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Israel’s war on Lebanon triggers unprecedented displacement crisis

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Israel’s war on Lebanon triggers unprecedented displacement crisis

Beirut, Lebanon – On Friday evening, a sudden explosion heavily damaged Dina’s* home in the Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon’s capital Beirut. It was caused by the shock wave of an Israeli air attack, during which dozens of bombs were dropped at once on a nearby apartment complex in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of the capital that is about two kilometres (1.2 miles) away from the refugee camp.

The huge attack killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and an unknown number of civilians after it levelled several residential buildings, leaving thousands more destitute. The blasts shattered the glass of small shops and cars in the camp, blew doors off their hinges and devastated nearby buildings and homes, explained 35-year-old Dina.

The explosions triggered mayhem as thousands of people and vehicles in the camp rushed towards its narrow exits. Dina grabbed her 12-year-old brother and ran down the stairs from their home, where she saw their elderly mother lying on the ground covered in debris.

Initially fearing that their mother was dead, Dina’s brother broke down. However, it turned out she was still conscious.

“My mother was confused and delirious, but I helped her up and told her that we had to run. I knew more bombs were coming,” Dina told Al Jazeera from a cafe in Hamra, a bustling neighbourhood in central Beirut that has absorbed thousands of displaced people from across Lebanon.

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Unprecedented crisis

Israel escalated its conflict with Hezbollah in the second half of September, devastating southern Lebanon and triggering mass displacement.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), one million people have been uprooted from their homes due to Israel’s attacks, 90 percent of them in the last week.

But Lebanon’s caretaker government – operating without a president and reeling from a severe economic crisis – has struggled to respond to people’s needs. Thousands are sleeping on the floors of classrooms after the government converted more than 500 schools into displacement shelters. 

Thousands of others are sleeping in mosques, under bridges and in the streets. But the crisis could get even worse now that Israel has begun a ground offensive.

“A ground invasion will compound the problem,” said Karim Emile Bitar, a professor of international relations at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. “We already have more than one million people who left their homes. That is around the same number we had in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon and reached Beirut.”

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Beirut – facing Israeli air attacks itself – is ill-prepared to deal with the influx of displaced people from southern Lebanon [Philippe Pernot/Al Jazeera]

Moments after Israel announced its ground offensive, it ordered civilians to evacuate 29 towns in south Lebanon.

Nora Serhan, who is originally from southern Lebanon, said that her uncle remains in one of the border villages. He refused to leave when Hezbollah and Israel began an initially low-scale conflict on October 8, 2023.

Hezbollah had begun firing projectiles at Israel with the stated aim of reducing pressure on its ally Hamas in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 41,600 people and uprooted nearly the entire 2.3 million population.

The devastating war on Gaza followed a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed and around 250 taken captive.

After Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire, Serhan’s uncle chose to stay put. She suspects that he did not want to abandon his house and surroundings, even though the conflict cut off his water and electricity. But since Israel announced its ground offensive, Serhan’s family lost contact with him.

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“When [Israel escalated the war last week], I think that maybe it became safer for my uncle to stay in the village than to risk fleeing on the roads,” she told Al Jazeera.

Losing home

Hundreds of thousands of people have abandoned their homes and villages to seek safety in Beirut, as well as in towns further north.

Abdel Latif Hamada, 57, fled his home in southern Lebanon last week after Israel began bombing the region. He said that a bomb killed one of his neighbours, while another was trapped inside his home after rubble and debris piled up outside the entrance.

Hamada risked his own life to clear the rubble and save his neighbour. He said that they were able to flee five minutes before Israel bombed their own homes.

“I didn’t rescue him. God rescued him,” said Hamada, a bald man with a nest of wrinkles around his eyes.

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Despite fleeing just in time, Hamada wasn’t safe yet. He hitched an exhausting and terrifying 14-hour ride to Beirut – the journey typically takes four. Thousands of cars were squeezed together trying to reach safety, while roads were obstructed by rubble and stones that were blown off nearby homes and buildings.

