DRC government, M23 rebels commit to protect civilians, aid deliveries
After talks in Switzerland, the two sides also made progress on a protocol for ceasefire oversight. Published On 19 Apr 202619 Apr 2026 The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and rival M23 rebels have agreed to ease aid deliveries and release prisoners, as mediators push to resolve a years-long conflict that has persisted despite multiple peace deals. The two sides announced the measures in a joint statement shared by the US Department of State on Saturday, following five days of talks in Switzerland. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “The parties agreed to refrain from any action that would undermine the principled delivery of humanitarian assistance within the territories impacted by the conflict,” said the statement. Both sides also pledged not to target civilians and to facilitate medical care for the wounded and sick as they noted progress on a protocol for humanitarian access and judicial protections. They agreed to release prisoners within 10 days as part of efforts “to continue building confidence”. In addition, the parties signed a memorandum of understanding for a ceasefire monitoring mechanism that will “begin conducting surveillance, monitoring, verification, and reporting on the implementation of the permanent ceasefire between the parties”. Since 2021, the M23, backed by Rwanda, has seized territory in eastern DRC, a region ravaged by more than 30 years of conflict. While the two sides signed a United States-brokered peace agreement in December, fighting has continued, most recently reaching the highland areas of South Kivu, according to media reports. In a statement last week, Human Rights Watch accused the parties of blocking aid deliveries and stopping civilians from fleeing the South Kivu highlands. Advertisement “Civilians in South Kivu’s highlands are facing a dire humanitarian crisis and live in fear of abuses by all parties,” said Clementine de Montjoye, senior Great Lakes researcher at Human Rights Watch. The latest round of talks, held in the Swiss Riviera town of Montreux, included representatives from Qatar, the US, Switzerland, the African Union (AU) Commission, and Togo serving as the AU mediator. Adblock test (Why?)
What to know about US-Iran standoff over the Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s oil, has again become the chaotic centre of the United States-Israel war on Iran, as a standoff between Washington and Tehran is complicating efforts to end the war. Iran on Saturday reversed its decision on reopening the strait, and its military opened fire at a ship trying to pass through the waterway after US President Donald Trump said Washington will continue its blockade on Iranian ports. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Trump has refused to end the blockade until a deal is finalised. On Saturday, he said that there have been “very good” discussions, but Washington won’t be “blackmailed”. After a short-lived rise in transit attempts on Saturday, ships in the Persian Gulf once again stayed put, after reports of vessels coming under fire mid-passage and being forced to withdraw. Their pullback restored the strait to its pre-ceasefire status, raising the risk of a worsening global energy crunch and increasing the likelihood of renewed fighting. Here is what you need to know: What has Iran said? Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday said the strait would be open for commercial vessels during the truce, which ends on April 22, in “line with the ceasefire in Lebanon”. However, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced a clear reversal in Iran’s position, saying the Strait of Hormuz would not return to its “previous state”, amid the blockade of Iranian ports. The IRGC’s joint military command said the US has “continued acts of piracy and maritime theft under the guise of a so-called blockade”. (Al Jazeera) “For this reason, control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state, and this strategic waterway is now under strict management and control by the armed forces,” said the statement, cited by Iranian broadcaster IRIB. Advertisement “Until the United States restores full freedom of navigation for vessels travelling from Iran to their destinations and back, the status of the Strait of Hormuz will remain tightly controlled and in its previous condition,” it added. Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with the US, said it was “impossible for others to pass” the strategic strait without Iran’s consent. He called Washington’s blockade “ignorant” and “foolish”, saying Tehran would not allow others to transit the strait if its own ships were blocked. On Saturday, he said that major differences remain, despite some progress towards a deal. What has the US said? In a Truth Social post on Sunday, the US president accused Iran of violating the ceasefire agreement, but added that US negotiators will be heading to Islamabad, Pakistan on Monday to strike a deal. “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable deal, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant, and every single bridge, in Iran,” he said in the post. Iran on Sunday said that it was tightening its control over the waterway once again in response to the US blockade of Iranian ports, which began on April 14. Tehran says the blockade violates the terms of the ceasefire. Trump on Saturday said that the US was having “very good conversations” with Iran, but he noted that Tehran wanted to close the important oil corridor again and that it could not blackmail the US with such a move. What is happening in the strait right now? Lloyd’s List, a maritime firm, said traffic in the Straight of Hormuz had come to a halt after Iranian forces fired on several ships on Saturday. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said it received a report of a tanker being fired upon by what it said were two gunboats linked to the IRGC. Meanwhile, India summoned the Iranian ambassador in New Delhi and expressed deep concern that two Indian-flagged ships had come under fire in the strait, the government said. Abas Aslani, a senior fellow at the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran, said the two sides are “engaging in war rhetoric ahead of any possible escalation and military conflict”. “It seems that they are pressuring each other to win concessions – and we are not there yet,” Aslani told Al Jazeera. “There are speculations that maybe the US is possibly planning to engage in limited strikes against Iran, but Iran has been saying that it will retaliate strongly,” he said. “This might end again in a wider conflict.” What are other sticking points between the US and Iran? Advertisement Nuclear enrichment The biggest contention is over hardening positions on Iran’s nuclear programme, chief among them being Tehran’s nuclear enrichment capability. On Friday, Trump said Washington would obtain Iran’s enriched uranium, calling it “nuclear dust” and referring to the 440kg (970lbs) believed to be buried at sites hit by US strikes last year. He repeated on Truth Social that “the USA will get all Nuclear ‘Dust’”. Speaking to Reuters news agency, Trump said the US would work with Iran “at a nice leisurely pace” and “start excavating with big machinery” to recover the material. In a rebuke to Trump, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said Washington had no justification for depriving Iran of its nuclear rights. “Trump says Iran cannot make use of its nuclear rights, but doesn’t say for what crime. Who is he to deprive a nation of its rights?” Pezeshkian asked, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency. Israel and the US have repeatedly accused Iran of enriching uranium to develop nuclear weapons. But Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and that it has honoured its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of US National Intelligence, testified to Congress in March 2025 that the US “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003.” Khamenei was killed
UNICEF ‘outraged’ after Israeli forces kill water truck drivers in Gaza
UN Children’s Fund calls on Israeli authorities to investigate and ‘ensure full accountability’. Published On 18 Apr 202618 Apr 2026 The United Nations Children’s Fund says it is “outraged” after Israel killed two drivers it had contracted to deliver clean water to families in Gaza. UNICEF said in a statement the incident occurred during routine water trucking on Friday morning at the Mansoura water filling point in northern Gaza, which supplies Gaza City. Two other people were wounded in the attack. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The agency said it had suspended activities at the site and called on Israeli authorities to investigate and “ensure full accountability”. “Humanitarian workers, essential service providers, and civilian infrastructure, including critical water facilities, must never be targeted,” it said. It said that “the protection of civilians and those delivering life-saving assistance is an obligation under international humanitarian law”. More than 750 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the US- and Qatar-brokered “ceasefire” in Gaza took effect last October, according to Palestinian health authorities. More than 72,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza on October 7, 2023, following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces in Khirbet Salama, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Muhammad Ahmad Suwaiti, 25, was pronounced dead at the scene, WAFA said. Israel’s military said a person carrying a knife in the illegal settlement of Negohot was killed. It did not say who was responsible. Advertisement Using the biblical term for the West Bank, the Israeli military said in a statement that “a terrorist who infiltrated the community of Negohot in Judea and Samaria was identified and eliminated in a rapid response”. Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,060 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Adblock test (Why?)
