Hezbollah

It would appear that the latest rumors of Hassan Nasrallah’s demise are, once again, greatly exaggerated. The Hezbollah Secretary-General suffered no stroke, is alive and well, and even gave a scheduled speech on Tuesday marking the third anniversary of the death of former IRGC-Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, and former Popular Mobilization Forces deputy commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.

“UNIFIL Blames Hezbollah for Inciting Citizens!” screamed a headline in Nidaa al-Watan, one week after residents of the south Lebanon town of Al-Aqbiyeh killed an Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper last Wednesday. The headline this week quotes a reported tense exchange between UNIFIL’s Commander, Maj. Gen.

The outcome of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections revealed that the country’s citizens are largely disillusioned and apathetic, given the low voter turnout, and an active minority is angry. At 41% turnout, this suggests the majority of the Lebanese people believed the outcome of the election would be irrelevant, and that whatever the composition of the parliament, it will not be able to extricate Lebanon from its current crises.

In August, Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh announced an end to its fuel subsidies, which have drained the bank’s reserves since the country began descending into a financial crisis. The move, which was expected to cause already high fuel prices to quadruple, plunged Lebanon further into collapse.

As the Iran nuclear talks remain in a state of inertia, Iranian crude exports held steady for August, totaling just above 1,000,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), with China again the number one destination and Syria number two.  Destination “unknown” meanwhile increased its share by 22,210 barrels to almost 250,000 from July. 

In the first such incident since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, at 11:15 AM on Friday, August 6, 2021 Hezbollah militants launched a rocket barrage into Israeli-held Har Dov, also known as the Shebaa Farms. Video released by Hezbollah of the strike showed a rocket-launcher mounted on an Isuzu Bongo truck firing twenty rockets into Israeli-held territory.

By Yossi Yehoshua and Reuben Weiss

Translated by David Daoud

Original Source: Yedioth Ahronoth

Original Publication Date: March 12, 2021

Original Link: https://www.yediot.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5896909,00.html

Overview

On Tuesday, Lebanon’s caretaker Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil optimistically tweeted that a new government would be formed “within hours.” Whether or not Khalil’s forecast bears out Beirut’s ongoing political dysfunction will not end with the formation of a new government.

In response to countrywide street protests, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his cabinet resigned on October 29, 2019 setting off a nearly two-month search for a replacement. Finally, this past Thursday, President Michel Aoun tasked Hassan Diab – a former education minister and American University of Beirut (AUB) professor – with forming a government after he received 69 votes from parliamentarians in support of his premiership.

Hassan Diab