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BEIRUT: Lebanese parliament has failed for the 10th time to elect a president on Thursday, prolonging an institutional void amid a deep economic crisis.
This week’s vote was reflected the previous session to elect a president, with many MPs spoiling their ballots, including one who cast a vote for “Nelson Mandela.”
Last week, Hezbollah opponent Michel Moawad won the support of 39 MPs, but fell well short of the required majority.
BAALBEK, Lebanon: In eastern Lebanon’s city of Baalbek, the Jawhari family gathered around a gaping crater where their home once stood, tears streaming as they tried to make sense of the destruction.
“It is heart-breaking. A heartache that there is no way we will ever recover from,” said Lina Jawhari, her voice breaking as she hugged relatives who came to support the family. “Our world turned upside down in a second.”
The home, which was a gathering place for generations, was reduced to rubble by an Israeli airstrike on Nov. 1, leaving behind shattered memories and twisted fragments of a once-vibrant life.
The family, like thousands of Lebanese, were returning to check on their properties after the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect early Wednesday.
Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are predominantly Shiite areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong base of support. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across the country.
A photo of the Jawhari family’s home — taken on a phone by Louay Mustafa, Lina’s nephew — is a visual reminder of what had been. As the family sifted through the rubble, each fragment recovered called them to gather around it.
A worn letter sparked a collective cheer, while a photo of their late father triggered sobs. Reda Jawhari had built the house for his family and was a craftsman who left behind a legacy of metalwork. The sisters cried and hoped to find a piece of the mosque-church structure built by their father. Minutes later, they lifted a mangled piece of metal from the debris. They clung to it, determined to preserve a piece of his legacy.
“Different generations were raised with love... Our life was music, dance, dabke (traditional dance). This is what the house is made up of. And suddenly, they destroyed our world. Our world turned upside down in a second. It is inconceivable. It is inconceivable,” Lina said.
Despite their determination, the pain of losing their home and the memories tied to it remains raw.
Rouba Jawhari, one of four sisters, had one regret.
“We are sad that we did not take my mom and dad’s photos with us. If only we took the photos,” she said, clutching an ID card and a bag of photos and letters recovered from the rubble. “It didn’t cross our mind. We thought it’s two weeks and we will be back.”
The airstrike that obliterated the Jawhari home came without warning, striking at 1:30 p.m. on what was otherwise an ordinary Friday.
Their neighbor, Ali Wehbe, also lost his home. He had stepped out for food a few minutes before the missile hit and rushed back to find his brother searching for him under the rubble.
“Every brick holds a memory,” he said, gesturing to what remained of his library. “Under every book you would find a story.”
BEIRUT: Israel was criticized on Friday for provocative actions in Lebanon, despite the ceasefire agreement currently in force.
The Israeli military said Lebanese residents were prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice.
The army continued its operations in the border area it had advanced into and where it is still present, continuing actions which included uprooting olive trees, damaging structures, and even firing on mourners at a funeral.
On the third day of the ceasefire, security reports — primarily from the Iran-backed Hezbollah — highlighted what were described as “provocative Israeli violations.”
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem pledged on Friday to coordinate closely with the Lebanese army to implement a ceasefire deal with Israel.
The US general tasked with leading the ceasefire monitoring committee and its members began meetings in Beirut on Friday with the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces Gen. Joseph Aoun to discuss the implementation of the agreement.
Meanwhile, Al-Manar TV reported that Israeli forces “advanced into the town square of Markaba … and began bulldozing operations and blocking roads.”
The Israeli army also opened fire on residents in Khiam, who said that they had obtained permission from the Lebanese military, in coordination with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, to enter the town for a funeral.
Footage captured by the mourners, who numbered no more than five or six, showed two of them injured in their legs by Israeli gunfire.
The mourners said that they left a woman’s body on the ground after an artillery shell struck nearby. The incident forced them to flee.
They also reported that the Israeli army seized the vehicles they had traveled in.
Israelis fired machine guns toward Aitaroun and demolished a playground in Kfarkela.
The army claimed on Thursday that the areas it had moved into in southern Lebanon were not included in the ceasefire agreement.
The deal, which was approved by both Lebanon and Israel on Tuesday, went into effect on Wednesday morning.
The Israeli army called on the Lebanese “not to cross into a line of towns specified by name to enter the border area, extending from Shebaa through Habbariyeh, Arnoun, Yohmor, Qantara, Shaqra, Baraashit, Yater, and Mansouri,” as anyone crossing these towns would endanger themselves.
The Israeli army said that it had 60 days to accomplish a “complete withdrawal from these areas” under the agreement.
