After economic collapse and war with Israel, Lebanon's new prime minister vows to rebuild

Beirut—— Lebanon's prime minister-designate vowed on Tuesday to work towards building a modern state in the crisis-stricken country, saying his first priority would be to rebuild the damage caused by a year-long war with Israel and try to move the small country out of history Sexual economic collapse.

Nawaf Salam was speaking after meeting with Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun, who took office last week. With Salam's nomination and Aoun's confirmation, Lebanon, which has been run by a caretaker government, now has a new government for the first time in two years.

After the meeting, Salam said he would not marginalize any party in Lebanon, an apparent reference to the Hezbollah militant group, which has opposed his appointment as prime minister in past years and this year expressed a preference for a different candidate.

Hezbollah has been weakened by its 14-month war with Israel, which ended in late November when a U.S.-brokered 60-day ceasefire came into effect. The war killed 4,000 people, injured more than 16,000, and caused losses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

Salam, now president of the International Court of Justice, said he would work to extend the state's authority across the country. He won the support of a majority of lawmakers on Monday after Aoun formally asked him to form a new government.

Hezbollah and its allies have blocked Salam from becoming prime minister over the past few years, viewing him as a U.S.-backed candidate.

“It's time to say, enough is enough. It's time to start a new chapter,” Salam said, adding that due to “Israel's recent brutal aggression against Lebanon, as well as the worst economic crisis and the financial crisis that has impoverished the Lebanese people, policy, the Lebanese people have suffered severely.”

Decades of corruption and political paralysis have left Lebanon's banks virtually non-functioning, while electricity services are almost entirely in the hands of private diesel generator owners and fuel suppliers. The COVID-19 pandemic further hit the economy in 2020, and the Beirut port explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record, severely damaged several neighborhoods in the capital's center.

Salam vowed to fully implement the UN Security Council resolutions on the war with Hezbollah, which stipulates that Israel should withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon and that Hezbollah should not station troops in areas close to the Israeli border.

The prime minister added that he would work to spread the state's authority throughout Lebanon through “its military forces.”

Salam said he would work on a plan to build a modern economy and help the country of 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, emerge from the economic crisis that sparked protests in October 2019.

Since the onset of the economic crisis, successive governments have done little to implement reforms demanded by the international community that would result in the release of billions of dollars in investment and loans from foreign donors.

“I extend my hands to all of you so that we may all continue to move forward in our mission to save, reform and rebuild,” Salam said.

Neither Salame nor Aoun, the army commander who was elected president last week, are considered part of the political class that ruled the country after the 1975-90 civil war.