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LBCI
12-05-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
MP Gebran Bassil: Figures reflect our presence across all northern districts
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader MP Gebran Bassil emphasized his party's widespread presence and grassroots support during a press conference addressing the municipal elections in North Lebanon and Akkar. "We did not impose choices on people or families. We abided by their preferences, respected them, and supported them in their decisions. That's why we endorsed and voted for lists that included FPM members, supporters, or sympathizers," he said. Bassil said the FPM's presence on numerous electoral lists and their victories "reflect the strength of our representation in these areas and our ability to connect, engage, and succeed." He stressed that the election results demonstrate the party's reach across all districts of the North. Bassil also noted that the FPM adopted a cooperative approach throughout the electoral process. "We excluded no one and maintained openness and collaboration with all parties. This led to several consensus lists and uncontested victories, especially in Mount Lebanon, North Lebanon, and Akkar, in which we played a central role," he said. Citing the example of Jounieh, Bassil said it was a stark instance of what he called an "exclusionary mentality." "In Batroun, we faced a tripartite coalition of the Lebanese Forces, Kataeb, and former MP Boutros Harb. They entered strongholds that were historically tough for them, such as the city of Batroun, and we accepted their presence despite having a significant advantage," he added. "In contrast, they excluded us in Tannourine, and we ran independently with the youth of Tannourine, winning nearly a third of the vote." Bassil also pointed to Bcharre as another example of exclusion, saying the FPM list garnered 46% of the vote despite the "elimination of any differing voice."
L'Orient-Le Jour
05-05-2025
- Politics
- L'Orient-Le Jour
Aoun welcomes country's 'recovery,' Geagea evokes "'significant changes' after first round of municipal elections
Reacting to the municipal elections, the first round of which was launched on Sunday in the Mount Lebanon Governorate, President Joseph Aoun congratulated the winners, reminding them that taking responsibility begins "after the elections." In a brief statement, President Aoun, who oversaw the launch of the polls on Sunday morning from several administrations, welcomed the fact that "Lebanon is moving resolutely forward on the path to recovery, despite the crises and challenges it has faced." "Taking responsibility begins after the elections," he added, calling on the new municipal councilors and mokhtars to "serve citizens and respond to their needs," which "constitutes the fundamental objective" of their mandate. Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF), also welcomed the initial results of Mount Lebanon's municipal elections, saying they show growing support for the LF and the Kataeb Party as the month-long voting process begins. In a statement, Geagea stated that this "significant change" achieved in the new municipal councils," especially in the major cities, clearly indicates that citizens, regardless of political affiliation, are no longer satisfied with corruption or mismanagement at all levels." Geagea stressed that these results are "hopeful and confirm that Lebanon has entered a new phase," stating that the elections in other regions will not be less promising." The municipal elections will be held on Sunday 11th in North Lebanon, the 18th in the Bekaa and Beirut. On Saturday 24th (since Sunday the 25th is a holiday) voting will be held in the South, where entire villages have been devastated by the last war between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, and where a fragile cease-fire was declared last November 27. The elections in Mount Lebanon confirmed that the LF and the Kataeb are asserting themselves as the main political force on the Christian scene. Likely due to the increased popularity of Geagea's party, in a context of heightened political polarization around Hezbollah's arms., as well as the alliances concluded by this formation with various local actors. Most of the time, the LF were in coalition with the Kataeb, in addition to alliances with notable families and local political clans. By late Sunday evening, the LF-Kataeb alliance had notably claimed the entire municipal council of Jounieh and Jbeil, the two major Christian cities on the coast of Mount Lebanon. In the Metn district, the lists supported by the two parties were able to win the municipalities of Dbayeh and Jdeideh-Bauchrieh-Sed al-Bauchrieh (one of the largest in the region), still according to the initial results.
