Source: News Agencies
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
FC Barcelona Fears First Team Star Will Be Banned From Playing, Reports SPORT
FC Barcelona is concerned that one of its main first-team stars will be banned from playing at the turn of 2025 because of issues related to his registration and Financial Fair Play (FFP) limits according to SPORT, which cited anonymous sources.
Friday, November 1, 2024
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Friday 7 October 2022 13:07:32
Lebanon Records First Case of Cholera Since 1993
Lebanon has recorded its first case of cholera since 1993, the crisis-hit country’s health ministry announced, as neighbouring war-torn Syria is struggling to contain an outbreak of the waterborne disease that has spread across the country during the past month.
Lebanon began a downward spiral in late 2019 that has plunged three-quarters of its population into poverty. Rampant power cuts, water shortages, and skyrocketing inflation have deteriorated living conditions for millions.
Caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad said on Thursday that the case was recorded on Wednesday in the impoverished, predominantly rural northern Lebanese region of Akkar and that the patient, a Syrian national, was receiving treatment and in stable condition.
According to the World Health Organization, a cholera infection is caused by consuming food or water infected with the Vibrio cholerae bacteria, and while most cases are mild to moderate, not treating the illness could lead to death.
Impoverished families in Lebanon often ration water and are unable to afford private water tanks for drinking and domestic use.
Abiad has met authorities and international organisations following the confirmed case to discuss ways to prevent a possible outbreak.
Richard Brennan, regional emergency director of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, confirmed that the organisation has been in talks with authorities in Lebanon and other countries bordering Syria to bring in the necessary supplies to respond to possible cases in the country.
“Cross-border spread is a concern, we’re taking significant precautions,” Brennan said. “Protecting the most vulnerable will be absolutely vital.”
Brennan added that vaccines are in short supply relative to global demand.
In neighbouring Syria, the outbreak has claimed dozens of lives and is posing a danger across the front lines of the country’s 11-year-long war, stirring fears in crowded camps for the displaced who lack running water or sewage systems.
The UN and Syria’s health ministry have said the source of the outbreak is likely linked to people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River and using contaminated water to irrigate crops, resulting in food contamination.
Syria’s health services have suffered heavily from its years-long war, while much of the country is short on supplies to sanitise water.
Syrian health officials – as of Wednesday – have documented at least 594 cases of cholera and 39 deaths.
Meanwhile, in the rebel-held northwest of the country, health authorities documented 605 suspected cases, dozens of confirmed cases, and at least one death.
Lebanon’s water infrastructure is also decrepit, and the healthcare system has been hit hard by a three-year financial crisis and the August 2020 Beirut port blast that destroyed critical medical infrastructure in the capital.
Despite humanitarian aid from donor countries, Abiad said the sector would struggle to cope with a large-scale outbreak.
“We have a very clear signal that the Lebanese healthcare system needs support to strengthen [it],” he said. “Otherwise … it won’t be able to hold.”
