BEIRUT: Like many people in crisis-hit Lebanon, Elias Skaff used to wait for hours to withdraw cash at the bank but now prefers money transfer companies as trust in lenders has evaporated. Anyone who relies on traditional banks to receive their money “will die 100 times before cashing it,” said Skaff, 50, who has survived Lebanon’s three-year-old economic downturn with the help of US dollar payments from a relative abroad. Once the flagship of Lebanon’s economy, the banking sector is now widely despised and avoided after banks barred depositors from accessing their savings, stopped offering loans and closed hundreds of branches and slashed thousands of jobs. Last month, a local man was widely cheered as a folk hero after he stormed a Beirut bank with a rifle and held employees and customers hostage for hours to demand some of his $200,000 in frozen savings to pay hospital bills for his sick father. Increasingly, as Lebanon’s deep crisis shows no sign of abating, money transfer agencies are filling the gap, also offering currency exchange, credit card and tax payment services and even setting up wedding gift registries. Skaff said he now receives his money via a Beirut branch of Western Union’s Lebanese agent OMT, which says it operates more than 1,200 branches nationwide and handles 80 percent of money transfers outside the Lebanese banking sector. “We create services similar to those that banks provide at the request of our customers,” said OMT spokesman Naji Abou Zeid. Lebanon has been battered by its worst-ever economic crisis since the financial sector went into meltdown in 2019. The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market, as poverty and unemployment have soared. Angry protesters have often targeted banks, trashing their ATM machines with rocks and spray cans. “We can’t even withdraw a penny” from the bank, said 45-year-old Alaa Sheikhani, a customer standing in line at an OMT branch. “How are we supposed to trust them with our money?“

Elie, 36, who recently got married, said he used Whish Money, a Lebanese money transfer firm, to set up his wedding gift registry, something he said saved wedding guests time, hassle and money in fees. “Rather than waiting for hours at the bank, which is often crowded, they can hand over the money to an agency,” said the man who asked not to be fully named. “In terms of time saved and costs, it’s incomparable.” Whish Money’s marketing director Dina Daher said the company is winning customers by charging “zero fees” on Lebanese pound transfers. Some companies are now even paying salaries through money transfer companies instead of banks. “When the crisis began, we were forced to pay salaries in cash, and it was a waste of time,” because accountants had to count out large bundles of banknotes, said Rachelle Bou Nader, a human resources manager. But now her firm, sporting goods retailer Mike Sport, pays its employees through Whish, allowing them to “withdraw their salary easily, in instalments, and free of charge,” said Bou Nader. Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, said remittances from the Lebanese diaspora have become crucial to help families weather the crushing economic crisis. “Today, a young Lebanese employee living abroad won’t hesitate to send $100 to his parents because this sum now makes a difference,” he said. Lebanese banks have drastically increased fees on the few services they still offer — including foreign currency transfers, now their only meaningful source of income — said Nader, who added that this has further fueled the exodus to money transfer companies. About 250,000 residents of Lebanon received remittances in the first half of 2022, according to OMT, up eight percent from the same period last year. The World Bank has reported that Lebanon received $6.6 billion in remittances in 2021, one of the highest levels in the Middle East and North Africa.  

TRIPOLI: Libyan armed factions fought in the western outskirts of Tripoli early on Saturday as forces aligned with Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s government further consolidated their control over the capital.

Fighting took place in Warshafala, a district west of Tripoli that has been the site of repeated clashes throughout the 11 years of violence and chaos since a NATO-backed uprising ousted veteran leader Muammar Qaddafi.

The clashes, along with a major pro-Dbeibah group taking over a military headquarters in southern Tripoli, come a week after Libya’s biggest bout of warfare for two years, as several rival factions battled in and around the capital.

Last week’s fighting dislodged several groups that had aligned with Dbeibah’s rival as prime minister — the former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha who has been appointed by the eastern-based parliament to head a new government.

The standoff between the two men had lasted for months, with Libya’s powerful eastern faction lined up behind Bashagha, while the numerous factions controlling Tripoli and the rest of the northwest were divided.

Following last week’s fighting, both Bashagha and Dbeibah have visited Turkey, which helped the now-divided western factions fight off an eastern assault in 2020.

