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.

^^ Check our new Twitter channel

-- 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.

-- In protest, a Lebanese paid his car loan (350$) in 500 LL coins.

Counting took a couple of hours.

^^ For reference: 1$ = 1500 LL officially.

-- A large number of protesters from Kahldeh and Choueifat are heading to Martyrs Square in Beirut.

The moment a molotov was thrown at the Lebanese army soldiers by the rioters. https://t.co/lSY4rWpMw9