DUBAI: Lebanon’s garbage crisis resurfaced Monday as rubbish was found strewn across a Lebanese beach, believed to have been washed down by stormy weather from a nearby landfill site on the coast – a claim the government denies.
Images of the beach, covered in a blanket of rubbish were shared across social media prompting outcries from residents and politicians alike. It comes as Human Rights Watch (HRW) launched a campaign over health and environmental concerns prompted by the decision to burn the vast amounts of trash that have built up in the country’s landfills.
“The sea has filled with garbage because officials who lack conscience and competency are in charge of the waste file,” Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel told local news channels.
The rubbish on the beach, near the Zouk Mosbeh/Nahr Al-Kalb river, is believed to have been washed down from the Burj Hammoud landfill during a storm the day before.
“The Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) is in charge of overseeing these works and there is an environment minister and a government. They are all to blame and they must be held responsible for what we are witnessing today [Monday],” Gemayel said.
The politician said the council had not taken measures to prevent such an incident from occurring, sighting the absence of wave breakers as the main reason for the landfill’s garbage spewing onto the beach and into the sea.
However the CDR issued a statement denying the landfill’s role in the beach pollution, but videos shared on social media appear to show otherwise.
The statement, translated from Arabic, read: “This news is completely false, in our knowledge the garbage disposal os surrounded by concrete and there is no way for the sea to enter. It is strange that the waves took the garbage from Ghadeer and Burj Hammoud and put them in Keserwan [Zouk Mosbeh/Nahr el-Kalb] without them having any effect on the coast in between.”
Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri has since ordered an immediate clean-up of the coast.
The Lebanese garbage crisis began in the summer of 2015 after the closure of the Naamah landfill site after it had reached capacity. For months after, with no alternative site, Beirut’s streets became filled with large piles of rubbish that stretched for miles.
Eventually the Burj Hammoud landfill was expanded – but even that was insufficient to cope with the increase bulk of waste produced by the nation and HRW says illegal sites were created by the Lebanese government.
#StopTheBurning
But the beach incident is just the latest in the ongoing crisis. HRW launched #StopTheBurning campaign last week after it was revealed that staff at the landfills had been instructed to burn the vast amounts of garbage leftover by the 2015 crisis.
And HRW is now calling on the Lebanese government to cease the burning, and is rallying support through online messages and billboards across the country.
“We are pressing the government to end the dangerous practice of open burning, and finally pass a national waste management law and strategy that fulfills the right to health and a clean environment and comply with international law,” HRW researcher Bassam Khawaja told Arab News.
The government had resorted to burning large quantities of rubbish in landfills in a short-term plan to rid the Mediterranean country of its trash, but the health consequences are severe, according the HRW report.
“Human Rights Watch has found that government’s failure to stop the widespread open burning of waste at more than 150 dumps violates Lebanon’s obligation to protect the health of its residents under international human rights law,” Khawaja added.
Open burning has increased in Beirut and Mount Lebanon after the waste management system collapsed in 2015, with a 330 percent increase at the latter site alone, according to the Civil Defense and Lebanon’s fire department.
“Open burning of waste is harming nearby residents’ health one garbage bag at a time, but authorities are doing virtually nothing to bring this crisis under control,” said Nadim Houry, interim Beirut director at HRW.
“People may think the garbage crisis started in 2015, but this has been going on for decades as the government jumps from one emergency plan to the next while largely ignoring the situation outside Beirut and surrounding areas,” Houry added.
Lebanon’s trash crisis returns, but did it ever disappear in the first place?
Lebanon’s trash crisis returns, but did it ever disappear in the first place?
Israel opposition submits bill to dissolve parliament: statement
JERUSALEM: Israel’s opposition leaders said Wednesday they submitted a bill to dissolve parliament, which if successful could start paving the way to a snap election.
Ultra-Orthodox parties that are propping up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are threatening to vote for the motion.
“The opposition faction leaders have decided to bring the bill to dissolve the Knesset to a vote in the Knesset plenum today. The decision was made unanimously and is binding on all factions,” the leaders said in a statement, adding that all their parties would freeze their ongoing legislation to focus on “the overthrow of the government.”
Gaza rescuers say 31 killed by Israel fire near aid center
- Israeli troops fired on people waiting to enter a food distribution center
GAZA: The Gaza civil defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting to enter a US-backed food distribution center on Wednesday, killing 31 and wounding “about 200.”
“We transported at least 31 martyrs and about 200 wounded as a result of Israeli tank and drone fire on thousands of citizens... on their way to receive food from the American aid center,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
Restrictions imposed on media in the Gaza Strip and the difficulties of access on the ground mean AFP is not able to independently verify the death tolls announced by the civil defense agency.
Bassal said thousands of Palestinians had been gathering since 2 am (2300 GMT Tuesday) in the hope of reaching the US and Israeli-backed food distribution center.
“Israeli tanks fired several times, then at around 5:30 am intensified their fire, coinciding with heavy fire from drones targeting civilians,” he said.
Mohammad Abu Salima, head of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, told AFP it had received the bodies of 24 people killed while waiting to enter the aid center and was treating 96 who had been wounded.
Al-Awda hospital, in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, said in a statement that it had received seven bodies and was treating 112 people who had been wounded in the same incident.