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

Turkey retains a military presence around Tripoli, including drones that could play a critical role in deciding the outcome of any major bout of warfare if it decided to back a side. Last week there were unconfirmed reports that drones were used against factions backing Bashagha. Diplomacy to resole Libya’s crisis has faltered.

Late on Friday UN Secretary -General Antonio Guterres appointed a new envoy to Libya but with the UN Security Council divided, it is unclear how much clout Abdoulaye Bathily will enjoy in the role.

Bathily succeeds Jan Kubis, who stepped down from the role late last year as diplomacy aimed at resolving Libya’s longstanding conflict faltered in the run-up to an aborted national election.

In fighting late on Friday and early on Saturday, a witness said mortars were being fired in Warshafana, a district of farmland, villages and patches of urban sprawl between Tripoli and the western city of Al-Zawiya.

During last week’s fighting, a major Bashagha-aligned faction based in Zawiya was said to be among groups that were repulsed from the outskirts of the capital.

In the southern Tripoli district of Ain Zara, a powerful faction that backed Dbeibah during last week’s fighting took over a security headquarters. Fighters and vehicles bearing its insignia stood guard there on Saturday morning with checkpoints set up nearby.

BAGHDAD: When a pronouncement by a religious scholar in Iran drove Iraq to the brink of civil war last week, there was only one man who could stop it: A 92-year-old Iraqi Shiite cleric who proved once again he is the most powerful man in his country. Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani said nothing in public about the unrest that erupted on Iraq’s streets. But government officials and Shiite insiders say it was only Al-Sistani’s stance behind the scenes that halted a meltdown. The story of Iraq’s bloodiest week in nearly three years shows the limits of traditional politics in a country where the power to start and stop wars rests with clerics — many with ambiguous ties to Iran, the Shiite theocracy next door. The Iraqis who took to the streets blamed Tehran for whipping up the violence, which began after a cleric based in Iran denounced Iraq’s most popular politician, Moqtada Al-Sadr, and instructed his own followers — including Al-Sadr himself — to seek guidance from Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Ali Al-Sistani has never held formal political office in Iraq but presides as the most influential scholar in its Shiite religious center, Najaf.

Al-Sadr’s followers tried to storm government buildings. By nightfall they were driving through Baghdad in pickup trucks brandishing machine guns and bazookas. Armed men believed to be members of pro-Iranian militia opened fire on Sadrist demonstrators who threw stones. At least 30 people were killed. And then, within 24 hours, it was over as suddenly as it started. Al-Sadr returned to the airwaves and called for calm. His armed supporters and unarmed followers began leaving the streets, the army lifted an overnight curfew and a fragile calm descended upon the capital. To understand both how the unrest broke out and how it was quelled, Reuters spoke with nearly 20 officials from the Iraqi government, Al-Sadr’s movement and rival Shiite factions seen as pro-Iranian. Most spoke on condition of anonymity. Those interviews all pointed to a decisive intervention behind the scenes by Al-Sistani, who has never held formal political office in Iraq but presides as the most influential scholar in its Shiite religious center, Najaf. Officials said Al-Sistani’s office ensured Al-Sadr understood that unless Al-Sadr called off the violence by his followers, Al-Sistani would denounce the unrest. “Al-Sistani sent a message to Al-Sadr, that if he did not stop the violence then Al-Sistani would be forced to release a statement calling for a stopping of fighting — this would have made Al-Sadr look weak, and as if he’d caused bloodshed in Iraq,” said an Iraqi government official. Three Shiite figures based in Najaf and close to Al-Sistani would not confirm that Al-Sistani’s office sent an explicit message to Al-Sadr. But they said it would have been clear to Al-Sadr that Al-Sistani would soon speak out unless Al-Sadr called off the unrest. An Iran-aligned official in the region said that if it were not for Al-Sistani’s office, “Moqtada Al-Sadr would not have held his press conference” that halted the fighting. Al-Sistani’s intervention may have averted wider bloodshed for now. But it does not solve the problem of maintaining calm in a country where so much power resides outside the political system in the Shiite clergy, including among clerics with intimate ties to Iran. Al-Sistani, who has intervened decisively at crucial moments in Iraq’s history since the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, has no obvious successor. Despite his age, little is known publicly about the state of his health. Meanwhile, many of the most influential Shiite figures — including Al-Sadr himself at various points in his career — have studied, lived and worked in Iran, a theocracy which makes no attempt to separate clerical influence from state power. Last week’s violence began after Ayatollah Kadhim Al-Haeri, a top ranking Iraqi-born Shiite cleric who has lived in Iran for decades, announced he was retiring from public life and shutting down his office due to advanced age. Such a move is practically unknown in the 1,300-year history of Shiite Islam, where top clerics are typically revered until death. Al-Haeri had been anointed as Al-Sadr’s movement’s spiritual adviser by Al-Sadr’s father, himself a revered cleric who was assassinated by Saddam’s regime in 1999. In announcing his own resignation, Haeri denounced Al-Sadr for causing rifts among Shiites, and called on his own followers to seek future guidance on religious matters from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the cleric who also happens to rule the Iranian state.

DUBAI: Yasukazu Hamada, Japan’s defense minister, met with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Gantz in Tokyo on Aug. 30 as part of an ongoing effort to boost defense cooperation between the two countries, including in military hardware and technology.

Hamada and Gantz signed a memorandum on defense exchanges and agreed to continue working together to achieve regional peace and stability. However, the development calls into question Tokyo’s ability to maintain its reputation for even-handedness vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Japan has long been hailed as an impartial broker of a future deal between Israel and the Palestinians. In 2019, a joint Arab News Japan-YouGov survey found that 56 percent of Arabs view Japan as the most credible potential candidate to act as a Middle East peace mediator.

On his trip to Tokyo, Gantz also met with Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan’s foreign minister, who was keen to reiterate his government’s support for a two-state solution to solve the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

However, Japanese analyst Koichiro Tanaka, a professor at Tokyo’s Keio University, believes the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements signed between Israel and several Arab states in 2020, has relieved Japan of this mediator role.

“Japan feels relieved from the pressure that existed in trying to balance its Middle East policy with its energy security,” Tanaka told Arab News Japan.

Mindful of the need to maintain allies in its own standoff with China, Japan’s primary foreign-policy goal has been to “appease Washington,” said Tanaka. With that comes the expectation of “making friends” with Israel.

“Japan’s role to mediate has never materialized because of US reluctance and rejection by Israel of such a role,” Tanaka said.

The Abraham Accords were the first public expressions of normalization between Arab states and Israel since 1994. When the agreements were first announced, Tomoyuki Yoshida, Japan’s former foreign press secretary, called it a “positive development” that could “ease tensions and stabilize the region.”

Nevertheless, Yoshida said Japan continues to support a “two-state solution” whereby Israel and a future independent Palestinian state “live side by side in peace and security.”

With the signing of its new defense deal with Israel, is Tokyo still in a position to neutrally mediate on the Palestinian question?

Waleed Siam, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to Tokyo, told Arab News Japan that the Japanese government is “mostly supportive” of the two sides.

“Japan has a long history with Israel, but I believe Japan could still be part of the neutrality in helping both sides achieve settlements,” he said.

Siam said Palestinians, and the Arab world in general, have great respect for Japan, noting that Tokyo “always has supported the Palestinians to the highest degree, through many UN organizations.

“Japan is committed to help the state of Palestine and has also always stuck to the UN resolution, refusing to recognize East Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and never recognized Israel’s illegal settlements,” said Siam.

Asked whether Japan should have first reassured the Palestinian side about its ongoing neutrality before striking its security deal with Israel, Siam said Tokyo has the “right to do what it wants.

“Japan does not have to guarantee anything, because it stands very firm on its conviction with the international community and the UN resolution,” said Siam. “It supports a two-state solution and the Palestinians’ right to independence.”

He added: “Even during the Trump period, when the former US president was pressuring everyone to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Japan stood strong in the UN and voted against it.”

However, Siam believes any country that signs an agreement with Israel should also place an emphasis on compliance with international law and human rights.

