A protester holds Lebanese pounds as he stands in front of burning tires they set on fire, in front the Central Bank building, where the anti-government demonstrators rally against the Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and the deepening financial crisis in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. (AP)
A protester holds Lebanese pounds as he stands in front of burning tires they set on fire, in front the Central Bank building, where the anti-government demonstrators rally against the Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and the deepening financial crisis in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. (AP)
The money exchange shop in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was buzzing with business. Cellphones pinged endlessly and employees shouted out various rates as customers flocked in carrying plastic bags of the crashing local currency to buy US dollars.
"Welcome to the Wall Street of Lebanon," grinned the storefront's owner, a machine gun leaning on a rack behind him in case of a robbery.
Cash is now king in Lebanon, where a three-year economic meltdown has led the country's once-lauded financial sector to atrophy.
Zombie banks have frozen depositors out of tens of billions of dollars in their accounts, halting basic services and even prompting some customers to hold up tellers at gunpoint to access their money.
People and businesses now operate almost exclusively in cash. The local currency in circulation ballooned 12-fold between Sept. 2019 and Nov. 2022, according to banking documents seen by Reuters.
Most restaurants and coffeeshops have hung apologetic signs stating that credit cards are not accepted but that dollars are, at the fluctuating parallel market rate.
Collapsing pound
Lebanese use mobile apps to check on the collapsing pound, which has lost some 97% of its value since 2019.
Fleets of mobile money exchangers zip to offices or homes to carry out transactions. Highways are dotted with billboards advertising money-counting machines.
With credit cards redundant, people document big transactions by taking pictures of the dollar bills used, fanning them out to show the serial numbers.
Even the largely paralyzed Lebanese state is moving towards the cash economy: the finance ministry has considered requiring traders to pay newly-increased customs tariffs partly in cash.
With more bank notes in circulation, crime has risen. Elie Anatian, CEO of security firm Salvado, said yearly sales of safes had grown steadily, with a 15% increase in 2022.
Other businesses are faltering. Omar Chehimi imports smaller shipments for his home appliance shop with cash he has on-hand, since banks stopped granting letters of credit for large ones.
"Even the companies we source from - Samsung, LG - are only dealing with us in cash," he said, examining a crumpled $20 bill a customer had used to buy an electric heater.
Western concerns
Any recovery hinges on government action to address some $72 billion of losses in the financial system and revive the banking sector. But politicians and bankers with vested interests have resisted reforms sought by the International Monetary Fund to fix the situation and access international aid.
Paul Abi Nasr, CEO of a textile company, said the cash economy made it "practically impossible" to enforce taxes "because everything can simply stay outside of the banks".
"The government's ability to be financially sound down the line hinges on this," he said, adding that the cash economy also risked Lebanon being listed as a country falling short in the struggle against money laundering and terrorist financing.
Western governments, which oppose the role of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, share those concerns. A Western diplomat said foreign governments were worried illicit transactions would rise as cash was harder to track.
The US Treasury last week sanctioned Lebanese money exchanger Hassan Moukalled and his business for alleged financial ties to Hezbollah, saying he helped "transfer cash" on its behalf and recruited money exchangers loyal to the group.
Moukalled denied the charges.
Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Lebanon's Byblos Bank, said the pound's continuing decline meant the cash economy was now also dollarized, "with dollars accounting for approximately 70-80% of operations".
"The transformation to a cash economy means the collapse of the economy," said Mohammad Chamseddine, an economic expert at Lebanese research group Information International.
Israel Obliterates South Lebanon's Architectural Heritagehttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5323773-israel-obliterates-south-lebanons-architectural-heritage
Israel Obliterates South Lebanon's Architectural Heritage
The residence of Said Shahine, father of Ghaleb and Fahmi Shahine, which was completely destroyed in the city of Nabatieh (Kamel Jaber archive)
Daily attacks around the city of Nabatieh and the town of Kfar Rumman have not stopped the Zein family from launching work to restore “what can be restored” of the home of Youssef Bek Zein, which was damaged by intensive Israeli strikes several months ago.
