-- Cabinet has assigned to the Finance Ministry the task to request the Central Bank to prepare regulations for financial transfers abroad.

-- Between yesterday and today 54 Lebanese army soldiers were injuried and 13 rioters were arrested.

🛑🛑 I'm going to make a small summary to help all non Lebanese and some Lebanese here have a better understanding of the situation in Lebanon from 1990 to 2020 and the role of Hezbullah, Israel, the Gulf, and the west (might not). Some Lebanese here might disagree with some points and some from the west could view things slightly differently but here I am going to give my understanding of the situation after having thoroughly for years reading and analyzing the situation and as someone who lived through 2/3 of it.

Regardless who fought who in the Lebanese civil war and regardless who got aided by what nation or country, the war ended in early 1990 with the war lords, who are at the same time religious sect leaders, announcing a cease fire and giving up their weapons to the government that was united with the exodus of the self proclaimed president Michel Aoun who was then the head of the army and the prisonment of the leader of the Lebanese forces Samir Gaegae.

Before explaining now what happened after 1990-1992 i should like any movie introduce you to our characters. Michel Aoun was the head of the Lebanese army, or at least one of the 3 Lebanese armies that split due to sectarian reasons. Michel Aoun fought Syria and the Lebanese forces.

Samir Gaegae was the leader of the Lebanese Forces (Christian), an Israeli backed and trained militia, formed as the military branch of the Kataeb party that was founded in the late 1930's. Both are phalangist parties that aimed to create a Christian Lebanon. Lebanese forces fought with Israel and others against other Christians Muslims and Palestinians. They have a long history of massacres.

Nabih berri is shia lawyer and then politicians who took control of the Amal movement militia that was created to fight Israel in 1975 by the disappeared Sayyed Moussa Al Sadr in Libya. Nabih berri then led the Amal movement into the civil war against Kataeb and against Palestinians themselves. He was backed by Syria and answered for Syria for a long period.

Walid Joumblat a Druze militia leader who led the Druze during the civil war against Maronites and others. He had very extreme anti Christian stand and allied with Israel when he was not fighting them. He changed sides more than anyone in the whole war. He was backed by Syria then became anti Syria.

Rafic Al Hariri is a Sunni Lebanese Saudi French politician that did not participate in the civil war but was backed by the KSA (Saudi Arabia) to buy his way into politics. He by the end of the war bankrolled a large number of the sides including the president himself (Elias Al Lihrawi).

So going to 1992 its time to rebuild Lebanon, or at least the part that is not occupied by Israel because who cares about that right? South Lebanon has always been considered a 3rd tier area in this third world country. However to rebuild you need cash and international support and the only one who has that now is Rafic Al Hariri. To do so something called Solidere was created. It basically meant forcing Lebanese to sell their properties cheap to the government and the government will rebuilt above them new Beirut that is now called downtown Beirut. Yeah it was rebuilt beautifully but it’s a ghost town now with only a hotel still standing from pre 1992 who refused to sell. Not only did the property of people get stolen but rather the government itself got sold to rich war lords. The Shia got a part of the pie in the name of Nabih Berri the parliament speaker, the Sunnis got part of the pie in the name of Rafic Al Hariri the prime minister, and Walid Joumblat the head of the Druze got a big part of the pie. The Christian part of the pie was not as big due to the civil war. The telecommunication sector? was sold or operated by rich politicians like ex prime minister Miqati. The seaside? was sold as private property. The government lands? sold. Even all government employees were chosen according to political affiliation.

What happened simply is that the war lords gave up arms and ended the war by taking a piece of the government. Samir Gaegae was in Prison serving for his massacres and for killing the Prime minister and the family of another Christian politician Frangieh. Michel Aoun was expelled to France. In summary they considered the government as a bounty and all of this happened through laws they themselves placed. Hariri controlled the economy and created the economical model we know today. This is why it is called the Haririte policies.
So for those asking where is Hezbullah? Hezbullah since the 1981 was busy fighting Israel in south Lebanon that first invaded in 1978 and then in 1982. They did not participate in the civil war and the only internal battle they fought was against Amal. It was a battle between Syria and Iran. Syria wanted to control all of the resistance groups in Lebanon and even by force once killing 19 Hezbullah in an infamous massacre called Fathallah Barracks massacre. The relationship between Syria and Hezbullah changed in 1996 when Hafez Al Assad understood Hezbullah and their real potential and believes. Hezbullah then stayed outside of politics till 1996 when it entered the parliament. It never entered into any government cabinet until 2005. Hezbullah was never part of the new post civil war Lebanon and was busy with liberating South Lebanon. He stayed alone doing so while all others were taking part of the cake.

