The long-awaited law covers newspapers and other publications, television, radio, news agencies, professional news websites, advertising agencies, opinion polls, and foreign media operating in Lebanon.

Major Aims of the Law

The law seeks to protect freedom of expression and promote media pluralism, fair competition, access to information, human rights, gender equality, child protection, accuracy, and diverse local production.

Structurally, it establishes a ten-member National Media Authority with formal administrative and financial independence. Its wide-ranging responsibilities include licensing television and radio stations, registering media institutions, monitoring ownership and market concentration, receiving complaints, overseeing compliance, issuing warnings, and referring serious violations to the courts.

The law also establishes specific administrative and regulatory requirements for different types of media. These include, for example, different requirements for print and digital media, on the one hand, and television and radio broadcasters, on the other.

It introduces several protective measures, including the confidentiality of journalistic sources; protection against arbitrary searches and surveillance; the right to access public information; freedom to establish and join professional associations; and the right to refuse attribution of altered material. It also excludes media offences from military-court jurisdiction, subject to limited exceptions, and prohibits preventive detention for offences committed through covered media or electronic platforms.

Source confidentiality may nevertheless be overridden by a court in exceptional cases involving serious crimes or imminent danger when the information cannot be obtained through other means.

Questions Surrounding Numerous Provisions

Analyses from organizations specialized in media matters such as Samir Kassir eyes (SKeyes), HuMENA, and l’Orient Today have raised numerous questions regarding many of the law’s provisions.

Article 104 remains highly controversial. It allows for imprisonment of between three months and three years, a fine, or both for deliberately fabricating and publishing false and harmful information.

Given the nature of Lebanon’s legal and political systems, concerns have been raised about how this article could be interpreted and applied in practice. In particular, the absence of precise definitions for terms such as “false,” “fabricated,” and “harmful” creates a risk of overly broad interpretations and potential pressure on journalists, investigative reporters, critics, and social-media users.

The composition of the National Media Authority and the process through which its members are appointed would also be crucial. A transparent and independent appointment mechanism is necessary to protect the Authority from political influence.

The Lebanese Press Editors Syndicate and the Press Syndicate have rejected the law and announced plans to organize joint action and public advocacy campaigns. They argue that the law lacks adequate safeguards for press freedom and the independence of Lebanon’s media sector.

The post Lebanon’s New Media Law Provides a Modernized Framework but Fails to Secure Necessary Protections for Media Workers appeared first on Beirut Today.

In addition, the Israeli military issued a forced displacement order to people in Deir el Zahrani, instructing them to move outside a circled area with a 300-meter radius.

Renewed Israeli Escalation

The attacks and forced displacement order come amid a significant escalation in Israeli attacks on Lebanon over recent weeks. This morning, Israeli forces targeted the towns of Qantara, Deir Seryan, and Beit Yahoun, while Israeli soldiers blew up houses in Mansouri.

These attacks also come against the backdrop of a diplomatic impasse, with negotiations, whether through the trilateral framework involving the United States, Israel, and Lebanon or through other diplomatic tracks, seeing little-to-no progress.

Additional waves of displacement are expected amid this renewed escalation. As of September 1, the International Organization for Migration’s Displacement Tracking Matrix Mobility Tracking exercise, complemented by data from national systems, including the Lebanese Red Cross and Disaster Risk Management, had identified more than 300,000 displaced people.

The town of Deir el-Zahrani lies north of the city of Nabatieh and Ali al-Taher Hill, where security conditions have deteriorated. It also sits outside the so-called “security zone line.”

Accordingly, displacement and fears of military operations are expected not only in areas where Israeli forces are present or regularly conducting operations, but also in nearby towns and villages across the South Lebanon and Nabatieh governorates, and potentially in the Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates.

Displacement rates do not depend solely on the continuation or cessation of military operations. Many areas have suffered from the complete or partial destruction of residential buildings and critical infrastructure, severely limiting access to basic items and services.

The failure to address ongoing ceasefire violations also raises further questions about the viability of the pilot-zone operations and the sustainability of any political efforts to bring the hostilities to an end.

The post Israeli Attacks Kill 11 People in Kfar Rumman, Displacement Order Targets Deir el Zahrani appeared first on Beirut Today.

By Sally Abou AlJoud

BEIRUT — The war forced “Maya” to leave her home, but it did not end the violence she says she faced inside it. She said her husband often grabbed her forcefully during an argument, leaving bruises on her arms. It was not the first time, she said, that his aggression had intensified when the family was forced to leave their home under fire. 

When Israeli strikes escalated over Beirut’s southern suburbs in March, “Maya,” whose real name was changed to protect her identity, as she said she feared the consequences of being identified, fled with her husband and three children, aged four, seven and nine, carrying only a few belongings. Their home was later destroyed during the war, leaving the family with no place to return to.

Maya said her husband repeatedly threatens to divorce her and take their children away. In their current living conditions, where the family is confined to a single room in an apartment shared with over a dozen other people, arguments often happen in front of the children.

“He lowers his voice so the others in the apartment don’t hear,” she said. “But there were times when he didn’t care and shouted at the children and me loudly.”

