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Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hezbollah seeks boost in Lebanon vote as disarmament calls grow
By Laila Bassam and Emilie Madi NABATIEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - Amid the rubble left by Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon, campaign posters urge support for Hezbollah in elections on Saturday as the group aims to show it retains political clout despite the pounding it took in last year's war. For Hezbollah, the local vote is more important than ever, coinciding with mounting calls for its disarmament and continued Israeli airstrikes, and as many of its Shi'ite Muslim constituents still suffer the repercussions of the conflict. Three rounds of voting already held this month have gone well for the Iran-backed group. In the south, many races won't be contested, handing Hezbollah and its allies early wins. "We will vote with blood," said Ali Tabaja, 21, indicating loyalty to Hezbollah. He'll be voting in the city of Nabatieh rather than his village of Adaisseh because it is destroyed. "It's a desert," he said. The south's rubble-strewn landscape reflects the devastating impact of the war, which began when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Hamas at the start in October 2023 of the Gaza conflict and culminated in a major Israeli offensive. Hezbollah emerged a shadow of its former self, with its leaders and thousands of its fighters killed, its influence over the Lebanese state greatly diminished, and its Lebanese opponents gaining sway. In a measure of how far the tables have turned, the new government has declared it aims to establish a state monopoly on arms, meaning Hezbollah should disarm - as stipulated by the U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Israel. Against this backdrop, the election results so far indicate "the war didn't achieve the objective of downgrading Hezbollah's popularity in the community", said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center, a think tank. "On the contrary, many Shia now feel their fate is tied to Hezbollah's fate." Hezbollah's arms have long been a source of division in Lebanon, sparking a brief civil conflict in 2008. Critics say Hezbollah has unilaterally dragged Lebanon into hostilities. Foreign Minister Youssef Raji, a Hezbollah opponent, has said that Lebanon has been told there will be no reconstruction aid from foreign donors until the state establishes a monopoly on arms. Hezbollah, in turn, has put the onus on the government over reconstruction and accuses it of failing to take steps on that front, despite promises that the government is committed to it. DISARMAMENT TERMS Hage Ali said that conditioning reconstruction aid on disarmament was intended to expedite the process, but "it's difficult to see Hezbollah accepting this". Hezbollah says its weapons are now gone from the south, but links any discussion of its remaining arsenal to Israel's withdrawal from five positions it still holds, and an end to Israeli attacks. Israel says Hezbollah still has combat infrastructure including rocket launchers in the south, calling this "blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon". A French diplomatic source said reconstruction would not materialise if Israel continues striking and the Lebanese government does not act fast enough on disarmament. Donors also want Beirut to enact economic reforms. Hashem Haidar, head of the government's Council for the South, said the state lacks the funds to rebuild, but cited progress in rubble removal. Lebanon needs $11 billion for reconstruction and recovery, the World Bank estimates. In Nabatieh, a pile of rubble marks the spot where 71-year-old Khalil Tarhini's store once stood. It was one of dozens destroyed by Israeli bombardment in Nabatieh's central market. He has received no compensation, and sees little point in voting. Expressing a sense of abandonment, he said: "The state did not stand by us." The situation was very different in 2006, after a previous Hezbollah-Israel war. Aid flowed from Iran and Gulf Arab states. Hezbollah says it has aided 400,000 people, paying for rent, furniture and renovations. But the funds at its disposal appear well short of 2006, recipients say. Hezbollah says state authorities have obstructed funds arriving from Iran, though Tehran is also more financially strapped than two decades ago due to tougher U.S. sanctions and the reimposition of a "maximum pressure" policy by Washington. As for Gulf states, their spending on Lebanon dried up as Hezbollah became embroiled in regional conflicts and they declared it a terrorist group in 2016. Saudi Arabia has echoed the Lebanese government's position of calling for a state monopoly of arms. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said it was up to the government to secure reconstruction funding and that it was failing to take "serious steps" to get the process on track. He warned that the issue risked deepening divisions in Lebanon if unaddressed. "How can one part of the nation be stable while another is in pain?" he said, referring to Shi'ites in the south and other areas, including Beirut's Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs, hard hit by Israel. (Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Tom Perry in Beirut and Maha El Dahan in Dubai; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Once on civil war's frontline, Lebanon museum sees new life