So here comes 2005 and Rafic Al Hariri gets killed by a car bomb. At first Syria was blamed and this led to the green revolution that ousted Syria outside Lebanon. Hariri’s party that was pro Syria became anti Syria. Joumblat’s party who was pro Syria became anti Syria and so on. Lebanon entered into a new phase and started to shift into a new era. After Syria was ousted an international court came to investigate. The first alleged results led to the imprisonment of the heads of the intelligence branches in Lebanon based on evidence that was later proved to be fake. They were imprisoned for four years and then set free. Then after Syria was out and they were cleared the court blamed Hezbullah. Hezbullah did not comment on the subject and said we don’t even considered the court trustable anymore. This led to huge tension and almost led to a sectarian problem in Lebanon. Hezbullah was isolated and the new war on terror by the USA was ongoing. Later in 2010 Hezbullah showed the public drone footage it hacked from Israel showing Israel spying on Rafic Al Hariri. Back in 2004-2005 hariri started to get close to Hezbullah.
Hezbullah was just out of the 2000 liberation and moved from defense to rebuilding the south and preparing for a new war with Israel. With this new complication and internal isolation Hezbullah was sit put with occasional Israeli assassination of its leaders like the 2004 assassination. With Syria going outside Lebanon and the Anti Syria camp controlling the government with no balance it was tough years. Then 2006 war came and the IDF along with the USA have set the plans to end Hezbullah. The American president said it, the foreign secretary said it, “A new world order, the New Middle East”. After Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon, Syria and Iran were next. During this war the Lebanese politicians supported the new age and wiki leaks leaked all their words to the Americans where they were supporting the war and the will to end Hezbullah. It was a scandal. But the war ended, Hezbullah won, and he did not ask to punish any and just said I gift this victory to all.

After 2006 came 2008. In 2008 Walid Joumblat and Saad Al Hariri prepared to punish Hezbullah through the government they controlled. They issued an order to confiscate Hezbollah’s communication system and to punish the people who made it and called for it. This meant that they wanted to punish Hassan Nasrallah himself the head of Hezbullah. This came after few months of Hezbullah leaving the government and protesting for about two years peacefully in downtown Beirut. Joumblat and Hariri prepared 3000 fighters and it ended in clashes in May8-11 and the government backed down. In 2011 Joumblat on TV said I have been the head of this operation and I was abetted by the USA to do so as revenge to them losing the 2006 war. He said it on live TV.

Another year passed and now we are in 2009. Michel Aoun is back to Lebanon and allied with Hezbullah (He came before that in a couple of years). They made a deal in a Church in February where Nasrallah and Aoun met and signed. This deal created a Shia Christian unity between the biggest Christian party and Shia party in Lebanon. However in 2009 Hariri’s camp, which is known as 14 March, won the parliament elections and thus the government. The same economical policies continued and the same corruption continued. However then the stability in the region led to growth in Lebanon and no one cared for change or objected the sectarian system. However Aoun was in a crusade to get back to Christians what they lost post 1992 thus falling in the same sectarian power distribution and projects like others.

Now came 2011-2012 and the Syria civil war. With Hariri the head of the government and 14 March in control they became part of the war on Syria. They first cut Lebanon’s ties with them and closed the border thus closing Lebanon’s only land export passage and then started to actively arm the rebels in Syria. Several shipments of weapons from Turkey and KSA were discovered in Tripoli. As Hariri armed the rebels in east Syria, Joumblat was abetting the Syrian Druze to rebel against the Syrian regime and whoever does not should be killed. What is funny is that back in 2009-2011 the golden era for Syria and Lebanon’s economy Saad Al Hariri went to Syria and slept in Bachar’s palace as a sign of ending hostilities, and so did Joumblat. With this situation and the Syrian army losing in this war, they started to prepare for post war Syria and against Hezbullah. Hariri, Miqati, and Rifi for example abetted the Al Qaeda in north Lebanon and poor locals to attack the pro Syrian regime alawites in north Lebanon. While in politics, Samir Gaegae and other were publically saying the regime will fall in few months and so will Hezbullah. The same rhetoric was being called for by the Syrian rebels who said we will come to kill Nasrallah after we kill Bachar.
However Hezbullah saw the magnitude and the seriousness of the situation and how Al Qaeda and ISIS are overwhelming the Syrian army and the possible spill of this war to Lebanon, he deployed forces to clear the Lebanese border and end the support from Lebanon and stop the influx of terrorists. This led then to AL Qusayr battle in 2013 and the end of its battles in 2017 in AL bokamal against ISIS. During that period ISIS and AL Qaeda sent suicide cars to attack the neighborhoods of Dahyeh to pressure Hezbullah supporters by killing 100’s of civilians. The cars were being prepared in Syria and north Lebanon and only stopped when Hezbullah liberated both areas.