Maya said she never reported the abuse because she feared the stigma it would bring to her and her family, and worried that her husband would use it against her by taking away her children.

Only urgent cases sought help

As Israeli airstrikes forced tens of thousands of Lebanese families to flee their homes this spring, many women carried more than bags of belongings. Like Maya, they also carried the burden of abuse – often with nowhere safe to report it.

For many survivors of domestic violence, escaping bombs became the immediate priority, pushing abuse behind the urgent need to find shelter, food and safety for their children. Aid workers say the violence did not stop during the war. In many cases, it intensified.

“The priority was keeping themselves and their children safe from airstrikes and finding shelter,” said Celine Al-Kik, a social worker and support center supervisor at KAFA, a Lebanese organization that provides legal, psychological and social support to survivors of gender-based violence. 

When fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated in March, calls to KAFA initially fell sharply as the organization closed its offices due to the bombing and shifted services online and by phone, Al-Kik told Beirut Today. 

“Only very urgent cases would call us,” Al-Kik said. “Women were busy figuring out where to escape, especially the cases in the red zones. We noticed that women experiencing violence would not report it unless something extreme happened.”

Rania Irani, response technical officer at ABAAD, a Lebanese NGO working to end gender-based violence and promote gender equality, echoed this, saying: “Many delayed seeking help after experiencing violence because their immediate priority was protecting their families, finding shelter, and securing food and medicine.” 

During the war, local organizations expanded emergency support for survivors despite widespread displacement and disrupted services. 

ABAAD said it reached 10,144 people, women and men, through gender-based violence prevention and response activities, including awareness sessions in collective shelters and host communities across all eight governorates. 

Meanwhile, KAFA said it deployed outreach teams to 26 collective shelters in coordination with Lebanon’s Ministry of Social Affairs, providing information on protection, safety and available support services. Al-Kik said the visits also created opportunities for women experiencing psychological or physical abuse to come forward and seek help.

Psychological abuse intensified 

ABAAD also documented a shift in the type of abuse survivors reported, Leila Hamdan, response technical lead at the organization, told Beirut Today.

“The most concerning trend is the sharp rise in psychological and emotional abuse during the war,” Hamdan said. “Before the conflict (based on data from the first two months of the year), psychological abuse represented 47% of reported GBV cases. During the war (March–June), this increased to 65%, making it the most commonly reported form of violence.”

Higher risks and greater numbers of reported cases were observed in areas experiencing large-scale displacement, particularly the South, Beirut and Mount Lebanon, the North, and the Bekaa, Hamdan said. 

“The most significant increase in psychological abuse was recorded in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, while high caseloads were also reported across Tyre, the North and the Bekaa,” she added.

Women displaced to collective shelters faced additional risks, including overcrowding, a lack of privacy and shared sanitation facilities that made it harder to seek help confidentially. Some were forced to remain in the same shelter as the person abusing them.

KAFA said it encountered one such case involving a woman who fled to a collective shelter with her family but continued to face “severe violence” from her husband. “We followed up with her and provided legal and social psychological support,” Al-Kik said. “Through a judge, we were able to relocate her and her children to another shelter, barring the husband from approaching her.” 

ABAAD’s Hamdan added that its later analysis showed “a substantial increase in the overall number of reported cases during the war compared with the pre-war period.”

While conflict, displacement and the pressures of war initially kept the number of reported cases low for KAFA, the severity of the violence reported against women intensified during this period, Al-Kik said. 

Displacement heightened protection risks

Maya and her family first sought shelter with relatives in central Beirut before her husband rented an apartment shared with two other families. The family of five now sleeps in one bedroom. With rent covered only until the end of September, Maya said they do not know where they will go next.

She said the stress of displacement – which they had already experienced in 2024 – financial hardship and uncertainty have intensified her husband’s aggression during their more than 10-year marriage. He has long struggled financially, she said, but each displacement has worsened his behavior toward her.

Displacement heightens protection risks for women and girls, rights organizations say. 

According to UN Women, more than 85 percent of displaced women and girls in Lebanon in 2026 were living in informal housing arrangements, where overcrowding, limited privacy and inadequate protection mechanisms increased their exposure to harassment and gender-based violence. At the same time, barriers to accessing protection, support and justice services often become more pronounced as the risks of violence escalate.

“The conflict, displacement, overcrowded living conditions, financial hardship and prolonged stress further heightened the risk of intimate partner violence and other forms of gender-based violence,” Marie-Lise Abi Abdallah, implementation officer at ABAAD, said.

The agency estimated that around 390,000 of those displaced were children, while women and girls accounted for approximately 620,000 of the displaced population during the peak of the escalation. The United Nations Population Fund further estimated that 325,500 displaced women were of reproductive age, including around 13,500 who were pregnant.

UN human rights experts cited by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also raised concern over statements by senior Israeli officials targeting Lebanese women, particularly mothers, warning that rhetoric portraying civilians as collectively responsible for armed groups’ actions risks dehumanization and undermines protections under international humanitarian law. They stressed that civilians must not be treated as legitimate targets or subjected to collective punishment.

Prolonged impact

Even after the fighting eased, the effects remained.

Al-Kik said conflict often worsens violence inside households as families struggle with displacement, economic hardship and prolonged stress.