L'Orient-Le Jour
05-05-2025
- Politics
- L'Orient-Le Jour
Mount Lebanon municipal elections: First available results
The first day of voting in the municipal elections in Lebanon (awaited since 2022) proceeded relatively smoothly in Mount Lebanon. Find below the first available results by district. To recap, the election took place in the six districts of the Mount Lebanon governorate: Jbeil, Kesrouan, Metn, Baabda, Aley and the Chouf, where 333 municipal councils should be elected. Sixty-eight of them were elected unopposed at the end of the candidacy period, due to a lack of rival candidates. Jbeil Forty municipal councils should be elected. Results are available for the following localities: The list "Jbeil More Beautiful" (Lebanese Forces and allies) won all 18 seats on the municipal council of the city of Jbeil, according to our information. This list, endorsed by MP Ziad Hawat, obtained 1,700 votes against 700 for the opposing list "Jbeil's Decision," supported by the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and led by engineers Fadi Saad and Fadi Saliba. The list "Qartaba Merit," led by Fadi Martinos, president of the Union of Municipalities of Jbeil and outgoing president of the local municipal council, won the elections. Kesrouan Fifty-four municipal councils should be elected. Results are available for the following localities: The electoral machine of Farid Haykal al-Khazen claimed victory for the list "Jounieh's Resistance," which supposedly won all 18 seats of the municipal council. Led by Faysal Frem, this list is supported by the Lebanese Forces (LF), the Kataeb, as well as three major political figures of the region: MPs Neemat Frem, Farid al-Khazen and former MP Mansour al-Bon. The "Our Jounieh" list, led by Silvio Shiha, thus conceded defeat. In Aramoun, the municipal list led by Sakher Azar, supported by the LF, won the elections. Metn Fifty-six municipal councils should be elected. Results are available for the following localities: In Dbayeh, the list led by Nabih Tohmeh and supported by the Kataeb and the LF won the municipal elections. The municipality of Jdeideh-Boushrieh-Sed al-Boushrieh (the largest in the region) has, according to preliminary results, been won by the "It's Time" coalition, supported by the LF and the Kataeb, as well as MP Ibrahim Kanaan (former FPM) with whom the Armenian Tashnag joined forces. The Kataeb announced that their list won the municipal elections in their stronghold of Bikfaya. Nicole Gemayel thus becomes president of the municipal council and could bid for the presidency of the Union of Municipalities of Metn. The list led by Antoun Chakhtoura won the elections in Dekwaneh. The list supported by former minister Elias Murr won the municipal elections in Zalka and Bteghrin. The list supported by the FPM won the elections in Mansourieh. Baabda Fifty-eight municipal councils are to be elected. In Haret Hreik, the list of mukhtars"Gathering of Haret Hreik Families," supported by MP Alain Aoun, won the elections against candidates of the FPM, according to local channel MTV. In Hadath, in an election described as close, the list led by the outgoing president of the municipal council, Georges Aoun, supported by the FPM, captured all 18 seats against the list backed by the LF. The FPM also wins Ras al-Harf. In Hazmieh, the "Dialogue and Decision" list, led by Jean Asmar and supported by the Kataeb and the LF, won the elections. Asmar announced in an interview with the Al-Jadeed channel that he had won 80 percent of the votes. Aley Forty-nine municipal councils are to be elected. In Souk al-Gharb, the electoral machine of the FPM announced the victory of the list it supported. Chouf Seventy-six municipal councils are to be elected. The mukhtars ' list "Deir al-Qamar United" won the elections, according to our information. This list is supported by the LF, former minister Naji Boustani and families from Deir al-Qamar. Regarding the municipal council, only one out of 18 ballot boxes has been counted so far. The list "Our Village Deserves," led by Fadi Mahmoud, won the municipal elections in Barouk against that of César Mahmoud, supported by the Progressive Socialist Party, according to several local media. The list "Beiteddine United," led by Abdo Karam, captured all municipal seats in Beiteddine. In Joun, the list supported by the Amal movement and Hezbollah won the election against that supported by the LF, the FPM, the Communist Party and several independents, reports LBCI.
Arab News
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
1975 - Lebanon's civil war
LONDON: Even as the first edition of Arab News rolled off the presses on April 20, 50 years ago, it was already clear that 1975 was going to be a momentous year for news. Saudi Arabia was still recovering from the shock of the assassination the previous month of King Faisal, who on March 25 had been shot by an errant minor member of the royal family. Still to come that year lay other events of great import, among them the reopening on June 5 of the Suez Canal, eight years after it was closed by the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and the signing in Geneva on Sept. 4 of the Sinai Interim Agreement, under which Egypt and Israel committed to resolving their territorial differences by peaceful means. But it was the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon, one week before the launch of Arab News, that would dominate the news agenda not only for the remainder of 1975, but also for much of the following 15 years. Arab News's front page covered the assassination of Bashir Gemayel and Israel's invasion of West Beirut. There is still no universal agreement about the precise order of the fateful events that unfolded in the Christian Ain El-Remmaneh district of East Beirut on April 13, 1975, but the bald facts are indisputable. On a day that came to be known as Black Sunday, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a Christian congregation gathered on the pavement outside the Church of Notre Dame de la Delivrance after a family baptism. Four men, including the father of the child, were killed. One of the survivors was Pierre Gemayal, the Maronite Catholic founder and leader of Lebanon's right-wing Christian Kataeb (or Phalangist) Party, who was possibly the target of the attack. A terrible revenge was quickly exacted. Later that same day, a bus on which Palestinians were returning to a refugee camp from a political rally was ambushed by Phalangist gunmen who killed more than 20 of the passengers. In the words of Lebanese historian Fawwaz Traboulsi in his 2007 book 'A History of Modern Lebanon,' 'A war that was to last for 15 years had just begun.' Sectarian tensions had been rising in the country since the mass influx of Palestine Liberation Organization fighters to the south of the country in 1971 after their eviction from Jordan, but this was not the only cause of the civil war that erupted in April 1975. In truth, the long fuse that ignited the conflict in the former Ottoman region was lit more than half a century earlier by the imposition of the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, which was granted to France by the League of Nations after the First World War. Civil war begins when Palestinian gunmen open fire on Maronite Christian Phalangists outside a church in East Beirut. Phalangists retaliate by ambushing busload of Palestinians. Syrian troops enter Lebanon, ostensibly to protect Muslims from Christian forces. US-sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 425 calls on Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and establishes peacekeeping UN Interim Force in Lebanon. Israeli army invades and reaches suburbs of Beirut. In August, a multinational force arrives to oversee evacuation of PLO. After international force withdraws, Israel invades again, entering Beirut. Israeli troops stand by as Christian militiamen massacre thousands of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. A series of suicide truck bombings results in withdrawal of multinational forces from Lebanon: 63 people are killed at the US embassy on April 18; on Oct. 23, 241 US Marines and 58 French soldiers die in separate attacks on their barracks. The Taif Agreement, negotiated in Saudi Arabia and approved by the Lebanese parliament the following month, officially ends the civil war, though Maronite military leader Michel Aoun denounces it and stages a revolt that continues for another year. This framework, which gave Christians control of the government and parliament, was based on the results of a 1932 census. Over time, however, shifting demographics would undermine the credibility of this arrangement and its acceptability to certain groups who felt increasingly underrepresented. These demographic changes were accelerated dramatically by the fallout from the 1967 Six Day War between Arab states and Israel, during which large numbers of Palestinians took refuge in Jordan and, increasingly, southern Lebanon. These PLO fighters were welcomed as heroes by many of the tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the south of the country whose families had been forced to flee their homes during Israel's occupation of Palestine in 1948. By the eve of the civil war, many other factors had conspired to push the country to the brink of conflict, including a