109-676: Ghajar ( Arabic : غجر , Hebrew : ע'ג'ר or רג'ר ), also Rhadjar , is an Alawite -Arab village on the Hasbani River , on the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights . The name of the village means "gypsy" in Arabic. As of 2022, it had a population of 2,806, most of whom consider themselves Syrian but have Israeli ID cards. The Blue Line divides Ghajar between Lebanon and
218-456: A "tale". Benjamin Lambeth, however, insisted that it was far-fetched to suggest that the "authoritative Israeli leadership pronouncements" were not based on facts. He admitted however that there was "persistent uncertainty" surrounding the "few known facts and figures" concerning the alleged attacks. Anthony Cordesman believed that IAF probably destroyed most medium- and long-range missiles in
327-639: A "very painful and far-reaching response." Israel blamed the Lebanese government for the raid, as it was carried out from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah had two ministers serving in the Lebanese cabinet at that time. In response, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora denied any knowledge of the raid and stated that he did not condone it. An emergency meeting of the Lebanese government reaffirmed this position. The Israel Defense Forces attacked targets within Lebanon with artillery and airstrikes hours before
436-522: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
545-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
654-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
763-622: A ground invasion of Southern Lebanon and imposed an air-and-naval blockade on the country. Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the IDF in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions. On 11 August 2006, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 (UNSCR 1701) in an effort to end the hostilities, which called for disarmament of Hezbollah, Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and for
872-546: A hostage and created Syrian- and Iranian-sponsored terrorist enclaves of murder." When asked in August about the proportionality of the response, Prime Minister Olmert stated that the "war started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two but by shooting Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately." He added "no country in Europe would have responded in such
981-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
1090-703: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] {{main other| ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1199-617: A restrained manner as Israel did." During the first day of the war the Israeli Air Force, artillery and navy conducted more than 100 attacks mainly against Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon, among them the regional headquarters in Yatar. Five bridges across the Litani and Zahrani rivers were also destroyed, reportedly to prevent Hezbollah from transferring the abducted soldiers to the north. Attacks from land, sea and air continued in
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#17328010540451308-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
1417-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
1526-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1635-723: A source of tension and carry the potential for incidents in the future." Asher Kaufman, a researcher from the University of Notre Dame , has disputed the Blue Line. Writing in Haaretz , he says there has never been an exact boundary agreed for Ghajar, citing conflicting maps and "sketches made by the US Embassy in Beirut". He says the village was incorrectly divided into two based on the assumption there were two villages: Ghajar in
1744-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
1853-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
1962-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
2071-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
2180-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
2289-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
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#17328010540452398-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
2507-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
2616-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
2725-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
2834-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
2943-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
3052-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
3161-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
3270-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
3379-415: The 2006 Lebanon War . Following a month of intense fighting, UNSC Resolution 1701 was unanimously approved to resolve the conflict, and it was accepted by combatants on both sides. Among other things, the resolution demanded the full cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the disarming of Hezbollah, the deployment of Lebanese and UNIFIL soldiers, and the establishment of full control by
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3488-702: The Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
3597-606: The Golan Heights after capturing it from Syria in 1967, Ghajar remained a no-man's land for two and a half months. The Alawi villagers petitioned the Golan's Israeli governor to be attached to the occupied territory, as part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, rather than Lebanon, because they considered themselves to be Syrians, like the majority of the native residents of the Golan at that time. Israel agreed to include Ghajar in its occupied territory of
3706-487: The Israeli Cabinet met to discuss a response. The targets consisted of bridges and roads in Lebanon, which were hit to prevent Hezbollah from transporting the abductees. An Israeli airstrike also destroyed the runways of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport . Forty-four civilians were killed. The Israeli Air Force also targeted Hezbollah 's long-range rocket-and-missile stockpiles, destroying many of them on
