عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Lebanon Security Chief's Term to End after Authorities Skip on Renewal

Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim. (NNA)
Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim. (NNA)
TT
20
TT

Lebanon Security Chief's Term to End after Authorities Skip on Renewal

Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim. (NNA)
Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim. (NNA)

The term of Lebanon's powerful General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim is set to end this week as neither cabinet nor parliament have discussed a measure that would allow him to stay on after reaching the legal retirement age.

Ibrahim, who hails from southern Lebanon, has headed the General Security directorate since 2011 and is considered a key regional interlocutor who has good ties with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah and links with Western governments.

On Thursday, he will turn 64, which is the legal retirement age in Lebanon. Lebanese authorities have in the past issued exceptional exemptions for top officials to stay on past 64 if a vacuum in their post is seen as risking instability.

But Lebanon's caretaker cabinet did not discuss an extension at its meeting on Monday.

Information Minister Ziad Makary told reporters after the meeting that cabinet "can do nothing" and that the decision was to be taken by the interior minister.

Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, whose ministry manages General Security and some other security forces, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Lebanon's caretaker premier Najib Mikati said in an interview last week that the issue should be dealt with by parliament as it involved legal amendments.

Parliament has not met and no session is scheduled before Ibrahim is set to retire.

A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that the group had tried to "throw its full weight" behind a parliament session to extend Ibrahim's term but was unable to secure enough support.

Mawlawi is expected to name an acting chief once Ibrahim's term ends. Lebanon is already in an unprecedented constitutional crisis - with the presidency vacant and cabinet acting in a caretaker capacity since last year's parliamentary elections.

Ibrahim is seen as close to Hezbollah and authorities in neighboring Syria, but he has also regularly traveled to Washington and Paris to meet top officials there.

As a result, he has been seen as an important interlocutor, involved in cases from the missing US reporter Austin Tice to US-mediated talks between Lebanon and Israel on their maritime border, which was delineated last year.

He was charged earlier this year by Tarek Bitar, the Lebanese judge investigating the catastrophic August 2020 Beirut port explosion, but remained in his post. Ibrahim declined to comment on the charges at the time.

Most Viewed

 
Arab World

Gaza's Christians 'Heartbroken' for Pope Who Phoned them Nightly

A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
TT
20
TT

Gaza's Christians 'Heartbroken' for Pope Who Phoned them Nightly

A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Members of Gaza's tiny Christian community said they were "heartbroken" on Monday at the death of Pope Francis, who campaigned for peace for the devastated enclave and spoke to them on the phone every evening throughout the war.

Across the wider Middle East, Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, praised Francis' constant engagement with them as a source of solace at a time when their communities faced wars, disasters, hardship and persecution.

"We lost a saint who taught us every day how to be brave, how to keep patient and stay strong. We lost a man who fought every day in every direction to protect this small herd of his," George Antone, 44, head of the emergency committee at the Holy Family Church in Gaza, told Reuters.

Francis called the church hours after the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Antone said, the start of what the Vatican News Service would describe as a nightly routine throughout the war. He would make sure to speak not only to the priest but to everyone else in the room, Antone said.

"We are heartbroken because of the death of Pope Francis, but we know that he is leaving behind a church that cares for us and that knows us by name - every single one of us," Antone said, referring to the Christians of Gaza who number in the hundreds.

"He used to tell each one: I am with you, don't be afraid."

Francis phoned a final time on Saturday night, the pastor of the Holy Family parish, Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, told the Vatican News Service.

"He said he was praying for us, he blessed us, and he thanked us for our prayers," Romanelli said.

The next day, in his last public statement on Easter, Francis appealed for peace in Gaza, telling the warring parties to "call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace".

'PEACE IN THIS LAND'

At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, on the site where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, the superior of the Latin community, Father Stephane Milovitch, said Francis had stood for peace.

"We wish that peace will finally come very soon in this land and we wish the next pope will be able to help to have peace in Jerusalem and in all the world," he said.

In Lebanon, where a war between Israel and Hezbollah caused widespread casualties and extensive damage last year, sending millions from their homes, members of the Catholic Maronite community spoke of Francis' frequent mentions of their plight.

"He's a saint for us because he carried Lebanon and the Middle East in his heart, especially in the last period of war," said a priest in the southern Lebanese town of Rmeish, which was badly damaged during Israel's military campaign last year.

"We always felt he was very involved and he mobilized all the Catholic institutions and funds to help Lebanon throughout the crises that we went through," said Marie-Jo Dib, who works at a social foundation in Lebanon.

"He was a rebel and I really pray that the next pope will be like him," she added.

Francis made repeated trips to the Middle East, including to Iraq in 2021 where he learned that two suicide bombers had attempted to assassinate him in Mosul, a once cosmopolitan city where the ISIS terror group proclaimed a so-called caliphate from 2014-17.

He visited the ruins of four destroyed churches there and launched an appeal for peace.

In Syria, Archbishop Antiba Nicolas said he was holding mass at the historic Damascus Zaitoun church when he was handed a slip of paper with the news.

"He used to say 'dearest Syria' every time he spoke of Syria. He called on all international organisations to support Syria, the Christian presence and the church in Syria during the crisis in the past years," Nicolas said.