Lebanon - Page 12

(AP) — Germany’s foreign minister says an employee of the German Embassy in Beirut was killed in the huge blast that devastated the Lebanese capital earlier this week.

Beirut has endured many horrors in its 5,000-year history, but nothing like the massive explosion that ripped through the ancient Mediterranean port city on Tuesday, leaving thousands of casualties, 300,000 homeless, and over $10 billion in damage in its wake. Now the indomitable Lebanese are digging themselves out from the rumble and demanding answers from their political elites.

The government of Iran and leaders of Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy group in Lebanon, offered assistance to the city of Beirut after a massive explosion on Tuesday caused enormous damage and casualties.

China’s dictator Xi Jinping rapidly issued a statement lamenting the deadly explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, reportedly expressing condolences to President Michel Aoun on Wednesday.

Lebanon’s executive cabinet agreed to place under house arrest every Beirut port official responsible for storing confiscated items Wednesday in response to a massive blast in the port that has killed at least 100 and left thousands homeless.

Lebanese officials said on Wednesday the massive explosion that rocked Beirut on Tuesday occurred when a large cargo of ammonium nitrate seized from a cargo ship in 2013 and left in a warehouse in the Port of Beirut for six years caught fire and exploded.

The Iranian news agency Mehr published an article Wednesday speculating that the deadly explosion that destroyed large parts of Beirut, Lebanon, the day before was the product of U.S. “sabotage.”

PARIS (AP) – As Lebanon reeled in shock a day after the massive blast in Beirut and counted the dead, nations around the world promised it would not be alone.

Tuesday’s explosion was devastating blow even for a city that has endured a 15-year civil war, suicide bombings, foreign bombardments, and political assassinations.

A titanic explosion shook the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday, shaking buildings and sending a huge cloud of smoke over the middle of the city.

TEL AVIV — Attacking Israel would be a “great mistake” on Hezbollah’s part, a U.S. general touring the region said this week, adding it would not end well for the Iran-backed terror group.

BEIRUT — Facing a worsening economic crisis and with little chance of Western or oil-rich Arab countries providing assistance without substantial reforms, Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is looking east, hoping to secure investments from China that could bring relief.

BEIRUT — With Beirut’s airport partially reopening from a three-month virus shutdown, the government is hoping thousands of Lebanese expatriates will return for the summer — and bring dollars desperately needed to prop up the crashing economy.

TEL AVIV — The Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group is attempting to recruit Israeli citizens as operatives, the Shin Bet security agency revealed Tuesday, following the arrest of two Arab Israeli women earlier this month who were recruited by a Lebanon-based operative to carry out terror activities.

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad fired Prime Minister Imad Khamis on Thursday without explanation as Syria’s economy teeters on the edge of a meltdown and public anger spirals out of control, shaking a brutal regime that seemed to have consolidated its grip on power with Russian and Iranian assistance after a decade-long civil war.

The Lebanese pound sank to a record low on the black market on Thursday despite the authorities’ attempts to halt the plunge of the crisis-hit country’s currency, sparking a flare-up in anti-government protests.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Living in a slum built precariously on the banks of a sewage-tainted river in Lebanon, Faiqqa Homsi feels her family being pushed closer and closer to the edge.

Beirut — Protest-hit Lebanon has approved an economic rescue plan and requested aid from the International Monetary Fund as it battles its worst financial crisis in decades.

Germany’s total ban on the Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist organization drew a swift response Friday from Iran, with the Islamic republic saying “consequences” would follow.

Jihadists affiliated with the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah, which also operates as a political party in Lebanon, are complaining that “red tape” tied to the group’s campaign against the Chinese coronavirus is making it harder to access funding, the Saudi outlet al-Arabiya reported on Wednesday.

Hundreds of protesters set two banks on fire and clashed with security forces in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Tuesday, after soldiers shot a man dead during related protests the night before.

Lebanese protesters confronted army troops for a second day as a spiralling economic crisis re-energised the anti-government movement.

Lebanese security forces arrested a man on Thursday on suspicion of putting a Nigerian domestic worker up “for sale” online, Al Jazeera reported.

Beirut — Lebanon’s security forces said Friday they had made their largest cannabis seizure in history last month, unearthing 25 tonnes of the drug intended for Africa.

JERUSALEM — A small group of Franciscan monks and Roman Catholic faithful took to the streets of Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter in the Old City Sunday to distribute olive branches after the traditional Palm Sunday procession was cancelled due to restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah announced it would invest in doctors, medical equipment, and clinics to treat Chinese coronavirus patients in Lebanon, joining a growing list of terrorist organizations waging what Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dubbed a “jihad” against the pandemic.

BEIRUT — Lebanon went into lockdown and Iraqis prepared for a curfew Monday as part of regional efforts to contain the new coronavirus even as businesses remained open in Iran, which is battling the worst outbreak in the Middle East and where another senior official has died from the virus.

Multiple Arabic and Israeli news organization reported on Wednesday that the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah has isolated its senior leaders after coming into contact with Iranian government officials carrying Chinese coronavirus.

Outspoken Lebanese pop star Elissa, one of the most popular female singers in the Arab world, on Monday accused her government of refusing to cancel flights from Iran to keep the Wuhan coronavirus at bay because officials feared to antagonize Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization and political party supported by Tehran.

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, on Sunday called for a boycott of American goods to protest President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah has called for Lebanese citizens to strike at the heart of U.S. global success and boycott its goods and products as “part of the battle” to prove Islamic superiority.

Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah, lamented on Iranian television on Thursday that he could not trade his life for that of Major General Qasem Soleimani, eliminated in a U.S. airstrike in January.

A top UN official warned that Europe will face a new migrant crisis if the situation in Lebanon, a country that has been ravaged an economic crisis and internal strife, is not resolved before it becomes a failed state.

TEL AVIV – Israel and the U.S. will work together to combat Iranian terror in the Middle East, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said following a trip to the U.S., with the task being divvied up so that Jerusalem will work to curb Iran’s entrenchment in Syria while Washington will combat the Islamic Republic’s presence in Iraq.

Beirut — Companies are closing and restaurants are half empty but in the gloom of Lebanon’s worst economic crisis in decades, luxury jewellers, supercar dealerships and art galleries are doing brisk business.

Protests in Lebanon turned violent again over the weekend, with over 400 injuries reported. There were several claims of security forces using live ammunition against protesters in addition to water cannons and tear gas.