BEIRUT, by Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily; (Reuters) – Lebanon is preparing to offer a compromise to U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein to resolve a dispute with Israel over maritime gas resources, three Lebanese officials with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters. Hochstein landed in Beirut on Monday at the invitation of the Lebanese government, which had objected to the arrival of a vessel operated by London-based Energean (ENOG.L) off the Mediterranean coast on June 5 to develop a gas field known as Karish. Israel says Karish is part of its exclusive economic zone, but Lebanon says the field is in contested waters and should not be developed until the two countries conclude their indirect talks to delineate their maritime borders. Those talks fizzled out last year after Lebanon pushed its claim in the disputed zone from a boundary known as “Line 23” further south to “Line 29,” adding around 1,400 square km (540 square miles) to its claim, including part of Karish.

To overcome the impasse, Hochstein proposed a field-swap that would create an S-shaped boundary instead of a straight line, but Lebanon did not officially agree to the proposal, official sources said. Lebanon has insisted on renewing the indirect talks, but has not yet publicly announced whether it would stick to Line 29 as a starting position for those negotiations. The U.S. consider Line 29 a “non-starter,” according to sources. Three Lebanese officials with knowledge of the internal process to finalise a government stance said that Lebanon would drop claims to Line 29.

The sources said President Michel Aoun would meet Hochstein on Tuesday morning and propose “Line 23, plus a little more.” One of the officials specified that Aoun’s position would be a claim to Line 23 in addition to 300 km sq that includes the Qana field, but not Karish. Aoun would demand that indirect talks resume as soon as possible and that Israel stop all works at Karish until negotiations are concluded, two of the officials said.

by AFP — The UN’s mission in Lebanon called Sunday for the country’s military to guarantee the security of its peacekeepers, alleging personnel were “threatened” by armed men the day before. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has long been deployed in the country’s south — a stronghold of the powerful Shia movement […]

By Rodayna Raydan — al-monitor — Lebanon’s worsening water crisis is placing households and businesses under stress. The country is known for abundant water resources but without implementation of strategies to conserve and protect them, it remains one of the most water-threatened nations on earth. Clean water in Lebanon is simply no longer affordable and households are trying to use as little as possible. Amid water shortages in most of the country, residents are paying a large portion of their income to private companies to fill the tanks on their roofs. “If I didn’t pay for water from private companies, my taps would run dry,” Beirut resident Nada Kanso told Al-Monitor.

Environmental groups blame the government’s policies for Lebanon’s water crisis, saying the lack of adequate water infrastructure and mismanagement have brought the situation to a critical point. “The situation has become unbearable as residents are having to pay over a million Lebanese pounds weekly to fill up their water tanks, while the minimum wage is 675,000 Lebanese pounds,” said Yousef Shwai, a private water distributor in one village in Beqaa. One million Lebanese pounds are equivalent to $35 at the black market rate.

Last summer UNICEF warned, “Unless urgent action is taken, more than four million people across Lebanon — predominantly vulnerable children and families — face the prospect of critical water shortages or being completely cut off from safe water supply in the coming days.” The cash-strapped government has not invested in keeping water supplies safe and secured, according to a report from The World Bank. Environmental consultant and engineer Tamara Ghanem told Al-Monitor, “Lebanon’s tap water is extremely toxic, to the extent that you can’t even drink it.”

The Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water Corporation, a service organization that provides water for about half of Lebanon, recently announced the start of severe water rationing. Al-Monitor spoke to a source within the corporation who wished to remain unnamed. He said, “The emerging water crisis is expected to escalate if no adequate solutions are found, especially for the electricity [shortage], which is one of the main interruptions to the supply of water.” According to the source, the devaluation of the Lebanese pound also prevents the water supply networks from being maintained as the water service organizations can no longer afford the imported parts that are essential for maintenance.

Lebanese businessman Tarek Tayyah (L), was found dead along six others in a helicopter crash in Italy on Saturday, nearly two years after his wife Hala Tayyah (R) perished during the Aug. 2020 Beirut Port blast. (Twitter)

Lebanese businessman Chadi Kredi 

by arabnews.com — by Bassam Zaazaa — DUBAI: Tragedy hit an ill-fated Lebanese family on Saturday when one of its members died in a helicopter crash in Italy, nearly two years after his wife perished during the Beirut blast. Lebanese businessman Tarek Tayyah was reported to have been found among the seven bodies discovered by Italian rescuers, two days after their helicopter took off from Tuscany and disappeared from radar screens. Tayyah is the husband of jewelry designer Hala Tayyah, who was killed during the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut Port explosion that killed more than 200 people. Lebanese media identified Tayyah and his countryman Chadi Kreidi among the seven crash victims.