socioeconomic crisis in which the cost-of-living was soaring even as wealth was becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a privileged few political dynasties. In the three decades after gaining independence from France in 1943, Lebanon had enjoyed a golden age. Beneath the surface, however, tensions between Christian and Muslim communities were mounting, exacerbated by what Traboulsi described as 'class, sectarian and regional inequalities.' Just as Lebanon had avoided direct involvement in the Six Day War against Israel in 1967, it also kept out of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War — but once again could not escape the fallout. By 1973, the Lebanese army had already clashed with the PLO, which was now firmly established in Lebanon, but the stark divisions in society really became apparent when demonstrations broke out in support of Egypt and Syria's war on Israel. After it was fully unleashed on that fateful April day in 1975, the civil war escalated rapidly and brutally. In 1976 alone, Phalangist Christians killed hundreds of Palestinians in Karantina in northeastern Beirut. In retaliation, the PLO attacked Damour, a Maronite town south of Beirut, massacring hundreds of Christians. In response, Christian militias assaulted the Tel Al-Za'atar refugee camp, killing at least 2,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians. As the civil war continued it drew in other forces, the presence of which only worsened an already complex situation: Syrian troops, the Israeli army, Israel-backed militias, a peacekeeping UN Interim Force in Lebanon, and joint US-French-Italian multinational forces. Massacres, bombings, assassinations and kidnappings became commonplace, and not without consequences. The 1983 bombings of the US embassy, a US Marines barracks and the headquarters of the French military contingent in Beirut led to the withdrawal of multinational forces. Beirut residents watch a controlled demolition during rebuilding efforts in the Lebanese capital, which is recovering from 16 years of civil strife. AFP In the end, it fell to the Saudis to bring the various participants to the negotiating table. On Oct. 22, 1989, three weeks of talks in the Saudi city of Taif between Muslim and Christian members of the Lebanese parliament concluded with agreement on a national 'reconciliation charter.' Inevitably, the conflict was not quite over. Maronite military leader Michel Aoun, whose appointment as prime minister of a military government the previous year had been widely contested, denounced those who signed the agreement as traitors. The fighting that ensued between Aoun's forces and the Christian Lebanese Forces militia destroyed much of Christian East Beirut. Aoun's revolt, and the civil war itself, ended on Oct. 13, 1990, when Syrian troops attacked the presidential palace in Baabda. Aoun fled and was granted political asylum in France. After 15 years and six months, the war was finally over. During that time, more than 150,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were displaced from their homes, and an estimated 250,000 Lebanese emigrated. Another bloody chapter in the country's troubled history had been written. It would be far from the last.
Asharq Al-Awsat
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
50 Years after Lebanon's Civil War Began, a Bullet-riddled Bus Stands as a Reminder
It was an ordinary day in Beirut. In one part of Lebanon's capital, a church was inaugurated, with the leader of the Christian Kataeb party there. In another, Palestinian factions held a military parade. Kataeb and Palestinians had clashed, again, that morning. What happened next on April 13, 1975, would change the course of Lebanon, plunging it into 15 years of civil war that would kill about 150,000 people, leave 17,000 missing and lead to foreign intervention. Beirut became synonymous with snipers, kidnappings and car bombs. Lebanon has never fully grappled with the war's legacy, and in many ways it has never fully recovered, 50 years later. The government on Sunday marked the anniversary with a small ceremony and minute of silence, a rare official acknowledgement of the legacy of the conflict. The massacre Unrest had been brewing. Palestinian militants had begun launching attacks against Israel from Lebanese territory. Leftist groups and many Muslims in Lebanon sympathized with the Palestinian cause. Christians and some other groups saw the Palestinian militants as a threat. At the time, Mohammad Othman was 16, a Palestinian refugee in the Tel al-Zaatar camp east of Beirut. Three buses had left camp that morning, carrying students like him as well as militants from a coalition of hardline factions that had broken away from the Palestinian Liberation Organization. They passed through the Ein Rummaneh neighborhood without incident and joined the military