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Beyond the usual reports on the war in the Middle East and on the southern Lebanese front, Lebanon woke up to sad news on Monday morning. Dory Chamoun, a former MP and former president of the National Liberal Party, died in Beirut at the age of 95. The son of Lebanon’s iconic President Camille Chamoun, Dory Chamoun made his mark on the country’s history throughout the various phases of the Lebanese war, particularly in the aftermath of the assassination of his charismatic brother, Dany Chamoun, along with his family. Lebanon was then entering a period of intensified Syrian occupation that would last until 2005.

Ali al-Taher is not just a hill whose story is over. It may be the beginning of a new map. After what happened there, the question is no longer where Israel will strike tomorrow, but how far Israel wants to extend the security perimeter it is trying to impose inside Lebanon. Will it stop at the border, or move from Ali al-Taher toward the heights of Iqlim al-Tuffah, al-Rayhan and Jabal Safi, and perhaps farther toward the Bekaa? That is the most dangerous question today. Not because there is evidence that Israel has decided to occupy all these areas. So far, there is no information that would justify such a conclusion. But there is enough to raise the possibility that Israel has moved from a strategy aimed at striking Hezbollah’s capabilities to a broader one: reshaping the military geography the party has built over decades.

This series of articles offers a deeper understanding of the current situation in light of the past, steering clear of impassioned, ideological or romanticized narratives that miss the mark on reality. In this context, we leave it to the reader to draw the appropriate conclusions. The previous fifteen installments retraced the events surrounding Hezbollah’s rise to power from the Taif Agreement through to its show of force on May 7, 2008. The positions of the Gulf Arab states converged toward détente with Iran following Hezbollah’s show of force in Beirut on May 7, 2008, after years of strained relations with Tehran. However, this détente lasted only three years and came to an end following the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011.

It will take a long time before Lebanon regains full stability. The greater danger, however, lies in growing accustomed to the shocks it is currently experiencing. The situation is stark: southern territory remains under occupation, while increasingly extensive measures on the ground by the occupying forces give no indication of any military withdrawal in the foreseeable future, as statements by Israeli officials themselves confirm; internal political dialogue has come to a complete halt; and the U.S.-Iranian war continues in different forms and at different levels. It is clear that negotiations, although they remain the only option available to the Lebanese, are stalled. This deadlock is undoubtedly linked to Israel’s determination not to alter the new reality that has taken shape in South Lebanon. Israel has, in one way or another, managed to neutralize Resistance operations, or at least significantly weaken them, while retaining complete freedom of action to bomb villages, towns and areas in the south without even feeling the need to justify those strikes. Some of them, for example, have resulted in the complete destruction of more than 60 towns and villages, with losses estimated at around $11 billion and monthly displacement costs exceeding $100 million, according to Lebanon’s economy minister.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun made a rare visit to southern Lebanon on Saturday, traveling to the city of Nabatieh accompanied by army commander-in-chief Rodolphe Haykal. “We stand with you and are looking at how to provide all the services needed so that you can remain here and to ensure your safety,” Joseph Aoun said. “Israel’s withdrawal, the return of prisoners and displaced people, and reconstruction are national imperatives that the state is committed to carrying out,” he pledged. By way of reminder, last Tuesday, Shiite opponents of Hezbollah, along with local dignitaries and other citizens, launched an “Appeal to Save Nabatieh” and put an end to the destruction caused by the conflict between the pro-Iranian militia and Israel. The appeal’s 400 signatories called on the state to deploy the army in the city and district, stressing its responsibility to do so.

The history of science has followed a winding course of demolition and reconstruction, rather than the calm, linear accumulation long assumed to characterize it. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the prevailing view regarded science as an edifice rising brick by brick, with each generation of scientists adding another stone to the monument of absolute truth. The publication in 1962 of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by American historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, however, caused an intellectual earthquake that transformed our understanding of how human thought develops. Kuhn did not merely offer a new reading of the history of science. He laid the foundations for a new epistemology, showing that scientific development proceeds through sudden leaps and sharp ruptures, shaped by sociological and psychological contexts that are themselves not free of conflict.