The two years following the period covered by this research, 2023 and 2024, have been marked by the Israeli aggression on the Lebanese territory, with—in December 2024—almost 4000 people killed by the Israeli army in a year, 15,000 wounded and 1.6 billion people displaced, provoking massive destruction, with the unfolding of a warfare strategy amounting to an ‘urbicide’. The fact that this happened in a context of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israel, disengagement from the Lebanese Army and prolonged presidential vacuum has reinforced and added new layers to the narrative of ‘state weakness’. Meanwhile, the December 2024 power change in Syria (with the downfall of Bachar al-Assad’s regime and rise of the leadership of Hayat Tharir el Cham) has ignited new hopes among the Syrian population while triggering calls for refugee returns in Lebanon and even in Europe (despite a dire economic situation in Syria).