'Significant threat to local ecosystem: Israel's war on Lebanon generated 16 million tons of rubble'

Oliver Farry welcomes Antoine Kallab, AUB Associate Director and Advisor to Lebanon's Ministry of Industry. In a region ravaged by war, displacement, and political collapse, a long-term environmental crisis is rapidly unfolding. Beneath those ruins lie heavy metals, toxic materials, collapsing infrastructure, and the prospect of irreversible contamination. “A disaster is never over until we’ve solved the cause that was the root cause behind the disaster,” he says, linking environmental degradation directly to failed governance, inaccessible territory, and the inability of weakened states to sustain reconstruction or prevention efforts.