Rahi: Shameful Delay in Cabinet Formation Causing Lebanon's Decay

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon October 26, 2021. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon October 26, 2021. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS
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Rahi: Shameful Delay in Cabinet Formation Causing Lebanon's Decay

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon October 26, 2021. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon October 26, 2021. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said on Sunday it is "shameful" that Lebanese politicians have yet to form a new cabinet nearly three months after elections, blaming their chronic feuding for the country's "decay".

In his weekly sermon, Rahi drew an unfavorable comparison between Lebanon's progress in securing a maritime boundary deal with Israel and the paralysis in domestic politics.

"Isn't it shameful that authorities make efforts to reach an agreement with Israel on maritime borders but refrain from forming a government? Has it become easier for them to agree with Israel than to agree on a government among the Lebanese?" he said.

"Isn't the split in political power in Lebanon, and of the parties... the basis of the (country's) political, economic, financial and social decay?" he added.

The Maronite Patriarch said "ugly campaigns in the media" appeared aimed at delaying government formation and the election of a new president later on this year.

Rahi was alluding to an escalating dispute between President Michel Aoun and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was re-nominated as premier after parliamentary elections in May and has been struggling to form a new cabinet.

Mikati presented a speedy draft cabinet line-up to Aoun in June and has stuck to it, although Aoun has suggested a different make-up.

Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Mikati have been engaged in a war of words. The FPM accuses Mikati with delaying cabinet formation and even of accumulating wealth through corruption.

But Mikati's office says Aoun's party is out of touch with reality in Lebanon.



Olmert: ‘Humanitarian City’ in Rafah Would Be Concentration Camp for Palestinians

Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
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Olmert: ‘Humanitarian City’ in Rafah Would Be Concentration Camp for Palestinians

Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert said that the “humanitarian city” that Israel’s defense minister has proposed building on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp, and forcing Palestinians inside would be ethnic cleansing, the Guardian reported on Sunday.

Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, Olmert told the daily, and construction of the camp would mark an escalation.

Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, has ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans for construction of the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of southern Gaza, to house initially 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population, stated the Guardian.

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” Olmert told he daily, when asked about the plans laid out by Katz last week. Once inside, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave, except to go to other countries, Katz said.

The “humanitarian city” project is backed by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the area Katz envisages for the camp is a sticking point in the faltering negotiations for a ceasefire deal, Israeli media have reported.