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The scenes of joy and vengeance in Damascus recall the outpouring in Baghdad in 2003 when Saddam Hussein, and his statues, were toppled after years of rule by the same bloody political Ba’athist ideology that has held sway in the region for 77 years. But beware the risks of De-Ba’athification like in Iraq.
Returning to their destroyed villages in the south, Lebanese found no one waiting for them. Others have no possibility to return. Meanwhile, Israel considers it just a 60-day pause in fighting. What deal was cut behind closed doors?
The Israeli Prime Minister has been clear: The ceasefire in Lebanon will allow him to focus on Iran and on Syria, through which Hezbollah’s weapons are transported. But the underlying factors are Iran’s nuclear program and Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
France caused a stir by declaring that the Israeli leader enjoyed “immunity” from the ICC arrest warrant. It’s a legal statement, but also a highly political one, as Israel has threatened to remove France from the Lebanese Ceasefire Monitoring Committee. Human rights activists are appalled.
One might think that the rush to announce the completion of the deal refers to its preemptive failure with each party blaming the other for this failure. But there are many moving parts in the negotiations, like there are in the region.
Israel and Lebanon have reached a U.S. and France-brokered ceasefire agreement. It’s an intricate agreement that requires a withdrawal of Israeli forces within 60 days, contingent on Hezbollah retreating north. And it shifts focus, allowing the war in Gaza to continue unabated.
The Arab nations and people are facing a general state of failure that includes actions of regimes, societies and political parties, armed militias, national liberation and resistance movements. And while Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Lebanon is abhorrent, Arabs hold most of the responsibility.
After recovering from a series of crises in recent years — Lebanon’s economic collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic — the country’s national basketball team is playing qualifiers for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup to be held in Saudi Arabia. With their country embroiled in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, the team’s players have infused social importance in their matches.
The Shia question is an expression of the entire Lebanese question, and requires the good will of all faiths, but also poses the responsibility of what to think and do about Hezbollah.
A video in the summer of 2023 showed Julia Alli playing the piano in her home southern Lebanon. In the fall of 2024, a new video emerges of Israeli soldiers in the ruble of that home and piano. For writer Badia Fahs, the contrast also links to the story of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning Holocaust drama The Pianist.
A photographer captured the seasoned Iranian official Ali Larijani laughing on his visit Thursday to Beirut, fully aware of what laughter means in such a situation. The seasoned Iranian diplomat knows that many Lebanese hold his regime responsible for dragging their country into a bloody, senseless, and destructive war.
In more than a year since the Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalated, news of bombing has become a habit in Lebanon. In an essay for the Beirut-based independent media Daraj, Lebanese journalist Pascale Sawma discusses how war has become “normal” — and what that means for her and her work.
Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri has made a notable public quip about Donald Trump signing a pledge to end the violence in Lebanon in a famous café in Dearborn, Michigan. Everyone is trying to read between the lines, even as thousands are dying across Lebanon since Israel launched its offensive.
With the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, we must expect a major shift in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a return to the vision of the “Abrahamic Peace,” which includes no reference to the Palestinians’ right to a state.
Will the Arabs take the initiative to take tangible measures before the fire reaches their countries, or will they be forced to be mere tools and bases to protect Israel? After the six-day war of 1967, the Three No’s of an Arab Summit set a new hardline. That should be the model now.
The legacy of Hassan Nasrallah will weigh heavily on Naim Qassem, who was named this week as new secretary general of Hezbollah. Can the less charismatic Qassem win the hearts of his followers?
We, the children of “front edge” villages, have seen thousands of homes disappear into rubble. Our loss is not limited to memories and dreams, but also to the stories of our villages.
Israel’s new offensive in northern Gaza is trying to make the region uninhabitable, and force Palestinians into the south, toward the Egyptian border and into the Sinai. But since the start of the war, Egypt is dead set against taking in more war refugees.
