Hussam Itani

The August 4 explosion shattered the already fragile links that had tied the Lebanese together. The fact that the loss of life and destruction were concentrated in Beirut’s Christian neighborhoods reinforced residents’ sentiments of having fallen victim to a scheme contrived by some among their own…

Today, the best success criteria in Lebanon is the ability to leave it and distance one’s children from it; sending them somewhere safer where they can continue their lives and studies without worrying about the obstacles created by the aggravating domestic crisis. Second-tier success is measured…

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) verdict in the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has dashed hopes for calls for a serious international or independent investigation into the August 4 blast that destroyed vast swathes of the capital Beirut and killed some 200…

Lebanon’s tyrants have not grasped the gravity of what happened in Beirut. They did not feel the blast that blew through bedrooms and livelihoods of thousands of Lebanese, nor the avalanche of broken glass, debris and pieces of wood that rained down on the Lebanese and their children, who had been…

Two days ago, Moody’s Corporation lowered Lebanon’s credit rating to C—its lowest rating—indicating complete failure. This happened two days after the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Beirut, which turned out to be an additional diplomatic catastrophe for the Lebanese…

The violent nights that Beirut and Tripoli have witnessed since June 6 were reminiscent of the specter of the civil war and delineated the limits of what a peaceful uprising could reach when facing a dominant group in Lebanon. All it took were a few hundred young people to take to the streets of…

The coronavirus pandemic has already exacerbated the suffering of the Lebanese people. Fear of the spread of the virus forced private and public institutions to stop working and interrupted the academic year. It has also deepened the economic crisis which has made life extremely difficult for…