3815-727: The Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). During the 1978 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon , Israel failed to stem the Palestinian attacks. Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982 and forcibly expelled the PLO. Israel withdrew to a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon, held with the aid of proxy militants in the South Lebanon Army (SLA). The invasion also led to the conception of a new Shi'a militant group , which in 1985, established itself politically under
3924-740: The White House gave the green light for the Israeli government to execute an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Supposedly, communication between the Israeli government and the US government about this came as early as two months in advance of the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah prior to the conflict in July 2006. According to Conal Urquhart in The Guardian ,
4033-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
4142-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
4251-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
4360-1935: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. 2006 Lebanon War [REDACTED] Hezbollah Israel Defense Forces: Killed: 121 killed Wounded: 1,244 20 tanks destroyed 1 helicopter shot down, 3 lost in accidents 1 corvette damaged Israeli civilians: Killed: 44 Wounded: 1,384 Lebanese citizens* and foreign citizens killed in Lebanon: Dead:1,191 (per Amnesty International and Lebanese government ) 1,109 (per Human Rights Watch ) Wounded: 4,409 Hezbollah fighters: 250 killed (per Human Rights Watch and Hezbollah) 600+ killed and 800 wounded (per Israel ) Captured: 4 fighters Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces : 43 dead Amal militia: 17 dead LCP militia: 12 dead PFLP-GC militia: 2 dead Foreign civilians: 51 dead 25 wounded * The Lebanese government did not differentiate between civilians and combatants in death toll figures. Military engagements and attacks Evacuations Response Related topics Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon Hezbollah–Israel conflict The 2006 Lebanon War
4469-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
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4578-410: The 170,000 shells fired. The Israeli Navy fired 2,500 shells. The combined effect of the massive air and artillery bombardment on Hezbollah capacity to fire short-range Katyusha rockets on northern Israel was very meager. According to the findings of the post-war military investigations the IDF shelling succeeded only in destroying about 100 out of 12,000 Katyusha launchers. The massive fire led to
4687-503: The 1967 Six-Day War ; the area became a significant base for attacks following the arrival of the PLO leadership and its Fatah brigade following their 1971 expulsion from Jordan . Starting about this time, increasing demographic tensions related to the Lebanese National Pact , which had divided governmental powers among religious groups throughout the country 30 years previously, began running high and led in part to
4796-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
4905-847: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] {{main other|. Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
5014-566: The Blue Line and the small adjacent area inside Lebanese territory, although it does not maintain a permanent military presence there. The Lebanese Armed Forces patrol the road outside the perimeter fence. The report notes "so long as the Israel Defense Forces remain in northern Ghajar, Israel will not have completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in accordance with its obligations under resolution 1701 (2006)." It further notes: "Failure to make progress on this issue could become
5123-594: The Golan Heights, although Israel has occupied the entire village since 2006. Israel considers it a part of its Northern District , in which its southern part is organized as a local council in the Golan Subdistrict . Control over Ghajar has changed hands many times. Three hundred years ago, the village was known as Taranjeh. It was renamed Ghajar under the rule of the Ottoman Empire , when
5232-507: The Hezbollah feint attacks, the IDF conducted a routine check of its positions and patrols, and found that contact with two jeeps was lost. A rescue force was immediately dispatched to the area, and confirmed that two soldiers were missing after 20 minutes. A Merkava Mk III tank, an armored personnel carrier , and a helicopter were immediately dispatched into Lebanon. The tank hit a large land mine, killing its crew of four. Another soldier
5341-443: The Hezbollah militants were killed when Israeli sniper David Markovich shot a rocket-propelled grenade they were carrying, causing it to explode. From his sniper position, Markovich shot and killed a fourth gunman shortly thereafter. At around 9 am local time on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched diversionary rocket attacks toward Israeli military positions near the coast and near the border village of Zar'it as well as on
5450-419: The Israel Defense Forces avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. Israel's chief of staff Dan Halutz said, "if the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" while the head of Israel's Northern Command Udi Adam said, "this affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon. Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate—not just southern Lebanon, not just