As fentanyl crisis evolves, experts say US is still ‘behind the eight ball’
Dallas, United States – Michael Watkins wipes sweat from his brow as he steps up to a stranger’s door. It’s a scorching day in Dallas, Texas; the sun has been hammering the pavement for hours. Watkins, a 50-year-old man with glasses, a goatee and a gauge in both earlobes, doesn’t know what to expect beyond the door of the single-storey house. He doesn’t even know if the person on the other side will answer. But these door knocks are a critical part of his job. Within 72 hours of a reported overdose from the dangerous opioid fentanyl, Watkins shows up on a stranger’s doorstep with a brochure full of substance abuse resources and some of the life-saving medication known as Narcan. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list He works for the Recovery Resource Council, an addiction treatment nonprofit that’s been tackling the fentanyl crisis in North Texas since it began more than 10 years ago. Their grassroots approach has yielded great results: In 2023, Dallas County — the largest county in North Texas — recorded 280 deaths from fentanyl. Last year, that number was 203. This is in line with a nationwide decrease in fentanyl overdoses that began several years ago, after the rate of overdose deaths in the United States doubled between 2015 and 2023. However, some show the number of overall overdose deaths once again climbing, as experts warn a disruption in the fentanyl market has been repaired. Dallas, like all major US cities, has been ravaged by fentanyl overdoses. Because of its relative proximity to the US-Mexico border, and its extensive highway infrastructure, Dallas also has the unfortunate distinction of being a major hub in the drug smuggling routes stretching from Mexico to other major US cities. Advertisement Becky Devine, the director of Recovery Resource Council, says her team calls these door-knocks “uninvited interventions”. “We show up wanting to bridge the gap between where they are in this moment of desperation and isolation to all of the services that are available in our community,” she said. “The majority of the people we encounter are receptive to us showing up, but they just don’t know what they want yet. We get phone calls weeks, months down the road that say, ‘Hey, I met you on my doorstep six, seven, 10 months ago, and I wasn’t ready then, but I’m ready now.’” Recently, their work, like the work of similar nonprofits across the country, has been hindered by the administration of US President Donald Trump, just as the country was making consistent progress in the fight against fentanyl. Despite declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction”, the Trump administration has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in addiction services and drug-related research across multiple federal agencies. Elon Musk’s DOGE team fired a team that rigorously tracked Americans’ drug use for decades, and in January, officials abruptly cancelled roughly $2bn in grants through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), only to reverse course within days. The whiplash left providers scrambling and deepened uncertainty across the treatment system. What’s more, in the past year, the Trump administration has reduced SAMHSA’s staff by half. Estimates vary as to how much money in total has been cut from essential treatment programmes, but in late 2025, the health news website STAT reported that at least $1.7bn in block grants for state health departments had been cut, as had about $350m in addiction and overdose prevention funding. All this comes at a time when the fentanyl threat is evolving, with the market for the chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl largely shifting from China to India. Chrissie Julianno is the executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, which represents health departments in major cities across the US. According to her, the Trump administration has created rampant chaos with far-reaching consequences. “I think one piece that people don’t necessarily think about is, particularly in large jurisdictions, large counties and large cities, a lot of the dollars that they get from the federal government are then contracted out to community partners,” she said. “It’s not just the health department that can’t do something. It’s not just the health department that’s forced to lay off staff. It’s all of the other pieces that come together in these jurisdictions where there’s partnerships.” Weapon of mass destruction Last year, Watkins’s organisation tried to establish an addiction resource team devoted to Plano, one of the largest suburbs in Dallas. The team was put on hold because of a spate of federal funding cuts, including the elimination of $345m in addiction and overdose prevention. Advertisement Watkins, for his part, is trying to be the kind of person he needed when he was at the lowest point of his own addiction journey. He once called the police on himself because, in his words, “If I go to jail, maybe I won’t drink any more.” Instead of lock-up, he wound up in a hospital, where he received an offer for a state-funded treatment programme. He took the rep’s business card, went home, and drank for four days straight. “But after those four days, all of a sudden it just dawned on me, ‘Yes, I’m going to die, and I really don’t know what to do,’” he said. He called the number on that business card and entered the treatment programme. Now, 13 years later, he’s the one handing out cards and offers of help. “I just want to be there for people,” he said. “I want to be there to help them connect the dots.” Experts say initiatives like this are critical to the US continuing a trend that began in 2023, when fentanyl overdoses started falling nationwide for the first time in a decade. Instead, the Trump administration has focused on a militaristic approach that’s frustrated healthcare professionals and policy experts. Trump and his cabinet members claim recent military actions against Venezuela, including the boat strikes that have drawn war crime accusations, are part of the fight against
