Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2026, pp. 72-73
Waging Peace
WASHINGTON, DC’S Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted an Aug. 3 webinar on the challenges facing Lebanon as it endures Israeli bombardment and occupation.
Southern Lebanon, which is Shi’i-majority and a Hezbollah stronghold, has been the most impacted by Israel’s continuing attacks. “The devastation is unspeakable,” Maha Yahya, director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut lamented. “It’s the Dresden of modern Lebanon. It’s Gaza.” An estimated 24 towns and villages have been largely eradicated, while at least 30 more have suffered serious damage. The “yellow line” area that is currently occupied by Israel covers about six percent of Lebanese territory and has been transformed into a no-man’s land where buildings, ancient historical structures, markets, streets, places of worship and cultural sites have all been leveled by Israel.
The entire topography of the region has been transformed, Yahya explained. The area was primarily agricultural, but with Israel’s use of white phosphorus, the land has been poisoned and the economic lifeline of the people is gone.
An estimated 270,000 residents of southern Lebanon are grappling with this situation and cannot return home. More than a million Lebanese—about 20 percent of the population—are currently believed to be displaced.
The trilateral framework signed by Israel, the U.S. and Lebanon in June is controversial in Lebanon, Yahya continued. While some quietly hope the deal will lead to greater Lebanese sovereignty by weakening Hezbollah, many believe the document makes maximalist demands of Lebanon and minimal demands of Israel. “It definitely opens the door for a very long-term occupation of Lebanese territory by Israel,” Yahya opined.
The framework is almost a replay of what Gaza has become under the Board of Peace’s framework, Yahya noted. Pilot zones—test areas for deploying Lebanese armed forces—have been created in the area where Lebanon’s government is supposed to “prove its credentials to be given the right to occupy the rest of its territory.”
There were few government communications about the trilateral framework, noted Joseph Bahout, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. After Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s summit with President Donald Trump in July, there was only “bombastic communication about [Aoun’s] visit to Washington. We had billboards, clips on TV celebrating that, but with no political content.”
The present situation resembles the 1990s when Israel occupied land in the south, Bahout noted. “We are in 2026, but nothing fundamentally has changed, and this is in parallel with a no-peace, no-war situation in the region in general, on the Iranian-American front and other fronts.”
On the economic front, Lebanon’s already broken and corrupt system has been further eviscerated by the outbreak of war since 2023, noted Alia Moubayed, managing director of fixed income strategy at Jefferies.
The need for reform is no longer debated. “It’s been confirmed by the scale of the crisis and the war’s devastation both in terms of direct damages that exceed $12 billion, mostly in housing, or the indirect economic losses that are only rendering the economic challenges even bigger,” she emphasized.
—Elaine Pasquini
