BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's largest Palestinian camp was once bustling with activity: It was crowded with mini-buses and packed with shops hawking falafel, shawarma and knafeh nabulsieh — a sweet concoction of cheese and phyllo dough.
BEIRUT (AP) — Scores of Syrian refugees headed home Saturday from eastern Lebanon in the second convoy in less than two weeks as Beirut attempts to organize a mass refugee return to the war-torn country.
BEIRUT (AP) — U.S. mediators tried for more than a decade to broker a maritime border agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Finally, the elements fell into place for a landmark deal between two countries officially — and sometimes actively — at war since 1948.
BEIRUT (AP) — President Michel Aoun left Lebanon's presidential palace Sunday, marking the end of his six-year term without a replacement, leaving the small nation in a political vacuum that is likely to worsen its historic economic meltdown.
ARSAL, Lebanon (AP) — Hundreds of Syrian refugees boarded a convoy of trucks laden with mattresses, blankets, water and fuel tanks — and, in one case, a goat — in the remote Lebanese mountain town of Arsal on Wednesday, heading home to Syria.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon is still mediating between the United States and Syria over the fate of American journalist Austin Tice who went missing a decade ago in the war-torn country, a Lebanese general said Tuesday.
Today in History
Today is Sunday, Oct. 23, the 296th day of 2022. There are 69 days left in the year.
BEIRUT (AP) — Nasser Tabarani, a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon, has tried twice to migrate by sea to a better life in Europe but was detained by troops both times and brought back to shore. He’d do it all over again, he said, since life has become unlivable for most Palestinians in crisis-hit Lebanon.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Two senior officials from the Palestinian militant Hamas group visited Syria's capital Wednesday in the first such visit since the faction was forced to leave the war-torn country a decade ago over backing armed opposition fighters.
BEIRUT (AP) — The war in Ukraine and rising demand for natural gas around the world helped speed up a U.S.-mediated maritime border deal between Lebanon and Israel, a prominent Lebanese legislator allied with the militant Hezbollah group said Monday.
BEIRUT (AP) — French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Friday urged Lebanon to swiftly elect a new president or risk plunging the poverty-stricken country into a deeper political crisis.
Colonna's remarks in Beirut came after Lebanon's divided parliament twice failed to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, with no majority candidate in the running.
BEIRUT (AP) — A Lebanese judge on Thursday fined and issued a six-month travel ban to a woman who stormed her bank with a fake pistol and took her trapped savings to cover her sister's cancer treatment.
BEIRUT (AP) — A Lebanese parliamentarian on Wednesday entered a bank branch near Beirut, demanding some of her trapped savings to cover medical expenses.
Cash-strapped Lebanon in recent weeks has witnessed a surge in depositors storming bank branches to forcefully withdraw their locked savings as the country's economy continues to spiral.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese depositors, including a retired police officer, stormed at least four banks in the cash-strapped country Tuesday after banks ended a weeklong closure and partially reopened.
BEIRUT (AP) — When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Lebanon on Saturday delivered a maritime border demarcation proposal to President Michel Aoun, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker Nabih Berri on Saturday, as negotiations with Israel progress.
BOURJ HAMMOUD, Lebanon (AP) — Jihad Michlawi struggled to make ends meet as a chef in crisis-hit Beirut. The Palestinian had never considered taking a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe until friends who did so persuaded him to try.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese army retirees scuffled with parliamentary guard troops as they briefly broke through a cordon leading to Parliament in downtown Beirut during a rally Monday. They were protesting their decimated monthly pay amid the country's economic meltdown.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon's banks will remain closed indefinitely after rejecting a proposed government security plan, a senior official with the country's commercial banks association said on Thursday, amid a wave of protests and heists targeting its failing financial system.
BEIRUT (AP) — The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday said the Lebanese government's slowness to implement desperately-needed reforms was exacerbating the country's economic meltdown, even as officials met to discuss an urgent and long-delayed bailout.
BEIRUT (AP) — Crisis-hit Lebanon hopes to adopt key reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund for a long-delayed but urgently needed bailout before the end of next month if there is “political will”, Lebanon’s caretaker economy minister said Tuesday.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Iran told the United Nations' highest court on Monday that Washington’s confiscation of some $2 billion in assets from Iranian state bank accounts to compensate bombing victims was an attempt to destabilize the Iranian government and a violation of international law.
BEIRUT (AP) — Protesters scuffled with Lebanese security forces Monday outside the Justice Ministry in Beirut, demanding the release of two people arrested last week during a bank heist.
The clash came as a delegation from the International Monetary Fund held meetings in Beirut with officials over the country’s economic meltdown and the limited steps taken by the government to pull Lebanon out of the worst economic crisis in its modern history.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese depositors, including one armed with a hunting rifle, broke into at least five banks on Friday to demand their trapped savings, a sign of growing chaos in the small Mediterranean nation amid a historic economic meltdown.
