This picture taken from Lebanon's southern city of Tyre shows smoke billowing following an Israeli air strike on the village of Zibqin on Oct. 14, amid the continuing war between Hezbollah and Israel.KAWNAT HAJU/AFP/Getty Images
The Lebanese are used to war, deprivation, wealth destruction, mass protests and political chaos. Life goes on – sort of – in a country that has not felt like a real country in decades.
This time, there is a palpable sense of fear, of doom even, as Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah bombard each other.
“We have never seen such terrible conditions,” said John Khoury, a Lebanese Christian who owns a chain of fast-food restaurants in Beirut and has fled to the mountains north of the capital to escape the Israeli attacks on the city.
What Israel calls “limited, localized, targeted operations” against the Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon seem more like a full invasion, with 20,000 or more troops pushing north from the Israeli border. The Lebanese Health Ministry says Israeli air strikes have killed more than 2,250 people in the past year, most of whom died in the past three weeks, and wounded 10,500.
At the same time, Lebanon is overwhelmed by more than a million IDPs – internally displaced people – who are fleeing southern Lebanon and south Beirut, two areas that Israel is attacking relentlessly as it tries to destroy Hezbollah strongholds.
And there is no functioning government, the result of the political stalemate since 2022 that has prevented parliament from electing a president, leaving the country politically paralyzed when it needs a stable government most.
“This country and its politicians have to unite and create a real sovereign Lebanon before it’s too late,” Mr. Khoury said.
Nearly one million in Lebanon displaced
More than 600,000 people of Lebanon’s 5.4 million have been
displaced within the country and more than300,000 others have
fled abroad since the war escalated last month, the UN says
INTERNALLY DISPLACED
(by district of departure, since Oct. 8, 2023)
20km
Sour
174,863
29%
Nabatieh
96,816
16%
Tripoli
Bent Jbeil
86,477
14%
TOTAL
608,509
Baalbek
LEBANON
Beirut
700
Other
168,800
28%
Marjaayoun
81,553
13%
608.51
600
Nabatieh
Lebanese health ministry
says more than 2,250
people killed in Israeli
attacks since Oct. 2023
– most in past
two weeks
500
400
Marjaayoun
Sour
Bent Jbeil
300
INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN LEBANON
(000s, cumulative, data to Oct. 7, 2024)
200
100
S
A
J
J
M
A
M
F
J
2024
D
N
O
2023
O
Sources: graphic news; OCHA, International Organization
for Migration (IOM)
Nearly one million in Lebanon displaced
More than 600,000 people of Lebanon’s 5.4 million have been
displaced within the country and more than 300,000 others have
fled abroad since the war escalated last month, the UN says
INTERNALLY DISPLACED
(by district of departure, since Oct. 8, 2023)
20km
Sour
174,863
29%
Nabatieh
96,816
16%
Tripoli
Bent Jbeil
86,477
14%
TOTAL
608,509
Baalbek
LEBANON
Beirut
700
Other
168,800
28%
Marjaayoun
81,553
13%
608.51
600
Nabatieh
Lebanese health ministry
says more than 2,250
people killed in Israeli
attacks since Oct. 2023
– most in past
two weeks
500
400
Marjaayoun
Sour
Bent Jbeil
300
INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN LEBANON
(000s, cumulative, data to Oct. 7, 2024)
200
100
O
2023
N
D
J
2024
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
Sources: graphic news; OCHA, International Organization
for Migration (IOM)
Nearly one million in Lebanon displaced
More than 600,000 people of Lebanon’s 5.4 million have been
displaced within the country and more than 300,000 others have fled
abroad since the war escalated last month, the UN says
INTERNALLY DISPLACED
(by district of departure, since Oct. 8, 2023)
20km
Sour
174,863
29%
Nabatieh
96,816
16%
Tripoli
Bent Jbeil
86,477
14%
TOTAL
608,509
Baalbek
LEBANON
Beirut
700
Other
168,800
28%
Marjaayoun
81,553
13%
608.51
600
Nabatieh
Lebanese health ministry
says more than 2,250
people killed in Israeli
attacks since Oct. 2023
– most in past
two weeks
500
400
Marjaayoun
Sour
Bent Jbeil
300
INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN LEBANON
(000s, cumulative, data to Oct. 7, 2024)
200
100
S
A
J
J
M
A
M
F
J
2024
D
N
O
2023
O
Sources: graphic news; OCHA, International Organization for Migration (IOM)
But amid violence and social stress, there is a sense that the crisis has handed little Lebanon the opportunity to reinvent itself – that is, if Israel does not end up occupying the southern part of the country, as it did from 1982 to 2000. The glimmer of hope comes from serious damage inflicted by Israel on Hezbollah, which has operated as a state within a state for more than three decades and now appears to be gravely wounded, though still able to fight.
