Lebanon’s revolution: A many-splendored thing

Protesters practice meditation in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square. (AN Photo/Caline Malek)
Updated 25 November 2019
Follow

Lebanon’s revolution: A many-splendored thing

  • A plethora of initiatives have sprung up with the goal of reinventing the country along with political change
  • 'Thawra' has generated harmony, cohesion, solidarity and love that was unthinkable just a few months back

BEIRUT: As Lebanon’s anti-government uprising enters its second month with no sign of losing momentum, downtown Beirut continues to wear a colorful, almost festive look.

The trappings of “Thawra” — revolution in Arabic — are hard to miss amid the chants against sectarianism and corruption: Tents, food stalls, flags of all sizes, walls covered with artwork, recycling areas and patriotic songs blaring from loudspeakers.

What began as a movement for political and economic change has morphed into something much larger. No matter how one chooses to describe the phenomenon, it has undoubtedly generated a degree of harmony, cohesion, solidarity and love among Lebanese people that was unthinkable just a few months ago.

Week after stressful week, people across the country — men and women, young and old, Lebanese citizens and expatriates — have shown endurance, discipline and restraint in the face of violence and provocation.




 Green initiatives. (AN Photo/Caline Malek)

To many Lebanese, this has been at once the best of times and the worst of times, with tributes paid to a martyr of the “revolution” in cities across the country, the emergence of Melheme Khalaf as a glimmer of hope after he won the presidency of the Lebanese Bar Association on merit, and the president advising citizens dissatisfied with the country’s political leaders to emigrate.

Other initiatives have also sprung up — yoga and meditation, daily clean-ups by volunteers, speakers’ corners, and couches and board games.

Supporters of Lebanon’s free-form revolution are signaling their resolve to both make their country a better place and look after each other’s well-being.

Muwatin Lebnene (Lebanese Citizen), an initiative promoting regular morning clean-ups in downtown Beirut, has worked wonders for the image of the capital’s commercial hub.

Activists said that thanks to the efforts of 5,000 volunteers in the revolution’s first 10 days, 10.3 tons of waste were sorted, the number of trucks carrying waste to landfills fell by 90 percent, half a million cigarette butts were collected to be turned into paddleboards, and 2,500 pieces of winter clothing amassed and dispatched to NGOs.




Waste collection and recycling. (AN Photo/Caline Malek)

“As Lebanese citizens, it is our civic duty to keep our streets clean and sort our garbage for the interest and well-being of our country,” said Timmy Jreissati, a member of Muwatin Lebnene.

“With the revolution, the idea of building awareness about the importance of this issue took hold. The initiative was meant to show the true civilized image of the Lebanese people.”

On Nov. 3, volunteers cleaned the dirt-stained and graffiti-filled exterior walls of both the Mar Geryes church and the Mohammad Al-Amin mosque. “As part of our initiative, we want to restore and preserve our country’s beautiful sites and monuments,” Jreissati said.

“Muwatin Lebnene is a spontaneous collective action of individual Lebanese citizens that was driven by civic duty and social responsibility. The initiative acts upon the needs of the country and its citizens in all civic matters and issues. To make our country better, we want to raise awareness about all civic duties, and educate and help people when needed.”

Protesters won their first battle when Saad Hariri resigned as prime minister on Oct. 29, but their stated mission — an end to corruption and an overhaul of the political system — will not be accomplished until all politicians resign and make way for a new government of technocrats.

Given the political elite’s reluctance to meet their demands and the uphill battle that lies ahead, the Lebanese who have been taking part in the protests need activities that can keep them motivated and in high spirits.

Ana Larriu, a Spanish meditation teacher who used to teach mindfulness to executives in Beirut, has been offering meditation training to people protesting on the streets since last month.

“I was just so frustrated that I couldn’t do anything, so I said to myself that I have to go, sit there and show that there is a different energy happening,” she told Arab News.




An inspiration message for protesters. (AN Photo/ Caline Malek)

The effect of the meditation sessions is deeply felt, according to Larriu, who is married to a Lebanese national. Some participants found themselves weeping, regaining strength and, finally, expressing gratitude for an experience they found hard to describe in words.

“The exercise allowed a lot of things to happen, so people could express whatever they needed to without having to label them,” she said. “It’s a place of freedom. It was amazing when, in the first week after the clean-ups, mothers would come here with children and we would do active meditation for them.

“For me, the most amazing thing is to find out that a lot of people meditate in their own way.

“We need to be focused. The revolution’s energy can sometimes be very volatile and just up in the air, so we need to combine both energies — we need to be ready to fight and, at the same time, we need to be completely grounded.”

