The widely believed inability of Lebanon to control Hezbollah has sparked fears among Lebanese that the Iranian-backed group will join Hamas’ war against Israel and dragged their troubled nation back to a dark chapter in history.
country: Lebanon
Stay updated with comprehensive news on Lebanon from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Lebanese politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Beirut, Lebanese history, and cultural events.
Lebanon’s recent elections have shrunk the legislative block led by national power-brokers Hezbollah. But will a precarious new majority be able to rid the government of the long shadow of Tehran?
Glittering virtual lounges are popping up, inviting people to participate, solely by audio, in debates on all subjects. And, in the Middle East, the powers that be disapprove of the elites’ infatuation with a trendy new app.
Funds sent back by emigrants to Africa are helping residents in Zrariyeh, about 75 kilometers south of Beirut, survive Lebanon’s full-blown economic crisis.
Lebanese have long emigrated to Europe and elsewhere. But not like during this crisis: on clandestine boats, in a perilous trip toward the island of Cyprus.
Tuesday’s deadly explosion couldn’t have come at a worse time for Lebanon, which is also struggling with high inflation, the collapse of its currency and a new wave of coronavirus infections.
In Arab countries, the death of George Floyd has reignited the debate about racism against Blacks, a discrimination that worsens as it descends the social ladder.
BEIRUT — Located in the heart of Beirut’s vibrant Hamra Street, an area that served as a hub for intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s, Metro al-Madina is an independent theater company and cabaret. The theater was founded in 2012 by Hisham Jaber & co. from the rubble of an abandoned theater with aspirations of […]
A determined architect continues to pursue her dream of opening a civil war museum in Beirut, where people are still rattled by the bloody events of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990.
BEIRUT — Lebanon appears to be mobilizing for the mass return of Syrian refugees, disregarding warnings that conditions in their home country are not conducive to voluntary returns in safety and dignity. Last week, ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Lebanese President Michel Aoun asked the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to help secure the return of refugees. After the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) stated that it was not involved in last month’s return of around 500 Syrians from Lebanon due to conditions in Syria, the UNHCR’s representative to Lebanon, Mireille Girard, was summoned by the foreign ministry […]
-Analysis- BEIRUT — Since its independence in 1943, Lebanon has been exposed to the vicissitudes of the Middle East’s complicated geopolitics, from the creation of Israel, which led to a massive influx of Palestinian refugees on Lebanese soil, to the recent war in Syria, not to mention Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. Since 2005 and […]
In Lebanon, the country with the highest number of refugees per capita in the world, a cemetery for Syrian refugees is running out of burial plots.
ALEY — Mohammad left his home on the outskirts of Damascus in 2013, gripped with a mix of guilt and anxiety. Though he was fleeing violence that is still ongoing in his hometown of Jobar, the 39-year-old father of four worried about how he would provide for his family. He had lived his whole life in the historic neighborhood that hems the walls of old Damascus, where he owned a thriving business — a workshop that pressed aluminum. But when the conflict broke out in 2011, he watched his enterprise shutter and his community unravel. Two years into the war, […]
A project in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second biggest city gives women from the rival Alawite and Sunni communities a chance to work together.
Experiments among Syrian refugees in Lebanon are testing the best way to help those in need.
BEKAA — It’s a typical wine tasting at the Château Marsyas in the beautiful Bekaa region of Lebanon. We are trying a French Cabernet after tasting a Merlot and Shiraz. Bottles and glasses are scattered on a wooden table in the heart of the winery, which houses a dozen stainless steel vats and hundreds of […]
Many locals in Lebanon’s capital are firm Hezbollah and Assad loyalists, seeing the Islamist militia that supports the Syrian regime and fights ISIS on the ground as their ultimate protector against the civil war raging across the border.
BEIRUT — An Italian diplomat once said that “the darkest corners of a crisis can be the most illuminating in understanding geopolitical dynamics.” This is where Lebanon finds itself: One of the few Middle Eastern countries that is not at war, yet one suffering in the trenches nonetheless. These days Lebanon is far from the […]
When the landfill servicing Beirut closed, so did the garbage collection. Now the suburbs have been left quite literally holding the bag, and government solutions aren’t coming.
The UN estimates that at least 45,000 Palestinians who were already living as refugees in Syria have arrived in Lebanon since the Syrian civil war began.
RAS BAALBEK — There’s a 140-kilometer strip of land on top of the mountains just north of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley that marks the border with Syria. It’s here that ISIS has dug in, appropriating a remote corner of Lebanon where the terror group has accumulated militants, resources and hostages to gear up for an impending […]
Recent beheadings highlight an ongoing exodus of Christians from territories targeted by ISIS. Some have taken refuge in Lebanon.
In a secret location in the Lebanese capital, a 60-bed hospital treats ISIS and other Islamic extremists whose backers must pay cash in advance. Enemies share doctors where medicine is a blind business, and cash is king.
Kholoud, a Sunni, and Nidal, a Shiite, got married in a civil ceremony, a first for Lebanon where sectarianism warns against loving the “wrong” neighbor. Now they have a baby boy.
BLAST HITS EAST LEBANONAt least five people were killed and 42 wounded as a car bomb exploded this morning in Hermel, a Hezbollah bastion in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria, The Daily Star reports. The blast, which appears to have been the work of a suicide bomber, occurred as the trial in absentia […]
The two explosions that killed at least 23 people this week in Beirut are the latest sign that the country is moving toward the kind of conflict that has torn it apart in the past.
BEIRUT — Meeting for a drink, Lina, Ali and Johnny at first blush seem like normal young people enjoying a pleasant social gathering. But there is also heartbreak behind what has brought them so far from their homes in Damascus. Friends since childhood, these upper middle-class Syrians gather at one of their usual cafés lining […]
Though Russia’s proposed diplomatic solution casts doubt over a U.S. military strike in Syria, Lebanese fear being caught in the middle if the fire spreads across the entire region.
BEIRUT – Somehow, the shots missed Jesus. He survived the rampage by armed men in St. George’s Cathedral during the Lebanese civil war. But since the mosaic of which he is a part is otherwise shell-pocked, his figure has become something of an attraction. The cathedral is not far from downtown Beirut’s posh hotels, and […]
In recent days, U.S. and Mideast officials have reported that Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group, are making military preparations for the sectarian chaos likely to engulf a post-Assad Syria. Counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt says that Hezbollah has closely aligned itself with Iran’s Quds Force, an elite paramilitary group linked directly to Ayatollah Ali […]
BEIRUT – Sheikh Hani Fahs lives by the old route to the airport, near the entrance of Beirut’s Dahieh (“southern suburb”). This a Hezbollah stronghold. The Lebanese cleric has had a ringside seat over this main axis, which has often been blocked by angry demonstrators these past few months. Down the street, walls are covered […]
BEIRUT – Elias, a 42-year-old Syrian, is chain smoking under the silent gaze of his children. This Christian farmer abandoned his lands, near the Lebanese border, leaving behind conflicts he felt had nothing to do with him, but tormented by the future of Syria and the fate of his minority religion there. Together with 20 […]