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The seventh round of direct Lebanese-Israeli talks got underway Tuesday in Rome at the U.S. Embassy. The negotiations, described as difficult, are set to continue over three days, during which the Lebanese and Israeli delegations are expected to agree on the next stage of the mechanism envisaged for the gradual withdrawal of Tel Aviv’s forces and the deployment of the Lebanese Army. Beirut has made this issue a particular priority, while Israel remains chiefly focused on Lebanon’s mechanism envisaged for Hezbollah’s disarmament. The Iran-backed group returned to the offensive on Tuesday, lashing out at the Lebanese authorities and taking particular aim at President Joseph Aoun. Breaking nearly a month of silence, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem accused the president of being “biased” and of playing into Israel’s hands. He denounced what he described as a policy that “consists (according to him) of making free concessions to Israel and serving the interests of that state rather than those of Lebanon.” This speech could easily have been headlined, The Lebanese-Israeli Talks Through Tehran’s Eyes – especially as he took the opportunity to pay tribute to Iran. In his view, Lebanon’s salvation can come only through an Iranian-American memorandum of understanding, which, in practical terms, means that Lebanon should remain under the control of the mullahs’ regime. That prospect remains out of the question for the Lebanese authorities, which are instead fully committed to a process aimed at freeing the country from all forms of external tutelage and restoring the state’s authority and standing. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, moreover, echoed that longstanding Lebanese position in a forceful response to Iran’s spokesman in Lebanon, putting him firmly in his place by stressing in a post on his X account that “a group that has usurped the state’s authority over decisions of war and peace for the benefit of a foreign axis (to which it belongs) is the last one entitled to lecture others on patriotism.” For the prime minister, if anyone has done Israel a service, it is Hezbollah. Mr. Salam pointed in this regard to the “absurd” wars into which the group dragged the country “unilaterally,” disregarding the national interest and thereby giving Israel “a pretext to attack Lebanon, destroy its villages, kill and displace its population, and violate its sovereignty.” A New Chapter With Syria Naim Qassem’s speech was nevertheless notable for announcing Hezbollah’s willingness to open a new chapter with the regime of Ahmad al-Sharaa in Syria, even though his group had fought against it alongside Bashar al-Assad’s forces during the 2011 war. This tactical opening can only be explained by the weakening and isolation of Hezbollah, which appears ready to do whatever it takes to survive. Unfortunately for Hezbollah, events on the ground on Tuesday showed that the Iran-backed group is seeking to preserve its supply corridor with Iran through Syria. While Naim Qassem was praising the opening of a new chapter between his movement and Damascus, the Lebanese Army announced the seizure of Grad-type rockets intended for Hezbollah in the border area near Ersal, in the Bekaa Valley, which had been smuggled in from Syria. This was the latest in a long series of weapons seizures involving supplies headed to the Iran-backed group, alongside the discovery of tunnels and illegal border routes, all serving the same purpose: arms and drug trafficking. The August 4 Commemoration Another stroke of bad luck for Hezbollah: the seizure coincided with the sixth anniversary of the apocalyptic Beirut port explosion, on August 4, 2020, where hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate had been stored. By announcing on July 28, 2026, the discovery of nearly 4,000 tons of the same explosive material near the village of Houla in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL reinforced suspicions that had been fueled for years of links between Hezbollah and the highly murky affair involving the storage of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port (which was controlled by Hezbollah at the time), only a few hundred tons of which exploded on August 4, 2020. The indictment that Tarek Bitar, the investigating judge at the Judicial Council, is expected to issue by December, according to Beirut Bar Association President Imad Martinos, should shed light on this case, which many officials under former President Michel Aoun sought to suppress by every possible means. His successor, Joseph Aoun, has taken the opposite approach, urging the judge to make public as soon as possible the indictment submitted to Cassation Prosecutor General Mohammed Saab. The latter must issue his written opinion after reviewing the document, examining the charges, and assessing the next steps in the proceedings, before returning it to Tarek Bitar. Since Joseph Aoun took over as head of state and Nawaf Salam was appointed to lead the government, the investigation into the August 4 explosion has followed a normal judicial course. Will it mark the end of impunity in Lebanon? Many hope it will. In any case, the authorities’ conduct reflects a serious commitment to pursuing the case. A national day of mourning was declared across the country, with flags lowered to half-mast, particularly at the presidential palace, while ministers took part in gatherings held in memory of the victims. At the gathering held late in the afternoon near the port, at the time of day when the explosion occurred, the victims’ families announced that they would continue their campaign until the full truth about the case was uncovered and those responsible were punished. A deal over the Strait of Hormuz? On the regional front, the day was marked by a sense of déjà vu, with the announcement of an imminent agreement on the Strait of Hormuz, even as all previous agreements concluded and signed between the United States and Iran have failed to be honored by the Iranian regime. It was in this context that the Qatari and Pakistani mediators reported “ongoing efforts” to resume dialogue between Washington and Tehran, while the United States announced an upcoming agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been at the heart of renewed hostilities between in recent weeks. The agreement could be reached “Tuesday or Wednesday,” according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was expected to confirm it shortly afterward. According to Qatar, these efforts are being pursued without any direct talks scheduled between the two sides. Whatever happens, tensions remain high in the region, where Yemen’s Houthis targeted Najran Airport in Saudi Arabia. Overnight Monday into Tuesday, a cargo ship attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz was struck by a projectile that triggered a fire. One crew member is missing, according to British security company Vanguard.

Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage of his attendance at the funeral of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham to make another visit to the White House, after his allies succeeded in persuading President Donald Trump to receive him. This time, however, the visit came through the political back door, denying him the media triumph he had hoped to capitalize on. His subsequent television interview reflected the depth of the predicament he now faces. His facial expressions failed to convey the confidence of a victor, revealing instead a strained smile and an air of defiance. Trump, true to his uncompromising temperament, appears unwilling to be associated with a partner who brings him political liabilities rather than gains. Nevertheless, Netanyahu has shown no willingness to concede failure, or even to acknowledge that it is a possibility. For him, the stakes go far beyond politics, touching directly on his personal and electoral future. Defeat could spell the end of his political career, open the door to legal proceedings, and shatter his ambition to secure his place as the undisputed leader of the State of Israel. Meanwhile, opposition parties have made the establishment of an official and independent commission of inquiry into the events of October 7 one of their foremost electoral priorities. Their objective is to hold those responsible accountable for the failures that enabled Hamas to carry out its attack and for the unprecedented loss of life that followed, even when compared with many conventional wars. The attack also inflicted a profound collective trauma on Israeli society, whose psychological, political, and security repercussions remain evident to this day. Yet the electoral battle extends well beyond October 7. The religious parties allied with Netanyahu continue to insist on exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service, while also demanding gender segregation in certain public spaces. They have threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition if their demands are not met. These disputes come at a time when the Israeli military is facing an increasingly severe manpower crisis. Recruitment has declined steadily, both among Israeli citizens and foreign volunteers, as the risks associated with military service increasingly outweigh its material or symbolic rewards. At the same time, Israel’s economic difficulties continue to deepen under the weight of the soaring cost of war, exceptional security expenditures required by a permanent state of alert, and ongoing military operations across multiple fronts, a reality to which Israeli society had not been accustomed for decades. This political, security, and economic backdrop is essential to understanding what has been unfolding in the West Bank, not only during the past week but throughout the current year. The developments there are not merely a series of isolated security measures. Rather, they form part of a broader effort to reshape both the domestic and regional landscape in ways that serve Benjamin Netanyahu’s political and electoral calculations. Comprehensive Encroachment Settler livestock herders in the West Bank have declared that the limits of their authority extend as far as their herds can graze. Armed as individuals and protected by the Israeli military, they have established dozens of pastoral settlement outposts around East Jerusalem and throughout the Jordan Valley. This strategy has deprived Palestinian Bedouin and pastoral communities of most of their land and of their historic rights as the country’s Indigenous inhabitants. According to United Nations reports issued this year, this systematic policy has also resulted in the demolition of homes and the forced displacement of more than 30,000 members of Bedouin communities. At the same time, livestock numbers have fallen to their lowest level in the West Bank. Large areas of Area C, as defined under the Oslo Accords, have likewise come under expanded Israeli control, despite constituting the vital territorial continuity upon which the concept of a future Palestinian state depends. In parallel, Israel has expanded its control over surface water resources, having already secured control years ago over the West Bank’s principal groundwater aquifer, the largest source of underground water in historic Palestine. Throughout this year, media outlets and human rights organizations have documented repeated attacks against Palestinian farmers, particularly during the olive harvest, aimed at preventing them from reaching their lands and olive groves. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has recorded the uprooting of 2,559 trees, alongside the leveling of extensive agricultural land. Direct losses resulting from the destruction of wells, irrigation networks, and the confiscation of tractors and other farming equipment have exceeded $100 million. According to estimates by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), nearly 72,000 farming families now require emergency assistance, an unprecedented situation for these communities. The measures have not been confined to rural areas. They have also extended to cities and refugee camps. During the first half of the year, approximately 3,600 Palestinians were arrested, including 276 children and 107 women. The total number of Palestinian prisoners is now estimated at around 10,000. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has continued to seal off cities with iron gates and checkpoints while conducting large-scale operations targeting several refugee camps. These operations have destroyed significant portions of the camps, displaced tens of thousands of residents, and transformed parts of them into Israeli military positions. These policies are being implemented openly and in full view of the media. Several ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have openly boasted of the progress made in advancing what they describe as the “Decisive Plan,” championed by the Religious Zionism parties. The plan seeks to extend Israeli sovereignty over all Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, rename them “Judea and Samaria,” and undermine the Palestinian National Authority as the political and institutional framework underpinning the two-state solution. Within this context, developments in the West Bank appear to constitute a central component of the political and electoral battle being waged by Netanyahu’s government as the anticipated elections draw closer before the end of the year. The New Has Yet to Be Born President Trump’s call for Hamas