Many women returned to damaged homes or remained displaced, while others continued to face financial hardship, psychological distress and abuse.

By early July, the UN reported that around 40% of the more than one million people displaced by the 2026 conflict had returned home, while hundreds of thousands remained displaced. 

“You feel like the war hasn’t ended yet,” Al-Kik said. “There are still many people displaced, and many women are still facing challenges.”

In July, the UN said more than 33,000 people were still living in collective shelters across Lebanon, with many others staying with relatives, renting, or in informal arrangements. Returns have been limited because many homes, especially in parts of south Lebanon and Nabatieh, are damaged, unsafe, lack basic services, or are near areas where security remains uncertain.

“Even after the ceasefire, many continue to deal with the long-term psychological and economic impacts of the conflict,” ABAAD’s Abi Abdallah told Beirut Today. 

Lebanon’s conflict GBV preparedness

Aid workers say the experience of both the 2024-25 and 2026 conflicts exposed longstanding weaknesses in Lebanon’s ability to protect women during emergencies.

According to UN Women, the mass displacement caused by Lebanon’s 2024–2025 war significantly increased protection risks for women and girls.

As around 1.2 million people were forced to flee areas affected by airstrikes, displaced women and girls faced greater exposure to gender-based violence due to overcrowded collective shelters, limited privacy, restricted access to essential services and weakened protection networks. 

UN Women warned that displacement conditions, compounded by stress, economic dependency, power imbalances and reduced access to support services, created conditions in which risks of violence, exploitation and abuse could intensify. More than half a million displaced women and girls were identified as particularly vulnerable, with reports of sexual violence, domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence increasing throughout the crisis.

“The conflict exposed the need for stronger emergency preparedness, better gender-sensitive shelter infrastructure, and more equitable access to GBV services across Lebanon,” Hamdan said. 

Existing economic pressures, damaged infrastructure, staff displacement and uneven service availability made it harder for survivors to access timely support, she added. 

The risks facing displaced women and girls during Lebanon’s 2024–2025 war were compounded by longstanding gaps in the country’s legal and protection systems. 

Before the conflict, Lebanon’s main legislation addressing violence against women – Law No. 293/2014 on domestic violence, amended in 2020 – had been criticized by rights groups for its limited scope, weak enforcement and remaining legal gaps, including the absence of explicit criminalization of marital rape. 

In March 2024, lawmakers and women’s rights organizations proposed a broader law on violence against women aimed at strengthening protections, improving access to justice and establishing specialized mechanisms for survivors. Still, the legislation had not been adopted before the recent war began.

The post War and displacement deepened violence against women in Lebanon appeared first on Beirut Today.

By Sally Abou AlJoud

BEIRUT – Fadi Arnaout sits on a plastic chair outside a modest roadside café in Beirut, a cigarette balanced between his fingers and a small cup of coffee cooling in front of him.

Around him, dozens of young men occupy the same stretch of pavement – some talking, others scrolling through their phones, passing time. 

The 26-year-old has a degree in accounting and expected his education to lead him into a stable career. Instead, for more than a year, his mornings have followed the same routine of coffee, cigarettes and hours spent looking for opportunities that he says rarely materialize.

Arnaout’s experience reflects a labor market that has deteriorated over years of financial collapse, political instability and repeated conflict, leaving young workers with fewer jobs and lower purchasing power.

An International Labour Organization survey found that 33% of private-sector workers who had been employed before the war started in March 2026 were no longer working by May.

The latest nationally representative labor force survey, conducted by Lebanon’s Central Administration of Statistics with the ILO in early 2022, found youth unemployment had reached 47.8%, nearly double the 2018-19 rate. No newer national labor force survey has been published since then.

While unemployment remains high, labor experts say the official rate does not capture the full extent of the crisis because it excludes many people who have stopped looking for work due to few opportunities, as well as those working fewer hours or in jobs below their skills.

Survival employment

When Lebanon’s financial system began collapsing in 2019, Arnaout saw what appeared to be an opportunity.

As the Lebanese pound rapidly lost value against the dollar, currency exchange became one of the few sectors where people could make quick money. Informal exchange networks expanded, and many Lebanese began buying and selling dollars as businesses and individuals struggled to protect their savings from inflation.

For Arnaout, accounting seemed like the perfect background.

“I thought I was prepared. Many of my friends, who picked it up at the time, were making big profits,” he said. “I understood numbers. I thought this would become something.”

At the height of the crisis, exchange shops and informal traders benefited from the huge gap between the official exchange rate and the market rate. The Lebanese pound moved from a fixed rate of around 1,507.5 pounds per dollar and depreciated fast. 

Currency trading became a survival strategy for many Lebanese who had lost formal employment or whose salaries had become nearly worthless.

But after years of currency volatility, Lebanon moved toward a more unified exchange-rate system. In February 2024, Banque du Liban adopted a new official exchange rate of 89,500 Lebanese pounds per dollar, replacing the old official rate, while the market rate largely stabilized around that level.

The stabilization did not mean Lebanon’s economic crisis was solved. But the days of extreme daily currency swings, when people could profit from rapid fluctuations, became less common.