“I call on Japan to use this kind of deep friendship with Israel to put pressure on the Israelis to comply with international law,” said Siam. “If the international community does not stand together and pressure Israel into a two-state solution, there will never be peace.”

Israel has long been the “largest obstacle” to finalizing a large agro-industrial park and logistics initiative in Jericho, proposed by Japan, called the “Corridor for Peace,” said Siam. Japan, he argues, could utilize its deepening relations with Israel to help finalize the project.

During the 11-day war in Gaza in May 2021, Japan was adamant about ensuring all UN resolutions and international laws were followed, reiterating its “clear, respecting and supporting” position in the conflict, said Siam.

Japan has long framed itself as the country most capable of negotiating a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a 2019 interview with Arab News, Taro Kono, Japan’s then-foreign minister, said it was vital for Tokyo to “play a bigger political role” in the region, because “Japan is religiously and ethnically very neutral.” 

Kono said Japan could also serve as an “honest broker in the Middle East, as we have no colonial history or negative footprint in the region.”

Speaking on Japan’s support for Palestine, Kono said Japan had been “heavily investing in the West Bank,” working with Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians to set up and develop an industrial park in Jericho.

“I think we should all play some role to get the peace process rolling forward and we would be very happy to be involved in this process,” Kono added.

With Japan’s increasing tensions with China and North Korea, the country has been expanding its military cooperation beyond its traditional ally, the US, to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.

It is particularly concerned about Beijing’s military actions in the East and South China Seas. Israel has previously traded weapons with China and is the second-largest foreign supplier of arms after Russia. 

China has accumulated a large arsenal of advanced military equipment and technology. The US has strongly opposed Israel’s arms trade with China. However, Israel has largely ignored Washington’s objections.

Some observers believe Israel and China’s close trade relationship could be the reason why Japan has chosen to boost defense cooperation with Israel. 

Indeed, Japanese military strategists have been looking for ways to ease their defensive reliance on the US, potentially viewing Israel as a source of weapons and technology to strengthen Tokyo’s military power in the region.

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities arrested four State Security officers on Saturday on suspicion of torturing a Syrian detainee to death.

The arrests came on the orders of the government's commissioner to the military courts, Fadi Akiki, who ordered an investigation into last month's death of Bashar Abdel-Saud in custody.

The killing in southern Lebanon provoked anger, and activists shared photos of his body, which showed signs of torture.

State Security earlier announced that it had arrested a cell affiliated with Daesh in the Bint Jbeil region. The cell had reportedly committed murders in Syria.

Abdel-Saud had a leadership position in Daesh and tried to attack the investigator, according to State Security officials.

The killing in southern Lebanon provoked anger, and activists shared photos of the detainee’s body, which showed signs of torture.

They said security officers detained him to calm him down, but he suffered a heart attack and was transferred to hospital where he died.

An investigation was opened into the incident, and Akiki decided to arrest the officer and three State Security members investigating the network.

The forensic doctor who examined the body issued a report refuting claims that Abdel-Saud had died of a heart attack.

The victim had suffered bruises, severe wounds, burns, and physical abuse, the report added.

Politicians condemned his death on social media, prompting a source in the General Directorate of State Security to announce that investigations were underway to uncover the circumstances behind his death.

The source added that the victim and other detainees were affiliated with Daesh.

Under judicial orders, the directorate will publish their documented confessions about their affiliation with the terrorist group, according to the source.

Caretaker Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said it was time to approve the National Human Rights Commission’s regulations, which stipulate prohibiting torture and punishing perpetrators.

He said what had happened with the Syrian was a crime that violated human rights.

He added that the Public Prosecution was required to conduct a serious investigation by the civil judiciary, not the military judiciary, and to respect the principles of an investigation into crimes of torture.

The head of parliament’s Human Rights Committee, MP Michel Moussa, said: “This is a heinous crime against a human being, regardless of his nationality or affiliation.”

Moussa called for holding accountable all those who had abused their powers and violated the law.

He said that Lebanon had ratified the Convention against Torture adopted by the UN General Assembly, and later the Optional Protocol, and approved Law 65 of 2017 relating to the punishment of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Moussa said Lebanon had also set up the National Human Rights Commission, which includes a committee against torture.

