Dossiers

The revelations published in the Israeli press about thefts committed by soldiers in houses and shops in southern Lebanon are displacing the debate. They no longer describe an isolated incident, but a practice presented as visible, repeated and unimpeded. Motorcycles, televisions, carpets, paintings, furniture and household items were reportedly taken to places that were partially prohibited from returning. Placed in the wake of Gaza, images of soldiers with women's clothes, Lebanese kitchens invested and Debel's case, this sequence further weakens the story of an exemplary army.

The revelations published in the Israeli press about thefts committed by soldiers in houses and shops in southern Lebanon are displacing the debate. They no longer describe an isolated incident, but a practice presented as visible, repeated and unimpeded. Motorcycles, televisions, carpets, paintings, furniture and household items were reportedly taken to places that were partially prohibited from returning. Placed in the wake of Gaza, images of soldiers with women's clothes, Lebanese kitchens invested and Debel's case, this sequence further weakens the story of an exemplary army.

The planned withdrawal of UNIFIL from 2027 onward led Beirut to reflect on the next stage. Without an officially agreed plan, several signals show that international maintenance in southern Lebanon is now being discussed well beyond the United Nations. Italy stated that it wanted to remain present even after the mission, Spain wanted to continue its engagement in another form, and Joseph Aoun supported any country ready to maintain forces in the South in a framework accepted by Lebanon. This perspective is gaining weight as Israel consolidates a de facto militarized band within Lebanese territory.

The planned withdrawal of UNIFIL from 2027 onward led Beirut to reflect on the next stage. Without an officially agreed plan, several signals show that international maintenance in southern Lebanon is now being discussed well beyond the United Nations. Italy stated that it wanted to remain present even after the mission, Spain wanted to continue its engagement in another form, and Joseph Aoun supported any country ready to maintain forces in the South in a framework accepted by Lebanon. This perspective is gaining weight as Israel consolidates a de facto militarized band within Lebanese territory.

In this rostrum, Henri Ramoneda links the Tehran Accords of 1943, the erasure of the Soviet role in the Second World War, the American soft power and recent wars to warn of an ideological drift that would lead Western economies to impoverishment, strategic dependence and a truncated memory.

On the eve of further negotiations in Washington between Lebanon and Israel, Emmanuel Macron promised Nawaf Salam that France would help Beirut prepare its position, even without sitting directly at the table. This support is not symbolic. At a time when the United States is holding the format, where Israel retains the military advantage and where Lebanon arrives weakened by the war, Paris can still play a useful role: clarifying the Lebanese red lines, reintroducing the issues of sovereignty, Israeli withdrawal and the protection of civilians, and preventing negotiations from being reduced to an exclusively security agenda.

This forum examines how sacrificial logic can transform death into a political project, weaken sovereignty, block the economy and lock Lebanon into permanent war. It opposes this drift a strategy of reconstruction based on life, state, justice, neutrality and common lasting prosperity.

In Lebanon, on 21 and 22 April, a specific fear was revived: that of a truce that did not collapse by an official decision, but by a series of incidents that reconstituted the logic of war. Israeli strikes in the South, Hezbollah's response to northern Israel, bombing in West Bekaa, and then Donald Trump's extension of the ceasefire with Iran at Pakistan's request: the sequence reveals less than two separate crises than the same regional power ratio, which Washington tries to compartmentalize without really achieving it.

In Lebanon, on 21 and 22 April, a specific fear was revived: that of a truce that did not collapse by an official decision, but by a series of incidents that reconstituted the logic of war. Israeli strikes in the South, Hezbollah's response to northern Israel, bombing in West Bekaa, and then Donald Trump's extension of the ceasefire with Iran at Pakistan's request: the sequence reveals less than two separate crises than the same regional power ratio, which Washington tries to compartmentalize without really achieving it.

Lebanon faces a decisive choice: finally undertaking deep institutional reforms to restore its sovereignty, credibility and access to international aid, or sink into erosion. Justice, financial control, monopoly of force and political responsibility now become the conditions for any national renaissance for the country.

The ceasefire did not end the death count in Lebanon. It opened a slower and harder phase, that of the remains removed from the rubble, collapsed buildings and still difficult to access areas. In Tyre, Kfar Melki, Qadmous, Hayy al-Sellom or near the Qasmiyeh bridge, the rescue teams continue their research and reveal an incomplete human record. The health authorities recognize this themselves: the figures remain provisional until the rubble is lifted, the bodies are not extracted and DNA identifications are completed.

The filmed destruction of a statue of Christ in Deir Siryan deeply shocked Christians in southern Lebanon. But for these border villages, the case far exceeds religious emotion. It adds to a series of tragedies that include the death of Abbé Pierre al-Rahi, the isolation of localities such as Rmeish, Debel and Ain Ebel, as well as the new threat of a return prevented by the yellow line imposed by Israel. It is a Christian presence in the South that is now feeling humiliated, vulnerable and threatened.

The yellow line imposed by Israel in southern Lebanon is already redefining the terms of the ceasefire. Presented as an advanced line of defence, it effectively prohibits the normal return of dozens of localities, maintains an Israeli military presence inside Lebanese territory and increases tension with Hezbollah as with the Lebanese State. Behind the route is the sovereignty, the reconstruction of the South and the future of 100,000 to 150,000 potential displaced persons.

In Lebanon, corruption does not disappear: it returns in fragments, between the file of the Casino of Lebanon, suspicions about emergency aid and collapse of institutional trust. In the absence of clear judicial closures, each case feeds into a system where opacity, public waste and unfinished responsibilities remain the norm.