Arnaout was left with an underpaying part-time job at OMT, a Lebanese money transfer company, where currency exchange was part of the business. But as demand declined, he was eventually let go.

At 29, Alex Mhanna is also confronting a job market that offers few options for young Lebanese professionals like him. 

Mhanna, who studied graphic design, has been unemployed for nearly six months. He has picked up occasional freelance work, but says “it has barely been enough to make ends meet.”

He is considering becoming a delivery driver for Toters, a food and grocery delivery platform. He said many of his friends were increasingly being pushed into informal or low-skilled work.

The idea came to him after a Toters driver delivered his food one day, Mhanna asked him about the job. The driver told him the company was always hiring and that he could make around $27 a day, depending on the number of deliveries, excluding customer tips.

Mhanna would need to use his own motorcycle and would have to cover the fuel himself. After doing his own calculations, he estimates he could make about $500 a month before expenses, potentially more if he worked more hours.

“And if the motorcycle breaks down, I would have to pay for repairs while not making money on those days,” he added.

Still, Mhanna says he is considering it if it remains his only option.

The economy was recovering, then another war crushed hopes

Yasmine*, 31, had spent years saving to build a business of her own in Beirut’s southern suburbs, importing clothes and shoes from China, Turkey and other countries.

“I worked hard to establish the shop, gradually building up my stock,” she said.

An airstrike in the 2024 Hezbollah-Israel war destroyed the depot, she said. The shop itself was then partially damaged during the latest war.

The World Bank said Lebanon showed signs of a modest economic recovery in 2025, with activity accelerating in the second half of the year. But the recovery remained fragile, and the World Bank warned the 2026 conflict would weigh heavily on economic activity.

For more than a year, Yasmine has been without a regular job. With no shop or depot, she said she now occasionally imports items from Shein and sells them online to customers in Lebanon.

“I feel hopeless,” she said. “When the war ended in 2024, I was relieved. I thought this was a chance to perhaps rebuild and move on with life, but the 2026 war happened and I lost all hope in Lebanon.”

There is no comprehensive nationwide damage assessment yet for Lebanon’s 2026 war, but Finance Minister Yassine Jaber has estimated that the conflict could shrink the economy by 7% to 10% in 2026.

The emerging damage from the 2026 war damage comes on top of the destruction caused by the previous war. A World Bank assessment published in March 2025 estimated that the 2023–24 conflict had caused $14 billion in economic costs and left Lebanon with $11 billion in recovery and reconstruction needs.

The latest conflict reduced average labor income by 40.4% when both job losses and declining earnings were taken into account, according to the ILO. Among workers who found new jobs, average earnings were 30.7% lower than before the conflict.

Even among those who are employed, the ILO estimates that 44% of Lebanon’s labor force works informally without contracts or social protection.

For workers already relying on informal or precarious jobs, the new fighting brought more lost work, disrupted livelihoods and fewer opportunities.

The impact was particularly severe in areas directly affected by the fighting. A July 2026 ILO report found that 76.5% of surveyed workers in Nabatieh were no longer working, compared with 43.2% in South Lebanon.

When dollar salaries still don’t pay enough

After years of currency depreciation, many businesses began pricing goods and services in dollars, and eventually everyday transactions increasingly moved from the Lebanese pound to the U.S. dollar. 

In January 2024, Lebanon officially moved to dollarize customs calculations, and many sectors were already operating almost entirely in dollars.

Dollarization has also changed what a “good” salary looks like. While wages have increasingly been paid in dollars, the cost of housing, education and other services remains high.

But dollar salaries have not necessarily made entry-level jobs more attractive.

Arnaout says he often comes across accounting positions that require candidates to take on managerial-level responsibilities, including “budgeting, preparing financial reports, managing accounts and handling payroll,” yet offer salaries of barely $600 a month. That figure, he said, often includes transportation costs and comes with few, if any, additional benefits.

He also pointed to his sister, an elementary school English teacher, who earns only $300 a month. “She does it because she wants to gain experience, but her salary barely covers her generator and internet bills,” he said.

AI reshapes an already difficult job market

“Beyond WhatsApp: we build your apps, websites and online stores. Whatever your business, we have ideas – and we can build a solution for almost anything,” read a LinkedIn advertisement from a Beirut-based technology company recently promoting building apps, websites and online stores using AI-supported tools for businesses starting at $200 a month.

In Lebanon, some businesses are turning to inexpensive AI tools as they look for ways to cut costs.

Arnaout believes some entry-level positions that once would have been available to graduates like him are disappearing as companies adopt artificial intelligence tools.

“They can do a lot of the work now with ChatGPT,” he said. “Reports, calculations, organizing information. Things that junior accountants used to do.”

The concern is not unique to Lebanon. The World Economic Forum has warned that artificial intelligence and automation are expected to reshape millions of jobs globally, eliminating some tasks while creating demand for new skills. 

An ILO assessment in 2022 found a “considerable mismatch” between the skills taught through education and training and those sought by employers, making it harder for young people to find work.

Mhanna has noticed more businesses turning to AI to produce posters, advertisements and other graphic designs, reducing opportunities for designers like him.

