Middle East & Arab World Lebanon January 2024-

Reform or Recklessness? Which Path for the Arab Region?
(Carnegie Endowment) …there is the third category of Arab states, namely failing and failed states. Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen are all prime examples of such states. Ironically, all of them have diverse societies ethnically and religiously. But instead of realizing that diversity is a source of strength, which should result in a healthy exchange of ideas and openness of minds, these countries have allowed diversity to divide their societies, with different communities fighting or in conflict with each other, a process that is often difficult to reverse.
Lebanon offers a particularly stark example. Even though it is not presently a victim of civil war (it has gone through several already) its dysfunctional political system, characterized by corruption across the political spectrum, has led the country to economic disaster. Yet no matter how bad the situation becomes, the political elite is unwilling to do anything, including agreeing to the implementation of a much-needed International Monetary Fund reform package, preferring to ruin the country rather than give up any of its privileges. (August 2023)

8 September
US suggests Lebanon-Israel land swap in bid to end border conflicts – Al-Jarida
(Jerusalem Post) According to the report, the Israeli side reiterated its main demand for a complete military withdrawal of Hezbollah to 10 km away from the border, a demand that the organization currently rejects.
American officials recently proposed, in a virtual meeting with their Israeli counterparts, a land swap between Lebanon and Israel as part of a comprehensive agreement to end the border conflicts and resolve the land dispute between the two countries, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported on Sunday.
According to the report, the Israeli side reiterated its main demand for a complete military withdrawal of Hezbollah to 10 km away from the border, a demand that the organization currently rejects.

4 September
42 million: Lebanon’s former Central Bank Gov. Riad Salamehhas been charged with embezzling as much as $42 million. Salameh, who served in the post from 1993 until 2023, was once hailed as a hero for righting the country’s finances after 15 years of civil war, but with Lebanon mired in a deep financial crisis, he resigned last year under suspicion of malfeasance. He was arrested earlier this week.
Former Lebanese central bank governor charged with embezzling $42m in ongoing corruption probe
(AP) — Lebanon charged its embattled former central bank governor Wednesday with the embezzlement of $42 million, three judicial officials told The Associated Press.
Riad Salameh, 73, was charged by the Financial Public Prosecution a day after he was detained following an interrogation by Lebanon’s top public prosecutor over several alleged financial crimes.
His case has been transferred to an investigating judge, the officials added, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Salameh ended his 30-year term as central bank governor a year ago under a cloud, with several European countries probing allegations of financial crimes. Many in Lebanon blame him for the crippling financial crisis that has gripped the country since late 2019.

25-26 August
Its economy and infrastructure battered, can Lebanon afford a war with Israel?
(AP) The risks for Lebanon are far greater than in 2006, when a monthlong war with Israel ended in a draw. Lebanon has struggled with years of political and economic crises that left it indebted, without a stable electricity supply, a proper banking system and with rampant poverty.
And with Hezbollah’s military power significantly greater, there are concerns that a new war would be far more destructive and prolonged.
… The government and U.N. agencies prepared a comprehensive response plan this month outlining two possible scenarios: a limited escalation that would resemble the 2006 war, with an estimated 250,000 people displaced, and a worst-case scenario of “uncontrolled conflict” that would displaced at least 1 million people.
The U.N.-drafted plan, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, projects a monthly cost of $50 million in case of a limited escalation and $100 million if an all-out war breaks out
Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in what it’s calling a preemptive strike
(NPR) The Israeli military said early on Sunday that it had launched a series of preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon based on intelligence it says indicated that the militant group was planning an attack.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a video on X that the military acted in “self defense” to “remove these threats.”

21 August
Palestinian commander killed in Lebanon as Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire
Suspected Israeli drone raid on a car in southern Lebanon kills a commander from a coalition of Palestinians armed groups.
(Al Jazeera) A suspected Israeli drone attack on a car in southern Lebanon has killed a commander from a coalition of Palestinian armed groups as tensions remain high along the Israel-Lebanon border.
The attack targeted a car in the city of Sidon on Wednesday morning, killing Khalil al-Maqdah, a senior officer of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Israel and Hezbollah Trade Cross-Border Strikes
The strikes, in eastern Lebanon and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, underscored how months of talks have failed to stop either the war in Gaza or the related conflict along the Lebanese border.
(NYT) Israel said that it had struck weapons storage facilities used by Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-backed militia, in eastern Lebanon for the second time this week. The overnight airstrikes, close to the Syrian border, killed at least one person and injured 30 others, including children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
Hezbollah said that in response it had targeted an Israeli military base in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

17 August
As war looms over Lebanon, refugees wonder how they will survive
Syrians and Sudanese nationals are trapped between war raging in their own countries and a war looming over Lebanon.

9 August
Echoes of 2006: Israel, Hezbollah, and the potential for regional war
Jeffrey Feltman
(Brookings) A momentous guessing game of three questions has entered its second week. When and how will Hezbollah and Iran retaliate for the assassinations of Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30 and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31? How will Israel respond to what will presumably be a coordinated Hezbollah-Iranian attack? Most alarming, will these actions tip the Middle East into the full-scale regional war feared ever since Hamas’s October 7 attack and the start of the massive Israeli military campaign in Gaza?
… Both the Israelis and Hezbollah have studied and learned from the 2006 war, on the assumption that another war is inevitable and that each side must be better prepared. Unlike the situation with Hamas before October 7, Israel has fully understood the potential lethality of Hezbollah’s weaponry and methods and has for years focused on disrupting and countering the weapons flows from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is also stronger militarily and politically than in 2006. As has been widely reported, its tunnel network has expanded, and its arsenals, dispersed across Lebanon, are exponentially larger, with more numerous and more advanced weaponry that can reach virtually all of Israel.

3 August
‘Leave now,’ UK tells British nationals in Lebanon
U.S. embassy in Beirut encourages American citizens in the country “to book any ticket available
(Politico Eu) Israel’s retaliatory airstrike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday, which killed a top commander of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, sparked concerns that all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah could break out.
The conflict with Israel had entered a “new phase,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Thursday, pledging that “the response will come, whether spread out or simultaneously.”

31 July
‘Leave now’: Government tells Canadians in Lebanon there’s no guarantee of evacuation

27-30 July
Don’t bomb Beirut: U.S. leads push to rein in Israel’s response
(Reuters) – Washington is racing to avert a full-blown war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah after the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan killed 12 youths at the weekend, according to the five people who include Lebanese and Iranian officials plus Middle Eastern and European diplomats.
The focus of the high-speed diplomacy has been to constrain Israel’s response by urging it against targeting densely populated Beirut, the southern suburbs of the city that form Hezbollah’s heartland, or key infrastructure like airports and bridges, said the sources who requested anonymity to discuss confidential details that haven’t been previously reported.