There have been a series of deadly shootings since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) first opened aid distribution points in the Palestinian territory on May 27, as Israel faced mounting international condemnation over the humanitarian conditions.
Turkish court issues arrest warrant for owner of pro-opposition TV channel
- Arrest warrant for Cafer Mahiroglu, owner of Halk TV, issued as part of an investigation into an alleged criminal organization
- Several main opposition CHP members including district mayors were arrested under the investigation
ANKARA: An Istanbul court has issued an arrest warrant for the owner of a television channel aligned with Turkiye’s main opposition party on charges of bid-rigging, the prosecutor’s office said late on Tuesday.
The arrest warrant for Cafer Mahiroglu, owner of Halk TV, was issued as part of an investigation into an alleged criminal organization suspected of rigging public tenders by bribing public officials.
Several main opposition CHP members including district mayors were arrested under the investigation, part of a widening legal crackdown against the jailed mayor of Istanbul, President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival, and the opposition.
Mahiroglu, a Turkish businessperson who lives in London, denied the charges in a post on X.
“I am being accused based on the fabricated false statements and slander of someone I have never met or seen in my life,” he said, adding that he has been living abroad for 35 years.
“So, there is a price to be the owner of Halk TV, the people’s television, and to defend democracy, rights and law.”
He did not say if he would return to Turkiye to contest the charges.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who leads Erdogan in some opinion polls, was jailed in March pending trial on corruption charges, which he denies.
His arrest triggered mass protests, economic turmoil and broad accusations of government influence over the judiciary and anti-democratic applications. The government has denied the accusations and said the judiciary is independent.
Since his arrest, authorities have detained dozens of CHP members, officials from the Istanbul municipality, and other CHP-run municipalities.
Sudanese army retreats from Libyan border after alleging Haftar attack
- Haftar forces denied involvement in the attack and accused a force affiliated with the Sudanese armed forces of attacking a military patrol
- The war between Sudan’s army and the RSF has drawn in multiple foreign countries
DUBAI: The Sudanese army retreated from the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border triangle area, it said on Wednesday, a day after it accused forces loyal to eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar of an attack alongside the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Sudanese soldiers, largely from former rebel groups aligned with the army, had patrolled the area. Sudan’s military, which is fighting against the RSF in a civil war, accuses the RSF and Haftar’s forces of using the corridor for weapons deliveries. The area is close to the city of Al-Fashir, one of the war’s main frontlines.
“As part of its defensive arrangements to repel aggression, our forces today evacuated the triangle area,” the Sudanese army said in a statement without elaborating.
Late on Tuesday, Haftar’s forces had denied participating in a cross-border attack, saying forces allied to the Sudanese army had attacked Libyan patrols.
Sudan accuses the United Arab Emirates, one of Haftar’s backers, of being behind the weapons deliveries, which the UAE denies. Egypt, a close ally of the Sudanese army, also backs Haftar.
‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead
- In Gaza, “There’s no hope or peace”
KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: Gazan mother Amal Abu Shalouf ran her hand over her son’s face and hair, a brief farewell before a man abruptly sealed the body bag carrying the three-year-old who was killed just hours earlier on Tuesday.
“Amir, my love, my dear!” cried his mother, struggling to cross the crowded courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, where several bodies lay in white plastic shrouds.
According to the civil defense agency, at least nine people were killed on Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces carried out military operations, more than 20 months into the war triggered by Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the military did not respond to a request for comment about Amir Abu Shalouf’s death.
At the hospital, a man carried the boy’s body in his arms through a crowd of dozens of mourners.
“I swear, I can’t take it,” his teenage brother, Ahmad Abu Shalouf, said, his face covered in tears.
“What wrong did he do?” said another brother, Mohammad Abu Shalouf. “An innocent little boy, sitting inside his tent, and a bullet struck him in the back.”
Mohammad said he had “found him shot in the back” as he returned to the tent that has become the family’s home in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Yunis that is now a massive encampment for displaced Palestinians.
The devastating war has created dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned that the entire population is at risk of famine.
The grieving mother, comforted by relatives, said her young son had been begging for food in recent days and dreaming of a piece of meat.
“There is no food, no water, no clothing,” said Amal, who has eight children to take care of.
Amal said she too was injured in the pre-dawn incident that killed her son.
“I heard something fall next to my foot while I was sitting and baking, and suddenly felt something hit me. I started screaming,” she said.
Outside the tent at the time, she said she tried crawling and reaching for other family members.
“Then I heard my daughter screaming from inside the tent... found them holding my son, his abdomen and back covered in blood.”
A group of men formed lines to recite a prayer for the dead, their words almost drowned out by the noise of Israeli drones flying overhead.
In the second row, Ahmad Abu Shalouf held his hands over his stomach in prayer, unable to hold back a stream of tears.
Similar scenes played out at the hospital courtyard again and again over several hours, as the day’s dead were mourned.
At one point, an emaciated man collapsed in front of the shrouded bodies.
One mourner pressed his head against one of the bodies, carried on a stretcher at the start of a funeral procession, before being helped up by others.
At a distance, a group of women supported Umm Mohammad Shahwan, a grieving mother, with all of them in tears.
“We need the war to end,” said Amal Abu Shalouf.
In Gaza, she lamented, “there’s no hope or peace.”
