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BEIRUT: Tensions escalated on Sunday on the southern Lebanese front as hostilities between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Israeli army intensified.

There was a continuous bombardment, and the Israeli side targeted a new area in southern Lebanon, some 20 km away from the border.

Israeli aircraft conducted an airstrike on the outskirts of Jannata town on Sunday afternoon, destroying a house in the raid.

The Israeli army also carried out an airstrike on a house in the town of Tura in the Tyre district.

Israeli artillery fired powerful shells toward the area near the Litani River in Al-Khardali. The Khardali road was temporarily closed by Lebanese security forces to ensure public safety, but later reopened.

Hezbollah targeted a “new Israeli army artillery position near the Al-Manara site using artillery shells.”

It launched Katyusha rockets at the air-and-missile defense command headquarters at Kila Barracks, and the missile and artillery base in Yoav in retaliation for Israel’s attacks on the Bekaa region.

The military escalation came hours after Israeli aircraft targeted the town of Al-Safari in the Baalbek district and the outskirts of the village of Janta in the heights of the eastern Lebanon mountain range, close to the Lebanese-Syrian border.

According to Reuters, a Lebanese source said the Israeli attack had targeted a Hezbollah training camp in Janta, although a Lebanese media source said the raid was on an empty warehouse.

Hezbollah sources said the group had already evacuated centers and areas believed to be Israeli targets in the Bekaa.

Israel’s targeting of Baalbek establishes a pattern of expanding Israeli targets beyond southern Lebanon to its borders with Syria, according to a source.

Al Jazeera reported that 30 rockets were launched from southern Lebanon toward the occupied territories in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, triggering alarm sirens and the Israeli Iron Dome defense system. However, Hezbollah did not release any statement claiming responsibility for the operation.

Avichay Adraee, the spokesperson of the Israeli army, confirmed that the Israeli military had conducted raids on three Hezbollah air defense sites in Baalbek.

An Israeli drone was downed in Lebanese airspace on Saturday night and, in response, Israeli aircraft targeted three military facilities belonging to Hezbollah in Baalbek.

Hezbollah then reported it had forced down a drone by launching a surface-to-air missile on Saturday night.

“The most sophisticated Hermes 900 spy drone was forced down within the eastern airspace of southern Lebanon,” said Hezbollah, adding that it was being used for reconnaissance purposes.

It was reported that all other Israeli spy drones disappeared from southern Lebanon skies following the incident.

BEIRUT, March 13, 2024 – No-regret investments in key service sectors like energy, water, transport and solid waste are urgently needed in the short-term to mitigate the impact of climate change on Lebanon’s development path, according to a new World Bank report released today. Despite the country’s strained fiscal and institutional context, the cost of inaction is high. Critical investments with limited macro-fiscal impact can help spur growth.

The Lebanon Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) maps out mounting climate risks to Lebanon and their potential impact on the country’s growth and development path. Building on quantitative modeling-based analytics, existing research and country diagnostics, and stakeholder consultations, the CCDR examines four sectors – Energy, Water, Transport and Solid Waste – as key pillars of a climate-responsive recovery. The report identifies policy actions and investments needed under two macroeconomic scenarios: a business-as-usual muddling through scenario which assumes continued stalling reforms, a tight fiscal space and shortage of private sector financing; and a reforms-based recovery scenario which assumes that macro-fiscal reforms will be adopted that will gradually ease financing constraints and increase fiscal space.

Lebanon is among the countries least prepared to face climate change, ranking second to Yemen in the MENA region and in the 161st position out of 192 countries globally in climate change readiness. At the root of this vulnerability is the country’s limited adaptive capacity, which has been further exacerbated by the ongoing economic and financial crisis. The latter has severely weakened Lebanon’s human, natural, and physical capital. It has also drastically compromised public finances, impeding the capacity to invest in mitigation measures and to prevent deterioration in public services in sectors like energy and solid waste and wastewater management thus accelerating environmental degradation.

Climate change in Lebanon will result in more frequent extreme weather events. Climate shocks are projected to affect Lebanon’s GDP and fiscal balance, and to increase the debt-to-GDP ratio. Overall, the climate change impacts covered in the CCDR are projected to reduce Lebanon’s growth potential by up to 2% annually by 2040 and impede service provision, especially in water. Climate change is projected to decrease water availability by up to 9% by 2040 (up to 50% during the dry season) and induce significant losses in key recovery-driving sectors, particularly agriculture and tourism with yearly losses projected to reach respectively up to US$250 million and US$75 million, threatening the livelihoods of a large portion of the population.

“Climate change poses a real threat to any country’s development prospects. Lebanon is no exception: the cost of inaction today will be too high for future generations,” said Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Middle East Country Director."Given the limited fiscal space, institutional and development challenges, Lebanon needs to prioritize and sequence recommended measures and interventions in the energy, water, transport and solid waste sectors, reflecting their urgency, synergies, and trade-offs in responding to development and climate needs.”

According to the report, decarbonizing Lebanon’s power sector offers a triple dividend: reducing economic costs by 41%, lowering emissions by 43% and improving macro-fiscal outcomes through lower fuel imports. Expanding renewable energy will not only reduce costs and meet growing demand but will also slow emissions generation and create more job opportunities. In the water sector, building climate-adaptive capacity is essential to increase water security through additional storage capacity, increased water use efficiency, and restoring resilient water services. Beyond the power and water sectors, promoting electrification of public transport and improving solid waste management present opportunities to advance the development and climate agendas simultaneously.

Increasing Lebanon’s capacity to adapt to climate shocks depends on how quickly it recovers from its current crisis and invests in adaptation measures, especially in the water, agricultural, tourism, and transport sectors. The Lebanon CCDR assesses the impact of an urgent financing envelope of U$770 million that responds, in the short term (2024-26), and under any scenario, to partial yet critical needs in the four sectors. Macroeconomic modeling of the impacts of the priority investment package showed that it would not place debt on an unsustainable footing. Mobilizing private sector financing can help enhance the fiscal and debt dynamics reducing the government’s share of total investment spending.

In the longer term, the CCDR also estimates that Lebanon will need to invest approximately US$7.6 billion between 2024 and 2030 in the four key sectors covered in the report to align its recovery with cost-effective climate action. The capital-intensive energy sector alone would require approximately US$4 billion in investment to diversify the generation mix toward cleaner, affordable renewable energy sources and to switch from liquid fuel to natural gas.

The report also underscores the important of empowering Lebanon’s private sector, improving governance, and adopting a whole-of-society approach to climate change as critical elements for Lebanon’s green recovery.

World Bank Group Country Climate and Development Reports: The World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs) are new core diagnostic reports that integrate climate change and development considerations. They will help countries prioritize the most impactful actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and boost adaptation while delivering on broader development goals. CCDRs build on data and rigorous research and identify main pathways to reduce GHG emissions and climate vulnerabilities, including the costs and challenges as well as benefits and opportunities from doing so. The reports suggest concrete, priority actions to support the low-carbon, resilient transition. As public documents, CCDRs aim to inform governments, citizens, the private sector, and development partners and enable engagements with the development and climate agenda. CCDRs will feed into other core Bank Group diagnostics, country engagements, and operations to help attract funding and direct financing for high-impact climate action.

This pre-1948 map showed the locations of seven Shiite villages inside the British Mandate for Palestine. (Zero0000/CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)

On May 25, 2000, Israel withdrew its troops from its self-proclaimed security zone in South Lebanon under the pressure of Hizbullah’s guerrilla attrition warfare. Twenty-four years after the zone’s establishment, Israel decided that redeploying along its international border with Lebanon could potentially put an end to its military confrontation with Hizbullah, the Shiite Iranian-directed militia. Indeed, after consultation with the UN and in accordance with the agreed coordinates, Israel retreated to what is called the “Blue Line.”

The three places Israel decided not to withdraw from were the Rosh Hanikra tunnel crossing (registered as belonging to the state of Lebanon and recorded in the Lebanese land registrar under the file number 28/Naqoura), the Ghajar village, and the Shab’ah farms in the eastern part of the border between Israel and Lebanon. Israel claimed that these last two were not part of Lebanon since, according to the United Nations, cartographers, and historical research, they were part of southern Syria. They were conquered during the Six-Day War in June 1967.

Hizbullah, in concert with the Lebanese government, refused to recognize the Israeli claim.

However, Hizbullah did not put this issue high on its agenda and concentrated on planning an invasion of Israeli territory, a plan that was copied to the letter by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and applied on October 7, 2023. Note the Hizbullah motorcycle invasion tactic, pictured below, which was copied by Hamas fighters. Hizbullah chose to invest in preparations for confrontation with Israel and, inter alia, in digging attack tunnels that were to reach deep inside Israeli territory, tunnels which were uncovered by Israel in 2019 and sealed with tons of concrete.

The issue of the seven villages resurfaced during the negotiations on the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel. Hizbullah presented itself as the protector of Lebanese interests and stressed the fact that there were 13 points of contention with Israel in which Israel had supposedly appropriated Lebanese territory. In the months that elapsed, Hizbullah’s rhetoric grew more aggressive towards Israel. It even went further by claiming that there was no reason to negotiate the delimitation of the land border since there was already an internationally recognized international border drawn in 1923.

In the course of the exchanges and especially following Hizbullah leaders’ declarations, it appeared that Hizbullah, emboldened by its unanswered provocations against Israel, raised another issue that was never put on focus in the past: Hizbullah claimed that not only did Ghajar and the Shab’ah farms belong to Lebanon and were under Israeli “occupation,” but, Israel had destroyed seven Shia villages in the northern part of the Galilee, whose residents had been deported or chased from their homes in the course of the 1948 war and never came back. Those seven villages had been initially part of Lebanon under the French mandate. In a later agreement between the mandatory powers, France and Great Britain, the villages were included in British-controlled mandatory Palestine, although their residents maintained their Lebanese citizenship.

According to Khalil Gemayel, a Lebanese general who was responsible for the southern Lebanese command, there were another 24 villages that were taken from Lebanon and attached to mandatory Palestine, but the residents did not carry a Lebanese ID, which is the reason why the Lebanese authorities and Hizbullah have mentioned only the seven villages.¹

Indeed, following the 1949 armistice agreement between Lebanon and Israel, the Lebanese government accepted the demarcation of the borders between Lebanon and mandatory Palestine as drawn in 1923 (Paulet-Newcombe agreement on the delimitation of the border between Lebanon and Mandatory Palestine). Accordingly, Lebanon relinquished its claim to those seven villages, which remained under Israeli sovereignty.

A hundred years later, Hizbullah has positioned itself as the champion of those displaced residents and substituted itself for the Lebanese government; it has been demanding the restitution of those villages, even at the cost of a military confrontation with Israel.

It is no coincidence that the attack tunnels dug by Hizbullah faced areas close or adjacent to those “seven villages” since Hizbullah’s proclaimed aim was to “liberate” the Galilee and to restore those areas “stolen by the Zionists” to Lebanese sovereignty.

BEIRUT (AP) — Three and a half years after hundreds of tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate ignited at the Beirut port, setting off one of the world’s biggest non-nuclear explosions, Lebanese and French officials put forward a plan for reconstruction and reorganization of the port Wednesday.

The Aug. 4, 2020, explosion at Beirut’s port killed more than 200 people, injured and displaced thousands and devastated entire neighborhoods of the city.

Since then, an investigation into the causes of the blast has ground to a halt, and reconstruction of the damaged areas has largely been carried out piecemeal with private funding as international funds promised for rebuilding were largely contingent on political reforms that never materialized.

A number of proposals that have been floated for reconstruction and redevelopment of the still-functioning port have floundered, including an ambitious plan suggested in 2021 by a group of German companies to redevelop the port alongside new commercial and residential developments.

In 2022, French shipping giant CMA CGM Group won a 10-year contract to run the container terminal at the port.

The French government funded the development of the plan presented Wednesday by two French engineering firms, Artelia and Egis. It will focus on rebuilding quays damaged in the explosion, reorganizing the port’s layout to streamline traffic, and shifting the facility to solar power. A French public agency, Expertise France, conducted an assessment with recommendations for improving security at the port.

Lebanon will need to come up with an estimated $60- $80 million to complete the reconstruction. It plans on using the port’s revenues which have been on the rise — after a slump amid the COVID-19 pandemic and Lebanon’s descent into an unprecedented economic crisis — reaching $150 million in 2023, the port’s Director General Omar Itani said at a press conference Wednesday.

The Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and French Ambassador to Lebanon also were also in attendance, along with representatives of the French companies.

Mikati told reporters that Lebanon and France have “strong historical relations that we are proud of,” referring to ties that go back to when the small Arab nation was a French protectorate after World War I until independence in 1943.

“We consider France’s support for Lebanon to be particularly important because it represents the heart of the international community,” he said.

Magro said rebuilding the Beirut port is one of France’s “priorities in our support for Lebanon.” He added: “The Lebanese economy indeed needs a reconstructed, modernized and secure port of Beirut.”

However, the plan presented Wednesday did not address the fate of the port’s massive grain silos, which had absorbed much of the shock of the explosion, effectively shielding the western part of Beirut from the blast.

The Lebanese government at one point planned to demolish the damaged silos but decided against it after families of the blast’s victims and survivors protested, demanding their preservation as a memorial and in case they might contain evidence useful for the judicial probe.

A large portion of the silos collapsed in 2022, while the remaining section has been left in place.

By seizing the initiative and presenting a moderate, reasoned, and conciliatory position, Israel would help repair the damage it has done to itself in Gaza.

Updated: FEBRUARY 18, 2024 10:55

Even as the ruinous but also essential war grinds on against Hamas in Gaza, there is increasing concern about another costly war with Hezbollah in the North. Especially after October 7, Israel is less tolerant of militias menacing its villages from right across a border. And it is finding it intolerable to absorb long-term shelling, as it has now for months, just because Hezbollah feels the need to make a statement.