The designer’s daughter Tamara Tayyah presented a pin, designed by her late mother, in the form of Lebanon’s map to French President Emmanuel Macron when he visited the explosion site days after the blast. Italian media said that the helicopter took off on Thursday from Lucca in Tuscany and was heading toward the northern city of Treviso when it was lost in bad weather over a remote area. “The rescuers have found dead the seven passengers from the helicopter, four of Turkish and two of Lebanese nationality, who were on a business trip to Italy, as well as the Italian pilot,” the prefect’s office in the city of Modena said. The helicopter was found in a mountainous area on the border between Tuscany and the Emilia Romagna region.

Kreidi was married and the father of four children. Co-workers, friends and family members of Kreidi and Tayyah took to social media asking users to pray for their safety after their aircraft went off the radar on Thursday.

by npr.org — Leila Fadel — Reena Advani — Nina Kravinsky — 1982 isn’t your typical war film.

It’s a love story set during growing tensions in the Middle East, when Israel invaded Lebanon 40 years ago. Lebanese filmmaker Oualid Mouaness, inspired by his own memories, wrote the script and directed the film. He was 10 years old, attending an idyllic school in the Beirut suburbs, when the war changed life as he knew it. “I do remember everything being so beautiful and everything sort of changing,” Mouaness tells Morning Edition. “I remember that afternoon when the dogfights were going on in the sky. That’s when my brother who was younger than me just completely lost it and started yelling at us to go inside because he thought the airplanes were going to fall on us,” he says.

The invasion happened against the backdrop of a city divided, between a mostly Muslim West Beirut and a predominately Christian East Beirut. Mouaness bases 1982 at a school much like the one he attended. The film is set in the mountains of Lebanon and the school is picturesque. It’s religiously mixed, the kids switch seamlessly from Arabic to English to French and they’re not yet indoctrinated into the adult world of religious and ideological divides. Much of the story revolves around 11-year old Wissam and what it means to live in a place separated by checkpoints. As the fear of war looms, Wissam is consumed by a crush on a girl in his class – something that the filmmaker remembers experiencing from his own childhood.

By REBECCA ANNE PROCTOR — arabnews.com — DUBAI: When Lebanese cardiologist Walid Alami, 59, was 19 years old he worked as a volunteer in an emergency operating room and helped dozens of people who were wounded during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. After a massive explosion tore through Beirut’s port on Aug. 4, 2020, he once again found himself in the thick of life-saving emergency action. However, as has been the case for thousands of middle-class Lebanese professionals, the nation’s prolonged, overlapping crises eventually proved too much to endure, forcing him and his family to move abroad in search of safety and economic security.

Alami gave up a lucrative cardiology practice in the US and returned to Beirut in 2012 so that he could be closer to his extended family and his children could experience the nation of their roots. “I wanted my children to grow up in Lebanon and know their motherland,” he told Arab News. “My hope was that I would replicate my American practice there, improve the system, innovate and take care of patients like I did in the US. “But to my disappointment, things professionally didn’t go as planned because our system is corrupt, including the medical system.” Undeterred, Alami persisted, hoping that the country’s fortunes would eventually turn around. But poor governance, institutional decay and the nation’s economic collapse soon started to take a toll on his family’s finances. “I started losing money because of the banking system, the corruption and a decline in income,” he said. “Financially and professionally, I was doing worse than ever.”

By Najia Houssari — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Lebanon is hoping a summer influx of tourists and visitors will help revive its flagging economy, with the return of live performances at the Baalbeck International Festival expected to be a major drawcard. The festival, a global cultural highlight for more than six decades, was held virtually in 2020 and 2021 because of pandemic restrictions, but previews of its Baalbeck Castle line-up between July 8-17 have attracted more than 17 million views on social media. Minister of Tourism Walid Nassar said that up to 12,000 people are expected to arrive in Beirut each day during the next three months, with over 1 million arrivals over the summer. “Given its location and all its tourism components, Lebanon does not need marketing,” he said.

Speaking during an inspection tour of Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Nassar said that flights, hotels and even guest houses were fully booked for the summer. Travel agencies and airlines say that many Lebanese expatriates planning to spend their summer vacation in Lebanon with their families have booked tickets. “We have a 100 percent reservation rate between July 1 and mid-September,” Jean Abboud, head of the Syndicate of Tourism and Travel Agencies, told Arab News. “A total of 110 planes will be landing in Beirut during this period, carrying 15,000 passengers, the vast majority of whom are Lebanese, in addition to Jordanians, Iraqis and Egyptians.” He said that the number of flights to and from Lebanon may have to be increased to cope with the rising demand. According to Abboud, holidaying expats will help revive Lebanon’s economy by pumping US dollars into the economy.

