Lebanon faces the abyss as political elites dither

A few months ago the streets of Lebanon turned chaotic and were filled with young men and women demanding total political change. (AN photo by Elias Moubarak)
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Updated 28 July 2020
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Lebanon faces the abyss as political elites dither

  • The worst economic and financial crisis since the civil war ended in 1990 has crippled the country
  • Crisis is viewed as outcome of a system in which every faction looks out for its own interest

DUBAI: Just a few months ago the streets of Lebanon were filled with young men and women demanding total political change and an end to the country’s confessional system with its sectarian networks.

But neither the spirited rhythm of the protest movement nor the popular chants and slogans could stave off an impending economic disaster.

Savings are now being wiped out, unemployment is surging, living standards are plummeting and fiscal conditions deteriorating as the worst national crisis since the civil war ended in 1990 cripples the country.

Much of the population has access to just one or two hours of power every day from the national grid. For the remaining hours, electricity has to be sourced from a neighborhood generator operator.

In the midst of this meltdown, however, the Lebanese have gone silent. Why?

“Hopelessness and despair,” said Basel Dalloul, a tech executive. “Wherever there is trash you now see people looking for materials and food so they can survive.”

Then there is fear. Since the outbreak of the protests, activists and journalists critical of government policies and corruption have been routinely detained and interrogated by Lebanese internal security forces and military.




Lebanese politicians continue to resist the reforms that might have prevented violent protests on the streets of Beirut. (AN photo by Elias Moubarak)

“People still protest but not with the same momentum due to fear of the coronavirus and the political mafias that are violating human rights,” said a furniture designer who did not want to be identified. “Liberty of expression is in jeopardy. People have lost fingers, eyes and limbs for the mere act of demanding change.”

The consensus view of experts is that after decades of mismanagement, overspending and corruption, the bills have inevitably come due. Yet Lebanese politicians continue to resist the reforms that might have prevented the meltdown and can still create the conditions for international aid to begin flowing.

An immediate reprieve would be a $10 billion loan injection from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since February, Lebanese authorities have had 16 meetings with the organization. According to IMF officials, the talks have stalled and no serious commitments have been made by the Lebanese negotiators.

Many Lebanese are unsurprised at the deadlock, which they see as resulting from a system in which every political faction looks out for its own interests rather than the nation’s best interests.

Does this mean that Lebanon has reached its breaking point, or can it yet be rescued?

“The view of the Hirak (Lebanon’s protest movement) is that we probably need a total breakdown before we can change things,” said Nasser Saidi, Lebanon’s former economy and trade minister and founder of Nasser Saidi & Associates. “I love this quote from Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa: ‘We have to change everything if nothing is to change.’

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“It’s only when it becomes practically unliveable that you are going to get change. But if you look at the experience of other countries in similar situations, two things are comparatively different. The first is that, politicians always shift the discourse to a pro-communitarian versus pro-sectarian, pro-Syrian versus anti-Syrian, pro-Iranian versus anti-Iranian, pro-8th of March versus pro-14th of March, pro-Hariri versus anti-Hariri thing,” he said.

“Once the country’s ruling elites frame the current crisis in sectarian and confessional terms, all the other initiatives concerning reform will go out the window.

“The second thing is to change the narrative. As protests amplify, the ruling elite will say that this is now a matter of national security.”

All of this may be already happening. On June 25, President Michel Aoun delivered a speech on Lebanon’s stability, in which he referred darkly to an “atmosphere of civil war” and portrayed the anti-government protests as an attempt to stir up sectarian discord.

“Ever since we have come to life in this country or in most of the Arab world, we have been told that security and stability is paramount to our survival,” said Saidi. “Any challenge to the existing order is framed as a challenge to security and stability. But once you use that argument, then you can start using the repressive forces of the state, and this is precisely what is happening today in Lebanon.

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“The army and security services are quelling rising protests. Internal security services are now checking on the exchange rate prices at foreign exchange dealers.”

The breaking point, said Saidi, will come in early September. “Give it a maximum of 90 days and we will see an explosion in the streets. Hospitals will start closing, schools and universities will not be able to open. People cannot afford to send people to school. You will most likely no longer have electricity and once you no longer have electricity, everything else will break down, including communications.”

Not entirely unsurprisingly, some Lebanese say it will take nothing short of another war for the country’s strong and entrenched political interests to be fatally disrupted.

