4 people were killed in an Israeli raid targeting the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza

The Secretary-General of the Hezbollah group, Naeem Qassem, said on Wednesday that the defeat of the Republicans and President Donald Trump in the US midterm elections constitutes a “good opportunity” that may reflect positively on the anti-American parties in the region, according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.

Iran supports Hezbollah, which is facing increasing pressure to disarm it, after it was weakened by two successive wars it waged against Israel, the first in 2023 in support of the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, and the second starting in March after it launched missiles at the Hebrew state shortly after the start of the US-Israeli war on Tehran.

In a speech he delivered on screen during a party celebration held in several Lebanese regions, Qassem said: “Today we have an opportunity, a good opportunity. Trump was defeated in the elections... Today an earthquake occurred in America.”

He believed that “what is being faced in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen... has lost, and certainly its loss has a certain positive impact for us,” adding that “this project can no longer continue as it is, and this is a positive point.”

Qassem also praised Benjamin Netanyahu's failure to win the legislative elections in Israel, as his opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, was tasked with forming the new government. Qassem considered that Netanyahu was “broken.”

Last year, the Lebanese government decided to disarm Hezbollah, before, under American sponsorship, it began direct negotiations with Israel to end the war, restore the lands occupied by Israel in southern Lebanon, and for the people to return to their villages from which they were displaced.

On Wednesday, Qassem renewed his party’s refusal to hand over its weapons, and the outcomes of direct negotiations with Israel.

The Palestinians commemorated the twenty-second anniversary of the passing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by calling for national unity, recalling the biography of the man who during his life and after his departure became a symbol of identity and national unity, in the midst of a complex and difficult phase in which Arafat’s legacy and the Palestinian issue face unprecedented existential risks.

Palestinian Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh said, at a central festival held at the Palestinian presidential headquarters in Ramallah, on Wednesday, that the Palestinian leadership is continuing in Arafat’s footsteps, adhering to national constants and the right of the Palestinian people to freedom and independence, and to national unity, which “constitutes the basic tool for confronting conspiracies that target the Palestinian cause and existence.”

In the speech he delivered on behalf of the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Al-Sheikh called for “strengthening national unity within the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” calling on “all forces and factions to join under its framework, as it is the political address and unifying home of the Palestinians.”

Al-Sheikh added that the Fatah movement and the Executive Committee of the Liberation Organization took a decision that paves the way for the launch of a national dialogue, and the procedures related to the formation of the new Palestinian National Council were halted, to make room for national consensus on rebuilding the organization’s institutions.

The Sheikh's speech came after he, accompanied by members of the Executive Committees of the Liberation Organization and the Central Committee of the Fatah Movement, and officials and leaders of security services, visited Arafat's shrine in Ramallah. The sheikh said he hopes to eventually move the shrine to Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state.

In the Gaza Strip, which was destroyed by the Israeli war on the Strip, a festival was organized to commemorate Arafat at Al-Azhar University, in which pictures of Arafat, Palestinian flags, and flags of the Fatah movement were raised, but on a smaller scale than in the West Bank.

Images of Arafat were not absent in the Palestinian territories during the 22 years after his death, and his image remained main, along with the image of his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, in official offices, and widely spread in the homes of his fans, on the walls, and in the streets, and it rose with every anniversary, occasion, festival, speech, debate, and election.

Most Palestinian officials recovered their photos with Arafat, including Palestinian officials in Israel, and reposted them on social networking sites, as well as many citizens who took photos with him on various occasions.

Demands to reveal the truth about his death Palestinians on social media demanded that the truth about his death be revealed after all this time. Abbas had stressed in his speech delivered on his behalf that loyalty to Arafat’s legacy would be by adhering to national constants and continuing to work on self-determination, return, independence, and preserving the unity of the land, the people, and national institutions. He again accused Israel of assassinating Arafat.

Abbas said, "The assassination of Arafat did not succeed in breaking the will of our people, or undermining their adherence to their inalienable national rights." Abbas used the term “assassination” in reference to Israel.

Palestinian officials accuse Israel of poisoning Arafat, a hypothesis reinforced by the circumstances before, during and after Arafat's departure and subsequent tests, which found traces of radioactive polonium on his belongings and on his body.

Arafat died in a French hospital in Paris, on November 11, 2004, after his health suddenly deteriorated before a special investigation committee headed by Major General Tawfiq Al-Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Movement’s Central Committee, began intensive work, during which it summoned close associates and security men who were surrounding Arafat and interrogated them. Samples were also taken from his remains to examine hypotheses about his death by poisoning.

Al-Tirawi announced in 2022, before the war on Gaza, that the investigation committee he heads has not yet completed its investigations, and has not reached accurate, objective, and conclusive results on this issue. He stressed that no one has correct or exclusive information in this regard.

Al-Tirawi's statements came years after he said that they were close to announcing the truth, and President Mahmoud Abbas's statement that he knew Arafat's killer, but without giving a name.

Announcing those involved in the hypothesis of a conspiracy against Arafat is a recurring factional and popular demand with every anniversary of him.

Palestinian factions paid tribute to Arafat's spirit. The Popular Front said that the occupation's responsibility for his assassination is firmly established, and that continuing serious efforts to reveal the full details of the crime and hold those responsible accountable remains a national duty that should not be neglected. The Front considered that loyalty to Arafat would be by responding to the need for comprehensive national dialogue, without exclusion or exception.

She added: “From this standpoint, the Front calls for rallying around the National Salvation Initiative as a unifying platform for dialogue and consensus, and a way out of the current impasse and restoring national unity.”