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Lebanese President Accused of Violating Constitution to Expand Caretaker Cabinet’s Role

President Michel Aoun chairs the meeting of the Higher Defense Council at Baabda Palace on Thursday. Dalati and Nohra photo
President Michel Aoun chairs the meeting of the Higher Defense Council at Baabda Palace on Thursday. Dalati and Nohra photo
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Lebanese President Accused of Violating Constitution to Expand Caretaker Cabinet’s Role

President Michel Aoun chairs the meeting of the Higher Defense Council at Baabda Palace on Thursday. Dalati and Nohra photo
President Michel Aoun chairs the meeting of the Higher Defense Council at Baabda Palace on Thursday. Dalati and Nohra photo

A former Lebanese prime minister has criticized President Michel Aoun who has called for a greater role for the caretaker cabinet in dealing with the country’s economic situation.

The ex-PM, who refused to be identified, told Asharq Al-Awsat in remarks published Saturday that Aoun is seeking to change the interpretation of the constitution or the Taef Accord to try to circumvent international pressure to swiftly form a new government.

Aoun’s call was made during an extraordinary meeting of the Higher Defense Council that he chaired at Baabda Palace on Thursday.

“The current situation in the country is an extraordinary situation that requires an extraordinary follow-up and taking decisions to deal with this delicate situation,” he said.

The cabinet “is serving in a caretaker capacity. But the current circumstances require some expansion of the caretaker work in order to meet the needs of the country and citizens until a new government is formed,” he added.

But the former prime minister accused Aoun of acting as the head of a revolutionary council and rejecting to abide by the constitution.

In his proposal to expand the role of the caretaker cabinet, the president is planning to transfer the authorities of the executive authority to the Higher Defense Council, he said.

Following Aoun’s statement, Lebanon’s former prime ministers have engaged in consultations with PM-designate Saad Hariri for an appropriate response, he added.

A source in the opposition also told Asharq Al-Awsat that Aoun is setting the stage for a coup on the Taef Accord.

Aoun’s call on the caretaker cabinet of Hassan Diab to act to tackle the country’s problems came a day after an international conference to drum up humanitarian aid to Lebanon urged rival parties to act to quickly form a new credible government tasked with enacting reforms.

But Hariri has so far been unable to form the cabinet of experts to implement reforms, a major condition by the international community to release billions of dollars in promised international assistance to Lebanon.

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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)

An Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists and wounded others in Lebanon last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime, an international human rights group said Monday.
The Oct. 25 airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon in one of the deadliest attacks on the media since the Israel-Hezbollah war began 13 months ago.
Eleven other journalists have been killed and eight wounded since then, Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced since Israeli ground troops invaded while Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel - and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the Oct. 25 attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a US produced Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kit.
The group said the US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military´s repeated "unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes."
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the report.
The Biden administration said in May that Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but that wartime conditions prevented US officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.
The journalists killed in the airstrike in the southeastern town of Hasbaya were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV.
Human Rights Watch said a munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor.
"Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel," said Richard Weir, the senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Weir added that "the Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media."
Human Rights Watch said that it found remnants at the site and reviewed photographs of pieces collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.

The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters, the group said.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France´s international news agency Agence France-Presse and Qatar´s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border.