BEIRUT: Lebanon has scant chance of securing badly needed aid from the International Monetary Fund as the government fails to enact reforms demanded by donors to address its financial crisis, opposition politician Samir Geagea said on Friday.
“Unfortunately, (matters) are going from bad to worse,” he said. “It could, in my opinion, reach social unrest, and social violence.”
The long-brewing financial crisis, the biggest threat to Lebanon’s stability since the 1975-90 civil war, came to a head last October when big protests erupted against the corruption and bad governance of the sectarian elite.
The local currency has since more than halved in value and savers have been frozen out of bank accounts. Unemployment and inflation have soared in the import-dependent country.
Geagea heads the Lebanese Forces, the second-biggest Christian party in parliament, and opposes the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah and its Christian ally, President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, which both back the government.
“The situation in Lebanon is not unsalvageable. But from the moment the crisis erupted on October 17, did you see any change in the management of the state?” said Geagea, who is politically aligned with the United States and its Gulf Arab allies.
“If the behavior at the top of the state remains the way it is, how can we save the country?”
Geagea, whose party quit government early into the October protests, said Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government had not enacted any reforms. With no alternative ways to secure aid, the government launched IMF negotiations in May. But Geagea said the chances of securing support were “very, very scant.”
“From the moment this government took office the whole world was waiting for reforms. So far, not one of the required reforms have happened,” Geagea said. “Nobody is going to give Lebanon any assistance before the state carries out the required reforms.”
The government has produced an economic recovery plan which sets out vast losses in the financial system and is serving as the basis for the IMF negotiations.
Geagea said the government had failed to fix two big problems: smuggling to Syria, which he blamed on Hezbollah, and a state-run electricity sector that bleeds up to $2 billion a year, which he blamed on the Free Patriotic Movement.
Hezbollah, which is heavily armed and listed as a terrorist group by the United States, has long denied it has anything to do with smuggling to Syria. Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, has said plans for fixing Lebanon’s electricity have been obstructed by others.
Lebanon has scant chance of getting IMF aid, Geagea says
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Lebanon has scant chance of getting IMF aid, Geagea says
- The long-brewing financial crisis came to a head last October when big protests erupted against the corruption and bad governance of the sectarian elite
- Geagea, whose Lebanese Forces party quit government early into the October protests, said Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government had not enacted any reforms
Israel army kills West Bank attacker who tried to run over troops
- The Palestinian civil affairs authority named the man as 20-year-old Qais Sami Jaser Allan, adding that he “was shot by the occupation forces between the towns of Einabus and Awarta”
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said its troops shot dead a man who tried to run over a group of soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
The incident occurred in Einabus in the northern West Bank, the military said.
“A short while ago, a report was received regarding a terrorist who attempted to run over IDF (Israeli army) soldiers operating in the area of Einabus,” the military said.
“In response, the soldiers fired at the terrorist and eliminated him.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it rescued three people after the Israeli army opened fire near Einabus on a vehicle with Palestinian license plates.
“Two of the wounded were shot, and one of them is in critical condition. The third was injured as a result of being beaten,” the Red Crescent said.
The Palestinian civil affairs authority named the man as 20-year-old Qais Sami Jaser Allan, adding that he “was shot by the occupation forces between the towns of Einabus and Awarta.”
The incident came just days after a Palestinian from the West Bank ran over an Israeli in his sixties with his vehicle and later stabbed an 18-year-old girl to death in northern Israel.
The perpetrator was killed during the attack.
Following that incident on Friday, the military conducted a two-day operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya from where the attacker came, detaining several residents including his father and brothers.
Since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, violence has also surged in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the territory, including many militants as well as dozens of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian health ministry.
According to official Israeli figures, at least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have also been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the same period in the West Bank.
