Between talks and occupation – Lebanon at the edge of the Israeli Wall
by Karin Leukefeld
(picture ef)
Lebanon is under pressure. Domestically, the country has been experiencing a severe economic crisis since 2019; corruption and cronyism have not only brought the banking system to its knees. The headquarters of the state-owned electricity provider Électricité du Liban (EDL) has been a ruin since the explosion at the port of Beirut in 2020. Due to a lack of reliable service, electricity and water supply, education and healthcare have been partially privatised, requiring additional payments from the population.
According to the World Bank, remittances from family members around the world amount to between 5.8 and 6.7 billion US dollars annually, sometimes representing more than 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The money is sent via private financial institutions and transfers and enables people to pay for necessary hospital costs or school or university fees for their children. It also helps to cover the high costs of mobile phones, generator electricity, and additional water deliveries. Or it helps to buy solar panels, pay for repairs to homes destroyed in Israeli attacks, or repay a payday loan.
Since the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have emigrated or fled due to famine, forced conscription (under the Ottoman Empire), wars, and unemployment, and now they live on every continent. Their remittances to family members in Lebanon are the true economic foundation of the approximately five million Lebanese who still live in the country.
Israel refuses to withdraw
The current situation for the population in Lebanon has deteriorated further. Almost 20 per cent of the south of the country is occupied by Israeli troops, who daily blow up, bulldoze, or set fire to houses, farms, schools, cemeteries, places of worship, olive groves, and orchards.
The Lebanese government leaders, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawal Salam, declared Hezbollah, which had resisted the Israeli army and its occupation forces in Lebanon since the early 1980s, illegal and ordered its disarmament.
Mediated by the US administration – more precisely, under the threat from US Special Envoy Tom Barrack that all of Lebanon could be destroyed and overrun by Israel1 – the Lebanese president instructed the Lebanese ambassador to the US to initiate talks with the Israeli ambassador to the US. The talks, initially held at the US State Department in Washington, D.C., took place in a trilateral format with the US Secretary of State. The result was a trilateral framework agreement.
In early August, the negotiators met in Rome for what was now the seventh round2 of talks. The demands of Lebanon and Israel remain far apart. US mediators are trying to dissuade the Lebanese from their core demand – the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from all Lebanese territory. But negotiations have stalled.
Israel categorically rejects the proposal to demonstrate goodwill through so-called “pilot zones” with a “gradual withdrawal”. After the first three locations – of which the Israeli army was only present on the periphery of one – the Lebanese want to declare Khiam and Bint Jbeil as two further “pilot zones”. Both locations lie between the UN-marked ceasefire line, the “Blue Line”, and the Litani River. Israel occupies the area and has no intention of withdrawing, as Israeli officials emphasise daily.3 According to reports, “election centres” are even currently being set up there so that Israeli occupation troops can participate in the Knesset parliamentary elections at the end of October.
The “pilot zone” plan envisioned the Israeli army withdrawing, the Lebanese army taking up positions, and beginning the disarmament of Hezbollah. Hezbollah rejects the plan, and General Rodolphe Haykal, the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army, knows, as does retired Lebanese general and current president of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, that Hezbollah’s disarmament will only be possible in consultation with Hezbollah themselves. A prerequisite for this is the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. But there is no movement on that front.
According to the Lebanese daily newspaper “L’Orient Le Jour” (in English), Lebanon and the Lebanese negotiating delegation are facing an “Israeli wall” in Rome. And in Lebanon, the population is facing a wall of fire. Because while talks are taking place in Rome, Israel is increasing military pressure on the country.
Changing the rules of the game in the Middle East
Israel is planning a long occupation of Lebanon, one that is intended to go far beyond “security for Israel and its citizens.” The Israeli daily newspaper “Maariv” published a report at the start of talks in Rome on 4 August, about a “secret annex” to the trilateral framework agreement between the US, Israel, and Lebanon. This reportedly contains long-term economic and constitutional provisions.
The response to an inquiry by the Beirut-based author of this text was that, according to “Maariv”, Israeli officials have leaked parts of the agreement, while Lebanese reports have confirmed the annex’s existence. The document envisions a complete end to the state of war between the two countries and a direct mechanism for military and security coordination between the Israeli and Lebanese armies.
Once this mechanism was activated, mediation by a third country would no longer be necessary. All external oversight and verification of disarmament in southern Lebanon might be waived. According to “Maariv”, this would represent a shift from the traditional model of international mediation to a direct bilateral relationship, if implemented. Given the actual power dynamics between Lebanon and Israel, this would effectively give Israel control over Lebanon.