to surrender its weapons did little to embarrass the movement’s leadership, as it offered nothing substantially new beyond what Hamas had already accepted in his twenty-point initiative. The subsequent understandings did not address the individual weapons through which the movement continues to exercise authority inside the Gaza Strip during the transitional period. The latest round of negotiations in Cairo produced only limited understandings. They allowed the Palestinian Administrative Committee and the first contingents of the international force to enter the Rafah and Khan Younis areas, both of which remain under the full control of the Israeli military. This progress came before, and continued during, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, enabling each side to present it in a manner that served its own political interests. On the ground, however, little has changed. Humanitarian aid continues to enter only to the extent permitted by the Israeli military command, with no meaningful improvement in the humanitarian catastrophe facing Gaza’s population. Meanwhile, the mediators continue their efforts to preserve Trump’s initiative and prevent its collapse, since its failure would effectively give Israel a free hand in Gaza without any accompanying political horizon. In East Jerusalem, tensions continue to escalate at a rapid pace. Incursions by Religious Zionist groups into the Al Aqsa Mosque compound are becoming increasingly frequent, while most Palestinians from the West Bank remain barred from accessing the site, with age restrictions imposed on worshippers. At the same time, Israel continues its gradual intervention in the administration and institutional structure of Al Aqsa Mosque, despite the Hashemite custodianship that has historically overseen the holy site. These measures serve two clearly defined objectives: imposing a temporal and spatial division of Al Aqsa Mosque, similar to the arrangement imposed at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and entrenching the Israeli narrative of a “united Jerusalem” as the exclusive capital of the State of Israel. In response to these developments in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and amid a comprehensive political, economic, and security blockade, the Palestinian National Authority has sought to expand its channels of communication with the White House. Its aim is to prevent the implementation of the Israeli project to dismantle the Palestinian statehood and to avert the collapse of the Oslo Accords, which continue to serve as the principal legal reference for the international community’s peace efforts. Within this context, the local elections held earlier this year, with participation exceeding half of all registered voters, acquired political significance extending well beyond their administrative purpose. Likewise, the announcement of dates for legislative and presidential elections, together with the continued activity of unions, professional associations, and national institutions, including the recent congress of the General Union of Palestinian Students in Beirut, reflects an effort to revitalize Palestinian political life and preserve the legitimacy of its institutions. These initiatives converge with Arab and international support around a common objective: ensuring that Palestinians remain on their land, preventing forced displacement, and preserving the cohesion of Palestinian society in the face of policies of attrition and fragmentation. So far, Palestinian society, particularly in the West Bank, has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to resist attempts to drag it into a comprehensive confrontation that would serve the Israeli agenda, choosing instead patience, restraint, and stronger social solidarity. Yet none of this means that the situation has stabilized or that the balance of power has been settled. The region as a whole is passing through a transitional phase in which the old order continues to erode while the contours of a new political order have yet to emerge. For Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, what is unfolding today is therefore not the end of the conflict, but merely another chapter in its long history. The new has yet to be born.

As this is being written, Lebanon is at war again. Since March 2, 2026, large-scale exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have resumed, extending a cycle of violence that began in October 2023 and never truly ended despite the November 2024 ceasefire. The war has cost more than 4,000 lives, displaced over a million Lebanese – more than a fifth of the population – and destroyed entire cities, villages and homes, some of them centuries old and irreplaceable. The International Monetary Fund now expects Lebanon’s GDP to contract by 12% to 16% in 2026, driven mainly by the collapse of tourism and the paralysis of economic activity in border regions. All that, for what? For whom? For what purpose? Against this backdrop, one question deserves to be asked head-on: what if, instead, Lebanon was living through its first decade of durable peace since the civil war? This is not an idle utopia. It rests on real figures, plans already drafted, and financing already pledged but never disbursed for lack of stability. Lebanon does not need to invent its reconstruction – it has already costed it, on paper, more than once. What it lacks is the calm, uninterrupted time required to execute it. The starting point: an economy on life support Before imagining the way out, the depth of the hole must be measured. The World Bank has ranked Lebanon’s post-2019 financial collapse among the three most severe economic crises any country has experienced since the mid-19th century. Public debt, on which service has been suspended since the 2020 default, stands at roughly 150% of GDP. The economy contracted by 0.7% in 2023 and 7.5% in 2024, before a fragile rebound of 3.5% to 4% in 2025, driven by early signs of macroeconomic stabilization and a partial return of tourists. The war that broke out in March 2026 halted that momentum in its tracks. But the most telling figure has nothing to do with the state – it concerns households. The 2019 banking crisis produced a phenomenon with virtually no equivalent in recent economic history for a country at peace: the near-total destruction of an entire middle class’s private savings. Between $86 billion and $93 billion in deposits, spread across roughly 1.26 million accounts, remain frozen in Lebanese banks today – some estimates put the figure above $100 billion. These are not the holdings of