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Minister of Tourism: 1.35 Mln People Visited Lebanon This Summer

The skyline of Beirut is seen during sunset from Mansourieh, Lebanon July 25, 2023. (Reuters)
The skyline of Beirut is seen during sunset from Mansourieh, Lebanon July 25, 2023. (Reuters)
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Minister of Tourism: 1.35 Mln People Visited Lebanon This Summer

The skyline of Beirut is seen during sunset from Mansourieh, Lebanon July 25, 2023. (Reuters)
The skyline of Beirut is seen during sunset from Mansourieh, Lebanon July 25, 2023. (Reuters)

Caretaker Tourism Minister Walid Nassar revealed that 1.35 million travelers, with 30 percent of them being foreigners, had arrived in Lebanon this summer.

The country received the highest number of expatriates since 2018, reviving the tourism, service and restaurant sectors as helping it deal with its severe economic and living crises.

The Ministry of Tourism has sponsored 132 festivals this summer.

Nassar stressed that Lebanon boasts all the elements “that allow us to live in this country, invest in it, and work towards its economic and financial development.”

He emphasized the importance of implementing administrative decentralization to boost investments and development.

“Despite the poor economic and living conditions we are experiencing, from airport, infrastructure, electricity, and telecommunications problems, the Lebanese love life and refuse to give up.”

Meanwhile, caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamieh stressed on Saturday the need to maintain the electricity supply at Beirut international airport and the capital’s seaport as the country grapples with a stifling energy crisis.

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Stormy Weather Sweeps Away Tents Belonging to Displaced People in Gaza

Displaced Palestinians stand in front of tents along an inundated passage, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians stand in front of tents along an inundated passage, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Stormy Weather Sweeps Away Tents Belonging to Displaced People in Gaza

Displaced Palestinians stand in front of tents along an inundated passage, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians stand in front of tents along an inundated passage, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Weather is compounding the challenges facing displaced people in Gaza, where heavy rains and dropping temperatures are making tents and other temporary shelters uninhabitable.

Government officials in the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave said on Monday that nearly 10,000 tents had been swept away by flooding over the past two days, adding to their earlier warnings about the risks facing those sheltering in low-lying floodplains, including areas designated as humanitarian zones.

Um Mohammad Marouf, a mother who fled bombardments in northern Gaza and now is sheltering with her family in a Gaza City tent said the downpour had covered her children and left everyone wet and vulnerable.

“We have nothing to protect ourselves,” she said outside the United Nations-provided tent where she lives with 10 family members.

Marouf and others living in rows of cloth and nylon tents hung their drenched clothing on drying lines and re-erected their tarpaulin walls on Monday.

Officials from the Hamas-run government said that 81% of the 135,000 tents appeared unfit for shelter, based on recent assessments, and blamed Israel for preventing the entry of additional needed tents. They said many had been swept away by seawater or were inadequate to house displaced people as winter sets in.

The UNestimates that around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are living in squalid tent camps with little food, water or basic services. Israeli evacuation warnings now cover around 90% of the territory.

“The first rains of the winter season mean even more suffering. Around half a million people are at risk in areas of flooding. The situation will only get worse with every drop of rain, every bomb, every strike,” UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote in a statement on X on Monday.