BEIRUT (AP) — Palestinians commemorated Friday the 40th anniversary of the horrific killings in a refugee camp in Beirut that left hundreds of people dead during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Dozens of citizens from Europe who support the Palestinian cause also took part in the memorial held in Beirut close to where the men, women and children were killed by Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian militiamen.
BEIRUT (AP) — A Lebanese activist group on Thursday vowed to organize more bank heists to help people retrieve their locked savings as the country's years-long economic crisis continues to worsen.
Activists from Depositors' Outcry group accompanied Sali Hafez into a Beirut bank branch on Wednesday, and she was able to retrieve some $13,000 in her savings to fund her sister's cancer treatment.
BEIRUT (AP) — A woman accompanied by activists and brandishing what she said was a toy pistol broke into a Beirut bank branch on Wednesday, taking $13,000 from her trapped savings.
Sali Hafez told the local Al-Jadeed TV that she needed the money to fund her sister’s cancer treatment.
BEIRUT (AP) — They literally run the country.
In parking lots, on flatbed trucks, hospital courtyards and rooftops, private generators are ubiquitous in parts of the Middle East, spewing hazardous fumes into homes and businesses 24 hours a day.
BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. envoy mediating between Lebanon and Israel over the two countries' disputed maritime border said Friday some progress has been made but that more work needs to be done to resolve the issue.
BEIRUT (AP) — Dozens of relatives of the victims of Beirut’s massive port blast protested Wednesday against the judiciary's plan to name a second investigative judge, calling the move an attempt by the country’s political class to prevent justice after one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese protesters on Sunday sailed down the country’s coast in dozens of fishing boats and yachts toward Israel, days before a U.S. envoy is expected in Beirut to continue mediating in a maritime border dispute between the two countries.
BEIRUT (AP) — Forty years since Hezbollah was founded at the height of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the group has morphed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.
BEIRUT (AP) — Internet shutdowns rippled through cash-strapped Lebanon on Tuesday after employees of the country's state-owned telecom company went on strike, demanding higher wages.
It was the latest reflection of one of the world's worst economic disasters, which has pulled three quarters of Lebanon's 6 million people into poverty.
BEIRUT (AP) — The granddaughter of a former Lebanese president Monday announced her bid for the cash-strapped country’s upcoming presidential elections on a platform critical of the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah.
BEIRUT (AP) — Another significant section of the devastated Beirut Port silos collapsed on Tuesday morning in a cloud of dust. No injuries were reported — the area had been long evacuated — but the collapse was another painful reminder of the horrific August 2020 explosion.
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria is not safe yet for millions of refugees to start going back home, a Canadian minister cautioned during a visit to Lebanon on Wednesday. He spoke days after Lebanese officials announced a plan to start returning 15,000 Syrian refugees to their war-shattered country every month.
BEIRUT (AP) — The stabbing of author Salman Rushdie has laid bare divisions in Lebanon's Shiite Muslim community, pitting a few denouncing the violence against fervent followers of the Iran-backed Shiite militant Hezbollah group who have praised the attack.
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s state prosecutor on Tuesday released a man who took up to 10 people hostage in a bank at gunpoint while demanding funds from his locked savings account.
In a case that has drawn nationwide attention, food delivery driver Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, 42, fired three warning shots from a shotgun last Thursday at a Federal Bank branch in Beirut.
BEIRUT (AP) — The first grain ship to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal has had its cargo resold several times and there is now no information about its location and cargo destination, the Ukrainian embassy in Beirut said Monday.
BEIRUT (AP) — A judge ordered a gunman who took up to 10 hostages at a Beirut bank to force the release of his trapped savings to stay behind bars Friday, apparently a bid to prevent copycats as desperation deepens over Lebanon's economic meltdown.
BEIRUT (AP) — A gunman demanding a Beirut bank let him withdraw his trapped savings to pay his father’s medical bills took up to 10 people hostage in a seven-hour standoff Thursday before surrendering in exchange for what a family lawyer said was $35,000 of his money.
KARBALA, Iraq (AP) — Shiites in Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan chanted, paraded and beat their chests on Tuesday as they marked Ashoura, one of the most important dates on the religious calendar, commemorating the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein.
BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group issued a warning Tuesday to archenemy Israel over the two countries’ maritime border dispute, saying that “any arm” that reaches to steal Lebanon’s wealth “will be cut off.”
BEIRUT (AP) — Tarek Younes was once solidly middle class and felt he helped contribute to society as an inspector in the Lebanese government’s consumer protection agency. But the country's economic free-fall has eroded his income and civic pride.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Monday that each side is shelling Europe's biggest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Russia claimed that Ukrainian shelling caused a power surge and fire and forced staff to lower output from two reactors, while Ukraine has blamed Russian troops for storing weapons there.