French soldier serving with UNIFIL killed in Lebanon attack
The deadly incident comes just days after Israel and Lebanon announced a 10-day ceasefire. Published On 18 Apr 202618 Apr 2026 A French soldier serving with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has been killed, and three others were wounded in an attack that UNIFIL and French officials said was likely carried out by Hezbollah. Three other members of the peacekeeping mission were wounded in the attack in the village of Ghandouriyeh in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL said on Saturday, two of them seriously. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list UNIFIL noted that initial assessments indicated they came from non-state actors, allegedly Hezbollah, and that an investigation had been launched into what it called “a deliberate attack”. In calls with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “unacceptable attack”, his office said in a statement on Saturday. Macron also said the evidence so far pointed to the Lebanese armed group and urged the Lebanese government to act against those responsible. The Iran-aligned armed group rejected the allegations, calling for “exercising caution in issuing judgements regarding the incident”. “We deny any connection to us with the incident that occurred with UNIFIL forces in the Ghandouriyeh area in Bint Jbeil,” Hezbollah said in a statement. French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said the patrol was ambushed while on a mission to open a route to a UNIFIL post that had been isolated by fighting in the area. The soldier was killed by direct small-arms fire, she said. Lebanon’s army condemned the shooting and said it had opened an investigation. Advertisement President Aoun has also offered condolences and ordered an immediate probe, while Prime Minister Salam condemned the attack. Fragile ceasefire The deadly incidents come just days after an Israel-Lebanon 10-day ceasefire took effect and days before a truce in the United States-Israel war on Iran was set to expire. Lebanon was drawn into the war in early March after Hezbollah fired rockets towards Israel in response to the US-Israeli killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28. Israel responded with a devastating bombing campaign and a ground invasion that killed more than 2,000 people and forced more than 1.2 million others from their homes. The declaration of a ceasefire in Lebanon was seen as a boost to efforts for an agreement to end the US-Israel war on Iran. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said fighting between Israel and Hezbollah had been a key sticking point in US-Iran talks last weekend in Islamabad. It was not clear whether Hezbollah would abide by a truce it did not play a role in negotiating, especially when it leaves Israeli troops occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon. Attacks on peacekeepers UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, was first deployed in 1978 along the border between Israel and Lebanon and has remained through successive conflicts, including a 2024 war during which its positions came under repeated fire. Last month, two UN peacekeepers were killed in southern Lebanon amid Israel’s ground invasion of the country. UNFIL said they were killed when an explosion of unknown origin destroyed their vehicle. World leaders have condemned the escalating violence and attacks on peacekeepers. Last month, in a post on X, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on all parties to the war to abide by international law and ensure the security of all UN personnel. “This is just one of a number of recent incidents that have jeopardized the safety & security of peacekeepers,” Guterres had said. Adblock test (Why?)
UN aid chief warns of possible ‘full-scale famine’ in South Sudan
NewsFeed Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher told the UN Security Council that South Sudan is at risk of slipping into ‘full-scale famine and collapse’ as fighting intensifies and the UN peacekeeping mission is cut back. Published On 18 Apr 202618 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Lebanese man removes Israeli flag from castle in southern Lebanon
NewsFeed A Lebanese man who returned to his village in southern Lebanon after the temporary ceasefire was announced removes the Israeli flag from Beaufort Castle (Qalaat al-Shaqif). The castle which dates back to the 12th century is in the Nabatiyeh Governorate. Published On 18 Apr 202618 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Trump thanks Gulf states for their ‘tremendous’ support
NewsFeed ‘This will be a great and brilliant day for the world’ US President Donald Trump said at a Turning Point USA event as Iran fully opens the Strait of Hormuz. He also thanked Gulf states for their ‘tremendous’ support. Published On 18 Apr 202618 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Can Pakistan secure Iran-US nuclear compromise, as Trump says deal ‘close’?
