دائماً عكار تدفع ضريبة الدم والانهيار الاقتصادي. يسقط لها شهداء وضحايا في الجيش، في البارد، في جرود الضنية وعرسال، في التفجيرات الارهابية، …

By NAJIA HOUSSARI -- arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army on Saturday seized fuel from petrol pumps to curb hoarding amid crippling shortages. The country is grappling with a financial crisis and foreign currency reserves are fast depleting, while its national currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market. Traffic in Beirut and other places was low on Saturday, and security forces temporarily closed the northern Aboudiyeh Border Crossing with Syria because of a power generator malfunction. Dozens of institutions surprised their employees with a day of unplanned leave next Monday, while shops and institutions in Beirut’s center were informed they would not be supplied with electricity because of the lack of diesel.

Activists shared a video on social media showing a crowd in the town of Ali Al-Nahri, in the Bekaa Valley, protesting around Hussainia Mosque, where Hezbollah member and former minister Hussein Hajj Hassan was giving a speech. Eyewitnesses told Arab News that around 50 people objected to Hassan going up to the pulpit and speaking. “They called on him to get back, throwing insults at him and saying, ‘We are hungry.’” The MP had to leave the town, shortening his mosque speech, amid a heavy army deployment. Army intelligence on Saturday arrested four of the people who had objected to Hassan’s presence. But they were released due to popular pressure. People objecting to the arrests blocked the road between Ali Al-Nahri and the eastern village of Massa, which is a vital road for Hezbollah. This road helps the party access Syria’s Al-Shaara region, where its military posts are located. Protesters accused Hezbollah of using the town as “a road to smuggle diesel to Syria.”

Moreover, a village resident who was present during Friday’s incident faced arrest today by an unknown party. Hassan Makkhal shared his arrest from his home on Facebook. Makkhal is said to be a critic of the Hezbollah figure.

By courtney Mares -- ncregister.com -- BEIRUT, LEBANON — The leader of the Maronite Catholic Church received threats from Hezbollah supporters this week after calling for an end to missile launches from Lebanese territory. Bechara Boutros Cardinal Rai had called for peace, saying that Lebanon should remain neutral in regional conflicts in his Aug. 8 homily, two days after Hezbollah fired 19 rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political and militant group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The group has strong alliances with Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, and with Iran in its conflicts with Sunni-majority Gulf states. Without mentioning Hezbollah by name, the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch said that it was unacceptable for “a party to make decisions on war” without the quorum of two thirds required by the country’s constitution. “We call upon the Lebanese army ... to prevent the launching of missiles from Lebanese territory, not for the sake of Israel's safety, but rather for the safety of Lebanon,” Cardinal Rai said.

Supporters of Hezbollah responded by threatening the cardinal’s life with social media posts that pictured Cardinal Rai with a noose around his neck. In a Facebook post, a person from Beirut’s south suburbs wrote in Arabic: “You don't think we know how to hang?“ and “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth...Initiator [Patriarch] shall bear the brunt of blame.” In Defence of Christians, a human rights organization that has sources on in Lebanon, told CNA that there have been people in the streets in predominantly Shiite areas calling Cardinal Rai a traitor and Zionist collaborator. Political leaders within Lebanon and abroad sent messages of solidarity to the Maronite patriarch after the public threats.

by rsf.org -- Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the intimidatory methods used by certain political groups in Lebanon to try to silence journalists. The latest victim is Yumna Fawaz, who has been the target of a social media hate campaign for the past week or so by supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and its powerful ally, Hezbollah. A freelancer who was an anchor at Lebanon’s Al Jadeed TV channel for years, Fawaz has been targeted since she posted tweets calling for Lebanese President Michel Aoun, the FPM’s founder, to be held to account for his share of the responsibility in last year’s Beirut port explosion. As well as having been subjected to a flood of insults and hate speech, she has been falsely accused of having had a role in the port explosion on the basis of one of her old TV reports circulated by the hate campaign’s participants. Filmed in 2012, it shows her visiting a site in Idlib, in northern Syria, where the Syrian opposition manufactured explosives from ammonium nitrate. As it was a warehouse containing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that exploded in Beirut’s port in August 2020, the video proves her involvement, her critics absurdly claim.

Fawaz told RSF she plans to file a complaint bringing defamation and insult accusations against the leaders of the political groups she believes to be behind this orchestrated smear campaign, especially the FPM and Hezbollah. She said this is not the first time she has been targeted by FPM members. Just two months ago, she was insulted and attacked by a female member of FPM, against whom she subsequently brought a complaint. She also receives threats via WhatsApp and is increasingly concerned for her safety. “We fully support Yumna Fawaz, a journalist who simply called for more transparency in a matter of the utmost interest to the Lebanese public, and we condemn the despicable methods that certain political groups in Lebanon have become accustomed to using against journalists,” said Sabrina Bennoui, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk.