[Salon] Lebanon at risk - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

Lebanon at risk Summary: with the attack by Hezbollah and Israel’s response the Iran war is pulling Lebanon into its vortex at a point when the country was beginning to show recovery from an economic crisis that had lasted for over five years. As the war continues into day four the widening escalation threatens every country in the region but none more so than Lebanon. Late Sunday night Hezbollah launched a rocket and drone attack towards a military base south of Haifa in northern Israel in response to the killing of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The IDF said the weaponry fell short of its intended target and responded with an immediate reprisal attack. 31 people were killed and nearly 150 injured in air strikes on a southern suburb of Beirut and in the south of Lebanon. The Israeli defence minister Israel Katz declared that the Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem was “a marked target for assassination.” Katz added with the sort of hyperbolic language that is now the norm “anyone who follows Khamenei’s path will soon find himself in the depths of hell with all the thwarted members of the axis of evil.” Hezbollah though seriously degraded both militarily and politically remains a powerful player in Lebanon’s fractured world of sectarian politics. Still the Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam denounced the Hezbollah action as “irresponsible” and one that “jeopardises Lebanon’s security and safety and provides Israel with pretexts to continue its aggression.” President Joseph Aoun while condemning the Israeli strikes decried what Hezbollah had done. In a statement he said “Using Lebanese territory as a platform for military operations unrelated to Lebanon will not be allowed to happen again.” It may be that it will be Hezbollah and not the government that will decide to stand down from any further strikes bearing in mind that much of their weapons stocks have been destroyed by the Israelis. Iran even if it were able to supply more is in no position to do so. However the fragility of the Lebanese government is underscored by Monday’s events. The Iran war comes at a point where the economy was showing modest signs of recovery from what has been described as one of the most severe economic crises globally since the nineteenth century. A crisis that began in 2019 and condemned the Lebanese to rampant inflation, runaway unemployment and the degradation of infrastructure and state services was on 22 January this year described by the World Bank as being at “the start of a modest recovery following years of severe contraction.” The World Bank stated: Looking ahead, Lebanon’s economic momentum is forecast to continue, with real GDP growth projected at 4% in 2026 provided reform efforts persist, modest reconstruction inflows materialize, and political stability is maintained. Remittances and tourism will remain critical growth drivers, but risks including delay on critical reforms and regional instability—threaten the fragile recovery. People in Beirut have been fleeing their homes after Israel began striking what it says are Hezbollah targets in the city, in response to an attack by the Iran-backed group The World Bank’s section on “Outlook and Risks” makes no mention of the threat of a war on Iran launched by Israel and the US something that many observers had been saying over many months was a question of not if but when. President Trump had for several months been mixing threats with cajolery but as protests against economic conditions in Iran were escalating so too was his rhetoric. The war when it came came as no surprise. What is quite extraordinary is the fact that Lebanon had achieved any level of economic and political stability at all. Following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and many other senior Hezbollah officials by the Israelis a ceasefire had been in place since November 2024. As documented by the UN Israel in one year had violated the ceasefire 10,000 times. The war Israel has conducted in the midst of the “ceasefire” has emptied out communities in southern Lebanon leaving hundreds of thousands in need of government assistance putting further strain on already well overstretched resources. After Israel’s latest attacks thousands more are fleeing Beirut’s southern suburbs and the capital itself. Responding to the crisis engulfing the country Prime Minister Salam issued a statement that said in part: “we announce a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities and restrict its role to the political sphere.” That may not be enough for the IDF who for the more than two years since the ceasefire was announced have coupled ground and air strikes with forced evacuations of southern communities, a tactic that is now being applied to the suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah still holds sway. With the Iran war having already smashed through so many red lines it will be a challenge for the government to enforce a ban and keep Hezbollah in check. But clearly it is something that must somehow be achieved in order that the fragile rebound of Lebanon’s economy is not snuffed out.