5559-491: The Israeli government claimed victory, while the Winograd Commission deemed the war a missed opportunity for Israel as it did not lead to disarmament of Hezbollah. The conflict is believed to have killed between 1,191 and 1,300 Lebanese people, and 165 Israelis. It severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000–500,000 Israelis. The remains of
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#17328010540455668-572: The Israeli government, "We've won the war." American officials claimed that the Israelis overstated the effectiveness of the air war against Hezbollah and cited the failure to hit any of the Hezbollah leaders in spite of dropping twenty-three tons of high explosives in a single raid on the Beirut Southern suburbs of Dahiya. The Israeli assessments are "too large," said one US official. Al-Manar TV station only went dark for two minutes after
5777-627: The Israeli town of Shlomi and other villages. Five civilians were injured. Six Israeli military positions were fired on, and the surveillance cameras knocked out. At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent infiltrated the border into Israel through a "dead zone" in the border fence, hiding in an overgrown wadi . They attacked a patrol of two Israeli Humvees patrolling the border near Zar'it, using pre-positioned explosives and anti-tank missiles, killing three soldiers, injuring two, and capturing two soldiers (First Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and Sergeant First Class Eldad Regev ). In response to
5886-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
5995-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
6104-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
6213-769: The SLA, and Hezbollah quickly took control of the area. Later, citing allegations of Lebanese prisoners in Israel and continued Israeli control of the Shebaa farms region, occupied by Israel from Syria in 1967 but considered by Hezbollah to be part of Lebanon, Hezbollah intensified its cross-border attacks, and used the tactic of seizing soldiers from Israel as leverage for a prisoner exchange in 2004. In 2005, Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon . In August 2006, in an article in The New Yorker , Seymour Hersh claimed that
6322-623: The Syrian Golan Heights. In 1981, most Alawi villagers were pressured by authorities into Israeli citizenship under the Golan Heights Law which annexed the occupied Syrian territory to Israel, but the unilateral annexation was not recognized by the international community. After Operation Litani in 1978, Israel turned over its positions inside Lebanon to the South Lebanon Army and inaugurated its Good Fence policy. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
6431-565: The UN Secretary General of Israeli intentions to unilaterally withdraw from Ghajar, after failing to come to an agreement with Lebanon and place security matters into the hands of UNIFIL . On 17 November 2010, Security Cabinet of Israel voted in favor of withdrawal from northern half of Ghajar. Residents of Ghajar objected to division of the village. As the Syrian Civil War erupted, Israel halted redeployment along
6540-621: The Winograd Committee leaked a testimony from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggesting that Olmert "had been preparing for such a war at least four months before the official casus belli : the capture by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers from a border post on 12 July 2006." In June 2005, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) paratroop unit operating near the Shebaa Farms engaged three Lebanese it identified as Hezbollah special force members, killing one. Videotapes recovered by
6649-480: The attack was to create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters by exacting a heavy price from the elite in Beirut . On 16 July, the Israeli Cabinet released a communiqué explaining that, although Israel had engaged in military operations within Lebanon, its war was not against the Lebanese government. The communiqué stated: "Israel is not fighting Lebanon but the terrorist element there, led by Nasrallah and his cohorts, who have made Lebanon
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#17328010540456758-401: The border. Israel continues to occupy the whole village and land adjacent to it which crosses the Blue Line. In January 2015, Hezbollah attacks hit Ghajar during an exchange with Israel . The attacks came in retaliation for Israel firing on an Iranian–Hezbollah convoy in Syria. In the ongoing 2023 Israel–Hamas war , as Hezbollah targeted northern Israeli border communities, the IDF ordered
6867-405: The campaign promise and election of Ehud Barak as Prime Minister, Israel withdrew their troops from Lebanon. In an attempt to demarcate permanent borders between Israel and Lebanon, the United Nations drew up what became known as the Blue Line . Due to Ghajar's location, wedged between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the northern half of the village came under Lebanese control and
6976-509: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
7085-406: The day. It was later reported that the Israel Air Force after midnight, 13 July, attacked and destroyed 59 stationary medium-range Fajr rocket launchers positioned throughout southern Lebanon. Operation Density allegedly only took 34 minutes to carry out but was the result of six years of intelligence gathering and planning. Between half and two-thirds of Hezbollah medium-range rocket capability
7194-413: The deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces and an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the south. The Lebanese Army began deploying in Southern Lebanon on 17 August and the blockade was lifted on 8 September. On 1 October, most Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon, although the last of the troops continued to occupy the border-straddling village of Ghajar . Both Hezbollah and
7303-412: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
7412-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