“War is always an option but never a solution,” said Maha Yayha, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “In the short term, there needs to be an immediate fiscal stabilization. The economic collapse is now happening at an exponential rate and we cannot predict where it will go next.”




On June 25, President Michel Aoun delivered a speech on Lebanon’s stability, in which he referred darkly to an “atmosphere of civil war” and portrayed the anti-government protests as an attempt to stir up sectarian discord. (AN photo by Elias Moubarak) 

Yahya points to an increase in rioting by protesters at a local level, more clashes along sectarian lines and an increase in crime.

“There is now a 50 percent increase in levels of crime across the country, from petty crime, including people holding up pharmacies because they want diapers and baby milk and medicine, to murders,” she said.

In the medium to long term, Lebanon needs a new government that is credible both to the Lebanese and the international community, and with a mandate to carry out much-needed reforms, Yahya said.

However, this will not happen until political parties come together and decide “saving Lebanon is in their best interest,” she said.

“I don’t know what it will take,” said Yahya. “The country is imploding. The damage that is being done will last at least a generation. This will not be a recovery of two to three years as was suggested in December and January if reforms had been adopted immediately. Today, we are in a different zone altogether.”




Many Lebanese are unsurprised at the deadlock, which they see as resulting from a system in which every political faction looks out for its own interests rather than the interests of the nation. (AN photo by Elias Moubarak)

An agreement with the IMF, “which the country desperately needs, would bring in other donors to Lebanon, including the EU and possibly other Arab Gulf countries that have some means,” she said.

Saidi believes Lebanon’s ruling elites will try to divert attention from the increasing misery in the country.

“The misery index, which is the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate, in Lebanon now is over 100 percent,” he said.

Pointing to central bank losses of $50 billion and reports of unorthodox accounting practices by the bank’s governor, Saidi said: “They are refusing to admit that they made mistakes, that there are embedded losses in the system, that there was a Ponzi scheme by the central bank — the banks benefited from this, and the shareholders of the banks and big depositors benefited from it.




Some Lebanese say it will take nothing short of another war for the country’s strong and entrenched political interests to be fatally disrupted. (AN photo by David Raffoul)

“What’s most significant is that they got their money out with the connivance of the central bank. Individuals who have their deposits or income in Lebanese pounds have seen their wealth and income go down by around 70 percent. The only other cases I have seen like this are following hyperinflation after the two world wars in Europe and the end of the Soviet Union. There is now a destruction of the middle class in Lebanon, as happened in the 1980s.”

Lebanon’s only hope lies with reform, Saidi said. “There will be no help from outside, from other Arab states or Europe, or the IMF and the international community, until reforms are made internally.”

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Meanwhile, the streets of Beirut are eerily empty at night. In the popular neighborhoods of Hamra, Ashrafieh and Gemmayze, where bars and restaurants used to overflow with Lebanese and foreign patrons, the buzz is gone. Beggars now seek help from the few passers-by, hoping for momentary reprieve from a slow-motion calamity.

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Twitter: @rebeccaaproctor


‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead

Updated 11 June 2025
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‘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.”


Syria rescuers say two killed in drone strikes on northwest

Updated 11 June 2025
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Syria rescuers say two killed in drone strikes on northwest

  • During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh

DAMASCUS: Two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday on a car and a motorcycle in the northwestern bastion of the Islamist former rebels who now head the Syrian government, rescuers said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the twin drone strikes in the Idlib region but a US-led coalition in Syria has carried out past strikes on terrorists in the area.
Earlier this year, the United States said it killed several commanders of Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Hurras Al-Din in the area.
The group had recently announced it was breaking up on the orders of the interim government set up by the rebels after their overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
US troops are deployed in Syria as part of a US-led coalition to fight the Daesh group.
When contacted by AFP, a US defense official said they were aware of the reports but had “nothing to provide” at the time.
During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh.
 