Descendants of one of Nabatieh’s best-known political families see preserving their heritage as an act of defiance against Israel, which they say is erasing physical traces and memories from the land and seeking to eliminate historic homes with distinctive architecture, political family residences, and urban and historical landmarks of all kinds across South Lebanon.
During the two large-scale wars Israel waged on South Lebanon, airstrikes and demolitions wiped out dozens of heritage landmarks, including political family homes whose architecture and libraries documented periods of Jabal Amel’s political history over the past two centuries.
This photograph taken from the southern Lebanese village of Hanniyeh shows smoke rising from the site of a series of Israeli controlled explosions in the nearby village of al-Mansouri on September 28, 2026. (Photo by Kawnat HAJU / AFP)
In Nabatieh alone, Israeli bombardment razed 147 homes between 80 and 110 years old. Some had developed from houses originally built 200 years ago. They included heritage properties belonging to local political leaders, ministers and lawmakers who had played roles in Nabatieh and its surroundings over past decades.
The damage also extended to political family residences around Nabatieh, including the Asaad family home in Taybeh. Local activists say many old houses were razed along with it, including the home of Khalil Abdallah in Khiam, one of the region’s most prominent historical leaders, built in 1862.
Abdel Aziz Zein’s Home: A Cultural Role
The home of Youssef Bek Zein, heavily damaged by Israeli bombardment, is now among the last remaining heritage landmarks and architectural witnesses in the Nabatieh area following the loss of the Abdel Aziz Zein residence.
In recent years, that residence had become a cultural hub in the region. His son, Dr. Saad Zein, expanded it to host cultural and community activities.
“My family home, the Abdel Aziz Zein residence, was more than 80 years old,” Dr. Saad Zein told Asharq Al-Awsat. “An Israeli strike completely demolished the house and wiped out all its features — not only its architecture, but also its cultural role.”
The Abdel Aziz Zein residence (Saad Zein archive)
Zein said the house had served as a venue for cultural and social activities since at least 2000. He had established a small museum there documenting the history of Jabal Amel, and the house “became a cultural destination in the region.”
The residence was later expanded to include gardens and a diwaniya, a traditional reception space that is a central feature of southern Lebanese architecture. In recent years, it became known as the “Saad Zein House.”
The strike on the large residence also damaged the adjoining Zein family home. That residence had been a center of political and social leadership for more than a century. Built 150 years ago, it housed the Ottoman governor in the 19th century before ownership passed to the Zein family and Youssef Bek Zein took up residence there.
Even the Family Tombs Were Hit
Zein entered parliament after the proclamation of Greater Lebanon in 1924, and his family became one of Jabal Amel’s most prominent political families during the last century. Its parliamentary representation continued uninterrupted until 2018.
“The Youssef Bek Zein residence was severely damaged. The roof, courtyard and family tombs were hit, including Youssef Bek’s grave,” Dr. Saad Zein stated.
“We are now working intensively and quickly to restore the house so it can be usable again and remain a witness to a political era, given that the family is one of Jabal Amel’s founding families and has maintained a cultural, developmental and social presence — a role that continues with me and my uncle.”
Zein stressed that the targeting of political homes and urban and historical landmarks “aims to erase traces and memories from the land in order to sever the Lebanese people’s connection to their homes, land and heritage.”
Deliberate and Systematic Destruction
Cultural and social figures in Nabatieh broadly agree that what occurred during the wars of 2024 and 2026 amounted to the “systematic destruction of memory without any actual justification.”
They argue that the concentrated bombardment and leveling of longstanding family homes historically associated with political positions opposed to Hezbollah contradicts the Israeli military’s assertion that its strikes target only Hezbollah facilities and headquarters.
One particularly notable case was the leveling of the home of former lawmaker Habib Sadek, founder of the Cultural Council for South Lebanon, in Kfour, west of Nabatieh.
Sadek was among South Lebanon’s best-known political and cultural activists. He served in parliament in 1992 and was one of the most prominent chroniclers of Israeli violations in the south since the 1940s. He encouraged the publication of works sponsored by the Cultural Council and combined a political career with his work as a writer, poet and thinker.
Manuscripts Documenting Violations
Kamel Jaber, head of the Cultural Council’s Nabatieh branch, told Asharq Al-Awsat that after Sadek’s home in Khiam was demolished in 1977, the area remained under occupation until 2000 and the family was forced to live between Beirut and Nabatieh.
