts it in a relatively comfortable position. He added that the upcoming elections in Brandenburg - the main driver of this hyperactivity - will see another victory for populist parties, who will convince people that "the boat is full, that we are facing a security threat or some other nonsense."
The Dublin III Regulation determines which European country is responsible for processing each person’s asylum application. In Germany, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees examines asylum seekers’ files before inviting them to a hearing, to determine whether Germany is responsible for processing the person’s asylum file or not.
As for Daniel Gross, he expects that the role of countries that decide their own internal policy will be strengthened, even if this conflicts with the "European Republic", strongly denouncing "blaming Germany alone, because Austria and France did the same thing before, and everyone knows that there is no other choice", as he put it.
Several European countries have expressed their dissatisfaction with the new German controls, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk describing them as "unacceptable" and adding that Warsaw would request urgent talks with all affected countries, while Greece and Austria have warned that they will not accept migrants rejected by Germany.

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Exploded communication devices in Lebanon.. What are they and how were they detonated?
أجهزة الاتصالات المفجّرة في لبنان.. ما هي وكيف تم تفجيرها؟

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Israeli bombing targeted a school sheltering displaced people in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, east of Gaza
قصف إسرائيلي استهدف مدرسة تؤوي نازحين بحي الشجاعية شرقي غزة

Al Jazeera's correspondent went to the bombing site and closely monitored the attempts to extract the bodies of the martyrs and transport the wounded, as well as the destruction and casualties caused by the Israeli bombing.

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Gaza students deprived of their right to education due to war
طلاب غزة محرومون من حقهم في التعلم جراء الحرب

Experts fear the profound effects of their long absence from education, while parents complain about another goal of the Israeli war, which is to create a completely ignorant generation of Gazans.

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Martyrs and wounded as a result of targeting a house in the Al-Fakhoura area in Jabalia camp
شهداء وجرحى جراء استهداف منزل بمنطقة الفاخورة بمخيم جباليا

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Al-Aqsa in the season of greatest existential danger Opinion article by Dr. Abdullah Marouf
الأقصى في موسم الخطر الوجودي الأكبرمقال رأي بقلمد. عبد الله معروف

Some people used to talk annually about the longest Judaization season of the year in Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the season of consecutive religious holidays that extends from the beginning of the Hebrew New Year until the end of the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).
But this year we are not talking about this season in terms of the annual danger or the usual annual season of attacks on the mosque. Rather, these days we are talking about an existential danger that threatens the entity, existence and being of Al-Aqsa Mosque as a whole, especially in light of its coincidence with the passing of a full year since the launch of the fierce war waged by Israel against the Palestinian people in the wake of Operation “Noah’s Flood,” which was launched on the last day of the same season, on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles last year.
Among the religious holiday seasons that settlers in Jerusalem celebrate every year, and Al-Aqsa Mosque is a major center for them, this season is considered the longest in terms of the number of days, and for extremist temple groups it is equivalent to the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims in terms of time and importance, as this season extends for 22 days filled with a group of religious holidays and occasions that mostly revolve around the idea of ​​the temple, which settler groups in Israel believe is supposed to be in the same location as Al-Aqsa Mosque.
This season begins with what is called the "Jewish New Year", which according to the religious beliefs of these extremist groups is supposed to witness special rituals, the most important of which is the blowing of the trumpet in the land of Al-Aqsa Mosque, heralding the beginning of the new Hebrew year.
This year, the holiday falls on October 3 and 4. In the past three years, the trumpet was blown in Al-Aqsa Mosque, secretly and without announcement in 2021 and 2022. The trumpet was blown publicly last year, documented on video, for the first time since the occupation of Al-Aqsa Mosque 57 years ago. This year is expected to witness heavy incursions into the mosque, in addition to the trumpet being blown again in Al-Aqsa Mosque, perhaps under official Israeli government sponsorship this time, and possibly with the presence and participation of some Israeli officials.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is no longer only threatened by the usual season of attacks, but is now facing an existential threat that threatens its entire existence.
With the Jewish New Year, the so-called “Days of Repentance” begin, which last for about ten days until October 12. During these days, settlers are keen to storm the mosque in large numbers, wearing special white clothes called “repentance clothes,” and perform special prayers called “priestly blessings.” Last year witnessed a major escalation in these prayers without waiting for a reaction.
Therefore, this year will certainly witness the implementation of public religious rituals inside the mosque, and on a much larger scale than last year, especially since the first anniversary of the Gregorian calendar of the events of October 7 will fall during these days. Therefore, it is not unlikely that extremist temple groups, under the auspices of the Israeli government, will try to exploit the anniversary to assert their presence in the Al-Aqsa Mosque with much greater force than before.
With the end of the so-called "Days of Repentance" comes the Day of Atonement, the most important and largest Jewish holiday of the year. According to religious texts, this day is supposed to be the only day throughout the year on which the Chief Rabbi can enter the "Holy of Holies" area, which religious groups in Israel believe is the rock inside the Dome of the Rock building, for a special prayer.
This is not usually done because the Third Temple has not been built, according to these groups, in addition to the fact that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel does not approve of the principle of Jews entering Al-Aqsa Mosque, due to the absence of the condition of religious purity. These extremist groups replace it with large-scale raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque on that day. This is expected to happen this year on Yom Kippur, which falls on October 13.
It is also customary for these extremist groups to try to bring a special animal sacrifice into Al-Aqsa Mosque on this holiday. For your information, bringing animal sacrifices is the only religious ritual that extremist temple groups have not been able to perform to this day inside Al-Aqsa Mosque. Therefore, it is not unlikely that they will try to conduct an experiment, for example, on Yom Kippur this year; to see the extent of the possibility of implementing this ritual in its most important season, which is Passover, which falls in the spring.
This is the longest and most important season for the Temple congregations, adding to the challenges facing Al-Aqsa.
Four days after the end of Yom Kippur, the Sukkot holiday begins, which last year witnessed the launch of Operation “Noah’s Flood” on its last day. This holiday extends this year from October 17 to October 23, immediately followed by the last day called “Simchat Torah” (i.e. the sealing of the Torah).
These days, Al-Aqsa Mosque is usually subjected to a violent wave of incursions accompanied by religious rituals, and the introduction of the fruits of the throne, which are considered "vegetable offerings." However, this year is considered to be of special importance as it is the first Hebrew anniversary - that is, according to the Hebrew calendar - of Operation "Flood of Al-Aqsa," noting that these groups use the Hebrew calendar for their occasions.
Therefore, the first Hebrew anniversary of Operation “Noah’s Flood,” which will fall on October 24, is of great importance to these groups, and to the religious Zionist movement that controls the Israeli government. It is logical to assume that the extremist Temple groups will try to dedicate this day as a day of revenge for what happened at 6:30 in the morning of that day last year, when the Palestinian resistance invaded the Gaza Strip and entered the towns and settlements around Gaza.
Here, we should look deeply at the video published by the extremist Moshe Feiglin, a member of the Knesset from the extremist “Identity” party, a few weeks ago, in which he explained the vision of the extreme right in Israel for the current conflict, which is based on the fact that the only place where Israel can achieve a strategic victory that will erase the shame of October 7 is exclusively at Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the Israeli army is moving from failure to failure on the northern and southern fronts, which makes the attempt to declare victory at Al-Aqsa Mosque a compensation for the sons of these groups for the current failure.
In this context, we recall the video published by the “Sons of Mount Moreh” group a few days ago, in which they filmed the Al-Aqsa Mosque burning with the phrase “soon, in these days.” This gesture carries extremely dangerous meanings for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. For those who do not know, this group, founded by the extremist David Ben Moreh, is considered a youth arm of extremist Kahanist organizations, as this group considers its members to be students of Rabbi “Elisha Wolfson” in the so-called “Temple Mount Religious School” that has its official headquarters in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He is the one who appeared in a famous video announcing an imminent “miracle” in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
This rabbi, in turn, is considered a disciple of the extremist Baruch Marzel, the former secretary of the terrorist Kach party and the right-hand man of the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, and of Rabbi Yehuda Etzion, founder of the Hayy wa Qayyum movement and one of the rabbis who were involved in the attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock in the 1980s, had this attempt not been discovered by the guards of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Exploiting the anniversary of Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa to pass political and religious messages deepens the danger of Judaization
These facts indicate that these groups could be preparing an unprecedented attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque in secret, taking advantage of the catastrophic conditions the mosque is going through. We should not forget here that a number of members of these groups are now members of the occupation police responsible for Al-Aqsa Mosque, as extremist Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir brought them into the police force as soon as he assumed his position in the Ministry of National Security.
The bottom line: Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently experiencing an existential battle in every sense of the word, and the upcoming season carries very dangerous implications for the religious Zionist movement and the extreme right-wing movements in Israel and abroad alike. These groups now see that the ground is now prepared to blow up the entire region according to their religious salvation vision of the coming of the Messiah, and they see that the ground is prepared in Al-Aqsa Mosque to implement their project on the ground, taking advantage of the unprecedented Arab and Islamic state of official and popular impotence with regard to protecting the mosque.
Therefore, the firm popular deterrence of the occupation and its settlers by all means has become an urgent necessity that falls on the shoulders of the people of Jerusalem first, as they are the guardian eyes and the first line of defense for the mosque, and on the residents of the Green Line areas as well, as they are the second force in terms of the ability to reach the Al-Aqsa Mosque and defend it effectively, and on the residents of the West Bank, as they are the natural incubator of Jerusalem and its people.
This does not exempt everyone who is able to reach the mosque from anywhere in the world from their responsibility to defend the mosque, reaching all Arabs and Muslims everywhere, who should put real pressure on their governments, obligating them to take action at all levels and at various levels to actually protect the mosque, not just denounce and warn.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.