 


Gaza-bound activist convoy enters Libya from Tunisia

Updated 11 June 2025
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Gaza-bound activist convoy enters Libya from Tunisia

  • Convoy members were heard chanting “Resistance, resistance” and “To Gaza we go by the millions” in a video posted on the organizing group’s official Facebook page

BEN GUERDANE, Tunisia: Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists taking part in a convoy crossed the Tunisian border on Tuesday into Libya, aiming to keep heading eastwards until they break Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian territory, organizers said.
This comes after Israel intercepted an aid ship attempting to breach its blockade on Gaza, which was carrying 12 people, including campaigner Greta Thunberg and European parliament member Franco-Palestinian Rima Hassan.
The “Soumoud” convoy, meaning “steadfastness” in Arabic, set off from Tunis on Monday morning, spokesman Ghassen Henchiri told Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM.
He said it includes 14 buses and around 100 other vehicles, carrying hundreds of people.
Convoy members were heard chanting “Resistance, resistance” and “To Gaza we go by the millions” in a video posted on the organizing group’s official Facebook page.
Henchiri also told Jawhara FM radio channel the convoy plans to remain in Libya for “three or four days at most” before crossing into Egypt and continuing on to Rafah.
Organizers have said Egyptian authorities have not yet provided passage to enter the country, but Henchiri said the convoy received “reassuring” information.
Organizers said the convoy was not bringing aid into Gaza, but rather aimed at carrying out a “symbolic act” by breaking the blockade on the territory described by the United Nations as “the hungriest place on Earth.”
Algerian, Mauritanian, Moroccan and Libyan activists were also among the group, which is set to travel along the Libyan coast.
After 21 months of war, Israel is facing mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
The Madleen aid boat, which set sail for Gaza from Italy on June 1, was halted by Israeli forces on Monday and towed to the port of Ashdod.
The 12 people on board were then transferred to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the foreign ministry said, adding that Thunberg had been deported.
Five French activists were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily.
 

 


Algeria man’s self-immolation investigated as ‘terrorism’

A general view shows the Justice Ministry in the Algerian capital, Algiers. (AFP file photo)
Updated 11 June 2025
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Algeria man’s self-immolation investigated as ‘terrorism’

  • The charges include “endangering the lives and physical safety of others” and “publishing and promoting false and malicious news”

ALGIERS: Algerian authorities have launched a counterterrorism investigation after a man had set himself on fire, an act investigators suspect was part of coordinated plot with links abroad, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Faouzi Zegout was injured as a result of the self-immolation on June 1 outside the justice ministry to protest a case he was involved in.
A video of the incident in the capital Algiers circulated on social media, showing Zegout saying he had done it “because of a judge... who arbitrarily threatened me with a 10-year prison sentence.”
At an Algiers court on Tuesday, a prosecutor said that five people had been detained in the case, without specifying whether Zegout was one of them.
One of the five has been released under judicial supervision, and the case has been transferred to a counterterrorism division, the court heard.
According to the prosecutor, investigators had found that the act was orchestrated by an “organized criminal group” with suspected ties abroad.
The prosecutor said the group had allegedly plotted the act and assigned roles, including filming and publishing the self-immolation online, to “disturb public order and disrupt institutions.”
The charges include “endangering the lives and physical safety of others” and “publishing and promoting false and malicious news.”
The person who filmed the incident had “communicated with people abroad,” had “multiple bank accounts” and “received money transfers from people,” the prosecutor said, without specifying when the alleged transfers had occurred or who made them.
Zegout has said that he recently appeared in court for launching a fundraiser without official authorization to help cover medical costs for sick people.
A court in Frenda, his hometown about 340 kilometers (200 miles) west of Algiers, was scheduled to deliver its decision the same day he set himself on fire.
 


Israel cancels waiver allowing Israeli and Palestinian banks to work together

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel cancels waiver allowing Israeli and Palestinian banks to work together

JERUSALEM: Israel canceled a waiver on Tuesday that had allowed Israeli banks to work with Palestinian ones, threatening to paralyze Palestinian financial institutions, Israel’s finance ministry said in a statement.
“Against the backdrop of the Palestinian Authority’s delegitimization campaign against the State of Israel internationally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has instructed Accountant General CPA Yahli Rotenberg to cancel the indemnity provided to correspondent banks dealing with banks operating in Palestinian Authority territories,” the ministry said.
Smotrich had threatened in May 2024 to cut the vital connection between Israel and Palestinian banks in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for the recognition of the State of Palestine by three European countries.
The Palestinian financial and banking system is dependent on the regular renewal of the Israeli waiver.
It protects Israeli banks from potential legal action relating to transactions with their Palestinian counterparts, for instance in relation to financing terror.
In July, G7 countries urged Israel to “take necessary action” to ensure the continuity of Palestinian financial systems.
It came after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that “to cut Palestinian banks from Israeli counterparts would create a humanitarian crisis.”
The overwhelming majority of exchanges in the West Bank are in shekels, Israel’s national currency, because the Palestinian Authority does not have a central bank that would allow it to print its own currency.