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The Abduction Hidden in Plain Sight: Israel Suspected of Snatching Retired Lebanese Officer

• Retired Lebanese General Security captain Ahmed Shukr vanished on December 17 after being lured to Zahle to see a land plot—security footage shows him leaving his car and entering another vehicle, never to be heard from again, according to AP News.
• Lebanese officials and the family believe Israel abducted Shukr to extract information on missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who disappeared in Lebanon in 1986—Shukr's brother reportedly knew where Arad was held decades ago.
• Four people have been charged in Beirut in connection with the kidnapping, including the alleged intermediary who contacted Shukr via social media; an SUV worth $22,000 was purchased and a villa rented for $42,000 for the operation.
• Just this weekend, Israel launched a deadly commando raid in Nabi Chit—the Shukr family's village—to search for Arad's remains, leaving 41 people dead and dozens wounded, per Lebanon's Health Ministry; no remains were found.

The backstory: Ron Arad was an Israeli Air Force navigator captured in 1986 after ejecting over southern Lebanon. He passed through multiple militant hands, and Israel has spent four decades—and countless covert operations—trying to determine his fate.

Why it matters: This case stitches together four decades of covert conflict, a fresh kidnapping, and this weekend's deadly commando raid into one chilling thread that shows Israel's shadow war inside Lebanon is very much ongoing.

MEA Is Still Flying—Drones, Gunfire, and All

• Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport remains open, with Middle East Airlines operating 20 departures on Sunday alone—to Paris, London, Istanbul, and Riyadh—even as every other carrier has cancelled all flights, according to The Globe and Mail.
• The airport is operating on just one of its three runways—the one closest to the Mediterranean and farthest from the heavily bombed southern suburbs—after Israeli strikes hit within a few kilometres of the perimeter.
• The decision to keep flying rests on an indirect U.S. assurance that Israel won't target the airport itself; Civil Aviation Authority head Captain Mohammed Aziz was blunt: "It's an assurance, it's not a guarantee."
• Canada has been block-booking 50 seats a day on MEA flights to Istanbul for the 23,588 Canadian citizens registered in Lebanon, at $381 per ticket; more than 394 Lebanese have been killed since fighting resumed March 2.

Zooming out: MEA's refusal to ground its fleet—even as a war rages on its doorstep—has quietly made Beirut one of the only functioning exit points in a region where airports from Tehran to Dubai are shuttered or under threat.

Syria's New Leader Calls Kataeb's Gemayel—And the Tone Was Warm

• Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa called Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel for over an hour, discussing the regional war, Lebanon-Syria border tensions, and the future of bilateral relations—describing the conversation as "very positive and reassuring."
• Al-Sharaa stressed that Syria's large military buildup on the Lebanese and Iraqi borders is purely defensive, aimed at securing Syrian territory—not a threat to Lebanon.
• Gemayel used the call to push al-Sharaa on three concrete demands: revealing the fate of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons (including Kataeb political bureau member Boutros Khawand), identifying those responsible for Assad-era political assassinations including Pierre Gemayel and Antoine Ghanem, and locating Bashir Gemayel's assassin Habib Shartouni.

What to watch: Whether al-Sharaa's warm words translate into actual cooperation on detainees and accountability for past assassinations will be the real test of whether this historic reset in Lebanon-Syria relations holds.

QUICK HITS

• Raouche's rude awakening: Israel struck a fourth-floor room at the Ramada Hotel in central Beirut's Raouche district—its first attack on the area since this war began—killing 4 and wounding 10, targeting what it said were IRGC Quds Force commanders, according to Al-Monitor. Locals said "nowhere is safe anymore."
• South bleeds through the night: Israeli strikes across southern villages—including Tafakhta, Deir Mimas, and Nabatieh—killed dozens on Saturday, with 20 reported dead in Seer al-Gharbiyeh alone and 6 members of one family killed in the Deir village of Doueir, per Lebanese state health emergency reports.
• Scammers targeting the displaced: Lebanon's Internal Security Forces are warning residents that fraudsters are posing as landlords on social media, luring displaced families with fake rental offers and collecting upfront deposits before vanishing—urging victims to report fraud through the ISF app or website before transferring any money.
• Mind boggles, says Herzog: Israeli President Isaac Herzog told the BBC it "mind boggles" him that anyone questions the legality of the Iran war, calling it "self-defence for Europe, for Britain, for the entire region"—as Lebanon's health ministry confirmed the country's death toll has now reached 400.
• Rock bottom, now what? Lebanese business leader Nazieh Abdou Hamad argues Lebanon has hit its absolute floor—economically exhausted, institutionally hollow, youth dreaming of emigration—but insists the only direction left is up, if the country can field competent, loyal-to-merit teams rather than sectarian ones.

