'Devastating', the Republic 'at stake': 'Lebanese civilians pay price for a war that's not theirs'

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00:00We're going to talk more about this now with Lebanese economist Sami Nader in Beirut. Sami,

00:04thank you for taking the time to speak to us. Let's just start with that first strike

00:08inside the Beirut city limits that came in almost a year of fighting. What's the feeling

00:14like there in Beirut at the moment? How are people coping with all of this?

00:18I mean, people are seeing this as a major step for escalation. There is a deep

00:26a feeling of fear, of deep anxiety among the people because this is a deja vu for them in

00:34that sense that they still have in memory what happened in 2006 and what is the impact,

00:42the devastating impact of a full blown war between Israel and Hezbollah. And so today we are

00:53in this scenario of a full blown war and people are not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

01:03Today, Mr Naeem Qasem's speech, the Nasrallah deputy, we were expecting that he will give a

01:12sign that Hezbollah may back the Lebanese government decision to implement the 1701

01:20and nothing of the sort happened. On the opposite, he fought to continue the fight

01:28and meaning to link once more the war that Hezbollah started in October 8th of last year

01:40to a ceasefire in Gaza. And this has put things on an escalation track where Israel got the upper

01:49hand because Israel is keeping its military pressure on the group. Unfortunately, the

01:58civilians are paying the price. The death toll is huge, far more than what we have seen in 2006.

02:06The number of wounded as well. And today there is a big wave of migrants, of displaced from

02:15Shia villages in the south and the Bekaa that is adding up on the wave of Syrian refugees

02:24that were the result of the Syria war. So all of this comes at a very critical moment

02:32for the Lebanese economy that was in a dire state before the beginning of this war. And now,

02:40I mean, the impact is devastating for this country. I'm not sure that Lebanon can get up

02:52off this crisis. The republic as such is at stake. Sami, you mentioned the Hezbollah deputy who was

03:07speaking earlier saying that Hezbollah is going to elect a new leader, carrying on fighting. I

03:12mean, what do people in Lebanon think about Hezbollah? Does the group have general support

03:16across the country? They have their own constituency, their own base of support. But

03:23many, many Lebanese say more than half of the population are very critical of Hezbollah

03:31because they see that this group have built a state inside the state, not to mention a state

03:40above a failed state. Secondly, that he's serving the Iranian interest first and not the Lebanese

03:51interest. And he's been financed by Iran. So for many reasons, a lot of people are very critical

04:01to Hezbollah. But this does not mean that they are supportive of Israel, that they accept the

04:07Israel blow of Lebanon's sovereignty and they feel a solidarity with all the civilians who are

04:16paying the price of a war that is not their war. As Sami, as you were saying before, Lebanon today

04:23is very different than it was in 2006 at the last war. I mean, not even things like the economic

04:27crisis of 2019. There's been COVID, the explosion in Beirut, which destroyed a large part of the

04:33capital. I mean, truthfully, what's your feeling now? How can Lebanon come back from all of this?

04:38I mean, this is a big question. As you said, things are radically different from what it was

04:44in 2006. First of all, Lebanon is going through a financial crisis. The Lebanese pound has stopped

04:5398% of its value. According to the World Bank, 80% of the Lebanese population is living under the

05:02line of poverty. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Plus, all the Lebanese people have lost their

05:10savings in the banks. So how can they rebuild their houses? They lost their house once and now

05:17they are losing their houses for a second time. Where will the money come from? From reconstruction.

05:23While the coffers of the state are practically empty, the state revenue, which used to be 11

05:30billion, is less than 1 billion today. This is to give you a scope of what's happening.

05:38There is no international support as long as Lebanon is not ready to implement the 1701

05:45resolution that is still under the spell of Hezbollah, although it has been degraded. So

05:52where the money will come from in order to rebuild all this destruction, no one knows.

05:59Sami, thank you for sharing that with us. That's a Lebanese economist,

06:02Sami Nader, speaking to me from Beirut.

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