Hezbollah should have no role in Lebanon’s future, says billionaire son of Rafik Hariri

Bahaa Hariri, right, the eldest son of slain Lebanese statesman Rafik Hariri, talking to Arab News' talk show Frankly Speaking in Dubai on Jan. 23, 2021. (AN Photo)
Short Url
Updated 24 January 2021
Follow

Hezbollah should have no role in Lebanon’s future, says billionaire son of Rafik Hariri

  • Bahaa Hariri said an alliance was needed to implement the unfinished business of the Taif Agreement
  • Says Saudi Arabia has been a 'true friend' to Lebanon

DUBAI: Bahaa Hariri, billionaire businessman and eldest son of slain Lebanese statesman Rafik Hariri, said on Saturday that Hezbollah should have no role in Lebanon’s future and that he would “absolutely not” support his younger brother, a minister, if he became part of a Hezbollah-influenced government, during a televised interview on Frankly Speaking.

Hariri, who blames Iran-backed Hezbollah for the explosion that killed his father, discussed ways forward for Lebanon in a wide-ranging interview, and said he had “stark political differences” with his brother.

Hariri instead called for a broad alliance — a “super majority” — to coalesce around a plan to agree on the way forward for Lebanon.

Such an alliance is needed to implement the unfinished business of the Taif Agreement, the peace deal brokered by Saudi Arabia 30 years ago, Hariri said.

“We have to make sure that across the sectarian divide, the forces of moderation go hand in hand to put (together) a complete comprehensive plan — whether it’s an economic plan, a COVID-19 plan, a constitutional plan, a judiciary plan, or a security plan,” he said, and added that Lebanon was “at the precipice.”

“We seek the full support of Saudi Arabia to make sure of the full implementation of the Taif Accord. It is key for us that Saudi Arabia helps us out and supports us in this. That's the key,” he said.

The Taif Agreement, signed in 1989 under Saudi auspices at the end of a bitter civil war, had never been fully implemented, Bahaa said, but remained as a blueprint to achieve progress in the country. 

“If we are going to come to the Arab world and the international community, they’ll tell us you have an accord, but three-quarters of it hasn’t been executed,” he said.

“If we want a new accord, it may take us another 10 years and maybe half a million dead.”

“We need to make sure that this accord is executed to the letter: The separation of religion from the executive and the legislative branch; the establishment of a senate that protects minorities; the establishment of an independent judiciary; and an electoral law that meets the aspirations of all Lebanese. And that we have a new election,” he said.

 

 

Bahaa also clarified he had no plans to put himself forward as a possible leader of Lebanon as it continued months-long attempts to form a new administration. 

“Today, we don't have a civil war - we have complete mismanagement of a configuration that is in complete divorce. That configuration, of course, is Hezbollah, and the warlords and whoever supported them.

“The situation is only getting worse and that's why we believe that the economic plan and the entire plan that we're putting together has to be around a non-sectarian government, a technocratic government that takes the agenda moving forward.”

By the same token, Bahaa said there should be no role for Iran-backed Hezbollah in the new agenda, and castigated Iran for its destructive interference in Lebanon’s affairs.

He contrasted the part Iran has played with the role played by Saudi Arabia, which he said had been a “true friend” of Lebanon. “Saudi Arabia has done a lot for Lebanon. It has helped us with the Taif Accord, and on political stability. It has helped us in putting billions of dollar deposits after Taif to stabilize the currency,” he said.

“It was always in the lead in encouraging other GCC nations in pouring foreign direct investment in the Central Bank to stabilize Lebanon, and encourage foreign direct investments from the Arab world to invest in Lebanon.”