“The family was determined to build a house outside the city resembling the homes of southerners — meaning it would have a garden surrounded by pine trees, with roses blooming in it,” Jaber said.
“Sadek paid particular attention to a diwaniya on the lower floor of the house, where he kept many of the manuscripts he had presented through various radio programs, as well as writings from the 1960s and 1970s. He also created extensive libraries in the diwaniya containing books, manuscripts and the rest of his cultural legacy.”
Jaber said Sadek was “one of the most prominent cultural figures who wrote and published works and books about the south, documenting violations and various forms of Israeli occupation, whether related to ambitions over water, geography or other issues, and produced studies showing the harm inflicted on the south through occupation.”
From that perspective, Jaber said the targeting of the house “was a targeting of Habib Sadek, his role, legacy and career.” He ruled out any security-related reason for striking the house, which he said was “closed and checked daily by a caretaker.”
Erasing Architectural and Political Heritage
The devastation is viewed locally as part of an effort to eliminate Nabatieh’s urban, architectural and political heritage.
After the 2024 war, cultural figures in the city launched an initiative, involving civil society groups in cooperation with the municipality, to document heritage buildings lost to Israeli bombardment. The survey was updated just two weeks before this article was written.
It found that 147 homes had been completely razed, leaving only a very small number of such buildings standing.
During the 2026 war, what remained of the Fadl al-Fadl house in the Manshieh district was demolished. The house was built late in the last century and designed by an Egyptian architect. General Gouraud visited it in the 1920s during a trip to the south while serving as French high commissioner in Lebanon.
The home of former lawmaker Mohammed Bek al-Fadl, meanwhile, lost large sections after strikes hit its surroundings in 2024. The house is 102 years old. Jaber, who works to document local memory through a civil society organization in Nabatieh, said its new owner had decided to restore it.
The home of Mohammed Bek al-Fadl (Kamel Jaber archive)
Erasing Cultural Memory
Nabatieh residents see the campaign as targeting architecture that embodies the area’s cultural heritage and its social, political and urban memory.
In Nabatieh, Israeli strikes completely leveled the residence of the late minister and lawmaker Rafik Shahine, as well as the home of Said Shahine, father of lawmakers and ministers Ghaleb and Fahmi Shahine.
Other buildings lost in the strikes had been regarded as architectural masterpieces, including the palace of Dr. Bahjat al-Mirza, considered one of the city’s most beautiful homes because its facades featured carvings in stone. Mirza was among Nabatieh’s first physicians in the 20th century to open his home to provide medical care to residents.
Mahmoud Shahine’s house was also razed in 2026. The building had served as a school during the last century and was among the houses constructed on the remains of older homes built some 200 years ago.
On Sept. 6, 2026, an Israeli strike leveled the home of Dr. Adnan Sharif, a century-old architectural landmark.
The home of Dr. Adnan Sharif (Kamel Jaber archive)
The home of former lawmaker Anwar Sabbah, father of Sadek Sabbah, director of Sabbah Brothers television production company, was also demolished. Built on a hill in Nabatieh in the early 1990s, it was separate from the family residence in the city, which remained standing.
Strikes also razed Ghandour Hospital, one of the main hospitals that provided medical services to the Nabatieh area during the period of occupation beginning in the 1980s.
A War on History
Israeli strikes did not only target houses and mansions but also hit archaeological and heritage sites across the south.
A market dating to the Mamluk era in Nabatieh was heavily bombarded, leaving part of it in ruins. The capital of an ancient column was dislodged at a UNESCO-listed site in the southern coastal city of Tyre.
A religious site known as “Shamoun al-Safa,” visited by both Muslims and Christians in the southern town of Shamaa, was also razed, as was Shamaa’s Crusader castle.
There is also no information about the condition of “Ain al-Fawqa” in Taybeh after the area surrounding it in the town square was devastated. The water collection spring was built in a spiral form and contains architectural features resembling examples from the Roman and Byzantine periods. It was restored during the Ottoman era.