The Israeli army has advanced into settlements extending 3 km from the border, an area which includes about 20 villages and Bint Jbeil.
Israeli forces have also prohibited Lebanese residents in the restricted area from moving around between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Eyewitnesses spoke of attacks on “olive groves in Kfarkela, where bulldozers are uprooting olive trees near the Al-Abbara area.”
Meanwhile, four Israeli tanks ventured into the western neighborhood of the town of Khiam. An artillery shell fell on the town and the Israeli army conducted occasional sweeping operations with machine guns.
Israeli artillery shelling also targeted the outskirts of the towns of Markaba and Tallousa in the Marjayoun district while Israeli drones continued to fly over the western and central sectors.
The Lebanese army, which continues to deploy in the areas south of the Litani River and away from the Israeli incursion, blocked the roads leading to the restricted area.
Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces Party, said that “Hezbollah’s war in support of Gaza destroyed both Gaza and Lebanon,” and criticized the “unity of battlefields that Hezbollah called for.”
He was speaking after a meeting held by the Lebanese Forces’ parliamentary bloc and executive body.
Geagea added: “Hezbollah usurped the Lebanese people by starting this war and took Lebanon to war while the majority of the people were against it.
“Hezbollah committed a great crime against the Lebanese people. We could have avoided the martyrdom of 4,000 people and all the displacement and destruction.
“(But) despite all these disasters, Hezbollah MPs are still claiming victory, which is a strange and completely unrealistic logic.”
Geagea said that the ceasefire approved by Hezbollah “is the biggest proof of the illegitimacy of the party’s weapons,” and called on Hezbollah to “meet with the army command and develop a plan to dismantle its military presence north of the Litani River.
Meanwhile, the municipality of Mays Al-Jabal has warned residents returning to their town of the presence of “landmines, explosives and unexploded shells.”
It confirmed that it “is following up with the Lebanese army and relevant authorities to facilitate the safe return of people on time.”
The municipality warned that “entering the town at present is dangerous as the enemy is firing and launching artillery shells into the town’s neighborhoods and streets to target any civilian movement in the area.”
It added: “Due to the presence of landmines, explosives, and unexploded shells in homes and neighborhoods, and given that some houses are still rigged with explosives and might detonate at any moment, as well as the town’s streets being blocked with rubble and obstacles, we urge you and rely on your awareness to refrain from heading to our town at this time, and await further instructions.”
The Israeli army published a summary and data on Friday about the military operations carried out in the last two months against Hezbollah on the northern front.
It added that “orders preventing the return of residents to open areas north of Western Galilee and Upper Galilee remain in effect."
The Israeli army claimed that more than 12,500 targets were attacked, including more than 1,600 military headquarters and more than 1,000 ammunition depots.
The Israeli operations included “more than 14,000 flight hours for fighter jets and about 11,000 targets for attacks.”
The army’s statement claimed that “more than 1,500 offensive infrastructures, about 160 military headquarters, and about 150 ammunition depots were destroyed in the operation against the Radwan Force.
“About 2,500 high-ranking fighters were eliminated, causing significant damage to Hezbollah’s force.”
The Israeli army added that it estimated that Hezbollah had less than 30 percent of the drones it had possessed on the eve of the conflict.
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday vowed to cooperate with the Lebanese army and help build the country’s defense capacities amid efforts to implement the terms of a ceasefire with Israel.
Qassem was speaking for the first time since the start of the ceasefire on Wednesday that envisions both Hezbollah and the Israeli military withdrawing from south Lebanon and the Lebanese military deploying there alongside UN peacekeepers.
“We will work to... strengthen Lebanon’s defensive capacities,” said Qassem, who succeeded Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed in a massive Israeli air strike on south Beirut in September.
“The resistance will be ready to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of Lebanon’s weakness along with our partners... first and foremost the army,” he added in a televised speech.
“The coordination between the resistance and the Lebanese army will be at a high level to implement the commitments of the agreement,” Qassem continued, adding that “no one is betting on problems or disagreements” with the army.
Qassem also declared that his group had achieved a “great victory” against Israel that “surpasses that of July 2006,” referring to the last time Hezbollah went to war with Israel.
“We won because we prevented the enemy from destroying Hezbollah... (and) from annihilating or weakening the resistance.”
Qassem vowed that “our support for Palestine will not stop and will continue through different means.”
The truce ended a conflict that began the day after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, when Hezbollah began a low-intensity exchange of cross-border fire in solidarity with their Palestinian allies.
