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Lebanese Students Abroad Fear their Future Will be Lost over Dollar Crisis

Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo
Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo
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Lebanese Students Abroad Fear their Future Will be Lost over Dollar Crisis

Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo
Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo

Lebanese medical student Mohammad Sleiman traveled to Belarus to become the first doctor in his family, but he now fears his country's economic crisis is going to get him expelled.

"I've got a future and I'm working towards it," the 23-year-old said from his bedroom in the capital Minsk, a dream catcher hanging on the wall behind him.

"But if they throw me out of university, my future will be lost. And it'll be the Lebanese state's fault."

As Lebanese banks forbid depositors from transferring their own money abroad, thousands of students who went abroad to pursue studies they could not afford at home are among the hardest hit.

Students told AFP they had moved into cheaper accommodation, taken on jobs or even cut back on meals. Some had been forced to fly home to Lebanon, with no idea how to return to their studies.

Sleiman said he was so stressed about money that he could hardly concentrate in class.

Back home, his family's dollar savings have been trapped in the bank since 2019, and the 23-year-old has no idea how he will pay tuition fees when his father can barely borrow enough to send him rent.

Last month, he says his name appeared on a list with other Lebanese threatened with expulsion if they did not pay up.

Lebanon's parliament passed a law last year to help students like him, but parents say banks systematically turn them away demanding more paperwork.

In the south of Lebanon, Sleiman's father said he had been to several protests by parents demanding help from the Lebanese authorities, but to no avail.

Without access to his savings, 48-year-old Mousa Sleiman has to buy $300 for his son each month on the black market at an exorbitant exchange rate.

But his earnings from his toy and cosmetics store, in Lebanese pounds now worth 85 percent less at street value, cannot even begin to cover it.

"I've been so worried," the father of eight said, with his eldest son's April rent due. "I'm going to have to go and rack up more debt."

One student activist said parents had also sold cars and gold jewelry to help their children.

Many pin blame for Lebanon's worst financial crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war on political mismanagement and corruption.

As the country's foreign reserves plummet, and amid reports of mass capital flight despite currency controls since 2019, they accuse the ruling class of having plundered their savings.

A law passed last year is supposed to allow parents to access $10,000 per student enrolled abroad in 2019 at the much cheaper official exchange rate.

But parents say the banks don't care.

"They take our requests and dump them in drawers because there's no more money left to send. They stole it," said Sleiman's father.

A handful of parents or grandparents have filed lawsuits against their banks and won, the latest last month.

One of them was able last year to transfer funds to his sons in France and Spain so they could graduate.

Sleiman and fellow parents are looking into doing the same.

And the International Union of Lebanese Youth, covering students in 20 countries, has started working with volunteer lawyers towards filing dozens more cases.

But lawyer and activist Nizar Sayegh said these cases were still rare and complicated by coronavirus lockdowns and banks filing appeals.

Many families also shy away from legal action for fear the banks would then close their account, he said.

In Italy, 20-year-old Reine Kassis said she and fellow cash-strapped Lebanese flatmates were having to delay breakfast till lunch time.

"We eat toast and cheese, then study, study, study until supper," said the mechanical engineering student in Ferrara.

She says she has received a little help in Italy.

But her brother, 23, had to return from Ukraine to Lebanon to continue studying online because he could not afford the rent.

Their father Maurice Kassis, a retired officer, said he was heartbroken.

"I only had two children so I could spoil them, and educate them properly," the 54-year-old said in the eastern town of Zahle.

When he retired, he had enough savings stashed away in Lebanese pounds to cover both of them studying abroad.

But today, with the collapse of the Lebanese currency, those pounds would fetch just an eighth of their old value in dollars.

After he has paid off his home loan with his pension each month, he only has the equivalent of $50 left for the whole family.

"How do you educate your children with that?" he asked.

"I'm telling them to find themselves a future abroad."

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The Fragile Israel-Hezbollah Truce is Holding so Far, Despite Violations

Mariam Kourani removes a toy car from the rubble of her destroyed house after returning with her family to the Hanouiyeh village in southern Lebanon, on Nov. 28, 2024, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
Mariam Kourani removes a toy car from the rubble of her destroyed house after returning with her family to the Hanouiyeh village in southern Lebanon, on Nov. 28, 2024, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
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The Fragile Israel-Hezbollah Truce is Holding so Far, Despite Violations

Mariam Kourani removes a toy car from the rubble of her destroyed house after returning with her family to the Hanouiyeh village in southern Lebanon, on Nov. 28, 2024, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
Mariam Kourani removes a toy car from the rubble of her destroyed house after returning with her family to the Hanouiyeh village in southern Lebanon, on Nov. 28, 2024, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

A fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanon's Hezbollah has held up for over a month, even as its terms seem unlikely to be met by the agreed-upon deadline.

The deal struck on Nov. 27 to halt the war required Hezbollah to immediately lay down its arms in southern Lebanon and gave Israel 60 days to withdraw its forces there and hand over control to the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.

