The phrase “during the war” means different things to different people.
For most of Lebanon, it refers to the Civil War that devastated the country from 1975 to 1990.
But when Ahmad Khanati, a motorcycle mechanic in Jabal Mohsen, says the economic situation in the Tripoli suburb was “better during the war,” he’s referring to the armed clashes that have erupted sporadically between his neighborhood and adjacent Bab al-Tabbaneh, most recently in 2014.
Read MoreIt’s after 9 o’clock in the evening, and Mira is considering sharing a secret she’s kept hidden for years. The young student wants to speak up, but the stakes couldn’t be higher: She’s worried she’ll be judged by people at her university, her friends, even – or especially – her family. She picks up her phone.
Read MoreThe boats had left Lebanon two days earlier, bound for Greece, but their passengers now faced a dilemma: push for the European mainland or cut their losses and make for nearby Cyprus and safety.
Read MoreLamis stands next to the fifth-floor window of her hospital room, looking out over the playground of a school in Beirut’s Al-Tariq al-Jadideh neighborhood.
Read MoreMany of Lebanon’s lawmakers and media experts have identified that the country’s outdated media laws urgently need updating.
Read MoreDespite the optimism shown Monday by staff and students at the ceremony to celebrate the opening of UNRWA schools across Lebanon, the pressure under which the organization is operating was all too obvious.
Read MoreThe winding streets of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp are reproduced in precise detail on the walls of the small office that John Whyte occupies there.
Read MoreLebanon’s Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Mouin Merehbi said Lebanon would reject any peace plan that made the resettlement of Palestinians in a host country a condition, less than a week after a report revealed that senior U.S. official Jared Kushner mooted such an option.
Read MoreA long-running saga over the stalled implementation of a law designed to promote the rights of disabled people in Lebanon entered a new chapter recently when the Labor Ministry committed to administering the law.
Read MoreAs the Jabal Moussa Biosphere Reserve celebrated the opening of a new hiking trail Thursday, officials said they hoped the reserve would demonstrate the value of protecting their natural heritage.
Read MoreA video that recently went viral on social media opens with a woman running past the camera, a look of fear on her face. The camera then approaches a Lebanese man, who forces another woman to the floor, beating her around the head. She cries out in pain.
Read MoreWith the experience of four tours in Lebanon now behind him, outgoing UNIFIL Force Commander Maj. Gen. Michael Beary has witnessed some of the most violent periods in the country’s history.
Read MoreThe European Union Election Observation Mission emphasized the lack of political representation for women at a presentation of its final report on Lebanon’s May 6 parliamentary elections Tuesday.
Read MoreThe long-mooted revival of the railway between Tripoli and the Lebanese-Syrian border may have finally found an investor, with profound implications not only for the economy of north Lebanon but for the balance of power in the wider Middle East.
Read MoreFor several decades at the beginning of the 20th century, the railway station at Tripoli was the terminus of the famed Orient Express line. Now, the station sits derelict and abandoned. Several rusting locomotives from the late 19th century recall a bygone era. The station was built in 1911, during the death throes of the Ottoman Empire.
Read MoreCaretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil doubled down on his recent combative rhetoric toward the U.N. refugee agency Wednesday, extending his attacks to the wider international community. Bassil, speaking from a cave in which 10 Lebanese soldiers captured by Daesh (ISIS) in 2014 were held, said he was thinking “of the conspiracy that threatened our existence ... I am thinking of all those responsible in the international community who committed such a crime against Lebanon and Syria.”
Read MoreIn the poorly lit stairwell of Haifa Hospital in the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, a large poster depicting the ancient city of Jerusalem, dominated by the gold crown of the Dome of the Rock, declares: “Visit Al-Quds.” It’s an aspiration that seems a long way off, as the Palestinian residents of the southern Beirut camp – facing poverty and heavy restrictions on rights to work – are struggling to access even basic health care services in a system under severe pressure.
Read MoreIt’s 38 years since Pvts. Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett were kidnapped, tortured and murdered in south Lebanon while on active duty with UNIFIL. For their families, the psychological impact of that day continues with the search for justice, as the man accused of the murders is yet to be sentenced by Lebanon’s Military Court. The trial has undergone numerous delays since the accused, Mahmoud Bazzi, was first brought before the court in June 2015.
Read MoreInternational monitors and local electoral NGOs gave conflicting reports Sunday regarding the severity of issues facing Lebanese voters at polling stations. Speaking at Al-Amir Shakib Arslan School in Beirut’s Verdun, Chief Observer of the European Union’s Election Observation Mission Elena Valenciano said the day went “without major incident.”
Read MoreThe term “fake news” was named the Collins Dictionary Word of the Year in 2017, with a 365 percent rise in usage compared to the year before. But despite increasing attention to the phenomenon, many working in Lebanese media consider fake news a symptom of deep-rooted problems that have existed in the region for decades.
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