In late September, Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah, launching fierce air strikes and later sending in ground troops.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 3,961 people have been killed in the country since October 2023 as a result of the conflict, most of them in recent weeks, while 16,520 were wounded.
On the Israeli side, the hostilities with Hezbollah killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities there say.
Earlier Friday, the Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher in southern Lebanon after detecting militant activity in the area.
“A short while ago, terrorist activity and movement of a Hezbollah portable rocket launcher were identified in southern Lebanon,” the army said.
“The threat was thwarted in an (Israeli Air Force) strike,” it added in a statement that featured a video of the air strike on a slowly moving truck.
Israel has vowed to continue acting against any threats even after the ceasefire.
The military also announced a nighttime curfew in south Lebanon for the third day in a row, warning residents they are “strictly forbidden to move or travel south of the Litani River” between 5:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday and 07:00 AM (0500 GMT) the following day.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israeli troops will hold their positions but “a 60-day period will commence in which the Lebanese military and security forces will begin their deployment toward the south,” a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Then, Israel should begin a phased withdrawal without a vacuum forming that Hezbollah or others could rush into, the official said.
GAZA: Two children and a woman were crushed to death Friday as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory, medical officials said.
The bodies of two girls aged 13 and 17 and the 50-year-old woman were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, where a doctor confirmed that they died from suffocation due to crowding at the Al-Banna bakery. Video from The Associated Press showed their bodies placed next to each other on the floor inside the hospital’s morgue.
The flow of food allowed into Gaza by Israel has fallen to nearly its lowest level of almost 14-month-old war for the past two months, according to Israeli official figures. UN and aid officials say hunger and desperation are growing among Gaza’s population, almost all of which relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
Osama Abu Laban, the father of one of the girls, wailed over the loss of her life outside the hospital.
“My wife fell when she heard that she (our daughter) was suffocating. She did not yet know that she was dead,” he told the AP.
Some bakeries in Gaza were closed for several days last week due to a shortage of flour. AP footage taken last week after they reopened showed large crowds of people cramming together, screaming and pushing, at one bakery in Deir Al-Balah.
Palestinians across the Gaza Strip are heavily relying on bakeries and charitable kitchens, with many able to only secure one meal a day for their families.
In Lebanon, thousands of displaced people began returning to their homes this week after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.
Many found their homes reduced to rubble after intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The truce was the first major sign of progress in the region since war began more than a year ago, triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza. For Palestinians in Gaza and families of hostages held in the territory, the ceasefire marked another missed opportunity to end fighting that has stretched on for nearly 14 months.
More than 44,000 people have been killed and more than 104,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people.
KIBBUTZ MALKIYA, Israel: Dean Sweetland casts his gaze over a forlorn street in the Israeli community of Kibbutz Malkiya. Perched on a hill overlooking the border with Lebanon, the town stands mostly empty after being abandoned a year ago.
The daycare is closed. The homes are unkempt. Parts of the landscape are ashen from fires sparked by fallen Hezbollah rockets. Even after a tenuous Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire designed to let Israelis return to the north, the mood here is far from celebratory.
“The ceasefire is rubbish,” said Sweetland, a gardener and member of the kibbutz’s civilian security squad. “Do you expect me to ring around my friends and say, ‘All the families should come home?’ No.”
Across the border, Lebanese civilians have jammed roads in a rush to return to homes in the country’s south, but most residents of northern Israel have met the ceasefire with suspicion and apprehension.
“Hezbollah could still come back to the border, and who will protect us when they do?” Sweetland asked.
Israel’s government seeks to bring the northern reaches of the country back to life, particularly the line of communities directly abutting Lebanon that have played a major role in staking out Israel’s border.
But the fear of Hezbollah, a lack of trust in United Nations peacekeeping forces charged with upholding the ceasefire, deep anger at the government and some Israelis’ desire to keep rebuilding their lives elsewhere are keeping many from returning immediately.
When the truce took effect, about 45,000 Israelis had evacuated from the north. They fled their homes after Hezbollah began firing across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its ally Hamas in Gaza. That triggered more than a year of cross-border exchanges, with Lebanese villages in the south and Israeli communities facing the border taking the brunt of the pain.
During the truce’s initial 60-day phase, Hezbollah is supposed to remove its armed presence from a broad band of southern Lebanon where the military says the militant group had been digging in for years by gathering weapons and setting up rocket launch sites and other infrastructure. Under the ceasefire, a UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL and a beefed-up Lebanese army presence are supposed to ensure Hezbollah doesn’t return.
Many residents of northern Israel are skeptical that the peace will hold.
