Handshake between Qatari Prime Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Oct. 16, 2026. (Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
For Qatar, "the energy sector is at the heart of interests in the sisterly Lebanese republic, and the State of Qatar seeks to provide integrated solutions in this field,” Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said Friday in Baabda Presidential Palace after meeting President Joseph Aoun.
The meeting produced no concrete initiative, and a joint news conference with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is expected early Friday afternoon.
Al-Thani said Doha wants to "offer integrated solutions" for Lebanon's energy sector, which has struggled for decades. He said further meetings, including with Salam, would take place to "move forward with agreed projects."
Al-Thani also said he had discussed Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon with Aoun. Qatar "supports the measures taken by the Lebanese state, a withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army from the occupied territories and their handover to the Lebanese Army," he said.
Why it matters
Since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War, Lebanon has failed to provide an adequate electricity supply. Residents rely on ad hoc solutions, including private generators, while the sector struggles to collect bills from individuals and public institutions and combat electricity theft. The state provides only a few hours of electricity a day, a crisis that regularly fuels political tensions.
The issue has also caused friction within Salam's government. Energy Minister Joe Saddi (Lebanese Forces) has boycotted Cabinet meetings to demand solutions, and other party ministers withdrew from a Cabinet meeting the previous day.
Al-Thani's visit comes as Qatar mediates between Iran and the United States and between Hamas and Israel. It also comes amid a stalemate in negotiations between Lebanon and Israel since August.
Washington, which sponsors direct talks between the two, continues to pressure the Lebanese state to take stronger action against Hezbollah. The United States has made reconstruction aid conditional on the group's disarmament.
As part of that pressure, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Aoun in a phone call Thursday night that Lebanese authorities should not return to Hezbollah half a ton of explosives they seized on Oct. 5, according to a State Department official.
"He urged President Aoun to hold accountable all those who ordered, financed, and directed the shipment, and underscored that returning explosives to Hezbollah should be out of the question," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Rubio also raised the issue of Lebanon's 1955 boycott law, which bans direct relations with Israel and "deters steps towards peace."
His remarks came after a Lebanese lawyer filed a complaint against Lebanon's ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamade Mouawad, accusing her of illegally contacting Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. However, the government's commissioner to the military tribunal, Claude Ghanem, dismissed the complaint Thursday, according to the state-run National News Agency.
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