BEIRUT: It may take Lebanese parties more time to form a coalition government, prime minister designate Saad Al-Hariri said on Tuesday more than three months after the general election.
“Perhaps we need more time to arrive at a final formula,” he said to reporters before a meeting of members of parliament from his party in Beirut.
Lebanese politicians have repeatedly warned that the country — which has one of the world’s highest rates of public debt — urgently needs to put a government in place, but they have jostled over cabinet positions.
“There is no doubt that some sides still stick to their terms, but, as we see, all of them retreat and concede a little,” he said, adding that the new government needed to include all sides.
The May 6 elections delivered a majority for the Shiite Hezbollah and its parliamentary allies, a reversal of the previous vote in 2009, when groups with Western and Saudi support won most seats.
The result has further complicated Lebanon’s tangled sectarian politics, as Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and Druze compete among themselves for ministries.
The delay in forming the government has prompted recriminations between rival parties.
Last week, Hezbollah members of parliament warned that the delay risked Lebanon “sliding toward tensions.”
“We are a state that has problems, and we must form a national unity government in which there is cooperation between all the parties. Otherwise we will create a problem in the cabinet,” Hariri said.
The International Monetary Fund has warned that Lebanon needs “an immediate and substantial fiscal adjustment” to make its public debt — which measures about 150 percent of gross domestic product — sustainable.
Lebanon’s Hariri says government formation may take more time
Lebanon’s Hariri says government formation may take more time
- Lebanese politicians have repeatedly warned that the country urgently needs to put a government in place, but they have jostled over cabinet positions
- Lebanon’s tangled sectarian politics, has Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and Druze competing among themselves for ministries
Israel to reopen crossing with Jordan to Gaza aid trucks Wednesday: Israeli official
- “All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security ,” the official added
- Israel closed the crossing after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September
JERUSALEM: Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
“Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing,” an Israeli official said in a statement, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.
“All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection,” the official added.
Israel closed the crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.
The crossing in the Jordan Valley reopened to travelers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than two years of war.
Since the closure at Allenby, Jordan said it had been able to send some aid to Gaza via the Sheikh Hussein crossing, north of the West Bank.
The Allenby crossing is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Tzav 9, an extremist Israeli right-wing activist group seeking to halt any aid arriving in Gaza so long as Israeli hostages are held in the Palestinian territory, condemned Tuesday’s announcement.
“Hamas is still on its feet and acts every day against our fighters, and the government of Israel continues to send supply trucks and treats directly to the vile murderers who murdered, beheaded, and raped on October 7,” the US-sanctioned group said in a statement.
Of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, all but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have been handed over.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that entered into force on October 10, Hamas committed to returning all living and deceased hostages.