Islamabad, Pakistan – Standing on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding his helicopter for Las Vegas on Thursday, United States President Donald Trump offered his most optimistic assessment yet of the war with Iran. “We’re very close to making a deal with Iran,” he told reporters. “They’ve totally agreed to that [no nuclear weapons]. They’ve agreed to almost everything, so maybe if they can get to the table, there’s a difference.” Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list He went further, saying Iran had agreed to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium, material that, if further enriched, can be used to build a nuclear weapon. “They’ve agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that’s way underground because of the attack we made with the B-2 bombers,” he said, referring to US strikes in June last year. A deal, he added, could come “over the weekend”. Trump said he would consider travelling to Islamabad himself if an agreement was signed there. “If the deal is signed in Islamabad, I might go. They want me to go.” Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented a different picture. Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that messages were being exchanged through Pakistan, but was unequivocal on enrichment. Iran, he said, “based on its needs, must be able to continue enrichment”. No Iranian official has confirmed agreeing to surrender the country’s enriched uranium stockpile. Tehran’s public position, that enrichment is a sovereign right, remains unchanged. Asif Durrani, a former Pakistani diplomat who served as Islamabad’s ambassador to Tehran from 2016 to 2018, said framing the situation as a gap between the two sides was misleading. Advertisement “There are no gaps, really. If Trump has read the NPT, he would know that every country has the right to access nuclear technology for peaceful purposes,” he told Al Jazeera. “Iran has said multiple times that it does not want a weapon. What it wants is civil nuclear use, within the framework of both the NPT and the JCPOA.” The NPT, or Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons while promoting peaceful nuclear energy and disarmament. The JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was the 2015 agreement between Iran and six world powers that capped Tehran’s uranium enrichment and placed its facilities under international supervision in exchange for sanctions relief. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018 during Trump’s first term, reimposing sanctions and setting in motion the gradual erosion of its limits on Iran’s nuclear programme. Seyed Mojtaba Jalalzadeh, an international relations analyst, said the reality was more complex than public statements suggest. “We should avoid simplistic binaries such as ‘one side is lying’,” he told Al Jazeera. “The gap visible between Trump’s remarks and the position of Iran’s foreign ministry is more a reflection of the complex, multilayered, and still unfinished nature of the negotiations.” When Trump speaks of “total agreement”, Jalalzadeh said, “he is most likely offering the most maximalist possible reading of the negotiating process.” It remains unclear whether Trump’s remarks reflect genuine backchannel progress or are a pressure tactic in advance of the April 22 ceasefire deadline, but Trump and Iran’s descriptions paint completely different pictures of the same negotiations. Pakistan’s diplomatic orchestra Foreign Minister of Türkiye Hakan Fidan calls on Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in Antalya on Thursday, April 16, 2026 [Handout/Prime Minister’s Office] The most active diplomacy on Thursday ran through Tehran, where Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, held a series of high-level meetings. Munir met Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran’s delegation at the Islamabad talks with the US last Saturday, followed by a meeting with President Masoud Pezeshkian. He also met Major-General Ali Abdollahi, commander of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the operational command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that Pakistani officials were expecting a “major breakthrough” on Iran’s nuclear programme “in days to come”, with messages continuing to pass between Washington and Tehran. Advertisement While Munir engaged Iranian leaders in Tehran, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pursued a parallel track, meeting Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia and Qatar before arriving at Turkiye’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum on Thursday evening. Pakistan’s central role has been acknowledged by both sides. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said any further in-person talks would most likely take place in Islamabad. “The Pakistanis have been incredible mediators throughout this process, and we really appreciate their friendship and their efforts to bring this deal to a close, so they are the only mediator in this negotiation,” she said. Durrani cautioned that Pakistan’s role has limits. “Pakistan is facilitating this meeting, and the most it can do is suggest certain things that mediators can offer in their capacity,” he said. “But ultimately, it all depends on the political will of the two parties.” That political will now faces a ceasefire deadline set to expire on April 22. Official sources told Al Jazeera that nearly 100 visa applications from journalists have been received in the past week, while authorities have begun tightening security in the capital in anticipation of a possible high-level event — the potential visit of US President Donald Trump, or at the very least, another round of high-level talks led by senior officials from Tehran and Washington. Hardline signals from Tehran Alongside diplomatic movement, Iran’s hardline establishment struck a sharper tone. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, right, welcoming Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir before their meeting in Tehran on Thursday, April 16 [Handout/Iranian Parliament Public Relations Office] Mohsen Rezaei, a former IRGC commander and now a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said on a state-owned television channel that he did not support extending the ceasefire. “Unlike the Americans who are afraid of continuous war, we are fully prepared and familiar with a long war,” he said, according to Tasnim News Agency. Abdollahi, speaking during his meeting with Munir and quoted by state news agency IRNA, said the conflict
Controversy as Lebanese banker Sehnaoui is praised for supporting Israel
Even as Israel was attacking his home country of Lebanon, killing hundreds, and occupying territory within the country’s south, Antoun Sehnaoui was being publicly praised for his support for Israel, and his family’s history of being “Lebanese Christian Zionists”. Sehnaoui, one of Lebanon’s leading bankers and the chairman of Societe Generale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), was attending an event on Tuesday at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which he had donated to. And the person praising him for his pro-Israel bona fides was his reported romantic partner, Morgan Ortagus, a US Middle East envoy. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Addressing the audience, Ortagus, who had been widely criticised in Lebanon for her perceived pro-Israel bias during her time in the Trump administration, framed support for Israel as an act that requires “moral clarity”, even when it involves personal risk. Praising Sehnaoui, Ortagus claimed his actions in funding a US-Israeli opera project were “technically illegal in Lebanon”, which prohibits dealings with Israeli individuals or institutions. Continuing, Ortagus described Sehnaoui as coming from generations of “committed Lebanese Christian Zionists”, saying he had been “trained to be a supporter of the State of Israel and the Jewish people” by his family. She also referred to what she characterised as a longstanding familial relationship with Israel, including that of his father, Nabil, one of the primary funders of the Christian militia, the Lebanese Forces (LF), which allied with Israel during its 1982 invasion and was credited with participating in massacres at Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Sabra in Beirut the same year. Advertisement However, this latest iteration of Sehnaoui’s support for Israel comes at a particularly difficult moment for many in Lebanon, still waiting to feel the benefits of a US-imposed ceasefire. Israel has been accused of multiple war crimes since it launched ground operations in Lebanon in mid-March, including that it used a “quadruple tap” method intended to maximise civilian harm from any single strike. Israeli action has also displaced more than a million people – about 20 percent of the population – from southern Lebanon in a chaotic flight that has destabilised the country and heightened sectarian tensions. Responding to footage of one of the country’s most prominent individuals appearing to align with Israel elicited condemnation across much of the country’s social media sphere. One post quoted by Israeli media said Sehnaoui belonged “behind bars”, while another accused him of converting to Judaism and “betraying his country”. “You are a disgusting despicable person with no sense of respect to your own people,” another post claimed. Ortagus ties “I think that the timing of the appearance is more problematic than the actual appearance itself,” Lebanese academic and political commentator Makram Rabah said, adding that a visit to a holocaust museum in itself should never be a source of controversy. However, that was distinct from being a supporter of Israel and many of the Lebanese factions that had previously backed it. Further evidence of the rumoured romantic connection between Ortagus and Sehnaoui will also be controversial. Since her appointment by the Trump administration in April 2025, Ortagus has done little to disguise her support for Israel and strident opposition to Hezbollah, drawing criticism of her role as a supposedly neutral broker in her dealings with Middle Eastern states. Morgan Ortagus, during her time as State Department spokesperson, speaking at a news conference in Washington [Andrew Harnik/AP] Video evidence of both her outspoken support for Israel as well as her words about Sehnaoui’s support should surprise no one, said Michael Young, a Lebanon expert for the Carnegie Middle East Center. “I think to a certain extent, it highlighted what many people thought: Was Ortagus really the best envoy the United States could send to Lebanon, given her very clear leaning towards the Israeli side?” Young said. Bad egg Irrespective of Ortagus’s role, Sehnaoui’s position within Lebanon’s financial elite, including his chairmanship of SGBL, one of the country’s largest banks, has, critics say, allowed him to influence the course of Lebanese politics at all levels of the state and across the country’s religious divides. Advertisement Nevertheless, despite that influence, Sehnaoui faces legal problems both at home and abroad. Within Lebanon, prosecutors have filed charges against him and his bank over alleged money laundering linked to currency trading operations during the financial crisis that began in 2019, which continues to cripple daily life across Lebanon to this day. The bank denies any wrongdoing. In the US, the SGBL are also subject to a 2020 civil lawsuit filed by families of victims of attacks attributed to Hezbollah in Iraq. They allege the bank provided material support to the group, claims SGBL also denies. ”He [Sehnaoui] can buy or sell anyone,” Lebanese MP Paula Yacoubian told Al Jazeera. “He’s ready to work with everyone, from [Christian militia] Jnoud el-Rab to Hezbollah. He doesn’t care,” she said, referring to the far-right militia, which the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation says is financed by Sehnaoui, and which has carried out a series of violent attacks on Lebanon’s LGBTQ community. “These latest moves are there just to buy an additional layer of immunity for him, presumably in return for his help normalising relations with Israel, but that isn’t how normalisation works,” Yacoubian said. “Normalisation works by giving your government cards to play, such as negotiating for the millions of people to the south to return home, and not by bypassing the government altogether.” For now, while anger over the video continues to bristle across Lebanon, more are left dealing with the repercussions of the relentless attacks Israel has been launching at the country since March 2. Tens of thousands of people are reported to have returned to the battered south in the hours following the ceasefire’s announcement, some to recover the bodies of the dead, and others just to discover what remains of their homes and what is left of their lives. Adblock test (Why?)