Throughout these years the economy was dying and the liquidity was being depleted. Continuous government corruption and mismanagement with no trade and the pressure by Syrian refigures caused the bankruptcy. Hezbullah was not able to interfere in internal Lebanon politics, how could he after 20 years under occupation then the 2006 war then 2008 then the bloody 5 years war in Syria. Lebanon was being sucked by corruption by both 14 March and 8 March parties(Hezbullah allies in Lebanon). Then came the waste disposal problem and the streets got filled because as you have already discovered now, Lebanon was a sectarian animal farm and no sect was willing to accept the waste of another. This led to a major wave of non sectarian protests that then led to the federation of waste disposal efforts. Each area had a separate company. Though I have here to give credit to Hezbullah for not allowing wastes to overcome their areas and worked with their own money to dispose wastes and did not allow wastes to flood in south Lebanon and so.

Then came other minor protests but nothing as huge as the post 17/10/2019 protests. They were sparked by the preposition of a 6$ tax on whatsApp. It was not about that single tax but the people not being able to live anymore with such neglect and a deteriorating economical situation. Protests then sparked and were not sectarian at first and pure. But with time they shifted to attacking the president and his son in law blaming him for the situation in total, although he came to effective power in late 2016 and is surely to be blamed for a certain % of corruption he was not to be blamed for even most of it. This new scenario with most 17/10/2019 protestors being young people who never followed politics …made the real anti corruption work almost negligible. Without the ability to actually know who is behind the corruption and without being able to point the finger this led to the anti president parties including Hariri Joumblat and Gaegae to join the protests. This led the protests to become anti Aoun and then anti Hezbullah’s weapons. This led Hezbullah to ask its supporters to leave the protests thus effectively ending the Beirut’s protest. Only few tents stayed and most of those tents who are not anti Hezbullah were good educational camps for people who are new to politics. And so the situation continued and Hariri resigned and left to France. Other large protests continued in Tripoli for example.

Then about two months later Hezbullah and its allies 8th March formed a new Technocrat government that was aimed to fight corruption with non political and non ex politician members in the government. However just few weeks after being in power, COVID-19 arrived and the work against it started.

This was a lot to read if you even reached this part and there are tooooon of more details but that’s enough. Just one more thing. Lebanon is now facing a bankrupt government, Central bank, and banks. One of the reasons aside of corruption that led to that is Lebanon being a non productive country leading to a defect in trade leading to less dollars entering then leaving. Add to that the Lebanese pound was stabilized at 1500 because of constant loans which at the end not only depleted the central bank but also took a huge part of the GDP. Lebanese now are attacking the banks not only because the banks are corrupted but because banks are lost the people’s money with their investment in the corruption of the government. People lost their life saving and lost their jobs and lost their ability to live.

^^ To have a better understanding of Lebanon read this

-- A limited clash took place between locals in Bir Elias and Al Marj village. Reasons are unknown.

-- Scene on right is from outside Bank Audi in Sidon, where protesters were just vandalizing bank's exterior. Report of possible injury in clashes w/LAF troops in the area.

Protesters are throwing firecrackers at the army, while the army is responding with tear gas and occasionly with rubber bullets.

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-- Lebanon's MOH took today random samples from south Lebanon to test for COVID-19.

This comes as a part of the national campaign to test up to 75,000.

🇮🇱 -- An Israeli IDF navy boat trespassed Lebanon's maritime.

The violation was recorded by the Lebanese Army Navy.

-- As Prime minister earlier last week warned that some parties are on the track to do a coup similar to the 1990's econimal coup, he restates his warning claiming he knows the parties who are abetting the riots.

🇦🇺 -- According to a recent report Lebanese intellegence provided the Australian counterterrorism units information about the ISIS plot to blow up a civilian airliner in Australia in 2017.

https://t.co/4cin6FkVEB

-- The minister of education said that schools will reopen in June for two months.

He also confirms that official exams will be done, with the promise to decrease this year's tuition fees.

The dollar exchange rate decreased from 4,200 to 3,500.

Exchange offices will likely only buy from you at this rate and not sell you.

-- Byblos Bank in choueifat area was targeted with a molotov.