Larriu said that meditation can also make it easier for the protesters to develop compassion, both self-compassion and compassion for others. Accordingly, all the exercises she teaches involve transmitting “love to the south and north of the country.”




A street artist paints a protest graffiti in support of Lebanon's "revolution". (AN Photo/Caline Malek)

From her daily lessons on Samir Kassir Square, Larriu expanded to cater for protesters who sleep in tents in Martyrs’ Square.

“They came over and wanted to take part,” she said. “I realize that those in tents asleep at 8 a.m. are really tired. So we do active release exercises, which are designed to them feel great. It takes a lot of body work, more than just meditation, to release and recharge.”

Larriu said that she will continue her practice for “as long as the revolution goes on” — and as long as it is needed.

Further north in Tripoli, the long-forgotten and deserted Ghandour building was reborn as a new landmark of the “revolution” when it served as a canvas for graffiti artist Mohamed Abrashh in his rendering of the Lebanese flag as “Tripoli, City of Peace.”

As massive crowds continue to gather every night with patriotic chants and celebrations of their achievements, conversations are taking place in the afternoons in Nour Square, in Tripoli, in order to come up with novel strategies for maintaining political pressure.




A protest artwork on a wall in Beirut cheers up participants of the ongoing "revolution". (AN Photo/Caline Malek)

Beirut’s public gardens and squares have witnessed similar discussions on topics as varied as legal mechanisms to fight corruption and recovering stolen public funds, psychological resilience in times of social change, political power and the constitutional tools needed to achieve the revolution’s goals, the country’s economic direction, countering violence, and a feminists’ march that took place on Nov. 3.

Early on in the uprising, as one group of citizens moved their couches, fridges, carpets, mattresses and board games to the middle of highways, turning the streets into the “House of the People,” other groups drew up a plan to form Lebanon’s longest human chain on Oct. 26 as a symbol of national unity.

“It is only when we wake up to our oneness that peace shall prevail,” said Cyril Bassil, one of the human-chain organizers.

“We hope that the human chain will always symbolize the moment the Lebanese people woke up and chose to hold hands to build a non-sectarian country and reinvent Lebanon by freeing themselves from fragmentation.”

Around 200,000 people held hands along the 171 km stretch of the coastal highway from Tyre in the south to Tripoli in the north, with towns such as Halba, in Akkar, Hasbaya and Baalbek participating.

“It was surreal,” Bassil said. “It is thanks to the Lebanese who made the human chain happen. All pacifist activities are necessary because we need to change our language and we need to learn to express ourselves from a place of love, not fear — the Lebanese proved, on that day, that the civil war was truly over.”

 


Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36, six of them near US-backed aid center

Updated 49 min 47 sec ago
Follow

Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36, six of them near US-backed aid center

  • Deaths latest reported near aid center run by Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in Rafah
  • Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution center.

The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.

An aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was meanwhile nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), “six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout.”

Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid from the GHF aid center about one kilometer (a little over half a mile) away.

AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defense agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.

The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired “warning shots” at individuals that it said were “advancing in a way that endangered the troops.”

Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.

“As soon as some people tried to advance toward the aid center, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armored vehicles stationed near the center, firing into the air and then at civilians,” Abu Hadid said.

The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month aid blockade on the territory.

UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.

Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.

The aid boat Madleen, organized by an international activist coalition, was sailing toward Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organizers said.

“We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,” German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. “We are all good,” she added.

In a statement from London, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza — a member organization of the flotilla coalition — said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.

The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute “a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”

The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce the blockade.

“For this case as well, we are prepared,” army spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said on Tuesday, when asked about the Freedom Flotilla vessel.

“We have gained experience in recent years, and we will act accordingly.”

A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.


