BEIRUT: A prominent Lebanese daily Thursday appeared on newsstands with a black front page in the second such protest by a local paper in less than a year over the country’s lingering political crisis.
“Lebanon,” read the cover of The Daily Star, the country’s only English-language newspaper.
On 10 blank pages inside, it listed a string of woes including “government deadlock,” “pollution” “unemployment,” “illegal weapons” and “public debt.”
“Wake up before it’s too late!” it concluded on its back page, with the issue’s single picture of a cedar, the country’s national emblem.
The newspaper’s Lebanon and online editor Joseph Habboush said the move sought to convey alarm to the ruling class.
“We wanted to deliver a warning to the politicians and officials that the situation has reached an alarming level,” he said.
In October last year, the country’s oldest newspaper An-Nahar printed an entirely blank issue to protest a political deadlock over forming a cabinet.
The government was formed in January after an eight-month hiatus, but the cabinet has now not met for over a month since a shootout killed a minister’s two bodyguards.
In a rare comment, the US embassy on Wednesday warned against any inflammation of tensions over the incident in Qabr el-Shamoun on June 30.
“The US has conveyed in clear terms to Lebanese authorities our expectation that they will handle this matter in a way that achieves justice without politically motivated inflammation of sectarian or communal tensions,” it said.
Growth in Lebanon has plummeted in the wake of endless political deadlocks in recent years, compounded by the 2011 breakout of civil war in neighboring Syria.
The country hosts 1.5 million Syrians who have fled the conflict, often blamed in Lebanon for putting pressure on an already struggling economy.
Unemployment stands at more than 20 percent, according to the government.
Lebanon is one of the world’s most indebted countries, with public debt now standing at more than 150 percent of GDP, according to the finance ministry.
Successive governments have been unable to address a waste management crisis or improve an electricity grid that causes daily power cuts, a phenomenon that has long outlived Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
The print media has also been facing a crisis, with several publications either closing or disappearing in print.
A source at the Daily Star who asked not to be named said employees had not yet been paid wages for June and July.
The Daily Star is a private newspaper owned by the family of Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri, according to press watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Since July 30, staff at the Hariri-owned Future TV have gone on strike over unpaid salaries, with only re-runs aired for around a week.
Lebanon newspaper goes black to raise alarm over political crisis
Lebanon newspaper goes black to raise alarm over political crisis
- The newspaper’s Lebanon and online editor Joseph Habboush said the move sought to convey alarm to the ruling class
- Lebanon is one of the world’s most indebted countries, with public debt now standing at more than 150 percent of GDP
Israeli court overturns conviction of officer who assaulted Palestinian journalist, citing ‘Oct. 7 PTSD’
- Judge sentenced Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service, saying officer “devoted his life to Israel’s security” and conviction was “disproportionate to severity of his actions”
- Footage shows Sofer throwing photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque
LONDON: An Israeli court overturned the conviction of a border police officer who assaulted a Palestinian journalist, ruling his actions were influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder from serving during the Oct. 7 2023 attacks.
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced officer Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service for assaulting Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf in occupied East Jerusalem in December 2023.
Footage shows Sofer and other officers drawing weapons, throwing Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque amid heavy restrictions.
Alkharouf was hospitalized with facial and body injuries. His cameraman, Faiz Abu Ramila, was also attacked.
Anadolu photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf violently attacked by Israeli army in occupied East Jerusalem while covering Palestinian prayers near Al-Aqsa Mosque
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) December 15, 2023
Incident highlights ongoing restrictions on Friday prayers and press freedom in region https://t.co/exT6XqjEaA pic.twitter.com/pqugK9HnOt
Sofer had been convicted in September 2024 of assault causing bodily harm (acquitted of threats) and initially faced six months’ community service, as recommended by Mahash, the Justice Ministry’s police misconduct unit.
Judge Amir Shaked accepted the defense request to cancel the conviction, replacing it with community service.
He cited Sofer’s PTSD from responding to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, noting the officer had “no prior criminal record” and had “devoted his life to Israel’s security.”
“The court cannot ignore this when considering whether the defendant’s conviction should stand,” he said, adding that while the incident is “serious and does cross the criminal threshold,” the conviction in place could cause Sofer harm “disproportionate to the severity of his actions.”
The ruling comes amid surging attacks on journalists in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since Israel’s war on Gaza began.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported Israel responsible for two-thirds of the 129 media workers killed worldwide in 2025, the deadliest year on record, citing a “persistent culture of impunity” and lack of transparent probes.
Reporters Without Borders called the Israeli army the “worst enemy of journalists” in its 2025 report, with nearly half of global reporter deaths in Gaza.
Foreign journalists face raids, arrests and intimidation. In late January 2026, Israel’s Supreme Court granted a delay on ruling a ban on foreign media access to Gaza.