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What is behind the growing Islamophobia in Germany? Opinion article by Farid Hafez
ماذا وراء الإسلاموفوبيا المتزايدة في ألمانيا؟مقال رأي بقلمفريد حافظ

On 16 September 2024, Germany began extending temporary controls on all its borders, to the dismay of its EU neighbours. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser explained that the move was aimed not only at curbing “irregular” migration, but also at stopping what she called “Islamist terrorism and serious crime”.
The announcement came after a knife attack that killed three people in the western German city of Solingen; a Syrian refugee who was due to be deported was accused of belonging to the Islamic State group.
Some may be surprised that such tough measures were imposed by a left-liberal coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals. But the reality is that there is a shift to the right in German politics, coinciding with a rise in Islamophobia.
Analysts have pointed to the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a factor driving this shift. The party has made big gains at both the national and state levels; at the beginning of the month, it won elections in the eastern state of Thuringia with 32.8 percent. In Saxony, it came in second with 30.6 percent.
But these electoral successes are not the cause of this shift, but rather a symptom of a broader phenomenon: German politics tends to normalize the demonization and scapegoating of Muslims.
Members of the ruling coalition have repeatedly condemned “Islamism” in Germany. The Green Party’s leader in the Bundestag, Katharina Droege, claimed in a statement that “the poison of Islam reaches the minds here, not just abroad,” before later correcting herself, saying she had meant “Islamism” rather than “Islam.”
Warnings about the “Islamist threat” are not limited to German politicians, but also appear in official documents and political statements of German institutions. For example, the website of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a major domestic intelligence agency, warns that “Islamists aim to abolish the basic democratic order of the Federal Republic of Germany in whole or in part, using their religion as a pretext.”
The Bavarian branch of this office introduces the concept of “legal Islamism” on its website, which it defines as an attempt to achieve “radical goals by political means within the existing legal system.” It explains that “legal Islamists try to influence politics and society through lobbies, and present themselves as open, tolerant and open to dialogue, while anti-democratic and totalitarian tendencies persist within the organizations.”
This concept could criminalize any group of Muslims that organizes itself politically or socially and operates within the confines of the law. It suggests that any expression of tolerance or openness by Muslims could be a “legal Islamist demonstration.”
Within this framework, various institutions at both federal and state levels have established “anti-extremism” programmes that target only Muslims. Although such initiatives have been criticised in countries such as the UK and the US by many social justice workers, in Germany they are generally considered justified and effective.
One such programme is the Bavarian Network for the Prevention and Counter-Extremism, which recently produced a video on “Salafi extremism” that includes racist stereotypes of Muslim men exploiting Muslim women.
Earlier this month, the Bavarian government — currently controlled by the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party — posted it on social media, immediately drawing criticism for its hostile portrayal of Muslims.
This move made it clear that German authorities consider Muslims who publicly adhere to the teachings of their religion a security threat and a danger to German society.
The video was eventually pulled, and the Interior Ministry issued a statement to the media apologizing for the “confusion and disturbance” and saying the video attempted to “show the methods of Salafists and other Islamists to attract young followers.” It added that some scenes in the video “will be reviewed.”
The Bavarian government's decision to pull the video was likely accelerated by reactions from some commentators who saw similarities between its scenes and those of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. In particular, the scene of a bearded, sinister-looking man devouring a woman closely resembles Nazi representations of a Jewish man devouring ethnic Germans.
The anti-Semitic nature of the Islamophobic images produced by German institutions is not surprising. As the Israeli-German philosopher Moshe Zuckerman has written, Islamophobia is a projection of unspoken anti-Semitism.
The anti-Semitic sentiments that Germany once reflected are no longer openly expressed because of the state’s official commitment to sympathy for Jews. For this reason, they are now channeled through Islamophobia. What can no longer be done to Jews can easily be done to Muslims.
The historical parallel here is clear: far-right forces are on the rise, with racist hysteria against a specific ethnic group spreading throughout the German state and society. History may not repeat itself completely, and genocide may be replaced by mass expulsion as the concept of “re-migration” rises, long part of the far-right fringe but gradually becoming more accepted in the mainstream.
As German politicians of all stripes jump on the Islamophobia bandwagon, they might be wise to remember that their predecessors, who did the same thing nearly a century ago, did not end up well.
Hate is never a winning strategy.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.