“I feel like I wasted my years with a graphic design degree,” he said.

The post Lebanon’s young workers caught in a cycle of crisis appeared first on Beirut Today.

Increases in the prices of 95-octane gasoline, 98-octane gasoline, diesel, and gas canisters have also affected other sectors and people’s access to basic needs, including healthcare, food, livelihoods, and water.

An Unabated Rise

A comparison between fuel prices at the beginning of the year and today reveals the growing disparity between wage adjustments and the cost of living.

Between January 2 and August 11, the price of 95-octane gasoline rose from LBP 1,359,000 to LBP 2,455,000 per 20 litres. The price of 98-octane gasoline increased from LBP 1,320,000 to LBP 2,473,000, while that of diesel rose from LBP 1,237,000 to LBP 2,348,000 per 20 litres.

This represents an average increase of 85.94% across the three fuel types (87.35% for 98-octane gasoline, 80.65% for 95-octane gasoline, and 89.81% for diesel), with prices nearly doubling in less than eight months.

What About Electricity?

This week, Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy and Water set the private generator tariff for August 2026 at LBP 48,241 per kilowatt-hour in urban areas and LBP 53,065 in rural and high-altitude areas.

Subscribers must also pay a fixed monthly fee of LBP 385,000 for five amperes or LBP 685,000 for ten amperes. The tariff was calculated based on an average diesel price of approximately LBP 2.42 million per 20 litres.

The ministry prohibited generator owners from imposing additional maintenance fees or charges on households that also use solar energy and called for stronger enforcement against violations.

However, concrete measures to end arbitrary pricing and cartel-like practices in energy imports remain absent. Most Lebanese households are paying the price, while a small number of actors continue to profit from the crisis. One of the government’s major tests lies not only in addressing security developments, but also in ensuring that the most vulnerable population groups can access basic services.

The post Lebanon’s Rising Fuel and Electricity Prices Must Be Addressed appeared first on Beirut Today.

Israeli attacks have continued at a high frequency in southern Lebanon, including a combination of strikes and the burning and destruction of civilian infrastructure. More than 350,000 people remained displaced as of August 17, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) latest Flash Update.

The Strategic Importance of Ali al-Taher

Among the most important and contested areas in ongoing military and strategic discussions is the hill of Ali al-Taher. The hill rises about 600 meters above sea level and overlooks Nabatieh and areas across the border, making it a highly valuable strategic location.

Hezbollah Member of Parliament Hassan Ezzeddine said that the group would not abandon the hill and “would face any act of aggression.”

As such, the fragility of ongoing political and security negotiations and diplomatic efforts becomes particularly clear when arrangements concern sensitive and strategically important zones, as opposed to areas where the components of the trilateral framework agreement are easier to implement.

The frequency of ongoing Israeli attacks, as well as Hezbollah’s decision to conduct counter-operations, remain important factors in security deliberations, with particular attention focused on the hill of Ali al-Taher. The lack of clarity surrounding the negotiations and Israel’s longstanding failure to respect ceasefire agreements are also major factors preventing displaced people from returning to their communities.

UNIFIL’s Fate Remains Unclear

The final mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) concludes on December 31, 2026. The approaching date is raising numerous concerns about the aftermath of the mandate’s expiration and future security arrangements in southern Lebanon, particularly regarding peacekeeping and monitoring.

Lebanese state representatives, including President Joseph Aoun, have been pushing to extend UNIFIL’s mandate in the country. However, other alternatives are also under discussion, including the deployment of forces led by other countries.

The post Hundreds of Thousands Remain Displaced as Progress on Multilateral Framework Remains Slow appeared first on Beirut Today.

The destruction of residential buildings and critical infrastructure has also been a key feature of Israeli attacks, with water facilities, healthcare institutions, and other essential infrastructure repeatedly hit.

As Lebanon struggles with the combined effects of continued attacks, an ongoing socioeconomic crisis, and a climate crisis manifested primarily through drought, the country’s long-term development prospects remain extremely precarious.

Agriculture and the Environment Face a Threefold Crisis

While urgent humanitarian needs remain extremely high, securing the country’s long-term sustainability and development, as well as preserving local communities’ ability to sustain themselves, requires urgent attention to productive sectors, primarily agriculture, and the country’s environmental prospects.

Israeli attacks have affected more than 56,000 hectares of agricultural land, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. They have particularly affected areas where agricultural activities and livelihoods are highly prevalent, namely southern Lebanon and the Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates.

These attacks have not only disrupted harvests, market activity, and people’s access to income-generating opportunities in the short term, but are also likely to have long-term consequences for the country’s agricultural productivity and environment. Many of the attacks involved the use of internationally prohibited substances, including white phosphorus.

Other attacks have directly affected the country’s water networks, with strikes penetrating deep into the ground, altering geological features, and obstructing irrigation channels and water flows.

At the same time, the climate crisis facing the country, most notably manifested through recent periods of drought, has significantly impeded farmers’ and agricultural workers’ ability to resume their activities as normal. These periods of drought have also severely affected vegetation across the country.

Farmers have reported an exponential increase in the loss of fruit and vegetable crops, while both chronic and intermittent water shortages have compounded their difficulties.

