Hwaida Saad is a Lebanese journalist who writes for the New York Times . Based in Beirut, she has written on Lebanon, ISIS and the experience across the Middle East of everyday life sustained through conflict. Saad was a contributor to Zahra Hankir's 2019 anthology Our Women on the Ground.
Hwaida Saad is the daughter of a cafeteria worker. [1] Her first degree, gained from the Lebanese University in 1993, was in public relations. She took various teaching, PR, and administrative roles, [2] managing the Lebanese office of a Syrian auto supply for several years. [1]
After Rafiq al-Hariri's 2005 assassination, Saad helped a friend by acting as a fixer for the Boston Globe . She discovered she enjoyed the work, [1] and after gaining a master's degree in education from Saint Joseph University of Beirut in 2008 started working for the New York Times as an interpreter and news assistant. [1] [3]
When the Syrian Civil War started in 2011, Saad was an early adopter of Skype, and through online chatting built up an extensive network of contacts across the Syrian political spectrum. [1]
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength was assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army in 2016.
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia, bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west; Cyprus lies a short distance from the country's coastline. It is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula. Lebanon has a population of more than five million and an area of 10,452 square kilometres (4,036 sq mi). Beirut is the country's capital and largest city.
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
Hassan Nasrallah was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in 2024.
Michel Naim Aoun is a Lebanese politician and former general who served as the 13th President of Lebanon from 31 October 2016 to 30 October 2022.
Saad El-Din Rafik Al-Hariri is a Lebanese-Saudi businessman and politician who served as the prime minister of Lebanon from 2009 to 2011 and 2016 to 2020. The son of Rafic Hariri, he founded and has been leading the Future Movement party since 2007. He is seen as "the strongest figurehead" of the March 14 Alliance.
Al Akhbar is a daily Arabic language newspaper published in a semi tabloid format in Beirut. The newspaper's writers have included Ibrahim Al Amine, As'ad AbuKhalil, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Sharmine Narwani, Pierre Abi Saab, and Amer Mohsen. Until 2015, it also had an English version published on the Internet.
Ghadah Al-Samman is a Syrian writer, journalist and novelist born in Damascus in 1942 to a prominent and conservative Damascene family. Her father was Ahmed Al-Samman, a president of the University of Damascus. She is distantly related to poet Nizar Qabbani, and was deeply influenced by him after her mother died at a very young age.
Raya El Hassan is a Lebanese politician who held the office of the interior and municipalities ministry, and the finance ministry. She is the first woman in Lebanon to be appointed to these and equivalent posts in the government.
Hassan Diab is a Lebanese academic, engineer and politician who served as the prime minister of Lebanon from 21 January 2020 to 10 September 2021. He was appointed by President Michel Aoun in 2019 to succeed Saad Hariri as prime minister. He submitted his resignation on 10 August 2020 in wake of the 2020 Beirut explosion and served as caretaker prime minister until Najib Mikati formed a new government on 10 September 2021. Prior to his premiership, he served as the minister of education from June 2011 to February 2014 under President Michel Suleiman.
During the 1982 Lebanon War, the city of Beirut was besieged by Israel following the breakdown of the ceasefire that had been imposed by the United Nations amidst the Lebanese Civil War. Beginning in mid-June, the two-month-long siege resulted in the expulsion of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from Beirut and the rest of Lebanon.
In July 1981, Israeli warplanes began bombarding a number of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) targets across Lebanon, mostly in Beirut and in the south of the country. This was in response to several Palestinian rocket attacks on northern Israel during the Lebanese Civil War.
On 12 November 2015, two suicide bombers attacked Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that is inhabited mostly by Shia Muslims. Reports of the number of fatalities concluded that 43 people died directly from the detonation. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The 17 October Protests, commonly referred to as the 17 October Revolution or Hirak, were a series of civil protests in Lebanon that began after the Lebanese cabinet announced financial measures on 17 October 2019. These national protests were triggered by planned taxes on gasoline, tobacco, and VoIP calls on applications such as WhatsApp, but quickly expanding into a country-wide condemnation of sectarian rule, the stagnation of the economy, unemployment, endemic corruption in the public sector, legislation that was perceived to shield the ruling class from accountability and failures of the government to provide basic services such as electricity, water, and sanitation.
Zahra Hankir is a Lebanese-British journalist and editor.
Isaac Shoshan was an Israeli intelligence officer, spy and "Mista'arev". Starting as an undercover operative in the "Arab Section" of the Palmach in Mandatory Palestine, he later became one of the founding members of Israel's Intelligence Community serving as an espionage agent, case officer and instructor in Aman and eventually in the Mossad.
Corruption in Syria follows the familiar patterns of state-based corruption, namely government officials abusing their political powers for private gain in the country of Syria.
The Arsonists' City is Hala Alyan's second novel, published by HarperCollins in 2020. The book structure follows the Nasr family into the past and the present repeatedly to unfold the intergenerational trauma caused by war and secrets passed down from parents to children.
Nada Bakri is a Lebanese American journalist who covered the Middle East for over a decade, covering events including the 2006 July War and the Arab Spring. She was also a contributor to the 2019 anthology Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Middle East.
Zeina Karam is a Lebanese journalist with Associated Press (AP). Since 2022 she has been AP's deputy news director for Europe.