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Why don't Islamic countries have their own social media? Opinion article by Kemal Ozturk
لماذا لا تمتلك الدول الإسلامية وسائل تواصل اجتماعي خاصة بها؟مقال رأي بقلمكمال أوزتورك

One of the first questions I asked my colleagues when I took over as the general director of Anadolu Agency in 2011 was: “When our president speaks, who translates his speech into Arabic and distributes it to the Arab media?” Or, for example, if the Emir of Qatar or the President of Egypt says something about Turkey, who translates it into Turkish and delivers it to the Turkish media? The answer was: “Our agency does not do that.” I asked: “Is it translated into English, French or Russian and distributed to the countries that speak these languages?” The answer was also: “No.”
We then contacted the Prime Ministry, the Presidency of the Republic, and other institutions, and found that they did not provide this service. That day we realized that communication between Turkey and Islamic countries was taking place through Western news agencies.
For example, news agencies such as the American news agency, Agence France-Presse, and the Associated Press, which are owned by Western countries, cover events in the Middle East, translate them from Arabic to Turkish, and sell them to us. When something happens in Turkey, these agencies translate it into Arabic and sell it to Middle Eastern countries.
This process is not just an economic loss, but the way the news is presented, the timing of its publication, and the way it is translated were so critical that they could lead to diplomatic crises and could be exploited by a third country.
What is even more surprising is that the Arabic-speaking or Turkish-speaking countries did not have a common news network. Events in those countries were covered by foreign news agencies. In 2011, this simple question revealed a painful truth: there was no effective international news agency in the Muslim countries, and each country depended on these agencies to get its voice across. The news agency monopoly continued in this way for 120 years.
At that time, Anadolu Agency decided to go global, and within three years we started publishing news in Arabic, Russian, French, Bosnian, English and Kurdish. We started publishing news in Arabic in 2012, while AFP established its Arabic service in 1969 and Reuters in 1968. That’s when we realized how far behind we were and how tragically we lacked the necessary resources.
Today, Anadolu Agency can translate the President’s speeches into 10 languages ​​and distribute them to other countries. But now we face another problem, which is the monopoly of social media.
When something happened in Africa and the news agencies didn’t cover it, it was often unknown for a long time. But that monopoly collapsed with the rise of newspapers, the spread of television, and finally the discovery of the Internet. News agencies no longer had a monopoly on news in the old way. Social media has removed that monopoly, but it has created a new kind of monopoly.
Today, 98 percent of the world’s 4.5 billion internet users use Google. You can’t get a video viral without YouTube. 3 billion people post content every day on Facebook, and there’s no bigger platform. Seven of the top 10 internet companies are American.
I don’t think it’s necessary to talk again about how our data is collected and sold by social media platforms, used for illegal activities or provided to intelligence services. During the Gaza war, it was revealed how Facebook, WhatsApp, Google and Instagram provide their data to Israel and use it to kill Palestinians through an artificial intelligence called “Lavender”. I have written about this before here in “Opinions”.
So, just as news agencies had a monopoly on news in the past, America has re-established that monopoly on social media today. There are thousands of articles and hundreds of books written on this subject.
Now, let us discuss the following question: Why do Islamic countries not have such social media platforms?
Why don't Islamic countries have their own social media?
We asked similar questions 20 years ago, such as: “Why don’t Muslim countries have a global news agency or a globally effective TV channel?” Today, Al Jazeera English and Arabic are performing globally in broadcasting. And Anadolu Agency continues to move forward in this direction.
So why don’t our countries, our big institutions, our big companies invest in social media which has now become a national security issue? We spend billions of dollars to build huge buildings, huge ports, and huge shopping malls, but we don’t invest in social media which has become a threat to our security.
As social media merges with artificial intelligence in the future, social media data will become an unprecedented tool of power and threat. Just as we were late to create news agencies, we are also late to this, but if we start now, we can break this monopoly.
We should stop discussing the impact of social media, and instead ask: Why don't we have our own social media platforms?
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.

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The Hidden Partner in Gaza War CrimesOpinion by Somdeep Sen
الشريك الخفي لجرائم الحرب في غزةمقال رأي بقلمسومديب سين

“Politics must be kept out of academia!” This is the response we often hear from Western academia when called upon to boycott Israeli academic institutions because of their complicity in the decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, the oppression of the Palestinian people, and the genocidal war on Gaza.
They claim that universities are arenas for “civil discourse,” “free speech,” and “open inquiry,” and that participating in an academic boycott—especially on an issue as divisive as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—is unacceptable for any institution of higher learning that must be politically “neutral” to fulfill its function. Moreover, many of them directly deny the involvement of Israeli academia in state crimes, arguing that it is unfair and counterproductive to punish “independent” educational institutions for their government’s war crimes and violations of international law.
Of course, there is much to dissect and criticize in these arguments. At such a tragic time, in the midst of a war that the International Court of Justice has described as “potential genocide,” it may seem absurd, even inappropriate, to question the naivety (or ignorance?) that fuels the belief that universities should remain “neutral.” But with the official Palestinian death toll now over 40,000, with thousands still missing, with every university in Gaza destroyed, and with no end in sight to the Israeli war, it is imperative to question the complicity of Israeli academia in these ongoing atrocities.
Censorship has been a weapon that Israeli universities have systematically used against those who dare to defend Palestinian rights and criticize Israeli abuses for decades, and especially since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7.
One of the most prominent recent victims of this weapon was Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). In mid-April of this year, she was arrested by Israeli police for criticizing Zionism and Israel’s genocidal campaign against Gaza.
For several months prior to her arrest, Shalhoub-Kevorkian had been the target of a smear campaign that portrayed her words and writings as “incitement to violence” against the State of Israel. While this campaign appears to have been led publicly by Israeli authorities and the media, the real seed behind it lies in the place where she works.
Israeli universities have not been ‘neutral’ sites for open research, but are directly implicated in the Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians, and support for the state’s military policies.
In late October of last year, Hebrew University leaders sent her a letter expressing “shock, disgust, and profound disappointment” at her signing a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a political solution to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would end occupation and apartheid. The letter said the president and dean were ashamed to have people like Shalhoub-Kevorkian on the faculty, and that she should consider leaving her position at the institution. The letter was distributed publicly, adding to the public campaign against her.
In March, after Shalhoub-Kevorkian called for the abolition of Zionism in a television interview, university leaders sent her a letter calling it a national and international embarrassment and stressing that the Hebrew University prides itself on being “a public, Zionist Israeli institution.” Again, the letter was made public, and sent directly to several members of the Knesset. Shalhoub asserted that her letter “ignited a campaign of incitement that included grave and unprecedented threats” targeting her and her family.
In general, the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices, cyberbullying, and disciplinary measures against them have become a common feature in higher education institutions in Israel. Since October 7, the addresses and photos of the homes of Palestinian students at Israeli universities have been published on social media.
The Israeli Ministry of Higher Education has also ordered universities and colleges to investigate all complaints against students and faculty who make public statements perceived as sympathetic to Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Of course, all expressions of solidarity with Palestine in this context are often seen as incitement to violence against Israelis.
In addition to silencing critics, Israeli universities have been active in their attempts to bolster international support for Israel during its military campaign in Gaza. In the early days after October 7, the president of Tel Aviv University (TAU) issued a statement declaring that the university had “devoted all its strength and capabilities to support the national effort.” He also criticized those who called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, pointing to “some academic leaders” abroad who had failed to stop the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
In this context, the university president stated that Tel Aviv University has added “media outreach” to its efforts, where students have been recruited to work on social networks “to refute the horrific lies that may influence the naive masses who are unaware of what our enemies have done to us.”
Less than a week after this statement, international students at Tel Aviv University launched an initiative to support Israel on social media. The students running the initiative stressed their commitment to “spreading real and reliable information,” noting that Israel is fighting “a humanitarian war against terror; a war between good and evil.”
The University of Haifa, for its part, has been a staunch supporter of the Israeli forces and the assault on Gaza. The university has organized fundraising campaigns, including providing financial support to its student “soldiers” on the front lines. It has also donated bulletproof vests to the special forces.
Following Tel Aviv University’s lead, the University of Haifa has launched an initiative to rally support for Israel, aiming to convince international audiences that any criticism of Israel’s war effort in Gaza is unfair, and that those who advocate for Palestinian rights are either misguided or supportive of terrorism. As part of this campaign, the university has released a “multilingual video series” featuring students and faculty explaining the “truth” about what happened on October 7.
In most of these videos, the views of the Israeli government are simply repeated, including claims that pro-Palestine activism is in fact support for Hamas, and that the slogan “From the river to the sea, free Palestine” is a call for a second Holocaust against the Jewish people.
Since the October 7 attack, pro-Palestinian voices on Israeli campuses have been targeted. Opponents are silenced, Palestinian students’ home addresses are published, and anyone seen as sympathetic to the Palestinians is investigated.
The University of Haifa has also been at the forefront of the Israeli campaign to counter the BDS movement, and international efforts to boycott Israeli academic institutions. In June of this year, the university’s current dean, Professor Mona Maron, joined a group of academics from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Hebrew University to publish an article in the journal Nature arguing that a boycott of Israeli academia would be counterproductive because it would ignore students and faculty who “identify as Arab or Palestinian,” ignore Israeli academia’s record “of supporting human rights and challenging government policies,” and “undermine efforts to promote inclusivity” within the Israeli scientific community.
Of course, none of this is true. As anthropologist Maya Wind reveals in her authoritarian book, Towers of Ivory and Steel, Israeli universities have long contributed to the oppression of Palestinians. “Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all serve Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate Palestinian rights to education, suppress critical research, and brutally suppress student dissent.”
Today, there is a growing awareness of this role played by Israeli academia. With Israel’s atrocities in Gaza being broadcast live on social media platforms around the world, and Israeli universities embracing the role of defender and facilitator of this war, the argument that academia is neutral and independent is being undermined.
In April, Israel’s Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology published a report showing a “sharp decline in the willingness” to collaborate with Israeli academia. According to the report, boycott efforts have primarily, but not exclusively, affected “research in the fields of medicine, biology, physics, space science, and computer science.”
Innovation, Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, who was Intelligence Minister until mid-March of this year, has ordered ministry officials to devise strategies to counter the boycott.
As Israel continues its campaign against Gaza with impunity, the wave of boycotts appears set to continue. In fact, a recent ruling by the International Court of Justice noted that boycotting Israel, including its academic institutions, is not only an option, but an obligation, given that Israel illegally occupies Palestinian territory and “practices apartheid and racial discrimination.” The court said that all states have a duty to end these illegal practices “by severing all economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Of course, Israeli institutions still have some loyal friends in academia, such as Germany’s Max Planck Society. The society’s president, Patrick Kremer, led a solidarity trip to Israel in December in response to the boycott campaign. But it may soon become impossible for Israeli authorities to reverse the global push to isolate the country’s academia.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.

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Has the Great War Begun? Opinion Article by Mahmoud Alloush
هل بدأت الحرب الكبرى؟مقال رأي بقلممحمود علوش

Hezbollah suffered the biggest security breach in its history on Tuesday, when pager communication devices widely used by its members in various Lebanese regions exploded simultaneously, resulting in a large number of deaths and injuries. The party was quick to accuse Israel of involvement in the attack and vowed to respond.
Tel Aviv’s avoidance – until the moment of writing – of acknowledging or denying its responsibility for the incident reinforces the belief that it was involved in it, because the latter usually resorts to remaining silent in major attacks of this type against Hezbollah and Iran, especially after the October 7 war, either to protect its intelligence tools, or to keep itself in the shadows to avoid granting legitimacy to a strong reaction from Tehran and its regional allies, and to hide its game aimed at spreading war in the Middle East more widely, or both.
It is not possible to immediately draw a clear conclusion about the nature of Tuesday’s attack. However, some realistic scenarios fall into two hypotheses. The first is what a Lebanese security source revealed to Al Jazeera, that the communication devices were rigged with explosives before the party imported them five months ago, which opens the door to another question related to how the devices were rigged from the source.
This hypothesis is similar to the assassination of Yahya Ayyash, a leader in the Qassam Brigades, in 1996. The second hypothesis is that malware caused the batteries of the pagers to overheat and explode. Whether the incident was the result of booby-trapping the devices or malware, the operation would require extensive intelligence work to target the right devices. This would include mapping the users of the party’s communications network, identifying vulnerabilities, and designing the attack accordingly.
What is certain in both hypotheses is that the scope of Hezbollah’s intelligence breach has reached unprecedented levels, especially since it is not the first of its kind. It is widely believed that Israel’s interception of a phone call by senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr at the end of July contributed to his assassination. The breach of the party’s communications network also likely played a major role in Israel’s discovery in advance of the timing of the party’s military response to Shukr’s assassination last August, and its launching of a preemptive attack against him.
However, the intelligence breach, while important, is not the only reason for Israel’s high-risk attacks on Hezbollah and elsewhere. After the outbreak of the October 7 war, Israel carried out major assassinations in Lebanon, such as the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas political bureau in the southern suburbs of Beirut on January 2, and the assassination of Fuad Shukr after that.
Al-Arouri's assassination was part of Israel's stated strategy of targeting Hamas leaders abroad, while Shukr's assassination was designed to respond to a rocket attack on the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan on July 27.
But targeting Hezbollah’s communications network is considered the biggest new escalation in the regional context of the war since the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus last April, the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, and the attack that targeted sites around the Syrian city of Masyaf this month.
Two common links emerge between the k-connector attack and the other major attacks mentioned:
First, they are all similar in that they are designed to raise the costs of Hezbollah’s involvement in the war, and of Iran’s involvement by proxy in it. They are also designed by Israel to directly implicate Iran in the war, and to deepen Hezbollah’s involvement in the conflict.
The second is that Israel has avoided claiming or denying responsibility for the above-mentioned reasons. However, this tactic, which Israel is pursuing, does not hide the fact that it has become more daring than ever in escalating its conflict with Hezbollah and Iran, because it increasingly feels that the costs of its outbursts are limited.
For example, Israel would not have had the audacity to assassinate Haniyeh (it was designed to provoke a strong Iranian response) had Tehran not shown that its main priority after the attack on its consulate in Damascus was not to get directly involved in the war.
In the case of Hezbollah, its eagerness to close the circle of retaliation with Israel after Shukr's assassination in order to avoid a further escalation of the conflict actually served as an additional powerful incentive for Israel to escalate its attacks on it since that period.
Israel has plenty of reasons to escalate its confrontation with Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to fire Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who opposes a major offensive against the group, suggest Netanyahu intends to expand the scope and objectives of the war on the northern front. The targeting of the group’s communications network may be designed to undermine its ability to securely manage communications among its senior commanders, in preparation for a possible broad Israeli offensive against it.
The signals of weakness sent by Hezbollah, Iran’s concern about direct involvement in the war, and the current US administration’s preoccupation with the upcoming presidential elections provide the conditions required for Israel to go far in its strategy of military pressure on the party to remove the threat it poses to Israel in the north.
Before the party discovers the reasons for the major intelligence breach it suffered and plans for retaliation, it will have to prepare to deal with the more costly scenarios, which it has sought to avoid since the beginning of its involvement in the war.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.

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How did pagers become a deadly weapon for Hezbollah? Opinion article by Dr. Khaled Walid Mahmoud
كيف تحولت أجهزة "البيجر" إلى سلاح قاتل لحزب الله؟مقال رأي بقلمد. خالد وليد محمود

In an unprecedented incident, pagers used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon were subjected to a simultaneous explosion that killed 9 people and injured hundreds. Initial accusations indicate that Israel is behind this attack, which observers believe was caused by malware, and is considered one of the largest security breaches in the world.
The event raises questions about the security of old technologies compared to modern smart devices, and brings to the forefront issues of cybersecurity in our current era.
Pagers, which flourished in the 1990s, before the spread of mobile phones, are wireless communication devices used to send signals or short text messages to a specific recipient. The idea of ​​them appeared in the 1970s, and they were mainly used in the medical and military fields.
However, these devices have evolved over time to be used in various fields, such as: business, personal communications, and are now used by security and military agencies.
Reports indicate that since the outbreak of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle, Hezbollah fighters have begun using codes in messages, landlines, and pagers in an attempt to evade Israel’s advanced surveillance technology.
These devices work by receiving a signal from a transmitter. When someone sends a message to the pager, that message is converted into a radio signal, which can be received by the pager.
The pager emits an alert sound or vibrations to alert its owner of the presence of a message. After receiving the message, the user can call the number on the pager screen to respond to the message, or communicate with the sender.
As cyber attacks escalate, some are turning to older technologies, such as pagers and non-smartphones, as a safer alternative to internet-connected smart devices, which are an easy target for hackers.
Older technologies are simple and free of digital complexity, which makes them less vulnerable to cyber attacks. For example, as mentioned above, pagers rely on radio communication networks, which are relatively primitive technologies, and do not rely on the Internet, which makes them less vulnerable to sophisticated cyber attacks, such as those targeting smartphones and tablets.
But the incident of the explosion of communication devices in Lebanon - even if there are multiple scenarios for its occurrence, whether by a malicious software attack or planting explosives rather than hacking, as former US intelligence agent Edward Snowden pointed out - destroys the assumption of the safety of primitive technologies in general; as the incident showed that even these old devices are not immune to hacking.
Most pager systems, especially older ones, rely on unencrypted radio frequencies, making them vulnerable to interception by hackers. An attacker could use a simple receiver or software-defined radio (SDR) to capture the messages sent by pagers, read them, and possibly even retransmit them, causing significant damage.
Although pagers rely on simple technology, they are not immune to hacking. These devices primarily rely on unencrypted radio frequencies to send messages. This means that any hacker with the right tools can easily intercept these messages, making these devices more likely to be hacked. Hackers can use simple techniques, such as receiving radio signals, or using software-defined radios to capture and decrypt these messages.
Additionally, attackers can inject fake messages into the pager system, or flood it with a large amount of useless data. This can overwhelm the system or even cause devices to explode, as happened in the recent incident in Lebanon, where attackers are believed to have managed to inject repeated data into the network, overloading the batteries with high currents that caused them to explode.
Pagers generally rely on private networks, not public ones. These networks are dedicated radio frequencies, and operate separately from traditional cellular networks or the Internet. But that doesn’t mean they’re immune to risks, as the recent incident demonstrated. Hackers can use simple techniques to intercept messages on these networks, retransmit signals, or flood the network with repeated signals.
Overall, what happened in Lebanon is reminiscent of previous cyber attacks, such as the Stuxnet incident that targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities. In that incident, centrifuges at the Natanz facility were destroyed in a joint Israeli-US cyber attack. This type of attack shows how cyber warfare can cause massive destruction in a short period of time.
Based on the above, although older technologies, such as pagers, were considered less vulnerable to cyber attacks, the recent incident in Lebanon proved that these devices are not immune. On the contrary, the incident shows how simple technologies can have serious vulnerabilities if exploited by hackers. In light of the ongoing development of cyber warfare, it seems that security depends largely on developing modern technologies with high levels of encryption, rather than returning to old tools that have already proven their fragility.
It is worth noting that the incident may have been the result of a possible manipulation of the shipment before it was delivered to the party, which is an interesting scenario for analyzing the dimensions of this security breach. If the manipulation occurred while the devices were with the supplier, then we are not only talking about a vulnerability in the devices themselves, but about a security breach of the supplier’s infrastructure. This scenario suggests that the cyberattack was not just an operation targeting specific elements of the party after the devices were delivered, but rather they may have been manipulated at a very early stage, before they reached the hands of the end users.
This possibility/scenario raises deeper questions about the ability of companies that supply legacy technology to secure their products. These companies could be vulnerable to breaches at the manufacturing or shipping stage, making any device sold or delivered vulnerable to tampering before it reaches the end customer. In this case, the problem is not just with the technology used, but with the entire supply chain, meaning that every device shipped could be pre-rigged.
Although the incident is still being investigated and analyzed, this particular scenario highlights the complexity of cyber warfare. The attack on Hezbollah may not have been direct or by hacking the devices after they were used, but rather it may have begun by hacking the infrastructure of the manufacturer itself or before it was delivered to Hezbollah, meaning that the attack was targeted from the beginning. This hypothesis makes securing companies’ supply chains crucial, and it confirms that cyber warfare can start from completely unexpected places.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.

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Japan's ICOM investigates explosion of communications devices bearing its logo in Lebanon
"آيكوم" اليابانية تحقق بانفجار أجهزة اتصالات تحمل شعارها بلبنان

Icom announced on Thursday that it is investigating whether any of the radio transmitters that exploded yesterday in Lebanon were manufactured by it, after media reports indicated that the devices bore the Japanese company's logo.
The company, which makes wireless communications equipment, said it could not confirm whether the company shipped a product linked to the explosions in Lebanon.
It confirmed that it is investigating the facts related to this matter and will publish updated information as soon as it becomes available on its website.
The company added that the batteries needed to operate the device, which was discontinued about 10 years ago, were also discontinued.
She added that the products it exports abroad are subject to a strict regulatory process set by the Japanese government.
On Wednesday afternoon, a second wave of bombings targeting Hezbollah communications devices in Lebanon left 20 dead and more than 450 wounded across the country, in an attack that renewed fears of a full-scale war in the region.
This attack came after a similar unprecedented attack, which killed 12 people, including two girls, and injured about 2,800, most of them Hezbollah members, in southern Lebanon and the southern suburb of Beirut, after the explosion of wireless pagers they were using.
Israel did not comment on the explosions, which raised fears of a large-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah.
On the other hand, Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo said that the country's national security team is paying great attention to the detonation of thousands of pagers that targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon, after the name of the Taiwanese company "Gold Apollo" was linked to the production of those devices.
Asked whether Israel had informed Taiwan in advance about the explosions or whether there was security or intelligence exchange between the two sides, Ko said Taipei does not have that kind of relationship with Tel Aviv.
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo announced yesterday that the communication devices that exploded simultaneously in the hands of Hezbollah members were manufactured by its Hungarian partner.
Gold Apollo has a long-term partnership with Budapest-based BAC to use its brand, the company said in a statement, adding that the AR924 model mentioned in media reports is manufactured and sold by BAC, following a New York Times report that the devices came from the Taiwanese company.
Reuters quoted a senior Lebanese security source and another source as saying that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by the Lebanese Hezbollah months before the bombings that took place on Tuesday.
While the Lebanese government and Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out the bombings, and the party promised "just retribution," Tel Aviv met this with official silence.

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Israeli arrested on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Netanyahu
اعتقال إسرائيلي بتهمة التخطيط لاغتيال نتنياهو

An Israeli citizen has been arrested on suspicion of dealing with Iran and planning to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials, the Israeli Walla news website reported.
Israeli media reported that Iran recruited the Israeli citizen to target Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and the head of the Internal Security Service (Shin Bet) Ronen Bar.
The Shin Bet and the Israeli police said the Israeli citizen was arrested last August after it was proven that he had established contacts with Iranian intelligence agencies while he was in Türkiye.
They added that the detainee, an Israeli businessman, entered Iranian territory through the Turkish border and met with intelligence agencies there.
Walla website also reported yesterday that the Israeli security services revealed that the Lebanese Hezbollah was seeking to assassinate former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon.
Channel 13 reported that a cell affiliated with the party planted an explosive device in the Yarkon Park last New Year's Eve, with the aim of assassinating the Minister of Defense and the former Chief of Staff, before its plan was exposed and thwarted.