Israel says it targets senior Hezbollah commander in strike on Beirut
(Reuters) – The Israeli military said it carried out a targeted strike in Beirut on Tuesday against the Hezbollah commander it said was responsible for a strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers at the weekend.
“The IDF carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians,” the Israeli Defence Forces said in a statemen
Anxiety, resignation in Beirut as residents worry about an Israeli attack
People in the Lebanese capital are fearful that an Israeli operation following Golan Heights attack could hit Beirut.
The UN Offers an Off-Ramp from All-Out War Between Hezbollah and Israel
UN peacekeepers can make a difference
(Global Dispatches) Because of previous steps taken by the United Nations, many of the pieces for a diplomatic solution to this crisis are already in place. It does not have to be invented from scratch. There is already an international agreement, Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and a restoration of Lebanese sovereignty south the Litani river. There’s already the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, able to verify this withdrawal. The UN has dramatically lowered the transaction costs associated with a diplomatic solution to this crisis. The only thing missing is agreement by Israel and Hezbollah.
So long as the conflict in Gaza persists, Hezbollah may be reluctant to be perceived to to be entering an agreement with Israel. And Israel may still believe there is a military solution to the Hezbollah threat. … The UN has provided an off-ramp for this crisis. Israeli and Hezbollah leaders now need the wisdom to take it.
Netanyahu vows retaliation against Hezbollah after weekend strike as US warns against escalation
(AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed heavy retaliation against Hezbollah amid furious diplomatic efforts to prevent a spiral into regional war following a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Israel has blamed Hezbollah for Saturday evening’s rocket from Lebanon that slammed into a soccer field where the children were playing in the mainly Druze town of Majdal Shams. In an unusual move, Hezbollah denied any role in the strike.
Israel strikes Lebanon as diplomats try to prevent regional war
(The Guardian) Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon overnight as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 children in the occupied Golan Heights.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike, claiming that a projectile from Israel’s Iron Dome defence system had hit the town, countering a volley of rocket fire the group said had targeted Israeli military sites.
In an apparent initial retaliation for the attack, Israel conducted a series of airstrikes on towns in southern Lebanon overnight on Saturday, as well as one close to the Bekaa valley.
At least 11 killed in rocket attack in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
Lebanese group Hezbollah rejects Israeli accusation it was behind attack that hit a football pitch in Druze town of Majdal Shams.
(Al Jazeera) The cross-border attacks, which Hezbollah said it launched in solidarity with the Palestinian people amid Israel’s war on Gaza, have led to fears of a larger regional conflagration.
The attack on the football pitch followed an Israeli attack in Lebanon that killed four fighters on Saturday.
Two security sources in Lebanon said the four fighters killed in the Israeli attack on Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon were members of different armed groups, with at least one of them belonging to Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah after identifying fighters entering the building.
Hezbollah claimed it carried out at least four attacks, including with Katyusha rockets, in retaliation for the Kfar Kila attacks.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he would fly home early from his trip to the United States, where he met several senior US officials.

16 July
Smoke on the horizon – Israel and Hezbollah edge closer to all-out war
As the war in Gaza grinds on, there are growing fears another Middle East war may erupt – with devastating consequences for the region, and beyond.
(BBC) Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah (backed by Iran) have been trading fire across their shared border for the past nine months. If this conflict escalates to all-out war, it could dwarf the destruction in Gaza, draw in Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, spread embers around the Middle East and embroil the US. Iran itself could intervene directly.
The United Nations has warned of a “catastrophe beyond imagination”.
For now, a low-level war simmers in the summer heat, along a 120km (75 mile) stretch of border. One spark here could set the Middle East alight.

6 July
Israel and Hezbollah Lurch Closer to War – US and French diplomats are racing to avert a far broader conflict.
(Bloomberg) …even as Israel dispatches its intelligence chief to Qatar for talks after Hamas signaled broad agreement with a US plan for a cease-fire in Gaza. To the north, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the US sees a grim “momentum” toward a wider war. Tensions rose as Israel killed a senior Hezbollah in an airstrike in southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah responded by launching more than 200 missiles and a swarm of drones at Israel.