Culture Minister Ghassan Salame told Reuters last month that historic towns outside the designated area were pummeled with airstrikes, including Tyre and Nabatieh.
Heavy bombing hit the town of Tebnin, prompting fears that its Crusader fortress was also damaged, Salame said.
"Heritage is not only Roman and Phoenician antiquities,” he added. “Heritage is also historic buildings, archaeological sites, and buildings with a cultural function."
He expressed concern that the Israeli campaign could completely erase centuries of Lebanese history.
UNESCO, meanwhile, said in a statement that it was concerned about the situation in Tyre, a World Heritage site under the agency’s enhanced protection.
It added it was deeply concerned by reports of damage to Shamaa Castle in South Lebanon and fighting near Beaufort Castle, denouncing what it described as “unlawful attacks on cultural property.”
'Currently Impossible': North Korea Defections in Freefallhttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5323359-currently-impossible-north-korea-defections-freefall
'Currently Impossible': North Korea Defections in Freefall
Visitors look towards North Korea, which has worked to seal off links to the outside world. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
A building-sized North Korean flag waves from a tower on the de facto border with South Korea, marking territory that experts say has become nearly impossible to escape.
The combined total of North Koreans to reach South Korea in the past six years is less than the number that typically defected each year for decades -- and appears to be declining further in 2026, said AFP.
The main cause is leader Kim Jong Un's aim to preserve his family dynasty by sealing the country off from the outside, keeping people in and information out, experts say.
"As I understand it, bringing family members directly from North Korea is currently impossible," 29-year-old Chae Yoon-seo, who fled in 2019, told AFP.
She swam across a river into China at night with a smuggler's help, and travelled through Laos, Vietnam and Thailand before finally flying to South Korea.
Defections to the South hit a peak of more than 2,900 in 2009 and stayed well above 1,000 per year for the next decade.
But there were just 63 in the first half of this year -- down by over a third from the same period in 2025, said Seoul's Unification Ministry.
- 'Soviet-style border' -
Arrivals have fluctuated over the decades, but plunged sharply during the Covid pandemic when many nations shut their borders.
A key change in North Korea, however, started years before.
After taking power in 2011, Kim began restricting the informal trade and migration links along the roughly 1,415-kilometer (880-mile) northern border with China.
In addition to being an economic lifeline, the Chinese border region has also been the first step in most defectors' escapes.
The long frontier was relatively porous, unlike the heavily mined, fenced and surveilled Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that serves as the Koreas' de facto border.
Along the boundary with China, Kim's government has erected fences and installed cameras as well as strips of sand that preserve the footprints of anyone who crosses.
"North Koreans built a real Soviet-style border security system," said Andrei Lankov, an expert on the North at Kookmin University in Seoul.
Beijing has helped too, said Lankov, noting China's preference to keep the status quo of the Kim dynasty by opposing potential instability from defectors or their supporters.
As part of its efforts, China reportedly has put in place hundreds of facial recognition cameras, noted Rachel Minyoung Lee, senior fellow with the Stimson Center's 38 North.
She added that Beijing also added more patrol boats and new or planned deportation facilities along its northeastern border.
- Ousted, killed or exiled -
The roughly 34,500 defectors to reach the South since 1998 are a fraction of North Korea's 26.6 million people, UN figures show, but the plunging number of escapes has consequences.
"Defectors are the main source of information about the North," said Fyodor Tertitsky, lecturer at Seoul's Korea University, noting both South Korean intelligence and researchers interrogate them.
Though some people still do get out.
Defector Gyuri Kang's 2023 escape by boat with her mother and aunt -- across the maritime border with the South, an extremely rare feat -- was a "miracle", she told a UN hearing.
She is also a case in point for why North Korea has made great efforts to seal itself off.
Kang noted the influence of South Korean dramas smuggled in on USB drives, finding them "so refreshing and more credible than North Korea state propaganda".
"North Korean authorities are keenly aware of the impact of outside media," she said.
In 2020, North Korea made possessing foreign media a crime punishable by years-long forced labor terms -- and potential death sentences for large-scale distribution, according to Amnesty International.
Lankov, from Kookmin University, said external information is the greatest threat to the long-term survival of North Korea's leadership.
