The killing of Al-Alwani... Mystery in Beirut and disagreement in Baghdad

Judicial bodies in Lebanon are investigating the background of the murder of former Iraqi MP Ahmed Al-Alwani, who was found dead inside an apartment in Beirut, on Tuesday, amid ambiguity and data that ruled out financial motives or theft, and opened the investigation on the hypothesis of political assassination, according to a Lebanese source.

While a detained Lebanese man is being interrogated, preliminary information indicates that two other people suspected of involvement left for Syria a few hours after the crime was carried out, without determining their full identity or nationality.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed that “Beirut cannot remain an arena for crime and security chaos,” while Iraqi Parliament Speaker Haibat Al-Halbousi called for “complete the investigation and show the results.”

In Baghdad, disputes and accusations arose. Lawyer Anwar Al-Alwani, the victim’s cousin, accused the Lebanese Hezbollah of being behind the crime, without any public evidence yet available.

In another story, reported by activists from Al-Alwani’s wife, a political figure called Al-Alwani and asked him to go urgently to Beirut, while Al-Alwani’s office demanded that the camera recordings of the airport, the building, and the surrounding roads be reviewed, and compared with the data on Al-Alwani’s trip from Erbil to Beirut.

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Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense in Gaza, said today that at least four or five people were killed, including a surgeon, and 20 others were injured in an Israeli raid on a building in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, south of the Strip, early Thursday.

Basal said, according to Reuters, that the Israeli air strike targeted the surgery department at the Nasser Medical Complex, causing severe damage.

Paramedics identified the dead surgeon as Dr. Rizq Abu Shaira from the General Surgery Department.

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.