“Israeli planes were all over the sky and we saw them drop bombs in front of us. I often had to get out of the vehicle to help clear the debris and stones obstructing our car,” Hamada told Al Jazeera.

As he took another drag from his cigarette, Hamada said that he wasn’t scared when Israel escalated its attacks. Over the course of his life, Israel has displaced him three times from his village, including during its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and its devastating assault on the country in 2006.

In the latter war, an Israeli bomb fell on his home and killed his wife Khadeja.

“I’m not scared for my own life anymore. I’m just scared of what awaits the generation ahead of me,” Hamada said.

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Permanent displacement?

Civilians and analysts fear that the ongoing displacement crisis could end up being protracted – even permanent.

According to Michael Young, an expert on Lebanon with the Carnegie Middle East Centre, Israel’s objective over the last two weeks has been to create a major humanitarian crisis for the Lebanese state and particularly for Hezbollah, which represents many Shia Muslims in the country.

Aid for displaced people in Beirut
Civilians fleeing the Israeli attacks have found limited supplies for them in the capital Beirut [Philippe Pernot/Al Jazeera]

“What’s worrisome is what will Israel do when it does invade? Will they begin dynamiting homes as they did in Gaza? In other words, do they make the temporary humanitarian crisis a permanent one by ensuring that nobody can return [to their homes]?” Young asked.

“This is a big question mark,” he said. “Once the villages are emptied, what will the Israelis do to them?”

Hamada and Dina both vow to return to their homes again, when they can.

Dina said her father and sister have already gone back to Burj al-Barajneh – now a ghost town – due to the terrible conditions in the displacement shelters, where there are few basic provisions and no running water.

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She added that there is a growing feeling among everyone in the country that Israel will turn large swathes of Lebanon into a disaster zone, just as they did in Gaza.

“They are going to do the same thing here that they did in Gaza,” Dina said.

“This is a war on civilians.”

*Dina’s name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

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On ‘Daily Show,’ Jon Stewart Mocks Democrats Attending Trump’s Inauguration: ‘Let’s Go See Hitler and Get a Quick Selfie First’

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On ‘Daily Show,’ Jon Stewart Mocks Democrats Attending Trump’s Inauguration: ‘Let’s Go See Hitler and Get a Quick Selfie First’

Jon Stewart took swipes at President Trump’s Monday Inauguration during the post-ceremony “Daily Show,” including torching Democratic lawmakers who followed decorum.

While showing footage of Democrats arriving and making nice during traditional event, Stewart criticized the leaders — except for no-show Michelle Obama — for acting as if it was business as usual in Washington.

“Also attending were all those people who warned Americans to shun this wannabe fascist dictator called Trump,” he said. “‘Look at me, Ma! Oh, let’s go see Hitler and get a quick selfie first! Hello! Look at us! A quick one for the ‘Gram!’ Former President Obama was there. George Bush seemed kind of there. Even Mike Pence showed up, I guess to let the crowd finish the job. Only Michelle Obama seemed to have the consistent ethical stance of saying, ‘When they go low, I stay the fuck home.’”

Stewart also lampooned Elon Musk for his very questionable gesture at the event that lit up the news cycle and online debate, playing the footage and saying, “Charitably, I’m going to say that was just an awkward ‘My heart goes out to you’ gesture,” adding, “You know, listen, it’s a fucking nerve-wracking day, you’re not normally a public speaker, it’s a one-off gesture. Please try not to use it again.”

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Yet after playing a clip of Musk doing the same thing seconds later, Stewart continued, saying, “Son of a bitch! You really want to make sure that people in the back can see it. I’m just going to be generous and say maybe it was Elon’s attempt to ‘Dab on the Haters.’”

Watch the full segment below.