By Martin Chulov — The guardian — For decades, the roar of Israeli jets, and the hum of surveillance drones have been regular features in the skies above Lebanon, buzzing towns and cities at will – and acting as constant reminders that war is never far away. Research, which was published on Thursday, demonstrates just how pervasive that presence has been, with at least 22,000 overflights being documented in the past 15 years alone. Those numbers have made warplanes an abiding soundtrack to Lebanese life and the ever present threat of violence a part of the country’s collective psychology. Produced by a new organisation, AirPressure.info, the research shows Israeli planes have occupied the skies of Lebanon for a total of eight and a half of the past 15 years. Few of the incursions are brief, with many lasting an average of four hours and 35 minutes. And most involve the most technically advanced fighter planes or surveillance aircraft in the world that basic Lebanese ground defences offer no match for.

Maps of the flight routes taken by the jets and drones reveal a spaghetti bowl of loops over most areas of Lebanon. The flights are concentrated in the south, where they appear to follow set routes. But Beirut is also a frequent destination, as are areas north of the capital and closer to the Syrian border. Lawrence Abu Hamdan, who assembled the research, which is the most comprehensive of its kind, said studies had shown regular exposure to overflights by warplanes had taken a toll on those living below. AirPressure.info has compiled 11 peer-reviewed papers from scientific journals that detail the acute physiological effects of aircraft noise, with symptoms ranging from hypertension to diminished blood circulation and psychosomatic pains.

سجعان قزي

@AzziSejean

صعبٌ على أيِّ دولةٍ صديقةٍ أن تَلعبَ دورَ الوَساطةِ بين لبنان وأيِّ دولةٍ أخرى، وبخاصّةٍ مع إسرائيل، في غيابِ موقفٍ لبنانيٍّ واحِد. والأصعبُ أن تَتحالفَ دولةٌ أجنبيّةٌ مع لبنان. المسموحُ، في ظلِّ الوضعِ الراهِن، أن نتعايشَ مع الأزَماتِ، والأسْهلُ أن نعاديَ العالم، لاسيّما الدولُ الصديقة، ونواصِلَ السيرَ نحو الفوضَى الشامِلة. وفيما نَرفضُ هذا السهلَ الممنوع، تَبقى الإشكاليّةُ الكبرى أنَّ هذه الدولَ ترى أنَّ لبنانَ أصبحَ دولةً فاشلةً غيرَ صالحةٍ لإقامةِ علاقةٍ ذات صِدقيّة معها إذ هي غيرُ قادرةٍ على الالتزامِ بأيِّ تحالفٍ أو عَقدٍ أو وَعد. وآخِرُ تَجلّياتِ ذلك أزمةُ الخطوطِ في مفاوضاتِ الحدودِ البحريّة. إنَّ عجزَ الشرعيّةِ عن الإمساكِ بالقرارِ الوطنيِّ نَزعَ عنها صِفةَ المحاورِ الرسميِّ الشرعيِّ الوحيدِ باسمِ دولةِ لبنان، وأتاحَ لبعضِ دولِ العالم التعاطي مع قوى الأمرِ الواقع فعليًّا ومع الدولةِ نظريًّا. وتَكلّلَ هذا الواقعُ الـمُخزي أمس بإعلانِ منظمّةِ الزراعةِ والأغذيةِ (الفاو) وبرنامجِ الغِذاءِ العالميِّ التابعَين للأممِ المتّحدةِ أنَّ لبنانَ من بين 20 دولةً، منها الصومال، تُشكّلُ بؤرًا ساخنةً للفَقرِ والجوعِ في العالم.

by Nada Homsi — thenationalnews.com – Many of Lebanon’s 13 newly elected ‘Change’ MPs arrived at parliament either on foot or in inexpensive cars on Tuesday, in contrast to those from established parties who traveled in blacked-out luxury SUVs. The parliament was holding its second session after the May 15 elections. “It looks like MP Michel Douaihy’s wife dropped him off,” a local anchor on the sidelines commented on live television. “This modesty is what makes these MPs so appealing to people, in contrast with the establishment parties.” They were elected on the premise of change, justice and opposition to Lebanon’s entrenched sectarian political parties. But in a country facing problems caused by economic collapse, a regional battle for power and a corrupt, entrenched elite in place since Lebanon’s civil war, 13 activists-turned-legislators must now participate in the very system they were elected to change.

In Tuesday’s parliamentary session, the 128-member legislature was expected to nominate and elect members of its parliamentary committees — which play an important role in forming Lebanon’s laws by negotiating and approving bills before they go to parliament. It is a vital opportunity for the 13 politicians — popularly referred to as the ‘Change’ MPs — who hope to exert influence from within the committees. Still, in the new parliament, they have found themselves in a tenuous position, given Lebanon’s ideologically divided political landscape: they neither support the Iran-backed Hezbollah nor its opposition, the Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces, who represent the two largest opposing parliamentary blocs.