17-26 June
Erdogan says Turkey stands with Lebanon as tensions rise with Israel
(Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey stood in solidarity with Lebanon amid growing tensions with Israel on Wednesday and called on regional countries to also support Beirut.
Cross-border strains between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been escalating in recent weeks, stoking fears of an all-out Israel-Hezbollah war. Shelling across Israel’s northern border has led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from areas on both sides of the frontier.
Hezbollah’s ‘axis of resistance’ allies waiting in reserve to fight Israel
Analysts believe that an expanded conflict could encourage foreign fighters to support Hezbollah and fight Israel.
(Al Jazeera) The most closely watched border in the Middle East lies between Israel and Lebanon, the site of eight months of tit-for-tat attacks and a possible Israeli land assault on its northern neighbour.
Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to intensify attacks, saying they’re necessary to defeat Hezbollah and return 90,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes in the north since fighting started in early October.
But as Israel’s rhetoric escalates, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has responded with defiance, warning that such a conflict would not only impact Israel more than it thinks, but that it would be felt regionally.
Backing Hezbollah up regionally, analysts say, is the so-called “axis of resistance”, a regional network of armed groups, backed by Iran, who have started to make their presence known since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza.
Netanyahu says Israel is winding down its Gaza operations. But he warns a Lebanon war could be next
(AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the current phase of fighting against Hamas in Gaza is winding down, setting the stage for Israel to send more troops to its northern border to confront the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The comments threatened to further heighten the tensions between Israel and Hezbollah at a time when they appear to be moving closer to war. Netanyahu also signaled that there is no end in sight for the grinding war in Gaza.
The Israeli leader said in a lengthy TV interview that while the army is close to completing its current ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, that would not mean the war against Hamas is over. But he said fewer troops would be needed in Gaza, freeing up forces to battle Hezbollah.
‘Intense phase of war with Hamas about to end,’ focus to shift to Lebanon border, Netanyahu says
(CNN) Netanyahu also told Channel 14 Television that “after the end of the intense phase, we will have the possibility to shift some of the power north, and we will do it.”
“First of all, for protection purposes, and secondly, to bring our residents home as well. If we can do it politically, that would be great. If not, we will do it in another way, but we will bring everyone back home – all the residents of the north and the south,” he added.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East, has been carrying out deadly attacks from southern Lebanon targeting areas in northern Israel since October 8, the day after the Hamas attacks on Israel.
Israel has responded to Hezbollah’s attacks with strikes that have killed Hezbollah militants, among them senior commanders.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel due to ongoing conflict. Villages across southern Lebanon have also emptied.
The increase in cross-border attacks in recent weeks has intensified concerns about the possible outbreak of another full-fledged conflict in the Middle East.
US officials have serious concerns that in the event of a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah, as the Iran-backed militant group could overwhelm Israel’s air defenses in the north — including the much-vaunted Iron Dome air defense system.

Israel and Hizbollah’s dangerous slide towards all-out war
A week of belligerent rhetoric underscores the threat of escalation
(FT editorial board) After months of cross-border clashes between Hizbollah and Israel, the rhetoric between the two foes has escalated to worrying new levels. Israel says it has approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon”; Hizbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, says it would fight “without rules” and “without limits”. The threats may be bluster, but they raise the risk of a miscalculation that could lead to all-out war. The reckless baiting should stop.
The sabre-rattling underlines the dangerous game both sides have been playing for months. Clashes first erupted after Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza. Hizbollah launched rockets at Israel the following day. The Lebanese group and Israel have since traded fire with increasing ferocity, striking ever deeper into each other’s territory and pushing the boundaries of traditional red lines.
At any other time, this would already have been deemed a full-blown conflict. Israeli strikes have killed more than 300 Hizbollah fighters and dozens of civilians. Hizbollah’s attacks have killed more than two dozen soldiers and civilians. Tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides.

A Biden adviser visits Israel as the military warns of a ‘wider escalation’ with Hezbollah
A White House adviser met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday as the Israeli military warned that the Lebanese militia Hezbollah was risking a wider confrontation with its cross-border strikes against Israel.
The adviser, Amos Hochstein, who has overseen previous talks between Israel and Lebanon, was meeting with Israeli leaders amid swelling concerns that the confrontation with Hezbollah, a powerful militia and Lebanese political faction backed by Iran, could grow into all-out war. Several Israeli news outlets reported that Mr. Hochstein was holding talks aimed at preventing a further escalation.

