With one million displaced, Lebanon turns to digital wallets for aid (wired.com)

by joozio 71 comments 46 points
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71 comments

[−] ahhhhnoooo 40d ago
Headline really deploying passive voice here. Israel's invasion and wide bombings of Lebanon is what has displaced a million people.
[−] throw949449 40d ago
Lebanon had a few million displaced before bombing even started. Many refugees from Syria, it is basically softer version of Gaza.
[−] oa335 40d ago
Syria actually worse than Gaza (5+ million displaced, 200k+ civilians killed) but over a much larger area and timespan.
[−] Gibbon1 40d ago
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[−] poisonarena 40d ago
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[−] NonHyloMorph 40d ago
"Israel's defence minister has said a buffer zone will be set up inside southern Lebanon and that Israel will keep security control over a swathe of the territory even after the end of the current war against the armed group Hezbollah."

Src》https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx8knpr5no

"JERUSALEM, March 31 (Reuters) - Israel will destroy all homes in Lebanese villages near the border and 600,000 people who fled the south will not be allowed home until northern Israel is secure, the defence minister said on Tuesday, vowing to inflict Gaza-like destruction in the area. Israel Katz reiterated Israeli plans to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, saying that it would maintain control over a swathe of territory up to the Litani River once the war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group ended."

Src》https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-destroy-all...

I wish it wasn't like this but there's no point in not facing reality

[−] poisonarena 40d ago
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[−] NonHyloMorph 40d ago
The sovereignity of foreign states and there territorial integrity according to international law.

"Under present international law, annexation no longer constitutes a legally admissible mode of acquisition of territory as it violates the prohibition of the threat or use of force (Use of Force, Prohibition of). Therefore annexations must not be recognized as legal."

Src》https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/97801992316...

Put simply: You must not just build a buffer zone on someone elses territory. (You of course can build one on you own as you wish)

[−] dlubarov 40d ago
Sovereignity isn't infallible, and Israel has a very clear Article 51 argument due to Hezbollah's attacks.

As long as it's temporary (even if the end date isn't clear yet), it's an occupation, not an annexation. Occupations can certainly be legal if necessary for self-defense.

The actual solution would be to enforce UNSC 1701 and disarm Hezbollah. Until that finally happens, Israel has no choice but to respond to cross-border terrorist attacks.

[−] poisonarena 40d ago
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[−] selimthegrim 40d ago
Does Iranian militants mean every local Shiite that Israel is now expelling?
[−] YZF 40d ago
Israel is instructing civilians to leave the areas where there is fighting as is their responsibility under international law. When Hezbollah is disarmed by Lebanon and the war is over they can return.
[−] PowerElectronix 40d ago
Do people keep falling for these arguments after all the times it hasn't been the case?
[−] YZF 40d ago
It's been the case in all the previous wars fought in Lebanon.

The question is why do people keep falling for the arguments against Israel when clearly Israel was attacked from Lebanon, is not attacking any neighbor that does not attack it, and is responding just like any other normal country would when it is attacked.

[−] oa335 40d ago
[−] YZF 40d ago
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[−] donkeybeer 39d ago
That's a very nice precedent, any country that has IDF soldiers holidaying as tourists must take note. Go and have your legal combat kill of a idf military combatant.
[−] ahhhhnoooo 40d ago
I think you might be the one falling for propaganda, my friend. Hamas is evil. Hezbollah is evil. Their behavior is indefensible.

Responding by leveling the homes of millions of civilians, holding people in an open air prison. Limiting food, water, and medicine, killing journalists, building an apartheid state, systematically using rape as a means of controlling prisoners, deploying white phosphorus on civilian populations.... these are not just or reasonable responses.

Israel's actions are truly horrifying in scale. The violence aimed at civilians, the systemic abuse of people just trying to survive on subsistence.

I'm not falling for any arguments. I'm simply observing what Israel is doing and saying, "this is truly awful. The scale of misery they are deploying against their enemies is unconscionable."

[−] PowerElectronix 39d ago
This time the tone is different in Lebanon. The things they say point to an occupation of the south and that shia are not gonna be welcome back any time soon.
[−] bdangubic 40d ago
I live in Washington DC area, I am cool not to leave?
[−] YZF 40d ago
The Pentagon e.g. would be a legitimate target for Iran and if in their operations against the US they know that your neighborhood is a military target then they can and should warn you and allow you to leave. I doubt that the US military stores rockets in your basement but if they are then that would be a concern. That said if you were in range of Iran's rockets I don't think they'd worry much about e.g. firing cluster munitions on Washington DC like they do on Tel Aviv or Israeli cities.
[−] bdangubic 40d ago
oh I’m not worried about Iran :)
[−] IX-103 40d ago
How did that work out for the Palestinians?
[−] YZF 40d ago
Has Hamas disarmed yet?
[−] ahhhhnoooo 40d ago
Your policy is unlimited violence against civilians? You realize how ghoulish that is, right?
[−] YorickPeterse 40d ago
Just like Gaza right? Oh wait...
[−] Zealotux 40d ago
Keep on blaming the victims, as if you would have any say the day armed and organized militias would come into your neighborhood to do the same.
[−] ahhhhnoooo 40d ago
The person you are replying to is probably someone who won't understand that the genocide Israel is perpetrating, the settler colonialism, the systemic abuses and torture and rape of prisoners, the invasion are all justified somehow.

Some people cannot take a step back and consider other perspectives, unfortunately.

Edit: see? Their response, "I like it"? This person is deeply troubled and misanthropic.

[−] poisonarena 40d ago
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[−] YZF 40d ago
Israel isn't colonizing Lebanon or abusing and torturing Lebanese. But Lebanon certainly abuses prisoners: https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/06/26/its-part-job/ill-treat...

So by your logic it is fair game to attack Lebanon due to its treatment of prisoners?

Lebanon also commits war crimes by firing rockets indiscriminately into Israeli population centers.

Why is your rage so selective?

[−] oa335 40d ago

> Israel isn’t … abusing and torturing Lebanese.

Israeli-backed army ran a torture center in south Lebanon for years.

https://www.hrw.org/news/1999/10/27/israel-responsible-abuse...

Given the level of bloodthirst in Israeli society currently, and the accounts of torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody, I’m afraid that something similar is just around the corner for Lebanese as well.

[−] YZF 40d ago
This was from 1999 and it was run by the SLA who were Lebanese. But yes, it was not great and guess what, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon in 2000!

But Lebanon and other Arab countries still routines arbitrarily imprison and torture their citizens.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/26/lebanon-enforce-anti-tor...

[−] donkeybeer 39d ago
Have any of these countries poisoned Israel's farms from the air?
[−] ahhhhnoooo 40d ago
I didn't say this was all happening in Lebanon. The West Bank, Gaza, prisons across Israel. And now, an invasion and razing civilian lives in Lebanon.
[−] gryzzly 40d ago
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[−] YZF 40d ago
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[−] tokai 40d ago
Hasn't Hawala been a thing in Lebanon for hundreds of years? It doesn't seem like a novel development at all, besides the digital tools. Informal money transfer systems are not new thing challenging the banks at all. The banks are the new thing here.
[−] icegreentea2 40d ago
Seems there are two parallel developments here:

a) Rise of alternate forms of organizing trust. People distrust government or other organizations, and turn to alternative forms of organization and trust.

b) Rise of digital wallet/transfer systems that are fundamentally about charging for throughput/withdrawals. The article mentions that banks are restricting withdraws - presumably because banks need deposits to stay liquid. Whish on the other hand doesn't care - it makes money as a % of each transaction.

[−] derelicta 40d ago
Damn I wonder why they are displaced. No one to blame for sure.
[−] spwa4 40d ago
Since most people won't know: the reason this crisis is developing is because of how hezbollah behaved last time.

These people are Syrian immigrants (largely), pretend to be Shi'a muslims (but aren't), and have moved to Southern Libanon, decades ago, throwing out (and worse) the original (Christian) population, because they were paid to do so. Then in the last war they ran away from the south, to avoid fighting, and they were largely welcomed into Beirut, especially southern Beirut, many taken in by Christians and Sunni (partially because they had money and Lebanon was in a deep crisis). Then a lot of them never left, threw the people who had taken them in out of their own homes. They simply stole the apartments of people who took them in, then chased inhabitants out of entire blocks.

This time, neighbors sometimes literally attack anybody tries to help these people, and chase the refugees away, for fear of a repeat.

The result is, of course, a deep typical middle eastern crisis. Deep misery. Money is deeply involved, corruption is everywhere. Nobody, especially not the people who are now in deep trouble, are innocent. And there is no real solution, nor is anybody interested in providing a solution.

Iran's islamist regime is directly responsible for this crisis, through giving these people money and weapons, but of course they are not available to resolve anything (and that's NOT because the US is attacking them, yes that's a problem, but it's not like they would help anyone if they were doing fine)