More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

  • As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May

BENGHAZI: More than 100 migrants, including five women, have been freed from captivity after being held for ransom by a gang in eastern Libya, the country’s attorney general said on Monday.
“A criminal group involved in organizing the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release,” a statement from the attorney general said.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya’s second city Benghazi.
Five suspected traffickers from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, have been arrested, officials said.
The attorney general and Ajdabiya security directorate posted pictures of the migrants on their Facebook pages which they said had been retrieved from the suspects’ mobile phones.
They showed migrants with hands and legs cuffed with signs that they had been beaten.
In February, at least 28 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the desert north of Kufra city. Officials said a gang had subjected the migrants to torture and inhumane treatment.
That followed another 19 bodies being found in a mass grave in the Jikharra area, also in southeastern Libya, a security directorate said, blaming a known smuggling network.
As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May.
Last week, the EU migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece met with the internationally recognized prime minister of the national unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and discussed the migration crisis. 

 


Israeli ultra-orthodox party leaves Netanyahu’s government due to dispute over military conscription bill, statement says

Lawmakers attend a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Updated 10 min 5 sec ago
Follow

Israeli ultra-orthodox party leaves Netanyahu’s government due to dispute over military conscription bill, statement says

TEL AVIV: Israel’s ultra-orthodox party Degel HaTorah said in a statement its Knesset members have resigned from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government due to a dispute over failure to draft a bill to exempt Yeshiva students from military service. 

 


Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

Updated 24 min 25 sec ago
Follow

Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

  • Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP
  • US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week”

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks entered a second week on Monday, with meditators seeking to close the gap between Israel and Hamas, as more than 20 people were killed across the Palestinian territory.
The indirect negotiations in Qatar appear deadlocked after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for the release of hostages and a 60-day ceasefire after 21 months of fighting.
An official with knowledge of the talks said they were “ongoing” in Doha on Monday, telling AFP: “Discussions are currently focused on the proposed maps for the deployment of Israeli forces within Gaza.”
“Mediators are actively exploring innovative mechanisms to bridge the remaining gaps and maintain momentum in the negotiations,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who wants to see the Palestinian militant group destroyed — of being the main obstacle.
“Netanyahu is skilled at sabotaging one round of negotiations after another, and is unwilling to reach any agreement,” the group wrote on Telegram.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed Monday in the latest Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City and in Khan Yunis in the south.
An Israeli military statement said troops had destroyed “buildings and terrorist infrastructure” used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City’s Shujaiya and Zeitun areas.
The Al-Quds Brigades — the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas — released footage on Monday that it said showed its fighters firing missiles at an Israeli army command and control center near Shujaiya.
The military later on Monday said three soldiers — aged 19, 20 and 21 — “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip” and died in hospital on Monday. Another from the same battalion was severely injured.

US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week.”
Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.
“Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators continue their efforts that make Israel present a modified withdrawal map that would be acceptable,” they added.
On Saturday, the same source said Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in more than 40 percent of Gaza, as well as plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
A senior Israeli political official countered by accusing Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire once a deal for a temporary truce is agreed, but only when Hamas lays down its arms.
He is under pressure to wrap up the war, with military casualties rising and with public frustration mounting at both the continued captivity of the hostages taken on October 7 and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but he denies being beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility, cost and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
Israel’s security establishment is reported to be unhappy with the plan, which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert have described as a “concentration camp.”
“If they (Palestinians) will be deported there into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper late on Sunday.
Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of whom 49 are still being held, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,386 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

 


Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

Updated 42 min 8 sec ago
Follow

Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

  • Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan’s more than two-year civil war to seven neighboring countries where shelter conditions are widely viewed as inadequate due to chronic funding shortages

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 48 civilians in an attack on a village in the center of the war-torn country, a monitoring group reported Monday.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the two-year conflict between the regular army and the RSF, reported civilians were killed en masse Sunday when paramilitary fighters stormed the village of Um Garfa in North Kordofan state, razing houses and looting property.
 

 


Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says

Updated 53 min 8 sec ago
Follow

Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says

  • An investigation into the incident was launched in coordination with security forces in Kurdistan

BAGHDAD: Two drones fell in the Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement on Monday.
Khurmala oilfield is located near the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil.
The Iraqi Security Media Cell, an official body responsible for disseminating security information, said in a statement that no casualties were reported and only material damage was recorded.
An investigation into the incident was launched in coordination with security forces in Kurdistan, it added.