From a political economy perspective, Lebanon’s agricultural sector has historically been plagued by chronic underfunding and inequality. Successive state budgets have allocated less than 1% of public spending to agriculture, while land ownership has remained highly concentrated, with a small number of individuals and companies owning most of the land and small-scale farmers owning only a limited share.

Importantly, major corporations tend to orient their production towards exports, while small-scale farmers are more likely to produce for local consumption and subsistence. Such political economy dynamics significantly weaken the country’s food security and long-term sustainability and risk deepening inequality if left unaddressed.

Ongoing Initiatives to Support Agriculture and the Environment

International donors, both state-level institutional donors and private foundations, have realized the importance of protecting the country’s food security, and boost both agricultural and environmental projects.

Early in the month, the European Union supported a jointly led intervention by the Lebanese government and the United Nations to assist conflict-impacted farming households and protect agricultural livelihoods. Implementing parties include the Ministry of Agriculture, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Other organizations, such as Oxfam in Lebanon, have launched projects focused on specific sub-sectors. Oxfam’s initiative included supporting dairy farmers in northern Lebanon, launched in partnership with the Italian government’s institutional donor, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), and Italian organization AVSI alongside the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture of Tripoli & North Lebanon (CCIAT).

These initiatives would provide urgently needed support for farmers, agricultural workers, and food security prospects across the country. The critical link that remains to be seen is how and if these initiatives would complement and accompany broader political economy revamp in the country.

The post Lebanon’s Agriculture and Environment Remain Among the Hardest Hit by War and the Climate Crisis appeared first on Beirut Today.

For decades, farmers in Lebanon and the Levant nurtured a deep connection with the land by saving, planting, and passing down local seeds. Today, this vital agricultural heritage is facing a severe environmental and economic crisis.

In this video, local farmers and environmental activists discuss the silent threat of local seed extinction. Discover the incredible benefits of climate-resilient, highly nutritional crops like “Salmoni” wheat, which require less water and no chemicals. We also explore the dangers of abandoning our seed-saving traditions to rely on imported seeds, and meet 75-year-old Hana Chaar from Akkar, who is proudly keeping the practice alive.

When we lose our local seeds, we lose a piece of our history and our agricultural independence.

The post Local Seed Extinction | The Crisis Threatening Lebanon’s Food Sovereignty | Beirut Today appeared first on Beirut Today.

By Rayanne Tawil

The small room inside Tres Marias carries traces of many lives.

Plastic containers and basic kitchen utensils sit on shelves. Cans of food are stacked nearby. A Filipino flag hangs on the wall, a reminder of a home thousands of kilometers away. 

A glass cabinet lined with handmade soaps molded into angels, flowers, teddy bears and crosses. Some carry Christmas greetings, others the logo of Tres Marias, the small Filipino community center established six years ago in Beirut. Each one was made by migrant women who once came to Lebanon searching for work and now use soap making as another way to earn a living.

Around the table, the space looks like a kitchen, a gathering place and a refuge all at once.

Evelyn Alhazzam sits on a chair wearing turquoise. Her eyes rarely meet the camera. Her voice breaks as she remembers the night her life changed.

She was in her home in Ghobeiry, in Beirut’s Southern Suburbs, when an Israeli airstrike hit nearby. Her husband was injured. Her children carried him outside.

“We put my husband in the blanket so we could carry him quickly to save his life,” she told Beirut Today.

He later died in the hospital, succumbing to his injuries.

The memory remains visible on her face. As she speaks, tears roll down her cheeks.

Evelyn, 40, a Filipina migrant worker, spent years in Lebanon. Like other migrant workers across the country, she ended up facing displacement, dread and uncertainty, while also living so far from her own support networks.

Inside Tres Marias, a space made by migrant workers for migrant workers, her story sits there among hundreds of others.

For Myra Aragon, one of the founders of Tres Marias, these stories started arriving through phone calls. “People were calling us at 3 in the morning saying ‘We don’t know where to go,’” she says.

During the war, migrant workers who had lost their homes, or escaped from dangerous areas often had nowhere to turn. Some did not know which organizations could help them. Others feared asking for assistance because of their legal status, financial situation or previous experiences of abuse.

Tres Marias became a point of contact.

“We were receiving calls from different nationalities,” Aragon says. “They were asking for food, transportation, a place to stay.”

The center was never designed as an emergency shelter. It became one because there was a need.

A crisis inside a crisis

Before the bombs started falling, many migrant workers in Lebanon were already living under difficult conditions.

Enu Tsigereda Birhanu, deputy director and a prominent activist at Egna Lenga Besidet, a Beirut-based migrant-led humanitarian and advocacy organization supporting migrant communities, says the war exposed problems that existed long before the first strikes.

“Migrant workers were already forgotten before the war,” she says. “During the economic crisis, many people lost their jobs, they were thrown out like garbage.”

For domestic workers especially, the situation was complicated by the kafala system, which ties workers’ legal status to their employers. When war reached different parts of Lebanon, many migrant workers had no clear evacuation plans, no financial safety net and no family nearby.

“People were asking, ‘Who will come for us?’” Enu says.

She started helping to link displaced migrants with organizations and people that could offer support.

Among those she helped was Hirout Wobshet, 38, an Ethiopian woman who had been residing in Lebanon since 2007. When the fighting got stronger in southern Lebanon, Hirout was in the Jwaya area with her three children.

“There was no electricity. There was no light. It was dark,” she says. “There was no water.”

The lack of basic necessities was combined with fear. The family stayed inside as fighting intensified around them. “They told us to leave,” she says. “They told us to leave the area.”

For three days, Hirout says she lived through an increasingly dangerous situation. She was worried about her children, whose ages 12, 7 and 4 years old. “I was in a very bad condition,” she says. “I was sick and I couldn’t go out with my kids. My kids got sick too.”

Eventually, she was evacuated by ambulance from her home.

Today, she is back near Sour, though the place she returned to no longer resembles the home she left behind.

“My home is barely there; everything fell down,” she says.

Her belongings, her stability and her sense of security disappeared with the war. “I have never seen anything like this in my life,” she says. “I have seen everything in my life here.”

The road out of the south

For some migrant workers, displacement did not happen through an organized evacuation. It happened through a series of desperate decisions.

Mohamad Hmaidan, 45, a Sudanese father, has been in Lebanon for 20 years and during the war he stayed in Sour almost 100 days. 

His first thought was his children.

His youngest son was born during the war and was only five months old when the situation became unbearable.

“I don’t have a place to live,” he says. “It was very difficult for me to find a place.”

With his family, he eventually left the south. For several days, they searched for somewhere safe to stay.

At one point, Mohamad ended up sleeping in a parking lot in Raouche. “I only had a small bed with me,” he says. “We would sit there. At night, we would watch the kids sleep.”

The image stayed with him: a father sitting outside with his children, trying to protect them while having nowhere to bring them.

His wife had recently given birth. Their baby needed milk and diapers. They had nothing. “All my belongings were left behind,” he says.

The family eventually returned to Sour, to a damaged home that no longer felt like the same place. “I changed a lot,” Mohamad says. “I’m afraid that the war will come again.”

For him, safety became the only thing that mattered.

“I just want my children to go to a safe place,” he says. “I want them to live a good life. I want them to study.”

Walking with nowhere to go

Hasan Abkar Ishaq, 41, another Sudanese migrant worker, was living in Qana with his wife and children when the war started. Before all this, he was working in agriculture and living in a small house that was given to him by the people he worked for.

When the attacks intensified, he did not immediately know what was happening. “I didn’t know that the war was going on,” he says. “The people didn’t tell me anything.”

It was only after receiving a phone call from people in Beirut that he understood the scale of the situation. “They told me the whole world is going crazy,” he says.

When he went outside, he found himself trapped. His car had no gasoline and there were no taxis available. “I suffered a lot,” he says.

The journey away from the south became a long road with his family.

From Sour, they moved toward Sidon on foot. From there, they took a bus and eventually reached Beirut, where they slept under the Cola bridge.

“We were walking, walking, and walking,” Hasan says. “That was the most difficult thing.”

He remembers carrying his children while trying to figure out where they would sleep next.

“I didn’t have money,” he says. “I didn’t have travel expenses.”

Support eventually came from organizations that provided food, diapers and assistance, yet the uncertainty remained. “The displaced families are suffering a lot,” he says. “They are not getting a job. They don’t have a car.”

For Hasan, the war added another layer of vulnerability to a life already built around uncertainty. “I only depend on myself,” he says. “I don’t have anyone close to me.”

The people who were never counted

The stories of Evelyn, Hirout, Mohamad and Hasan are different in their details; however, they share the same feeling: being left to navigate a war that had already taken away their sense of stability.

For Enu, this was one of the biggest challenges during the war. Migrant workers were often absent from official conversations about evacuation and displacement.

“They are living here. They are working here. They are part of this society,” she says.

But when the fighting spread, many struggled to access information.

Some did not know where shelters were located. Others did not have money for transportation. Many were separated from their communities, unable to contact their families or employers. “We had people calling us saying they were stuck,” Enu says. “They didn’t know what to do.”

The problem was not only the lack of resources. It was also the lack of recognition.

For years, migrant workers have built their lives in Lebanon while still staying on the margins. They clean homes, care for children, work in agriculture and help keep households going across the whole country. During the war, many ended up displaced alongside Lebanese families, with their own experiences too often missing from the bigger picture.

At Tres Marias, those tales piled up, one phone call after another, never really stopping. Aragon recalls women who were afraid to step outside their homes, workers who had nowhere to sleep and people who had lost all connection with their families.

One moment still stays with her.

“When we arrived at one shelter, the children were already waiting on the balcony. When they saw us, they shouted, ‘Food! food!’ They told us they had been waiting for our food because it tasted like home.”

Today, the organization’s work has not really slowed down at all. Tres Marias continues organizing fundraising dinners, handing out dry meal parcels and giving aid for rent; meanwhile, many migrant workers are still unemployed, or they are just earning a smaller piece of what they used to make before the war. “I get paid $400; it’s not enough to cover our expenses,” says Hirout.

For Aragon, the struggle is still going. “Peace does not mean the crisis is over,” Aragon says. “Many lost their jobs. Others had their salaries cut. They still need help.”

The organization tried to connect them with food, transportation and emergency support, but the demand was far beyond what a small community space could handle. “We were trying to help as much as we could,” Aragon says.

For many migrant workers, the war also brought back older wounds.

Hirout’s story reflects the vulnerability many domestic workers face even outside moments of crisis. She describes years of difficulties with employers, including struggles over her passport, salary and living conditions.

“I came here when I was 17 years old,” she says. “I have never seen anything like this in my life.”

The war made everything heavier.

She worried about returning to Ethiopia, where she felt she had no future, while Lebanon no longer felt secure. “I want to teach my children,” she says. “How can I teach them?”

Her future remained uncertain. She wanted to leave, then leaving required money she did not have.

“The situation in Ethiopia is not better, and I can’t leave,” she says. “I have no money, and they will not pay for my ticket.”

Her words describe a situation faced by many migrant workers: trapped between a country that has become home and a place of origin where returning does not necessarily mean safety.

After displacement, rebuilding from nothing

For those who returned after leaving, the end of active fighting did not mean the end of displacement.

Mohamad went back to Sour, yet his home had changed.

The fear remained.

“When a child sees someone dead in front of him, it’s a difficult situation,” he says.

His children carried the memory of the war with them. Like many parents, he centered his hopes on a future with no violence.

“I want my children to go to a safe place,” he says.

For Hasan, rebuilding also meant starting again with very little. After moving between places during displacement, he eventually found work again in agriculture.

He describes the help he received from organizations as essential. They provided food, diapers and shelter when he had nothing.

Still, the uncertainty of life as a displaced migrant worker remained. He worried about rent, work and his family’s future. His experience also revealed another difficulty migrant workers face during emergencies: many had no family network in Lebanon to rely on.

Lebanese families often left affected areas to stay with relatives in safer regions. Migrant workers frequently did not have that option.

They had to search for help through organizations, strangers or community networks.

A place built from the gaps

Back inside Tres Marias, the stories return to the same room.

The space was created around community, though the war transformed it into something larger: a place where people could ask for help when there was nowhere else to go.

For Aragon, the biggest lesson from the war was that migrant workers needed to be included before a crisis happened. “They need to be part of the conversation,” she says.

The war did not create their vulnerability. It exposed it.

Their stories show another side of displacement in Lebanon: people who had already crossed borders to build a life and then somehow found themselves needing to move again when the violence came right into their neighborhoods.

Evelyn still carries the memory of that night when she lost her husband, remembering the pieces. Hirout remembers leaving her home with her children in an ambulance.

Mohamad remembers sleeping outside on the streets with his newborn. Hasan remembers walking with his family because there was no car, no fuel and no clear destination.

Their experiences are different, but each story begins with the same question: where do you go when the place you built your life in disappears?

At Tres Marias, that question remains present.

The Filipino flag still hangs on the wall. The shelves still hold cans of food. The chairs are still arranged around the small room where people come to talk, ask for help and remember what happened.

Evelyn sits there, looking down, her turquoise shirt standing out, bright in the quiet room. The war took her husband, and the room keeps his memory.

The post The forgotten displaced: The war stories Lebanon did not hear appeared first on Beirut Today.

The timing of the escalation could be linked to the upcoming Israeli legislative elections, scheduled for October 27, 2026. Regardless, Israeli attacks have continued over the past several weeks (and years), repeatedly violating ceasefire agreements not only in Lebanon but across the region.

Continued Displacement, Infrastructure Destruction, and Attacks in Southern Lebanon

These attacks have been accompanied by the continued destruction of critical infrastructure and residential properties, with Israeli forces repeatedly bulldozing and blowing up houses, as well as using white phosphorus on land in southern Lebanon.

As of August 12, the International Organization for Migration had identified more than 350,000 internally displaced people. Last week’s strikes and Israel’s continued violations of ceasefire agreements have led many households to hesitate and refrain from returning to their areas of residence for the time being.

Progress on Pilot Zone Operations and Hezbollah’s Position

Meanwhile, pilot zone operations are progressing slowly, with little-to-no progress since implementation began in the towns of Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar al-Gharbiya – areas with no significant Israeli presence and limited strategic importance.

In a televised speech on Friday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned that an “hour of anger” could be approaching, while reiterating his rejection and condemnation of direct negotiations.

As matters stand, several factors are coming into play. For Lebanon, Gaza, and other contexts across the region, the outcome of the Israeli elections may signify little, as both dominant blocs are characterized by hawkish politics and similar military and security doctrines. However, an escalation in attacks or other military operations could be used as a strategy to mobilize constituencies during the campaign period.

Israel’s overall position regarding the Lebanese territory it occupies and the continuation of its military operations remains the first major factor. Hezbollah’s stance, including whether it decides to launch operations, represents another determining factor. The third, and perhaps most difficult, concerns the firmness of the Lebanese state and the Lebanese Armed Forces, their respective positions, and their ability to operationalize the components of the trilateral framework agreement.

The post Israeli Attacks, Continued Displacement, and Key Factors Shaping Lebanon’s Security Situation appeared first on Beirut Today.