Six Women Represent Lebanese Females in 2018 Parliament

For May 6 elections, 86 female candidates will be competing for 128 seats [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]
For May 6 elections, 86 female candidates will be competing for 128 seats [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]
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Six Women Represent Lebanese Females in 2018 Parliament

For May 6 elections, 86 female candidates will be competing for 128 seats [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]
For May 6 elections, 86 female candidates will be competing for 128 seats [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

Six women of 86 women, who had registered to run for the 128-seat Parliament, won Sunday during Lebanon’s polls held across the country.

Five of them are members of political parties, which greatly facilitated their victory.

Only one women, former television news presenter Paula Yacoubian, who run on a list supported by civil society groups, was capable to win in the Beirut first electoral district against authority-backed lists.

The Mustaqbal Movement was capable to bring 3 women to the new parliament, including Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s aunt, Bahiya, Tripoli deputy Dima al-Jamali and Beirut Deputy Roula al-Tabesh.

The Lebanese Forces party, which supported the candidature of four women, contributed in securing the win of wife of LF leader Samir Geagea, Strida, who was already an MP in the chamber of 2009-2018.

For its part, the Amal Movement supported the candidature of Inaya Ezzeddine, who won the polls last Sunday and is considered the only woman to represent the Shi’ite duo, Amal and Hezbollah, in the new parliament.

The highest number of women candidates had run on civil society-supported lists but only one, Yacoubian, had made it to Parliament. Only three women ran on the Free Patriotic Movement lists.
None of them won, although the party gained more than 20 seats.

Out of 976 candidates who originally registered to run for the elections, 111 were female candidates.

In the 2009 elections, just 12 women had competed for Lebanon’s 128-seat Parliament and only four had won the elections.

“Despite the enthusiasm of women candidates during last week’s polls, unfortunately, we are still taking our first steps on the right path,” former president of the League of Lebanese Women's Rights (LLWR) Linda Matar told Asharq Al-Awsat.

She said all parties are reluctant in the issue of women’s participation in the political life.

Similar to Matar, professor at the Lebanese University in Beirut Mona Fayad did not look optimistic about women’s representation in the political life.

Fayad held Hezbollah directly responsible for not supporting a women quota in the new electoral law under which were held last Sunday’s elections in Lebanon.



Israel Orders More Evacuations in Central Gaza

A Palestinian boy plays among the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 04 October 2024. (EPA)
A Palestinian boy plays among the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 04 October 2024. (EPA)
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Israel Orders More Evacuations in Central Gaza

A Palestinian boy plays among the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 04 October 2024. (EPA)
A Palestinian boy plays among the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 04 October 2024. (EPA)

The Israeli military on Saturday warned residents in parts of central Gaza to evacuate, saying its forces will soon operate there in response to Palestinian fighters.

The warnings cover areas along a strategic corridor in central Gaza, which was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal earlier this summer.

The military warned Palestinians in areas of Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, located along the Netzarim corridor, to evacuate to the area the military designated a humanitarian zone, an area called Muwasi along Gaza’s shore.

It’s unclear how many Palestinians are currently living in this area, parts of which were evacuated previously.

Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to heavily destroyed areas of Gaza where they had fought earlier battles against Hamas and other fighters since the start of war one year ago.

The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people has been displaced in the war, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps.

Others have remained in their homes despite being ordered to leave, saying nowhere in the isolated coastal territory feels safe.

At least 41,825 Palestinians have been killed and 96,910 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the enclave's health authorities said on Saturday.