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Western Quintet Meeting to Discuss Lebanon Bombings, Gaza Negotiations
اجتماع خماسي غربي لمناقشة تفجيرات لبنان ومفاوضات غزة

Representatives of the American, French, German, Italian and British diplomacy are meeting in Paris today, Thursday, to discuss the situation in Lebanon and the fate of the negotiations to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, according to what diplomatic sources reported on Wednesday.
The meeting comes a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a quick visit to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in an attempt to revive negotiations on an agreement between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel.
Fears of a large-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah have also increased, after a wave of bombings on Tuesday and Wednesday that targeted communications devices used by members of the Lebanese Hezbollah, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 3,200 in Lebanon.
For its part, Israel announced on Wednesday evening that the "center of gravity of the war has moved to the north."
Israel, with American support, has been waging a war on Gaza since October 7, leaving more than 136,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed his participation in the Paris meeting, explaining in a statement that the meeting will also discuss developments in Ukraine.
The Italian minister's statement said the meeting would focus on the crisis in the Middle East, with special attention to the status of ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and the situation in Lebanon.
The issue of strengthening support for Ukraine will also be addressed.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will be represented by a diplomat, while London has not yet confirmed the level of its participation.
The US State Department confirmed Blinken's participation, noting that he will also meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

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Gold, oil rise after US rate cut
الذهب والنفط يرتفعان بعد خفض الفائدة الأميركية

Gold and oil prices rose after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates late on Tuesday, ending a two-and-a-half-year monetary tightening cycle and starting a global wave of lending rate cuts.
Spot gold prices rose about 1% to $2,584 an ounce, after hitting a record high of $2,599.92 on Wednesday.
US gold futures rose 0.33% to $2,607.5.
The US Federal Reserve began its monetary easing cycle yesterday with a larger-than-usual cut of 50 basis points (0.5%), with Bank Chairman Jerome Powell saying the move was aimed at demonstrating policymakers' commitment to keeping unemployment low after inflation fell.
But Powell said the economy remains solid, with many labor market indicators, such as jobless claims and even the current unemployment rate of 4.2%, not reaching worrying levels.
The non-yielding yellow metal tends to be a preferred investment during low interest rates and geopolitical turmoil.
According to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, traders currently expect a 25 basis point rate cut at the Fed's next meeting in November, compared with 34% who expect a 50 basis point cut.
The market is also awaiting the US unemployment claims data, which is due out today.
As for other precious metals:
Oil prices rose today after the US interest rate cut, which is a driver for increasing dollar-denominated commodities, including oil, but ongoing concerns about global demand limited the gains.
Brent crude futures for November delivery rose 1% to $74.43 at the time of writing, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures for October delivery rose 0.92% to $71.56 a barrel.
Both benchmarks recovered after falling in early Asian trading.
The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point yesterday. Lowering interest rates usually boosts economic activity and increases demand for energy, but the market received this cut as a sign of a tight labor market, which could lead to a slowdown in the economy.
"While the 50bp rate cut signals significant economic challenges ahead, bearish investors were not satisfied after the Fed raised its medium-term rate forecasts," analysts at ANZ said in a note.
Weak demand in China due to the economic slowdown also continued to weigh on markets.
China's refinery output fell for a fifth straight month in August, data from the country's statistics bureau showed, while industrial output growth slowed to a five-month low last month and retail sales and new home prices continued to decline.
Analysts at Citibank say they expect an oil market deficit of about 0.4 million barrels per day to support Brent crude prices in the $70-$75 per barrel range over the next quarter, but that will be temporary.

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Why don't big companies want to extract oil in Pakistan?
لماذا لا تُقبل الشركات الكبرى على استخراج النفط في باكستان؟

Pakistan is facing a growing energy crisis despite the discovery of large oil and gas reserves that could change the country's economic standing, in addition to security concerns and instability, along with high costs that constitute an obstacle for international companies to invest in the Pakistani energy sector and extract it from the ground.
Long-term exploration efforts have led to the discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Pakistan's territorial waters, a large stock that is said to change the country's economic course, but no company has yet extracted it, writer Alex Kimani said in a report published by Oil Price.
If there is gas reserve, it can replace LNG imports, and if there is oil reserve, it can replace imported oil, said Mohammad Arif, a former member of the Petroleum and Gas Regulatory Authority of Pakistan.
Aref warned that it would take years before the country could exploit the discovered fossil fuel resources, adding that exploration alone would require huge investments of more than $5 billion, and extracting reserves from a single offshore site could take 4 to 5 years.
The writer stated that Pakistan imports 29% of its gas needs, 85% of its oil, 50% of its liquefied petroleum gas, and 20% of its coal needs. Its total energy import bill in 2023 amounted to about $17.5 billion, and this number is expected to rise to $31 billion in 7 years.
Since 2021, Pakistan has been suffering from mounting debt and high inflation that has approached 30%, while at the same time the economy grew by only 2.4% in 2023, and it has been forced to rely heavily on foreign aid.
In January, Pakistan sought $30 billion for gas production to cut its fuel import bill.
According to Pakistan's Energy Minister Mohammad Ali, Pakistan has 235 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, and an investment of $25-30 billion would be enough to extract 10% of those reserves over the next decade to increase currently declining gas production and replace energy imports.
Persistently high inflation could push Pakistan into social and economic turmoil, with writer Khurram Hussain saying there is no precedent in Pakistan's history for such a level of inflation to sweep the country.
The writer pointed out that Shell announced last year that it would sell its stake in Pakistan to Saudi Aramco, and that the auction held at the same time last year for 18 oil and gas sectors did not receive a response from international companies.
Last July, Pakistan's Petroleum Minister Musadiq Malik told a parliamentary committee that there were no international companies interested in exploring for offshore oil and gas in Pakistan, and that companies already in the country were seeking to exit.
It is a matter of security and risk versus reward, Malik explained to the committee that the cost of security was the main reason the deal failed, because oil and gas companies have to spend a lot of money to keep their employees and assets safe and the security provided by Pakistan was not up to the task.
In March this year, five Chinese engineers were killed in an attack in far northern Pakistan when a car bomb rammed into a bus carrying employees from Islamabad to the giant Dasu Dam project in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The project is part of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and the incident has led to a series of temporary closures in other projects as well.
Earlier the same month, militants attacked Chinese facilities in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, storming the Chinese-run Gwadar Port Authority complex.
What this essentially means, the report concludes, is that Pakistan’s choices are between turning to China or failing. Chinese explorers, who are state-controlled, have a very different appetite for risk, and these huge reserves are unlikely to come out of the ground without Aramco showing more interest or the Chinese intervening.

