In Lebanon, framework agreement signed with Israel spurs protest, criticism

Beirut, Lebanon – After the governments of Lebanon and Israel on Friday signed a United States-brokered framework agreement following months of direct negotiations, protesters took to the streets of the Lebanese capital to express their anger at the deal. Many of the demonstrators waved flags of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which has been militarily confronting Israel’s ongoing invasion and occupation of large swaths of southern Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since October 2023, with varying levels of intensity, but the former has twice escalated the conflict – first in September 2024 and then nearly four months ago. Some of the harshest critics of the framework, which does not force the Israeli army to withdraw from the areas it occupies, have been those most deeply impacted by Israel’s war, which has killed more than 4,200 people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes since early March. “After everything my family, my village, the south, and Dahiyeh have endured – the destruction, the displacement, the grief and the loss – it is incredibly difficult for me to accept an agreement with the same state that carried out the military actions that devastated our communities,” said Ali Zaytoun, a resident of Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh. Zaytoun, who runs a popular Instagram account called History of Dahieh, said he had been displaced multiple times due to Israeli attacks. …