Note: This report is a collaboration with our colleagues at Democracy Now!, an independent, daily radio and TV show. Sharif produced this report with journalist Lama Al-Arian.
Lebanon’s political landscape is at a turning point in the wake of the war with Israel. Hezbollah, the most powerful force in the county, suffered heavy losses in the conflict, including the killing its leader of more than 30 years, Hassan Nasrallah, as well as many of the group’s top commanders and much of its rank and file.
Israel’s aerial assault and ground invasion in Lebanon destroyed large swathes of the country—mostly in the south—and killed over 4,000 people and forced 1.2 million to flee their homes.
Hezbollah has long been one of the key groups in the Axis of Resistance—the loose coalition of both nation-states and non-state actors in the Middle East who pledged to jointly oppose Israel. In the wake of the war, Hezbollah’s opponents inside Lebanon and internationally are now seeking to further weaken and marginalize the group.
Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous traveled to Lebanon last week to report from the ground in southern Lebanon and to cover Nasrallah’s funeral, one of the biggest in the region in decades. We are honored to team up with our colleagues at Democracy Now! to bring you this comprehensive video report. Sharif reported this story with independent journalist Lama al-Arian. Special thanks to Malek Hosny, Tariq Qiblawi, and Ibrahim Ali for their work on this story.
The video report includes excerpts of an interview with senior Hezbollah politician and member of parliament, Dr. Ibrahim al-Moussawi. On Friday, Drop Site will publish the full interview with Moussawi discussing the future role of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Trump administration’s demand that Hezbollah be barred from the newly formed government, the state of the Axis of Resistance, and more. Make sure to subscribe to Drop Site News’s podcast feed on your favorite platforms to hear the interview and all of our audio programming.
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NEW PAID SUBSCRIBER BONUS: Drop Site News has partnered with Jolt Films to offer our paid subscribers free access to The Bibi Files, a 2024 documentary from filmmaker, Alexis Bloom and producer, Alex Gibney.
Using never-seen-before interrogation footage, this investigation of Benjamin Netanyahu and his inner circle provides an unflinching gaze into the private world behind the headlines. Petty vanity and a sense of entitlement leads to corruption, and the unwillingness of the Netanyahus to give up power. The extreme right senses opportunity in Bibi’s weakness, and the dominos fall.
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Thank you for this great coverage. I'm from Kfarkila myself and we've lost a lot in this war. But having it documented and witnessed by so many makes it a little easier to bear for some reason. Your work has been invaluable in this regard and is greatly appreciated.
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Thank you for your fearless coverage of this issue! The fate of Lebanon, and its survival as a free and democratic country, should be of concern to everyone who cares about justice.
Thank you for the excellent coverage. I’m proud to be supporting Drop Site News.
This report is independent journalism at its best. Thank you Drop Site News. Over the past several years I have worried that the internet would spell the end of real, independent, fact based journalism free of commercial bias. With sites like Drop Site and Free Speech TV I see hope.
Facebook's banning me for sharing Drop Site News reports made me feel authenticated as a better person. I have no desire to be part of any bot-run community where "community standards" include cheer-leading for ethnic cleansing and genocide. I just received a message from a major scientific organization urging recipients to move to Blue Sky.
Active things one can do for the February 28 boycott:
Close and delete any open account on Meta or X
Move your bank accounts and credit card from a corporate bank to a regional S&L
Resign from your cartel party if their State party isn't pressuring your Congress person to have town hall meetings with their constituents
Drop big corporate cable or satellite TV & use the savings for supporting independent investigative journalism
Cancel subscriptions to corporate mouthpiece newspapers like WAPO
And try to spend less on Amazon.
I also boycott Amazon and Walmart. Living in a rural area makes it difficult but I find alternatives and try to live a simple lifestyle.
Thank you for priceless information presented with the empathy we so need. I'm glad to see Drop Site and Democracy Now team up for this, and I will continue to support both.
Here in America, the source
for the constant bombs, falls on deaf ears. We are watching the dog and pony show and the Us-Israel are bombing Israel’s neighbors, like it’s WWII.
Take Damascus, Syria. A City about the size of Chicago. Israel’s been bombing it regularly.
Imagine if Canada carpet bombed Chicago regularily?
The one important lesson of October 7th is that a subjugated people, oppressed and held on their knees, will someday rise up to overthrow their oppressors. That is a part of the human spirit. The United States has sewn the seeds of future hatred that will some day rise. I am old enough to have believed that my country was a force for good in the world: you know, “the home of the brave and the land of the free”. Turns out it was all a lie – we are the most effective rogue nation.
thank you, fabulous coverage! clear and human interviews!
Israel thrives on attack. Every excuse is made to launch one as we saw repeatedly in the years of "mowing the grass" when thousands of Palestinians in Gaza died. It is of utmost importance for Israelis (most of them) that they see themselves as ruthless warriors in order to dispel in their minds the image of the helpless victims of the holocaust, the people that Israel sees itself as endlessly vindicating through military action. This is confirmed by the joy of IDF troops proud of the destruction and death they spread in Gaza.
Because this retribution ideology is inculcated in each new generation of Israelis, the killing and land theft never ends and there is no defined limit to what territory will be taken because, in the Israeli mind, it is all deserved. Nothing that the Israeli military machine can do compares, again in the Israeli mind, to the holocaust so all is allowed and no pangs of conscience follow. Gideon Levy quotes Golda Meir as saying, "after the holocaust, Jews can do anything" and we are seeing that and have seen it for decades. Hitler's destruction of innocent people has resulted in the destruction of the psyche of Israelis with atrocities committed without hesitation and the Israeli transformation of another innocent people, the Palestinians, into imagined Nazis, an incredible misapplication of the term for a people who just happen to be ready at hand to be eliminated.
American protection of Israel from all consequences to what it has done and does has created a monster of unlimited power. Thus, since 1967, the US shares in the blame for all that Israel has done to the people who are guilty of living on their own land and resisting it being taken, Oct 7 only the latest episode that Netanyahu grabbed as the ultimate excuse for total destruction of Gaza.
Essential information if you are at all or in any way unsure of the safety of ALL people in this part of the world now, those shown here and those in Israel. This inspiring picture of the determination and resolve of people to be free from oppressions by those from other lands or nations or from the plans and illusions that others entertain for the futures of these populations, this documentary gives you a window into a reality check that should make those others think again. Enforce a Real Ceasfire and recovery, Not to do so you do at your own peril.
Drop Site always has great coverage of how Israel is committing atrocities in the Middle East. Complaining to my Democratic NY 2 US Senators about how the US is funding Israel's murdous acts for years, falls on their deaf ears since all our politicians are mostly bought off by AIPAC and the like. Does anyone out there think anything will ever change. Or will things change when Israel ceases to exist.
It will change when anthropogenic climate change, to be known as the 6th Extinction, comes for us all. Human are a failed species: the only species to have brought about its own distruction.