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Paris Metro to raise ticket prices for tourists
شبكة مترو باريس تعتزم رفع أسعار التذاكر للسياح

The Paris Metro and local public transport authority plans to raise prices for tourists starting early next year.
The transport authority plans to simplify the fare structure, which will result in some popular tickets among tourists being raised.
In contrast, tickets for suburban residents will see a significant drop in prices, and the aim is to encourage these residents to switch from cars to public transport, according to Valérie Pécresse, head of the transport authority for the greater Paris region.
"The only ones who will pay more are tourists, as airport tickets and the Paris pass will become more expensive," Pecresse said in Tuesday's edition of Le Parisien.
A new flat rate of 13 euros ($14.46) will be introduced for transfers between the airport and the city centre, whether by bus or metro.
Currently the cheapest option costs €10.30.

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Dollar recovers after big US rate cut
الدولار يتعافى في أعقاب الخفض الكبير للفائدة الأميركية

The US dollar rose on Thursday, recovering from an earlier slide following the Federal Reserve's massive interest rate cut.
The central bank began its monetary easing cycle on Wednesday with a larger-than-usual cut of half a percentage point.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said it was aimed at showing policymakers' commitment to keeping unemployment low after inflation fell.
Although investors had anticipated the size of the cut partly because of a series of media reports pointing in that direction ahead of the decision, the large cut defied the expectations of economists polled by Reuters, who were leaning toward a 25 basis point cut.
The normal way markets reacted to the order kept the dollar in good shape during early Asian trading.
The dollar recovered from a more than one-year low against a basket of currencies hit in the previous session, rising slightly to 101.03 before falling slightly.
Against the yen, the dollar rose 0.2% to 142.63, at the time of writing.
The euro fell 0.13% to $1.1133, moving away from a three-week high hit in the previous session.
Federal Reserve policymakers forecast on Wednesday:
But they said predictions about that distant future were not necessarily certain.
The pound rose 0.11% to $1.3226 at the time of writing, after hitting a peak of $1.3298 in the previous session, its highest level since March 2022.
This came after data released on Wednesday showed that inflation in Britain was stable in August but accelerated in the services sector, which the Bank of England closely monitors, and this strengthened bets that the central bank will keep interest rates unchanged later in the day.
The Australian dollar rose 0.5% against its US counterpart to $0.6802, while the New Zealand dollar rose 0.2% to $0.6221.

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US interest rate cut decision by 0.5%.. winners and losers
قرار خفض الفائدة الأميركية 0.5%.. الرابحون والخاسرون

The Federal Reserve (the US central bank) cut interest rates by 50 basis points to between 4.75% and 5%, ending a monetary tightening cycle that began in March 2022, and the central bank expected another 50 basis points (0.5%) cut this year.
This reduction prompted the Arab central banks - including the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - to take a similar decision, due to the pegging of these countries' currencies to the dollar.
Also, the central banks of Brazil, Turkey, Japan and England meet this week to decide on interest rates for their currencies, in separate meetings that run from Wednesday to Friday.
Before this cut, the US interest rate ranged between 5.25% and 5.5% at the highest level in 23 years, and affected global lending and government debt denominated in or linked to the US currency.
The US Federal Reserve has 3 meetings left this year, the closest of which are Tuesday and Wednesday (yesterday and today), a meeting in November, and the last in December 2024.
Following the decision to start monetary easing (lowering interest rates), there will be winners and losers.
This money has been in the banks for more than two years, and its owners are receiving financial returns, but lowering interest rates will reduce the amount of returns, and push investors to look for better investment tools.
Banks are also harmed by another aspect, which is the decline in their financial returns from bank lending, because interest rates will decline, and thus the value of the interest due on monthly installments will decline.
But increased employment means increased liquidity among individuals, and this is where increased consumption occurs, which at some point leads to increased demand for goods, and thus inflation rises again.

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Taking from Trump to give to Biden.. The story of "Iran's hacking" of the US elections
تأخذ من ترامب لتعطي بايدن.. قصة "قرصنة إيران" للانتخابات الأميركية

US agencies said that Iranian hackers sent stolen materials from Republican candidate Donald Trump's campaign via email to people involved in President Joe Biden's re-election campaign, before he withdrew from the presidential race on July 21.
The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement that this was part of a broader effort by Tehran to influence the US elections, which will be held on November 5.
“Furthermore, Iranian malicious cyber actors have continued their efforts since last June to send stolen, non-public materials related to former President Trump’s campaign to American media organizations,” the joint statement said.
"This malicious cyber activity is the latest example of Iran's multi-pronged approach to foment discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process," the US agencies added.
The agencies said there was no information yet on the recipients of the messages, and did not provide further details about the nature of the stolen materials.
Last August, the United States accused Iran of launching cyber operations against the campaigns of the American presidential candidates, Republican Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, and targeting Americans with influence operations aimed at fueling political discord.
The Trump campaign said in a statement that Harris and Biden should disclose whether they used the hacked materials to "harm" Trump.
Later, Trump said at a rally on Wednesday that Iran had hacked his campaign to help Democrats, calling it foreign interference in the election.
“We are not aware of any materials being sent directly to the campaign,” a Harris campaign spokesperson said. “A small number of individuals have been targeted on their personal email accounts with what appears to be spam or a phishing attempt.”
Tehran denies interfering in US affairs. Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations in New York said Wednesday that the latest accusations from Washington were "baseless and completely unacceptable."
"Iran has no motive or intention to interfere in the US elections," she added.
Tehran also accuses Washington of interfering in its affairs for decades, including a 1953 coup against a prime minister and even the 2020 assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

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