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

-- An army checkpoint was burned in Al Badawi injuring 3 soldiers.

The army just evacuated it's positions under Al Badawi bridge.