First Cabinet meeting of the year sees plans for Syria visit, extradition of activist, and news of Israeli withdrawals

BEIRUT — Tuesday's Cabinet session, the first of the New Year, was followed by news of a Lebanese delegation visiting Syria, the extradition of an Egyptian activist to the United Arab Emirates, and the announcement that the Israeli army, with three weeks left to go in the cease-fire, had withdrawn from only a third of the land it has occupied in southern Lebanon since its ground offensive, launched at the end of October 2024.

A Lebanese delegation headed by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati is set to visit Syria soon, Information Minister Ziad Makari said on Tuesday after the Council of Ministers session. “There will be a visit to Syria chaired by Mr. Mikati, but its date has not yet been set,” he told the press.

The Prime Minister's Office announced last week that Mikati spoke on the phone with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, and that it was during this conversation that Sharaa invited Mikati to visit Damascus. Mikati reached out again on Tuesday, and according to his statement, read out by Makari, "assured him of the fraternal and balanced relationship between our two countries, and of our commitment to strengthening relations with our Arab environment, Syria in particular.”

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Naqoura 'almost entirely destroyed,' Lebanese Army deployed

'Israel has withdrawn from a third of the land'

With 20 days to go in the allotted time outlined during the cease-fire agreement during which the Israeli army is meant to completely withdraw from southern Lebanon, outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati says that yesterday, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein assured him that "within the next three weeks, Israel would completely withdraw from all the areas it had taken over.”

Hochstein chaired the meeting of the committee responsible for monitoring compliance with the truce yesterday. Mikati acknowledged that the Israeli withdrawal “took time” but said it had “accelerated” last week. “Israel withdrew from a third of the land where it had infiltrated, the entire western sector” of southern Lebanon, he said.

The outgoing prime minister insisted on the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, and on “forcing the Israeli enemy to apply it immediately ... without maneuvering or inventing excuses to evade it.” Since the implementation of the "cease-fire," the Israeli army has continued to destroy southern Lebanese villages, bomb, shell, and fire at various towns across the border area, and has killed more than three dozen people.

Poet and activist to be deported to the UAE

The Lebanese government announced its decision to extradite Egyptian activist and poet Abdul Rahman Yusuf, going against the wishes and warnings of many ulama (religious scholars), jurists and representatives of national and international NGOs.

Yusuf, son of late Sheikh Yussef Qardawi, a senior cleric within Muslim Brotherhood, is the subject of two extradition requests from Egyptian and Emirati authorities, issued in response to a video Yusuf posted in which he insinuates further toppling of regional authorities in the wake of Assad's fall. He will be sent to the United Arab Emirates, according to an official statement released by the Cabinet following its Tuesday session. The date of his extradition was not given. Yusuf has Turkish citizenship.

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Despite protests, Lebanese government decides to extradite Abdul Rahman Yusuf

Presidential election and banking sector

Mikari called for the swift election of a new President of the Republic, urging MPs to “heed the call" of the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri and attend the election session scheduled for Thursday.

“People are focusing on the presidential vacancy, and that's quite normal, but we're seeing a vacancy in all the administrations and ministries," Mikati said. "If we maintain this presidential vacancy, we will wipe out the State, because there will be no new appointments and no complete organization of institutions,” he warned.

The Council of Ministers was also due to consider a new draft law aimed at restructuring the banking sector and the restitution of deposits, combining elements of previous drafts drawn up by Council of Ministers Vice-President Saadeh Chami, and others from those prepared by advisors to the prime minister, including Nicolas Nahas. The text was not approved, and Mikati entrusted Chami with the task of refining it and presenting a new version within two weeks.