Syrian authorities announce closure of notorious desert camp

Updated 07 June 2025
Follow

Syrian authorities announce closure of notorious desert camp

DAMASCUS: A notorious desert refugee camp in Syria has closed after the last remaining families returned to their areas of origin, Syrian authorities said on Saturday.
The Rukban camp in Syria’s desert was established in 2014, at the height of Syria’s civil war, in a de-confliction zone controlled by the US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq.
Desperate people fleeing IS jihadists and former government bombardment sought refuge there, hoping to cross into Jordan.
Former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government rarely allowed aid to enter the camp and neighboring countries closed their borders to the area, isolating Rukban for years.
After an Islamist-led offensive toppled Assad in December, families started leaving the camp to return home.
The Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based organization, said on Friday that the camp was “officially closed and empty, all families and residents have returned to their homes.”
Syrian Information Minister Hamza Al-Mustafa said on X on Saturday that “with the dismantlement of the Rukban camp and the return of the displaced, a tragic and sorrowful chapter of displacement stories created by the bygone regime’s war machine comes to a close.”
“Rukban was not just a camp, it was the triangle of death that bore witness to the cruelty of siege and starvation, where the regime left people to face their painful fate in the barren desert,” he added.
At its peak, the camp housed more than 100,000 people. The numbers dwindled with time, especially after Jordan sealed off its side of the border and stopped regular aid deliveries in 2016.
Around 8,000 people still lived there before Assad’s fall, residing in mud-brick houses, with food and basic supplies smuggled in at high prices.
Syrian minister for emergency situations and disasters Raed Al-Saleh said on X said the camp’s closure represents “the end of one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies faced by our displaced people.”
“We hope this step marks the beginning of a path that ends the suffering of the remaining camps and returns their residents to their homes with dignity and safety,” he added.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.87 million Syrians have returned to their places of origin since Assad’s fall, after they were displaced within the country or abroad.
The IOM says the “lack of economic opportunities and essential services pose the greatest challenge” for those returning home.
X


Activist aid ship nears Gaza after reaching Egypt coast: organizers

Updated 07 June 2025
Follow

Activist aid ship nears Gaza after reaching Egypt coast: organizers

  • The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies ‘to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza’

CAIRO: An aid ship with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, has reached the Egyptian coast and is nearing the besieged Palestinian territory, organizers said on Saturday.
The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies “to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.”
“We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,” German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. “We are all good,” she added.
In a statement from London on Saturday, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza — a member organization of the flotilla coalition — said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.
The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute “a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
European parliament member Rima Hassan, who is on board the vessel, urged governments to “guarantee safe passage for the Freedom Flotilla.”
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and Israel has enforced its blockade with military action in the past.
A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar aid flotilla trying to breach the blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
In May, another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Conscience, reported coming under drone attack while en route for Gaza, prompting Cyprus and Malta to send rescue vessels in response to its distress call. There were no reports of any casualties.
Earlier in its voyage, the Madleen changed course near the Greek island of Crete after receiving a distress signal from a sinking migrant boat.
Activists rescued four Sudanese migrants who had jumped into the sea to avoid being returned to Libya. The four were later transferred to an EU Frontex vessel.
Launched in 2010, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a coalition of groups opposed to the blockade on humanitarian aid for Gaza that Israel imposed on March 2 and has only partially eased since.
Israel has faced mounting international condemnation over the resulting humanitarian crisis in the territory, where the United Nations has warned the entire population of more than two million is at risk of famine.


Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023

Updated 07 June 2025
Follow

Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023

  • The body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation
  • Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war

TEL AVIV: Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, as it continues its military offensive across the strip, killing at least 95 people in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The prime minister’s office said Saturday that the body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation.

Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the government.

This comes two days after the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages were retrieved. Fifty-five hostages remain in Gaza, of whom Israel says more than half are dead.

The defense minister said Saturday that Pinta’s body was retrieved from the Rafah area. He had come to Israel from Thailand to work in agriculture.

The army said he was taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children. It’s also the same group that took the two Israeli-American hostages, Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai, whose bodies were retrieved by the army Thursday.

Israel said it found Pinta’s body based on information received from the hostage task force and military intelligence.

A statement from the hostage forum, which supports the hostages, said it stands with Pinta’s family and shares in their grief. It called on the country’s decision makers to bring home the remaining hostages and give those who have died a proper burial.

Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas militants. Many of the Thai agricultural workers lived in compounds on the outskirts of southern Israeli kibbutzim and towns, and Hamas militants overran those places first. A total of 46 Thais have been killed during the conflict, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Before Pinta’s body was retrieved, three Thai hostages remained in captivity and two were confirmed dead. The fate of Pinta was uncertain until today, according to the hostage forum.

The retrieval of Pinta’s body comes as Israel continues its military campaign across Gaza.

Four strikes hit the Muwasi area in southern Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, one strike hit an apartment, killing seven people including a mother and five children. Their bodies were taken to Shifa hospital.

Israel said Saturday that it’s responding to Hamas’ “barbaric attacks” and is dismantling its capabilities. It said it follows international law and takes all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 55 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.