In the Middle East and North Africa, divisions are as stark as they can be. War-torn nations stand side-by-side with wealthy oil-rich countries where the elites feel disconnected from the rest of the region. But, as Yemeni freelance journalist and a human rights defender Afrah Nasser, warns, these inequalities breed monsters, and wealth will not prevent oil-rich countries from experiencing chaos and destruction.
Around 80 countries are taking part in the ‘International Conference in Support of the People and Sovereignty of Lebanon’ in Paris on Thursday. And yet, nobody is even talking about stopping the war.
“Then the white man found the Middle East: a distant place, rich in nature and humanity, with a beautiful climate. He invaded it, then divided it, then separated the sections accordingly.”
The question of who will succeed Yahya Sinwar is essentially a question of whether Hamas will return from its “Iranian exile” and embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lebanese writer Tarek Ismail, who fled his village in southern Lebanon in September, reflects on his new life as a displaced person: “I am now facing a fate that is not in my hands.”
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack is just the latest Israeli strike against those who have tried to monopolize the notion of “resistance” as a purely military pursuit. The result has been the absolute destruction of Gaza, and now Lebanon, and the reinforcement of the Israeli occupation.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and above all ‘mastermind’ of October 7, is dead. Washington and Paris are calling on Israel to seize this opportunity to put an end to the war, but Netanyahu may choose to cash in another dividend.
Observers believe that the military operations targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid in northern Gaza is the prelude to Israel reoccupying the region and establishing Jewish settlements.
Israel is on the hunt in Lebanon one more time, with apparent early successes. But it has again ignored the fact that something always rises from the ashes.
The Israeli Prime Minister is demanding that UN peacekeepers leave the combat zones in southern Lebanon, in yet another crisis in the difficult relations between Israel and the United Nations. But this could be the point of no return.
Benjamin Netanyahu escaped the growing calls to stop the war in Gaza and bring the hostages back, by launching another war on Hezbollah. It’s a taste of what’s to come.
Initially presented as “limited,” Israeli operations have escalated sharply in Lebanon, and the Israeli Prime Minister has called on the country’s citizens to rise up against Hezbollah. What is Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim in this war?
As Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon intensify, following the unprecedented exploding pagers attack, the severely injured get care inside Geitawi General Hospital that aims to salvage their forever altered lives.
Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly urged the Lebanese to turn on Hezbollah, as he drops bombs that kill thousands of civilians. But every citizen knows what an occupier looks like.
The Lebanese coastal metropolis has long been a source of inspiration and freedom for Baghdad native poet Aya Mansour. As Israel sends ground troops into Lebanon, she asks how the world can watch as fire and smoke covers the beauty of Beirut without saying a word.
When Emmanuel Macron called for an embargo on arms supplies to Israel, he was aiming at the United States, following the failure of the attempted ceasefire in Lebanon. Paris even speaks of ‘duplicity’ by Washington and Israel. It’s just the latest example of the failure of diplomacy in the face of the “logic of war.”
It’s clearer than ever that Israel — backed by a number of militarily and economically powerful countries that claim to abide by international law and human rights — continues to destroy these laws and standards that are based on the equality of all human beings.
When Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on a stronghold in Beirut, journalist Khaled Dawoud recalled his meeting with the head of Hezbollah more than two decades ago, and gauges how his death marks the end of an era of confrontation with Israel.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei vowed on Friday that the country’s regional allies would “not back down” against Israel. Yet neither criticism of Tehran has been growing among Hezbollah supporters since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel has targeted Hashem Safieddine, the younger cousin of slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, in an overnight air strike early Friday. Believed to be the heir apparent, Safieddine rose through the ranks and positions within the organizational structure. He also has very strong ties, and family connections, with hardliners in Iran.
Israel doesn’t know how far it will push into Lebanon, a great deal will depend on how much resistance they face. All of it adds up to a tragedy-in-the-making for the people of Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out a careful plot to push and ultimately shatter the long-established “rules of engagement” in the Middle East. It caught everyone, from Iran to Hezbollah to the White House, by surprise. The aim is to remake the whole region to revolve around Israel.