Lebanon
Latest stories
Israel to carry out operation against Hezbollah if govt. fails to disarm it, report says

If the Lebanese government fails to disarm Hezbollah, there will be no escape from carrying out a focused and targeted operation against the group's sites, Israel Hayom said Tuesday, quoting officials.

The Israeli daily estimated that Hezbollah possesses "only about 10,000 rockets", compared to the approximately 120,000 it possessed on the eve of the last war.

W140 Full Story
Boycott over expat voting forces adjournment of legislative session

Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday adjourned a legislative session due to lack of quorum, after the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party and their allies boycotted in rejection of Berri’s refusal to put on the agenda a bill allowing expats to vote for all 128 seas in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The LF had said that participation in the session it would reflect “submission to Speaker Nabih Berri’s hegemony over parliament.”

W140 Full Story
Egypt spy chief meets Aoun and Berri, reportedly seeking Gaza-like deal

Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Mahmoud Rashad met Tuesday in Lebanon with President Joseph Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri.

The Presidency said Aoun and Egypt’s intelligence head discussed “how to leverage the atmosphere of the Gaza deal and the Sharm el-Sheikh summit to expand it to include Lebanon.”

W140 Full Story
Syria says seized 11 million captagon pills coming from Lebanon

The Syrian interior ministry said Tuesday it seized about 11 million captagon pills in the southern countryside of Homs.

The pills were smuggled in a car coming from Lebanon, Syria's national news agency said.

W140 Full Story
Report: Hezbollah has smuggled hundreds of rockets from Syria

Hezbollah smuggled hundreds of rockets from Syria to Lebanon over the past months and the Israeli army only managed to thwart some of the shipments, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation said.

Israel has informed Washington of the details of the smuggling operations and its need to “maintain attacks on Lebanon,” the report added.

W140 Full Story
UN, France slam Israel after attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

The United Nations and France have condemned Israeli fire near U.N. peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon, after an incident during which peacekeepers neutralized an Israeli reconnaissance drone.

"We are very concerned about the incident that occurred on Sunday in which an Israeli drone dropped a grenade in the vicinity of a UNIFIL patrol, and subsequently an Israeli tank fired a shot at the peacekeepers in Kfar Kila in the UNIFIL area of operations," said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, referring to the incident in southern Lebanon.

W140 Full Story
European Union condemns Israeli strikes on UNIFIL

The European Union condemned Tuesday an Israeli attack that targeted Sunday a UNIFIL detachment, "the latest in a series of similar incidents in recent weeks."

In a statement, the EU recalled that the safety and security of U.N. personnel and premises must be ensured in accordance with international law and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.

W140 Full Story
Two brothers killed in Israeli drone strike on sawmill in al-Bayyad

Two brothers were killed Monday in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a sawmill on the outskirts of the souhtern town of al-Bayyad in the Tyre district, the National News Agency said.

Israeli strikes over Lebanon had recently intensified amid scrambles to hold a tense ceasefire that ended Israel's war on Lebanon last November, and mounting pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

W140 Full Story
Geagea lashes out anew at Berri over legislative session

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday blasted Speaker Nabih Berri again over the issue of the latter’s refusal to put a bill allowing expats to vote on the agenda of Tuesday’s legislative session.

“What Speaker Berri is doing represents a blatant violation of the constitution’s rules and (parliament’s) bylaws and an attack on the rights of the parliamentary majority, which is no longer acceptable,” Geagea said.

W140 Full Story
Ortagus in Beirut for talks with Lebanese leaders, Mechanism meeting

U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus on Monday arrived in Lebanon for talks with Lebanese leaders and participation in a meeting for the Mechanism ceasefire monitoring committee.

Ortagus had visited Israel on Saturday and Sunday.

W140 Full Story