By Emilie Madi and Maya Gebeily BEIRUT (Reuters) - When Lebanon's civil war erupted 50 years ago this month, its national museum became a flashpoint of its capital's deadly frontline, with militants barricaded among ancient sarcophagi and sniping through historic mosaics. Now, students and tourists roam through its artefacts - some still blackened by indoor campfires lit by those fighters - and into a new pavilion opened during Lebanon's most recent war last year, when Israel and armed group Hezbollah traded heavy fire. For its admirers, the building not only houses the country's heritage, but also symbolises its resilience. "I hope these young people I see here also know what happened in the museum in 1975, because what happened here is something worthy of respect," said Lebanon's culture minister Ghassan Salameh, speaking to Reuters in the main museum hall. "There is a right to forget. The Lebanese who want to forget the civil war – it's their right to do so. But there is also a duty to remember, so that we do not repeat it again, and again, and again." The war erupted on April 13, 1975, after Christian gunmen fired on a bus carrying Palestinian fighters in Beirut - just a few kilometres from the museum, which first opened in 1942. A frontline running directly adjacent to the museum split east Beirut from the west. After militants took up the museum as a barracks, the director of antiquities at the time, Maurice Chehab, ferried small artefacts to vaults at Lebanon's central bank and encased the larger pieces in reinforced concrete to protect them from shelling. At least four major pieces were damaged, Salameh said. They are visible in the museum today, including a football-sized hole in a floor-to-ceiling 5th century mosaic used by snipers to target rival militants near the front. The war lasted 15 years, leaving more than 100,000 dead and displacing hundreds of thousands more. Halfway through it, Israeli troops invaded all the way to Beirut and Hezbollah was founded the same year, vowing to push Israel out. In 2023, a new war erupted between the old foes, when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel, triggering a year of tit-for-tat strikes until Israel escalated its air and ground campaign, leaving Hezbollah badly weakened by the end of 2024. Even as that conflict was raging, the museum worked to open a new wing for rotating exhibitions. As construction was under way, archaeologists uncovered dozens of artefacts that Chehab had buried in the museum's backyard to protect them, said Sarkis Khoury, Lebanon's current director of antiquities. He spoke to Reuters while standing in front of an outer wall damaged during the civil war that museum authorities had decided to preserve as a testament to its resilience. "The things we left visible are a lesson for the future, because we are a country that should be a country of peace, a country of coexistence, because this is our history," said Sarkis Khoury, Lebanon's current director of antiquities. "Its face is full of wounds and wrinkles, but this is a beautiful face for Lebanon," Khoury told Reuters, gesturing at the pockmarked wall. Keeping the wall is a rare example of memory preservation in Lebanon, where other landmarks of the civil war have remained abandoned or were covered up by the rapid construction of high-rises once the conflict ended. The post-war administration agreed a general amnesty for all political crimes perpetrated before the war's end, and most school curriculums opt not to teach its history. Asked whether Lebanon should one day establish a museum dedicated solely to the civil war, Salameh, the minister, said no - because it had only "produced destruction." But he remained hopeful about his country's future. "This country has been declared dead dozens, even hundreds of times... but this part of the Mediterranean has remained standing, with its specificities and its problems." "It never ceases to be."
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UNRWA Lebanon says not impacted by US aid freeze or new Israeli law
By Emilie Madi BEIRUT (Reuters) - The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by U.S. President Donald Trump's halt to U.S. foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations. "UNRWA currently is not receiving any U.S. funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the U.N. system for UNRWA," Dorothee Klaus told reporters at UNRWA's field office in Lebanon. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. U.S. funding to UNRWA was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by U.S. lawmakers and after Israel accused 12 of the agency's 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war. The U.N. has said it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made. Klaus said that UNRWA Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the U.N. principle of neutrality. One UNRWA teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon - killed in September in an Israeli strike - was found to have had an UNRWA job. Klaus also said there was "no direct impact" on the agency's Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that "UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon." The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA's operation on Israeli land - including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally - and contact with Israeli authorities from Jan. 30. UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Its commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that UNRWA has been the target of a "fierce disinformation campaign" to "portray the agency as a terrorist organization."