the ultra-wealthy: they are lifetime savings, accumulated by families who had spent decades trusting the Lebanese banking system rather than real estate or cash. Over the same period, the Lebanese pound lost more than 98% of its value against the dollar since 2019, effectively wiping out the purchasing power of anyone who had not converted their savings in time. The social consequence of this twin destruction – frozen deposits and a collapsed currency – is staggering. GDP per capita fell from roughly $8,000 in 2018 to under $3,000 by the end of 2021. The poverty rate, which stood at 30% to 35% in 2019, is estimated by some measures to have surged to 85%-90% of the population by the end of 2021 before partially receding; the World Bank, for its part, measured poverty nearly quadrupling over a decade in the areas it surveyed, from 12% in 2012 to 44% in 2022, with more than 70% of the population affected by some form of multidimensional poverty. Lebanon’s middle class, once one of the most developed in the region, is now estimated to make up less than 20% of the population. The World Bank itself did not hesitate to describe the episode as a “deliberate depression,” arguing that the absence of a policy response owed less to incompetence than to a conscious choice to protect a financial elite’s interests at the expense of ordinary depositors’ savings – a rare characterization for a multilateral institution, and one that speaks to just how unprecedented Lebanon’s collapse has been. A Lebanon at peace cannot undo this loss: deposits frozen since 2019 will not magically resurface with a military peace agreement. But peace is the precondition without which even the most ambitious bank resolution law will remain a dead letter, for lack of growth, confidence and external financing to cushion the shock. That is the whole stake of the banking chapter further down in this piece. The World Bank costed the conflict between October 2023 and December 2024 alone at $14 billion, including $6.8 billion in direct physical damage and $7.2 billion in economic losses from reduced productivity and forgone revenue. Recovery and reconstruction needs were estimated at $11 billion in a report published in March 2025, of which $3 to 5 billion would need to be publicly financed and $6 to 8 billion privately financed, primarily for housing, business, manufacturing and tourism. In a scenario of consolidated peace, that same envelope would stop being a war bill and start being an investment plan. Foreign investment, finally disbursed Lebanon has a rare peculiarity: much of its international financing already exists. The 2018 CEDRE conference in Paris raised more than $11 billion in loans and grants, including a $1 billion credit line renewed by Saudi Arabia, $1.35 billion from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and $500 million from the Kuwait Fund for Development. Those commitments were conditioned on governance, procurement and electricity-sector reforms. They were almost never disbursed: neither the reforms nor the money followed through. In a Lebanon at peace, with a stable government, the return of the rule of law, and a fully validated IMF agreement, that logjam breaks. The World Bank has already laid the first stone with the Lebanon Emergency Assistance Project (LEAP), a scalable $1 billion framework whose first $250 million tranche was approved in June 2025. Durable peace would turn that emergency mechanism into a genuine regional recovery plan, reactivating both the CEDRE pledges, the appetite of Gulf sovereign funds for discounted Lebanese assets, and the return of the diaspora, whose remittances have long been one of the most stable pillars of the Lebanese economy, even at the height of the crisis. Infrastructure: beyond the private generator Electricity remains the most visible symbol of Lebanese state failure. A seven-point reform plan championed by Energy and Water Minister Joe Saddi calls for building two 825-megawatt power plants at a cost of $2 billion, restructuring Électricité du Liban into a pure transmission operator, and opening generation and distribution to private players. An Electricity Regulatory Authority was appointed in September 2025, twenty-three years after the law creating it was passed. Lebanon is now actively courting Gulf capital to finance large-scale solar projects. In a peace scenario, this reform stops being a wish list funded in dribs and drabs and becomes bankable: international donors, the World Bank and Gulf private investors are waiting for nothing more than a signal of stability to commit the capital needed for round-the-clock power – a goal set years ago and repeatedly postponed. The same logic applies to the Port of Beirut, whose reconstruction after the 2020 explosion remains unfinished, as well as to the road network and water and sanitation infrastructure, all included in the World Bank’s reconstruction envelope. Real estate: the end of the cash economy Lebanon’s real estate market already offers a glimpse of what political stability can produce, even a partial and fragile one. Prices rose roughly 10% in the first quarter of 2025, lifted by the presidential election, the designation of a prime minister and the formation of a cabinet, before stabilizing. High-end apartments are now nearing pre-crisis levels in fresh-dollar terms, while mid-range units remain 20% to 30% below 2019 prices. Achrafieh and the Metn suburbs stand out as safe havens for capital preservation. This market today runs almost entirely on cash, in the absence of any reliable mortgage system – an anomaly that has paradoxically shielded it from the banking crisis but also caps its depth. A Lebanon at peace, with a restructured banking sector able to issue credit again, would see the return of mortgage lending, international developers, and a diaspora ready to invest in property rather than simply wiring subsistence transfers. Rebuilding the destroyed areas of the South, the Bekaa and Beirut’s southern suburbs would alone constitute a multi-billion-dollar market. Tourism: the sector most sensitive to peace No sector illustrates the direct correlation between peace and prosperity better than tourism. Lebanon recorded close to 3.46 million visitor arrivals in 2023, a figure that fell to 2.8 million in 2024. The 2025 rebound, fueled by hopes of stabilization, was itself held back by a weaker-than-expected season due to persistent tensions. According to the World Bank, it is precisely the anticipated collapse of tourism that explains most of the GDP contraction expected in 2026. Pre-war forecasts had projected 2.3 million arrivals and roughly $3.3 billion in tourism receipts by 2026 – figures that look optimistic today given the current context, but that would become plausible again, even beatable, in a stabilized Lebanon. The country retains intact structural assets: a diaspora of several million people that naturally forms its first tourism market, a coastline and mountains less than two hours’ flight from several Gulf capitals, and a food and nightlife scene that has outlasted every crisis. Its cultural and historical heritage is unique – few countries pack Phoenician, Roman, Crusader, Ottoman and modern layers into a territory the size of Lebanon. That depth alone could draw several million additional visitors a year from Europe, the United States and Asia, once Lebanon is seen again as a peaceful and reliable destination. Peace would not create a Lebanese tourism industry – it would unlock one that already exists but is running at a fraction of its capacity. Education and healthcare: stopping the brain drain Healthcare illustrates the harshest social cost of the twin economic and security crises. Public health spending fell 40% between 2018 and 2022. Since 2020, roughly 5,000 nurses and 3,000 doctors have left the country, and the recent conflict has forced the closure of more than a hundred clinics and primary care centers in border areas. Higher education has suffered comparable erosion, with universities facing access and research-funding problems, even as institutions like the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University have weathered the storm better than most. Lebanon has long lived off exporting its locally trained human capital – doctors, engineers, academics – to the Gulf, Europe and North America. In a peace scenario, that dynamic could partially reverse: rebuilding the hospital system, financed through the infrastructure portion of the World Bank’s recovery plan, and stabilizing salaries in dollars would be enough to slow the emigration of healthcare workers and restore Lebanese universities to their historic role as a regional training hub – a sector that once generated significant revenue from foreign students, particularly from the Gulf and francophone Africa. Industry: relocating a narrow manufacturing base Lebanese manufacturing, already modest before 2019, was hit hard by the currency devaluation, the Beirut port explosion, and limited access to foreign-currency credit. It is explicitly among the sectors targeted for private financing under the World Bank’s reconstruction plan, alongside housing and tourism. A stabilized Lebanon, with a banking system once again able to open reliable letters of credit for import-export, would let Lebanese manufacturers – food processing, pharmaceuticals, textiles, building materials – regain normal access to imported inputs and regional export markets – particularly Syria, the Gulf and West Africa, three historic outlets for Lebanese industrial know-how. Agriculture: an underexploited sector that could double its exports Agriculture remains a blind spot in the Lebanese economy despite its social weight: it employs roughly 11% of the labor force, making it the country’s third-largest employer, while contributing an estimated 1.2% to 4.5% of GDP depending on the calculation method. Agricultural exports, dominated by fruit, vegetables and coffee and spices, plateaued around $193 million before the crisis, with modest annual growth. Since 2019, farmers have paid for most inputs – seeds, fertilizer, fuel – in cash and in hard currency, weakening the entire production chain. A Lebanon at peace would benefit from a double effect: the reopening of overland export routes to Syria and the Gulf, currently complicated by regional instability, and access to foreign-currency agricultural credit to modernize farms. Upgrading to international standards, particularly for olive oil, wine and processed products, offers export growth potential the sector has never been able to exploit for lack of stability and financing. The banking system: the precondition for everything else None of the above is possible without resolving the banking crisis, which remains the central knot of the Lebanese economy. Parliament passed a bank resolution law in July 2025, published in the Official Gazette in August 2025, meant to organize the restructuring or liquidation of non-viable banks. A complementary law on loss allocation – the “gap law” – is still being drafted, and depositor-advocacy groups criticize its failure to guarantee a clear repayment path. Banking secrecy was also significantly narrowed in April 2025 under IMF pressure. The current strategy envisions gradual repayment, prioritizing small depositors, of deposits under $100,000 – roughly $20 billion to be mobilized over several years, with no clearly identified funding source at this stage. In a peace scenario, a fully implemented IMF agreement would mechanically unlock the international financing needed to close that gap and restore confidence in Lebanese banks. This is the sine qua non for everything else: without a functioning banking sector able to finance mortgages, foreign trade and industrial investment, every sector described above will stay capped, however strong the political peace achieved. What this exercise really says This projection is not a forecast in the statistical sense – it does not claim to know exactly how many billions of dollars would flow in, or over how many quarters. It says something else, simpler and more unsettling: Lebanon is not waiting for plans, financing or reforms that still need to be invented. It is waiting for three things no donor conference can offer: peace, the rule of law, and time. Time for a banking law to take effect, for a power plant to get built, for a tourist season to run uninterrupted, for a generation of students and healthcare workers to stay rather than leave. With every cycle of violence since 2023, that time has been confiscated again. The question, then, is not whether Lebanon has an economic peace plan. It has several, costed and documented, already negotiated with its international partners. The only true variable still missing from the equation is peace itself. Can the Lebanese not, at last, weigh the dividend of peace against the price of war? Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Bank (Lebanon Economic Monitor, Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment 2025), Trading Economics, Credit Libanais Economic Research, IDAL (Investment Development Authority of Lebanon), Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Arab Reform Initiative.