But Moussa said the authorities were failing to provide everything that would allow the commission to start its work.

MP Melhem Khalaf, former head of the Lawyers Syndicate, said: “We have strived to amend Article 47 of the Code of Criminal Procedures and made it mandatory for a lawyer to be present during the preliminary investigation. One of our objectives was to prevent any torture during the investigations.”

MP Michel Douaihy said the case could not be ignored without holding those responsible accountable and addressing the issue of torture.

The MP urged the head of the committee to invite the interior minister and the director general of State Security to its next meeting to investigate and take the necessary measures against the perpetrators.

The legal department for the Justice Pioneers Group, a human rights activist body, said the victim did not die from a heart attack.

The group said it had information to believe the detainee was tortured and his neck was broken, adding there was a criminal intent to kill.

It alleged that the officer and members of State Security had shown what it termed "brutal behavior" when they were supposed to respect legal principles in conducting preliminary investigations and looking for clues.

The Justice Pioneers Group also claimed the investigators had violated the law and their obligations, especially those stipulated in Article 41 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

These state that an officer may question the suspect provided the latter makes his statement of his own free will in full knowledge of the facts and without being subjected to coercion. If he decides to remain silent, he may not be forced to speak.

AL-MUKALLA: Courts in Houthi-held Sanaa were paralyzed on Saturday as Yemen’s judges went on strike in an attempt to force the Iran-backed militia to charge those involved in the killing of a senior judge last week, residents said.

Khaled Al-Kamal, a Sanaa-based lawyer who visited three courts on Saturday, told Arab News that they were empty as judges and administrative workers refused to work in a rare protest against the killing, as well as low and unpaid salaries and meddling by powerful Houthi figures.

“Strong efforts are being made to resume work at the courts,” Al-Kamal said.

Judge Mohammed Hamran, a 63-year-old Supreme Court judge in Sanaa, was kidnapped from outside his home on Al-Asbahi street and found dead days later.

The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of the killing, saying that Hamran had previously ruled against the militia’s looting of both public and private lands and other properties.

The murder has spurred the Yemen Courts Club, an umbrella group for judges around the nation, to declare a temporary suspension of court operations until the Houthis bring the murderers to justice.

The club also accused a Houthi-affiliated journalist, Mohammed Al-Emad, who runs Al-Hawiah TV, of inciting the public to kill the judge by alleging that he was corrupt. They have asked for the channel to be closed down and for charges to be brought against Al-Emad.

The judges also demanded an end to meddling in the judicial system, as well as payment of judges’ salaries, which have not been paid for more than a year.

“The (judicial) authority and its men have not been granted their legitimate right to financial sufficiency. Nor has their dignity, blood, and prestige been respected,” the club said in a statement.

The Houthi security establishment claimed on Friday that they had arrested the men who executed the judge, citing “private” land disputes between the judge and the killers as the reason behind the killing.

But Yemeni officials believe that the Houthis are purging judges who disobey their commands and those who refuse to support their seizure of both public and private lands.

On Thursday, Abdullah Mohammed Al-Kibsi, a former lawmaker and a security official loyal to the Houthis, was gunned down outside his house in Sanaa. The Houthis claimed to have apprehended the murderers and blamed the killing on a family dispute.

Yemenis questioned the Houthis’ claims and pointed to escalating internal rivalry and violence between various Houthi factions, particularly the Hashemite Houthi families from Saada and those who were born and brought up in Sanaa. Al-Kibsi came from a Sanaa-based Hashemite family.

Separately, the Houthis bombarded the western entrance of the densely populated city of Taiz on Saturday for the sixth day in a row, despite local and international calls for a de-escalation.

Several shells fired by the Houthis from positions outside Taiz landed in the Al-Dhabab area —the site of the only road between Taiz and Aden — according to residents. Since last Sunday, the Houthis have been shelling Al-Dhabab in an attempt to seize control of the main road.

Saturday’s shelling occurred just hours after government troops repelled a Houthi attack on their positions in the same area.

The United Nations special envoy for Yemen and a number of other Western envoys condemned the Houthis’ military escalation in Taiz and urged the militia to abide by the UN-brokered truce.