parade. The buses were supposed to return together, but some participants were tired after marching and wanted to go back early. They hired a small bus from the street, Othman said. Thirty-three people packed in. They were unaware that earlier that day, small clashes had broken out between Palestinians and Kataeb Party members guarding the church in Ein Rummaneh. A bodyguard for party leader Pierre Gemayel had been killed. Suddenly the road was blocked, and gunmen began shooting at the bus 'from all sides,' Othman recalled. Some passengers had guns they had carried in the parade, Othman said, but they were unable to draw them quickly in the crowded bus. A camp neighbor fell dead on top of him. The man's 9-year-old son was also killed. Othman was shot in the shoulder. 'The shooting didn't stop for about 45 minutes until they thought everyone was dead,' he said. Othman said paramedics who eventually arrived had a confrontation with armed men who tried to stop them from evacuating him, The Associated Press said. Twenty-two people were killed. Conflicting narratives Some Lebanese say the men who attacked the bus were responding to an assassination attempt against Gemayel by Palestinian militants. Others say the Kataeb had set up an ambush intended to spark a wider conflict. Marwan Chahine, a Lebanese-French journalist who wrote a book about the events of April 13, 1975, said he believes both narratives are wrong. Chahine said he found no evidence of an attempt to kill Gemayel, who had left the church by the time his bodyguard was shot. And he said the attack on the bus appeared to be more a matter of trigger-happy young men at a checkpoint than a 'planned operation.' There had been past confrontations, "but I think this one took this proportion because it arrived after many others and at a point when the authority of the state was very weak,' Chahine said. The Lebanese army had largely ceded control to militias, and it did not respond to the events in Ein Rummaneh that day. The armed Palestinian factions had been increasingly prominent in Lebanon after the PLO was driven out of Jordan in 1970, and Lebanese Christians had also increasingly armed themselves. 'The Kataeb would say that the Palestinians were a state within a state,' Chahine said. 'But the reality was, you had two states in a state. Nobody was following any rules." Selim Sayegh, a member of parliament with the Kataeb Party who was 14 and living in Ein Rummaneh when the fighting started, said he believes war had been inevitable since the Lebanese army backed down from an attempt to take control of Palestinian camps two years earlier. Sayegh said men at the checkpoint that day saw a bus full of Palestinians with 'weapons apparent' and "thought that is the second wave of the operation' that started with the killing of Gemayel's bodyguard. The war unfolded quickly from there. Alliances shifted. New factions formed. Israel and Syria occupied parts of the country. The United States intervened, and the US embassy and Marine barracks were targeted by bombings. Beirut was divided between Christian and Muslim sectors. In response to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, a Shiite militant group was formed in the early 1980s with Iranian backing: Hezbollah. It would grow to be arguably the most powerful armed non-state group in the region. Hezbollah was the only militant group allowed to keep its weapons after Lebanon's civil war, given special status as a 'resistance force' because Israel was still in southern Lebanon. After the group was badly weakened last year in a war with Israel that ended with a ceasefire, there has been increasing pressure for it to disarm. The survivors Othman said he became a fighter after the war started because 'there were no longer schools or anything else to do.' Later he would disarm and became a pharmacist. He remembers being bewildered when a peace accord in 1989 ushered in the end of civil war: 'All this war and bombing, and in the end they make some deals and it's all over.' Of the 10 others who survived the bus attack, he said, three were killed a year later when Christian militias attacked the Tel al-Zaatar camp. Another was killed in a 1981 bombing at the Iraqi embassy. A couple died of natural causes, one lives in Germany, and he has lost track of the others. The bus has also survived, as a reminder. Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the attack, it was towed from storage on a farm to the private Nabu Museum in Heri, north of Beirut. Visitors took photos with it and peered into bullet holes in its rusted sides. Ghida Margie Fakih, a museum spokesperson, said the bus will remain on display indefinitely as a 'wake-up call' to remind Lebanese not to go down the path of conflict again. The bus 'changed the whole history in Lebanon and took us somewhere that nobody wanted to go,' she said.