Under pressure from the US, Israel, and their Western EU partners, the UN Security Council halted the long-standing mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon4 as of the end of 2026. All UNIFIL troops are to be withdrawn by the end of 2027. A letter5 signed by 86 of the 120 Lebanese members of parliament, which demands a strengthening of UNIFIL and the continued presence of the mission in southern Lebanon, was delivered to the UN representative in Lebanon at the end of July. The letter and its demands and warnings were largely ignored by the media and politicians.
According to “Maariv”, Lebanon’s economy is at the core of the described annex document, specifically gas and oil. A reorganisation under US supervision and Israeli control is intended to “change the rules of the game in the Middle East.” Lebanon’s offshore gas and oil reserves are to be developed with US approval. The port of Haifa (Israel) is to be expanded into the most important hub for exporting oil and natural gas to Europe.
The “annex”, if it actually exists, strongly resembles the former colonial-imperial interests of Great Britain during the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. At that time, British oil companies sat at the negotiating table to ensure control of oil from Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia “from source to port” for export. The ports in question were Basra (Persian Gulf) and Haifa (British Mandate territory after 1919).
Human Dignity
In all the developments described, the Lebanese population plays no role for the media and politicians. Daily life in Lebanon is characterised by immense suffering and loss, insecurity and, above all, injustice. International actors in the Western Hemisphere remain silent about the war crimes committed by the Israeli army and government in order to advance their own interests.
Talk of “peace,” “negotiations”, and “transition processes” only masks what is really happening: Israel is ravaging and destroying southern Lebanon with money and weapons supplied by its partners in the US administration, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. Israeli government officials threaten southern Lebanon, saying it will look like Gaza6 – destroyed.
The international arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for the genocide in Gaza are ignored and met by the US administration “with a campaign to destroy the International Criminal Court in The Hague”7. International and humanitarian law is being violated, and the dignity of the people in the region is being trampled underfoot. Politicians and the media are standing by as the lives of people they have never met, who have never harmed a hair on their heads, are reduced to rubble.
‘They even destroyed the cemetery’
It is Monday, August 3, when the author receives the following message:
“This morning, Israel coldly destroyed our last remaining family home. They ripped it apart with explosives. In a few moments, the home my family built, the home we lived in, the place we could always return to, the home where we were protected and loved, was reduced to rubble and ashes. And so, finally, our home has met the same fate as our entire village, which had already been destroyed.
We were not a political family; we are civilians, our house was a home for ordinary people: educated, cosmopolitan, and open to everyone. Our home believed in peace, and we have always been open to peace, not for one side, but for all. Nothing protected us. Israel’s impunity, made possible by overwhelming American power and support, has finally reached our doorstep. What makes it especially cruel is knowing that this isn’t happening for the first time
In 1982, during the Siege of Beirut, my parents were newlyweds, and Israel evicted them from their first home. They rebuilt it. During the occupation of southern Lebanon, which reached its peak in 2000, they endured the same ordeal. They rebuilt their home. In 2006, war broke out again. And again, they rebuilt everything. Now, in 2026, Israel has coldly destroyed what was left.
For more than four decades, my family was forced to watch how everything they worked for was repeatedly taken from them. Homes. Land. Security. A lifetime of work. Property worth millions of dollars and everything that money can’t put a price on. Rooms filled with memories, things carried from one stage of life to the next, the tangible evidence of a family’s existence, the simple certainty that somewhere in this world there was a place where we belonged. Gone. There is no injury that dehumanises a person more. To be physically unharmed but without humanity, without basic dignity and equality, is a fate worse than death.
They took everything from us; nothing is left. And we did nothing to deserve this.”
Attached to the message is a photo of the beautiful family home, surrounded by lush greenery. Above the reddish-brown tile roofs, a brilliant blue sky. Below it is a recent satellite image that the family searched for and found. Where the house once stood, only a pile of rubble remains, surrounded by gray, scorched land. The village is called Haddatha8, says Mustapha S., the person I am speaking with, and it is located in the Bint Jbeil district. “The bombings are still going on today,” he adds
In a conversation a few days later, the author learns that the family, who live scattered all over, used to spend every summer there. After the father retired 15 years ago, the parents settled permanently in the village and their beautiful villa. “My father inherited the land from his father; our neighbours were our uncles and aunts. There were four houses in total. All of them were destroyed with dynamite on the same day.” They had thought, and probably hoped, that the fighting had stopped, since their village had come under Israeli occupation. “We thought that at least the destruction would end. But they coldly bulldozed the entire village and the surrounding area, house by house.” He sends a voice message of his cousin. She is crying; her childhood home was also destroyed. “They destroyed the cemetery too”, he adds.
The interviewee recalls he had already come to know the Israeli occupation forces as a child,: “I grew up under occupation, that was before we fled to the Arabian Gulf in 1993. I’ll never forget the checkpoints, those huge weapons they carried. I was just a child.” But somehow it was different back then: “They were occupiers, yes, but they saw us as human beings.” That has changed: “Humanity has somehow completely disappeared into the background.” Back then, his grandparents lived in that house. His family always spent the entire summer there when there was no school. “To get there, we had to pass four checkpoints. Two Syrian checkpoints and two Israeli checkpoints. The Israelis built their base at the top of the hill, the highest point in the village. But back then, we could reach our homes, our land, our families.” “In today’s world, there is only scorched earth politics.”
Later, he adds another message. He says he harbours no hidden resentment toward Jews or Israelis, and he wishes neither them nor anyone else what he and his family are currently experiencing. “I believe in diplomacy, I believe in peace. I believe in the safety of Jews in the Middle East. I believe in humanity and in the compassion of my fellow human beings.” But this must not come “at the expense of the peace and humanity of others.” “We are all equal and should live together in peace and dignity in these our countries. Stop the war!” •
1https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1465739/behind-thomas-barracks-visit-to-lebanon.html
2https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/4/seventh-round-of-israel-lebanon-talks-begins-whats-on-the-agenda
3https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-said-refusing-further-withdrawals-from-lebanon-amid-spat-over-who-will-verify-hezbollah-disarmament/
4https://unifil.unmissions.org/en/unifil-mandate
5https://english.news.cn/20260724/3dca97254a7843db8ee1082c2563747f/c.html
6https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/katz-says-israel-will-demolish-lebanon-border-villages-create-gaza-style-buffer-zone/
7https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/07/state-department-launches-campaign-to-dismantle-international-criminal-courts-threat-to-american-sovereignty
8https://timesofoman.com/article/175258-israeli-military-carries-out-explosion-in-lebanons-haddatha
First published www.nachdenkseiten.de of 8 August 2026
(Translation Current Concerns)
* Karin Leukefeld is an ethnologist, scholar of Islam and political science, and historian. She has been working as a freelance correspondent since 2000. Her main areas of focus are the Near and Middle East. Her latest book is entitled “War in the Middle East: Geopolitics, Devastation, Resistance and the Awakening of a Region” (Hintergrund-Verlag 2024)
Postscript
kl. When Mustapha S. (on 14 August 2026) learns that the report is to be published in a Swiss newspaper, he is overwhelmed. When the author asks him if he would like to add anything, he says yes, in order to clarify the context. In a telephone message, he talks about how “they”, before “they” destroyed the houses, always looted and stole the residents’ possessions. He knows this from eyewitnesses in the neighbouring village; he has seen the footage of soldiers helping themselves to food in the kitchens of the houses they occupied and then blew up. The rubble of his family home contains no trace of furnishings, no paint, he says; not a single armchair protrudes from the rubble anywhere. He talks about the mahogany table in his parents’ house, the carefully chosen furniture, valuable carpets, paintings, heirlooms and antiques that he brought home from his travels. During the war in 2006, “they” had already occupied his parents’ house once before. To gain entry, “they” had blown a hole in the side wall of the house. They left the inscription “Hellfire”, in Hebrew, in the soft plaster of the bathroom. Here is a transcript of what Mustapha S. reported about the village cemetery.
Complete destruction
“When we heard that the cemetery had been completely levelled by bulldozers, we asked ourselves: Why?! In any religion, this represents a grave violation of the rights of the deceased and their dignity. But then we realised that cemeteries in southern Lebanon play a crucial role for the respective village communities. All the cemeteries in the villages are within walking distance. In our case, you can see the cemetery from almost anywhere in the village, as it lies in the valley. The hills rise up around it, and we can literally see when someone is walking to the cemetery. When my aunt goes down there, I can see her from our house as a tiny figure in the distance and know that she is visiting our grandfather’s grave. I can see where my grandfather is buried. It is customary that when you come to the village to visit your parents, you visit the cemetery first before setting foot in the house. You pay your respects to your ancestors and only then go home. People who miss their loved ones deeply go there even before sunrise. The cemetery plays a very important role in the lives of the villagers; it is also their final resting place. My parents lived in an Arab Gulf state for more than 35 years; we always knew where they would rest in peace, where they would be laid to rest. That is very important to us – it is like having your own home in life. For us, this final resting place – especially in our own village – means that our family name lives on for the next generation. That place no longer exists. Now that the initial shock has subsided somewhat, it’s becoming clear to us: this is complete annihilation.”
(Translation Current Concerns)