Lebanon aims to lure back wealthy Gulf tourists to jumpstart its war-torn economy

Updated 07 June 2025
Follow

Lebanon aims to lure back wealthy Gulf tourists to jumpstart its war-torn economy

  • Lebanon’s new political leaders sense an opportunity to revitalize the economy once again with help from wealthy neighbors

BEIRUT: Fireworks lit up the night sky over Beirut’s famous St. Georges Hotel as hit songs from the 1960s and 70s filled the air in a courtyard overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
The retro-themed event was hosted last month by Lebanon’s Tourism Ministry to promote the upcoming summer season and perhaps recapture some of the good vibes from an era viewed as a golden one for the country. In the years before a civil war began in 1975, Lebanon was the go-to destination for wealthy tourists from neighboring Gulf countries seeking beaches in summer, snow-capped mountains in winter and urban nightlife year-round.
In the decade after the war, tourists from Gulf countries – and crucially, Saudi Arabia – came back, and so did Lebanon’s economy. But by the early 2000s, as the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah gained power, Lebanon’s relations with Gulf countries began to sour. Tourism gradually dried up, starving its economy of billions of dollars in annual spending.
Now, after last year’s bruising war with Israel, Hezbollah is much weaker and Lebanon’s new political leaders sense an opportunity to revitalize the economy once again with help from wealthy neighbors. They aim to disarm Hezbollah and rekindle ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which in recent years have prohibited their citizens from visiting Lebanon or importing its products.
“Tourism is a big catalyst, and so it’s very important that the bans get lifted,” said Laura Khazen Lahoud, the country’s tourism minister.
On the highway leading to the Beirut airport, once-ubiquitous banners touting Hezbollah’s leadership have been replaced with commercial billboards and posters that read “a new era for Lebanon.” In the center of Beirut, and especially in neighborhoods that hope to attract tourists, political posters are coming down, and police and army patrols are on the rise.
There are signs of thawing relations with some Gulf neighbors. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have lifted yearslong travel bans.
All eyes are now on Saudi Arabia, a regional political and economic powerhouse, to see if it will follow suit, according to Lahoud and other Lebanese officials. A key sticking point is security, these officials say. Although a ceasefire with Israel has been in place since November, near-daily airstrikes have continued in southern and eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah over the years had built its political base and powerful military arsenal.
Tourism as a diplomatic and economic bridge
As vital as tourism is — it accounted for almost 20 percent of Lebanon’s economy before it tanked in 2019 — the country’s leaders say it is just one piece of a larger puzzle they are trying to put back together.
Lebanon’s agricultural and industrial sectors are in shambles, suffering a major blow in 2021, when Saudi Arabia banned their exports after accusing Hezbollah of smuggling drugs into Riyadh. Years of economic dysfunction have left the country’s once-thriving middle class in a state of desperation.
The World Bank says poverty nearly tripled in Lebanon over the past decade, affecting close to half its population of nearly 6 million. To make matters worse, inflation is soaring, with the Lebanese pound losing 90 percent of its value, and many families lost their savings when banks collapsed.
Tourism is seen by Lebanon’s leaders as the best way to kickstart the reconciliation needed with Gulf countries — and only then can they move on to exports and other economic growth opportunities.
“It’s the thing that makes most sense, because that’s all Lebanon can sell now,” said Sami Zoughaib, research manager at The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think tank.
With summer still weeks away, flights to Lebanon are already packed with expats and locals from countries that overturned their travel bans, and hotels say bookings have been brisk.
At the event hosted last month by the tourism ministry, the owner of the St. Georges Hotel, Fady El-Khoury, beamed. The hotel, owned by his father in its heyday, has acutely felt Lebanon’s ups and downs over the decades, closing and reopening multiple times because of wars. “I have a feeling that the country is coming back after 50 years,” he said.
On a recent weekend, as people crammed the beaches of the northern city of Batroun, and jet skis whizzed along the Mediterranean, local business people sounded optimistic that the country was on the right path.
“We are happy, and everyone here is happy,” said Jad Nasr, co-owner of a private beach club. “After years of being boycotted by the Arabs and our brothers in the Gulf, we expect this year for us to always be full.”
Still, tourism is not a panacea for Lebanon’s economy, which for decades has suffered from rampant corruption and waste.
Lebanon has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund for years over a recovery plan that would include billions in loans and require the country to combat corruption, restructure its banks, and bring improvements to a range of public services, including electricity and water.
Without those and other reforms, Lebanon’s wealthy neighbors will lack confidence to invest there, experts said. A tourism boom alone would serve as a “morphine shot that would only temporarily ease the pain” rather than stop the deepening poverty in Lebanon, Zoughaib said.
The tourism minister, Lahoud, agreed, saying a long-term process has only just begun.
“But we’re talking about subjects we never talked about before,” she said. “And I think the whole country has realized that war doesn’t serve anyone, and that we really need our economy to be back and flourish again.”