So far, Israel has withdrawn from just two of the dozens of towns it holds in southern Lebanon. And it has continued striking what it says are bases belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of attempting to launch rockets and move weapons before they can be confiscated and destroyed, The AP reported.

Hezbollah, which was severely diminished during nearly 14 months of war, has threatened to resume fighting if Israel does not fully withdraw its forces by the 60-day deadline.

Yet despite accusations from both sides about hundreds of ceasefire violations, the truce is likely to hold, analysts say. That is good news for thousands of Israeli and Lebanese families displaced by the war still waiting to return home.

“The ceasefire agreement is rather opaque and open to interpretation,” said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington. That flexibility, he said, may give it a better chance of holding in the face of changing circumstances, including the ouster of Syria's longtime leader, Bashar Assad, just days after the ceasefire took effect.

With Assad gone, Hezbollah lost a vital route for smuggling weapons from Iran. While that further weakened Hezbollah’s hand, Israel had already agreed to the US-brokered ceasefire.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 — the day after Hamas launched a deadly attack into Israel that ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Israeli air and ground assaults have killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. At the height of the war, more than 1 million Lebanese people were displaced.

Hezbollah rockets forced some 60,000 from their homes in northern Israel, and killed 76 people in Israel, including 31 soldiers. Almost 50 Israeli soldiers were killed during operations inside Lebanon.

Here’s a look at the terms of the ceasefire and its prospects for ending hostilities over the long-term.

What does the ceasefire agreement say? The agreement says that both Hezbollah and Israel will halt “offensive” military actions, but that they can act in self-defense, although it is not entirely clear how that term may be interpreted.

The Lebanese army is tasked with preventing Hezbollah and other militant groups from launching attacks into Israel. It is also required to dismantle Hezbollah facilities and weapons in southern Lebanon — activities that might eventually be expanded to the rest of Lebanon, although it is not explicit in the ceasefire agreement.

The United States, France, Israel, Lebanon and the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, are responsible for overseeing implementation of the agreement.

“The key question is not whether the deal will hold, but what version of it will be implemented,” Maksad, the analyst, said.

Is the ceasefire being implemented? Hezbollah has for the most part halted its rocket and drone fire into Israel, and Israel has stopped attacking Hezbollah in most areas of Lebanon. But Israel has launched regular airstrikes on what it says are militant sites in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley.

Israeli forces have so far withdrawn from two towns in southern Lebanon - Khiam and Shamaa. They remain in some 60 others, according to the International Organization for Migration, and around 160,000 Lebanese remain displaced.

Lebanon has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the ceasefire agreement and last week submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council that says Israel launched some 816 “ground and air attacks” between the start of the ceasefire and Dec. 22, 2024.

The complaint said the attacks have hindered the Lebanese army's efforts to deploy in the south and uphold its end of the ceasefire agreement.

Until Israel hands over control of more towns to the Lebanese army, Israeli troops have been destroying Hezbollah infrastructure, including weapons warehouses and underground tunnels. Lebanese authorities say Israel has also destroyed civilian houses and infrastructure.

What happens after the ceasefire has been in place for 60 days? Israel's withdrawal from Lebanese towns has been slower than anticipated because of a lack of Lebanese army troops ready to take over, according to Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman. Lebanon disputes this, and says it is waiting for Israel to withdraw before entering the towns.

Shoshani said Israel is satisfied with the Lebanese army's control of the areas it has already withdrawn from, and that while it would prefer a faster transfer of power, security is its most important objective.

Israel does not consider the 60-day timetable for withdrawal to be “sacred,” said Harel Chorev, an expert on Israel-Lebanon relations at Tel Aviv University who estimates that Lebanon will need to recruit and deploy thousands more troops before Israel will be ready to hand over control.

Hezbollah officials have said that if Israeli forces remain in Lebanon 60 days past the start of the ceasefire, the militant group might return to attacking them. But Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Kassem said Wednesday that, for now, the group is holding off to give the Lebanese state a chance to "take responsibility” for enforcing the agreement.

Over the final two months of the war, Hezbollah suffered major blows to its leadership, weapons and forces from a barrage of Israeli airstrikes, and a ground invasion that led to fierce battles in southern Lebanon. The fall of Assad was another big setback.

“The power imbalance suggests Israel may want to ensure greater freedom of action after the 60-day period,” Maksad, the analyst, said. And Hezbollah, in its weakened position, now has a “strong interest” in making sure the deal doesn't fall apart altogether “despite Israeli violations,” he said.

While Hezbollah may not be in a position to return to open war with Israel, it or other groups could mount guerilla attacks using light weaponry if Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, said former Lebanese army Gen. Hassan Jouni. And even if Israel does withdraw all of its ground forces, Jouni said, the Israeli military could could continue to carry out sporadic airstrikes in Lebanon, much as it has done in Syria for years.