Marwan El Amine, 06/02 12:15 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
The Council of the South was intended to be one of the Lebanese state’s key mechanisms for addressing the damage from wars with Israel, but it effectively became a partisan tool serving the Amal Movement and Hezbollah. It was established in 1970 primarily to help residents of southern Lebanon repair their homes and rebuild what had been ...
Salam El Zaatari, 06/02 09:25 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
Fortunate countries see their leaders come and go; in hapless ones, time ravages everything but their rulers. Lebanon is trapped in the latter camp, with one politician freezing his grip on power and the country’s chance for reform. The country’s banks collapsed and its currency crashed, the port exploded, half the youth emigrated, and whole ...
This is Beirut, 04/02 10:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Lebanon Hezbollah Amal Elections Sanctions
U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on February 2 that would authorize President Trump to impose sanctions on foreign individuals or entities accused of interfering in Lebanon’s electoral process, including efforts to obstruct voting by Lebanese citizens living abroad. The legislation would allow the president, in consultation with senior ...
Amal Chmouny , 02/02 14:00 - Reading : 8 minute(s)
Amal Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah Lebanon Joseph Aoun
When Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri met with Joseph Aoun on January 23, at the height of Hezbollah’s rhetorical campaign against the president, the gesture spoke volumes. As Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem rejected disarmament and warned of civil war, Berri moved to restore communication channels, differentiating his Amal ...
Marwan El Amine, 22/01 15:05 - Reading : 5 minute(s)
Hezbollah Amal Hassan Nasrallah Lebanon Israel
Since its inception, Hezbollah has sought to transform Shia identity in Lebanon from a national one into an ideological one, anchored in Iran’s Wilayat al-Faqih doctrine of absolute loyalty to its supreme leader. Yet its attempts to tighten control over the Shia community through Tehran’s political ideology met significant obstacles, pushing ...
Claudia Groeling, 19/01 15:41 - Reading : 11 minute(s)
Hezbollah Amal Lebanon Elections Parliament Opposition
Lebanon’s upcoming parliamentary elections are shaping up as a test of Hezbollah’s political standing at a moment of vulnerability, after the group suffered a major military blow in the 2024 war with Israel and faces mounting pressure from the Lebanese government’s pledge to disarm it nationwide. Since the 1992 parliamentary elections, the ...
Claudia Groeling, 16/01 19:29 - Reading : 9 minute(s)
Lebanon Shia Opposition Hezbollah Amal Disarmament Israel
Lebanon’s upcoming parliamentary elections, coming on the heels of the 2024 Hezbollah–Israel war that devastated the organization and its core constituencies, have reopened the question of Shia political representation. For decades, Lebanese political discourse has treated the Shia community as a unified political bloc, electorally ...
Amal Chmouny, 2025-12-31 17:10 - Reading : 6 minute(s)
Lebanon Washington Donald Trump Lebanese Army Amal
Heading into 2026, U.S. engagement in Lebanon has become explicitly conditioned on measurable progress toward Hezbollah’s disarmament, marking a clear break from the strategic ambiguity that long defined Washington’s approach. The aftermath of the 2024 Israel–Hezbollah conflict, alongside Lebanon’s deepening economic and political crises, ...
This is Beirut, 2025-12-23 19:15 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Lebanon Amal Internal Security Forces Israel Ron Arad
Lebanese security is conducting investigations under the supervision of Public Prosecutor Judge Jamal Hajjar into the disappearance of retired General Security officer Ahmad Shukr, who has been missing for a week, amid conflicting information about his fate, according to a judicial source quoted by Saudi daily Asharq al Awsat. The source ...
This is Beirut, 2025-12-13 18:35 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Amal Hezbollah Iran Lebanon Reconstruction Banks
Lebanon’s parliamentary finance committee on Thursday approved the transfer of roughly $90 million USD in reserve funding for the Council of the South as part of the 2026 budget process to support reconstruction in areas damaged by Israeli bombardment in last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war. According to parliamentary sources ...
Ian Talley, 2025-12-09 17:50 - Reading : 10 minute(s)
Lebanon International Monetary Fund Hezbollah Amal Banque du Liban
The International Monetary Fund risks unintentionally reviving a war-weakened Hezbollah by insisting Lebanon push heavier losses onto the banking sector than critics say is necessary — a move they argue would entrench the cash economy that Iran’s terror-designated proxy thrives on. At issue is how the IMF wants Lebanon’s ...
This is Beirut, 2025-11-27 12:05 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
Hezbollah Ceasefire UN Security Council Lebanon Amal Israel
One year after the 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, southern Lebanon remains tense as the militia steadily rebuilds its military and civilian infrastructure, triggering daily Israeli airstrikes despite the truce. Hezbollah’s Ideology Drives Reconstruction An analysis of 669 Israeli airstrikes since November 27, 2024, by the ...