INTERNATIONAL

Iran Defies Trump, Picks Khamenei's Son as New Supreme Leader

• Iran's Assembly of Experts chose Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, as the country's new supreme leader on Sunday in a "decisive vote"—the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that supreme leadership has passed from father to son, marking a historic shift toward dynastic rule.
• The appointment is a direct rebuke to Trump, who had declared Mojtaba "unacceptable" and said Iran's next leader was "not going to last long" without his approval; Trump responded to the news by saying only, "We'll see what happens," according to Reuters.
• Mojtaba has never held elected office, spent years as his father's gatekeeper and a "mini-supreme leader" inside the security apparatus, and has close ties to the IRGC, which analysts say will likely expand its authority under his rule.
• Iran threatened oil at "more than $200 per barrel" if Israeli strikes on its energy infrastructure continued, while a fresh wave of Iranian strikes hit Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait on Sunday.

What to watch: Whether Mojtaba moves quickly to consolidate IRGC power and pursue escalation—or whether internal pressure from a war-weary, economically devastated population forces any unexpected pivot—will define the next phase of this conflict.

The Gulf's Other Lifeline: How War Is Threatening the Region's Water Supply

• Bahrain accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants on Sunday, while Iran said a U.S. airstrike had hit an Iranian plant on Qeshm Island, cutting water to 30 villages—opening a new and deeply alarming front in the regional conflict.
• More than 90% of drinking water in Kuwait comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman and about 70% in Saudi Arabia—making these facilities as strategically critical as any oil terminal in the region.
• A leaked 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable warned that Riyadh "would have to evacuate within a week" if its Jubail desalination plant or pipelines were seriously damaged; more than 90% of the Gulf's desalinated water comes from just 56 plants.

The bigger picture: The targeting of desalination infrastructure—whether deliberate or incidental—represents an escalation that could turn a military conflict into a humanitarian catastrophe affecting millions of civilians within days, not weeks.

Iran's Women Footballers Stranded in Australia, Fearing Return Home

• Iran's women's national football team remained in a Gold Coast hotel after completing their 3-match Women's Asian Cup campaign on Sunday, with human rights experts warning the players face real danger if returned to Iran amid the ongoing war.
• Players were labelled "wartime traitors" by a state-linked Iranian commentator after failing to sing the national anthem in their first match; in subsequent games they sang and saluted, in what observers read as a sign of pressure from accompanying Iranian officials.
• A petition calling on the Australian government to offer the players protection surpassed 60,000 signatures by Monday; FIFA's players union Fifpro said it was in contact with the Australian government and AFC to "ensure every bit of pressure is applied" to protect their human rights.

Zooming out: The plight of these 18-to-30-something athletes encapsulates the impossible position facing millions of Iranians caught between a regime that demands loyalty and a war that has made silence increasingly difficult to maintain.

GHER HEK

• Beirut on film, six decades: Lebanese filmmaker Lana Daher sifted through more than 2,000 visual and audio materials—clips from over 100 Lebanese films, home videos, tourist guides, and music videos spanning 60 years—to create her debut film Do You Love Me, a hypnotic, non-linear portrait of Beirut's contradictions and collective memory.
• Mini-Lebanon, Ramadan edition: Al Falamanki, the Lebanese restaurant born in Beirut in 2008 and now expanded across the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, is offering full Iftar and Suhoor experiences this Ramadan—set menus built around communal Lebanese feasting, warm lighting, and the kind of long, unhurried evenings that feel exactly like a Sunday lunch at your khalo's house.
• Fall down, come back harder: Italian Para-snowboarder Emanuel Perathoner, 39, who spent years relearning to walk after a crash destroyed his knee, won Paralympic gold at the Milan-Cortina Games on Sunday—crossing the finish line more than 3 seconds ahead of his nearest rival to claim Italy's first title of the home Games.
• Cancer's losing ground: Cancer death rates in Britain have fallen by nearly 29% since their peak in 1989, with lung cancer down 22%, ovarian cancer down 19%, and cervical cancer down 75% since the 1970s—driven by screening programmes, the HPV vaccine, and decades of scientific breakthroughs.

Thanks for reading—see you tomorrow.