Israelis have certainly heard the political leadership make clear that patience is running out. American mediators have heard this too, and, for many, this is good enough. But I’d like to propose that it is not. Far more robust public diplomacy is needed to move public opinion in a way that also focuses the minds of governments, and projects urgency, clarifies seriousness, and might prevent a war.

And preventing a war is desirable. There is a widespread expectation that an attack on Hezbollah would unleash massive rocket attacks on Israel, with missiles far more powerful than those of Hamas that would not be as easily dispatched by Iron Dome and would cause massive destruction and death in Tel Aviv. This is behind the recent panic that has Israelis buying generators and preparing for a prolonged emergency.

If this occurs, Israel has made clear that it will target infrastructure and other targets in Lebanon, beyond purely Hezbollah facilities, and it will strike at the capital, Beirut, which would quickly become a global emergency. Israel’s position is both understandable and unfair: Lebanon, which is so divided that it has not had a president or a military chief in over a year, really does not control Hezbollah. The only influence on the group – and that is not even complete – is from its patrons in Tehran.

Israel knows this, of course. Its message is mainly directed at Hezbollah itself, and at the Lebanese public, in the hope that it will pressure the group. Indeed, there have been a variety of appeals, from politicians and in signed petitions, to Hezbollah to avoid war. It has not been nearly enough, but it may explain why Hezbollah has appeared to try to not go too far.

Israel needs for there to be far more pressure on Hezbollah from the public in Lebanon – and for the world to understand where the fault lies should war break out.

Why, then, not make its position crystal clear, in a dramatic public appeal engineered to gain maximum media attention as it extends an olive branch? A more clever Israeli leader than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one who is not constantly playing to a hard-Right base, might deliver a missive constructed roughly as follows:

The Israeli leader would note that Israel has faced attacks from Lebanese territory since the second week of October, which have caused some 100,000 Israelis to flee the border area. Israel has no choice – absolutely no choice – but to demand that these attacks cease. If the Lebanese government does not rein in the Hezbollah militia carrying out the attacks, Israel will be forced to do so. The results will not be pretty, as they are not pretty in Gaza.

At this point, though, the Israeli leader should clarify with great precision and emphasis that Israel has absolutely no enmity toward Lebanon and wishes Lebanese people nothing but peace (and from years of leading coverage of the Middle East, I know that the Lebanese people mostly feel the same). The PM should emphasize that Israel also has no territorial or other claim, and any military occupation of the past was purely the result of fear of attack – as the coming one would be.

Indeed, he or she would say, Israel is willing to offer an open-ended guarantee of non-belligerency, and preferably, indeed, a peace treaty. For this, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006 would have to be implemented, which calls for the removal of Hezbollah from the border area, asserts that the Lebanese government should have a monopoly of power, and bans all weapons’ sales to any militia in the country. Lebanon itself ratified this resolution.

At this point, the Israeli leader might shock the world by adding that Israel is prepared to discuss handing over to Lebanon, as a sign of good faith, the so-called Mount Dov (Shaba Farms) area, eight square miles of hills with a tiny Arab population running along the Golan Heights and now controlled by Israel. It has no value for Israel yet has been used as a transparent pretext by Hezbollah to justify its aggression.

If Hezbollah claims a victory, let it – because that might help the group find a graceful way to melt away, with some armed elements perhaps integrating into the Lebanese army. All of that will be for the peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon.

Israel might also add that, as a sign of its further goodwill, it would be willing to help engineer and participate in a massive international aid package for Lebanon to help it build state capacity and absorb and resettle some of the almost two million Syrian refugees. The Shi’ite south, after years of neglect by both the government and abuse by Hezbollah, is in real disrepair.

What does Israel really have to lose? It doesn’t want the Shaba Farms. And it really seeks only peace with Lebanon, against which it has no claims – as most of the world’s news consumers almost surely do not know. Most world leaders would support it; even public opinion would support it.

In Lebanon, there will be a clamor for the government to engage with the Israeli offer. It will come from Hezbollah’s home turf among the country’s Shi’ites as well. If Hezbollah demands a role in the talks, Israel should agree. Why not? It is not a perfect world.

By seizing the initiative and presenting a moderate, reasoned, and conciliatory position, Israel would help repair the damage it has done to itself in Gaza. It would finally be disappointing Iran instead of unwittingly doing its bidding.

Why does Israel not do things this way? Most of what I’ve outlined is in fact in the Israeli consensus – even, very quietly, the element of the Shaba Farms. Surely critics will say everything is known, and there is no one to talk to. They should think again,

As someone who was a journalist and is now in PR, I could assure them that such stinginess with messaging is no way to make news and no way to win hearts and minds. It is also no way to avoid war and no way to make peace.

The writer was the regional chief of AP in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, chaired the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and authored two books on Israel. Follow him at danperry.substack.com.