BEIRUT: Western countries have floated the idea of deploying international forces to Lebanon alongside the country’s army in case of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, a Western diplomat said Wednesday.
Some 10,000 peacekeepers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are already deployed in the country’s south, but the diplomat said a separate multi-national troop deployment was under consideration.
“What is needed right now is a ceasefire and a presence trusted by both sides — this could be the Lebanese army with international forces,” the diplomat told AFP, requesting anonymity as the matter is sensitive.
“Partners of Lebanon have already been supporting the Lebanese army and are looking very concretely into how they can support it further... in the context of a ceasefire and long-term diplomatic agreement,” the diplomat added.
After nearly a year of war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to Lebanon last month, vowing to secure its northern border under fire from Hezbollah, ramping up air strikes on the group’s strongholds and sending in ground troops.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and called for the deployment of only Lebanese government forces UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon, has come under fire for its limited implementation.
Lebanese media outlets have reported discussions on bolstering the UN resolution’s implementation, dubbing such an option as “1701-plus.”
On a visit to Beirut on Monday, US envoy Amos Hochstein said that “both sides simply committing to 1701 is just not enough.”
“We have to put things in place that would allow for confidence that it will be implemented for everyone,” he added.
The Western diplomat told AFP that “the push toward a 1701-plus is a reflection of the reality that neither side implemented” the resolution.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said this month that Lebanon was ready to bolster the army in the south after any ceasefire was reached.
UNIFIL, set up in 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces after they invaded Lebanon, has accused Israel’s military of “repeatedly” and “deliberately” firing on its positions in recent weeks.
Hezbollah, founded after Israel invaded and besieged Beirut in 1982, is the only group that refused to give up its weapons after Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, doing so in the name of “resistance” against Israel.
A UN-mandated multinational force including contingents from the United States and France deployed in Lebanon after the 1982 invasion, but the mission was targeted by two deadly attacks that killed almost 300 personnel.
Western diplomat says foreign forces an option in Lebanon after truce
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Western diplomat says foreign forces an option in Lebanon after truce
- “What is needed right now is a ceasefire and a presence trusted by both sides — this could be the Lebanese army with international forces,” the diplomat told AFP
- “Partners of Lebanon have already been supporting the Lebanese army and are looking very concretely into how they can support it further”
Alexandria bids farewell to historic tram in latest urban upheaval
- For over 160 years, the tram has cut through Alexandria’s heart, in an 11-kilometer stretch that includes many of the city’s schools and main universities
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt: Along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, the oldest tram in Africa and the Middle East rumbles for a final few weeks before its removal — the latest urban upheaval Alexandrians say is hollowing out their city’s identity.
Government plans to replace the colorful streetcars on one of the city’s routes with a partially elevated light rail line have angered Alexandrians, for whom the 163-year-old track is “heritage, not just a means of transport,” local urban researcher Nahla Saleh told AFP.
Inaugurated in 1863, the tram is one of the world’s oldest, and among only a few to operate double-decker cars.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, it helped the city become a bustling metropolis, home to sizable European diasporas and a distinct cosmopolitan culture.
Now, Egyptians young and old have flocked for farewell rides, before the streetcars come to a halt in April.
As one locomotive screeches into the old El-Raml Station, commuters and visitors crane their necks out of giant windows at the historic neo-Venetian buildings overhead.
“We’re not against progress,” psychologist and writer on culture Mona Lamloum told AFP.
She and other Alexandrians agree the tramway needs work: inside the hand-calligraphied blue exterior, grime covers every surface. Underfoot, the rubber flooring is torn and strewn with trash.
“We just have bad experiences of everything they call ‘progress’ becoming synonymous with destruction,” Lamloum said.
In recent years, development projects in Egypt’s second city have razed historic parks and — most egregiously to locals — privatised and obstructed much of its Mediterranean coastline.
- Heart of Alexandria -
For over 160 years, the tram has cut through Alexandria’s heart, in an 11-kilometer stretch that includes many of the city’s schools and main universities.
The new project, led by Egyptian and international companies including Systra, Hyundai and Hitachi, promises to double speed and triple capacity.
Over half of it will be elevated — a major concern for Alexandrians who fear the tree-lined track will be replaced by eyesore concrete stilts.
Ahead of the first phase of suspension, the transport ministry said the new project was the “only solution to the city’s traffic problems.”
Locals like Saleh and Lamloum disagree, saying government plans are making the city more car-dependent and worsening traffic.
Already, because so many students rely on the tram, the city has staggered school and university hours to pick up the slack of the partial shutdown.
“Traffic’s getting worse, people can’t get anywhere, when we’ve already lost the inner-city train,” said Saleh, referring to another project under construction for the past two years, the new Alexandria Metro Line.
“Besides, it being slow was always an advantage,” she added, making it safe for “the most vulnerable in society: children and the elderly.”
Retired science teacher Hisham Abdelwahab, 64, has been riding the tram since he was a child.
“I don’t want it to go fast, I like watching the world go by,” he told AFP on a station bench.
“Our parents never thought twice about sending us out on the tram alone. Now I have a car, I just like leaving it parked to come ride the tram.”
When the next streetcar rolls in, the upper deck fills with a gaggle of schoolgirls, squabbling over who gets the window seat closest to the sea breeze.
- The old tram and the sea -
“This tram is our heritage,” Abdelwahab said, his sentiment shared by those several decades younger.
Engineering student Mahmoud Bassam, 24, has visited Alexandria just to ride the streetcar “since our tram in Cairo was removed,” he told AFP.
With a controversial slew of bridges and widened streets completed in 2020, Cairo’s historic Heliopolis neighborhood lost its last tram tracks, along with many of its trees.
“Now the same is happening here,” Bassam lamented.
Many Alexandrians are feeling the loss, intermingled with their other most treasured heritage.
“It’s like the sea. We used to go for long scenic drives on the corniche, but now we’re losing both the sea and the tram,” Abdelwahab said.
Parallel to the tramway, much of Alexandria’s iconic corniche is now hidden behind overpasses, private businesses and beachside food courts.
By 2024, over half of the city’s Mediterranean coastline had disappeared from view, according to a study by the Human and the City for Social Research center.
Four-lane highways now dominate long stretches of the seaside, where the landmark sight of fishermen perched over the waves grows ever-rarer.
For many, the waterfront that Lebanese singer Fairouz immortalized in 1961 — crooning about “the coast of Alexandria, coast of love” — is no more.
“Now all you see is concrete,” said Lamloum.
Saleh calls it “short-sighted” that the city could lose its charm to sprawling concrete.
“Tourists used to love coming to see the tram and sit by the sea, why take away both?“
