BEIRUT: Israel’s incessant attacks on Lebanon have done more than wreak a terrible human toll — they have also wrecked the country’s fragile economy just when it was on the road to recovery.
Air, sea and land bombardment of key infrastructure has reduced to rubble roads, bridges, grain silos and ports, holed airport tarmacs, and shattered the all-important tourism market at the height of the season.
Shops and offices are shuttered, and many banks are running a skeleton staff. Most workers are too afraid to wander far from home. Normally busy cafe areas are deserted, hotels near-empty.
Lebanon, once known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East”, has turned into a nation under siege, reliving the suffering of its 1975-1990 civil war. For many, Israel has made good on its vow to “turn back the clock 20 years.”
Trading screens at the stock market in Beirut went dark this week.
“The stock market is closed because of bombardments (Monday) which targeted the port,” near where the bourse is located, an official at the facility told AFP. Those raids killed two people.
The main stock index, the Blom, in Lebanon plummeted 13 per cent to close at 1,283.16 points on Friday, after three days of Israeli attacks. That was the lowest point this year.
Shares in Solidere, a real estate company founded by former billionaire premier Rafiq Hariri to rebuild the war-scarred capital, have slumped below 20 dollars for the first time in more than a year.
Banks, worried about cash reserves, have limited withdrawals by panicked customers to 1,000 US dollars, the greenback rapidly becoming a refuge currency preferred over the Lebanese pound, in another throwback to the civil war years.
But Lebanon’s central bank, armed with reserves of more than 12 billion dollars, was keeping the pound stable at between 1,512 and 1,514 to the US currency, according to dealers.
“The international community must know that Israel is deliberately looking to destroy the economy under the pretext of wanting to eliminate Hezbollah,” said Nabil de Freige, an MP of the anti-Syrian majority in parliament.—AFP
