Lebanon’s new government should prioritize protecting and promoting human rights, accountability, transparency, and the rule of law.

Lebanon’s new government should prioritize protecting and promoting human rights, accountability, transparency, and the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to new prime minister-designate,

The Israeli government says its military will not withdraw from Lebanon by Sunday’s deadline, in violation of a deadline set in a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah.

Attacks come on the day Israeli troops were supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon and allow people to return home.

FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam speaks at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo

Shortly after, Lebanon's parliament overcame a stalemate that had left the presidency vacant for over two years. That cleared the way for the naming of nomination of a permanent prime minister, prominent jurist and diplomat Nawaf Salam. Lebanon's ...

The French president made the announcement as he visited Beirut in a show of support for Lebanon's new leaders.

Lebanon's new government should prioritize protecting and promoting human rights, accountability, transparency, and the rule of law, Human Rights

The election of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is a political breakthrough in Lebanon and a harbinger of what could happen in a country long dismissed as unsalvageable. Beirut’s new leadership reflects the aspiration of a majority of the Lebanese people to live in a functioning state free from the dual drivers of its failure: political violence and pervasive corruption.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has left behind lots of rubble. Some experts fear that much of it will be dumped into the environment without controls.

An array of domestic and foreign powers are vying for influence in Lebanon, including the Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, Syria, and the United States.

Israel began allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return on Monday to the heavily destroyed northern Gaza Strip for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas.