Worldcrunch
Lebanese authorities had promised the investigation into the Beirut port explosion would be completed within five days. Five years later, Daraj reports on what is still holding up this case, and talks with the country’s new Justice minister about the country’s need for truth.
The Israeli army has imposed itself as the most powerful in the region in the wars waged since Oct. 7. But this military hegemony does not come with any political solution: This is Netanyahu’s weakness at a time when Trump is visiting the wealthy princes of the Gulf.
The Saudis could regain the political and financial clout they once enjoyed in Lebanon, which was lost for two decades to Hezbollah and its foreign patrons. Could that restore a measure of prosperity to a country brought to its knees by decades of civil war and the unwelcome interventions of Tehran and Damascus.
Palestinians must engage in deep domestic dialogue to end their division and agree on a set of principles to address the towering challenges they face, including their ties with Syria’s new rulers.
As the Assad regime was crumbling, the sight of the prisoners being freed had its own impact on so many people, including exiled Syrian writer Ruqayyah Al-Abbadi, who knew them from the inside.
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.
One Arab writer takes issue with a noted scholar who assigns the lion’s share of the blame to the establishment of the Jewish State. Israel has excelled, not only, because of its military strength and Western allies, but also because of its ability to build a state of institutions and relative freedom.
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.
“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.”
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.”
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.
Never since it became the “great protector” of the Jewish state has the United States shown so much weakness towards Israel, as the Israeli prime minister stays one step ahead of his adversaries in a cunning maneuver to help Trump return to the White House.
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.
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 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.
As Israel celebrates the death of Hezbollah’s leader, Washington and Tehran both suddenly seem powerless, looking like spectators of an unraveling tragedy that is beyond their control. Yet, given its demographics and geography, Israel desperately needs allies.
Monday was the deadliest day in Lebanon since at least 2006 as Israeli strikes killed hundreds, including dozens of women and children. The strikes appear aimed at forcing thousands of Lebanese to flee their homes in the southern part of the country, as all-out war looms between Hezbollah and Israel.
Even if the exploding Hezbollah pagers was not the first supply chain attack, having thousands of remote, hand-held devices raised terrifying questions that hadn’t been widely considered before, marking a potential turning point in the public’s trust in their electronic devices, and in governments’ ability to protect them.
Logic suggests that continuing the fighting on the southern Lebanon front is no more than meeting Netanyahu halfway toward a full-scale war. It also suggests that disrupting this man’s mission requires finding ways to stop the war.
Unprecedented attacks via pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members comes amid a growing consensus in Israel in favor of launching a war across the border into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the U.S. may have given its assent and the Lebanese government appears unable to intervene, with Hezbollah holding all the cards on this side of the border.
Residents of southern Lebanon believe that their hometowns will remain an open arena for a long-term war between Israel and Hezbollah, even if this has only happened so far in a way that allows both sides to stop short of declaring an all-out war.
For two decades Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah spoke about destroying Israel, but in recent speeches, he’s just demanding it pull out of Gaza. It’s one more sign that its patrons in Tehran have made a calculation to try to salvage a status quo in the region.
In Lebanon, as in many countries in the Arab world, abortion is criminalized, leaving women with few safe options to end a pregnancy. In the Beirut-based independent digital media Daraj, Nour, 20, shares her story of learning she was pregnant out of wedlock and seeking a secret medical abortion.
The author was from one of the rare families in Damascus who were not direct victims of Syria’s long civil war. But she hardly emerged unscathed.
The world watches as Netanyahu walks that fine line between deterrence and escalation.
The military struggle of the Palestinians has become a holy matter that banned any discussion about it — including reviews, criticism and accountability. That has given the tyranny of militarism the upper hand at the expense of politics and popular movements.
When Arab countries started normalizing relations with Israel, they did so disregarding the fate of Palestinians. It was a terrible error of judgment, and worse. Yet while the Palestinian cause remains a cornerstone of political legitimacy in the Arab world, few reasonable solutions are being brought forward, and radicalization continues to gain ground among the masses.
The assassination of a top Hamas leader this week was a much needed victory for Israel’s intelligence apparatus, still reeling from the Oct. 7 attack. But even if other targets are hit, it does not amount to an actual battle plan against Hamas.
By eliminating Saleh al-Arouri, an important Hamas leader, with a drone strike in Beirut, Israel has taken a risky gamble: that Lebanon’s Hezbollah and its Iranian allies will not go to war over the death on Lebanese territory of a top Hamas figure.
Memories are still clear of the war in 2006, which exploded after a Hezbollah attack in northern Israel. Nobody wants war again, even as solidarity for the Palestinian cause is stronger than ever.
A massive blast in the port of Beirut took place on this day in 2020 — an explosion so powerful that it physically shook the whole country of Lebanon. What were the causes of the explosions in Beirut? The primary cause of the explosions was the improper storage of approximately 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate […]
The peace accords signed between conservative Arab states and Israel are the start of an inevitable opening for the Middle East, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan means a new post-American, post-oil future.
PARIS — Last week’s explosion at a port warehouse in Beirut, which killed at least 200 and caused a minimum of $5 billion in damage, should serve as a sobering wake-up call for countries that have equally (or more) dangerous chemical reserves. Beyond the human toll and material consequences, the catastrophic event has also triggered […]