Lebanon’s Rahi Warns Against Obstructing Legislative, Presidential Elections

Patriarch Rahi during Sunday’s mass sermon (NNA)
Patriarch Rahi during Sunday’s mass sermon (NNA)
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Lebanon’s Rahi Warns Against Obstructing Legislative, Presidential Elections

Patriarch Rahi during Sunday’s mass sermon (NNA)
Patriarch Rahi during Sunday’s mass sermon (NNA)

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi slammed on Sunday the cabinet paralysis, accusing certain politicians of seeking to obstruct Lebanon’s legislative and presidential elections scheduled for next year.

Lebanon's cabinet has not met since Oct. 12 amid a row over a probe into the 2020 deadly Beirut port blast.

In his Sunday sermon in Bkirki, Rahi said: "The state cannot operate without an executive authority.” He rejected a government that paralyses itself.

Rahi also warned against a plan for capital control that leads to citizens losing the rest of their bank deposits under the pretext of distributing losses.

Addressing the socio-economic crises, Rahi described the situation as “catastrophic.”

Also, the patriarch touched on the issue of Palestinian refugees, criticizing the latest decision of the Labor Minister to allow Palestinians to work in Lebanon.

Rahi considered the Minister’s decision as contradicting the constitution, which rejects the naturalization of Palestinians.



UN, Aid Group Slam Israel’s Gaza Blockade after Report Warns of Famine Risk

This picture taken from a position in southern Israel along the border with the Gaza Strip on May 6, 2025, shows smoke billowing from explosions in Gaza. (AFP)
This picture taken from a position in southern Israel along the border with the Gaza Strip on May 6, 2025, shows smoke billowing from explosions in Gaza. (AFP)
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UN, Aid Group Slam Israel’s Gaza Blockade after Report Warns of Famine Risk

This picture taken from a position in southern Israel along the border with the Gaza Strip on May 6, 2025, shows smoke billowing from explosions in Gaza. (AFP)
This picture taken from a position in southern Israel along the border with the Gaza Strip on May 6, 2025, shows smoke billowing from explosions in Gaza. (AFP)

A senior United Nations official said Monday’s hunger report in Gaza is “extremely concerning” given that the strip’s roughly 2 million population continues to face “a very critical risk of famine.”

Beth Bechdol, deputy director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said Gaza’s food system has collapsed since Israel reimposed its blockade.

“We are moving into a period where the entire population of the Gaza Strip ... are continuing to face a very critical risk of famine and extreme hunger and malnutrition,” she said in an interview.

Mahmoud Alsaqqa, food security coordinator for the charity Oxfam, meanwhile, slammed Israel’s blockade, saying that thousands of aid trucks carrying aid were prevented from reaching desperate civilians.

“Gaza’s starvation is not incidental—it is deliberate, entirely engineered,” he said. “It is unconscionable and is being allowed to happen.”

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises, said outright famine is the most likely scenario unless conditions change.

Nearly half a million Palestinians are in “catastrophic” levels of hunger, meaning they face possible starvation, the report said, while another million are at “emergency” levels of hunger.