"If they let their people interact with the outside world, they are highly likely to be overthrown, and maybe killed or driven into exile," he added.
Chae, the defector, said her hope was that the North's isolated people are not one day simply forgotten by the outside world.
"These days, there are a lot of cynical reactions on helping other countries, so I am a bit worried that one day, interest in North Korean human rights might fade away as well," she added.
How Israel’s Regional Neighbors See Its Upcoming Electionshttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5323281-how-israel%E2%80%99s-regional-neighbors-see-its-upcoming-elections
Israeli right-wing activists supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gather for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles, in a field outside Kibbutz Nir-Am by the Israel-Gaza border on September 27, 2026. (AFP)
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How Israel’s Regional Neighbors See Its Upcoming Elections
Israeli right-wing activists supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gather for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles, in a field outside Kibbutz Nir-Am by the Israel-Gaza border on September 27, 2026. (AFP)
Israel's upcoming elections are being followed closely by its regional neighbors, who are aware that any outcome will have ramifications far beyond the country's borders.
In his Likud party's campaign launch this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his refrain that he "has changed the face of the Middle East" and vowed to continue doing so.
He has been unapologetic about keeping Israeli troops in neighboring Lebanon and Syria, while his ministers tout plans to displace Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, creating a refugee crisis for Jordan and Egypt and making a future Palestinian state impossible.
Opinion polls show the October 27 elections are likely to be close. The bloc led by Netanyahu and his far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies are squaring off against that of his main opponent, centrist Gadi Eisenkot.
AFP correspondents around the region take a look at how different countries are following the contest:
- Jordan -
While Netanyahu has stopped short of formally annexing the West Bank, observers say unofficial annexation is creeping in, as his government -- the most right-wing in Israel's history -- approves an unprecedented number of settlements.
Government officials repeatedly call for the expulsion of over three million Palestinians across the Jordan River, posing "an existential threat" to the Hashemite kingdom, according to Oraib Rantawi, founder of Amman's Al-Quds Center for Political Studies.
At the UN on Tuesday, King Abdullah II said "the Israeli government's expansionist appetite is now a regional threat".
"In the medium and long term, Jordan and Israel are on a collision course," Rantawi said, as right-wing politicians try to push responsibility for "dealing with the Palestinian population" onto Amman.
Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and "is maintaining a minimum level of political engagement" Rantawi said is unlikely to change, no matter the outcome.
- Egypt -
Israel's other neighbor, most often threatened by what Israeli ministers describe as "voluntary emigration", has kept a "cold peace" since it first recognized Israel in 1978.
Cairo maintains extensive security collaboration, but ties have been increasingly strained as Egypt says it has had to resist repeated efforts to force more than two million Palestinians into its territory.
The best-case scenario is "a government that is less ideologically driven and more focused on security, which could help lower the temperature around Gaza, even without changing the fundamental Israeli position," said former ambassador El-Sayed Shalaby.
Asked by AFP, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt "will deal with any government that is coming," before blaming Netanyahu for obstructing the Trump ceasefire plan, which Egypt brokered.
- Lebanon -
Israel's attacks on and invasion of southern Lebanon have killed more than 4,300 people and left 329,000 displaced since March, while Beirut pursues gradual talks with Israel centered on the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said this month that Israel "is turning southern Lebanon, its people and their properties into a ballot box soaked in blood" ahead of the vote.
"We are not optimistic," a former Lebanese minister and diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The style may change... perhaps Eisenkot has a less radical discourse, but on the ground, the policy will remain unchanged. It is the far right that remains in power."
In an interview with AFP, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said the elections were an internal matter.
"But the question we want to ask the Israeli people, the State of Israel and all future governments is the following: do they want stability, security and no wars on their border, or not?" he said.
- Syria -
Since the December 2024 ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes into Syria, sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and carried out regular incursions.
"For Damascus, the stakes are not whether the Israeli elections will completely change the rules of the game, but whether they will produce a government that is less inclined toward escalation and more willing to listen to Washington," a Syrian diplomatic source told AFP.
"A more centrist government, or a right-wing government that does not revolve around Netanyahu... could be less inclined to make political capital out of escalation," and work towards gradual security understandings.
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