How can we make sense of the fact that, despite the existence of this other Lebanon beneath the ground, Hezbollah suffered such a devastating defeat, lost entire ranks of its fighters, and brought about the deaths and displacement of the people of southern Lebanon? It even contributed to reshaping and fragmenting the country’s geography itself. A speech by Hassan Nasrallah, in which he declared that he was searching for the Israeli soldier “with a lantern and a wick,” revealed to me not merely a passing political exaggeration, but an entire architecture of imagined power. What we are witnessing is not simply a gap between rhetoric and reality, but a deeper flaw: an unrealistic perception of capability itself. The power that Hezbollah projected through its network of tunnels and vast missile arsenal failed to “capture a single soldier” or alter the rules of engagement. The outcome is the reality we are living today. This contradiction cannot be explained solely by political miscalculation. It points to something more profound: power has gradually become a discourse rather than an effective instrument of action. The weapons exist, yet the ability to employ them has become severely constrained. The paradox is striking: the higher the rhetoric rises, the more limited the actual capability is revealed to be. More importantly, Hezbollah’s decisions on war and peace do not stem exclusively from Lebanon or from Lebanon’s own interests. They are tied to a regional axis led by Iran. This explains the hesitation, the contradictions in its statements, and its inability to adopt a coherent position or make an autonomous decision. For years, Hezbollah lived under the influence of its own media narrative, built around the illusion of “absolute power” and “unbreakable deterrence.” That narrative expanded through the confidence generated by its victories in previous asymmetric conflicts, particularly in Syria. By contrast, Israel also spent years magnifying the threat posed by Hezbollah, its tunnel network, and the scale of its underground infrastructure, both to justify massive military budgets and to prepare public opinion for war. Yet once the confrontation actually began, the exaggerations on both sides quickly evaporated. Hezbollah discovered that its fortifications and underground cities were not the legendary strongholds it had imagined. They were, in reality, fixed installations that could easily become a liability, even a tomb for those inside them, once they were isolated through engineering operations and cut off from their communications. Israel, for its part, found that dismantling these “rock-hewn cities” required extensive engineering efforts and widespread destruction. Yet it was entirely feasible so long as Israel retained absolute air superiority and operated across terrain largely emptied of its civilian population. The conclusion is straightforward: fortifications and tunnel networks are merely physical tools. Unless they are supported by a strong state, genuine public consensus, a regional strategic depth willing to bear the cost of its own choices, and a technological ecosystem capable of matching that of the adversary, these underground cities quickly cease to be instruments of surprise and offensive action. They become isolated defensive positions, doomed the moment their communications and the political framework sustaining them above ground collapse. Hezbollah thus fell into the trap of its previous successes. It assumed that the tactics which had produced a measure of deterrence during the 2006 war could simply be replicated today, overlooking the extraordinary advances that have since transformed artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, and modern military technology, particularly those available to Israel. Tunnel networks and underground fortifications once served as genuine sanctuaries. They successfully shielded Hezbollah’s fighters and missile launchers from conventional air strikes. In today’s digital age, however, they have become death traps. Israel employed artificial intelligence algorithms, thermal reconnaissance drones, and advanced geological surveying technologies to produce highly detailed three-dimensional maps of the tunnel network. It monitored movements in and out of the system while targeting ventilation shafts and supply routes. As a result, the fortifications were effectively exposed and isolated even before the ground offensive began. Hezbollah’s reliance on familiar operational methods also became a liability. Its communications and patterns of movement followed repetitive routines, precisely the kind of behavior Israeli artificial intelligence systems are designed to detect. By analyzing daily habits, voice signatures, logistical movements, and even fighter rotation cycles, predictive algorithms were reportedly able to anticipate Hezbollah’s next moves. This deep intelligence penetration rendered conventional ambushes detectable and vulnerable to highly precise preemptive strikes before Israeli ground forces even made contact. This was compounded by a broad cyber intelligence campaign. Israeli surveillance technologies reportedly penetrated digital servers, the smartphones of Hezbollah members and their families, as well as cameras surrounding key facilities, culminating in what could be described as a systematic campaign of “technological assassination,” as illustrated by the explosions involving pagers and wireless communication devices. The resulting shock severely disrupted Hezbollah’s command-and-control structure while undermining confidence in virtually every electronic device its personnel possessed. At the same time, Hezbollah remained dependent on fixed weapons depots and traditional logistical supply routes crossing the border, whereas Israel managed the battlefield through a “digital military cloud,” linking drones in the air, intelligence officers monitoring real-time data, and armored units on the ground within seconds. That level of integration deprived Hezbollah of the element of surprise that had been one of its defining advantages during the 2006 war. The military outcome was Hezbollah’s near-total paralysis. It failed to recognize that engineering fortifications and tunnel networks cannot protect themselves. Their effectiveness depends entirely on the efficiency of command, control, communications, and the preservation of tactical surprise. Another of Hezbollah’s illusions was the belief that its fortifications would remain secret and continue to catch the enemy off guard. Instead, it became apparent that Israeli intelligence penetration had been extraordinarily deep. Before the