Lebanon’s Rahi Slams Parliament for ‘Eliminating’ Maronites

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi meets with Army Commander Joseph Aoun at Bkirki. (Maronite Patriarchate on X)
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi meets with Army Commander Joseph Aoun at Bkirki. (Maronite Patriarchate on X)
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Lebanon’s Rahi Slams Parliament for ‘Eliminating’ Maronites

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi meets with Army Commander Joseph Aoun at Bkirki. (Maronite Patriarchate on X)
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi meets with Army Commander Joseph Aoun at Bkirki. (Maronite Patriarchate on X)

Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged on Sunday Speaker Nabih Berri to call parliament to hold successive presidential elections sessions until a head of state is elected.

During his Sunday sermon at Bkirki, Rahi said: “Every state official must realize that he has been entrusted by the people and constitution to serve the public good.”

“If he does not, then he has betrayed his responsibilities and the people,” he added during the sermon that was attended by Army Commander Joseph Aoun.

“The presidential palace in Baabda needs such a president,” he went to say. “We thank God that the Maronite sect boasts officials who are responsible and of the desired quality.”

Moreover, he said Berri must urgently call parliament to session “until the election of such a president, without waiting for foreign powers to name their preferred candidate.”

The election of a president is the lawmakers’ top duty as stipulated by the constitution, Rahi continued.

“Failure to carry out this duty is a clear betrayal of the trust of the people who elected them,” he stated.

“Stop eliminating the Maronite sect,” he declared, saying: “It was a main component in the formation of Lebanon.”

He urged the election of a new president who will help restore normal functioning at state institutions, starting with the parliament, “which has lost is legislative power”, and the government, “which has lost its executive power,” given the presidential vacuum.

Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022. Bickering among political parties has prevented the election of a successor in spite of numerous electoral sessions that were held at parliament.

Since then, the government has been working in a caretaker capacity.

Rahi said it was time to “cease the practice of necessary legislations and appointments” that are a violation of the constitution.

The only necessary practice should be the election of a president, he stressed.



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.