11-12 June
Hezbollah vows further vengeance on Israel after strike kills commander
The waves of rockets are a dramatic escalation in the simmering border crisis even as negotiations over a Gaza cease-fire reach a delicate moment.
(WaPo) At the funeral, Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine vowed to increase operations “in intensity, strength, quantity and quality” in retaliation. The volume of the barrage, which the Israel Defense Forces said involved at least two waves of some 170 projectiles, represented a major escalation in the simmering battle on Israel’s northern border that is constantly threatening to explode into all-out war.
The Israeli strike Tuesday on the southern Lebanese town of Jwaya killed Talib Abdallah, along with three other Hezbollah members, the group announced. …
The Israeli military confirmed Abdallah’s killing in a Telegram post Wednesday, describing him as “one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders in southern Lebanon” and saying he was responsible for planning and carrying out “a large number” of attacks against Israeli civilians.
On the Israel-Lebanon border, a war is unfolding in slow motion
Israel is under growing domestic pressure to halt Hezbollah rocket fire and allow more than 60,000 displaced civilians to return to their homes in the north.

14-15 February
Israeli airstrikes killed 10 Lebanese civilians in a single day. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate
(AP) — The civilian death toll from two Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon has risen to 10, Lebanese state media reported Thursday, making the previous day the deadliest in more than four months of cross-border exchanges.
Israel’s military said it killed a senior commander with the militant Hezbollah group’s elite Radwan Force, Ali Dibs, who it says played a role in an attack inside Israel last year that unnerved Israelis, as well as other attacks directed at Israel over the past four months. It said Dibs was killed Wednesday along with his deputy Hassan Ibrahim Issa, as well as another Hezbollah operative, in a strike in the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
A look at the arsenals of Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia as cross-border strikes escalate
(AP) — The slow-simmering cross-border conflict between Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and Israeli forces escalated Wednesday, reviving fears that the daily clashes could expand into an all-out war.
A rocket fired from Lebanon struck the northern Israeli town of Safed, killing a 20-year-old female soldier and wounding at least eight people.
Israel responded with airstrikes that killed at least 10 people in southern Lebanon, including a Syrian woman, her two children, four members of another family and three Hezbollah fighters. At least nine people were wounded.
9 January
Israel-Hamas War: Hezbollah Says a Commander Was Killed in a Strike in Lebanon
A Lebanese security official said the commander was part of Hezbollah’s Radwan unit, which Israel says aims to infiltrate its northern border.
The death of a Hezbollah commander stokes fears of a widening war.

6-7 January
Israel’s talk of expanding war to Lebanon alarms U.S.
An American intelligence assessment found that it would be difficult for Israel to succeed in a war against Hezbollah amid ongoing fighting in Gaza
(WaPo) President Biden has dispatched his top aides to the Middle East with a critical objective: Prevent a full-blown war from erupting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Israel has made clear it views as untenable the regular exchange of fire between its forces and Hezbollah along the border and may soon launch a major military operation in Lebanon.
Israel says Hezbollah struck sensitive air traffic base in the north and warns of ‘another war’
(AP) — Hezbollah has struck an air traffic control base in northern Israel, the Israeli military said Sunday, and warned of “another war” with the Iran-backed militant group
Israel, Hezbollah trade fire across Lebanon border amid alarm over Gaza war spillover
(Reuters) – Air raid sirens sounded across northern Israel on Saturday as Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at Israel, and Israel said it struck a “terrorist cell” in retaliation, as top U.S. and EU diplomats visited the region seeking to keep the war from spreading.

2-3 January
Saleh al-Arouri: Hamas leader’s death ‘won’t go unpunished’, says Hezbollah chief
(BBC) Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, says the killing of Hamas’s powerful deputy leader will “not go unpunished”.
Saleh al-Arouri died in a drone attack in Beirut on Tuesday. Israel has not confirmed it was responsible.
Mr Nasrallah described Arouri’s death as a “major, dangerous crime about which we cannot be silent”.
He added that if Israel wages war on Lebanon “there will be no ceilings, no rules” to Hezbollah’s response.
Mossad chief says Israel is committed to finding and killing all Hamas leaders
Comments by David Barnea follow assassination of Hamas deputy political chief Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon
Israel has not formally accepted responsibility for the strike in a southern Beirut suburb that killed Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy political chief of Hamas.
Senior Hamas figure Saleh al-Arouri killed in Lebanon
Death of Arouri in Israeli drone strike on Beirut suburb threatens significant escalation of war in region