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Israel releases 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of cease-fire deal to free hostages

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Israel releases 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of cease-fire deal to free hostages

Israel has released 90 Palestinian prisoners to cheering crowds in the West Bank following the return of three Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza. 

Some supporters were seen waving Hamas flags after climbing on top of the buses carrying detainees from Israel’s Ofer prison, just outside the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to the Associated Press. All of those freed were women and teenagers who were being held on charges related to Israeli state security. 

“There’s this double feeling we’re living in, on the one hand, this feeling of freedom, that we thank everyone for, and on the other hand, this pain, of losing so many Palestinian martyrs,” released detainee and political leader Khalida Jarrar told the news agency. 

The 62-year-old is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization. Jarrar has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years and Human Rights Watch has previously called her arrests part of Israel’s wider crackdown on non-violent political opposition. 

FIRST HOSTAGES RETURN TO ISRAEL AFTER 471 DAYS IN CAPTIVITY 

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A crowd gathers around a bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners as it arrives in the West Bank city of Beitunia early on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP/Leo Correa)

Bara’a Al-Fuqha, 22, hugged her family as she stepped off the white Red Cross bus and into the sea of cheering Palestinians.

A medical student at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem before her arrest, she had spent around six months in prison. She told the AP that she was held under administrative detention – a policy of indefinite imprisonment without formal charge or trial. 

“Thank God, I am here with my family, I’m satisfied,” she said. “But my joy is limited, because so many among us Palestinians are being tortured and abused. Our people in Gaza are suffering. God willing, we will work to free them, too.” 

AUBURN COACH BRUCE PEARL SLAMS HAMAS AFTER HOSTAGES ARE RELEASED 

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Palestinians depart bus after being released from Israeli prison

A Palestinian prisoner is greeted as he disembarks from a bus after being released from an Israeli prison in the West Bank city of Beitunia. (AP/Leo Correa)

The cease-fire and hostage deal involves Hamas gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages held in Gaza over the next six weeks in exchange for Israel releasing nearly 2,000 prisoners and detainees from the West Bank and Gaza. 

The first three hostages released by Hamas on Sunday, all young women, were identified as Doron Steinbrecher, 31; Romi Gonen, 24; and Emily Damari, 28. 

Palestinians hold posters of Ismail Haniyeh

Palestinians hold posters with the photo of late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as they wait for the arrival of the released Palestinian prisoners, in the West Bank city of Beitunia, on Sunday, Jan. 19. (AP/Leo Correa)

 

“Over the next few days, they will undergo a battery of medical tests in order to prepare proper treatments after enduring such a torturous experience at the hands of Hamas terrorists,” said Yitshak Kreiss, the director-general of Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. 

Fox News’ Louis Casiano and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Is Hezbollah weakened as Lebanon shifts towards new governance?

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Is Hezbollah weakened as Lebanon shifts towards new governance?

Beirut, Lebanon – A new president. A new prime minister. And the sense that Hezbollah, arguably the most powerful group in the country, has been weakened.

It has been a potentially transformative few weeks in Lebanon, particularly when taken in the context of a political system that often appears frozen.

The developments have been a cause for celebration among many Lebanese, but they also could lead to questions for the entire political class, including Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, a Shia political group and militia, has dominated Lebanon for the better part of the past two decades. But in the past few months, it has suffered numerous setbacks, including the loss of most of its senior members, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah, in its war with Israel and subsequently the fall of its staunch ally, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

“Hezbollah still has legitimacy,” Ziad Majed, a Lebanese political researcher, told Al Jazeera. “It will have to accept to be a strong – and it will be strong – Lebanese party like all the others but without the ownership of the decision of war and peace.”

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Hezbollah’s ‘hand cut off’

Hezbollah helped Joseph Aoun get the required number of votes to become president by backing him in the second round of voting on January 9. But the group, which had planned to support incumbent Najib Mikati in the vote for prime minister on January 13, abstained after it became clear Nawaf Salam, the former president of the International Court of Justice, would win.

Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad said the group had extended a hand to the nation by voting for Aoun but Salam’s nomination saw that “hand cut off”.

The Iranian-backed group feels that many of its opponents in government are taking advantage of the losses it suffered in Israel’s war on Lebanon.

In his first speech as prime minister-designate, however, Salam promised to unite the Lebanese people and spoke to issues that impact the Shia community deeply after Israel’s war on the country. Israel’s attacks on Lebanon focused predominantly on areas with high Shia populations, even in areas where many locals said Hezbollah military infrastructure or fighters were not present, including southern Lebanon, much of the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s suburbs widely referred to as Dahiyeh.

Much like Aoun’s speech a few days earlier, Salam said he would work to make sure Israel’s military withdraws “from the last occupied inch of [Lebanese] land” and the areas impacted by Israel’s devastating attacks would be rebuilt.

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“Reconstruction is not just a promise but a commitment,” he said.

“He is smart enough to find the appropriate ways to try to be inclusive,” Karim Emile Bitar, an international relations professor at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, told Al Jazeera. “I do not think he will try to exclude the Shia constituency from participating in government and state building, but this is a decision the Shia parties have to make.”

Hezbollah is, however, in a precarious position. For years, Hezbollah and its allies were politically and militarily influential enough to block decisions they opposed, such as government formations that didn’t satisfy their needs. In one of the most well-known examples of the group’s power, Hezbollah deployed fighters to the streets of Beirut in May 2008 after the Lebanese government ordered the dismantling of the group’s private telecommunications network, forcing the state authorities to backtrack.

But the fall of the al-Assad regime in Syria has made receiving weapons more difficult and removed a key regional ally for the group.

Monopoly on weapons

Under the terms of the ceasefire with Israel, Hezbollah is supposed to move north of the Litani River, which runs across southern Lebanon from north of Tyre in the west to just south of Marjayoun in the east, and the Lebanese army is to deploy in southern Lebanon after the Israelis withdraw from the territory.

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Hezbollah has said its military infrastructure must only be removed from the south, but Israel has recently attacked targets north of the Litani that it said are associated with Hezbollah. However, some officials in Israel and the United States – and even Lebanon – have said Hezbollah’s military infrastructure should be targeted anywhere in Lebanon. This leaves questions over whether all parties have the same understanding of the ceasefire.

Aoun and Salam have both spoken about the state having a monopoly on weapons and deploying to southern Lebanon, a clear message to Hezbollah that its military supremacy may be over.

Whether Hezbollah will accept that is a different matter. On Saturday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned that Hezbollah must be included in any incoming government.

“[No one can] exclude us from effective and influential political participation in Lebanon as we are a fundamental component of the country’s makeup and its renaissance,” Qassem said before adding that no force was able to “take domestic advantage of the results of the [Israeli] aggression, for the political path is separate from the situation of the resistance [Hezbollah]”.

Lebanon’s new leaders have promised to ensure Israel withdraws from every centimetre of southern Lebanon and to rebuild its destroyed homes and villages in what analysts believe is an effort at extending a hand to the Shia community.

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Hezbollah is under pressure from its constituencies in the south, the Bekaa Valley and Dahiyeh to rebuild their homes and lives. For that, analysts said, Lebanon will need international aid. This could lead Hezbollah to accept the new political direction for Lebanon for the time being.

“Either [Hezbollah] allows the rebuilding to happen in a way that is state-led and has sufficient legitimacy from [Arab] Gulf donors who are willing to put their money in, or it’s not going to happen,” Nadim Houry, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, said.

And there are indications that, despite the rhetoric from some, Hezbollah may be open to a more conciliatory path, at least in the short term.

“The important thing is to rebuild state institutions, achieve political, financial and economic reform, implement the ceasefire agreement and follow up on the implementation of the Taif Agreement,” Qassem Kassir, a political analyst close to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera, referring to the 1989 pact designed to end the 15-year Lebanese Civil War. “The issue of confronting the Israeli enemy is one of the priorities.”