“The destruction of Hezbollah could pave the way for political compromise,” said Selim Sayegh, an academic who is a member of Kataeb, an opposition Christian party in the Lebanese parliament, and a former minister of social affairs. “Hezbollah might retain some political power but not hold a monopoly within Lebanon over the Shia community.”
Hezbollah was formed by Lebanese clerics in 1982 to fight Israel’s occupation of the country. Over the years, it evolved into a formidable political and military force that is considered the biggest and most heavily armed non-state militia in the world, with an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 fighters.
Its greatest expansion took place after the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, when it essentially disregarded UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The resolution called for Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and the replacement of the two belligerents by the Lebanese Army and peacekeepers attached to UNIFIL – the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.
Lebanese in general dislike Hezbollah. Only the Shia, which represent about 27 per cent of the population, view Hezbollah favourably. They think Lebanon would be an Israeli colony had Hezbollah not fought hard in the 2006 war.
Most of the Sunni despise Hezbollah. Their sympathies lie with the Syrian rebels, who fought Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his ally, Hezbollah, during the Syrian civil war, which started in 2012.
The vast majority of Christian Lebanese (about 40 per cent of the population) also dislike Hezbollah. On Saturday in Beirut, the opposition parties, led by the Lebanese Forces, the largest Christian party, got together to plea for a ceasefire, the election of a president, the disarmament of Hezbollah and the full implementation of UN Resolution 1701.
In a statement, Lebanese Forces, led by former warlord Samir Geagea, called for a president “who will grant the Lebanese Army all necessary powers to ensure that no weapons or security organizations exist outside of state control.”
In other words, no Hezbollah militia.
There is no doubt that Israel is inflicting far more damage on Hezbollah than the other way around. “Hezbollah is trapped,” Mr. Sayegh said. “All they are trying to do is minimize their own losses.”
The biggest blow came on Sept. 27, when a massive Israeli air strike in south Beirut killed Hassan Nasrallah, who had been Hezbollah’s leader and chief strategist since the early 1990s. Dozens of his top commanders were killed in the same strike and others. Hezbollah has been decapitated; even Mr. Nasrallah’s presumed replacement, Shia cleric Hashem Safieddine, is thought to have been assassinated.
At the same time, hundreds of Israeli air strikes throughout Lebanon, especially in the south, have destroyed significant numbers of Hezbollah guerrillas and weapon caches, tunnels and mountain caves, according to the Israel Defence Forces.
Many military analysts think Hezbollah will never face outright defeat, since their fighters are dug into terrain that the Israelis are not familiar with, still have ample supplies of weapons – their near-daily rocket salvos on Israel prove as much – and have a formidable fighting reputation. Still, there is no doubt the group has been severely wounded. Its inability to defend Lebanon is put on full display every day.
The question is whether Hezbollah will collapse, leaving a military and political vacuum that inevitably will be filled. A concerted effort to build a functioning sovereign state – that is, ending Hezbollah’s state-within-a-state status – could emerge.
“The Shia will come to realize that their only protection will come through the state, not through Hezbollah,” said Ghassan Moukheiber, a lawyer who was an independent member of the Lebanese parliament for 16 years, until 2018.
Already, there are rumblings of renewed efforts to elect a president, who would then appoint a neutral government made up of technocrat cabinet ministers, the goal being to stop the institutional rot that had turned Lebanon into a dysfunctional mess even before the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. Once some political stability is achieved, the next step would be implementing Resolution 1701, which would see the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL move into southern Lebanon.
In other words, create a sovereign democracy that would command international respect and trigger aid programs to help rebuild the economy.
“Lebanon never enjoyed enough stability to take advantage of democracy and achieve sovereignty,” Mr. Sayegh said.
The scenario is far from certain, even if Hezbollah’s debilitation theoretically makes it possible. Israel could utterly defeat Hezbollah, allowing the reoccupation of vast parts of Lebanon. Israeli attacks could last a year, as they have in Gaza, reducing Lebanon to rubble and shattering the economy, at which point talk of a new, Hezbollah-free political, institutional and military order would be pointless. There might be no Lebanon left to recreate.
Mr. Moukheiber raises an even darker possible scenario: a new civil war.
That could happen, he said, if the Shia, shorn of Hezbollah, their protector, feel dispossessed and powerless and lash out. Violence and a descent into chaos might turn Lebanon into a top-to-bottom war zone, as it was during the 1975-90 civil war.
“Every hegemony has come to an end in Lebanon,” Mr. Moukheiber said. “Now is the time for solidarity, but the upheaval in internal politics could be immense.”