ground operation even began, the Israeli military reportedly possessed detailed maps of these tunnel networks, including their structural design and principal vulnerabilities. Ultimately, fortifications and armies alike require a cohesive and resilient home front. During the July 2006 war, Hezbollah enjoyed broad political and popular support that transcended sectarian divisions. That landscape has changed dramatically. Lebanon entered this war deeply divided, suffering from an unprecedented economic collapse and a state whose institutions had been severely weakened. A very large segment of Lebanese society, across different communities, viewed the decision to go to war as a unilateral one, taken in pursuit of a regional Iranian agenda, without consulting the state or the country’s other political and social components. At the same time, Hezbollah’s own social base, displaced by the thousands, faced an acute humanitarian, economic, and social crisis, compounded by growing isolation. The absence of broad national support transformed what could once have been presented as a collective national defense effort into a politically and socially isolated factional conflict. This imposed enormous psychological pressure on Hezbollah’s fighters in the field. Yet Hezbollah’s rhetoric remains marked by the same arrogance and denial. Its problem is no longer merely the gap between words and deeds, but the fact that the discourse itself has become detached from reality. There is no direct engagement, no ability to impose the kind of confrontation it continues to proclaim, and no genuine change in the rules of the game. This makes it clear that what is presented as decisive power is, in reality, little more than the exploitation of an inflated reservoir of symbolic capital, sustained by the repetition of an image that no longer exists. Yesterday’s successes have become a myth; the myth has become a conviction; the conviction has turned into a discourse; and the discourse has ultimately become a substitute for reality. At that point, the weapon itself becomes part of the problem. It exists, yet it can no longer be employed in the manner proclaimed, because its actual use would immediately expose it and lead to its rapid destruction. We are thus confronted with a force that remains effective only so long as it is not used, a fatal contradiction. Added to this is the fact that Hezbollah’s discourse is inseparable from an Iranian-led regional axis, introducing yet another layer of detachment from Lebanon’s own reality. At the heart of the matter lies a mental structure that continually produces and reproduces illusion, even as events on the ground repeatedly disprove it. It is an organized illusion, carefully managed, cultivated, and imposed as a substitute for truth, until it collapses once again at the expense of the land and its people… “until God accomplishes what has already been decreed”.

Monday, August 3, was dominated by the fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement the previous day that he had called off the large-scale strikes against Iran that had been planned for the weekend. Trump had previously said the operation would be “the most powerful since World War II.” On Monday morning, Trump announced that talks with Iran would take place later that evening. But Tehran was quick to contradict the White House. Speaking through the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Teheran said it was not engaged in talks with Washington, insisting that its only discussions were with Oman over the division of responsibilities in the Strait of Hormuz. By Monday evening, Trump had returned to a more confrontational tone toward Iran. “The Iranian authorities are as deceitful as they come,” he said. Iran “has a choice between a deal or total capitulation,” he added, according to AFP. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s role in Trump’s latest policy reversal came into sharper focus. In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan had spoken with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi. According to the ministry, the two men discussed “de-escalation.” The call echoed an earlier intervention by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s overnight conversation with Trump from Saturday into Sunday, during which he urged the U.S. president to prioritize diplomacy and put the planned strikes against Tehran on hold. Despite appearances, diplomatic contacts were reportedly continuing at a steady pace behind the scenes. According to MTV, Araghchi held lengthy discussions on diplomatic prospects with his Pakistani counterpart, who has emerged as the principal mediator since the start of the U.S.-Iran negotiations. Attention on Monday was also focused on Gaza, where the Peace Council is expected to begin overseeing Hamas’ disarmament. But signs of strain are already beginning to emerge. In its first response to the agreement announced by Trump and approved by Hamas, Israel voiced its “concerns” to Washington. “The version made public does not reflect Israel’s position,” Doron Spielman, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said in comments carried by AFP. Lebanese Delegation Heads to Rome Lebanon is preparing for a seventh round of direct talks with Israel, scheduled for Tuesday at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. The negotiations are taking place in an increasingly tense atmosphere, amid continued Israeli operations in the south and mounting criticism of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. Differences also appear to be widening between the two delegations, with the Lebanese side demanding tangible results and announcements on new pilot areas. These zones are expected to pave the way for a gradual Israeli withdrawal and the deployment of the Lebanese army. The Israelis, however, appear reluctant to consider further withdrawals. Not to mention the approaching parliamentary elections, which are making the Israeli prime minister less inclined to offer additional concessions that could cost him votes. One statement that deserves attention came from U.S. Ambassador to Beirut Michel Issa. In a message posted on X, he immediately welcomed the fact that the talks in Rome were “continuing.” He stressed that the text of an agreement is one thing, while its implementation is another. He also warned against any “rush” in implementing the agreement, saying that the objective was to ensure that the populations they seek to protect would ultimately be protected. Was this a message to the Lebanese urging them to lower their demands? The next round of negotiations will tell.

