BEIRUT: Lebanon will file a complaint to the United Nations Security Council alleging that Israel is building walls in south Lebanon, an accusation Israel has denied, the Lebanese presidency said Saturday.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Friday that the Israeli army had built walls in south Lebanon near the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border.
When asked by AFP about the accusation, the Israeli military said “the wall does not cross the Blue Line.”
President Joseph Aoun’s office said he had instructed officials “to file an urgent complaint to the United Nations Security Council against Israel for constructing a concrete wall on Lebanon’s southern border exceeding the Blue Line.”
He requested that the complaint “be accompanied by reports issued by the United Nations refuting the Israeli denial of the wall’s construction.”
According to UNIFIL, last month peacekeepers surveyed a concrete T-wall erected by the Israeli army southwest of Yaroun and found that it “crossed the Blue Line, rendering more than 4,000 square meters of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the Lebanese people.”
A survey this month of additional construction showed “a section of wall southeast of Yaroun also crossed the Blue Line,” the UNIFIL statement added, calling it a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
The force said it had informed the Israeli army of the October findings and requested it move the wall.
A ceasefire in November last year sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said the wall was part of a broader Israeli military plan “whose construction began in 2022.”
“Since the start of the war, and as part of lessons learnt from it, the (Israeli military) has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border,” it added.
Under the truce, Israel was to withdraw its forces from south Lebanon, but it has kept them at five areas it deems strategic.
It has also kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, mainly saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives.
Lebanon to complain to UN over wall construction denied by Israel
https://arab.news/cjwff
Lebanon to complain to UN over wall construction denied by Israel
- Aoun’s office said he had instructed officials “to file an urgent complaint to the UN Security Council against Israel”
- He requested that the complaint “be accompanied by reports issued by the United Nations refuting the Israeli denial of the wall’s construction“
Lebanon PM says IMF wants rescue plan changes as crisis deepens
- “We want to engage with the IMF. We want to improve. This is a draft law,” Salam said
- “They wanted the hierarchy of claims to be clearer. The talks are all positive”
DAVOS, Switzerland: The International Monetary Fund has demanded amendments to a draft rescue law aimed at hauling Lebanon out of its worst financial crisis on record and giving depositors access to savings frozen for six years, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said.
The “financial gap” law is part of a series of reform measures required by the IMF in order to access its funding and aims to allocate the losses from Lebanon’s 2019 crash between the state, the central bank, commercial banks and depositors.
Salam told Reuters the IMF wants clearer provisions in the hierarchy of claims, which is a core element of the draft legislation designed to determine how losses are allocated.
“We want to engage with the IMF. We want to improve. This is a draft law,” Salam said in an interview at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
“They wanted the hierarchy of claims to be clearer. The talks are all positive,” Salam added.
In 2022, the government put losses from the financial crisis at about $70 billion, a figure that analysts and economists forecast is now likely to be higher.
Salam stressed that Lebanon is still pushing for a long-delayed IMF program, but warned the clock is ticking as the country has already been placed on a financial ‘grey list’ and risks falling onto the ‘blacklist’ if reforms stall further.
“We want an IMF program and we want to continue our discussions until we get there,” he said, adding: “International pressure is real ... The longer we delay, the more people’s money will evaporate.”
The draft law, which was passed by Salam’s government in December, is under parliamentary review. It aims to give depositors a guaranteed path to recovering their funds, restart bank lending, and end a financial crisis that has left nearly a million accounts frozen and confidence in the system shattered.
The roadmap would repay depositors up to $100,000 over four years, starting with smaller accounts, while launching forensic audits to determine losses and responsibility.
Lebanon’s Finance Minister Yassine Jaber, who is driving the reform push with Salam, told Reuters it was essential to salvage a hollowed-out banking system, and to stop the country from sliding deeper into its cash-only, paralyzed economy.
The aim, Jaber said, is to give depositors clarity after years of uncertainty and to end a system that has crippled Lebanon’s international standing.
He framed the law as part of a broader reckoning: the first time a Lebanese government has confronted a combined collapse of the banking sector, the central bank and the state treasury.
Financial reforms have been repeatedly derailed by political and private vested interests over the last six years and Jaber said the responsibility now lies with lawmakers.
Failure to act, he said, would leave Lebanon trapped in “a deep, dark tunnel” with no way back to a functioning system.
“Lebanon has become a cash economy, and the real question is whether we want to stay on the grey list, or sleepwalk into a blacklist,” Jaber added.
