DAMASCUS: Lebanese officials are set to visit Damascus Saturday to discuss plans to import gas through wartorn Syria’s territory in what would mark the first official diplomatic visit during the 10-year-old conflict.
The delegation includes Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni, Energy Minister Raymond Ghajjar, General Security agency chief Abbas Ibrahim and Zeina Akar, who holds the posts of defense minister, foreign minister and deputy premier, Syria’s information ministry said in an invite sent to journalists.
They will be greeted at the Syrian side of the border at 10:30am (0730 GMT) by Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad, the information ministry added.
A source at Lebanon’s energy ministry said the two sides will discuss plans to import natural gas via Jordan and Syria to ease Lebanon’s energy crisis.
The aim is to revive a 2009 agreement that allowed Lebanon to import gas from Egypt through Syria, the source said.
Lebanon has maintained diplomatic ties with Syria but it adopted a so-called policy of dissociation from the conflict since it started in 2011, which put a dampener on official dealings.
Lebanese security officials and politicians have made several visits to Syria in recent years, but almost exclusively in a personal capacity or on behalf of political parties that support President Bashar Assad’s government.
They include representatives of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement which has been battling alongside Assad’s forces in Syria since the early stages of the war.
Last November, a small Lebanese delegation participated in a Russian-sponsored conference in Damascus that discussed the return of Syrian refugees.
The upcoming visit comes after the Lebanese presidency last month said that Washington has agreed to help Lebanon secure electricity and natural gas from Jordan and Egypt through Syrian territory.
This implies that the US is willing to waive Western sanctions which prohibit any official transactions with the Syrian government and which have hampered previous attempts by Lebanon to source gas from Egypt.
Lebanon, a country of more than six million people, is grappling with an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the planet’s worst in modern times.
The central bank is struggling to afford basic imports, including fuel, which has caused shortages and prolonged power cuts that now last as long as 22 hours per day.
Lebanon delegation in first official Syria visit in 10 years
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Lebanon delegation in first official Syria visit in 10 years
- Lebanon energy ministry source said two sides will discuss plans to import natural gas via Jordan and Syria
- Aim is to revive 2009 agreement that allowed Lebanon to import gas from Egypt through Syria, source said
What’s next for the Gaza ceasefire and will the truce last?
- Many Israelis and Palestinians suspect the Trump plan will never be fully realized and that the current frozen conflict will continue indefinitely
GAZA: More than two months after Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire halting two years of devastating warfare in Gaza, most fighting has stopped. However, both sides accuse each other of major breaches of the deal and look no closer to accepting the much more difficult steps envisaged for the next phase.
Ceasefire steps are outlined in three different documents. The most detailed is a 20-point plan issued by US President Donald Trump in September for an initial truce followed by steps toward a wider peace. It ultimately calls for Hamas to disarm and have no governing role in Gaza and for Israel to pull out of the territory. The sides have not fully agreed to everything in it.
On October 9 Israel and Hamas did sign a more limited ceasefire deal involving only the first parts of Trump’s plan – a hostage and prisoner release, a halt to warfare, partial Israeli withdrawal and a surge in aid. The Trump plan was then endorsed by a third document, a United Nations Security Council resolution that also authorized a transitional governing body and international stabilization force in Gaza.
All 20 remaining living hostages were returned, as well as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Returning dead hostages has taken longer, with one body remaining in Gaza and 27 returned. Palestinian bodies have been returned in exchange for each Israeli body. There’s a dispute over aid. Hamas says fewer trucks are entering Gaza than was agreed. Aid agencies say there is far less aid than required, and that Israel is blocking many necessary items from coming in. Israel denies that and says it is abiding by its obligations under the truce.
The Rafah border crossing into Egypt was meant to be opened in the first phase of the ceasefire. It remains closed and Israel has said it will only be opened for Palestinians entering and leaving Gaza when the body of the last hostage is returned. Gaza remains in ruins, with residents pulling bars from the rubble to construct tents. The UN children’s agency said in December that a “shockingly high” number of Gazan children were still acutely malnourished, while heavy rain has flooded thousands of tents and swept sewage and garbage across the territory, adding to a health crisis.
Some violence has continued. Palestinian militants have launched attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza, killing at least three. Israeli fire at people near the demarcation line, and during operations that Israel says are targeting Hamas, has killed around 400 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
An international stabilization force is supposed to ensure security and peace inside Gaza but its composition, role and mandate are all up in the air.
Indonesia and Pakistan may play a role. Israel wants any such force to disarm Hamas, a job few countries would relish handing their troops.
A technocratic Palestinian body without Hamas representation is meant to govern for a transitional period but there have been no public announcements about how or when it will be formed. The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is supposed to carry out unspecified reforms before ultimately taking a role in Gaza. But these have not been announced either.
The Gaza government should be overseen by an international Board of Peace chaired by Trump. He has said this will be announced early in 2026 but its composition remains unclear. Under the Trump plan, Hamas is meant to disarm but the group has not agreed to that, saying it will only give up its weapons once there is a Palestinian state. Further Israeli pullbacks within Gaza are tied to disarmament.
WILL THE CEASEFIRE LAST?
Israel has repeatedly indicated that if Hamas is not disarmed peacefully, it will resume military action to make it do so, though a return to full-blown war does not look close.
However, many Israelis and Palestinians suspect the Trump plan will never be fully realized and that the current frozen conflict will continue indefinitely.
Israelis fear Hamas could rearm and threaten another attack like that of October 7, 2023.
Palestinians fear Israel will never finish pulling out of Gaza or allow full reconstruction, leaving the territory in ruins and its people without a future. Military deployments and construction plans point to a possible de facto partition of the enclave into a zone directly controlled by Israel where it has been cultivating anti Hamas groups, and a Hamas-held area without reconstruction or services.
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF LONG-TERM PEACE?
Israelis and Palestinians have rarely trusted each other less and the two-state solution, seen by most countries as the best chance of a lasting peace, has never looked so remote — despite growing international recognition for a Palestinian state.
The Trump plan recognizes self-determination and statehood as the aspiration of the Palestinian people but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly ruled this out.
Elections are due in Israel in 2026 but there is no indication that any potential new government would accept Palestinian independence.