New hope in Salam

The partnership of Aoun and Salam signals a shift away from the traditional blocs of political power in Lebanon as well as the billionaire prime minister profile of some of Salam’s predecessors, including Saad Hariri and current caretaker Premier Mikati.

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Many Lebanese said Salam’s designation as prime minister in particular is a boon for the country and its hopes at reforms.

“I am very hopeful,” said Dalal Mawad, a Lebanese journalist and author who counts Salam as a mentor. “He embodies the justice and accountability and the rule of law that we want to see in Lebanon.”

“What we can say is that Nawaf Salam’s nomination definitely augurs well for the future of Lebanon,” Bitar said. “Most Lebanese are optimistic for the first time in a couple of decades or at least for the first time since 2019.”

Salam’s name first began to be circulated for the premiership shortly after the mass protests that broke out on October 17, 2019. He is widely seen as someone who, despite being from a prominent political family – his relatives include former Prime Ministers Saeb Salam and Tammam Salam – is outside the traditional political oligarchy.

In his first speech as prime minister-designate, Salam spoke about building “a modern, civil and just state”.

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He also spoke about achieving “justice, security, progress and opportunities”.

He spoke specifically of justice for the victims of the August 4, 2020, Beirut port blast and the 2019 bank crisis when depositors were suddenly stripped of access to their money and no officials or banks were held accountable.

Lebanese media reported on Tuesday that the investigation into the blast, which had been derailed by Lebanese political groups including Hezbollah, would resume shortly.

Struggles ahead

Despite the focus of many on Hezbollah, all of Lebanon’s most powerful parties have taken advantage of the system to avoid accountability or block political agendas they oppose.

The next challenge for Aoun and Salam will be to deliver on their statements as they confront a political system built on sectarianism.

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Lebanon’s sectarian system “necessitates new approaches”, Majed said, adding that Lebanon was in need of a monopoly on violence by state institutions and weapons and “a strategy to defend Lebanon from real Israeli hostilities”.

Under the current sectarian system, Lebanon is managed by a handful of political parties and leaders with deeply rooted support and control over the state’s institutions. These leaders, who span Lebanon’s religious sects, are accused of using these resources and their political power to build their patronage networks, holding people accountable to them rather than the state.

These powers have become entrenched in their positions and resistant to change.

“We need to make fundamental, structural reforms in Lebanon to the political system, and I do not know if that is doable,” Hilal Khashan, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut and former colleague of Salam’s, told Al Jazeera.

Appointing strong or new leaders in positions of power is not all that is needed to root out the deeply entrenched corruption and clientelism. Salam, for example, is not the first technocrat to take a prominent role in Lebanon.

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“The difference is that, in the past, technocrats came to power when the political class wanted to procrastinate,” Houry said. “They were never brought in with any legitimacy, which depended on the political class, so they didn’t have the capacity or support to put in place most of their reforms.”

But today, the myriad crises in Lebanon mean the political class understands it has to let some reforms happen – even if it will likely continue to oppose systemic changes.

Salam and Aoun will have to tackle questions of economic stability, security and national dialogue without isolating any community and while managing foreign relations, including Israeli aggression. The series of issues to address is long and arduous.

Analysts, however, said Salam and Aoun have a unique opportunity. The collapse of the al-Assad regime, a constant meddler in Lebanese affairs, the weakening of Iran and the willingness of the international community to provide foreign aid and backing to Lebanon’s new leaders mean there is support for a reform agenda that wasn’t previously there.

Even with positive conditions, confronting the deeply entrenched and resilient Lebanese political class will still be a back-breaking endeavour. Many analysts said that despite their positivity over Salam’s appointment, they held doubts about whether anyone could uproot the Lebanese political system.

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Still, Khashan said, Salam “is the right man for the period”.

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