Lebanese Cabinet to Convene Saturday after Druze Rivals Reconcile

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. (Dalati & Nohra)
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. (Dalati & Nohra)
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Lebanese Cabinet to Convene Saturday after Druze Rivals Reconcile

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. (Dalati & Nohra)
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. (Dalati & Nohra)

Lebanon’s cabinet will meet for the first time in weeks on Saturday, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Friday, after rival Druze politicians held a reconciliation meeting to end a crisis that paralyzed the government.

Lebanese dollar-demominated bonds rallied earlier on Friday on the news that the country’s leaders would meet to reconcile Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid Jumblatt and Lebanese Democratic Party leader MP Talal Arslan.

In a televised statement Hariri said a reconciliation had taken place between the two.

“God willing, from today onwards, there will be a new page and we will all cooperate together in the interests of the country and in the interests of the Lebanese citizen,” he said.

Hariri was speaking after a meeting between Lebanon’s top officials to discuss the economy, and he said they were committed to approving the 2020 budget on time and sticking to the 2019 budget, which was passed last month.

The standoff between Jumblatt and Arslan’s political parties was sparked by a shooting in the Chouf mountains on June 30 in which two aides of a government minister, Saleh al-Gharib, an ally of Arslan, were killed.

Gharib declared the shooting incident an assassination attempt for which his allies held Jumblatt’s party responsible.

Jumblatt’s party says it was an exchange of fire initiated by Gharib’s entourage in which two Jumblatt supporters were also wounded.

With both sides represented in Hariri’s cabinet, the government was unable to convene, complicating efforts to enact reforms that are urgently needed to steer the country away from financial crisis.



UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli forces raided four of its schools in east Jerusalem, ordering their closure.

Israel has severed all ties with the agency, known as UNRWA, and bars it from operating in its territory. It says the agency allowed itself to be infiltrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, allegations denied by UN officials.

UNRWA said police entered a training center by force on Tuesday, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the Qalandiya Training Center.

It said police and city officials ordered the closure of three other schools in east Jerusalem, two of which proceeded with the school day.

Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said police did not enter the UN buildings and that Jerusalem municipal authorities carried out the closures. He said police were deployed to protect the city workers, using “riot dispersal” means in one case where a crowd threw stones at them outside a UN facility.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, said the raids were an “unacceptable violation of United Nations privileges and immunities,” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”