Once again — and for the umpteenth time (the previous instances on this front are too numerous to count!) — President Donald Trump announced in the early hours of Sunday, August 2, the "cancellation" of the "large-scale" attack that had been described as "imminent" against the Iranian regime. In recent days, the US Administration had fueled — through extensive media fanfare — an atmosphere suggesting that a major attack targeting the Islamic Republic's energy infrastructure was planned for that weekend. The announcement of these large-scale military operations was accompanied by statements from President Trump and senior American officials condemning the conduct of Iran's leaders and denouncing, in very harsh terms, their negative attitude and deceptive behavior during talks with US negotiators. Setting aside this hard-line stance entirely, however, President Trump announced in the early hours of Sunday that the attack had been called off "at Iran's request" (!) and at the request of certain countries in the region, indicating that an agreement had been reached regarding Iran's nuclear program and the immediate, unimpeded reopening of the Strait of Hormuz… except that Iran's official news agency shortly afterward denied any agreement concerning that strategic waterway! One must acknowledge — and above all lament — that these repeated U-turns by President Trump, which have led him, on numerous occasions, to back down at the last minute after threatening to attack Iran, can only do serious damage to his credibility and, by the same token, serve to strengthen the radical wing of the Iranian regime. That said, in announcing the cancellation of the planned strikes, the head of the White House once again declared that "if a deal is not negotiated very quickly, we will carry out the most powerful strikes the world has seen since World War II." Yet the public tends to no longer take the American president's threats seriously. This decision, announced on the social media platform Truth Social , came after a week filled with tensions and developments. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had held a meeting with President Trump in Washington, on the sidelines of a ceremony honoring the late American Senator Lindsey Graham. The absence of a joint press conference between the two men reignited speculation about the persistence of disagreements between the two leaders. Iranian threats Regardless, it was becoming increasingly clear as the week wore on that Israel and the United States were preparing for a new attack against Iran, even as the Jewish state had been sidelined from the most recent military escalation against Tehran. On Saturday, strikes against Iranian energy sites were being discussed — the very same strike threats that had preceded the first ceasefire announced by Trump on April 8. US embassies in the region had warned American citizens on Saturday against any travel to the Middle East. It is worth noting, in an attempt to explain President Trump's reversal, that the announcement canceling the attack was preceded by contacts initiated on Saturday by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi with his Saudi and Turkish counterparts, as well as with the commander of the Pakistani army. At the same time, Mr. Araghchi issued threats against the United States, warning Americans against "any hasty decision." Meanwhile, sources from the regime's radical wing launched a campaign of outright blackmail, warning on Saturday that if the US military followed through on its threats, the populations of Gulf countries, Jordan, and Israel would no longer know peace. Against this backdrop of Iranian blackmail, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated Saturday evening in an interview with Fox News that "the Iranian regime must change, as it is a regime that was not seeking to govern its own country but to govern the entire region." Rubio went on to emphasize that "Iranian leaders must be made to pay a heavy price for these practices, so that they abandon their aspirations for regional hegemony." The Iraqi question and Hamas's weapons In any case, the Iranian regime has once again demonstrated its capacity for disruption through its proxies in recent days. Yemen's Houthi rebels opened a new front on the Red Sea and raised the threat of a complete closure of another strait — the Bab el-Mandeb. However, beyond Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, another actor entered the fray this week. The pro-Iranian Iraqi group Hashd al-Shaabi carried out drone strikes against Saudi territory, prompting a joint American-Saudi response earlier in the week targeting the group's sites in Iraq. Regardless, by the end of the week, despite repeated pledges by Iraqi authorities to prevent any strikes from being launched from their territory, Jordan threatened to attack pro-Iranian Iraqi groups if its territory were targeted again. This widening of the conflict zone was confirmed by an unprecedented strike on Wednesday against an Egyptian port, targeting a gas tanker owned by an American company — the first time Egypt has been drawn into this conflict. Another major development concerning Iran's regional allies: Hamas, now led by Khalil al-Hayya, approved an agreement leading to its disarmament, which, according to the group, stipulates a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. An agreement that is expected to be implemented by the Peace Council established by Trump in January. Finally, it is worth noting that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun was received mid-week by his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara.