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BEIRUT, Oct 17, 2023 (AFP) – Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement Tuesday called for a “day of rage” to condemn a strike on a Gaza Strip hospital as hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the French and US embassies in protest. Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, blamed the hospital attack on Israel, calling it a “massacre” and a “brutal crime”, while Israel’s army blamed a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based militant group. […]
By Elisa Amouret Agence France-Presse QSARNABA, Lebanon, May 18, 2023 (AFP) — On a gentle slope looking out over Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, villagers work their way across pink-dotted terraces, gathering perfumed Damask roses that are used for essential oils, sweets and cosmetics. The rose harvest “gives you a bit of hope, it makes things beautiful, it calms you down — it gives you strength to carry on”, said Leila al-Dirani, picking the flowers from her […]
By Olga NEDBAEVA Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — “My mum doesn’t agree with what I do here: at home, we don’t eat like this,” laughs Alan Geaam, the first Lebanese chef to earn a Michelin star in Paris. The self-taught chef, who fled his country’s civil war in 1999, nonetheless believes that promoting Lebanon’s culinary riches means combining them with some of “the elegance and refinement” of French cuisine. At his self-titled restaurant in […]
TYRE, Lebanon (AFP) — At least three explosions were heard in southern Lebanon’s Tyre region at dawn on Friday, according to AFP reporters, as Israel announced it was carrying out strikes in response to rocket fire. “At least two shells fell near” a Palestinian refugee camp near Tyre city, said camp resident Abu Ahmad, who told AFP he “heard explosions”. A missile fell on a farmer’s house near the camp, causing material damage, an AFP […]
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Israel launched air strikes against Hamas in the Gaza Strip late Thursday after vowing retaliation for a barrage of cross-border rockets fired from Lebanon, which it blamed on Palestinian groups. Tensions have soared between Israel and Palestinians during what is both the Jewish Passover and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, prompting condemnations and calls for restraint from abroad. The latest flare-up of violence comes after Israeli police clashed […]
The Lebanese pound sank to a historic low against the dollar on the parallel market Tuesday, the latest sombre milestone in an economic meltdown that has plunged most of the population into poverty. Officially pegged at 15,000 to the dollar, the pound was trading at 100,000 against the greenback, dealers said — a dizzying plunge from 1,507 before the economic crisis hit in 2019. The currency’s market value was at around 60,000 to the dollar […]
Naqura, Lebanon | AFP | by Mahmoud Zayyat Israel and Lebanon struck a US-brokered maritime border agreement Thursday that opens up lucrative offshore gas fields for the neighbours that remain technically at war. US President Joe Biden hailed the “historic” deal, that comes as Western powers clamour to open up new energy production and reduce vulnerability to supply cuts from Russia. The agreement was signed separately by Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun in Beirut and by […]
Zouk Mikael, Lebanon | AFP | by Jonathan SAWAYA After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon’s capital where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution. Thick black smoke sometimes billows from its red-and-white chimneys, leaving a grey haze in the air above the Zouk Mikael industrial district where the toxins remain trapped by a nearby mountain chain. Zeina, aged 40, says […]
by Hashem Osseiran Agence France-Presse BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — A woman held up a Beirut bank Wednesday with a toy gun and walked out with thousands of dollars to pay for treatment for her ill sister, in a desperate heist cheered by many in crisis-hit Lebanon. It was the latest in a series of heists in Lebanon, where the savings of depositors have been devalued and trapped in banks for almost three years amid a […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Eight more grain silos at Beirut port toppled Tuesday, succumbing to damage from a devastating 2020 explosion in the third such collapse in a month, AFP correspondents reported. A cloud of dust rose over the port after the collapse, which brought down the last of the northern block of silos that was more heavily damaged in the blast and where a fire had been burning since July. The remaining southern block […]
by Guillaume LAVALLÉE Agence France-Presse TEL AVIV, Israel (AFP) –Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid makes his first foreign trip as premier on Tuesday to Paris, where he will ask President Emmanuel Macron to intervene in a gas dispute with Lebanon. Lapid took over the premiership on Friday following the collapse of Israel’s coalition government, which will see the country return to the polls in November for its fifth election in less than four years. The […]
by Layal Abou Rahal Agence France-Presse BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) – By challenging Lebanon’s national passion for automobile ownership, and driving growing numbers towards greener or more collective transport, the economic crisis is succeeding where everything else failed. In the absence of a functioning public transport system, car culture has thrived and many households, even modest ones, boast multiple vehicles. Since 2019, however, an ever worsening financial crisis has made petrol unaffordable for many and long […]