7521-447: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
7630-441: The first two days of the war but acknowledged that these claims "have never been validated or described in detail." Hezbollah long remained silent on the question of its rockets, but on the sixth anniversary of the war, chairman Hassan Nasrallah asserted that Israel had missed them, claiming that Hezbollah had known about Israeli intelligence gathering and had managed to secretly move its platforms and launchers in advance. During
7739-488: The following days. Among the targets hit were the Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut as well as the offices and homes of the leadership, the compounds of al-Manar TV station and al-Nour radio station, and the runways and fuel depots of the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut. Also targeted were Hezbollah bases, weapons depots and outposts as well as bridges, roads and petrol stations in south Lebanon. Forty-four civilians were killed throughout
7848-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
7957-664: The government of Lebanon. In April 2009, the IDF agreed to withdraw from northern Ghajar at a meeting at Ras al-Naqoura . On 13 May, the government of Israel suspended talks to await the outcome of the Lebanese Parliamentary elections, fearing a Hezbollah victory. In the wake of reports in December 2009 of a possible splitting of the village, 2,200 Ghajar residents took to the streets in protest. In November 2010, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed
8066-588: The ground in the first days of the war. Many of Hezbollah's longer-range rocket launchers were destroyed within the first hours of the Israeli attack. Later that same day (12 July 2006), the Cabinet decided to authorize the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and their deputies to pursue the plan which they had proposed for action within Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert officially demanded that
8175-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
8284-489: The land was allegedly seized from the "villagers" by Kurds and forcibly sold. According to "local" legend, the Kurdish governor of Ghajar tried to ride his horse onto the tomb of a local holy man, Sheikh al-Arba'in. The horse refused and the following day a fire broke out, destroying the governor's shield and sword. The Kurds fled and quickly sold it back. In 1932, the residents of Ghajar, predominantly Alawites , were given
8393-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
8502-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
8611-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
8720-467: The line of Hezbollah posts." On 12 July 2006, the Israeli Cabinet promised that Israel would "respond aggressively and harshly to those who carried out, and are responsible for, today's action". The Cabinet's communiqué stated, in part, that the "Lebanese Government [was] responsible for the action that originated on its soil." A retired Israeli Army Colonel explained that the rationale behind
8829-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
8938-544: The name Hezbollah , and declared an armed struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. When the Lebanese Civil War ended and other warring factions agreed to disarm, both Hezbollah and the SLA refused. Ten years later, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon to the UN-designated and internationally recognized Blue Line border in 2000. The withdrawal also led to the immediate collapse of
9047-795: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] {{main other| (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
9156-466: The northern edge of the village in Lebanese territory up to 800 meters north of the Blue Line . UNIFIL military observers patrol the area continuously. In its October 2007 report on the implementation of the resolution, the United Nations issued a report stating that discussions on the duration of temporary security arrangements for northern Ghajar remained deadlocked. Israel remains in control north of
9265-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
9374-413: The option of choosing their nationality and overwhelmingly chose to be a part of Syria , which has a sizable Alawite minority. Prior to the 1967 Arab–Israeli War , Ghajar was considered part of Syria and its residents were counted in the 1960 Syrian census. Before the 1967 war , it was one of three mainly Alawite villages in the Golan Heights together with Za'ura and 'Ayn Fit . When Israel occupied
9483-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
9592-505: The paratroopers contained footage of the three recording detailed accounts of the area. Over the following 12 months, Hezbollah made three unsuccessful attempts to abduct Israeli soldiers. On 21 November 2005, a number of Hezbollah special forces attempted to attack an Israeli outpost in Ghajar , a village straddling the border between Lebanon and the Golan Heights . The outpost had been deserted following an intelligence warning, and three of
9701-580: The recognized border between Lebanon and the Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers remain on the Lebanese side of Ghajar despite the decision of the Israeli cabinet on 3 December 2006, to hand it over to UNIFIL . Israel says that the Lebanese army rejected a UN-brokered proposal in which the Lebanese Army would protect the vicinity north of the village, while UNIFIL would be deployed in the village itself; this type of arrangement would be unique for UNIFIL in populated areas. A perimeter fence has been built along
9810-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
