Exclusive – Lebanese Govt. Failures Transform Litani River into Polluted Dump

Pollution in the Litani River. (NNA)
Pollution in the Litani River. (NNA)
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Exclusive – Lebanese Govt. Failures Transform Litani River into Polluted Dump

Pollution in the Litani River. (NNA)
Pollution in the Litani River. (NNA)

Lebanon’s Litani River Authority sent dozens of legal warnings to factories and municipalities over their dumping of waste and sewage in the county’s longest river. A video posted by the Authority and circulated on social media showed how the river was being transformed into a polluted dump.

Failure to address this problem can be blamed on successive government negligence and waste of water resources. The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that farmers are no longer using the river for their irrigation.

Pleas sent to the government since 2016 have failed in saving the river.

The 170-km long Litani crosses through 20 percent of Lebanese territory. It starts from the eastern Bekaa region and ends in the Mediterranean in the South. In addition to the waste being dumped into it, its banks have also been polluted by trash and dotted by construction violations. Furthermore, the over-use of its water for irrigation has led to a drop in its levels.

Lebanon approved in April a law to protect the Litani waters, but the violations have persisted, as have the warnings. Speaker Nabih Berri even highlighted the issue during his weekly meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday. He stressed the need to implement the water law and persecute the violators.

The parliamentary public works, transportation, energy and water committee is set to convene later this week to take the necessary decisions over the Litani.

Head of the Litani River Authority Sami Alawieh told Asharq Al-Awsat that telephone calls have not ceased from the sides who have been received complaints over their violations.

The files have since been sent to the judiciary “and it alone resolves this issue,” he stressed.

He vowed to continue his mission “until the end” to ensure that the wrongs against the people have been righted.

“The only salvation lies in implementing the Lebanese laws,” Alawieh said.

Power plants under threat

Four hydroelectric power plants have been constructed on the river and they are now all facing the possibility of being shut down due to the drop in water levels. Irrigation and fish farms along the river are also being threatened due to its pollution. Touristic sites along its banks have also been affected due to a drop in river levels.

Previous governments have made proposals on the need to clean up the Litani and its basin, but ultimately, the problem can only be solved by addressing the reasons that have left the environment in such a dire state.

Alawieh noted that the authorities approved a $70 million plan in 2016 to implement various projects on the Litani over a seven-year period. They include a sewage treatment plant and cleaning the lower and upper basins of the river. Indeed, he said, the Council for Development and Reconstruction has already kicked off work in these projects.

He noted, however, that studies on the sewage treatment plants were not thoroughly planned and the plants that have already started operation are not functioning properly enough to tackle the problems.

Moreover, there are delays in launching the construction of the remaining plants, he revealed.

“Even the construction of these plants have compounded the problem,” lamented Alawieh.

Proposals have been made to municipalities to take temporary measures to treat their sewage until permanent ones are found, he said.

Sewage and garbage

Alawieh remarked, however, that even these proposals were faced with hurdles, leading him to assert that the problem cannot be solved as long as the violations on the Litani remain.

“They must be ceased immediately,” he stressed.

These violations include garbage dumps that have been set up near the river basin or the river itself. Municipalities have also dumped their sewage in the river and dug arbitrary irrigation wells. Untreated industrial waste has also been dumped there.

Ministries, said Alawieh, should also be blamed for their lenient approach in addressing the problem. He singled out former Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq’s decision to simply extend deadlines to violators to resolve their transgressions.

Instead of sending warnings to factories at fault, they should have been forced to shut down their operations, he added. The Environment Ministry at the time claimed that it does not have the authority to close factories, saying that the government alone enjoyed such a power.

Legal warning have been sent by the Litani River Authority through the judiciary and great efforts have been exerted, through the cooperation of the security forces station in the Bekaa city of Zahle, to crackdown on factory violations, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He also urged the Environment Ministry to “rectify the decision” taken by Mashnouq.

The solution, he explained, calls for the ministries of industry, environment and energy and the Council for Development and Reconstruction to devise a time-frame for the implementation of the Litani projects in order to speed up their execution.

According to the law, the Litani River Authority does not have the power to crackdown on violations, which forced it to resort to the judiciary, Alawieh said.



Father of Six Killed ‘For Piece of Bread’ During Gaza Aid Distribution

 Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)
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Father of Six Killed ‘For Piece of Bread’ During Gaza Aid Distribution

 Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)

Cries of grief echoed across southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital Monday as dozens came to mourn Hossam Wafi, after the father of six was killed while attempting to get supplies to feed his family.

His mother, Nahla Wafi, sobbed uncontrollably over her son, who was among 31 people killed by Israeli fire while trying to reach a food distribution site the previous day, according to the Palestinian territory's civil defense agency.

"He went to get food for his daughters and came back dead," said Nahla Wafi, who lost two sons and a nephew on Sunday.

Hossam Wafi had travelled with his brother and nephew to a newly established distribution center in the southern city of Rafah.

"They were just trying to buy (flour). But the drone came down on them," his mother said, as she tried to comfort four of her granddaughters in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Israel has faced growing condemnation over the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has warned the entire population faces the risk of famine.

-'Go there and get bombed'-

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that its field hospital in Rafah received 179 cases on Sunday, including 21 pronounced dead on arrival.

The ICRC said that all those wounded "said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site", and that "the majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds".

Israeli authorities and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed outfit that runs the distribution centers, denied any such incident took place.

The military instead said that troops fired "warning shots" at people who approached them one kilometer away from the Rafah distribution site before dawn.

A witness told AFP thousands of people gathered at the area, known locally as the Al-Alam junction, between 2:00 and 4:00 am (2300 GMT and 0100 GMT) in the hopes of reaching the distribution center.

At Nasser Hospital, Hossam Wafi's young daughters called out for their father, kissing his body wrapped in a white shroud, before it was taken away.

Outside the hospital, dozens of men stood in silence before the body, praying. Some cried as the remains were taken away, one of them holding the father's face until he was gently pulled away.

His uncle, Ali Wafi, told AFP he felt angry his nephew was killed while trying to get aid.

"They go there and get bombed -- airstrikes, tanks, shelling -- all for a piece of bread," he said.

"He went for a bite of bread, not for anything else. What was he supposed to do? He had to feed his little kids. And the result? He's getting buried today," he added.

- Militarized aid -

The deaths in Rafah were one of two deadly incidents reported by Gaza's civil defense agency on Sunday around the GHF centers, which the UN says contravene basic humanitarian principles and appear designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.

There have been several other reports of chaotic scenes and warning shots fired in connection with the distribution sites over the past week.

The UN's humanitarian agency (OCHA) published a video of one such distribution site in central Gaza's Netzarim corridor on Thursday.

A large crowd is seen gathered around four long corridors made from metal fences installed in the middle of an arid landscape, corralling men and women into files to receive flour.

The distribution site and its waiting area sit on a flattened piece of land surrounded by massive mounds of soil and sand.

It is manned by English-speaking security guards travelling in armored vehicles.

Palestinians exiting the distribution area carry cardboard boxes sometimes bearing a "GHF" logo, as well as wooden pallets presumably to be repurposed as fuel or structures for shelter.

In the large crowd gathered outside the gated corridors, some men are seen shoving each other, and one woman complains that her food package was stolen.

Hossam Wafi's uncle Ali said he wished Gaza's people could safely get aid.

"People take the risk (to reach the distribution site), just so they can survive."