Sarah Gould, who evacuated Kibbutz Malkiya at the start of the war with her three kids, said Hezbollah fired on the community up to and just past the minute when the ceasefire took effect early Wednesday.
“So for the government to tell me that Hezbollah is neutralized,” she said, “it’s a perfect lie.”
Residents fear for their safety in the far north
In Gaza, where Israel is pushing forward with a war that has killed over 44,000 Palestinians, Israel’s goal is the eradication of Hamas. But in Lebanon, Israel’s aims were limited to pushing Hezbollah away from the border so northern residents could return home.
Israeli critics say the government should have kept fighting to outright cripple Hezbollah or to clear out the border area, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese.
“I won’t even begin to consider going home until I know there’s a dead zone for kilometers across the border,” the 46-year-old Gould said.
Some wary Israelis trickled back home Thursday and Friday to areas farther from the border. But communities like Kibbutz Manara, set on a tiny slice of land between Lebanon and Syria, remained ghost towns.
Orna Weinberg, 58, who was born and raised in Manara, said it was too early to tell whether the ceasefire would protect the community.
Perched above all the other border villages, Manara was uniquely vulnerable to Hezbollah fire throughout the war. Three-quarters of its structures were damaged.
In the kibbutz’s communal kitchen and dining hall, ceiling beams have collapsed. The uprooted floorboards are covered with ash from fires that also claimed much of the kibbutz’s cropland.
Rocket fragments abound. The torso of a mannequin, a decoy dressed in army green, lies on the ground.
Weinberg tried to stay in Manara during the war, but after anti-tank shrapnel damaged her home, soldiers told her to leave. On Thursday, she walked along her street, which looks out directly over a UNIFIL position separating the kibbutz from a line of Lebanese villages that have been decimated by Israeli bombardment and demolitions.
Weinberg said UNIFIL hadn’t prevented Hezbollah’s build-up in the past, “so why would they be able to now?”
“A ceasefire here just gives Hezbollah a chance to rebuild their power and come back to places that they were driven out of,” she said.
The truce seemed fragile.
Associated Press reporters heard sporadic bursts of gunfire, likely Israeli troops firing at Lebanese attempting to enter the towns. Israel’s military says it is temporarily preventing Lebanese civilians from returning home to a line of towns closest to the border, until the Lebanese military can deploy there in force.
Even in less battered communities, no one returns home
Though the atmosphere along the border was tense, Malkiya showed signs of peace. With Hezbollah’s rockets stopped, some residents returned briefly to the kibbutz to peer around cautiously.
At a vista overlooking the border, where the hulking wreckage of Lebanese villages could made out, a group of around 30 soldiers gathered. Just days ago, they would have made easy targets for Hezbollah fire.
Malkiya has sustained less damage than Manara. Still, residents said they would not return immediately. During a year of displacement, many have restarted their lives elsewhere, and the idea of going back to a front-line town on the border is daunting.
In Lebanon, where Israeli bombardment and ground assaults drove some 1.2 million people from their homes, some of the displaced crowded into schools-turned-shelters or slept in the streets.
In Israel, the government paid for hotels for evacuees and helped accommodate children in new schools. Gould predicted residents would return to the kibbutz only when government subsidies for their lodging dried up — “not because they want to, but because they feel like they can’t afford an alternative.”
“It’s not just a security issue,” Gould said. “We’ve spent more than a year rebuilding our lives wherever we landed. It’s a question of having to gather that up and move back somewhere else, somewhere that’s technically our old house but not a home. Nothing feels the same.”
It’s unclear if schools in the border communities will have enough students to reopen, Gould said, and her children are already enrolled elsewhere. She’s enjoyed living farther from the border, away from an open war zone.
There’s also a deep feeling that the communities were abandoned by the government, Sweetland said.
Sweetland is one of roughly 25 civilian security volunteers who stayed throughout the war, braving continual rocket fire to keep the kibbutz afloat. They repaired damaged homes, put out blazes and helped replace the kibbutz generator when it was taken out by Hezbollah fire. They were on their own, with no firefighters or police willing to risk coming, he said.
“We didn’t have any help for months and months and months, and we pleaded, ‘Please help us.’”
Sweetland said he will keep watching over the hushed pathways of the once-vibrant community in hopes his neighbors will soon feel safe enough to return. But he predicted it would take months.
Weinberg hopes to move back to Manara as soon as possible. On Thursday, she spotted a former neighbor who was about to leave after checking the damage to her home.
Weinberg grasped her hand through the car window, asking how she was. The woman grimaced and began to cry. Their hands parted as the car slowly rolled out through the gates and drove away.