9919-514: The release of Lebanese citizens held in Israeli prisons. On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah ambushed Israeli soldiers on the border, killing three and capturing two; a further five were killed during a failed Israeli rescue attempt. Hezbollah demanded an exchange of prisoners with Israel. Israel launched airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon, attacking both Hezbollah military targets and Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport . Israel launched
10028-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
10137-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
10246-404: The south and al-Wazzani in the north, but that the latter "never really existed" in that location. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of
10355-483: The southern part remained under Israeli occupation. Despite the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, tension mounted as Hezbollah made attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers in the Ghajar area. In 2005, Hezbollah launched a missile on Ghajar and infiltrated it, but withdrew after being repelled by the Israelis. Following another attack in July 2006, Israel invaded southern Lebanon and re-occupied the northern half of Ghajar during
10464-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
10573-416: The strike before it was back into the air. The TV station was bombed 15 times during the war but never faltered after the first hiccup. According to military analyst William Arkin there is "little evidence" that the Israeli Air Force even attempted, much less succeeded in, wiping out the medium- and long-range-rocket capability in the first days of the war. He dismissed the whole claim as an "absurdity" and
10682-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
10791-788: The two captured soldiers, whose fates were unknown, were returned to Israel on 16 July 2008 as part of a prisoner exchange . The war is known in Lebanon as the July War ( Arabic : حرب تموز , Ḥarb Tammūz ) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War ( Hebrew : מלחמת לבנון השנייה , Milhemet Levanon HaShniya ), Cross-border attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) dated as far back as 1968, following
10900-433: The village began to organize local tours and home hospitality, catering to small groups. In 2022, local officials reported 4000 visitors per day. Culinary specialties of Ghajar include a dish called mitabla , made of grains of wheat and corn cooked in milk, and bisara, a stew of bulgur, chickpeas and fried onions thickened with flour. Bisara is usually served with a sauce of garlic and lemon. The UN has physically marked
11009-406: The village residents to evacuate. Despite the IDF's order, the residents of Ghajar collectively decided not to evacuate. Residents on both sides of the village have Israeli citizenship; those in the northern half often hold passports from both Lebanon and Israel. They work and travel freely within Israel , but those living on the Lebanese side have difficulties receiving services from Israel. There
11118-608: The war the Israeli Air Force flew 11,897 combat missions, which was more than the number of sorties during the 1973 October War (11,223) and almost double the number during the 1982 Lebanon War (6,052). The Israeli artillery fired 170,000 shells, more than twice the number fired in the 1973 October War. A senior officer in the IDF Armored Corps told Haaretz that he would be surprised if it turned out that even five Hezbollah fighters had been killed by
11227-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
11336-462: Was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. It marked the third Israeli invasion into Lebanon since 1978. After Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah aimed for
11445-629: Was an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint at the entrance to the village, and a fence surrounding the entire village, but no fence or barrier dividing the two sides of the village. The checkpoint at the entrance to the village was removed in September 2022 after the Local Council constructed a border fence separating the entire village from Lebanon. Most residents of Ghajar work outside the village, many of them in Kiryat Shmona . In 2021,
11554-554: Was created after the incursion, following the adoption of Security Council Resolution 425 in March 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, restore international peace and security, and help the government of Lebanon restore its effective authority in the area. Ghajar expanded northward into Lebanese territory, subsuming the Wazzani settlement north of the border. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon . In 2000, following
11663-430: Was estimated by the IDF to have been wiped out. According to Israeli journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff the operation was "Israel's most impressive military action" and a "devastating blow for Hezbollah". In the coming days IAF allegedly also attacked and destroyed a large proportion of Hezbollah's long range Zelzal-2 missiles. "All the long-range rockets have been destroyed," chief of staff Halutz allegedly told
11772-436: Was killed and two lightly injured by mortar fire as they attempted to recover the bodies. Hezbollah named the attack " Operation Truthful Promise " after leader Hassan Nasrallah 's public pledges over the prior year and a half to seize Israeli soldiers and swap them for four Lebanese held by Israel : Nasrallah claimed that Israel had broken a previous deal to release these prisoners, and since diplomacy had failed, violence
11881-429: Was the only remaining option. Nasrallah declared that "no military operation will result in rescuing these prisoners... The only method, as I indicated, is that of indirect negotiations and a swap [of prisoners]". Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the seizure of the soldiers as an "act of war" by the sovereign state of Lebanon, stating that "Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions" and promising
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